12. The Party #2
‘Mmm.’ The sound Diane made when she was filing rather than responding.
She looked past the counter to the bookshelf, and there it was, the Van Gogh letters, spine out, wedged between Hardy and Heaney, not Neil's shelves.
Art. She looked at the painting on the wall.
An original. on a wall that had been blank for four years.
She looked at the tubes of acrylic paint on the shelf by the fridge, bought for Freddie but present in a flat where poster paint had previously been the ceiling of artistic ambition.
‘Freddie mentions Mr Cavanaugh constantly,’ she said. Moving past the counter. Casual. Nothing casual about it.
‘He's a good teacher. Freddie enjoys art.’
‘Freddie enjoys everything. He's five.’
‘Six. Today.’
‘Six.’ She folded her arms. ‘And this Mr Cavanaugh, he's here? At the party?’
‘He's in the garden. Doing art with the children.’
‘An unusual commitment for a teacher. Coming to a pupil's home on a Saturday.’
‘Several teachers came, Mum. Miss Greaves is in the living room.’
‘Miss Greaves is Freddie's class teacher. Mr Cavanaugh teaches art.’
Diane walked past Neil to find Freddie. The conversation ended.
Rory was in the garden, cleaning up the art station. Neil had positioned them in separate zones, parents inside, Rory outside.
The zones held for forty minutes.
Then Freddie decided to show Grandma his Spider-Man painting.
‘GRANDMA. Come and SEE.’
He dragged Diane into the kitchen. Neil followed, too slow, three steps behind.
The kitchen. Rory at the sink, washing brushes. Diane entering with Freddie's hand in hers. The Spider-Man painting propped against the wall where Freddie had placed it with the reverence of a curator.
‘Look what Mr Cavanaugh made me. It's REAL art.’
Diane looked at the painting. Then at Rory. Then at the painting again.
‘Very nice,’ she said. The temperature of the words: sub-zero.
‘Mr Cavanaugh teaches art at my school,’ Freddie said. ‘He's the BEST teacher.’
Rory dried off. Turned. ‘Mrs Ashworth. Nice to meet you. Happy to be here.’
He extended his hand. Open, steady. Diane took it. Brief. Correct. Polite as a weapon.
‘You're the art teacher. Freddie mentions you.’
‘He's a talented kid. Bold with colour.’
‘Bold.’ She tasted the word, kept it on her tongue. ‘He's certainly that.’
The kitchen was small. Rory by the sink. Diane by the door. Neil between them, instinctively, as a buffer.
It didn't go wrong in the kitchen. It went wrong in the hallway.
Half past two. Children collecting paintings.
Parents arriving for pickup. Departure: coats located, shoes matched, paintings held at arm's length to avoid smearing.
A mother asked Neil if the paint was washable.
It was. Another asked if Mr Cavanaugh did private lessons.
He didn't. A father shook Rory's hand and said ‘My daughter won't shut up about the mural. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it.’
The party was winding down. The zones had held. Malcolm was in the garden packing his shears. Diane was in the living room with Freddie on her lap, reading the engineering book. Rory was in the kitchen. The geometry had survived.
He was in the hallway, saying goodbye to Martin Clarke's wife, when Rory came through from the kitchen. Paint on his jaw, cadmium orange, a smear along the bone. Always paint on his jaw.
His hand rose. Thumb to Rory's jaw. Wiped the paint. One stroke. Done.
Rory didn't lean in or register it as an event. Neil's hand returned to his side. His hand didn't know it was standing in his own hallway, in a corridor Rory had never walked through until today.
Diane stood by the coat hooks at the far end. She collected her coat from the hook. Her back to them.
She turned.
The expression that crossed her face was not surprise. It was confirmation. The press of her lips. The slight widening of the nostrils.
You don't wipe paint off a colleague's face.
Neil's body turned cold.
Diane put on her coat. At the third button her fingers paused. She looked at Malcolm once, across the hallway, and the look said nothing. Then she buttoned the rest. Pulled the collar straight.
‘Malcolm,’ she called. ‘We're leaving.’
Malcolm appeared from the garden, shears in hand. ‘Already?’
‘Book club.’
‘It's half two. Book club's at four.’
‘Malcolm. We're leaving.’
The tone. Neil knew it. The silence would last until Diane decided it was finished, which could be hours or days or years.
She kissed Freddie. Tenderness, the kind she reserved for the grandson. ‘Happy birthday, darling. Grandma loves you.’
She did not look at Neil. She did not look at Rory. She walked to the front door. Malcolm followed, bewildered, shears swinging.
The door closed.
His hand on the wall. The plaster cool under his palm.
Rory was beside him. He'd seen it. All of it. The hand, the turn, the look, the coat, the buttons. He said nothing, kept his hands away from Neil. He stood at Neil's shoulder and waited.
‘She saw,’ Neil said.
‘Yeah.’
‘She knows.’
‘She's always known, Neil. This was her deciding to stop pretending she didn't.’
The flat was emptying. Gemma was in the garden with Freddie. Owen was stacking chairs. The silence after a children's party, sudden, almost shocking.
‘What happens now?’ Neil asked the hallway. The air.
‘Now,’ Rory said, ‘we clean up. We give Freddie his tea. We get through the evening.’ A pause. ‘And then you decide what you want to do.’
‘I don't know what I want to do.’
‘You do. You've known since September. You just haven't said it out loud yet.’