Chapter 26
Oliver.
It felt like an opening, and one I’d fully embraced. Yet he was full of unspoken words, words I realised I needed to hear. I might have called him out on all those things that still sat unresolved in my chest, but for the first time?
Perhaps he was ready to admit to at least some of them.
“Dad, you need to talk to him,” Cal said from the front seat.
I was in the back, next to Peter. Holding his hand as he said absolutely nothing. Not even looking at me in the dark.
Like a child.
Just the small flip of me feeling like the adult and Peter being the troublesome kid, who was about to combust with nerves. I’d seen him like this before and…
“It’s okay,” I tried to reassure him, but mostly myself. It would be fine. I was full of that bravado I puffed myself up with, and was sat here hoping…it would simply hold.
“I just want to get you home and… I don’t know.”
“It’s fine,” I reassured. Well. It wasn’t, but it would be. I was sure of it. I had to be.
“I need to explain things.”
“I’m right here,” Cal reminded us both, grinning in the rearview mirror. “I’m already full of unresolved childhood trauma growing up with…parents like this. I need you not to add to them, Ollie. Keep him on a tight leash.”
“I’ll…” I had to smile. “I’ll look after him.”
“And you need to look after me and Ed too. Not give us a hard time, and soften the blow when Dad goes off on one.”
“It depends.” I was trying to walk a fine line here, and the smile on my face was concerning.
“Well, you’re a cokehead with issues. Dad is off his head already, no chemical relief required. And Ed?”
“What’s up with Ed?” Peter was clearly trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.
“He’s a mess. But in a good way, I think. I had words.”
“Come on.” Peter sighed.
“I’m not like my brother. I don’t spill other people’s issues all over the place.”
I had to laugh. Properly now. Squeezing Peter’s hand as hard as I could.
“I don’t believe a word of anything anymore.”
“Told you we’re all messed up.” Cal sulked in the front.
And I sat there just smiling. Because I had a feeling I fit right in here. Just the way I was. Well…minus the coke habit, because that was something I was going to fix. Right here, right now.
We got home, and Cal, the smart kid he was, went straight out, leaving me standing in the kitchen, dropping my bag on the floor and toeing my shoes off like I lived here.
I wanted to. I wanted a home like this, where I felt…
Safe. It was such an unfamiliar vibe, especially in a place that I hadn’t created for myself. This was a strange home, but one where I’d immediately barged in and made my peace with everything.
“Hi, Mary,” I said softly. “I’m back again.”
I could hear him chuckle behind me, standing there with a set of keys in his hand. A shirt. Jacket. Looking so effortlessly handsome, as I wandered aimlessly around the room. My fingers tracing the kitchen tabletop.
“Mary, he needs sorting out. And I hope you’ll let me,” I said. Like I wasn’t completely insane. I thought I was, and it made me smile. “He’s lovely…and warm. Makes me smile. You know what he’s like.”
“She does. And she’s…”
“Dead. No longer here,” I said, rounding the corner so I was behind the kitchen counter. Both hands on the surface.
“Oliver, I need to put down some ground rules.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. I needed those too. I needed to know where the limits lay, where the boundaries were and how far I could go before I…
“The boys are my life. They will always come first. And that includes not getting them into trouble and one hundred per cent not bringing anything across this threshold that would jeopardise their future…or their sanity.”
Okay. I got that.
“I am not touching any of that again, not if I can help it. And I know I sound like a fool…like the addict I probably am, but it’s been years, Peter. I am starting…to figure out… I’m not standing here saying I can fix this on my own.”
Honesty. I loved how it felt when it came out of my mouth. It was new. Freeing.
Fuck. It was safe. Fucking safe. I shuddered.
The ceiling creaked. He laughed before I did.
“It’s an old house, Oliver.”
“I know that.” I smiled.
“But I am being serious. The boys.”
“The boys. I will be here for them if they need me, but I’m not their dad.”
“Nope.” He popped the P.
“I’m just another person who will try to…love you.”
“And I hope you’ll love the boys too. Because Cal thinks you’re some kind of superhero.”
“Cal’s funny.”
“He’s also seriously overconfident and struggles with friendships. They overwhelm him, and then he overcompensates by being far too intense. Not many people can handle that.”
“I noticed,” I said softly. “And I can handle him. I’ve enjoyed his many visits to see me.”
He smiled.
Funny how he could just smile and it made me happy.
“Tell me something else I need to know,” I asked softly.
