Man and boy

'She's so good with Pat,' Gina choked. 'It just comes so easily to her. I'll never be like her. She's so patient, so kind. I told her that I sometimes feel like I'm going crazy - at home all day with nobody to talk to but a little boy. And when he's at his nursery school, it's even worse.' She looked up at me, her eyes brimming. 1 don't think she even understood what I was talking about.'

Thank Christ for that. For a moment there I thought she knew everything.

'You're the best mother in the world,' I said, taking her in my arms. And I meant it.

'No, I'm not,' she said. 'You want me to be. And I want to be, I really do. But just wanting something doesn't make it true.' She cried some more, although her sobs had lost that desperate edge. It happened sometimes, this crying, and I never knew what might start it off. To me it always looked as though she was crying about nothing. Not a good mother? I mean, what was all that about? Gina was a brilliant mother. And if she was feeling a bit isolated during the day, she could give me? call at work. My secretary would always take a message. Or there was an answering machine on my mobile. How could she ever be lonely? I just didn't get it.

I cuddled her until the tears were gone and then I went downstairs to make us some coffee. There were about a million messages on the machine. The world was going crazy about Marty. But I wasn't too worried about the newspapers and the station.

I had heard somewhere that a problem at work is like a plane crash that you can walk away from. It's not like your home life, where you can't get away from your problems, no matter how far you run.

SIX

Every father is a hero to his son. At least when they are too small to know any better.

Pat thinks I can do anything right now. He thinks I can make the world bend to my will - just like Han Solo or Indiana Jones. I know that one day soon Pat will work out that there are a few differences between Harrison Ford and his old dad. And when he realises that I don't actually own a bullwhip or a light sabre, he will never look at me in quite the same way again.

But before they grow out of it, all sons think their dad is a hero. It was a bit different with me and my dad. Because my father really was a hero. He had a medal to prove it and everything.

If your saw him in his garden or in his car, you would think he was just another suburban dad. Yet in a drawer of the living room of the pebble-dashed semi where I grew up there was a Distinguished Service Medal that he had won during the war. I spent my childhood pretending to be a hero. My dad was the real thing.

The DSM - that's important. Only the Victoria Cross is higher, and usually you have to die before they give you that. If you saw my dad in a pub or on the street you would think you knew all about him, just by looking at his corny jumper or his balding head or his family saloon or his choice of newspaper. You would think that you knew him. And you would be dead wrong. I picked up the phone. I could ignore all the messages from the station and the papers. But I had to call my parents.

My old man answered the phone. That was unusual. He couldn't stand the phone. He would only pick it up if my mum was nowhere near it, or if he happened to be passing on his way from Gardener's World to the garden. 'Dad? It's me.' 'I'll get your mother.'

He was gruff and formal on the phone, as if he had never got used to using one. As if we had never met. As if I were trying to sell him something he didn't want. 'Dad? Did you see the show last night?' I knew he had seen it. They always watched my show. There was a pause. 'Quite a performance,' my father said.

I knew he would have hated it all - the swearing, the violence, the politics. I could even hear him bitching about the commercials. But I wanted him to tell me that it didn't matter. That I was forgiven.

'That's live television, Dad,' I said with a forced laugh. 'You never know what's going to happen.' The old man grunted. 'It's not really my scene,' he said.

At some point during the nineties, my father had started using the vernacular of the sixties.

His speech was peppered with 'no ways' and 'not my scenes'. No doubt in another thirty years he would be collecting his pension and hobbling about in a zimmer frame while proclaiming that he was 'sorted' and 'mad for it'. But by then the world wouldn't know what he was going on about. 'Anyway,' I said, 'there's no need to worry. Everything's under control.' 'Worried? I'm not worried,' he said.

The silence hummed between us. I didn't know what to say to him. I didn't know how to bridge the gap between our separate worlds. I didn't know where to start. 'I'll get your mother.'

While he went to get my mum, Pat wandered into the room. He was in his pyjamas, his mass of dirty yellow hair sticking up, those eyes from Tiffany still puffy with sleep. I held out my arms to him, realising with a stab of pain how much I loved him. He walked straight past me and over to the video machine. 'Pat? Come here, darling.'

He reluctantly came over to me, clutching a tape of Return of the Jedi. I pulled him on to my lap. He had that sweet, musty smell kids have when they have just got up. He yawned wide, as I kissed him on the cheek. His skin was brand new. Freshly minted. The softest thing in the world.

And he still looked like the most beautiful thing in the world to me, like a little blond angel who had dropped off a cloud on his way to the celestial video shop.

Was he really that pretty? Or was that just my parental gene kicking in? Does every child in the world look like that to its parent? I still don't know.

'Did you have a nice time at Nanny and Granddad's house?' I asked. He thought about it for a moment. 'They don't have any good films,' he said. 'What kind of films do they have?' 'Stupid ones. Just with… pictures.' 'You mean cartoons?' 'Yeah. Just pictures. For babies.' I was indignant.

'Pat, they're not for babies. You don't like Dumbo? The elephant with the big ears? The poor little elephant who everyone makes fun of?' 'Dumbo's stupid.'

'Dumbo's great! What's wrong with Dumbo? Jesus Christ, I grew up with Dumbo!'

I was going to give him a lecture about the genius of Walt Disney and the glory of animation and the magic of childhood, but my mum came on the line.

'Harry? We were so worried. What on earth's going to happen? Will you lose your job?'

'Mum, I'm not going to lose my job. What happened last night - that's what we call good television.'

'Really, dear? I thought you once told me that it was good television if the guest attacked the host. I didn't know it worked the other way round.'

'It'll be fine,' I said, although she had a point. All the talk show punch-ups I could remember involved the presenter getting twatted. And not the other way around. 'They're giving me a new contract soon. Don't worry, Mum - we don't have to send Pat up a chimney just yet.'

'And what's wrong with Gina? She seems so - I don't know - down.' 'Gina's fine,' I said. 'What's Gina got to be down about?'

After I'd hung up, Pat beetled over to the video machine and stuffed in Return of the Jedi. The film began where he had left it - Princess Leia dressed as a slave girl at the feet of Jabba the Hutt. Drool slipped from Jabba's filthy lips as he considered his nubile concubine. My four-year-old son watched the scene impassively. This couldn't be good for him, could it? 'Why don't we have a game?' I suggested. His face brightened. 'Okay!' 'What do you want to play?' 'Star Wars.'

Grinning from ear to ear, he hauled his favourite toy box in from his bedroom and emptied its contents on to the carpet. Out spilled all the things that made George Lucas famous. I sat on the floor with Pat while he carefully manoeuvred Han, Luke, Chewie and the two 'droids around his grey plastic Millennium Falcon.

'Princess Leia is being held captured on the Death Star,' Pat said. 'Captive,' I said. 'She's being held captive.'

'Being held captured,' he said. 'We have to rescue her, Daddy.' 'Okay.'

I sat playing with my son for a while, something I knew I didn't do nearly enough. Then after about five or ten minutes I decided I had better get in to work. It was going to be a long day.