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‘Any progress?’
Patrick handed a pint to Anselo and sat down in the leather armchair opposite.
Anselo glanced around the pub. ‘I took Darrell for a drink here when I first met her,’ he said. ‘I wanted to ask her out, but I didn’t even get close. Fail, as our teenage cousins would say.’
‘So, no progress then?’ said Patrick.
‘Not really. You?’
‘I have broached it with Clare,’ said Patrick. ‘Well, I sort of slid the idea into conversation.’
‘Did it slide right on out again?’
‘Like a bar of soap in a prison shower.’
The men drank beer in silence.
‘Is it actually a good idea, this holiday?’ said Patrick, when half his pint was gone. ‘Whenever Charlotte talks to me about it, I’m one hundred per cent convinced. But somehow, when she’s not in the room . . .’
‘Logistically speaking,’ said Anselo, ‘the timing’s perfect. The building project will be a gnat’s away from being finished. Beatrix can handle the last of it, and if she needs me, I’m on the phone. That deal you’re working on will be at paperwork stage, so all you’ll need to do is pay the lawyers’ bills and let them wrangle. And you don’t have anything else on the boil, do you?’
Patrick had half an ear on the pub jukebox. Someone had programmed it to play The Who’s Who Are You? Patrick had the original 1977 album and the 1996 reissue with the additional verse. On the jukebox, Roger was singing the family-friendly version of the chorus. In his mind, Patrick filled in the two-word blank between ‘who’ and ‘are you’.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t have anything else to do.’
‘Do you want to spend a month in Italy?’ asked Anselo. ‘With us? And Michelle and her tribe? And Charlotte? And fifty million tourists?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I suppose. A break from routine’s always good.’
Recharge, he thought, regroup, come back with a new perspective. Could miracles happen in a month, Charlotte?
‘What about you?’ he said to Anselo. ‘Do you want a break?’
‘I have an eight-week-old baby,’ said Anselo with a short laugh. ‘By all accounts I’m not due for a break until he turns twenty-one.’
Patrick had only as yet dipped a toe in the dark pool that was the topic of his younger cousin’s marriage. He’d persuaded himself that any couple with a new baby spent the first weeks with a fingernail-grip on the edge of sanity, so there’d be time for things to improve. But it did concern him: that Darrell appeared to spend all her waking hours with Cosmo strapped to her and wearing the exact same expression as if he were a suicide bomber’s vest; that Anselo seemed energised at work but circumspect whenever Patrick saw him with Darrell.
Patrick had known Anselo since he was born. He’d been a wary, quiet child, sandwiched uncomfortably between two boisterous older brothers and two hard-headed younger sisters. When Anselo was twelve, the Herne children’s much-loved father had died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. Jenico had stepped in to give them support, but the family had never really emotionally recovered. Due to all these factors, perhaps, Anselo had spent most of his young adulthood nurturing an inferiority complex as dense and challenging as Hampton Court maze.
He hadn’t help that, thought Patrick. When Anselo had asked for a job more than a decade ago, just as Patrick had started making big money, he’d misread him completely. Pegged him as a cold-blooded greedy little bastard who wanted a free ride on the King money-train and given him short shrift.
It wasn’t until Darrell came along that Patrick found out Anselo had hero-worshipped him for years and had seen the job as a chance to emulate his older cousin. Patrick had taken steps to repair the damage and close the distance between them, first by making Anselo godfather to Tom, and then by offering him the job he’d wanted all those years ago. Anselo had proved excellent in the role, for which Patrick was grateful. He’d never had a business partner before and the relief of being able to offload responsibility onto someone else was surprisingly immense. But despite this new, more equal dynamic between them, Anselo’s nature and, Patrick had to admit, some residual guilt on his own part, meant the gap had never been fully sealed. The men were friendly enough, but not true friends. That’s why he found it so hard to talk to Anselo about his marriage.
