The Son-in-Law (33 page)

I stopped to look at a very messy picture on the dresser, obviously one of Ben’s from school. Hannah claims he’s good at art for an almost five-year-old, but I can’t see it myself. He uses gallons of water and oodles of black. The paper gets so wet his brush goes right through it, and his pictures always consist of messy black puddles and black sticks that he swears are people.

This particular picture was different from normal, though, because it actually had some colour. In fact, there were lots of colours and an enormous purple swirl in the middle.

‘Hey, Ben,’ I said, and whistled. ‘Nice.’

‘My best ever,’ he boasted, doing his chest-puffing thing.

Hannah’s rolling suddenly seemed a lot more vigorous. ‘Good day at school?’ she asked.

‘It was okay.’

‘Learn anything?’

‘Nope.’

Her fingernails were like pink seashells, coated in mother-of-pearl. She had them done at the hairdresser. It was what she called her ‘naked self-indulgence’. I watched her hands, gripping that rolling pin as though she was trying to throttle it.

‘Did you get your marks for the science test?’ she asked.

‘Nope . . . Those biscuits smell lovely. What’s your picture about, Ben?’

Bang!
Hannah’s rolling pin came down like she’d seen a scorpion scuttling across the dough. Not so stupid as you’d think, my little brother. His eyes flickered across to her. He froze for a moment—a mischievous tongue came out and reached halfway to his nose while he pondered. Then he dropped the biscuit cutter, hopped off his chair and came over to show me.

‘Here’s the sky,’ he announced, jabbing his forefinger at a wobbly blue strip along the top.

‘Mm-hm. I thought so. Love the colour.’

‘Grass.’ Jab. ‘Flowers.’

‘And these white things?’

He blew a loud raspberry to show how dim he thought I was. ‘Lambs, silly!’

‘Of course . . . and, er, this blue box? A Tardis?’

Hannah was rolling that poor old biscuit mixture to within an inch of its life. By now of course I realised the picture was a sore point, but it was too late to turn back.

‘Dad’s caravan,’ explained Ben. ‘And here are you, me, Theo and Dad. We’re smiling, see? And—’ he pointed at two smaller messes—‘Jessy the dog and Digby the fat cat.’

‘And this?’ I touched the swirl.

‘That’s a great . . . big . . . purple . . .
sun
!’ Ben yelped joyously. He began to rocket around the kitchen. ‘A great big massive GINORMOUS purple sun! Because it was . . . because it was purple when it was going down and we played in the beck.’

I watched him running in crazy figures-of-eight, bashing into chairs and walls. He was going totally loco and I thought I understood why. He had all this pent-up excitement, and he wanted to talk about everything, but instinct told him he couldn’t. It had been hard for me to sound bored and unenthusiastic after our weekend with Dad. It was such a big thing, such an important thing, but we couldn’t say so.

Hannah’s lips were tight. ‘Ben,’ she snapped. ‘Stop running around! It’s going to end in tears.’

But Ben’s legs just wouldn’t let him stop. He began another circuit of the table and this time he was unleashing his Red Indian yodel. Unfortunately, Gramps came wandering through the door at that moment.

Hannah shrieked a warning—
Freddie!—
but it was too late.

Ben ran straight into him at top speed. Gramps’ mouth opened in shock. ‘Oof!’ he gasped, staggering against the kitchen drawers. One foot shot out from under him. He tried to clutch at a shelf with both hands, but missed and hit the ground. It was awful.

Ben stood there looking horrified. ‘Sorry,’ he said, in a very small voice.

Well. Hannah lost it. I have
never
seen Hannah lose it like that before. Never, ever, in all my life. The rolling pin rattled across the table and onto the floor. She flew across the room, grabbed Ben by one arm, swung him around and smacked him on the bare leg. I heard the sound of it—
thwack!

‘I told you!’ she shouted, and smacked him again. ‘I
told
you! Look what you’ve done!’

Ben was a stunned mullet. His mouth opened a good twenty seconds before he started to howl. By then, Hannah was kneeling down beside Gramps, gazing anxiously into his face and asking if he was all right.

Gramps looked totally bewildered. ‘Just mis . . . mis . . . mislaid my feet.’

Ben’s hullaballoo drowned out whatever Hannah said next as she helped Gramps up and across to a chair. I went over and picked Ben up, and he wound his arms around my neck. His face was slippery with snot and tears and he was wailing like his heart would break. I thought perhaps his heart actually had broken. I wouldn’t have been surprised, because he loved Hannah so much and she was so angry.

