Chapter 23
Peter
“How was football?” Safe. Sane. An obvious, simple question requiring a simple, safe answer.
“Ollie here was good.” Cal.
“Decent player. Good fun.” Ed.
“I play for my company team. I mean, it’s like once a month tops, but there’s a Square Mile league, and our company team is quite good.
We won two years ago. I mean, not by much.
The Capital Finance team is ridiculous; they have like two former pro players on their rota, and they don’t even work there. ”
“Man.” Cal grinned, still chewing a mouthful of food. “I can picture that, a bunch of pale office jockeys trying to hit a net.”
“Some of us are decent.”
“I don’t mean it like that; you’re definitely decent.”
“Thanks,” he said. Oliver. A little blush.
So fucking cute.
The ceiling creaked.
“Aww come on, Mary!” I hurled at the ceiling.
“She does that.” Ed laughed. “I just have to think about it, and the ceiling creaks.”
“What were you thinking of?” Cal teased. He looked fuming. “Another bloody threesome?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Ed spat.
“What now?” I sighed.
“He’s all pissy.” Ed sighed. “Because he fancied this bird, and then she came over and ended up in my room with Mischa and…”
“I fancy someone, and I’m all nice and lively and fun and girls are supposed to love me, and I bring her home and my antisocial idiot of a brother goes and pulls her?
Right under my nose? Not only that, but he pulls her with my best mate in the room?
I have to spend the bloody evening listening to them… ”
“Enough.” I had to boom.
Oliver was grinning.
“It’s never fair, is it?” Oliver said softly.
“It’s bloody ridiculous, and before you start up, Mum, yes I know. So yeah. Save your energy. Fucking hell.” Cal sighed.
The ceiling? We all looked at it. Nothing.
“Now you’ve done it.” Ed laughed. “Bro, you need to calm the fuck down. She wasn’t into you anyway. Do you think that was a good night for me? Eh?”
“What happened to open and honest? Eh?” Cal shouted. “Now pass me another naan, Ollie. I need to comfort eat carbs. Ed here is forcing protein shakes down my neck during the week, and I’m constantly starving.”
“But have you, or have you not, lost a bit of flab and gained some fantastic arm muscles?”
“Don’t start about my flab.”
“You don’t have any flab.” I was not even being acknowledged at this table, as Oliver was laughing with his mouth full. Ed was trying to force Cal to flex a muscle, and Cal was…
“Oh, come on, boys,” I tried.
“Says our dad, who went on a TV show and pulled,” one of them said, and I just wanted to die. Again.
“We watched Singles Bar last year, and I mean, I have to say it. Save the Date is miles better. Firstly? It has Gina DeSanto. Fit as hell, really funny, and Mum always said she was the only sane celebrity she knew. So she’s good in my book.
No idea why she agreed to do such a small show, but it’s kind of exploded now. ”
Not what I wanted to hear, and Oliver’s hand landed on my leg. Like he knew exactly what that twitch of my body meant.
“Gina DeSanto follows Cal on Insta,” Ed declared.
“She does not. It’s a fan account. Fake or whatever.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fuck off.”
“Singles Bar,” Ed continued. “No sex. No hookups. Just couples sitting talking. Speed dating live and direct. Great concept.”
“But so badly done. I mean, we were sitting there shouting at the screen. That Francesca and Bill…Bob? What was his name?”
“Bruno,” Cal filled in. “Hot couple. They’re sat behind another couple, out of focus, obviously snogging, very obviously hand-on-boob moment, and the camera is on some other couple talking about crosswords.
It was like…man? What were they thinking?
It was like, never mentioned again, and the drama that followed? ”
“I hope they fired everyone after that. Such a massive mistake.”
“Huge.” Cal laughed. “At least on your show, they didn’t miss anything. And I mean, anything. Wren was naked at least four times in the first three episodes, and…”
“Enough.” I had to say it.
“Open and honest.” Ed smirked. “You said it, Dad. We’re just being, just that.”
“I know.” I sighed.
“It was a shitshow. A total shitshow, and sorry, Mary, but I know Peter agrees with me.”
Oliver was talking. The boys listening like he was preaching to the masses. And me, just letting every syllable coming out of his mouth register like music.
Who was I? Seriously?
I nodded. Like I agreed.
“But…I said this to your dad earlier, despite the whole mess of being on the inside? We had some…good moments. Being in there with Peter was the only good thing to come out of this.”
“Luurve,” Cal mocked, and winked. Not at me. At Oliver.
“Well…” Oliver smiled, now looking at me. “We… If anything good was to come out of this experience, it was sharing it with him. Everything else? It’s a bit of a blur.”
“Not really. It was pretty clear on TV.” Ed laughed.
