1999 / 2000.  West Wittering / Kentish Town
Rule 1:  avoid everything as long as you can

July 1999.  We’re on West Wittering beach.  Kites are flying.  Dogs are chasing balls. Liv squeezes my hand.  “Andrew,”  she says, “would you like to have children?” I know instantly this is a huge, historic moment.  I know I must respond like a man.  So I ignore her.  I walk off towards the car.  She follows after me, saying:  “You can’t ignore the subject for ever, you know.”  She’s wrong about that.  I manage to ignore it for two more years.  The trouble is she keeps bringing it up…

     January 2000.  It’s a Saturday morning.  I’m in heaven.  The sun is streaming through the window.  It’s catching in the steam of my freshly brewed coffee.  I’m sitting at the table, working on my Fantasy League Football team. I need a new midfielder, and I’ve still got 5.8 million quid.  I could buy Darren Anderton for that, he’s a bargain at 5.4.  I’d practically be making money on Darren. 
I hear a whimpering sound from upstairs.  Liv is calling me.  I hate it when she does that.  If she needs to talk to me, why can’t she visit me?  I’m not a butler. I go upstairs, and find her sitting on the bed, staring tragically at the A4 box file that I’ve left on the desk.
“What’s the matter?”   I say.  I’m instantly ready to help.  I’ll listen to her woes, I’ll soothe her brow, I’ll attack her enemies.
“Doesn’t matter,”  she says.
“NO!  No!  It does matter.  Tell me.”
“It’s… just…”  She sniffs tragically.  She stares at my dying Bonzai tree.  
“I just…  I’d like to have a baby, and...”  
At this point her voice goes squeaky.   This is bad.  She’s raised the very worst subject she could raise, and she’s raised it in the very worst way:  she’s actually crying.  My every instinct is telling me to get the hell out of that room. I know I can’t.  I compromise by staring out of the window, at the small park we overlook.  
A Staffordshire bull terrier, is brazenly sniffing the arse of a red spaniel.  Suddenly the terrier clambers on and starts thrusting.  He looks cheerful.  His tongue is hanging out like he’s a grinning Cockney scaffolder.  He seems to be saying:  “Lovely-jubbley… you just stay where you are… I’ll sort you right out.”  Meanwhile the spaniel is pretending nothing is happening.
“What are you looking at?” says Liv.
“Two dogs, who’re… having sex. Well..  I think that’s what they’re doing.  It’s possible the one in front is blind. And the one behind is trying to push her round the park.” 
Now Livy’s blotchy tearful eyes are staring right at me.  I just know something awful is going to happen.
“But aren’t you going to SAY something?” says Liv.
“About what?”
“Having kids.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me the truth,” she says, now that’s never a good idea.  “Tell me what you think about having kids?”
I disappear into the most secret vault inside my head.  I’m thinking:  well I definitely don’t want kids.  I don’t think any men actually want kids. I’ve never met a broody man.  I’ve got one friend, Dom, who had kids early, but Dom was adopted and spent his early drunken youth searching desperately for a family.   Men never want kids, cos they know they can have them when they’re ninety.  They’ll just have to be rich, or lucky, or good at golf.   I’ve always assumed I’ll be all of these things, as long as some woman doesn’t stop me.  
I consider what part of that I can actually say.   I say nothing.
 “Would you like to have kids?”  she asks.
Oh God how can I possibly know that? First I’d have to decide if I’m staying with Livy forever.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do love her, but there’s only one time when a man knows, for absolute certain, that he wants to stay with his woman forever:  when she’s just chucked him.  The rest of the time, he’s not sure. I don’t say that either.
“What is your problem?”  she says.  “Why can’t you talk about your feelings?”
 I hate it when she says that.  Loathe it.   “Oh… OK.  Right,” I say.  “Well… my feelings are… erm… Terror.”
“Why?”
“I’m struggling to have a career as it is.  I don’t have any time to look after children.”
“But I’d do that.”
“Well… would you?  And I’m also quite scared of becoming a dad.  Because I’m scared of turning into My Dad.”
“But your dad had five children!”  she says.
“But he spent all his time avoiding them.”
“Oh come on.  Your dad’s not so bad!”
I picture my Dad.  Big Dad, we call him.  OK.  He isn’t so bad.  He’s funny.  He gives a good hug.  He can speak ten languages.  If you want to know the Ancient Greek word for harp, he’s your man.  But he spent my entire childhood scowling at us, from behind a pile of books about military history.  If he did talk, he’d keep going for two hours.  He’d give potted biographies of people he knew from the Bank of England.  He’d speculate about careers he might have had, if he hadn’t made the mistake of having children.  The implication was always clear:  it was because of us, that Dad’s dreamed were smashed.  Liv’s right.  Big Dad isn’t so bad, but he’s the living embodiment of the man I’m trying not to be. 
I don’t say any of this.  I just stare at the wall.
“Andrew,”  says Liv.  “Forget your dad-”
“I’m trying to.”
“You don’t think there are any dads who want to be dads?”
“No I don’t.  That’s why they have sheds.  That’s why they go out, on pointless errands in the car. That’s why they fish.  Do you really think people like fishing?  It involves staring at a pond, for hours and hours, with the odd break, where you get to torture a small animal.”
Livy starts weeping again.  I realise, belatedly, that, the jokes aren’t working.  When you’re trying to comfort someone, you shouldn’t use the words “torture a small animal.” 

I put my hand on her shoulders.  She shrugs it off, and her knuckles knock against my face.  Suddenly I’m thinking:  Oh God, she’s actually hitting me now!  I knew I shouldn’t have talked about my feelings.  Ladies never want you to talk about your feelings.  They’ve got quite enough of their own.
“Get out!”  she says. ‘GET OUT!!!”
“That’s fine,”  I say.  And I mean it too.  If it would get me out of that room, I would happily sign up for the French Foreign Legion.

Topics:

What do men do for fun?

Why are men scared of having kids? Are women?

Why are you scared of turning into your dad?

What are you supposed to do when a woman starts crying?

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