Dinner wasn’t exactly the most tempting meal of Dan’s life. The sausages were blackened. The mash was lumpy, the carrots woody and underdone. ‘This is dis-gusting,’ pouted Bea, her eyelashes still spangled with tears.
‘It’s pretty gross,’ agreed Gabe, who had curly brown hair and wore a mud-smeared football kit. He added a massive splodge of ketchup to his mash and stirred it together. ‘Pink mash. Yuck,’ he said, with undisguised glee. ‘Now it looks like a road accident. Brains everywhere.’
‘Gabe,’ said Ethan. ‘Shut up.’
‘Make me,’ jeered Gabe, holding up a fork full of pink mash and letting it drop in soft, wet dollops onto the plate. ‘Braaaaains,’ he crowed, sneaking a look at his brother.
Ethan scowled and Dan found himself wondering where Zoe was and how long she intended to stay away. Also whether his woefully late appearance at the door had been the final straw after the worst three weeks of her life.
Bea pushed her plate back in mutiny and Dan felt compelled to act fast, before the meal plunged to even more dismal depths. ‘This is a fairly rubbish dinner,’ he said, before quickly adding, ‘My fault – not your mum’s’, in case anyone saw fit to dob him in for it later. ‘So where’s the nearest chip shop round here?’
His words were like a magic spell, as all three of their heads whipped round towards him. Yes, okay, he was desperate, and guilt had made him a pushover.
‘It’s on Sandycombe Road,’ said Ethan. ‘Like, five minutes’ walk? Four, if we’re quick.’
‘Are we really going to have chips?’ asked Bea, with an air of faint suspicion. ‘Actually really and truly?’
‘CHIPS!’ cheered Gabe, who seemed to have no such doubts. He stabbed his knife and fork vertically into the revolting pink mash, then leapt off his chair and struck a superhero pose. ‘CHIPS TO THE RESCUE!’
His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Chips are my actual favourite!’ Bea squealed. Even Ethan jumped up from the table with a newly eager air.
‘What are we waiting for?’ asked Dan, and they abandoned the rubbish dinner and set off. First lesson in childcare: buy them off with fried food, he thought, with a wince as they headed along the road, hoping very much that they wouldn’t bump into Zoe on her way back. Sorry, Zoe. Sorry, Patrick. Just filling your kids up with grease and salt because I couldn’t even manage to keep the sausages from catching fire. Looking on the bright side, though, I didn’t burn the house down, right? Not yet, anyway!
Still, at least everyone had cheered up. Bea was skipping and twirling around each lamp post singing about chicken nuggets, while Gabe gave Dan a lengthy account of that afternoon’s school football club. He seemed to have scored about eighteen goals, according to his version of events, including several headers, an overhead kick and one from the halfway line. ‘Unbelievable,’ Dan said each time, which about summed it up.
Ethan was the only one who was silent and Dan shot him a look. ‘Everything all right, E?’ he asked.
Gabe, interrupted from a story about an amazing volley that had resulted in him getting his first hat-trick, glanced across at his brother. ‘Oh,’ he said, scrunching up his nose. There was something appealingly Just William-ish about Gabe, with his unruly springy hair and freckles, plus his almost permanent air of dishevelment. ‘It’s cos I’m talking about football. It makes him really angry. Because he’s got anger-management problems. And—’
‘Shut up, dumb-arse,’ said Ethan, elbowing him, whereupon Gabe promptly jostled him back.
‘See?’ he cried, dodging away as Ethan glowered and made a proper swing for him. ‘See that, Uncle Dan? Anger. Issues. That’s what his teacher told Mum. And I – ow! See? And now he’s hitting me.’
‘Come on, less of that,’ Dan said, to no effect whatsoever. ‘Boys!’ He was relieved to see the lights of the chip shop ahead, like a welcome beacon, as the two of them began scuffling in earnest. Gabe had always had a knack of winding his older brother up, but Ethan looked positively murderous this time as he hit out at Gabe.
‘Enough, you two, we’re here now, pack it in,’ Dan said, grabbing them both and pulling them apart. ‘Right then, guys – what do you all want?’
‘I’m not a guy actually,’ Bea reminded him. ‘But I would like chicken nuggets and chips, please, Uncle Dan.’
