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She didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. She no longer knew how to connect with her son.
It was the first time Aishe had admitted this to herself but she didn’t feel like awarding herself points for honesty. Instead she felt a brief surge of panic, a sensation she knew quickly led to another emotion: anger. When she was angry, she wanted to take it out on someone. But, again, no points for honesty, isn’t that how this started?
Twenty minutes ago, Aishe had come home after the morning waitressing shift she did four days a week at the Country Kitchen truck stop café, which was two towns up the line. It wasn’t a job she particularly liked and it paid a pittance. But it did pay, and Aishe liked having even that little bit of extra money. Without it, there would be no tacos, no visits to her local café. There would only be enough for Benedict.
Sorry, Frank, she thought. She should have been smarter with the money he left her. And she should never have yelled at Gulliver. But she’d had to smile and pour coffee for one too many smirking handsy men that morning. If she hadn’t, perhaps she’d have been able to overlook the damn plate.
The plate in question had been perched on the back of the couch. Aishe had spotted it the instant she stepped through the door. Aishe’s house had once been a woodcutter’s cabin, and although it had been modernised some years back, it was still tiny. The front door opened onto a small square of stone tiles. To the left, against the wall, were the stairs that led up to two bedrooms and a bathroom. Straight ahead was the living room, big enough to hold only a two-seater couch, a bookshelf and a low table for the television. Beyond the living room was the kitchen. That had been extended, which meant that unlike every other room in the house it was big enough for more than two people.
Because the house was so small, Aishe had strict rules about clutter. There was to be none. Gulliver could do what he liked in his bedroom; she’d long since decided that battle wasn’t worth fighting. But downstairs, he had to keep things tidy. No sports bags dumped by the front door. No sweatshirts draped over the furniture. No dishes in the living room.
She placed her car keys in the bowl on the end of the bookshelf and listened. There was no sound from upstairs, which only increased her annoyance. Gulliver and Benedict were probably surfing the internet, looking at the sites which seemed to be the basis of all their in-jokes. Aishe was too proud to ask to see these sites, but she burned every time they said ‘I’mma head out’ or ‘Yeet!’.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she’d been irritated enough to ask once.
‘Memes,’ Gulliver had replied. Aishe was none the wiser.
As she’d climbed the stairs, a little voice had whispered that what she was about to do was possibly not all that wise. She’d ignored it, thrown open Gulliver’s bedroom door and yelled at him to shift the bloody plate from the couch.
Usually, an instruction so voiced got him up and moving. Resentfully, grudgingly, but he would always move. This time, what he did was yell back.
‘You’re a mental case!’ he’d shouted. ‘I mean, what the fuck! It’s a plate.’ He’d snatched his sweatshirt out of a pile of clothes on his bed and shoved past her.
Aishe had been so taken aback by the yelling and the swearing — she was the only one who cussed up a storm — that she’d watched in silence as he’d run down the stairs, wrenched open the front door and slammed it hard behind him.
She no longer know how to talk to him . . .
Behind her, in the bedroom, she heard someone blow out a breath. Oh great, she thought as she turned around. I’m about to get a patronising sermon. What a treat.
Benedict was sitting on Gulliver’s bed. He had a textbook in his hand. Calculus. They had been working, Aishe realised. At least it couldn’t possibly make her feel any worse.
‘Would you like to go and get a cup of coffee?’ he said.
Aishe wasn’t sure she heard right. ‘What?’
‘Coffee? Java? Cup of joe?’
‘You’re offering to buy me coffee?’
Benedict screwed up his mouth. ‘Well, maybe not buy, exactly. But I’m more than happy to go Dutch.’
‘You do realise I’ve spent all morning pouring the goddamn stuff into mugs for men who think it’s OK to ogle my tits and slap my rear?’
Benedict said, ‘We can sit at different tables, if you like?’
Aishe eyed him narrowly, but he didn’t seem to be taking the mickey. Her shoulders slumped and she leaned her forehead against the door frame.
‘I fucked up,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing it a lot lately.’
‘I could give you some advice?’
Aishe’s head shot up. ‘And I could tell you where to put your advice?’
