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‘You’d better stop him digging,’ said Anselo to Aishe. ‘The gardener here is an ex-crim. Probably got bodies buried under the begonias.’
‘Flea!’ Aishe shouted.
The dog continued to burrow into the softer earth at the foot of the loggia, where the vines were planted.
‘Sod him,’ said Aishe. ‘If he gets a bullet between the eyes, it’ll save me hundreds in bloody dog food and vet’s bills.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be a crack dog trainer?’ Anselo knew his sister had volunteered at an animal shelter when she’d lived in America.
‘Flea by name,’ Aishe said. ‘Flea-sized brain. I might as well try to train a sea monkey.’
She reached for the jug of iced water they’d brought out with them and refilled her glass. ‘How do you know the gardener’s got form?’
‘Old mate of Patrick’s,’ said Anselo, ‘Only not so much of the “mate” anymore.’
‘Bad blood?’ said Aishe, with interest. ‘What did Patrick do? Shag his sister?’
‘Got it in one. I heard that second-hand, by the way,’ said Anselo, ‘via the Michelle–Clare grapevine.’
‘Which, of late, has been pruned by half,’ said Aishe. ‘I heard that first-hand. Through the Jenico Herne phone line.’
‘Did he send you here, like Patrick suspects?’ said Anselo.
‘Jenico knows direct orders never work on me,’ said Aishe. ‘He suggests, and I decide whether I’ll do it or tell him to go fuck himself.’
Anselo gave his sister a sideways look. ‘Have you ever told Jenico to go fuck himself? To his face, I mean.’
‘Once,’ said Aishe. ‘When I was eleven. At Dad’s funeral. Jenico wanted me up the front of the church with Mum and all you lot, and I refused. Couldn’t cope being that close to the coffin. All I wanted to do was beat on the sides of it and yell at Dad for being such an arsehole and dying.’
‘I don’t remember the funeral service at all,’ said Anselo. ‘Did Jenico make you come and sit with us?’
‘To his credit, no,’ said Aishe. ‘But he did make me come inside the church. He stood with me at the back, by the door. Held my hand . . .’
‘I wanted to be a pall bearer,’ said Anselo after a moment. ‘I’d grown heaps that year, but I was still miles too short. With Patrick and Jenico on either corner, I didn’t have a chance.’
‘You were twelve,’ said Aishe. ‘Even our beloved, bone-headed older brothers didn’t get a look in and they’d both hit six feet by then.’
A yelp from behind made them turn. Flea the dog was running towards them, tail tucked under. Ned was lowering his boot.
‘Bloody dog shouldn’t be here,’ said Ned, voice raised to not quite a shout. ‘No dogs allowed!’
‘We’re visiting, not staying!’ Aishe raised her voice in return. ‘Keep your hair on!’
Ned strode over. He had in one hand a garden fork, which he drove into the lawn beside the table.
‘That bloody animal,’ he said to Aishe, ‘has dug up whole bed of seedlings and uprooted two rose bushes!’
‘Yes, he likes those.’ Aishe bent and fondled the soft ears of the dog that was now cringing under the table.
‘He has also chewed up edges o’ three wooden planter boxes and rowboat oar that he dragged out o’ shed!’
Aishe tapped Flea lightly on the nose. ‘Bad dog. You’ve upset the nice Yorkshireman, and now he’s got a face like a slapped fanny.’
Anselo tried and failed to suppress a grin.
Ned glanced between the pair of them. ‘You lot,’ he said with quiet venom, ‘you’re all t’ same. Not a decent gene in t’ whole bloody pool.’
On his feet in an instant, Anselo squared up to Ned.
‘What is your problem?’ he said to him.
Ned drew himself up and Anselo began to rue his lack of inches. Six-foot-one would be an advantage most times. But he seemed destined to run up against fucking giants.
Anselo tensed, in anticipation of Ned making a move, but all the bigger man did was look him up and down with a shrewd amusement that made Anselo’s blood boil.