“Can we just…not?” I demanded. “Can we just talk about…football. Anything else.”
“Dad, why did you not go to pickleball? If I have to fend off James-bloody-Green’s calls again, I will actually tell him that you’ve abandoned your team to stay at home and shag your new boyfriend.”
I wanted to scream. Shout. Defend myself and berate my son for being an…idiot.
“You’re the team captain, Dad. You don’t show up, and things fall apart. Do you really want James Green to steal your title? Do you want Shah to be captain? He’s been after your spot for years. You said it yourself.”
“I’ve told them I’m away,” I grumped.
“But you’re not…are you?” Cal grinned.
“I have the right to have time off,” I said sternly.
“Which is why you’ve not gone back to work.
Which is why your teammates are texting your kids and wondering where the hell you are.
Which is why Deepak rang Auntie Patel because you’re not answering your goddamn phone, Dad.
He was just wanting to check if you were okay. Watched the show and all that.”
Ah. Yeah. Great. Fuck.
“I’m not proud,” I said softly. “And this has been…a lot.”
“You don’t say.” Ed sighed.
“I’m… I’m…not ready.”
“Oh fuck off, Dad.”
“Ed,” I shouted.
“DAD!” Cal could be stern when he wanted to be.
Silence. The goddamn silence. I wanted the floorboards to creak. For someone to take my side. I wanted… Fuck knows what I wanted.
“Dad, we grew up in this house. Do you think we’re stupid? It’s a three-bed semi. Do you think there were secrets? We had no fucking secrets; we lived with Mum! Have you suddenly completely erased the past ten-odd years? Dad! For fuck’s sake.”
He leant back and shook his head.
“Sorry, Ollie. It’s a lot,” Ed continued. “I get it, but Dad here? He sometimes needs a reminder of who he is. And that his kids are not complete tools.”
“You are complete tools,” I said. I meant it. Seriously?
Obviously.
“Mum and Dad have always said it. Open and honest. We don’t have secrets because secrets are fucking messy.
Dad had some. Then he didn’t, and then we all laughed about it.
Mum made sure of that. It’s not that complicated, and now he’s sat here pretending like it’s a big fucking deal. Back in the closet, are we, Dad?”
Talk about ripping the bloody plaster off.
Silence. And Oliver just looking down at the tabletop. His fingers slowly gripping the edge.
“Outing people is not on,” he said sternly. Then he stared at Cal. And then he looked at me.
And yes. He was right. Because I? I hadn’t learnt a fucking thing.
And that’s when the ceiling light went out.
We should have been laughing about it. We should have… This? This was too much. Far too much. Which was why I stood up and took myself out of the equation, the stupid fool I was.
I bumbled upstairs and put myself back where I belonged.
In my old bedroom, which was still a mess.
We’d never redecorated despite saying we should.
Instead the old sofa was up here, along with a TV and a million leads crisscrossing the floor.
Speakers. Some empty games boxes in the corner.
And me, huddled up under the large bay window like a small child.
I was still shaking. The debilitating muscle spasms making my body move on its own. I had no control. None.
I’d sat here before. On the floor, and I could almost picture Mary next to me, arms around her knees like she always sat.
“Sometimes the floor is the best place,” she would say, smiling at me. She smiled a lot. Even when times were bad. Even when I thought we’d ruined things forever.
“I’ve done it now, haven’t I?” I almost said it out loud, as she shook her head. I could see her, so clearly, right next to me.
“No, darling, you haven’t. They’re just as rattled as you are. These are big changes, again, and you know what we said.”
“Yes,” I answered back into the empty room. “I know.”
“You’re just who you are. You can’t change anything about that.”
“I wish I could.”
“No, you don’t,” she said sternly in my head.
“Don’t you dare. Because I loved you from the first time I saw you, and I’ve loved you ever since.
Because you are you. Nobody else, Peter.
You. Because you’ve got this big, kind, enormous space inside your chest where you love.
And anyone who gets to be loved by you is the luckiest person in the world. ”
I sighed. Maybe.
“The love you had for me doesn’t negate the love you had for others. Nor does it negate the love you could let blossom. You just need to let it. Before it’s too late.”
Maybe I cried, what did I know? Sat there on the floor talking to the dust bunnies in the corner.
“It’s okay to love,” she continued. “It’s okay to love as widely and largely and freely as we do. It’s fine. And anyone we love knows this. The boys know this. I know this. And deep inside, you know this too. That love is never wrong. Not when it’s out in the open.”
“No secrets,” I whispered.
“None,” she whispered back.
“You’re doing it again,” Ed said, folding those long legs of his underneath himself. “You’re talking to yourself.”
“I know.”