‘Hush, hush,’ I whispered. ‘C’mon.’ I carried him out and up the stairs to the bathroom. Then I sat on the toilet seat, rocking and shushing him while he sobbed. The more I replayed it in my mind, the more I knew Hannah had lost her temper because she was terrified for Gramps. I was scared for him too. He hadn’t been the same man since the stroke. I heard one of his friends say it had ‘knocked the stuffing out of him’, and I thought that was about right.

‘Hannah w-w-whacked me,’ moaned Ben, and just saying those words set him off wailing again.

‘She didn’t mean to. You gave her a big fright.’

‘She whacked me really hard!’ He pointed at a bright pink patch on his thigh. ‘It’s sore.’

I thought it was his feelings that were hurt really, but I rubbed the place until his sobs turned into hiccups.

‘Would Terry and Sue like a nice bath?’ I asked, once he’d calmed down. He nodded, so I sat him on the toilet seat while I turned on the taps. Then I rummaged in the cupboard for his bath toys: a pterodactyl (Terry Ducktill) and a blue whale he’d named Sue Blue. I have no idea why he loved this pair so much, but to him they had big personalities and adventures all of their own.

‘How about bubbles?’ I asked, pouring in some pink gooey stuff Vienna gave me for my birthday. It smelled of fake strawberries. Then I turned back to him. ‘Skin a rabbit,’ I ordered, meaning that I wanted him to hold up his arms while I peeled off his top. That’s something Mum used to say to us. Skin a rabbit. I remember her grinning as she said that, and I remember giggling as I held up my arms. I knew what was coming next. She always tickled me in the armpits.

Ben held up his arms. I tickled him, and he laughed feebly. Then I peeled off his T-shirt and jersey all in one before leaning down to kiss his nose.

‘It’s okay, poppet,’ I said. ‘Gramps wasn’t hurt, and Hannah will have forgiven you by now.’

He pulled off his own jeans and pants and stepped into the bath. The bubbles were forming a great white continent, and he slid among them. Then he grabbed Sue Blue.

‘Swosh,’ he said quietly, making her dive.

‘Has she gone exploring?’ I asked.

‘Glug glug glug.’

I dropped his not-very-clean undies—
euw
—into the washing basket, and tried to fold his other clothes. I’m not very good at folding. I was thinking it was a shame Hannah hadn’t liked his picture, and even more of a shame that she’d smacked him.

‘Ben?’ I said.

‘Ker-splash! Oh, hello, Terry Ducktill. Shall we go fishing?’

‘It was a good picture. Honestly. It reminded me of all the things we did at the caravan.’

A smile spread across his face. ‘I liked going to the caravan.’

‘Me too.’

‘Will we go again?’

‘I hope so.’

Ben played for a long time. I sat back down on the toilet seat and thought about Dad. About Hannah. Gramps. Mum. I thought about what a mess everything was. Steam rose out of the bath in a plastic-strawberry cloud, and gathered like a plastic-strawberry veil on the window. I wrote italics in it with my fingernail.
Scarlet Scott. Scarletta Scott. Scarlet Scott Rox!!!
The glass was covered in swirling letters when I heard a knock on the door.

‘Scarlet?’ It was Hannah’s voice. Ben began to cry again.

I jumped up and opened the door. She stood there in her apron, with flour on her cheek and a deep gully between her eyebrows. ‘The gingerbread men are ready,’ she said brightly. ‘They smell lovely! Come and have some, you two.’

I knew what she really meant, and Ben knew, and she knew that we knew. She was trying to say sorry.

‘Yum! We’ll be right down,’ I told her. ‘Ben’s in the bath.’

She gave me a tight little smile and darted away.

‘It was a nice time in the caravan,’ said Ben, once I’d pulled out the plug, ‘but I don’t think we should go back very soon.’ He rescued Sue Blue and Terry from the plughole and laid them on the edge of the bath. Then he stood up and waited like a naked Lord Muck for me to wrap him in a towel.

‘Why shouldn’t we go back soon?’ I asked, as I hauled him out of the water. He smelled of pink strawberry bubbles.

‘Whoa!’ He staggered dramatically as I rubbed his hair with a towel. ‘I nearly fell over!’

‘Why shouldn’t we go back soon?’ I persisted.

‘Because I like being in my house.’

‘Perhaps you could have two homes. A Hannah–Gramps house and a Dad house.’