‘I was once a fourteen-year-old boy,’ said Benedict. ‘It was a while ago, I admit. But not so long that I can’t remember.’ He offered her a smile. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten what it was like to be fourteen?’
Aishe shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t forgotten.’ Her lips tightened. ‘But if he starts becoming anything like I was at that age, I may seriously have to consider sterilising him.’
‘Coffee?’ said Benedict.
Why not, thought Aishe. If she was going to have to practice being more tolerant, she may as well start now.
The small township was no more than half a mile away, so they decided to walk. It was a beautiful day. It was dry and a pleasant temperature, not too hot. The street was lined with trees, mainly tall, straight redwoods, whose roots ruptured the asphalt and trunks spread out to narrow both street and pavement.
‘Am I the only one who thinks it smells amazing here? Aishe asked. ‘Our garden back home in London had lilac bushes and lime trees, but this smells better. Fresher. Herby, almost.’
‘Almost is right.’ Benedict pointed upwards. ‘Those big trees there are California bays, a relation of your common or garden culinary bay. They grow large but have a very shallow taproot. It doesn’t make them terribly stable in high winds.’
Aishe raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t strike me as a tree-hugger.’
‘I started a horticultural course once,’ Benedict replied. ‘In Sweden.’
‘Started?’
‘You know, most people would have latched onto the Sweden part of that sentence.’
‘I’ve been to Sweden,’ Aishe said. ‘Apart from the times they get rat-arsed and naked, it’s a seriously anal country.’
‘Cold, too. I froze my Knuts off most of the time.’
‘Is that why you didn’t stay?’ Aishe said. ‘Couldn’t cope with the winters?’
Benedict glanced upwards as a blue jay’s strident call rang out above them. ‘No. I simply had a desire to stay one step ahead.’
‘Of what?’ Aishe said.
‘Not what,’ said Benedict. ‘Whom.’
‘Interpol on your tail?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Benedict. ‘Much, much worse than that.’
Now, he must be taking the mickey, Aishe decided. But before she could accuse him of it, they were hailed from behind — ‘Hola!’ — and a man on a recumbent bicycle pedalled past them, his legs stretched out, his face at the height of their thighs. Benedict caught a glimpse of salt-and-pepper hair and large, mournful brown eyes offset by a wide, cheery smile.
‘Hola, Angel,’ Aishe called as he passed.
‘Who on earth was that?’ Benedict frowned.
‘Angel.’
‘Yes, I’d worked that bit out. It was you calling him Angel that gave me the clue.’
Aishe ignored him. ‘He owns a bunch of houses around here. I hang out with him at the café sometimes. Him and his mates.’
Benedict stared down the road, where the bright yellow flag attached to the recumbent bike’s seat could be seen waving jauntily. ‘Does he genuinely believe that’s a reasonable way to travel?’
‘He enjoys it, I suppose.’ Aishe shrugged. ‘And he doesn’t give a shit what people think of him, which also helps.’
They had reached the intersection of the tree-lined road and the township’s main street. The café was almost directly across from them. On one side of it were an interior designer’s showroom and a chichi store that stocked French provincial home wares. On the other was a bar called The Silver Saddle, which had Harley Davidson motorcycles outside and spittoons inside. These contrasts were one of the reasons Aishe had chosen to live in this town, out of all of the pretty places that Marin County had to offer. She liked that it had everything a small town should: a decent library, a functioning post office and a well-used town hall. It had an authentic Mexican takeout, a laundrette and a donut shop. But amid the normality were numerous examples of what Aishe liked to call Californeurosis: stores selling the kind of small cushions that have no function other than to take up space. A cake shop so pretentious and expensive that there were often queues out the door. And, Aishe’s personal favourite, the plastic surgery clinic, which was not hidden away down a side alley, but in full view on the main street, directly across from the café. No matter how badly she aged, Aishe decided, there was no way she’d start down the road that led to the taut, shiny, joker-mouthed look that made it obvious all your wrinkled old facial skin had been pulled sharply backwards and pinned behind your head.