If Patrick was to be head of the family, however, this would be his duty. He’d have no choice but to grow a fucking spine.
‘A holiday would give you more time with Darrell,’ said Patrick.
Anselo shot him a sharp look. ‘You think I need to spend more time with Darrell?’
In for pound. ‘Don’t you think she’s struggling a bit?’
‘And that’s my fault, is it?’ Anselo squared his shoulders.
‘I didn’t say that. You know I didn’t—’
But Anselo wasn’t listening. He sat forward and stabbed his finger at the tabletop.
‘She sees everything as a threat to the baby. Everything! It’s OTT! When I mentioned the holiday, she made flying EasyJet to fucking Milan Linate sound like rafting up the greasy Limpopo to a leper colony!’
‘Look, I’m no shrink,’ said Patrick, ‘but losing her first husband like that must have been a shock. You don’t expect a bloke to suddenly drop dead in his early thirties, do you?’
‘No,’ said Anselo. ‘My dad at least waited until he was forty.’
Doing bloody brilliantly so far, thought Patrick. If he dug more of a hole, he’d pop out in a wonton stall in Guangzhou.
‘Sorry,’ said Patrick. ‘I liked your dad, even though he kicked my arse on regular occasions. He was hard but fair. A top bloke.’
Anselo stared at the jukebox. ‘So everyone says.’
Patrick waited, not trusting himself, and was relieved to see the younger man’s shoulders soften. When Anselo met his eye again, the look on his face was almost ashamed.
‘I do need to spend more time with Darrell,’ he said. ‘It’s just that she makes it so hard.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ll get Clare on board, and we’ll help you with Darrell.’
‘Thought Clare had already said no?’
‘She did,’ said Patrick, ‘but Charlotte’s tracked down a Cambridge University study that proves exposure to foreign languages at a young age vastly improves a child’s own facility for speech. I’m considering showing it to Clare.’
Anselo raised an eyebrow. ‘Only considering?’
Patrick stared into his now empty pint glass. ‘Believe it or not, the subject of Tom not talking hasn’t actually come up between us. We both know that we both know but – no need to point out the irony – we haven’t talked about it.’
Anselo looked at his own glass, which was still three-quarters full.
‘Oh, I believe it,’ said Anselo. ‘Some words have a habit of staying unsaid.’
––––––––
PATRICK MANAGED TO get his key in the front door on the third try. Anselo had gone home after only a couple of rounds, an example that Patrick had applauded but failed to follow. The pub had been Anselo’s choice. Patrick’s own local was closer to his Clerkenwell office, and wasn’t, he admitted, going to win awards for its menu or ambience any time soon. But as long as you didn’t mind when your feet didn’t always lift off the carpet first go and knew how to stare back at anyone who might decide you were looking at them funny, the pub was a good place to drink.
Anselo’s pub had been a good pub in a different way. It had a jukebox, into which Patrick had programmed Pinball Wizard, Baba O’Riley and an encore of Who Are You? followed by Ziggy Stardust and Heroes, which he’d sung along to, while exhorting the couple whose table he’d somehow found himself sitting at to join in. They were regulars here, they’d told him. Been coming here since they were married, thirty-five years ago. Overcome by this towering display of loyalty, Patrick had pulled out a handkerchief and loudly blown his nose. And then he’d bought them all another round.
Probably that hadn’t been the wisest decision, thought Patrick, as he attempted to close the front door quietly behind him. Neither had been ordering the pizza with extra hot sausage. Patrick could already feel it fomenting an armed insurrection in his gut.
The hallway was dark, and there was no light coming from the kitchen below, or the rooms above. Instinct suggested the best direction to head in right now was the opposite one to any person who might be sleeping – or, worse, might not be – so Patrick made his way very carefully down the stairs. It was amazing, he thought, how hard you could focus on putting one foot in front of the other and yet still fuck it up. No wonder babies were born not knowing how to walk. Learning to was good practice for getting rat-arsed in later life.