‘If I were you, lad, I’d stay put in t’ bosom of your family,’ said Ned, ‘where it’s nice an’ safe.’
With a sharp tug, he extracted the fork from the ground.
‘Keep that dog out of t’ garden,’ he said to Aishe. ‘Or I’ll chuck it in bloody lake.’
‘He can swim!’ Aishe called after him, as he walked back up the lawn.
Anselo, who was still on his feet, saw her glance up at him, her expression appraising.
‘You didn’t need to be my white knight,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have wound him up in the first place. Can’t help myself. Officious jobsworths seriously get on my tits.’
Anselo gazed after the overall-clad figure, disappearing into the trees at the back. ‘He thinks I would have lost.’
‘Given the size of him, he’s probably right,’ said Aishe. ‘Though I’m sure you could have got in a few kicks before he smashed you with a giant green fist.’
‘Fuck him.’ Anselo spoke more to himself, as he thumped angrily back down in the chair.
‘I can see why Patrick and he might once have been mates,’ said Aishe. ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledumber went out to fight a battle.’
She nudged the now sleeping dog with her toe. ‘And you’re the dumbest of the lot, you brainless mutt. No more digging or big Ned will hurl you lakewards by the tail like a hairy Olympic hammer.’
‘Maybe big Ned’ll have a go at Patrick before we leave.’ Anselo leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. ‘Be more entertainment than I’ve had on this holiday so far.’
Aishe gave him a look that made Anselo brace himself.
‘Darrell seems to be friendly enough with Ned,’ she said. ‘She got the keys from him to let us in the garden gate.’
‘Did she?’
‘She was also looking like shit, I have to say,’ said Aishe. ‘What’s up with that?’
Anselo had a sense that a large wave was looming above him, and he was staring into its crystalline dark depths as it poised, ready to break and engulf him.
He wasn’t brave enough for this conversation, he thought. He did not meet his sister’s eye, pretended instead to investigate a knot in the wooden tabletop.
‘Breastfeeding makes her tired,’ he said.
After a beat, Aishe said, ‘You know when we were little?’
Not knowing where this was going, Anselo shrugged, and said, ‘Yeah?’
‘And I had that Chinese burn technique that could drop guys twice my size to their knees, screaming in agony?’
‘Cute.’ Anselo shook his head, smiling faintly. ‘And if you weren’t my sister, you’d apply wires to my balls?’
‘Look, Christ knows I’m no expert in relationships,’ said Aishe, ‘but even I can tell when one is in the crapper. Your wife’s in the garden when you’re in the house, and vice versa. I’ve barely heard you say one word to anyone else, let alone to each other, and unless it was a ventriloquist who said “I do” at your wedding, I’m pretty sure you’re both capable of speech. What’s up?’
Good question, Anselo thought. What was up? One really huge thing? Or a bunch of tiny things that added up to something huge?
‘Well,’ he began, ‘ever since Cosmo, she’s been—’
‘Whoa, whoa!’ Aishe held up her hand. ‘Nope. Ixnay. Nyet. You will not bring the baby into this. Babies cause sleep deprivation and make you smell like scented wipes, but they do not change the fundamental dynamic between two people. If it’s wrong now, it was going wrong before Cosmo turned up.’
Anselo felt heat rush through him, its source a commotion of shame, anger, regret and fear. A primal urge to yell out loud, to hit and smash seized him, but he could not tell where, or at whom, he wanted to direct that energy. Aishe was closest, and perhaps part of him knew she could handle it.
‘You’re wrong!’ he yelled. ‘It was fine until she got pregnant!’
‘She?’ Aishe raised an eyebrow.
