Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘What? When? How?’

  ‘Died. Five years ago. Stroke,’ he said matter-of-factly like he was recalling morbid things from The Generation Game conveyer belt.

  ‘And you tell me now?’ I held my hands out in frustration as I saw his dad open the front door and walk towards the car with a Theo-like smile on his face. ‘Why didn’t you say anything? I bitched about my own mother non-stop to you. I never would have done that if I’d known.’

  The sound of a car door opening broke off Theo’s response and the greying head of his father poked in, smiling a cheery welcome.

  ‘What took you so long?’ he asked, and I knew right then that his sing-song accent was going to be impossible not to imitate.

  ‘Hi, Dad.’ Theo stood and pulled his dad into a hug as I got out and smoothed down my clothes, like I always did when I was nervous. ‘This is Effie.’

  The man turned to me and I saw an older version of Theo looking back at me. He had the same high cheekbones and gentle blue eyes. His chin was partially covered in hair, like Theo’s, but unlike his son his hair was dark, almost black, with streaks of grey running through it like seams of slate.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Effie,’ he said bypassing my outstretched hand and going straight in for an overly familiar hug. He was tall, with long strong arms, and what was a hug for him was a near-death experience for me.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you too, Mr Morgan,’ I said once I had regained the use of my lungs.

  ‘Rhys, call me Rhys.’

  ‘You have a beautiful home,’ I said, because I thought that was something normal people would say. It wasn’t a lie though; it was beautiful, with ornate bargeboards that hung down over the eaves of the house and the twisted chimneys that rose from the roof.

  ‘It’s all courtesy of Great-Uncle Alwyn of course, but Theo will have told you all about him already,’ Rhys began. I noticed Theo smile from behind his father before I shook my head. ‘Alwyn was the creator of the Morgan spring; tiny device, smaller than the nail on your little finger, but no piece of machinery can run without it. Genius man.’ Rhys continued his story as he placed his hand on my shoulder and led me into the house, under the stone porch draped with ivy, and into the entrance hall; leaving Theo to get the bags.

  Staying at the Morgans’ was like staying in a luxury guest house, complete with freshly laundered towels on the foot of the perfectly made bed and an unopened travel-sized toothpaste in the glass cup beside the sink in the en suite. It made me slightly nauseous to think that people did this in their own homes.

  At my house, you were lucky if you got to the new tube before Elliot indulged his twisted fascination of standing on it and watching the contents splurge onto the basin. After that you’d have to use the sink like a palette and scrape off what you needed.

  I tossed my bag onto the upholstered stool that sat before an antique vanity table but didn’t bother unpacking my things. I was only staying for two nights so what would be the point?

  I pulled off my shirt, lifted it to my nose and inhaled the smell of sweat and soil and just a tinge of the oranges that Theo had packed for lunch. I would probably need to shower soon, although I felt like I had earned that sweat and shouldn’t give it up so easily. I pulled on a shirt that smelled a little less like the musk of my armpits and walked to the door.

  I heard the sound of Theo unpacking in the next room and padded down the hall, my bare feet enjoying the soft pile of the wine-coloured carpet.

  Everything I saw looked perfect: the burgundy-painted walls, the gothic sconces that illuminated the ceiling and cast a soft, eerie light down the hallway. Everything had been placed with purpose, not slung there for convenience.

  I passed a wall of photographs and stopped to look when one caught my eye.

  The Theo in the photograph was younger, doughier and around four or five years old. His white blond hair flopped over his eyes and his chubby cheeks showed nothing of the striking cheekbones that they would come to be. He grinned at the camera, his mouth a mishmash of white milk teeth and gaping expanses of gum where they had fallen out and made him money while he slept. I smiled to myself and turned my gaze to the photograph beside it. Theo was older in the next one, around twenty, maybe, each of his arms draped over the shoulders of the women beside him. The one on his right had to be his mother, Megan. She had the same crooked smile, the same shade of sandy blonde hair, bobbed at the nape of her neck, and the same glimmer of mischief about her. She was pretty and slender, with soft kind eyes that were brown, unlike Theo’s, but held a look that matched her son’s exactly.

