The Other Son (17 page)

“Oh come on, Tim,” Alice pleads. “You know what he’s saying. And after all, it never did you any harm, did it?”

What Tim wants to say, the phrase that he runs through his mind, is, “So which bit are we talking about? Which bit
specifically
never did me any harm? Are we talking about the boot in the face? Or the belt across the back? Are we talking the chipped tooth, or the broken wrist? Are we talking about my head being held under the bath water, or my being locked in the cupboard with Matt for a whole night?”

“I’ll, um, go set the table,” is what he actually says.

“But it’s done, Tim,” Natalya tells him.

“Then maybe I’ll do it again,” Tim says, already leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

Boris continues to wail theatrically. The noise, amplified by the resonance of the room and perhaps by her impossible desire to slap the boy again, drives Alice to distraction. Ken, she can see, is getting edgy too.

“Any chance of a drink?” Ken asks.

“Oh yes. Sorry,” Natalya says, standing. “I tell Tim.”

She finds him in the kitchen, already fixing a tray of drinks.

“A Bloody Mary for you, I’m guessing?” he says with a wink.

Natalya smiles weakly. “A double,” she says. “And quick.”

“So you’re waiting for hotter weather, I assume,” Ken asks once she returns. Natalya frowns so he points outside towards the swimming pool.

“Oh, a fuse is broke,” she explains.

“Broken,” Alice corrects.

“Actually, in England, we say ‘blown’,” Ken offers gently. He thinks Alice is too hard on Natalya about her English. Natalya is a pretty lass, and in Ken’s book, pretty lasses get extra leeway.

“Yes, blown is even better. A fuse was
blown
,” Alice agrees.

“Is it heated?” Ken asks.

“No. We switch it off.”

“But when it’s full, it’s heated?” Ken asks, speaking slowly as if Natalya might be stupid rather than foreign.

“Oh, yes. It has a heat pump. I think this is right, yes?”

“Yes, love, that’s right,” Ken says. “A heat pump. That’ll be nice. The kids will love it.”

“I hope.” Natalya turns and smiles at Tim who is returning.

He places the tray on the coffee table and starts to hand out the drinks.

“Ooh, Martini,” Alice says, taking her own glass from Tim’s hand. “You know me so well, Timothy.”

“I should hope so after all these years,” Tim says. He hands Ken a can of Stella.

“Are you cold, Mum?” Tim asks, and Alice becomes aware that she’s rubbing her arms.

“A bit,” she says. “I dressed a little optimistically, I think. I thought it was summer when I looked out this morning.”

“It’s not that warm
in here,” Tim admits. “Can we turn the heating up a bit, Nat?”

“It’s that big window,” Alice says. “You can feel the cold air coming off it when you sit over here.”

“Is up already,” Natalya says. “But it will take a while. An hour, maybe. The room is so big.”

“It’s
too
big,” Alice says. “It’s going to be a bugger to heat in winter.”

“That’s the third time you’ve said that,” Tim points out.

“Well, it’s true,” Alice says.

“I think we can move to dining room,” Natalya suggests, trying to interrupt the flow of that particular conversation. “It’s warmer there.”

“I suppose it’s lunch time anyway,” Alice agrees, glancing at her watch. “And I’m starting to feel quite peckish.”

Once everyone is seated in the dining room, Tim returns to the lounge for Alice’s glass of Martini. He stands and looks back out at the garden. The sun has vanished now. It might even rain.

He forces himself to take a deep, long breath. He’s feeling stressed and anxious. He’s feeling angry, he realises, and he needs to calm down before he joins the ordeal of the dinner table otherwise he’s likely to lose the plot.

Just two more hours, he tells himself. In two hours time, they’ll be gone.

He had imagined, rather stupidly, that Alice might congratulate him on the house. He had imagined her patting him on the back and saying, “Well done son. You’ve done good.” But instead of that, it’s too big, it’s too cold, there are smears on the windows, and yes, it’s going to be a bugger to heat in winter.

So it’s still not enough. It’s never enough. Not for Alice, not for Natalya, and not, ultimately, for Tim himself. It’s like being at the gym on one of those rolling roads, running to keep still. And just like at the gym, the only real measure of progress is how fast you can run in order to stay still and how long you can keep it up for. And Tim
is
running. He’s running at full tilt right now. And he doesn’t think that he can possibly run any faster. But it’s still not enough.

