Excerpt from Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Water.'

'Water,' I said.

'The beer's on me.'

'Okay, a beer,' said Doug.

'Harry?'

'The same. Thank you, Cynthia.'

'Politeness. I like that.' She gave me a meaningful nod and went off for the beer.

We stared at the windows for I don't know how long, watched them fill with darkness that when it came was sudden and without fanfare. The first time a car's headlights washed into the room Cynthia stood up. 'Frank's here.' We could hear doors opening and closing. Now the front door opened. And Cynthia called out, her voice loud, sounding gleeful.

'Frank, you have a visitor.'

It was awful. And possibly a mistake. I wondered that years of yearning and hope should lead to a moment of such banality. There was surprise. A handshake. Some chortling laughter accompanied by backslapping. Cynthia's own sense of occasion. 'Oh give him a hug, Frank. I'll go and get my hanky.'

Frank's first words to me in over seven years were, 'My God you're a big bugger.' Then there was his discovery of Dougie standing shyly by. 'Who's this then?' And Cynthia telling him, 'He's the mouthy one.'

'Dougie,' said Dougie, extending his hand, and for a moment my father stared at the hand as though he didn't know what to do with it. He was searching back through memory for something to grasp on to. 'Dougie. Dougie.' Then he remembered. He pointed a finger and Doug nodded. They'd both arrived at that awful day at the beach.

'I told him Dougie's a dog's name,' said Cynthia, and Frank laughed. For all Cynthia's obvious faults, she managed to extract from Frank an easygoing-ness that I don't ever remember seeing with my mother. He said to Cynthia, 'You're the only mouthy one I know.' And he made a grab for her. That's when I smelt the beer on him. As he fell backwards into a chair he tried to pull Cynthia on to his lap but she wasn't interested. She looked for me. She said, 'Harry, your father has greedy hands.'

'Hands are made to hold things, Cynth. Isn't that right, Harry?'

All eyes were on me. The easiest thing would have been for me to agree. New, unexpected feelings were beginning to lock into place. I was thinking, if I saw this man behaving in this way elsewhere I wouldn't like him much. That he was my father prevented any wholehearted embrace of like or dislike. He simply was what he was. Finally it was left to Cynthia to answer for me.

'Pity your hands can't ask first, Frank.'

My father snorted. He'd forgotten Dougie now that he'd placed him as that same dismal being he'd last seen shivering at the beach.

'That's Cynthia for you. She'd talk a snail out of its shell.'

Cynthia smiled. She'd heard Frank say this before was my guess, and besides, her eyes were afloat with a new subject. She said to Frank, 'I was thinking Chinese.'

'Chinese is fine with me. What about you boys?'

'Chinese is fine,' I said. I was wanting to sound upbeat and positive. 'Harry says it's fine,' said my father. And for the moment we grinned at each other. 'I'll go,' said Cynthia. 'I'll take the dog for company.'

Frank laughed, and I tried out a laugh of my own. Doug decently barked to help ease things along. Frank barked back. With that bark Dougie had grown another dimension from the useless cunt on the beach Frank had in mind.

Later when I asked Doug what he and Cynthia had talked about on their way to the Chinese takeaway he said she'd told him, 'Frank is a wonderful man, but I'd never have him as a father for my kids.' And later, riding home with the boxes of Chinese steaming through his thighs she also told him, 'As soon as I saw that boy I knew he was Frank's. He's got Frank's eyes and nose. I hope he hasn't got Frank's heart, though.' And when Doug asked me the same there wasn't much to report. After they left for the Chinese my father who I hadn't seen in years excused himself to go and shower. The whole time they were away I sat in the sitting room listening to the shower run. I had an idea Frank was hiding, and I realised I was happy for him to. I think that was the moment of release for me. His signature might be on my birth certificate but it didn't need to be scribbled all over my life.

Excerpted from Paint Your Wife by Lloyd Jones. Copyright © 2016 by Lloyd Jones. Excerpted by permission of Text Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.