‘After you—’
Benedict was holding open the café door.
Aishe rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not your maiden aunt.’
‘That is very true,’ he replied. ‘Shall I go first, then?’
‘Of course not,’ said Aishe, and went on through.
Benedict had not been in this café before. Then again, he’d not been in any café because he had no money. It was pleasantly basic inside, with no attempt at any decorating theme. Chairs like those you found in schoolrooms before the advent of ergonomics had been painted in bright colours and set against plain, chunky wooden tables. On the walls were a few old movie posters and a large, framed photograph of Guadalajara. The menu featured nothing but the staples: burgers, fries, waffles, pie, coffee. But the prices, Benedict noted with relief, did not include the usual nosebleed Marin premium.
At three-thirty on a weekday, the place had only a smattering of customers. Benedict guessed that at this time, Marin schoolchildren were being picked up and driven to whatever after-school activities their parents insisted on. Mornings most likely belonged to the retired, which left mid-afternoons as the dead zone. Apart from three men at a table in the corner, Benedict and Aishe were the only ones here.
Benedict glanced over at the men and saw mournful eyes under salt-and-pepper hair. He nudged Aishe. ‘There’s your friend. The barmy biker.’
‘I know. Gracias, Xavier.’ Aishe took her change from the young man behind the counter, and left a tip, Benedict noted. ‘We’ll get our coffees and go sit with them.’
Benedict eyed the three men dubiously. With tall Angel were a short, round man with a pink face, white curly hair and twinkling eyes, who looked for all the world like Santa Claus going beardless and incognito in the off-season, and an even shorter, rounder man with black hair and boot-button eyes, who was wearing a beret. The trio, Benedict decided, looked like they had been drawn for a Tintin comic.
‘I thought we were here for me to offer you advice,’ Benedict said to Aishe.
Aishe gave him a straight stare. ‘I grew up with three brothers, remember? I know what teenage boys are like. And I know my own son better than anyone. You’ve known Gulliver all of five minutes. What advice can you possibly give me about our relationship?’
It was a fair enough question, if delivered somewhat antagonistically.
‘I know what it’s like to feel – powerless,’ he said.
It was the wrong thing to say. But possibly anything would have been. Kipling had warned about threatened mothers.
‘Powerless?’ said Aishe. ‘You’re saying I’m too controlling?’
‘Not exact—’
‘That I should let a fourteen-year old boy fend for himself – kick him out on the street, so he can live life on his own terms?’
‘Now, that’s just—’
‘So he can sift uselessly around the world like you’ve been doing?’
‘Sift?’ That was below the belt.
‘I’ve seen your resume, remember?’ said Aishe. ‘Jobs, countries – you’ve hopped around more than Jiminy Cricket. And I suspect now that it wasn’t the whole story. I don’t recall seeing any mention of Swedish horticulture.’
‘That wasn’t a job, so there was no need to include it in my CV.’ Protest might be fruitless but he had his dignity. ‘And “hopping around” as you put it doesn’t make me a sifter. I’ve worked hard at every job I’ve taken.’
‘Anyone can work hard for twenty seconds,’ said Aishe.
‘I had a good reason for leaving,’ said Benedict. ‘Every time.’
‘So you said.’ Aishe’s expression was sceptical. ‘Staying one step ahead. How long before you step away from here then?’
Xavier nodded to indicate their coffees waiting on the counter.
‘I don’t need advice,’ said Aishe. ‘I need cheering up.’ She picked up her coffee. ‘I’m going to sit with Angel. Join me if you want, or not. Your choice.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s actually Hobson’s,’ Benedict murmured as he followed her over.
‘Who is this?’ Angel asked Aishe. ‘Your hot young lover?’
‘Benedict Hardy.’ He spoke quickly. ‘Son’s tutor. More lukewarm.’
Santa Claus Man reached out a hand. ‘Welcome, Benedict,’ he said. His accent was English. ‘I’m Malcolm. May I introduce my associates, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?’
