She handed him a fork. You’d take them with you. She thought how small Pavel’s house was. Now add some milk and whisk it.
What about the television?
Hasn’t Pavel already got a television?
But what about our television? He was on the verge of tears.
You can have the television.
I’ve changed my mind. I want to go and live with Daisy. Something broke inside him and he was choking back the sobs.
She turned the ring down and wrapped him in her arms.
♦
Benjamin was crying and Richard didn’t want to intrude so he poured a mug of coffee from the cafetière and walked outside where he found Alex doing press-ups on the lawn, proper press-ups, knees and back rigid, locking his elbows, touching the grass with his nose, a great eagle of sweat on his back. Deltoids, teres major, rotator cuff. He still thought of himself as a sportsman, cross-country at school, 400 metres at college, but in the last year he’d done nothing more than play a few games of squash with Gerhardt and cycle to work for a fortnight after the car was stolen. Alex stood up. Wondering if I should have a go myself.
Alex put a foot on the bench to unlace his trainer. It’s a big hill.
♦
Daisy had very nearly done it with her friend Jack. She was never quite sure whether they were going out or not. He had three earrings and a pet snake and some invisible barrier that only Daisy was allowed to cross. They’d drunk two large glasses of some poisonous green liqueur his dad had bought in Italy. He put a hand under the hem of her knickers and she was suddenly aware of how angular he was, all bones and corners, and she was going to let him do it because she couldn’t think of an alternative, because this was the door everyone had to pass through. But with this thought came a scrabbling panic. She didn’t want to go through that door, she didn’t want to be like everyone else and she was having real trouble breathing. She pushed him away, and he seemed relieved mostly, but the near miss had scared them both, so they finished the bottle and the embarrassment was obscured by the memory of a hangover so bad that its retelling became a party piece. For six months they were best friends, then Daisy joined the church and he called her a fucking traitor and vanished from her life.
♦
Alex wasn’t trying to put Richard down. It was a stab at friendliness he failed to pitch quite right. He had always rather admired his uncle and felt that Mum’s complaints were unjustified. Or perhaps admiration was the wrong word, more a kind of genetic bond. He recognised nothing of himself in Mum and Dad, her distractedness, the lack of care she took of herself, his father sitting around the house feeling sorry for himself, doing the cleaning and the shopping and Benjy’s school pick-ups like it was the most natural thing in the world. When friends visited he felt embarrassed by the air of defeat which hung around him and part of the attraction of mountains and lakes was their distance from both of them. But the way Richard carried himself, his air of efficiency and self-possession…
♦
Why did you do that last night? asked Angela.
Do what?
You know exactly what I’m talking about. Saying grace. Making everyone feel uncomfortable.
I think we all should be more grateful for the things we have.
I think we should also be more considerate of other people’s feelings.
Oh, like you’re considerate of my feelings?
Don’t answer me back.
So, what? Just be quiet and do what you say?
You were showing off, and you were patronising people. I don’t care what you believe in private…
That’s rubbish. You hate what I believe in private.
I don’t care what you believe in private but I don’t think you should force it down other people’s throats.
You’re just jealous because I’m happy.
I’m not jealous, Daisy. And you’re not happy.
Well, maybe you’re not the expert when it comes to what I’m actually feeling.
♦
We’ll buy some second-hand books, said Richard. Get some lunch. Stop for a walk on the way back.
That sounds like the most excellent fun, said Melissa.
Then it’s your lucky day. He remained poker-faced. We can only fit seven in the car.
Good.
Will you be all right on your own? asked Louisa.
Melissa flopped her head to one side and rolled her eyes.
Can we walk up Lord Hereford’s Knob? asked Benjy.
He’ll stop finding it funny eventually.
I’ll duck out, too, said Dominic. If that’s OK.
Angela briefly wondered if he had arranged some kind of liaison with Melissa and came close to making a joke about it before realising how tasteless and bizarre it would have been.
♦
Melissa was coming up the stairs when Alex emerged from the bathroom, a sky-blue towel around his waist. Post-exercise fatigue. He made her think of a tiger, that slinky muscular shamble. There was a V of blond hairs on the small of his back. She wanted to touch him. The feeling scared her, the way it rose up with no warning, the body’s hunger. Because she loved the game, the tension in the air, but she found the act itself vaguely disgusting, André’s eyes rolling back like he was having a seizure, the greasy condom on the carpet like a piece of mouse intestine. Alex turned and looked at her. She smiled. Hello, sailor. Then turned away.
♦
Dominic sat beside Angela on the bench. There was a scattering of crumbs on the lawn, a couple of sparrows picking at them, and another bird he didn’t recognise. This’ll be good for us, I think. Being here.
It’s a lovely place.
That’s not what I meant.
I know.
He remembered a time when they really talked, sitting by the river, lying in that tiny bedroom naked after making love, faded psycheledic wallpaper and the Billie Holiday poster. Both eager to know more about this other life of which they’d become a part. But now? They weren’t even friends any more, just co-parents. He wanted to tell her about Amy, to relieve the pressure in his chest, because he was scared, because he had begun to notice the frayed curtains and the smell of cigarettes in Amy’s house and the need in her voice. He had assumed at first that the whole thing was no more than a distraction from lives lived elsewhere, but this wasn’t a distraction for her, was it? This was her life, this dimly lit bedroom in the middle of the afternoon, and the secret door was in truth the entrance to a darker dirtier world from which he wouldn’t be able to return without paying a considerable price. But was it really so bad to have looked for affection elsewhere? They had both been unfaithful in their way. To have and to hold, to love and to cherish. When had they last done these things? He wouldn’t tell Angela, would he? He would live with it until the discomfort faded and lying became normal.
Poor Benjy. She examined the inside of her mug. He was talking about us dying. You know, who would get all the stuff in the house.
He seems to like it here, though. Because this was what they did. They acted like a real family. Perhaps it was what most people did. How are you and your brother bonding?