He took a couple of steps forward, until he was right opposite me. His hands mirrored mine on the surface.
“You were…right,” he said quietly, looking down at the surface. Picking at a stray crumb. “I did lie.”
“I know.” I hoped my voice was as soft as I wanted it to be. Because I wanted him to tell me. I wanted… I needed to know. Know that this was exactly what I wanted it to be.
“It’s not actually a secret as such…I mean. Mary released her autobiography years ago. It was kind of all…in there.”
“What was?”
“I hope you haven’t read it… But…I mean. I can tell you my version. Mary can tell hers.”
“She’s dead.”
“The book isn’t. We still get royalty checks. I mean, the boys do. She left everything to them.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I loved Mary. I loved her my whole life. We met at uni, before she even got famous. She was a poor drama student. I was a first-year medical boy. We…”
He cleared his throat.
Please keep talking, Peter. Don’t stop. Tell me. Because I need to know.
“We had all our firsts together.” He still wasn’t looking at me. And his hands were shaking. I wanted to reach out and scoop him up. Hold him. Tell him, whatever it was he needed to say, I could deal. I had to.
I wasn’t someone who gave up.
“That’s nice.” Fuck me and my stupid mouth. But I had to say something?
“It was. Until it wasn’t. She had her first affair the year after. Slept with someone else and…”
“Peter,” I said sternly.
“It was so many years ago, but it…”
“Come,” I said, and then I moved. Slid around the worktop with an ease that even surprised me. Wrapped him up in my arms as his face burrowed into my shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I do,” he said sternly. “I really do. Because everything here, it’s just an illusion.
I tried to make everything perfect for the boys.
I wanted them to feel like this had…you know?
Nobody wants to know the truth. Nobody wants to remember that their parents couldn’t keep each other happy and that we hurt each other and slept with other people and… And…”
“Peter.”
“I wanted to leave. I really did.”
“That’s okay,” I said softly.
“No.” He shook his head and leant back. Held me at arm’s length. “We never lied to each other. She always told me everything she felt. What she wanted. Needed. I couldn’t always give her that. And it wasn’t done with malice, never ever think that. She loved me.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“Love isn’t always a bed of roses. I mean…my mother…she loved. She fell in love with men who were… She always thought she could change them. That if she could only get them over her threshold and build them a home and get married and then?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
There had been times when I thought Peter had been weak. When I felt I’d needed to look after him. I had been wrong. So very, very wrong. Because the man who stood there was solid. His head moving from side to side like he was trying to negate everything he’d ever known.
“Mary slept with almost every actor she shared a leading role with. She did mostly romantic comedies. Drama.”
“The murder on Park Lane,” I filled in.
“She slept with Theodore Parks.”
“I thought he was gay.”
“So did she. Turns out he wasn’t. Then they did Spring Folly the next year, and she lived with him in New York. The whole time. The boys were six.”
“Peter.” I felt it. The immense anger still in him. The vibrations in his chest as he once again shook his head.
“It was constant, Oliver. All the time. I fluttered from being absolutely exhausted to being blissfully happy every time it ended. Because she would come home, to me. And then things would settle down, and we would drift back to what we were. Our lives became good again. Vibrant. Laughter everywhere.”
He had tears in his eyes. He wiped them away almost aggressively.
“I allowed it. Because…she needed it. And at times? I thought I needed it too. And it wasn’t all…bad.” He intonated that word in a way I didn’t like.
“I…always had a thing for…you know.” He wriggled his hand like he was showing me something I couldn’t see.
“No. I don’t,” I said sternly. He flinched.
“It wasn’t always like this. I was quite open with it. It wasn’t a secret, not as such. I didn’t flaunt it, but we had…friends. And sometimes we…shared our…intimacy.”
“You had…what? Threesomes?”
“We called it… It wasn’t serious, you know? Just a healthy sex life. She got to live out her…intimate desires.”
“And you got to…what? Fuck men?”
He gulped on air. The triggers were fucking clear because I had lived with mine. All my life.
“You have to stop doing that. Pretending that you’re not queer, because it’s fucking bloody clear to me and everyone in this house that you are.”
“I know.” His voice was barely audible. “I am. And yes.”
“Why lie then?” Such a stupid question. But one I needed to ask.
“The boys were…ten, I think. Mary had a long run of Fairy Wings in the West End, and I used to… Fuck. No. Before that.”
“You don’t have to.” I held him. Tight.
“There were so many…other people. So many nights I thought it would all go south. I thought I would break.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” I shushed him.