At the kitchen door, he swore, his shin having struck a hard object blocking his way. He ran his hand over the wall to find the light switch and, after a few moments of blinking and more swearing, could see that said object was an old fireguard propped against the doorway and kept firmly in place by a pile of bricks on one side and a moss-covered garden statue on the other.
‘Fuck’s sake.’ Patrick stepped over the guard and into the kitchen.
The room looked the same as usual. Everything was clean and tidy. Patrick had no idea why there should be a fireguard blocking the doorway and no inclination to think of one. He hung his suit jacket over a chair and went to drink water from the tap – two activities frowned on by Clare. He splashed some water on his face and wiped it with a tea towel, which he left screwed up on the bench, a move that not only risked a frown but also the distinct possibility that the tea towel would be served up to him in place of his morning toast.
Despite reminders of the pizza that made him wary of standing too close to an open flame, Patrick opened the refrigerator. There was plenty of food, if you looked at it one way. If you looked at it another, there were vegetables, hummus, goat cheese, skim milk and rice bread. But, he rejoiced, there was also beer. He knew he shouldn’t, but he took it. It was one beer. It could not make his condition materially worse.
He carried the beer to the squashy sofa and sank down with relief. He liked this sofa. It was too short for him to lie on full length, but soft enough for that not to matter if he chose to sleep here. Which he had, possibly more often than a marriage guidance counsellor would approve. And he would again tonight, he decided, because frankly, he could not be fucked moving.
Patrick laid his head against the back of the sofa, closed his eyes and breathed in the room. Ignoring his own beer-and-pizza odours, he could smell orange-scented cleaning fluid, notes of vanilla, baked sugar and coffee, a hint of play dough and above all, in this, his son’s favourite place, Tom’s own scent, which Patrick did not have words to describe but which filled him with emotions that surged from heart-ripping love to gasping terror.
Patrick’s father had walked out when he was two, and he knew that his mother had struggled with her only son from birth. They’d continued to battle right through until he’d left home at sixteen. They’d fought at first because he’d been little and didn’t know better, thought Patrick, but later on because he chose to be a shit, which he regretted.
Even now that he and she had been back on speaking terms for over twenty-five years, even now that he’d become everything she’d ever wished for – rich, settled down with a wife and son – Patrick’s mother still beat her hand against her heart. ‘The pain,’ she’d tell him. ‘Still, I hold here such pain!’
Would Tom be causing them pain for that many years, Patrick wondered? Would he ever intend to, or would it always be out of his control?
He realised he could hear breathing. Was it his own? He held his breath and listened. He could still hear it. It was coming from the floor in the corner, between the edge of the shelves and the wall, as if something was curled up there, asleep. For one horrible moment, Patrick thought it might be Tom – that, unbeknownst to Clare, he’d sneaked down there in the night. He got to his feet with more haste than was wise, lurched into the shelves and knocked Clare’s box set of Child of our Time (The First Ten Years) onto the floor.
From the corner, there came a whine and a panting noise, and suddenly Patrick found himself besieged by a licking, crooning, leaping Labrador puppy.
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’ Patrick sank back down onto the sofa and fended off the puppy as best he could.
‘What in the name of fuck almighty are you doing here?’ he said to it.
‘Aishe dropped him off.’
Clare, wearing one of Patrick’s T-shirts, which on her hung down to mid-thigh, was standing behind the fireguard. She stepped over it, with considerably more ease and grace than he had, Patrick noted, and came across to lean against the shelves. The puppy bounced over and quickly sniffed her feet, then bounced back to Patrick.
‘Aishe’s son’s band won the inter-school contest,’ said Clare. ‘And now they’ve been invited to perform in that well-known jazz capital, Dusseldorf.’
‘She’s got a fucking nerve,’ said Patrick. The puppy tried to gnaw on his hand, and he cuffed it lightly on its nose. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take this pest back to her tomorrow. And give her what for.’