Ethan was still white in the face, whereas Gabe looked sweatily bullish. Clearly the magic offered by a bag of chips couldn’t solve everything, although the two boys did stop trying to punch each other long enough to mumble their requests at least. Small mercies.
Back at the house, as everyone tucked in with rather more appetite, Dan kept glancing over at the clock as it ticked through the minutes, with no sign of Zoe’s return. He had one ear tuned to the sound of the front door while the kids chatted, wondering if she still accidentally listened out for Patrick coming home at this time of day. You would, wouldn’t you? Some habits were so ingrained they were muscle-memory, wired into your cells. After Rebecca left, Dan hadn’t been able to sleep in the empty bed because he kept waiting for her to get in beside him. He still thought about her on what had been their wedding anniversary and her birthday, the memories less painful every year but bittersweet nonetheless. But anyway. He was trying his best to keep her out of his head, especially after . . .
Don’t go there, he told himself quickly. He had wasted enough time agonizing over her lately.
It was half-past six once they’d finished eating. Now what? Dan wondered. Would Zoe be back before the kids’ bedtime or was he meant to do that too? ‘Does anyone have any homework?’ he asked, at which their faces fell. ‘Or we could play a game of something?’ he added hastily.
Ethan sloped off upstairs, whereas Gabe claimed he needed to ‘finish the level’ of the Thor game he’d been glued to on the Xbox earlier, which left Bea, who told Dan that she did want to play something: unicorns. This involved Dan crawling around the playroom while Bea rode imperiously on his back, occasionally casting spells that allowed them to fly to various magical lands together. She seemed so much more cheerful that he didn’t dare complain about the friction burns he could foresee appearing on his hands, although he did feel tremendous relief when Gabe called through to say that it was seven o’clock and bedtime for ‘baby Bea’. After the inevitable argument with her brother about how she wasn’t a baby, and he was a pig, actually, she eventually acquiesced and trudged upstairs. Childcare was exhausting, thought Dan, as he supervised his niece’s teeth-brushing in the bathroom a short while later. How had Zoe managed to deal with this alone, day after day? Managing the turbulence of her children’s grief on top of her own, soldiering miserably through each long evening without her husband there – it seemed unthinkable. Barely possible.
‘Oh, am I meant to be giving you a bath?’ he asked, belatedly noticing a line of animal flannels along the edge of the tub.
‘Hmm,’ said Bea, through a mouthful of foaming toothpaste. ‘Usually I have a bath, then brush my teeth. You got it wrong actually, Uncle Dan.’
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Never mind. You can go to sleep stinky this once, I’m sure.’
‘Girls don’t stink,’ Bea told him, outraged. ‘Anyway,’ she went on as if something had just occurred to her. ‘How can I sleep without a story from Mummy?’ She rinsed her toothbrush and made a big show of spitting flamboyantly into the sink. ‘And the Daddy song?’
‘What’s the Daddy song?’ Dan asked, following her into the very pink, bunting-adorned princess kingdom that was her bedroom. The walls, the curtains, the carpet all glowed a warm rosy hue, with a sparkly fairy-tale palace painted above the bed. Dan found himself imagining Patrick up a ladder painting the walls and hanging the pastel bunting, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. How he had doted on his little girl.
Unzipping her unicorn onesie and tossing it to the floor, Bea began singing, her voice high and sweet, although becoming somewhat muffled as she peeled off her school uniform and her jumper got stuck around her head. ‘Daddy, I miss you, every every day. You were my favourite, in every every way. Please come back to meeee. Love Bea.’
If Dan had been feeling sad before, his grief now threatened to choke him. How could a six-year-old come to terms with losing a parent, when previously the world had been nothing but magic and fairy tales? He could hardly bear to imagine. ‘That’s a lovely song,’ he croaked as she hoisted up a pair of pyjama bottoms, then attempted a wobbly headstand on the bed. ‘Really special. Did you make it up yourself?’
Her legs crashed down and she giggled, then put on her pyjama top. ‘Mummy helped a bit,’ she conceded, negotiating the armholes. ‘Like – one word. And some of the tune. But I did the rest.’
He gave her a hug because he couldn’t find the words for a moment. ‘I miss him too,’ he said, her small body crushed against his.
