The new school isn’t that bad. It’s bigger than the one I was at in London, with a very grand-looking manor house feel to it. Fitting in to a year group that already knows each other made me a bit nervous at first, but I’m glad I sort of know Jonathan by the time term begins. He and I saw each other at the leisure centre a few more times before the holidays finished, and I’m relieved when I find out he’s in some of my classes and can show me where to go.
At lunchtime, a few weeks into the new term, he tells me his mum had said to ask me if our families fancied sharing lifts. ‘She says it’s silly, us going in the same direction each day, so if your mum was OK with it, we could do one way and your mum or dad could do the other.’
I’m not really sure what to reply since this is very much my mum’s area of things rather than mine. Part of me wonders why Jonathan’s mum hasn’t just spoken to my mum about it herself, considering they live opposite. But I like the idea, so I just tell him it sounds great. There are some mornings I choose to walk, if I’m up early enough, although I’ve become more exhausted as term’s gone on and decide a definite lift would be a good thing to rely on, especially when it starts to get properly cold. I’m about to turn back to go down the science corridor and wait outside my next class, but Jonathan isn’t finished.
‘Also… do you want to come over? Tomorrow night? To watch a movie and have tea?’
Once again, his words make me think of a child, as if we’re both still in primary school. But there isn’t much else to do around here, and the idea of finally setting foot in the Franklins’ house makes my heart leap a little. Perhaps Mimi will be there, having dinner with us, keen to start up a conversation with me, the boy next door. Well, the boy opposite.
‘Yeah… er, what’s tomorrow? Friday? Yeah, I think that’s fine. I’ll check tonight and message you.’
The meal is tense. Awkward doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’d become used to Janet Franklin talking away, mostly to herself, when it was her day to pick me and Jonathan up from school, and I thought she seemed nice-ish, if a bit, well, bonkers. I started to wonder if the things she said were chosen so I would mention them to my parents – like them planning a big new conservatory extension, or a new fridge-freezer arriving. Things like that. I honestly couldn’t care less, but I nod along politely. I assumed dinner would be the same sort of thing, only with (I hoped) more Mimi. And Mimi is present. But so is Jonathan’s father. And that’s when things become tense.
Jonathan and I watch a film in his room first. It’s smaller than mine, but has a homely, warm feel to it, as if it is well lived in. I’m still getting used to living in a different place, after spending years in our London flat. Halfway into the movie, a loud bell sounds and Jonathan starts to get up. ‘Dinner,’ he mutters, then adds, ‘I wish she wouldn’t ring that thing.’
I laugh. ‘I’m impressed you have a dinner bell. My parents just shout up the stairs.’
‘My mum does too,’ he says. ‘She only rings that when guests are round. It’s embarrassing.’
I don’t comment on this. I can understand why it would be embarrassing, but it doesn’t exactly surprise me based on my experience of Janet Franklin so far.
At the table, Mimi is already seated, typing on her phone. I hadn’t seen her upon my entry to the house so it’s a bit of a jolt to find her there, in the flesh, looking as stunning as ever. She looks up at me, gives me the most fleeting of looks, says, ‘Hey,’ with a soul-crushing sense of boredom, then returns to her phone. I feel myself going red.
‘Take a seat, boys!’ Janet calls out from the kitchen in a dramatic sort of way, as if she were in a pantomime. ‘Dinner is served.’
I think I hear Mimi tut as I take the vacant place next to her. For a second, I wonder if it was aimed at me, then realise it has something to do with her mother. A split second later, Janet swoops into the dining room and sets a large baking dish onto a collection of table mats in the middle.
‘Lasagne,’ she says, as if it were a grand statement.
Mimi tuts again and leans forwards, picks up the large serving spoon next to the dish of still bubbling lasagne, and begins to hack into it, dropping some onto her plate, all the while looking at the mixture of meat and pasta as if she can’t believe she’s about to eat it.