His chest feels tight. His left arm is hurting, too, and isn’t that meant to be the sign of an impending heart attack?

Alice and Ken, he thinks. Bloody hell.
Alice and Ken!
He shakes his head in despair and laughs sardonically. And then he laughs again a second time, only this time it’s real. Because a revelation has just popped into his head from a source unknown.

The revelation is this: that he needs to abandon the idea of ever gaining his parents’ approval. Because he can see that clearly now, so clearly he wants to write it down somewhere in case he forgets it again and the moment is lost. Yes, for some reason, for some reason that is entirely beyond his comprehension, a reason that has nothing to do with Tim himself and everything to do with his parents’ personal brand of madness, nothing Tim has ever done has ever been enough, and nothing – he sees this now –
will
ever be enough. He needs to give up on the idea of pleasing them. Because how much weight would be removed from his shoulders if he just stopped expecting their praise?

He snorts and shakes his head, and, at the sound of heels, he turns to see Natalya crossing the room to join him.

“You’re OK?” she asks.

Tim nods and lets his wife take his arm. “Come,” she says. “We can do this. We’re halfway through now.”

Tim rolls his eyes comically. “Yes,” he agrees. “We’re halfway through.”

Lunch goes off without a hitch. Tim’s revelation about his relationship with his parents lasts through three full courses of traditional Russian dishes.

Alice, who is making an effort, manages not to mention the temperature of the house. She even remembers
in extremis
to thank Natalya for the food. “That soup was still very peppery,” she’s shocked to hear herself say. “But lovely. So thank you!” she adds.

“And your Stroganoff was bloody marvellous,” Ken tells her. “The best ever.”

It’s after coffee when they are pulling on their coats that things go haywire again.

“So when do we get to see you next?” Alice asks as she buttons her coat.

“I don’t know, Mum,” Tim says sounding pre-exasperated by the question. “Soon.”

“Tim’s going to come over one night and help me fix the roof,” Ken says, then to Tim, “We’ve got a leak and I need someone to hold the ladder; you’ll give me a hand, won’t you?”

“He’s too old to be going up ladders,” Alice says. “It’s too high up.”

Tim laughs. “Sorry Dad, I don’t do roofing. But I can send a guy over to fix it for you.”

“Some Pole, I expect,” Ken says. “All gaffa-tape and sawdust and spit. That’s the trouble with roofers. The only bit you can see is the bill they hand you at the end.”

“He’s not Polish,” Tim says, “not that there’s anything wrong with the Poles. Bloody good workers, actually. But Gary’s from Runcorn if you must know.”

“A Scally?” Ken says. “Well that’s reassuring! Renowned for their honesty,
they
are!”

“Look,” Tim says. “I can give Gary a call and it can all be fixed by the weekend, or you can just buy a bigger bucket to catch the drips. It’s your choice.”

“I don’t want some stranger tramping about on the roof breaking more tiles than he fixes,” Ken says. “All I need is someone to hold the bloody ladder.”

“Whatever,” Tim says. “Take it or leave it.”

Because just like anything Tim is able to offer his parents, it’s never quite what they need. If he
did
go to help Ken repair the roof, it would all end in tears anyway. The repair wouldn’t work (and that would be his fault) or he wouldn’t be holding the ladder properly, or Ken would want
him
to climb the ladder and fix something he has no idea how to fix and then shout incomprehensible instructions at him while he did it. Yes, there’s always something wrong. And it has always been thus.

“I’ll leave it, then. Thanks a lot!” Ken says, sarcastically.

“So, how about next weekend?” Alice asks, trying to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand.

Natalya looks at Tim. She looks alarmed, so Tim pulls her to his side and links one arm around her. “Sorry, but we’ve got a thing next weekend, haven’t we Nat?”

“Yes,” she lies. “A... birthday. Tim’s work friend.”

“That’s right,” Tim says. “I knew there was something. It’s Perry’s birthday.”

“It can’t last all weekend, can it?” Alice asks. “Because they’re doing a special kids-go-free deal over at–”

“There’s no way, Mum,” Tim interrupts. He doesn’t want her to finish her sentence. He doesn’t want her getting the kids on-side with whatever it is.

“OK,” Alice says, sourly. “I get the picture. Come on, Ken.”