‘He was your brother,’ she said, pulling back after a few seconds and looking at him. They were so close that he could see every blonde eyelash. Her blue eyes were steady and appraising, just like Zoe’s, but her slightly pointy ears and expressive eyebrows were most definitely from her dad.
‘Yes.’
Bea shrugged, wrinkling her nose. ‘I don’t mind if my brothers die,’ she said, heartlessly. ‘But I miss my daddy. A lot. This much,’ she elaborated, stretching her arms wide.
‘He was funny, wasn’t he?’ Dan said.
‘Yes, he was really funny. And he would throw me around sometimes. Really high in the air, so it was like flying.’ She wriggled out of his arms and leapt on the bed. ‘And he gave me piggybacks and let me tickle his hair. And when he laughed, he did this: HUH-HUH-HUH.’ She threw back her head in an uncanny impression of Patrick, and Dan shut his eyes briefly because he knew exactly what she meant.
‘He was a good daddy,’ he agreed. His emotions were swelling and heaving like a rising tide; he needed to change the subject before he was dragged under. ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘You’d better hop under those covers, quick, and go to sleep.’
She snuggled beneath the duvet and stretched up her arms for a last cuddle, winding them around his neck as he leaned in. ‘Goodnight, Daddy,’ she said in his ear and he stiffened. Had it been a slip of the tongue, he wondered, or was she pretending, for comfort? Either way, his heart was cracking.
‘Now you say, “Goodnight, little Bea”,’ she instructed, her breath warm and minty against his neck.
The rock in his throat was becoming more boulder-like by the second and he had to really force it back down before he could speak. ‘Goodnight, little Bea,’ he echoed.
She let go and rolled onto her side. ‘Buzz-buzz,’ she murmured, then shut her eyes.
Dan said nothing for a moment, in case further orders were issued, but she remained silent and, almost immediately, her breathing began to deepen and lengthen. He gazed at her with a pain in his chest. Goodnight, Daddy, he heard her say again and the poignancy of the words took his breath away. However she might be working through her grief and pain, coming up so close to it felt pretty shattering.
Oh, poor you, scoffed Zoe in his head. It’s all about you, isn’t it, Dan?
By the time he had left Bea’s bedroom and returned downstairs, it was seven-thirty and dark outside, but there was still no sign of his sister-in-law. He wondered what she was doing now; if she was with friends in a noisy bar, or within the soothing sanctuary of someone’s house; if she was steaming drunk or crying, or both.
‘Gabe?’ he called, going into the living room, then stopped at the sight of his younger nephew fast asleep on the sofa, still fully dressed and clutching the game controller. Gabe’s face – usually so animated – was softened with sleep, his mouth slack, his thick, full eyelashes quivering mid-dream. Dan found himself thinking back to when Gabe was born, how he and Rebecca had looked after Ethan while Zoe was in labour, before Patrick’s jubilant phone call had finally come: Little boy – well, not so little really, he’s nine pounds three ounces, an absolute whopper! Trust Gabe to start life with a bang.
Dan remembered that day particularly for how much he’d loved hanging out with Ethan. It was the first time he and Rebecca had had sole responsibility for a child, and he’d really enjoyed it. They’d gone to the park and played in the sandpit together, then, back at the flat, Dan had found a leftover roll of wallpaper, spreading it across the floor so that they could draw a complicated road network for Ethan’s toy car to drive along. Having been a bit apprehensive about entertaining his small, solemn nephew for possibly a day or more, Dan felt a glow inside as it became clear that the boy was relaxed and happy, chatting away as they drew. I’m doing all right here, he told himself, praising Ethan for his scribbly contributions. I can do this.
Later they took Ethan to the hospital to meet his new brother, witnessing at first hand the warmth and wonder of the maternity ward: Patrick and Zoe so delighted, Zoe’s mum and stepdad arriving from south Wales, his own parents there too, everyone celebrating. All the joy gave Dan an unexpected pang of envy for what Patrick had: the children, the family life, that whole future they were building for themselves. It must have shown on his face that evening, because when he’d turned to Rebecca with the question half-formed on his lips, she’d shaken her head before he’d even managed to ask it. ‘Oh no,’ she said. They were in bed together, her long auburn hair loose about her shoulders, and she wagged a finger forbiddingly. ‘Stop right there. I know what you’re going to say, and the answer is No way. Stretchmarks and stitches? Not for me.’