‘Ha!’ Angel gave a shout of laughter. ‘Yes, it is I! The Man of La Mancha! Tilting at the windmills always. Is that not right, my good friend?’ he said to the small, dark man beside him, who stared back at him but made no reply. Angel shrugged. ‘He speak no English. Miguel. He is from the Pyrenees. A Basque.’
‘Miguel was at a Basque convention recently,’ said Malcolm. ‘There was a fire alarm and everyone had to vacate the building. Trouble is, they all piled into one doorway and got stuck.’
He paused and stared at Benedict, who, wondering how on earth to respond, glanced at Aishe. She was smiling and shaking her head.
‘Oh, I see,’ Benedict said to Malcolm. ‘There’s a punchline coming, isn’t there? Let me guess—’ He thought for a moment, and then winced. ‘Oh, no. Is it: don’t put all your Basques in one exit?’
‘Well done,’ said Malcolm. ‘Though your delivery could have been a little more enthusiastic.’
‘It’ll be the joke about the identical twins next,’ said Aishe. ‘You have been warned.’
Benedict looked around at the three men, none of them born in America. ‘Why did you choose to live here, if I may ask?’
‘I came for a woman,’ said Angel. ‘The love of my life, she is here.’
‘Me, too,’ said Malcolm. ‘Not the same woman, mind you. That would make our friendship somewhat tricky.’
‘But not impossible,’ Angel told him. ‘I am very forgiving. It is because I am a Catholic. We love to forgive and be forgiven.’
‘Did you hear the Pope’s paedophilia adviser was arrested for paedophilia?’ Malcolm remarked.
Angel shrugged. ‘Well, you cannot say he did not know his stuff.’
Benedict saw Aishe check her watch, and guessed that she wanted to go back home and see if Gulliver was there. It was possible. Gulliver, like Angel, seemed to find it easy to forgive. God knows where he got that from. His mother was as forgiving as one of the heritage redwoods.
She stood up — ‘Gotta go, guys. Nice seeing you’ — and was at the door before Benedict could react.
‘She is a woman of action,’ said Angel. ‘Myself, I am Spanish. We do not rush.’
‘You’re also very old,’ said Malcolm.
‘That is true,’ Angel acknowledged. ‘But once, I was like the hot young lover here.’
‘Who needs to get a move on,’ said Malcolm. ‘Or he’ll never catch up with her.’
Benedict didn’t run. Sprinting down urban streets too often drew unwanted attention. As such, he didn’t expect to catch up with Aishe until he was back at her house. But then he saw her, dawdling by a small clearing, staring across the road towards the children’s playground under a canopy of redwoods. As Benedict approached, her gaze snapped to him as if she’d been caught out doing something illicit. Benedict glanced over at the playground but could see nothing but exactly what you’d expect to see: a mother and two small children.
‘You can call it a day,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’
Her look said she was very sure.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll catch the bus home.’
Aishe blinked, as if the thought that he might have a home had just occurred to her.
‘How far do you have to go?’ she asked.
‘Not far.’
Benedict had no desire to give details about his living arrangements.
But then, to his surprise, she said, ‘Thanks for inviting me for coffee.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he replied. ‘Your friends didn’t seem to mind when you ran off.’
Aishe stared off across the road again. ‘No, they’re used to me being socially graceless.’ She turned her gaze back on Benedict. ‘Does it bother you?’
Privately, Benedict thought that there were many worse ways to treat people than showing them a little bluntness and discourtesy.
But he said, ‘Most people prefer to be treated politely, don’t they?’
‘Most people?’ Aishe raised an eyebrow. ‘In my experience “most people” aspire to marriage, two-point-five children and a steady job. Comfort, security, stability, a smooth ride from cradle to grave. I’m not saying that’s what they get, but it’s what they want. Which means I don’t think either of us are like “most people”. Do you?’
Benedict was caught. This was the first time Aishe had shown any willingness to connect. But should he take this conversation further, use this opening as an opportunity to bare all? Could he tell her that tutoring Gulliver was the best job he’d had for years. Gulliver was smart, funny and interested in learning. He was also just old enough to feel like a friend, and Benedict had not had one of those since school. Could he admit that he was drawn to Aishe like no woman he’d ever met, that under her spiky exterior, he could see flashes of vulnerability and need that corresponded to his own? Could he tell her the truth about his past?
