Twenty-One

      When the chain-smoking babysitter realised that we weren’t going to steal her away forever, Peggy was finally allowed to come home with Pat for a couple of hours.

      ‘Look what I’ve got,’ she told me, producing a little man made of moulded plastic. He was looking very pleased with himself inside white satin trousers, a spangly silver waistcoat and what looked like a purple tuxedo.

      ‘Disco Ken,’ she said. ‘Barbie’s friend. Going to the disco.’

      It was strange watching them play together. Pat wanted to blow up the Death Star. Peggy wanted to hang drapes in the Millennium Falcon.

      Excited to the point of hysteria at having his friend in his very own living room – although noticeably unimpressed by Disco Ken – Pat bounced off the furniture waving his light sabre above his head and shouting, ‘I’ll never join you on the Dark Side!’

      Peggy considered him with her solemn dark eyes and then began moving little Star Wars figures around the Millennium Falcon – heavily Sellotaped on one side after crash landing into a radiator – as though they were having tea and buttered scones at the Ritz.

      Nature or nurture? I knew that Pat had never been encouraged to play violent games – in fact his never-ending blood baths often drove me up the wall.

      Not quite five years old, he was actually a gentle, loving little boy who was too sweet for the rough and tumble of the playground. There had been some bullying because he didn’t have a mother waiting for him at the school gates, and neither of us had yet worked out a way to deal with it.

      Peggy was completely different. At five-and-a-half, she was a strong, confident little girl who nothing seemed to faze or frighten. I never saw any fear in those serious brown eyes.

      Pat wasn’t built for hunting and gathering, and Peggy wasn’t made for making jam and jumpers. Yet give them a box of Star Wars toys and suddenly they were responding to their gender stereotypes. Peggy just wasn’t interested in games of death and destruction. And that’s all that Pat was interested in.

      It didn’t stop them from enjoying each other’s company. Pat hung on to the back of the sofa, grinning with love and admiration as Peggy shoved little figures of Princess Leia and Han Solo and Luke Skywalker around grey plastic spaceships which had clocked up a lot of miles in hyperspace.

      ‘Where’s your mum?’ Peggy asked him.

      ‘She’s in abroad,’ Pat said. ‘Where’s your mum?’

      ‘She’s at work. Bianca picks me up from school but she’s not allowed to smoke in the flat. It makes her grumpy.’

      There didn’t seem to be a man anywhere near Peggy’s life, but that was hardly worth commenting on these days. I wondered who he was – probably some jerk who had fucked off the moment he was asked to buy some nappies.

      The door bell rang. It was one of those young men who are out of work but not yet out of hope. I admire that spirit, and I always try to support them by buying some chamois leather or rubbish sacks. But this one didn’t have the usual kitbag full of household goods.

      ‘Really sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘I’m Eamon. Eamon Fish.’

      At first it didn’t register. Living in the city you get so used to complete strangers knocking on your door that it comes as a shock when someone who has actually touched your life rings the bell.

      But of course – this was Eamon Fish, the young comedian who would probably be doing beer commercials and sleeping with weather girls by this time next year. Or next month. Or next week. The same Eamon Fish whose show I was asked to produce and had turned down because of fish finger cooking duties.

      I didn’t know what to do with him. I didn’t know why he was here. I was expecting some down-at-heel young man who was going to sell me chamois leather. And here was some down-at-heel young man who would soon be getting pissed at the next BAFTAs.

      ‘What can I do for you?’ I asked him.

      ‘What’s that?’ he said, frowning and cocking his head towards me.

      ‘What do you want?’

      ‘Can we talk? It would mean a lot to me.’

      I let him in. We went into the living room where Peggy and Pat were sitting surrounded by an avalanche of toys. Pat still had his light sabre in his hand.

      ‘Wow,’ Eamon said. ‘A light sabre! Traditional weapon of the Jedi Knights! Can I have a look?’

      A slow smile spreading across his face, Pat stood up and handed the young stranger his light sabre.

      ‘Good fellow you are,’ Eamon said.

      He swept the light sabre back and forth, making a buzzing sound that made Pat’s smile grow even wider.

      ‘I haven’t held one of these for years,’ Eamon said. ‘But you never forget, do you?’ He grinned at Pat. ‘I come from a little town called Kilcarney. And when I was growing up, I felt a lot like Luke Skywalker felt growing up on Tatooine. You know Tatooine?’

      ‘Luke’s home planet,’ Pat said. ‘With the two suns.’

      ‘What’s that?’ Eamon said. ‘Luke’s home planet, you say? Well, that’s right. And he felt cut off from the rest of the galaxy, didn’t he? Luke felt a long way from the action, stuck out there under the two suns of old Tatooine. And when I was growing up in sleepy old Kilcarney, I also dreamed of escaping and having lots of adventures in faraway places that I could hardly imagine.’ He handed Pat his light sabre. ‘And that’s exactly what I did.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Peggy. ‘But what happened between then and now?’

      ‘What’s that you say?’

      Was he completely deaf?

      ‘I said – what happened between leaving your home planet and today?’ Peggy shouted.

      ‘Well, that’s what I want to talk to your daddy about,’ Eamon said.

      ‘He’s not my daddy,’ Peggy said. ‘My daddy’s got a motorbike.’

      ‘The boy’s mine,’ I said, indicating Pat. He was still staring at Eamon with profound approval for his light sabre technique.

      ‘He’s got it,’ Eamon said, smiling with what seemed like real warmth. ‘Around the chin, I mean. He’s got it. He’s a handsome lad, all right.’

      ‘Come into the kitchen,’ I told him. ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’

      ‘Coffee, you say? Top man.’

      While I put the kettle on he sat at the kitchen table poking his ears with an index finger and muttering to himself.

      ‘Bad day?’ I said.

      ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

      I put a cup of coffee down in front of him and put my face very close to his. He had those black Irish good looks and a long-term scruffiness, like a Kennedy who has just spent the summer sleeping in a doorway. And he seemed to be as deaf as a post.

      ‘I said – what’s wrong with your hearing?’

      ‘Ah that,’ he said. ‘Let me explain about the ears thing. There’s a posh place down in the West End where they fit hearing aids. But they also fit ear pieces – for television presenters. So their producers and directors can talk into their lugholes while they’re presenting a programme.