If he’d been listening for it, Dan might have heard a ghostly bell tolling a faint warning just then, but in the next second she’d whipped the covers back to reveal her flat belly and small perfect breasts, which distracted him.
‘I’m not ruining these, either. After all the Pilates I’ve done? And that sodding fasting? It would be a tragedy.’ Needless to say, he’d agreed with her at the time. He would have agreed with anything she’d said at that precise moment, let’s face it.
Nine years on, anyway, newborn baby Gabriel had grown into this scrappy, charming and opinionated child, who was now spark out on the sofa. Dan scooped him up with the same tentative care as when he’d held him in the maternity ward for the first time, but there was not a murmur. Not a flicker. All that football, plus a plate of fat vinegary chips, had done for him.
The landline started ringing as Dan was halfway up the stairs and he froze, dreading the noise disturbing Gabe, but the boy slumbered on, oblivious. After a few rings the answerphone kicked in and a cross-sounding woman launched into a message. ‘This is Mrs Henderson from Townley Street. I’ve left so many messages on your mobile, I’ve given up and got this number from Directory Enquiries. And you’re still not answering! If you have a shred of decency, then please call me back. The boiler’s playing up again and we’ve been without hot water for two weeks. It’s not on!’
Presumably the woman was one of Patrick’s tenants, who had no way of knowing that he had died, Dan realized. Having worked in the building trade since leaving school, Patrick had made a lot of money, fast, by buying up derelict properties, renovating them and then selling them on at vast profits. More recently he had accumulated six or seven West London flats and kept them on as rentals. The plan had been to earn some easy money on the side of his main building work, but he’d often grumbled about his tenants’ inability to change a light bulb without phoning him to complain about it. Still, a broken boiler was a different matter. Dan figured that Patrick’s work mobile was no doubt as dead as he was, and almost certainly full of other similar messages.
On went poor unlistened-to Mrs Henderson, ranting into the answerphone while Dan continued up to the landing, his sleeping nephew surprisingly heavy in his arms. Gabe’s small bedroom was next to Bea’s, and was plastered with posters of Fulham Football Club and various superheroes in action poses. As Dan lowered the boy gently onto the bed, he noticed that someone – Zoe? Gabe himself? – had Blu-tacked a photo on the wall nearby at pillow height, of Patrick and Gabe at a Fulham match. There they were together, holding an end each of a black-and-white scarf above their heads, both of them open-mouthed with a cheer, by the look of it. They had the same lips, Dan noticed, wide and full, prone to forming shouts and smiles in equal measure. His heart ached as he saw a smudgy fingerprint on the photo and imagined Gabe lying there, reaching to touch his dad’s face before he went to sleep every night. He was too old for a Daddy song of his own, but he still needed something, clearly. Didn’t they all?
Gently rolling the Star Wars duvet out from underneath Gabe, Dan peeled off his nephew’s football socks before deciding to leave the rest of his kit on for the night. It was Friday, so there was no school in the morning at least. He pulled the duvet up to Gabe’s chin, shut the curtains and left the room.
Two down, one to go, he thought, padding downstairs, where the irate tenant was still voicing her displeasure into the answerphone. ‘I said to the Citizens Advice Bureau, this is the worst landlord I’ve ever had – he’s an absolute disgrace, completely unreliable and—’
Complaints about a dodgy boiler were one thing, but having the house filled with slurs against his brother was too close to the bone. Hurrying down the last few stairs, Dan snatched up the receiver. ‘He’s dead,’ he said coldly. ‘He’s dead. And I’m sorry you’ve got a problem with your boiler or whatever, but your landlord – my brother – died last month, and that’s why he’s not been answering your calls. Got that?’ And then he slammed the phone down again, before sinking to the bottom step, his hands rising instinctively to cradle his own head.
He took several deep breaths, taken aback by his own burst of temper. He’d always been the calmer of the two brothers, the one to pause and think carefully rather than allow his impulses free rein. Tonight, though, he felt raw, uncontained, his emotions highly charged after the hours spent with his niece and nephews.
