A problem.
So he'd let it go.
Besides, there was still the shadow of Nerys. He knew that it was a stupid notion and that she, of all people, wouldn't have wanted him to think this way, but he couldn't help it. Even though she'd been dead for so long it could sometimes seem that she was still with him, a presence in the next room, someone on the other side of a door who waited and listened but who never stepped through, except when he dreamed. He'd known her since they were both thirteen years old. All right, so he'd never feel that he was betraying her memory. But sometimes, her memory could be all that he needed.
He could hear the van outside. Wayne was home, and the two dogs were barking and scrambling to greet him. Ted stood there waiting with the shirt over his arm, waiting to hear the inevitable sequence completed before he went on; slam the van door, up the outside stairs to the flat over the workshop, another door to slam, and then LOUD MUSIC. Ted still couldn't work out how Wayne was able to cover the distance from the door to the CD player so fast. The glass in the windows was shaking even before the dust on the stairs had begun to settle.
Wayne wasn't Ted's only son. He had another, older boy, Shaun, but Shaun had taken himself to Australia at the age of eighteen and hadn't been home since. Ted got occasional letters, written in a rush and saying almost nothing. He had one photograph, from Shaun's wedding, and the photograph's arrival had been the first that he'd known about any of it. Shaun's last years at school had been difficult — he'd even taken a swing at a teacher at one point — and he'd earned a reputation for the motherless Hammond boys that Wayne had found himself sharing even though he'd done nothing to earn it.
Perhaps he'd come back, one day, at least for a visit. But he was making a life out there, and probably felt that there was no place here for him anymore. Ted would sometimes wonder if he hadn't made Pete into a kind of surrogate son to fill the hole that Shaun had left… it was impossible to say for sure, and nothing to be ashamed of anyway.
He hung his chosen shirt on the front of the wardrobe, and slid back the mirror door behind it to put the other away. He was planning on a shave and a slow, hot bath; he might even throw in some of that stuff that Wayne had bought him for his birthday, that came in a dubious looking novelty bottle shaped like a tiger's head. It was nearly two hours yet to the start of the party, he'd have plenty of time.
He had his son, he had his dogs, he had his friends. He had his memories.
He could hardly call himself lonely, could he?
Wayne had his own hot water supply, direct from the gas-fired geyser that also supplied the workshop below. When it was running, the geyser roared so loudly that the place felt like a rocket in the middle of a takeoff. He turned the music up a little louder, to cover it.
Barely more than half an hour before, he'd driven into the village on an errand for the Venetz sisters and although he saw almost no one along the way, he'd been able to sense a tension in the air; it was a faint background buzz like that of power lines in the rain. Even at this hour, bedroom curtains were drawn and lights were burning inside. Party night was big news, and people were starting early.
He didn't mind responding to a panic call at such a late hour, especially not when it meant transporting three microwave ovens up to the hall and so getting an advance peek at the preparations. Adele Venetz, the sister that Wayne always thought of as the quiet one, had been sitting at the big rolling-out table as he'd entered the restaurant kitchen. He'd rapped on the open door as he'd passed it, and said, "Who called for International Rescue?"
And then he'd faltered.
Adele had looked up at him, not quickly but as quickly as she'd been able. She appeared to have been holding a makeshift icepack to the side of her head and a couple of the cubes had skidded out of reach and begun to melt, almost as if she'd been in too much of a hurry to stretch over for them. From what Wayne had been able to see of her left eye, it had looked as if it had a couple of drops of blood in it.
"Thanks, Wayne," she'd said, only a little unsteadily, and Wayne had been able to see that questions or even concerned enquiries were definitely not being encouraged. "I hope this won't hold you up too much."
"Don't worry about me," he'd said, but then he couldn't just leave it at that and so he'd added, "Will you be all right?"
She'd nodded, barely. "I just need to lie down for a while. Wayne, I'll be grateful if you don't mention this to anybody."
"Don't worry, total silence," Wayne had assured her and then he'd loaded the ovens into the van and left her to make her way upstairs, touching the wall as she went. And then, restraining himself from a farewell blast on the Dixie horn, he'd set out for Liston Hall.
With the first of the ovens he'd gone the long way through to the hall's kitchens, taking in the sights as he went. It seemed that the hallway itself was going to be the disco area, with a glitterball and nets of balloons overhead and several of those special-effects lights that would make the walls appear to be dripping with coloured slime. The doors through into two of the biggest reception rooms had been folded back, and a false wall between them opened to reveal what had once been the ballroom and which now, for one night, was a ballroom again. The whole setup had been quiet, almost deserted; there had been music playing, but that had been somewhere far off in the house. Probably Dizzy's gang, keeping out of the way in case the sight of others working made them feel weak.
The scene in the kitchens had been considerably more lively; as he'd shouldered his way through he'd come upon a spectacle of controlled panic with Angelica presiding. Mixers had been mixing, blenders had been blending, and Angelica had been pushing cloves into the biggest baked ham that Wayne had ever seen. The three local women that she'd brought in as help for the evening had been buzzing around behind her, greasing dishes and setting up trays and napkin-wrapping cutlery.
"Oh, Wayne," Angelica had said. "You're an angel. Did you speak to Adele?"
A moment's hesitation told her that he had, and that he'd seen. But all that he'd said was, "She'll be along in about an hour. Just a few things she has to do."
"You're a good boy, Wayne," Angelica had said, and they'd both known that she was meaning for more than just the errand.
"I'll even shake paws for a biscuit," Wayne had said.
Now, as he was waiting, he took a dispirited look around. As much as he could be aware of someone else's problems, his own were the ones that preoccupied him most. All right, so he had a flat, but it wasn't exactly the kind of place that Warren Beatty would have wanted to call home. Behind him in the bathroom stood a chipped old tub slowly filling with water that was the colour of weak tea; the bathroom walls had been replastered and roughened for tiling, but they didn't have any tiles. He'd tried posters, but they curled in the steam.