“What picture?” Tim asks, his anger suddenly frothing like a pan of boiling milk. “We’ve just spent the whole day together. And you’re already getting in a huff because we can’t do it all again next weekend?”

“I’m not in a huff,” Alice says. “But we never get to see you anymore. We never get to see the boys.”

“You’re seeing us now,” Tim says, waving one hand in front of her eyes. “We’re here, Mum. Right here, right now.”

“But it’ll be months before we see you again, I know it will,” Alice says. “You know what it’s like. If I phone Natalya, she doesn’t even answer. And she certainly never phones back. And if I phone you, you tell me you need to talk to Natalya first. It’s like... I don’t know... getting a hang-glider through that Israeli defence shield.”

Natalya has moved away from Tim and crossed her arms. “You know what, Alice?” she says, switching into combative Russian mode. “I am so busy. With no help from anyone. With...”

“Well, except for the maid,” Ken says, stepping in to defend his wife. “And the designer.”

“I am SO BUSY,” Natalya repeats, “with the moving and the boys and...”

“That’s not the point,” Alice says. “The point–”

“YES is point,” Natalya says. Tim tries to reach for Natalya’s arm again, but she jerks it away. “Because I am not... how you say... social secretary for Tim. If you need to see your son, you should phone him. I can’t decide when Tim is free. I don’t even know this.”

“That’s not
exactly
fair,” Tim says, feeling torn between his mother and his wife – feeling stressed and anxious again. “You know that pretty much anything you decide goes, Nat. As far as the weekends are concerned, anyway.”

“Look,” Alice says, her tone placatory. “I just want to see more of you. You’re my son.”

“You have two, actually,” Tim reminds her.

“Yes, and it’s not like I get to see much of the other one, is it?”

“Well, he
is
in France, so...” Tim says, feeling a pique of jealousy for Matt’s clever escape from all of this.

“I just...” Alice says. But she realises that she simply can’t say that. There is no reasonable way for her to express to her son that her life with her husband would be a little more bearable if she got to see her children (and her grandchildren) just a little more often. And in front of Ken, she daren’t even imply it. “Oh,” Alice says, unexpectedly changing tack. “I didn’t tell you, did I? Dot’s left Martin!”

Ken looks surprised. Natalya confused. Tim, searching for connections, wrinkles his brow. “And?” he asks.

Alice can see how that thought led to this one, but again, it would be dangerous to attempt to express that. “I just thought you ought to know,” she says.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve known them for years. Because it’s shocking. Still, I suppose nothing lasts forever, does it? Not even an apparently solid marriage like that one.”

“Let’s go,” Ken says. “Come on. I want to be back in time for Ireland, England. You know I do.”

Well, thank God for that
, Tim thinks.

Once Ken’s Megane has pulled away, Tim sets the kids up with “Bug’s Life” in Boris’ bedroom, then joins Natalya in the lounge. “Phew!” he says, chucking himself onto the sofa. “Thank God that’s over.”

Natalya shrugs. “You invite them here,” she says.

“I know. I think it’s like childbirth.”

“Childbirth?”

“Yeah,” Tim says. “People say that you always forget the pain and end up wanting more. I always forget what hard work they are. It’s weird.”

“Yes,” Natalya says. “Only is a myth. A woman never forget what childbirth is like. Believe me. Is like shitting a bus.”

“OK,” Tim laughs. “I’ll take your word on that one.”

“So why did she say that thing?” Natalya asks. “The one about Dot.”

Tim shrugs. “Mum’s mind works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform.”

“I think she says we will split up.”

“Us?”

“Yes. I think it’s what she wants to say.”

Tim pouts and shakes his head. “Nah,” he says. “It won’t be anything as calculated as that. Being Mum, it was probably pretty straightforward. She probably just suddenly remembered that she hadn’t told me.”

“She thinks I stop you seeing her,” Natalya says. “She said this, yes? So she thinks if we split up it’s better for her. This is what
I
think.”

Tim shakes his head. “You’re slipping into full-blown paranoia now,” he says.

“In Russia we say that just because you feel paranoid...”

“It doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” Tim completes. “Yes, we say that here too.”

“But it’s Russian,” Natalya says. “It’s from Soviet times.”

“OK. Sure. But Mum loves you to bits. They both do. You know that.”