He rubbed his face, his temper dropping away as quickly as it had flared up – how was this woman to know what had happened? Then, with a groan of regret, he reached forward, took the phone again and pressed last-number redial. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said when she replied. ‘I’m Patrick’s brother Dan, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. We’re all still a bit at sea without him.’ The phrase seemed wholly inadequate. We are broken without him, he should have said. We are drowning in his loss. Then he cringed at how inappropriate these words were. ‘It was very sudden and unexpected,’ he finished, hoping she wouldn’t ask any questions.
The woman – Mrs Henderson, had she said? – took a moment to respond. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry too, for saying those things and upsetting you. Not to mention sorry that . . . that you’ve lost him.’ She hesitated. ‘I just . . .’ But then her voice trailed away almost immediately, as if forbidding herself to start complaining again. Not now. A man has died, remember.
‘I get it,’ he said, filling the space. ‘You’re fed up and nobody’s returned your calls or helped you. Fair enough.’ And then, because he didn’t feel he could really ignore the problem now, he added, ‘I could have a look at the boiler for you. Not tonight, obviously, but maybe tomorrow?’
‘Oh, would you?’ Her relief was almost palpable. ‘I’d really appreciate that. I’ve got young children, you see, and we’re having to go next door or to friends’ houses to shower and – well, it’s been going on for a fortnight now and my friends have been wonderful, but we can’t carry on like this. It’s really getting me down.’
‘Of course it must be. And I’m sorry,’ he said again. ‘Let me take down your details. What time tomorrow would be best for you?’
He reached around for something to write on and saw another pile of unopened post sitting there on the hall table. He flipped the letters over, to see that most of them were addressed to Patrick. ‘Go on,’ he said to Mrs Henderson, jotting down her details on one of the envelopes and reflecting on how hard it was to lose someone when the rest of the world hadn’t yet caught up with the news. All those people you had to keep telling again and again, before they stopped ringing and writing and asking for things. All the mailing lists and databases a person ended up on – how every entry had to be deleted, one after another. It was bad enough trying to handle the shock yourself, but for Zoe, having to repeat the news endlessly to person after person and then feeling obliged to respond to their shock and condolences and questions . . . It must scrape off the top layer of skin each time, the wound unable to start healing.
But he could take some of that away for her, he realized. He could deal with this stack of post, if she wanted him to. Go through the phone calls jamming up Patrick’s work mobile and the landline answerphone and make sure the grim word got out: to tenants, to the bank, to suppliers. He could take on that responsibility.
Wow, my hero, Zoe said sarcastically in his head. It’s really the least you can do, you know that, don’t you?
It was a start, though. It would be something at least.
By now it was past eight o’clock, and after making arrangements with Mrs Henderson – ‘Call me Ruth’ – all Dan felt like doing was cracking open a beer and sinking into the sofa, but with Zoe still absent, he had to keep a clear head. Do his bit. So he went up to Ethan’s room and knocked gently on the open door. ‘Hi,’ he said, poking his head round.
Ethan was plugged into some computer game or other, headphones on, bony shoulders tensed, peering intently at his laptop. Killing things, judging by all the flying sparks and explosions on the screen. Dan moved a little nearer, into his nephew’s field of vision, until Ethan eventually noticed him and jerked round.
‘Oh. Hi,’ he said, glancing from Dan back to the game just as a masked gangster shot his character in the head.
‘Oof,’ said Dan as gore splattered the screen. ‘Sorry. Er . . . Just wanted to see if you’re all right.’ He sat on the edge of the bed, hands between his legs. ‘If you needed any help with homework or anything.’ Not that it looked as if much homework was in the offing. His gaze travelled around the room, taking in the metre-high papier-mâché hand that was giving him the middle finger from the far corner, the large Escher prints and a metallic collage of the London skyline on the wall, plus the life-size bust of a Greek god wearing a purple party hat by his bed. ‘You’ve got some cool stuff in here,’ he commented.
‘Thanks,’ said Ethan. ‘I don’t have any homework.’ Then he grimaced. ‘Well – some revision for exams, but . . .’ He shrugged as if to say, Who gives a shit about exams?
‘I can help with that, if you want.’ Dan guessed that exams and schoolwork didn’t feel so important any more, when you’d lost your dad. ‘We could go through it together?’ He was desperate to help, he realized. Desperate to make up for the evening of Patrick’s death, when he’d been oblivious, striding away, all self-righteous and cold. How many hours of exam help, how many Daddy songs, how many carries up to bed would it take, though? If he could fill in a few of the gaps that Patrick had left, it would be something, he figured. Right?