‘No . . .’ Clare expelled a weary breath and plumped herself onto the sofa next to him. ‘No, I offered. She rang to tell us they were all going away, and I offered.’
Patrick frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because I was pissed off at myself for not coping the last time.’ Clare fondled the puppy’s ears. ‘It’s only a baby. I should have had better strategies for handling it.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Clare,’ said Patrick. ‘Strategies are for world leaders figuring out how to keep democracy safe from armed lunatics. A puppy is a hairball of energy without a brain. No “strategy” is going to make it easier to handle.’
His wife did not look up, but continued to caress the dog, which had now flopped onto its side and was lying at their feet, tongue lolling.
Patrick said, more gently, ‘I’ll find somewhere for him. You’ve got enough on your plate.’
Wondering if he was doing the right thing, he laid a hand on her hair and lightly stroked it.
She did not respond, and Patrick was about to remove his hand, when she said, ‘How smashed are you?’
‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Were you at The Star?’
‘Uh, no. The Danbury. With Anselo.’
Clare sat up and gave him a look. ‘Anselo? I thought he was a paragon of a husband?’
Her move had dislodged Patrick’s hand. He now used it to scratch behind his ear, a reflex action whenever he was embarrassed.
‘He didn’t stay the whole time.’
‘Had to rush off home, did he? No surprise.’ Clare folded her arms. ‘He can hear one of Darrell’s snivels a mile away, like a faithful hound tuned to his master’s voice.’
Patrick’s instinct was to defend Anselo, until his mental logic pointed out that the actions of his younger cousin highlighted a conjugal dedication that was conspicuously absent from his own.
But, unusually, Clare seemed unconcerned that her husband had come home late and plastered. Patrick began to wonder what was distracting her. His mind circulated a number of possibilities, some of them frankly terrifying. He tried his best to remain optimistic.
‘Italy,’ said Clare.
Patrick felt that subject could go either way, so he kept quiet.
‘Remember that trip we took there?’ his wife went on.
‘Yes?’ seemed a safe answer.
Clare lay back on the sofa. ‘That little house on the clifftop. Mario and Vincente told us to go.’
Mario and Vincente were the Italian brothers who owned the café where Patrick and Clare had first met. Thrilled that their humble surroundings had ignited the flames of amore in two of their regulars, the brothers had urged the pair to take two weeks on the Ligurian coast, in a house owned by another brother, or a cousin, or a cousin’s brother – Patrick had lost track in the voluble outpouring of generosity. Suspecting the guarantees of delight might be akin to those made by boys in the souk about their uncle Abdul’s carpet shop, Patrick’s expectations had not been high. But it had been glorious. At least, he’d thought so, and he was pretty sure Clare had, too.
‘All we did,’ she added, ‘was swim, eat, drink and fuck.’
Her sigh sounded contented, but Patrick felt compelled to make a final check.
‘That was good, wasn’t it?’ he said.
Clare raised an eyebrow at him. ‘I had eight orgasms in one day,’ she said. ‘I think you could safely say that was good.’
‘Eight?’ said Patrick. ‘Jesus, really? We did it eight times in one day?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
Patrick made an apologetic face. ‘Men’s brains shut down when they have sex. It’s a well- known fact.’
‘Hmm.’
Smiling, Clare pulled her feet out from under the once more soundly sleeping puppy and hooked over one knee to sit straddled across Patrick’s lap, facing him.
‘How smashed did you say you were again?’ she said, placing her hands on his hips. ‘Because I can always go back up to bed . . .’
Patrick couldn’t entirely blame his feeling of disconnection on the drink. This was the first time Clare had willingly offered to have sex with him in more months than Patrick could remember. To test whether or not he was dreaming, he tentatively slipped his hand up under the T-shirt. And found that it was all she had on.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Jesus.’
Clare began to unbuckle his belt. ‘He’s not with us right now,’ she said. ‘But give me a decent fifteen minutes, and you can call on him all you like.’