Chapter 8 #2
‘I haven't got you anything.' A Cavanaugh original. He was doing the maths. He couldn't help it. 'I haven't got you anything near this.’
‘I didn't do this so you'd get me something.’
‘I know. I'm still going to give you something. I just haven't wrapped it because it doesn't come wrapped.’
He sat up. The blanket slid. He did not care about the blanket. He looked at Rory across the ruined sofa and he said it straight, the way he'd learned to say things when saying them sideways had stopped being an option.
‘The twenty-eighth. My flat. Come for dinner. I'll cook.’
Rory's face did three things at once and settled on the fourth.
‘Your flat.’
‘My flat.’
‘Freddie's at Gemma's for the week between Christmas and New Year.’
‘Freddie's at Gemma's.’
‘I've never been to your flat.’
‘I know.’
Rory was quiet. Then he said, very seriously, the register reserved for things said properly: ‘What time.’
‘Seven.’
‘What are you cooking.’
‘Risotto.’
‘You can cook risotto?’
‘I can cook a risotto that doesn't need rescuing, Rory, yes.’
‘That was mean.’
‘I was owed one.’
Rory laughed. The low one. He reached out and touched the back of the canvas where the pencilled date was, like he was closing a small ceremony.
‘The twenty-eighth.’
‘The twenty-eighth.’
Christmas Eve at Gemma's.
The house was cinnamon and roasting meat and the sweetness of a real tree dying slowly in a warm room.
Fairy lights traced the window frame. Owen had put the tree up, slightly too large, its top branch bent against the ceiling.
Freddie, in a Christmas jumper with a sequinned reindeer that flashed when you pressed its nose, was vibrating between the living room and the kitchen at a frequency that suggested he'd found the chocolate coins.
Neil stood by the window with a glass of wine, watching his son press the reindeer's nose for the forty-seventh time, and played his part.
He smiled. He laughed at Owen's paper crown.
He helped Freddie arrange mince pie and carrot for Father Christmas and wrote a note from the big man in disguised handwriting.
Gemma caught him in the hallway, between the kitchen and the living room. Tea towel over one shoulder. Mince pie in hand.
She smiled. ‘There's a painting on your wall, Neil. Four years of white walls and now there's a painting.’
He met her eyes. She held them. Patient. Unsurprised.
‘I... Rory painted it. He gave it to me.’ Quiet. Speaking the name here, in this domestic space with his son's laughter through the wall, gave it a weight it hadn't carried before.
Gemma's face changed. Warmer. She'd been waiting for this.
‘Freddie talks about Mr Cavanaugh eight hundred times a week. And you've started buying acrylic paint.’
He leaned against the wall. Coat hooks pressing into his back. From the living room, Freddie's laughter, something about Owen and the dog.
‘How long?’ Gemma asked.
‘Since you told me I was being stupid. Properly.’
‘And before properly?’
‘I think... Since September. Since the staff meeting. Since he walked in and I forgot how to hold a pen.’
She smiled. Fond. Exasperated. She knew him inside out. ‘That's very you. Most people forget how to speak. You lost the ability to grip a biro.’
‘I'm an English teacher. Pens are significant.’
‘Is he good to you?’ The smile faded. The serious question. She'd loved him. Still did. She needed the answer.
‘Yeah. He's...’ Neil stopped. The word he wanted wasn't a word. It was a sensation, standing in a room with someone who didn't require performance. ‘He sees me, Gem. He actually sees me. And doesn't look away.’
‘Good.’ Her eyes were bright. She blinked once, hard. ‘Good. I'm glad.’ She took a bite of the mince pie. Chewed. Steadied. ‘Bring him for tea sometime. When you're ready.’
When she walked back to the kitchen, Neil stood in the hallway with his wine and the confession lighter than he'd expected. Two people now. Kieran and Gemma. The circle widening. The sky intact.
Christmas Day. Lunch at Malcolm and Diane's.
The house was a detached four-bedroom in a cul-de-sac. Air freshener and something else, something without a scent that Neil had never been able to name. The atmosphere wasn't unhappy. It was managed.
It always had.
The driveway was pressure-washed. The wreath was positioned with a spirit level. The garden was immaculate even in December, lawn striped, borders mulched.
Diane opened the door in cashmere and lipstick. ‘Neil. Freddie, darling. Happy Christmas.’ She kissed Freddie with the tenderness she reserved for the grandson. She offered Neil a cheek that carried the exact temperature of a radiator on its lowest setting.
Malcolm was in the lounge. Armchair. Cardigan. The newspaper folded on the arm, unread. He stood when Neil entered. Shook his hand. ‘Neil.’ One word. Enough.
Lunch was roast beef, overcooked to submission. Brussels sprouts with the texture of surrender. Roast potatoes that Malcolm carved like a military exercise, equal portions, equally distributed, the serving spoon deployed with precision.
Freddie wore a paper crown. Diane had placed it on his head with the ceremony of a coronation. He'd adopted a regal bearing for approximately forty-five seconds before it slipped over his eyes and he announced that he was now a knight and all food would be eaten with a sword, not a fork.
‘We use forks in this house,’ Diane said.
‘Knights don't use forks.’
‘Knights in this house do.’
‘That's not historically accurate.’
‘Where did he learn historically accurate?’ Malcolm asked, from behind the beef.
‘Mr Cavanaugh told us about knights,’ Freddie said. ‘They used to eat with spoons or their hands. And they didn't wash.’
‘Delightful,’ Diane said.
‘They also went to the toilet in their armour. They had a special flap.’
‘Freddie,’ Neil said.
‘It's TRUE. Mr Cavanaugh showed us a picture.’
‘I'm going to have a word with Mr Cavanaugh about age-appropriate content.’
‘It's HISTORY, Dad. History isn't age-appropriate. That's the point.’
Malcolm looked at Neil over the beef. The look said: control your child. Neil looked back. His look said: my child is the only interesting person at this table and we both know it.
Malcolm's eyes stayed on Neil a beat longer than the beef required.
The crackers were pulled. The jokes read aloud. The paper crowns worn briefly and removed. The machinery of Christmas operated with the mechanical precision of an assembly line, each tradition executed, checked off, filed.
Diane asked about Freddie's school. About the reading scheme. About whether Neil had considered department head. She asked nothing about Neil's personal life beyond the professional.
After lunch. The kitchen. They washed up. Freddie with LEGO in the other room. Malcolm asleep in his armchair, the paper rising and falling on his chest.
‘You look different,’ Diane said. Her hands in the washing-up bowl, wringing a cloth with the intensity of a woman processing emotion through the nearest available fabric.
‘Do I.’
‘More…’ She searched. ‘Distracted. Are you sleeping properly?’
‘I'm fine, Mum.’
‘I didn't say you weren't fine. I said you were distracted.’
‘Same thing.’
‘It is not the same thing. Fine is a state. Distracted is a direction. You're pointing at something and I'd like to know what.’
From this woman, who wielded English the way Malcolm wielded the carving knife.
‘Gemma tells me you've been out more. Socialising.’ The word carried forensic weight. ‘And this new art teacher. Freddie mentions him. Freddie's very taken.’
‘He's a good teacher. Freddie enjoys art.’
‘Freddie enjoys everything. He's five.’ She folded the tea towel.
Placed it on the counter. Edges aligned.
Neil watched her do it and felt the genetic inheritance, the precision, the control as communication.
She'd given him this. Or he'd absorbed it.
Same way he'd absorbed the channel change and the word disgraceful.
‘Children need stability, Neil.’
‘He has it.’
She held his eyes. He held hers. Two Ashworths, mirrors. Then she turned back to the dishwasher. The conversation was over.