Ethan didn’t seem particularly bowled over by the offers of assistance, though. ‘Nah,’ he said, closing down the game on his screen. ‘It’s okay, thanks.’
‘Well – another time, then,’ Dan said. ‘Hey, what was that all about earlier anyway, you and Gabe scrapping on the way to the chippy? Did I miss something there?’
Ethan’s face became mask-like. ‘He’s a dick,’ he said shortly.
Dan tried again. ‘Was it something to do with the sculpture club you were going to? The one your mum didn’t want to talk about?’ he guessed. Anger issues, Gabe had taunted, but Ethan had never been an angry child before now.
His sigh in response was world-weary. ‘Yeah. It’s Wednesday afternoons, the same time as one of Gabe’s football sessions, so Mum can’t pick me up. She doesn’t want me coming back from Wandsworth on my own because I couldn’t possibly manage a bus and a Tube without being mugged or stabbed or getting lost.’ He rolled his eyes, a proper glower setting in. ‘Like, I am fourteen! Everyone in my year goes all over London on their own. But Mum’s got really weird about us doing anything that’s not completely, boringly safe. And obviously Gabe can’t give up his precious football.’
It was the longest speech he’d made since Dan had got there, and it took Dan a moment to work through all the resentment simmering within. He nodded, not wanting to take sides or go against Zoe’s decision. As for Gabe and the football, he remembered Patrick once joking that Gabe was like a dog – he needed running several times a day, every day, otherwise he became hyper and unmanageable. Zoe had laid down the law here and he understood why, but all the same it didn’t seem fair on Ethan.
‘It wouldn’t take that long to cycle back,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘Half an hour to get here from Wandsworth?’ But he could tell from Ethan’s expression that Zoe wouldn’t permit cycling, either. Too dangerous. Too much of a risk. He got it. When you’d lost your husband so shockingly, so suddenly, of course you were going to be paranoid about bad things happening to your kids too. ‘How did you get home before?’ he asked. ‘Did your dad pick you up?’
Ethan nodded, eyes faraway. Remembering fun times in the front of Patrick’s van, no doubt, just the two of them, having a laugh, music blasting. Patrick commenting on attractive women walking past, then winking at his son. Don’t tell your mum I said that!
‘I could take you instead,’ Dan offered. ‘Wednesday afternoons, did you say?’
Ethan’s face lit up. ‘Really? Do you mean it?’
‘Sure. Absolutely.’ As a financial tech consultant, Dan’s days were usually spent finding new solutions to clients’ tech problems, with little time for much else. But seeing as there were two full months left of his sabbatical, he was free to help out, for now at least. Frankly, he would be quite glad of an excuse to leave the flat and be useful to somebody, he realized.
‘Oh my God.’ For the first time since Dan had seen his nephew that day, there was a flash of genuine happiness on his face. ‘I’m so . . .’ His chin wobbled. Ethan had always been such a quiet, self-contained kid. Had he been overlooked in the fallout from the family’s tragedy? ‘That would be amazing. Thank you. Are you sure?’
‘I’m completely sure.’ Dan wondered if it would be too much to ruffle his nephew’s tufty hair, but at the last moment held back. Ethan didn’t strike him as a touchy-feely person and this was strange new ground they found themselves on. ‘Do you know, earlier on I was thinking back to when Gabe was born,’ he said suddenly. ‘You might not remember, but I was looking after you that day and we ended up drawing together for hours on this great long roll of wallpaper. It started off as a series of roads for your car, but then we added all sorts of weird and wonderful buildings and creatures. Jungles, mountains, cities . . .’ His eyes felt hot, thinking back to the sweet, solemn little boy Ethan had been then, how he’d leaned over that paper so intently as they worked on it with their felt-tips. They had created their own world, albeit imaginary. How ironic that Dan had inadvertently destroyed Ethan’s actual world all these years later.
Ethan’s face was screwed up in concentration. ‘I think I do remember,’ he replied. ‘We rolled the paper right out and it stretched across the room.’
