Bare

14. Freddie in the Picture

FREDDIE IN THE PICTURE

The conversation with Freddie happened on a Saturday in February, two weeks after the party, and it was nothing like Neil had planned.

Fourteen evenings of checking his phone. The lock had been replaced by the screen. Every night after Freddie was asleep: the glow in the dark hallway, the notification bar empty, the silence from his parents louder than anything Malcolm had ever said with words.

Gemma had asked, once. 'Have they rung?'

'No.'

'Either of them?'

'No.'

The Ashworths didn't ring. They recalibrated in private, constructed their positions, and emerged with a finished product. The silence wasn't punishment. It was engineering.

He'd planned it. Of course he had. Three drafts on his laptop, opened, stared at, deleted. A conversation map on a Post-it stuck to the inside of his desk drawer at work, hidden from Sue Dhillon's omniscient gaze.

Key phrases circled: _someone special_. _A friend who's more than a friend_.

_You know how Mummy has Owen_. Gemma had vetoed the second draft on grounds of overcomplexity ('You've written a brief, Neil.

He's six. He doesn't need a brief.') and the third on grounds of cowardice ('If you say _special friend_ one more time I'm going to scream. He's your partner. Use the word.')

It had happened at Gemma's kitchen table on the Thursday before the Saturday.

Freddie was upstairs watching something with a talking dog. Gemma had made tea neither of them wanted and Neil had brought the laptop and the Post-it and the three drafts, and Gemma had read all three of them with an expression he'd last seen on her face during the divorce mediation.

'Read it aloud,' she said.

'I don't...'

'Neil. He's six. You're going to sit in front of him on Saturday and your voice is going to do something and your face is going to do something else and we need to find out what, now, so you can fix it. Read it.'

He read it. Out loud. To his ex-wife. In her kitchen. The sentence arrived in his own voice like a stranger's.

'There's someone special in Daddy's life. A friend who's more than a friend. You know how Mummy has Owen? Daddy has...'

'Stop.'

'I know.'

'You sound like a public information film about a vaccine.'

'I know.'

'Again. Without the paper.'

He closed the laptop. Looked at the dishcloth on the edge of the sink, blue, folded into a neat rectangle as Gemma folded everything, and tried the sentence with nothing between him and it.

'Freddie. You know Mr Cavanaugh. He's...' The word lodged. He swallowed it. 'He's my...'

'Use it.'

'Partner. He's my partner.'

'Better. What else.'

'That we... we're together. Like Mummy and Owen are together. That he likes me very much and he likes you very much and...'

'Stop telling him how everybody feels about him. He doesn't care. What does he actually want to know?'

Neil thought about it. Really thought, the way Freddie thought about fork placement and dinosaur weight and whether wisdom had an age.

'He wants to know if Mr Cavanaugh is going to paint him a dragon.'

'Right.'

'And whether it'll be a real dragon or a Freddie dragon.'

'Right.'

'And whether I'm still his dad.'

'There we go.' Gemma pushed the laptop further away from him with one finger, exiling it. 'Start with the dragon. The dragon is the language. Everything else follows.'

His tea had gone cold. He drank it anyway. He'd brought a script. He was being sent home without it.

'Thank you.'

'Don't thank me. Just promise me that if you say _special friend_ on Saturday I am allowed to say it to Freddie myself the next time he's here, and explain to him that it's what grown-ups call each other when they're too frightened to use the right word.'

'Agreed.'

'Good.'

He'd driven home with the Post-it still in his pocket and the script still on his laptop.

So Neil had a plan and then didn't use it, because Freddie asked first.

They were in the kitchen. Saturday morning.

Scrambled eggs. Freddie at the table with felt-tips, drawing a whale, a new obsession that had arrived without warning, as Freddie's obsessions did.

He'd found a book in the school library and had been quoting cetacean facts ever since.

The whale had a top hat, because Freddie believed all animals were improved by formal headwear.

'Dad.'

'Mm.'

'Is Mr Cavanaugh making you happy?'

The spatula stopped.

Freddie didn't look up. He was colouring the whale's hat with a purple felt-tip, the same purple he'd used for brAVE, and the question had been asked with the same matter-of-fact tone he used for _can I have more juice_ and _is cereal a vegetable_.

'Why do you ask?'

'Because I heard Mum say something to Owen. She didn't know I was listening.' He coloured the whale's hat darker at the brim. 'She said: _Neil needed someone who makes him happy. I think he's found them._'

The eggs were burning. Neil turned the heat down. Rescued them. His hands were steady, steadier than he'd expected.

'And then at the party,' Freddie continued, still colouring, 'you were weird around Mr Cavanaugh.'

'I wasn't weird.'