  The other woman could barely be seen, because someone had cropped the photo to exclude her. But that didn’t matter; I still knew who it was. Her hand rested on his stomach, perfectly manicured and glistening with a sparkling engagement ring.

  Had Theo folded her out or had one of the others done that for him?

  Theo was standing beside the bed with his back to the door when I walked in. His room was large, with burnt-orange walls and so much paraphernalia that I almost laughed. The Star Wars figurines, still sealed in their packets, sat under a fine layer of dust on a shelf above his window and a Labyrinth poster sat framed on the wall. A punch bag hung from the ceiling in one corner and on the dresser were several awards and framed photographs of Theo in the ring, his fists raised, all expression of friendliness gone from his eyes.

  I watched him as he unpacked, oblivious to my presence, and it was one of the rare moments I had seen Theo ‘in the wild’, as it were. Here, in his childhood room he wasn’t trying to impress anyone with his witty banter or disarm anyone with that superhuman smile, he was just being Theo. He lifted a hand to his back and began rubbing up and down his spine. I felt his pain, literally, after climbing a mountain that I was unbelievably underqualified to climb.

  I cleared my throat to announce my arrival, my eyes landing on a pile of old comic books that would probably be worth thousands, had they not been folded and thumbed to within an inch of their lives.

  I picked up a Boba Fett Bobblehead and gave it a flick.

  ‘Do not judge me, woman,’ he said, still unpacking things onto his bed. ‘This stuff could make me thousands.’

  ‘Oh, so you’re only keeping them for investment reasons?’ I tilted my head and quirked my brow.

  ‘Of course,’ he lied.

  I walked over to the giant Labyrinth poster and stared into the eyes of a life-size David Bowie. ‘I guess it would be stupid of me to ask if this is your favourite film?’

  ‘If you ask me that again,’ he began in a terrible Bowie-esque voice, ‘I’ll have to suspend you head first in the Bog of Eternal Stench.’

  ‘I’m guessing that that’s a line from the film. I’ve never seen it.’

  ‘Well, that is an absolute crime against cinema and will be rectified before you set foot back in England,’ he said in a jovial yet highly serious voice. I wandered over to him as he pulled a toothbrush out and flung it onto the bed, perching myself on the nightstand and watching him as he ferreted around further into the depths of the bag that was seemingly bottomless.

  ‘Do all the girls you bring here get to see your room or am I a special exception?’ I asked, joking but at the same time wondering if this was something he had done before.

  ‘Oh yes, I bring all my women here to join the harem. You will meet the rest of them later.’

  He looked up at me and grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes; I wondered if the reason for this was the headache that had started on the mountain.

  As he looked at me, something in his eyes changed and a moment later he abandoned his bag and stepped towards me, his eyes looking at me with an intensity that made me feel like I needed to turn away. I looked down at his arms, corded with muscle as they reached for me. He stepped between my knees and brushed the hair from my eyes before leaning down to kiss me.

  I should have been used to it by now, but it still knocked the wind out of me like a kick to the stomach. It felt str
ange to have someone like him pressing his lips to mine, as if I was daydreaming and at any second would be woken from it by the sound and subsequent panic of Elliot relieving himself in my boots. A bloom of heat erupted in my chest as he curled his fingers around the back of my neck and ran his thumb along my jaw.

  I kissed him back, timidly at first before taking his face in my hands and pulling him to me hungrily. Once I’d tasted him, I never wanted him to stop, never wanted him to stop wanting me like he did right now. He slid his hand under the hem of my shirt, his fingers warm on my stomach. In turn I slid my hands over his back, feeling his muscles tense beneath his shirt as he moved. My heart hammered like bass sounding from a passing car as I savoured every touch, every burst of electricity that fizzed and crackled in my chest.

  ‘Theo?’ a feminine voice called from downstairs and the spell was broken. He pulled away, his lips swollen from their efforts, the skin around them pink and a dead giveaway.

  ‘That’ll be Tessa,’ he said with reluctance in his eyes and he stepped away.

  I smoothed down my clothes and bit my bottom lip with embarrassment. I’d let my desire run away with me. I wished I’d let it run further.

