Chapter 9
On Tuesday morning, Theo walks down to the village, to one of the cafés that he noticed advertises Wi-Fi. He has to do a few hours’ work but sets off early so he can be back as soon as possible.
“I’m sorry to leave you with the kids,” he says, as he hugs me goodbye.
“That’s alright,” I reply, squeezing him tightly. “There’s no other way around it.”
With any luck, Callum and Mabel won’t get out of bed till he’s back.
When the builders arrive, I chat to Giuseppe about their plans for the day.
He tells me the men who are widening the road will be cutting away some of the earth from the hill around the castle and transporting it via wheelbarrows to dump in a disused part of the estate.
Meanwhile, work will continue on the house, on the roof and top-floor bathroom.
As the builders inside are working next door to Archie’s bedroom, the noise wakes him up first. At least I don’t have to worry about showering him, as Theo did that last night. I get him dressed, give him some cereal and orange juice, then he comes upstairs to help me clear out Wilf’s desk.
This is rammed full of bank statements and utility bills dating back to the late 1990s.
With no shredder, Archie and I have to rip them up by hand.
But he seems to enjoy this and we have a competition to see how many pages we can rip at once, a competition I let Archie win, after which he flexes his biceps and roars like a lion.
We haul the bags of shredded paper up through the olive grove and all the way to the car, which we’ve had to park outside the grounds as the driveway is out of action.
On the way back, we stop to observe the builders at work, which Archie finds thrilling—especially when one of them lets him hold one of the handles on his wheelbarrow as he pushes it up the driveway and tips the contents over a hill.
The joy on Archie’s face and his desire for me to watch him makes me feel a fluttering in my stomach.
All morning, Archie is such a delight—skipping along at my side, at one point taking hold of my hand—that I forget all about Callum and Mabel. By the time they’re stirring, Archie and I are in the larder, crouching in front of the sideboard and sorting through the contents.
“Morning!” I sing-song. “You’ve done well to sleep through the noise!”
“Why didn’t you wake us up?” snaps Callum.
I put down the bowls I’m holding and stand up. “I wanted to let you have a lie-in.”
“But Dad’s gone to the café without us,” Callum protests.
“I am devo!” says Mabel. “I told you I needed to use the Wi-Fi!”
I’m not sure how to deal with this. Discipline seems to come easily to Theo: he just adopts a firm tone of voice and they know not to argue with him.
I try to do the same. “Well, I’m sure it can wait.”
Mabel explodes. “Adam, you don’t understand! I’m the only one of my friends who can’t snap! Sharita’s going to forget about me!”
I’ve heard her mention Sharita before and know the two of them are close. “I’m sure she won’t. Not if she’s a good friend.”
This only seems to wind Mabel up more. “She is a good friend! But Aurora’s taking her off me: I know it!”
Callum chips in, “And what am I supposed to do about Charlotte?”
“Who’s Charlotte?”
He gasps in outrage. “My girlfriend! We’ve been going out for two months!”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” I feel flustered: teenage relationships and friendships are unfamiliar territory for me. “Didn’t you message her last night?”
Callum’s face hardens. “Yeah, but she didn’t reply. And she’s a bit of me. If she dumps me I’ll never get anyone like her again.”
I decide against telling him this may seem like a major drama now but he’s bound to find someone else in the future.
“Adam, this is all your fault!” cuts in Mabel, her nostrils flaring. “It’s your fault for dragging us to this dump!”
I feel shaken by the intensity of their upset. “Look, why don’t I make you both some nice scrambled eggs?” I suggest, my voice cracking. “Once you’ve had something to eat, things might not seem so bad.”
They stomp off into the kitchen, huffing and blowing.
But they do actually eat. In Mabel’s case, it isn’t much, but at least she eats something.
It’s after breakfast that things take a turn for the worse. First, Callum and Mabel refuse to wash up. Then they refuse to help me and Archie clear out the larder.
