“Yes,” he blurted out, deciding to keep the answer short. Relief flooded him as Cameron’s trampled Wallace smile reappeared.
“Wonderful. And how many?” he said.
This was trickier, though Andrew sensed a lightheartedness in Cameron’s tone so this time plumped for a general, breezy response.
“Well, I suppose I sort of lose track sometimes,” he said, trying a rueful smile. Cameron reacted with a false-sounding laugh, as though he couldn’t quite tell if Andrew was joking. Andrew decided to fire back, hoping for more information.
“Do you mind me asking you the same question?” he said.
“Of course. I’ve just got the one myself,” Cameron said enthusiastically. He reached into his pocket and started rummaging. The thought briefly crossed Andrew’s mind that the man interviewing him for a job was about to pull out a lone testicle, as if he asked this question of every man he met, hoping desperately for a solo-ball owner. Instead, Cameron produced his wallet. It was only when he brought out a picture from within of a child trussed up in winter gear with skis on that Andrew understood what the question had been. He quickly replayed the conversation from Cameron’s perspective.
“Do you have kids?”
“Ermmm . . . Yes.”
“Wonderful. And how many?”
“Well, I suppose I sort of lose track sometimes.”
Christ, had he just given the impression to a potential new boss that he was some sort of prolific Lothario who’d spent his life shagging around town and leaving a succession of women pregnant and homes broken?
He was still just looking at the photo of Cameron’s child. Say something!
“Lovely,” he said. “Lovely . . . boy.”
Oh good, now you sound like the Child Catcher. That’ll go down well. You start on Monday, Mr. Pedophile!
He grasped his plastic water beaker, long since empty, and felt it crack in his hand. This was a fucking disaster. How could he have blown things already? He could tell from Cameron’s expression that he was past the point of no return. Quite what he’d say if Andrew just admitted to accidentally lying about having children he wasn’t sure, but it seemed unlikely that it would suddenly turn things around. He decided his best option now was just to get through the rest of the interview while saving as much face as possible—like continuing to do mirror, signal, maneuver on a driving test having just run over a lollipop lady.
As he let go of the plastic beaker he noticed the graze on his palm and thought about the girl who’d helped him that morning. The wavy brown hair, that inscrutable smile. He could feel the blood starting to throb in his ears. What would it be like—to have a moment where he could just pretend. To play out a little fantasy all for himself. Where was the harm? Where, really, was the harm in spending the briefest moment imagining that everything had actually worked out fine and not fallen to pieces?
He cleared his throat.
Was he going to do this?
“How old is he?” he asked, handing the photo back to Cameron.
“He’s just turned seven,” Cameron said. “And yours?”
Was he actually going to do this?
“Well . . . Steph’s eight and David’s four,” he said.
Apparently, he was.
“Ah, wonderful. It was when my boy Chris turned six that I really started to get the sense of what sort of person he was going to be,” Cameron said. “Though Clara, my wife, always reckoned she could tell all that before he’d even left the womb.”
Andrew smiled. “My wife Diane said exactly the same,” he said.
And, just like that, he had a family.
They talked about their wives and children for a while longer, but all too soon Cameron brought the interview back around to the job, and Andrew felt the fantasy slipping away like water through his fingers. Before too long their time was up. Disconcertingly, instead of trucking out the usual line of whether Andrew had any questions for him, Cameron instead asked whether he had “any last words,” as if he were about to be taken away and hanged. He managed to dredge up some vague waffle about what an interesting role it seemed and how much he’d relish the chance to work in Cameron’s dynamic-sounding team.
“We’ll be in touch,” Cameron said, spoken with the sincerity of a politician pretending to like an indie band during a radio interview. Andrew forced a smile and remembered to make eye contact as he shook Cameron’s hand, which was cold and wet, as if he’d been fondling a trout. “Thanks for the opportunity,” Andrew said.
—
He found a café and used the free Wi-Fi to search for jobs, but he was too distracted to look properly. When he’d thanked Cameron “for the opportunity” it had nothing to do with the job, it was because he’d been given the chance to indulge, however briefly, in the fantasy of having a family. How strangely thrilling and scary it had been to feel so normal. He tried to forget about it, forcing himself to concentrate. If he wasn’t going to get another council job he’d need to expand his search, but it felt like an impossibly daunting task. There was nothing he could find that he seemed qualified for. Half the job descriptions themselves were baffling enough. He stared hopelessly at the large muffin he’d bought but not eaten, picking at it instead until it looked like a molehill. Maybe he’d make other animal burrows out of food and enter the Turner Prize competition.
He sat in the café for the rest of the afternoon, watching important businesspeople having their important business meetings and tourists thumbing excitedly through guidebooks. He stayed there long after all had left, pressing himself up against the radiator and trying to remain invisible to the young Italian waiter stacking chairs and sweeping up. Eventually he asked Andrew if he wouldn’t mind leaving, the apologetic smile disappearing from his face as he spotted the muffin molehill crumbs that had spilled onto the table.
Andrew’s phone rang just as he stepped outside. An unknown number.
“Andrew?” the person on the end of the line said. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Andrew said, though he barely could with the combination of a blustery wind and an ambulance driving past, siren screaming.
“Andrew, it’s Cameron Yates. I just wanted to give you a call to say that it was really good to meet you earlier today. You really seemed to get the can-do culture I’m trying to build here. So, to cut a long story short, I’m very pleased to say I’d love you to come on board.”