‘No, because you can only have one house.’ He picked up Sue and Terry and demanded that I dry behind their ears, too. So I did, which was ridiculous, as pterodactyls and whales don’t have ears to speak of. Then we went along to his bedroom—which was complete chaos as usual—and I found his pyjamas scrumpled up inside the duvet cover. He was in too much of a hurry, and tried to force his head down one of the sleeves. I had to rescue him before he suffocated. Finally we got the top on, though it was inside out.

I expected him to go galloping downstairs at that stage, since there were gingerbread biscuits on offer. He didn’t. He hung back and reached for my hand as we left his bedroom. His own hand was soft and still a bit damp. He tugged on my arm until I stopped and leaned my head down to his. His breath tickled my ear. Then he spoke in a sad, little-mouse whisper.

‘I don’t think Hannah likes my picture,’ he said.

Twenty-nine

Joseph

‘So.’ Rosie unscrewed the cap on a bottle of red. ‘You’re busy being a real father again.’

‘I think I am.’ Joseph chuckled, incredulous.

‘Judging by the happy sounds I heard this weekend, you’ve all had a riot.’

‘Yes. No. Well, yes. What about Scarlet, though? If you’d seen her, so terrified . . . It made me realise how I’ve destroyed her childhood. And Theo wet his bed.’

‘So did my brother Tom, until he was eighteen. He’s running a chain of hotels now. Very happily civil-unionised, with his lovely Ivan.’ Rosie tilted the bottle over Joseph’s almost-empty glass. ‘From where I’m sitting, your weekend went brilliantly. You pulled it off.’

He watched as the liquid crept higher. ‘Whoa. That’ll do—thanks.’

Rosie wiggled her head, mouthed the word
puritan
and topped up her own glass.

‘I miss them already,’ said Joseph, smiling in self-deprecation. ‘Miss them like buggery. I only dropped them off three hours ago and I feel as though I’m in an empty waiting room, just sitting there until they come back. And it’s a pretty boring waiting room.’

Rosie feigned indignation. ‘Thanks!’

‘No, no. I didn’t mean . . . I just mean I’ve got used to them. Without those three clowns, I’m sort of pointless. Like an empty cake tin or something.’

‘That’s pathetic,’ Rosie retorted. ‘You are just as much of a human being as you were before you became a father. You have the same brain.’

‘I don’t know . . . Once you’ve been a parent, everything else seems a bit facile. Children do that to you.’ He caught her eye, and could have bitten his tongue. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean that people who don’t have children are facile. I just meant—’

‘That only the fertile and partnered can be fulfilled? That only child-rearing is valuable?’

‘No, just that having them is . . . oh God, um, I mean obviously not having them is—’

‘Joseph Scott.’ Rosie’s dimples were back in place. ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging.’

‘Sorry.’

It was almost nine o’clock, but evening was only now drifting into the valley. Rabbits ventured onto the far bank of the beck and began nibbling at the turf. The landscape seemed like a Japanese painting, sweeping ink strokes in the silk-thin light of dusk.

‘I’m always happier when the days begin to lengthen,’ said Rosie, turning her face towards the window. ‘It feels as though darkness and death are losing the battle.’

Joseph looked at her, surprised. He’d rarely heard his friend speak about her own fears and insecurities, though she calmly soaked up his. They were on to their second bottle of the evening; perhaps that explained this burst of honesty.

‘
Are
they losing the battle?’ he asked seriously. ‘Death and darkness?’

‘Yes. Tonight, at least.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He took a breath, summoning his courage. ‘I’m going to start looking for somewhere to rent. A house. Maybe in Helmsley.’

‘Oh? What about the cost?’

‘We’re not talking Buckingham Palace.’ He swirled the wine in his glass, considering. ‘If the children come to live with me one day, they’ll need something more than a caravan. And they’ll need to be able to get to school easily.’

She blinked in surprise. ‘You mean live with you permanently?’

‘Well, we’ll see.’

‘Your in-laws aren’t going to take that lying down.’

‘Nope, they’re not.’ Joseph sighed. ‘They’ve declared war and used every possible weapon, every step of the way. I can’t see that attitude changing—can you?’

‘Maybe not.’

‘So the only way to end all the battles is for the children to live with me.’

‘You think that will end the battles?’

‘Yes, because I won’t fight. I’ll be ultra-reasonable. I’m worried about them. From what Scarlet’s let slip, I reckon poor old Frederick is struggling now. How much longer? Scarlet’s fourteen and the boys are getting bigger, stronger, more complicated . . . Ben isn’t a baby anymore, even though everybody treats him like one. He’s a schoolboy. How is Hannah going to manage all that as well as Freddie?’