Benedict realised it had been a while since Aishe had asked her question. She’d hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and was staring at him, unsmiling, her head on one side.
He could tell her everything. But if it all came out, she’d know how desperate he was. She’d know the depths of his cowardice. He was low enough in Aishe’s estimation already.
Benedict hitched his satchel further up on his shoulder.
‘My bus is due,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Aishe watched as his long stride took him quickly to the corner and around it, out of sight. She wondered briefly about why he’d avoided her question. He was afraid of something, she decided. But any curiosity she had in what Benedict could be afraid of was instantly shouted down in her mind by mistrust and suspicion. She disliked slippery people. She wanted character and honesty and substance. That’s what Frank had. But then, Frank may well have been unique.
A small voice, one she suspected was the last surviving echo of Frank, questioned whether she, too, was guilty of running. No. She’d never run away; she’d just chosen not to be around anymore. She’d never slipped out in the dead of night, never hidden her intentions. Everyone always knew when she was leaving. And if they hadn’t got up early enough to say goodbye — well, that wasn’t her fault.
Aishe’s gaze travelled back across the road to the children’s playground. The woman was about her age but her children were years younger than Gulliver. She was very pretty, with a fiercely straight-cut black bob and an equally fierce frown that suggested she was either concentrating hard or thinking of something that infuriated her. She was pushing a baby, a girl by the looks, in one of those secure infant swings. She wouldn’t have pushed a child that young that hard, thought Aishe, but judging by the gleeful shrieks, the baby seemed to be loving it.
The woman’s second child was a handsome blonde boy of about three or four. He was sitting on the ground, slowly pushing a yellow plastic truck through the leaves and dusty dirt. He was completely absorbed in the task, so much so that he didn’t seem to hear when his mother said, in an accent Aishe couldn’t place, ‘Right, you two! Time to go.’
She put her hands under the baby’s armpits, whereupon the little girl immediately stiffened and began to shriek in protest. Aishe saw the woman, with a firm tug, pop the baby clear of the swing like a cork from a wine bottle. She carried the yelling infant to the stroller, whereupon the little girl arched her body into a rigid bow and refused to sit. Clearly well practised at dealing with her small daughter’s temper, the woman deftly wrapped the stroller’s straps around the child and pulled them tight, forcing her to collapse into the seat. Ignoring the bellows of rage, the woman then pushed the stroller up to where her son was still steering the yellow truck around in a circle.
‘Come on, Harry,’ she said to him and, without waiting, began to push the stroller down the path that led out of the playground. Harry, Aishe observed, did not move, did not even seem to notice his mother was quickly putting distance between them. The woman got all the way down the length of the playground, at which point she stopped, turned and yelled, ‘Harry!’
Harry’s head shot up and Aishe saw his eyes widen, his lower lip begin to tremble. ‘Mom-mee!’ he wailed. ‘Wai-ait!’ He scrambled to his feet, clutching the truck, and began to run down the path, sturdy, chubby legs pumping as fast as he could make them. His mother tapped her foot as she waited, but when he reached her, she bent down and gave him a hug and a kiss.
As they walked off slowly down the road, Aishe saw Harry tuck the truck under one arm and reach up his free hand to take hold of the edge of his mother’s jacket. Feeling this, the woman shifted her grip on the stroller bar so she should push it one-handed. She loosened her son’s hold on her jacket and took his small hand in hers.
To her astonishment, Aishe felt her breathing quicken, as if tears were imminent. She was not one for crying, couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had a really good weep. She was never the kid who ran bawling to Daddy if another kid was mean to her, she thought. She was the one who punched the mean kid right in the face. Anger had always been her response of choice. So why did she feel like she was about to cry right now?
The small, possibly Frank-like voice said: Because you know those days are gone forever. Those days when your son worshipped you, when he loved you uncritically, unconditionally. When he was wholly and completely yours.
She’d never hold Gulliver’s hand like that again, thought Aishe. And she wasn’t sure she could bear it.