“Come on, guys,” I mewl. “Please.”
Callum shoots me a look of defiance. “Or what? What are you going to do about it?”
What am I supposed to say to that? What can I do about it?
Just as I’m wondering if I can find an excuse to call the builders down so they’ll witness the kids’ behavior, Mabel screams.
“There’s a lizard!” She points to the hook on which I’ve hung my Panama hat. “Over there!”
I try to sound blasé. “Oh, yeah. Haven’t you seen it before? I think it lives behind that unit.”
She squirms as if her skin’s crawling. “But it’s massive, Adam. It’s like a crocodile!”
Callum, on the other hand, is transfixed and takes his phone out to film it. “That is sick!”
Archie moves forward to get a better view but his jerking movement scares the lizard and it slithers off up the wall. “Is it a boy or a girl?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s a boy.”
Mabel screams again. “There’s another one! Next to the radiator!”
“Oh yeah!”
Callum pans across to video the second lizard, which is slightly smaller than the first.
“That one’s a girl,” pronounces Archie. “I can tell.”
Callum picks up the broomstick and tries nudging the lizard with the handle.
“Callum, please don’t hurt it,” I say. “It’s not doing us any harm.”
“But what if it bites?” Mabel says, her voice straying into a higher pitch.
I’m just about to reassure her that lizards don’t bite when I realize I don’t actually know whether or not that’s true.
“Are they boyfriend and girlfriend or brother and sister?” gabbles Archie.
“Archie, will you shut up!” hisses Mabel.
I’ve no idea what to do. In desperation, I shuffle everyone out of the room and slam the door shut. “Right, let’s just leave the lizards till your dad’s back.”
Callum and Mabel stomp upstairs and disappear into their bedrooms.
“Come on, Archie,” I say. “Let’s go back upstairs.”
We go into the larger living room and start sorting through Wilf’s furniture.
I decide to keep his sofas but get rid of the faded, frayed, flattened cushions.
I like an antique wooden chest it looks as if he used as a footstool but decide against keeping a collection of ceramic vases that are attached to the walls.
There’s another stack of books—illustrated coffee-table books about art and famous painters.
These look like they’ve been read much less so I don’t mind throwing some of them away.
Archie and I sort through them and pull out the ones we don’t like.
As we carry the rejected books downstairs, the builders are making so much noise that Mabel doesn’t hear us entering the kitchen. She’s standing in front of the fridge with the door open, eating the white chocolate she refused to touch on our first day.
I can’t resist saying, “So you like white chocolate now?”
She spins around, her face ablaze. “Are you spying on me?”
“No, I’m not spying on you.” I gesture to the books. “We’re taking these out.”
She slams the fridge door shut. “Well, for your information I don’t like this chocolate. It’s minging. I’m only eating it because I’m starving. Those scrambled eggs you made were gross!”
She swallows what’s in her mouth and tosses the rest of the chocolate in the bin.
“God, I hate this place!” she rails, pushing past us and flying up the stairs. “I’ve no privacy!”
“I think Mabel’s angry,” Archie comments, screwing up his little, freckle-covered nose.
I can’t resist ruffling his hair. “You can say that again. Come on.”
As we add the books to the crates behind the chapel, I feel a stab of annoyance at Mabel, but I’m also annoyed at myself. Why did I have to go and do that? I shouldn’t have made her feel like she’s being watched: that’s only going to make things worse.
Archie totters off to watch the builders as they continue cutting away the hillside. I lean back against the chapel wall and let out a sigh.
I feel like a failure. Aren’t gay men supposed to be great with kids? Isn’t that the stereotype? Why can’t Theo’s kids just like me? What am I doing wrong?
A tapping sound comes from the roof of the cottage and I turn to see a builder replacing some tiles.
Farther down the house, two more builders are erecting scaffolding along the back wall.
Signs of their activity are everywhere and at the bottom of the driveway someone has put up a sign saying LAVORI IN CORSO, which I assume from the image means “Building work in progress.” At least the builders are making progress—which is more than can be said for me with the kids.
