Men from the Boys by Tony Parsons Read Free Book Online

Peggy’s school fees. I had brushed him off, told him that Cyd and I had it covered. But I felt that he could teach Gina and me a few lessons about how to conduct yourself after a divorce. Despite his inappropriately long hair, and Lewis Leathers, and past crimes, Peggy’s dad was living proof that you could be an absent parent and still be some kind of presence in your child’s life.
    An absent parent but a parent still.
    Peggy pulled on her helmet and climbed on to the pillion. They both raised their hands and I waved as they shot off, the throaty roar of the Harley ringing through the neighbourhood. The group of kids loitering at the end of the road watched them go. Long after they had disappeared, I could hear the growl of the motorbike.
    And I felt a dull ache of resentment towards him. I could not help it. Because although the guy did his best to be a good dad to Peggy, there was so much he had missed. She was my daughter although I would never be her dad. We did not have the unbreakable bonds of blood, but we had something else.
    I was the one who was there when, aged ten, she split her head open on the ice rink at Somerset House, foolishly attempting a complicated leap. And I was the one who was there when she endured two terms of bullying at her old school before we got her into Italia Conti. And I was there for other stuff – no blood, no tears. But meals shared together, and TV watched together, and holidays, and walking to school,and a good-night hug. Sometimes I think that stuff is more important than the times of high drama, when there is blood on the ice rink and a mad dash to Accident and Emergency.
    She was not my daughter but we had been part of the same family for ten years. And I was more of a father to her than her real dad would ever be – wasn’t I?
    Sometimes I thought so. But when she went off once a week on the Harley, looking so happy on that pillion, with her dad the big-shot actor, well, then I wasn’t so sure. And mostly I tried not to think about it at all.
    Because it’s like someone says in The Terminator when cyborgs are coming back in time to murder children yet unborn:
    You could go crazy thinking about this stuff.
    Marty and I sat in the Pizza Express next to Broadcasting House and nobody looked at him twice.
    TV fame is like youth or money. It just runs out when you are not looking. Ten years ago, Marty walked into a room and everybody stared at him. But the years on radio had eroded that recognition factor, and we were left unmolested by the early evening crowd.
    Next to us was a table full of ageing lads in business suits. Their banter was of a sexual nature – birds and blow-jobs. Effing and blinding. Taking the front way and the back way. The usual stuff. Little did they know that they were next door to Marty Mann, the presenter formerly known as edgy and controversial.
    And even less did they care.
    It was the usual crowd. BBC worker bees grabbing some carbs before the evening shift. Office workers dawdling before they caught the train home. And revellers off to frolic in the tawdry lights of the West End.
    The demographic skewed to a younger crowd – probably too young to listen to A Clip Round the Ear on Radio Two – but looking for a table among the funsters were a pair of old ladies who had big night out written all over them. I wondered what musical they were going to see, and I thought of mymum happily singing along to Chicago and Les Misérables and Guys and Dolls. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.
    The old ladies carefully parked themselves two tables away from us. The lads in their suits were next door. And suddenly they seemed louder than ever.
    ‘No, fuck it, this is a true story,’ one of them said, holding his hands up at the derisive profanities of his chums. ‘Guy goes to a whore and says, “How much for a hand-job? One hundred quid? That’s a lot.” But the whore says, “Listen, see this Rolex, I bought it by giving hand-jobs.”’
    Marty looked up