I see another spare space opposite Mimi. Jonathan’s father isn’t sitting with us. I’ve only ever been near him twice: the first during that strange meeting where he asked Jonathan and me to shake hands, and another when he had to pick me and Jonathan up from school, but he’d barely said anything in the car – just listened to some politics programme on Radio 4 the whole time.
Janet seems to guess what I’m thinking and says as she sits down, ‘Richard’s been delayed with a work call in his study.’ Something about the way her lips go very thin after she says this suggests she isn’t exactly happy about her husband being late for the meal she’s cooked.
Mimi rolls her eyes. ‘Up in his den. I swear, if any movie people come to make a horror film in Kent, we’d earn a tonne renting that place out. Dark, free from daylight…’
‘Stop talking nonsense,’ snaps Janet, ‘it does have daylight.’
‘Yes,’ Jonathan says, ‘a mirror. Facing the street.’ There’s something a little odd about the way he says this, as if he’s making a point, but it’s lost on me.
‘Oh, come on. Regardless, there’s a definite dodgy vibe to the place,’ Mimi continues. ‘I’m sure I could put it to much better use if the attic were mine.’
‘Well, it isn’t,’ her mum says bluntly. ‘And if you don’t like the way your father keeps it, then don’t go up there.’
Mimi makes a half-laugh, half-tutting sound, and sighs in a bored sort of way. ‘Gosh, would I? None of us are allowed, are we?’ To my delight and horror, she transfers her attention to me and says ‘It’s his lair. We’re banned from it. That’s what we’ll tell the police when they find the bodies inside the walls. I saw a documentary about that once. About a man who killed all these people – ramblers, I think they were, somewhere foreign – took them home, wrapped them in polythene and bricked them up in the attic so that nobody would—’
‘Stop showing off in front of our guest,’ Janet says, her face now white with outrage.
‘He’s not my guest, Mother,’ she says, putting her head on one side, examining me as if I’m a mildly interesting animal. ‘Where have you come from again?’ she asks before picking up a small forkful of lasagne and dropping it into her mouth.
Before I can answer, her mother cuts in once again. ‘Mimi, that sounds a bit… I don’t know… rude.’
‘Why?’ She shrugs.
‘I don’t mind,’ I say, also shrugging, trying my best to seem carefree and interesting at the same time. ‘I’m from across the street.’
Mimi rolls her eyes, which makes me think her mum may have a point about the rudeness. ‘I mean, where did you come from before you moved here.’ She emphasises her words as if she’s dealing with a child. I feel myself going red again.
‘Oh, er… Pimlico.’
‘That’s in London, Mimi,’ Janet says.
‘I know Pimlico’s in fucking London, Mother,’ she says, giving her biggest eye roll yet.
Janet drops her knife and fork with a clatter. ‘Language, Mimi. That isn’t appropriate.’
There’s a noise of someone walking in from the hallway behind me, then Richard Franklin appears, tall and birdlike, with a fed-up expression on his face. ‘Sorry,’ he says, though he doesn’t sound it. ‘Meeting overran.’
‘The food’s in the centre of the table,’ Janet says, stating the blindingly obvious. ‘It will be cold now, but there we go.’
The steam that drifts up from the large spoonful Richard ladles onto his plate proves her wrong on this, although nothing is said about it. We all sit there, chewing away in silence, until Richard then says. ‘What was inappropriate?’
Janet frowns at her husband. ‘Sorry?’
‘Before I walked in, you said something wasn’t appropriate.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Mimi used some offensive language.’
‘It wasn’t offensive,’ Mimi says, making a scoffing sound.
‘Maybe she picked it up from her brother’s room the other day,’ Richard says, staring now at his son. ‘I was walking past his door when I heard a burst of very foul language. It sounded like a bunch of louts shouting about something.’
I glance at Jonathan and see him looking outraged. ‘I told you, that was a YouTube video.’