  He readjusted his rumpled clothing and shot me a grin before he took my hand and led me down into the living room.

  Tessa waited for him in the archway of the room, her eyes lighting when she saw him. She was tall and thin, with billowy blonde hair that sat in a cloud of unruly frizz around her elfin face. Her skin was palest white and that, coupled with the light shade of her hair, made her look ethereal; like some sort of faerie.

  Theo kissed her on the temple before lifting her from the ground and swinging her around like a little girl. Tessa squealed. He placed her down and then looked over at me, something very much like apprehension in his eyes.

  ‘Tessa, this is Effie.’ He held out a hand, which I took hold of and walked to his side.

  ‘Hi.’ I braced myself for another hug like I’d received from Rhys, but it seemed the Welsh friendliness ended with him. Tessa stepped back, her lips pouting, one eyebrow rising as she sized me up. I held out my hand and waited for her to shake it, but she just left it hanging there. And I’d thought that Tessa would be the least of my problems.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ I said, thrusting my hand towards her a little more and smiling as sweetly as I could with the tension between us rising by the millisecond.

  ‘Tessa!’ Theo whisper-shouted.

  She reached out and took my hand, shaking it once before dropping it like hot iron.

  ‘Hello, Effie.’ She somehow managed to make it sound like a threat.

  Rhys appeared around the archway and called us to the kitchen where a bottle of wine with an ancient-looking label and three glasses were set out next to a tumbler of orange juice.

  ‘I thought we’d toast the return of our traveller and the arrival of his lady friend.’ He uncorked the wine, even the pop sounded expensive. It made me salivate.

  The kitchen was old, with exposed brick and a red Aga. In the window sat a small bed of herbs that glowed in the last rays of the evening sunlight. Rhys poured three glasses of the deep red liquid and handed the OJ to Theo.

  ‘Actually, I’ll have wine,’ he said, walking over to a cupboard and taking out a glass that sparkled like new.

  I bet they had a dishwasher, that’d be why all their stuff was so shiny. I wish we had a dishwasher.

  Tessa and Rhys eyed Theo with trepidation as he poured himself a glass and retook his position beside me.

  Was he a recovering alcoholic? Could that be the secret?

  Rhys lifted his glass and said, ‘Theo and Effie.’

  Tessa lifted her glass, said Theo’s name loudly and then drank without uttering mine.

  The wine passing over my tongue felt like arriving home after a long day. I closed my eyes and savoured it. I bet this cost more than the usual £5.99 special from Bobby’s.

  Theo and Tessa made dinner while Rhys and I sat at the table in the room next door, sharing easy conversation. The table was long enough to seat twenty and made from oak that was stained a light colour that accentuated the knots and grains of the wood. The chairs were high-backed and heavy, but seriously comfortable. Every word seemed to reverberate through the air, all the way up to the high ceilings, as Rhys talked with ease.

  ‘What is it that you do, Effie?’ he asked, leaning forward on his elbows.

  ‘I work in a bookshop and I …’ I said before I stopped myself, wondering why I’d thought of telling him about my book. I knew I’d drunk the wine a bit too quickly but surely it hadn’t affected me that much. ‘… I write.’

  ‘Ah, a writer. Loving a writer is hard; our Theo has chosen himself a challenge,’ he said, a far-off look coming into his eye. ‘You can love a writer with every cell in your body, but you will always know that your beloved’s affection is shared between you and every character they create.’

  I smiled. It was poetic and sad and completely true. ‘Do you speak from experience?’

  ‘Megan was a writer, never published, but she loved nothing more than to create the worlds that came into her head.’

  Shit! I’d had one job and that was not to mention his dead wife and here I was, forcing him to bring her up in our second conversation.

  I waited for him to clam up or break down and leave the room, but all he did was smile.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about what happened to her. Theo only told me today.’ I took another sip of wine, not sure if I was saying the right thing so I sated my worry with alcohol.