Theo steps into the big lounge. He’s wearing khaki cargo shorts, a burgundy T-shirt and sandals, and takes off his Panama hat. “Where is everyone?”
I look up from a stack of opera records I’ve found: I would never have thought anyone from my family would be a fan of opera, but evidently, I was wrong. “Archie’s playing in the other lounge,” I say. “Callum and Mabel are in their rooms.”
“Have they behaved?”
He looks careworn and I don’t want to add to it. “I’ve had a fab morning!”
Theo sits next to me on the sofa. “Yeah, but did they help?”
“Archie’s been brill. And so adorable.”
He narrows his eyes. “And Cal and Mabel?”
I frown. “They didn’t exactly help, no.”
He looks away and I can see how much this upsets him.
“But it was fine!” I add quickly. “Honestly, we got loads done. Although you might have to talk to Mabel about the lizards.”
“I was wondering when she’d spot them.”
“Well, it’s happened. I suppose it was always going to.”
Theo nods, gravely.
I stand up and slide the vinyl that’s in good condition down the side of the record player, leaving the scratched records by the door. “How about you? Did you get everything done?”
“Well, I sent those emails I needed to. But I also spoke to my parents.” He dashes his hand over his eyes.
So that’s why he looks troubled.
Theo’s parents live in Hertfordshire, which is where he was born and brought up, before moving to Manchester for university then settling in the city.
They go out of their way to stress that they don’t disapprove of him being gay: they just don’t understand why he couldn’t have waited a few more years till he came out.
Their reasoning is that this would have been less distressing for the kids, but they don’t seem to have any awareness of how distressing it was for Theo to stay in the closet.
It doesn’t help that Kate got to them first, turning up on their doorstep and breaking down in tears as she related how hard the breakup had been for her.
I swallow but can feel my throat going dry. “And what did they say?”
He lets out a weary sigh. “Just the usual. I mentioned the problems we’ve been having with the kids and they basically told me the same old story about it being my fault. Apparently my sister feels the same.”
I go back to sit on the sofa. “Theo, you can’t listen to them.”
“No, I know.” But he doesn’t sound convinced.
In an instant, I feel vulnerable and exposed. Because if he believes his parents—even if a tiny part of him believes them—where does that leave me? After all, if he hadn’t come out we wouldn’t have met.
But I manage to keep my anxiety inside. What I actually say is, “Theo, you did the right thing. You’ve got to hold onto that.”
He massages his stubble. “Ads, I just want my kids to be happy. And they’re not. At least not Callum and Mabel.”
Out of nowhere, I feel a flash of irritation. “And what about you, Theo? Don’t you deserve to be happy?”
I didn’t intend to raise my voice and immediately regret it.
“But that’s just it, Ads,” he says, sounding tetchy. “I’m a parent. I can’t be happy unless they are.”
“And what about my happiness?” I want to say. “Or does that not come into it?”
But I can’t: that would only put him under more pressure. And it would pit me against his kids, forcing him to choose between us. I know how that would end.
In a flash, I remember how I behaved when my dad introduced me to the woman who’d become my stepmum. Did I ever think about his happiness—or hers? Did I consider either of them for one second?
I mop a hand through my hair. “We can’t give up yet, Theo. We’ve only been here three days.”
Theo blinks and furrows his brow. “Ads, who’s thinking about giving up?”
“Nobody!” I bounce onto my feet and force out a smile. “We’ll get there, I know we will!”
But I’m not sure I do know that.
I grab the car keys.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to take some recycling into the village. A load of paper me and Archie ripped up.”
What I don’t tell him is I also need to be alone with my fears. To do everything I can to stop them from overwhelming me.
“OK,” Theo says. But his beautiful eyes have a look of sadness.
As I walk to the door, I want to kiss him.
But I hold back, afraid he might pull away.