‘Ah yes,’ Richard says, nodding grimly. ‘Your football obsession. Are you into football, Daniel?’
I’m impressed he’s got my name right, even if he does still use the longer form. ‘Er… it’s all right. I’m not massively into it.’
‘Jonathan here is,’ Richard says, and there is something slightly sneering about the way he says it. I know Jonathan follows teams and matches with far more attention than I do, and I haven’t really given it much thought, but by the way his father is talking about it anyone would think it’s something to be ashamed of.
‘Danny probably focuses more on his studies,’ Janet says, now apparently keen to join in, ‘unlike some I could mention.’ She does a very obvious lean forwards to look at Jonathan, who now has his eyes on his plate, as if wishing he were anywhere else.
I look around at Richard and Janet, then back at Jonathan. I feel like saying something in his defence, but nothing comes to me, because what I see in the eyes of Richard and Janet scares me. That’s the best word for it. I find it scary. Scary how two parents can so openly dislike their own children, and not be afraid to show it.
All of this becomes even stranger when I’m getting ready to go home. Jonathan had muttered something about going to put his shoes on to walk with me across the road. I tell him it’s fine, I can easily walk across to my house myself, but I get the feeling he wants to talk to me away from his parents. But Jonathan leaves me waiting in the hallway for a long time, making me wonder if I should just leave or go and find him to tell him I’m not waiting any longer. After over ten minutes have gone by, I decide I might just go and say to whoever I could find that I’m leaving and thank them for tea. I pass through the empty lounge and the equally deserted dining room until I come to the door at the far end. From the sounds of it, there’s some heated discussion being thrashed out inside. I step a little closer until I can hear the words quite plainly.
‘And now on to the History homework, which reaches a new level of stupidity. I mean, I’m slightly shocked I have a son who has reached his mid-teens without knowing how capital letters work. Magna Carta. Capital M, Capital C.’
‘I know,’ replies a small voice. Jonathan’s.
The other, apparently his father, carries on. ‘You clearly don’t know, otherwise the essay wouldn’t be littered with errors. In fact, the only time you have capitalised the M is the instance where you referred to it as the “Magnum Carter”. But I’m sure I’m probably wasting my time telling you all this. In one ear and out the other.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jonathan says, his voice so quiet I can barely here it. But even so (and perhaps I imagined it), I feel I can hear a whole lifetime of sorrow and resentment and sadness bottled up in those two words.
‘Christ, you’re pathetic,’ his father says sneeringly. ‘Just leave. And take this with you.’
I dash to the door and find my way back to the hallway, hoping my quick footsteps haven’t been heard. If they were, Jonathan doesn’t say anything when he steps into sight seconds later, with what appear to be some printed sheets of A4 clutched in his hand. He doesn’t say anything about his conversation with his father about his homework, nor do I ask. In fact, he doesn’t say anything at all as we walk across the street, the air chilling and misty, our footsteps the only sound in the quiet neighbourhood. ‘I guess I’ll see you on Monday,’ I say, turning to him as we reach my drive. ‘Thanks for tea.’ He just nods and attempts a smile, but it doesn’t really form properly on his face. Then he turns and walks back towards his home.
Later, Mum asks me what dinner at the Franklins’ was like. I think about it all for a bit before I answer, then tell her that I don’t think they’re a very happy family. ‘Not like us,’ I say. ‘We’re a laugh compared to them.’
Mum tries to ask me what went on to make me think they weren’t happy.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘It just feels like something… something not quite right is going on there… The way Jonathan’s dad talks to him… and the way Mimi speaks to her mother, and the way her mother looks at her…’ I trail off. I don’t want to go into it and I’m aware it will probably sound like nothing if I try to put it into words. Many families have squabbles at the dinner table. I know that. But there was something about the chill in the air at the Franklins’ house that I really don’t like.
Hatred – that’s what it was. There was hatred there.
And it left a nasty taste.