‘Fuck!’ he said. ‘All right! It was fine until Darrell got pregnant! We were together and we were happy – we were. But then she left me. She fucking left me, with no fucking word, no notice whatsoever, and she flew off back home to ask her dead husband whether she should abort our child! I had no say! I may as well have not existed then and I may as well not exist now! Since he’s been born, it’s all about Cosmo! I’ve done everything for her and she won’t let me near. But she’ll spend time with her fucking ex, won’t she? She’ll let him in. I am so far down the line of what matters to her! I’m not even second fiddle; I’m the guy right at the back with the fucking triangle! And I’m tired of it! I may as well just hand her back my wedding ring and be fucking done with her. Done with all of it, even Cosmo. Because it’s not like I’m much chop as a father, right n—’
His throat tightened, as if a hand had closed around it, and he had to stop.
Fuck, he thought in panic, he was going to cry. He stared hard at the too-bright surface of the lake and focused on bringing his breathing under control, aware that Aishe was beside him, dreading what she would say.
But it was quite some time before she said anything.
‘I’m crap at hugging,’ said Aishe. ‘Even Gulliver gives me shit about it, and he doesn’t even want me to stand too close to him.’
She reached out and gave his arm a quick rub. ‘That’s all I’ve got,’ she said. ‘It’ll have to do.’
‘Do you hug Benedict?’
Anselo did not feel up to reverting to the previous subject. Or subjects, plural. All his resentments had spewed out, and out loud they sounded even more petty and stupid.
‘Benedict hugs me,’ said Aishe, ‘until he gets a punch in the kidneys, which is our agreed code for him to back off. Not sure other couples communicate that way, but it has the advantage of being unambiguous.’
‘Do you love him?’
The question came out before Anselo could stop it, and he wasn’t sure what answer he’d prefer to hear.
‘I’m working on it,’ Aishe said. ‘The two men I loved with everything I had – they both died. Hard not to think that’s my lot. Hard to love wholeheartedly when you’re afraid fickle fate wants to make it a hat trick. They must have a bloody laugh up there sometimes. Karmic arses.’
‘You had your husband for two years,’ said Anselo, almost absently. ‘Darrell had hers for ten.’
‘You know, I’d never thought about that,’ said Aishe. ‘Me and your wife being in the dead husbands club. I suppose we should include Mum in there as well. She’d really inject the merry into us widows, wouldn’t she?’
‘Mum never got over it,’ said Anselo. ‘And do you blame her? Dad was only forty.’
‘Is that what Darrell really told you?’ Aishe said. ‘That she flew back home to commune with her husband’s ghost?’
‘She didn’t. But why else would she go all that way?’ he said, with a shrug. ‘I met her parents. Nice people but . . . well, you know, we had tea in the “drawing room” and my slice of seed cake was served on a doily.’
‘Ouch,’ said Aishe. ‘Not the types who let it all hang out, then. Her mother probably dries underwear inside the hot-water cupboard where no one can see.’
‘And then irons it.’
Anselo caught his sister’s eye, grateful to her for lightening the mood, and for not giving his big speech the slow hand clap it so richly deserved.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Any sage advice?’
‘Sage is for stuffing,’ said Aishe, ‘and I know that I would rather gouge out my eyes with a shit-covered stick than accept anyone’s advice. You’re feeling a bit hard done by, and fair enough in many ways. The downside, and I speak from personal experience, is that hanging on to shit like that doesn’t leave you much room to manoeuvre. All ends up a bit last samurai, you know? The only way out is to extract your own guts with a curvy sword.’
Oh, he’d manoeuvred, thought Anselo. He’d made all sorts of moves, but not one of them had taken him closer to what he wanted. Then again, he’d never felt that anything he’d wanted was within reach.
‘Gulliver starts school soon as we’re back,’ said Aishe. ‘He’ll be in the fifth form. How the hell did that happen?’
‘When Cosmo’s fifteen, I’ll be fifty-one,’ said Anselo. ‘I can’t picture that, for either of us.’
‘Well, you’ll get there,’ said his sister, ‘whether you go willingly or not.’
She reached out and laid her hand on his arm again. This time, she left it there.
‘Might be worth deciding now,’ she said, ‘just how rough you want that journey to be.’