'You WERE weird, Dad. You kept looking at him. You stood near him. And you looked...' He searched for the word. Found it. 'You looked like when you take your shoes off after school. Like you stopped trying.'

'Stopped trying.'

'Yeah. And Mum said you were blooming. She said it to Owen and Owen laughed and said something about you getting some or something, and she hit him with a tea towel.' He looked up. 'So I thought: the one who makes Dad happy is Mr Cavanaugh. And I was right, wasn't I?'

'You didn't tell me,' Freddie said. Patient, not hurt. 'You didn't tell me you were friends. And I was wondering.'

A child who'd been carrying a theory for weeks and waiting for his father to confirm it.

Neil turned off the hob. Came to the table. Sat down across from his son. Freddie's face was open and waiting and had no fear in it, because nobody had taught him that this was something to fear.

'We aren't just friends. Rory is my partner,' Neil said.

The word came out clean. No fumbling, no circling.

'What's a partner? Like Batman and Robin?'

'A partner is... someone you choose. Someone you want to be with. Not just for a bit. For the long part.'

'Like Mum and Owen?'

'Like Mum and Owen. Yes.'

'But Mr Cavanaugh... he's a man.'

'Yes. And yes.'

'Boys can be partners with boys?'

'Anyone can be partners. A man and a woman. Two men. Two women.'

'Like you and Mr Cavanaugh.'

'Like me and Rory.'

'Is that why he painted me Spider-Man?'

'Yes. But he would've done it anyway. He's fond of you.'

He frowned. He picked up the purple felt-tip. Put it down. Picked up the green.

'Does Mr Cavanaugh like whales?'

'I think Rory likes most things.'

'Does he really like ME?'

'He thinks you're brilliant.'

'He told me I was brave about green.'

'He did.'

'Is he brave?'

'Very.'

'Braver than you?'

'Much braver than me.'

'I don't think so.' Freddie looked up. The eyes, Gemma's, clear and direct. 'I think you're really brave, dad. You never lie. I'm glad you made a friend. A partner.'

He hadn't expected that either.

Neil's throat closed. He looked at his son, six years old, felt-tip in hand, whale with a hat, and something broke open. Without pain. Like pushing a window. Light and air.

'Can Mr Cavanaugh come for tea?'

'Would you like that?'

'I want to show him the whale.' He held up the drawing. 'The book says humpbacks are better than blue whales but I think they're both good. I think Mr Cavanaugh would agree.'

'I think he would.'

'Next Saturday?'

'Saturday.'

'Can we have pizza instead of tea?'

'We can have pizza.'

'DAD.'

'What.'

'Thanks for telling me.' Back to the whale.

The week between that conversation and Saturday was the longest of Neil's life. Wanting something to happen instead of dreading it. Dread had a physiology: clenched teeth, closed fists, the lock checked twice. Anticipation had no structure. It was loose. Uncontained.

He told Rory on the phone. Freddie asleep.

'I told him.'

'Told him what?'

'About us. About you.'

Silence. Then: 'What did he say?'

'He asked if you like whales.'

A breath that might have been a laugh. 'What did you say?'

'I said you liked most things.'

'And he was... was he okay?'

'He was drawing a whale in a top hat and he asked if you were brave.'

'What did you say?'

'I said you were braver than me.'

'Neil...'

'He wants you to come to our house. Saturday. Pizza. He wants to show you the whale.'

The line was quiet. Neil could hear Rory breathing. Uneven now.

'Yeah,' Rory said. Rough. 'Saturday. Of course I'll be there.'

The following Saturday. Four o'clock.

Neil cleaned the flat. Again. The cleaning was ritual, not necessity; the flat was already clean, had been clean since Thursday, but the cleaning was what his hands did when his brain was circling.

He rearranged the magnets on the fridge, shifting Freddie's drawings.

Moved the Spider-Man painting to the centre. Changed his shirt twice. Changed back.

Freddie was calmer than Neil. He'd dressed himself, his good jumper, the one with the stripes, which he reserved for occasions of significance. He'd arranged the whale drawings on the coffee table in a display he described as 'a gallery like Mr Cavanaugh's but better because mine has hats.'

'Dad. Relax.'

'I'm relaxed.'

'You've cleaned the bathroom twice.'

'The bathroom needed cleaning.'

'You're nervous about Mr Cavanaugh coming and it's making you clean things.'

'When did you become a psychologist?'

The doorbell rang.

Freddie was at the door before Neil had crossed the kitchen. He flung it open with the energy of waiting.

Rory stood on the step. Jeans. A jumper Neil hadn't seen, dark green, soft, the kind bought to look like you hadn't tried when you had absolutely tried. Hair loose. No paint on his face, which was its own kind of effort.

A bottle of wine in one hand, a small wrapped package in the other.

Neil didn't move.