Lessons For A Sunday Father - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Claire Calman is the author of four novels, Love is a Four Letter Word, Lessons For a Sunday Father, I Like it Like That and Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, all published by Black Swan.

Calman first decided to write a book when she discovered that it mainly involved making cups of tea and gazing out of the window. It was some time before a real writer friend pointed out that if she were to select an assortment of words and arrange them in some kind of order, this would speed up the process no end. Spurred on by this invaluable hint, she wrote Love is a Four Letter Word, a funny yet poignant story of love and loss.

Before she got into daydreaming full time, Calman spent several years working in women's magazines, then in book publishing, editing gardening books. She is also a poet and broadcaster and has performed her pithy verse at live readings and on radio many times, including for BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour, Loose Ends, the comedy series Five Squeezy Pieces and for LBC. Her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines as well as in various anthologies, including Cheatin' Heart, the best-selling Girls' Night In, Summer Magic and A Day in the Life.

Claire Calman lives in London with her husband, son, and an unbelievable amount of unfiled paperwork.

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Last night, I had precisely nil hours', nil minutes' and nil seconds' sleep. Take a tip from me - if you ever have a major ding-dong with your wife, girlfriend, cohabiting-type person, don't do it after midnight. If you're in the wrong, and believe me, you're bound to be - when was it ever her fault? - skip the excuses, skip the justifications and cut straight to the grovelling. Least that way you might get to kip on the settee. After a night like I just had, you'd be grateful for it. It's always like that on the telly, isn't it? There's a row and then the man, always the man, is dossing down in the front room - notice the woman never ends up on the bloody couch - and if he's lucky she'll chuck a pillow and a blanket at him. Cheers, I love you too.

Obviously, Gail's never paid enough attention or she'd have known that's how it goes. I should have filled her in: 'No, Gail, this is where you banish me to the front room and you stomp upstairs and slam the bedroom door.' Then it'd be cut to corny close-up of our wedding photo falling off the mantelpiece. But by that time I'm already on the wrong side of the front door, wishing I'd got my jacket and my mobile rather than a sodding tea-towel which doesn't look like it's going to be much use in saving me from freezing to death.

Thoughts whirled round my head like water going down a plughole, desperate thoughts and crazy thoughts and weird thoughts one after the other. I would have called my mate Colin, but it was after half-twelve by then and I could just picture his wife Yvonne standing there in her pink dressing-gown, nightie done up to the top button, saying it's no trouble, none at all, she just has to get out the step-ladder and fetch down another quilt from the loft, and offering me a coffee, not to worry she can unload everything from the dishwasher for a clean mug and they usually like to open the fresh pint first thing in the morning but she may as well open it now seeing as it's - goodness - already morning. I always feel I should give myself a good shake like a wet dog before I go in their house; she has this way of looking at you like she wants to put down a bit of plastic sheeting before you get too near her furniture.

I considered checking in at the Holiday Inn, but they know me there after we had that do just before Christmas. Especially after the unfortunate mishap that occurred with the sort-of accidental hurling of mince pies across the Churchill Banqueting Suite. Toyed with the idea of breaking into the MFI showroom on the ring road so's I could kip in one of their room sets. I even thought about ringing up a monastery to tell them I'd had the call from God and would be right round: 'I've spoken to Him Upstairs and He said you're to let me stay, but that I can skip all that praying, silence and head-shaving stuff, OK?'

No way could I stay at my parents'. I'd sooner have slept on a park bench. I'd sooner have slept on a park bench with a bag lady, come to that. Make that two bag ladies and a wino. And a dog with an itch. This is the point where Gail normally says, 'Oh, come on, Scott, stop exaggerating. They're not that bad.' Not that bad? I'd rather suck my way through a bumper size pack of frozen fish fingers than have a meal with those two. I'd rather eat school dinners for the rest of my life, soggy greens and all. I'd rather - oh, forget it. All I'm saying is, if Competitive Moaning was included in the Olympics and they signed up the parents, then Great Britain's gold medal count could be in for a stratospheric rise. My dad's specialist areas are, in no particular order: other drivers, foreigners - which of course includes people whose grandparents came here fifty years ago and, in fact, anyone who lives further away than Folkestone - appliances of all kinds because nothing's made properly any more nowadays - 'they do it deliberate so's you 'ave to keep buying new ones ev'ry free weeks' - the government, the neighbours - oh, yes, and me. Mum's faves are the weather, the Russians (current affairs have kind of passed her by really), Gail's family, people with body piercings - 'I don't know what they can be thinking of a metal stud right through her tongue it's not hygienic is it they must all be perverts they want a good smacking', the ever decreasing size of Mr Kiplid's exceediddly small cakes, the neighbours and - surprise, surprise - me again. In fact, as far as I can see, the only thing that's kept her and him together all these years - that's together as in not actually divorced and as in living under the same roof, not together as in this is the person they love and want to spend time with - is their shared paranoia about the neighbours and their disappointment in me.

Not exactly top of my list when it comes to looking for a cosy bed and a warm welcome on the spur of the moment then. I'd have been better off getting myself arrested so the police would lock me up for the night. I'd have had some sort of bed and maybe got Gail to feel guilty into the bargain, might be worth it. Then I told myself it'd all blow over and I'd only be embarrassing myself and I'd have looked like a total pillock for nothing.