  ‘It was a shock for all of us, especially Theo, seeing as how it happened,’ he began, taking the stem of the glass in his hand and oscillating the wine. ‘Tessa and I live in the house that she lived in. We use the pans she bought and we repaint the walls with the colours that she chose. We are used to her not being here anymore, even if we wish it wasn’t so. Theo isn’t as far along as we are, but then he had three times the loss we did.’

  ‘Are you talking about Jenny?’ I asked.

  Rhys nodded. ‘He lost his mother in February and his fiancée in May, his career somewhere in-between and then we almost lost him. Half of the people in his life and his vocation, lost to him in four months.’

  ‘What do you mean you almost lost him?’ I asked leaning in. He looked at me with something resembling pity and was about to open his mouth to reply but as he did, the others walked into the room and the conversation died on the terracotta floor tiles.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ Tessa said, placing a casserole dish down on a placemat and lifting the lid with a flourish. Steam billowed out and the smell of something incredible wafted into my nostrils. ‘Coq au vin, almost. You know Theo never uses a recipe and we didn’t have about four hours to stand around making it.’

  ‘You made this?’ I asked, looking up into Theo’s smug face and wondering why he’d let me cook that swill for him when he could make stuff like this. He nodded and took a seat opposite me, nursing the same glass of wine he’d been drinking since we arrived, and we ate the meal to the sound of easy conversation. I thought back to all the times he’d drank with me. Had I been unknowingly fuelling his decline back into alcoholism?

  His mum died, his boxing ended for some reason, Jenny left him, it all pushed him over the edge and he got a drinking problem. I bet that’s what it was.

  I felt something brush my ankle and almost yelped, but one look at Theo’s grin and I realised that it was his foot, his naked toes tracing circles on my skin.

  I looked at him over the steaming casserole dish and watched as he took another swig. I wanted to reach over and smash the glass so that he wouldn’t fall deeper. Had that been what had attracted him to me? A kindred, pickled spirit?

  After dinner Rhys showed me an album of baby photos, I laughed at the two-year-old Theo who stood beside his sister’s cot and sneered at the new arrival, before Theo snatched the album away and hid it out of sight.

  It was full dark when
Theo made us all sit down to watch Labyrinth. Tessa groaned and Rhys settled down for a snooze. I noticed that Tessa had placed herself as far away from me as possible at the other end of the sofa. I was used to people not liking me, but I usually gave them a reason to do so before they decided to hate me.

  Theo slid the Blu-ray into the machine and rubbed his hands together.

  ‘Oh, for the love of God.’ Tessa sighed. ‘You do know other films exist, right?’

  ‘Shut up or I’ll call the Goblin King to come and take you away,’ Theo said as he pressed play and the opening credits rolled to the sound of Bowie’s voice.

  I watched him as he bobbed his head to the Eighties music and mouthed every line of dialogue along with the characters.

  By the time the credits rolled Rhys was snoring loudly into a velvet throw pillow.

  ‘Well?’ Theo turned to me excitedly.

  ‘I liked it, except for the obvious green screen and the wires that you can clearly see holding up the set,’ I replied.

  He shook his head in disappointment. ‘Effie, this is an Eighties classic. The flaws only help add to its charm.’

  I agreed rather than ruin his evening and excused myself to the bathroom.

  I sat on the lid of the sparkling dual flush toilet and prodded my finger into a bowl of potpourri on the windowsill. I withdrew my finger, sniffed it, winced.

  It stank of vanilla; I hated vanilla.

  I stood and washed my hands, the lights surrounding the mirror illuminating my face as I stared into it. I’d been so nervous about meeting Theo’s family that I looked drained from all the worry, and the mountaineering probably hadn’t helped the bags beneath my eyes. I needn’t have worried when it came to Rhys. He couldn’t have been nicer to me. Tessa, however, had disliked me on sight, if not before. I had seen that in the almost invisible curl of her top lip and the slant of her eyelids when she’d first turned to acknowledge me. I didn’t know what Tessa had decided I lacked, but it was clear that I wasn’t welcome to have her brother.

  I turned off the bathroom light and walked out onto the landing, hearing hushed voices arguing in the hallway below. I moved closer, my feet padding gently over the burgundy carpet as Theo and Tessa came into view. I sat down on the top step and pressed my face through the spindles.