‘What was going on at the house?’
‘Oh, that,’ she said with a scowl. ‘All I did was ask for my own money, and she goes bonkers.’
‘What money?’
‘That my dad left me in his will. I need it now, not when I’m twenty fucking five.’
‘No need to swear,’ said Patrick.
‘Of course there’s a need to swear!’ she said, slapping the table and making him flinch. ‘Swearing’s the only thing that keeps me going! What kind of world do you live in where there’s no need to fucking swear? A world where you don’t drink and don’t smoke and nothing ever pisses you off? I bet there’s no sex either. Fan-fucking-tastic.’
Patrick felt his face growing hot and he stared into his coffee cup. He had never thought much about sex, but all of a sudden not having had it seemed like a very stupid oversight for someone of his intellect.
There was a long gap in the conversation while the scratchy pub speakers played ‘Wonderwall’ by Oasis. 1995, thought Patrick. Before everything went wrong.
He finished his coffee.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lexi said. ‘I’m such a fucking big mouth. I just get so grrrrr! You know? And then I say all kinds of stupid shit.’
‘OK,’ he nodded.
‘Seriously,’ said Lexi, ducking her head to try to meet his eyes. ‘I’m an idiot.’
She reached for his hand across the table. He saw it coming and fought his instincts. What had his mother said? I don’t expect anything back from you, Patrick, but I do expect manners. That meant she did expect something back. She’d given him a gift and Patrick was apparently supposed to say ‘Thank you.’ Gifts came with strings attached, even if they weren’t always obvious. Lexi’s father had allowed five strangers to cut him to pieces and put him into yellow bins and plastic bags. The string attached to that gift was right here, right now, coming at him across the scar-and-varnish pub table.
He couldn’t do it; he moved his hand and sat on it. ‘How did your father die?’
Lexi picked up her glass instead. She didn’t seem surprised by the question. ‘He was in an accident, and then a coma for a few months, and then he just died. They said he might. They said it happens all the time.’
‘Who said?’
‘I dunno. The doctors, I suppose.’
‘Were you there?’
She shook her head and knocked back what was left of her drink, even though it was mostly ice now. ‘I only went to see him once. It was shit. He was crying. I held his hand but he didn’t even know it was me.’
Patrick nodded. ‘Altered states,’ he said. ‘You know, there have been cases where people woke from comas with previously unknown skills. Thinking they’re Abraham Lincoln, or with an Italian accent. Things like that.’ He’d always found those accounts fascinating, but Lexi stared across the pub as if he hadn’t spoken.
‘I don’t care,’ she declared. ‘He was an arse anyway. Arse isn’t swearing, is it? I mean, it’s what he was.’
‘OK,’ he said, then remembered about working backwards and added, ‘Why? Was he an… arse?’
Lexi gave an exaggerated shrug and toyed with her glass.
Patrick noticed that the dorsal metacarpal arteries showed sky blue up the backs of her pale hands. He wondered whether she and her father would be identifiable as relatives if they were laid out side by side and peeled of skin. He knew that he himself had a strange twist to his thumbs that his mother had given him, and that when he shaved he could see his father’s mouth and eyes in the bathroom mirror like a ghost in the glass. How deep did such bonds go? Was it all about eyebrows and lips? Or were there veins and kidneys that had similar familial quirks?
‘He didn’t give a shit about me,’ said Lexi. ‘I fucking hated him.’
Then – before Patrick could ask her why – she put her glass down firmly and said, ‘You got a couch?’
Once she was on the couch, Lexi was impossible to dislodge. She watched Hollyoaks and EastEnders with Kim and Jackson, while Patrick went upstairs and cleaned another three squares of carpet.
When he came down at ten o’clock she was still there, watching something full of guns and noise, with the remote control in her hand.
Jackson and Kim cornered him in the kitchen.
‘She has to go!’ hissed Kim.
‘Kim’s right,’ hissed Jackson. ‘She has to go.’
‘OK,’ said Patrick, and started to make a peanut-butter sandwich while they both watched him.
Kim said, ‘You brought her here. You have to tell her!’
‘OK,’ he said, and cleaned up after himself. Then he put the sandwich on a plate that had a cartoon zebra in the middle and the alphabet around the outside. It was a child’s plate but the alphabet had always calmed him so he’d brought it with him from home and Kim had dubbed it ‘retro-hip’. He took it through to the living room, where Lexi had now spread herself down the length of the sofa.
‘You have to go,’ he informed her.
‘What are you eating?’ she said. ‘I’m quite hungry.’
‘Peanut-butter sandwich.’
She made a face. ‘Have you got some cheese?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Kim and Jackson say you have to go.’
‘Can I have a cheese sandwich?’
He stood for a moment, uncertain of what to do next. He had told her she had to go and she’d ignored that and asked for a cheese sandwich. He didn’t understand how the two were connected. But he didn’t mind giving her a cheese sandwich; maybe she’d go after that. Things wouldn’t happen in the expected order, but they’d happen.
‘OK,’ he said, and went back to the kitchen.
‘Has she gone?’ said Jackson.
‘No. She wants a cheese sandwich.’
‘Shit,’ said Kim. ‘Jackson, tell her she has to go!’
Jackson looked unsure, but left the kitchen. Patrick was considering whether to cut the sandwich square or on the diagonal when he came back.
‘Has she gone?’ demanded Kim.
‘She wants a blanket.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Jackson!’ Kim stormed out and Patrick went for square because he always had his sandwiches cut square, so if Kim made Lexi leave now, he could take this one with him for lunch tomorrow.
‘She just ignored me,’ said Jackson, biting his nails.
‘Me too,’ said Patrick.
‘Now Kim thinks I’m a wuss.’
Patrick nodded his agreement.
‘Shit,’ said Jackson softly.
They listened to the low voices from the front room, and then heard footsteps ascending the stairs and coming down again. Then more low voices.
Then Kim came back into the kitchen and didn’t look at them. She opened the fridge and pushed things around her shelf for a long time.
‘Has she gone?’ said Jackson.
‘Did someone eat my yoghurt?’ said Kim.
‘No,’ said Jackson and Patrick together.
‘Oh,’ said Kim and shut the fridge door and went upstairs. Jackson followed her.
When Patrick took the sandwich through to the front room, Lexi was wrapped in a red blanket on the couch.
‘Thanks,’ she said as she took a bite. ‘Have you got anything to drink?’
He brought her a glass of water and she said, ‘Have you got anything else?’
He knew what she meant. He also knew there was a half-bottle of white wine on Kim’s shelf in the fridge.