‘It did! Spot on.’ They smiled at each other, a tentative, fragile sort of smile but it counted nonetheless. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ Dan said. ‘And when your mum gets in, I’ll tell her about our Wednesday-afternoon plan, yeah?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’
‘No problem. Oh – and don’t forget to brush your teeth before you go to bed, will you?’ he added, realizing that Gabe had gone to sleep with his teeth unbrushed. Oops.
Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not a baby,’ he said.
‘No. Of course you’re not. Okay, I’ll leave you to it.’
Dan went back downstairs, feeling very much as if he deserved a beer by now and hoping that Zoe might have a few in the fridge. Then he saw his bike in the hall and remembered that he still had to cycle home. Presumably, anyway. Assuming that Zoe did eventually reappear. He stood gazing at the front door, wishing he could hear her key in the lock, that she would come back again now. She had made her point: she’d escaped from the house and kids for a few hours, she’d caused Dan to sweat.
She was going to come back, wasn’t she? Like . . . tonight? She wasn’t going to stay away for the whole weekend or anything?
It was dark outside, headlights gleaming through the black as cars cruised along the street, trying to find parking spaces. The weather forecast he’d heard earlier had predicted a heavy frost tonight, and already the pavements were glistening with the first icy traces. He pulled the living-room curtains shut, a swarm of anxious new thoughts invading his head. Standing there in the kitchen earlier, her face sharp with stress and blame, Zoe had seemed at breaking point. What if she’d really had enough and had done something stupid? You heard about people who simply couldn’t go on without their partners, who were so destroyed by grief and anger and loss they could no longer think straight.
He went through to the kitchen, feeling uneasy as he pulled down the striped blind, checked the back door was locked. Zoe had thrown up her hands in defeat and marched out of there, deaf to Bea’s wails, no hesitation whatsoever. Had she even taken any money with her? he wondered now. Where was she?
Clearing up the detritus from their fish-and-chip takeaway, he washed up the pans from the first aborted dinner and set the dishwasher running. He found himself thinking back to when he and Rebecca split up and he’d rented a temporary flat on Shepherd’s Bush Road; how for a while he had been the archetypal bachelor slob again, wallowing in misery and grime, letting the mess accumulate around him and not caring. Ironically it had been Patrick coming round and saying, ‘Jesus Christ, Dan’ and ‘This is a shithole’ and ‘God, pull yourself together, will you? Are you having a nervo or something?’ that had snapped him out of it.
He wiped the surfaces now, wondering if he should do anything about all the clutter piled up around the room and whether it was any of his business to sort it out, or if Zoe would react angrily and take his interference as criticism. He chucked out the shrivelled brown daffodils that had died of thirst in a dry vase, relocated from the fruit bowl to the compost bin a couple of mouldering satsumas that had developed interesting verdigris-like patterns, and cleaned the worst of the dust from the window-ledges with some kitchen roll. Should he carry on? Maybe if he’d been a better brother-in-law, in and out over the last few weeks to help with shopping and childcare amidst the family’s storm of grief, he would know the best course of action. He’d have earned the right to take charge and rearrange her kitchen. Not today, though. Not yet.
He went into the living room and sat down. The house was as quiet as a morgue. He switched on the TV, volume low so as not to disturb anyone, and flicked through the channels, but nothing good was on. He fiddled with his phone, wondering whether or not to call Zoe, but was too wary of her shouting at him again. He sent a text instead: Hope you are okay. The kids are all fine. I’ll stay here till you get back. D
No reply. He leaned against the soft cushions, suddenly weary. He’d managed a lot today; the most, in fact, since Patrick had died, and there was plenty to process. He shut his eyes. All he could do now was wait for Zoe to come home.
Two streets away, Zoe was on her best friend Clare’s sofa and making decent inroads into her third glass of wine. ‘I’m never going home,’ she announced, as the doorbell rang, heralding the arrival of their Indian takeaway. ‘Is that okay, Clare? If I just stay here and you look after me? You don’t mind, do you?’
Clare got up to answer the door. ‘It’s going to be okay, Zo,’ she said as she left the room.
Zoe slumped like a bag of damp sand, her teeth furry from the wine, her limbs loose and alcohol-sodden. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she repeated to herself in a tiny whisper, but even as she was saying the words, she knew they couldn’t possibly be true. How could anything ever be okay again, without Patrick?