by JL Merrow
“And in any case, he’s far too young for you. Almost as bad as that PA who was slobbering all over you at the last Christmas party. You’re making yourself look ridiculous, chasing after boys young enough to be your son.”
“Chasing after? Chasing after? There has been no chasing on my part. And what do you mean, young enough to be my son? I’m thirty-nine, not fifty-nine. There are only fourteen years between me and Patrick.”
“Oh? Remind me, just how old is your daughter?”
“That’s… that’s completely irrelevant, mathematically speaking. You know that.”
“All I know is for someone who’s supposed to be providing a stable home environment for our daughter, there seem to be an awful lot of young men sniffing around—”
“Mum?”
They both turned—damn it, when had Mark stopped watching the stairs? Fen was standing on the bottom step, looking strangely young.
Oh God, had she heard?
“Darling!” Ellen’s face softened, and she ran to her daughter, wrapping her arms around her in a, from Fen’s expression and muttered “Muuu-uuum,” not entirely welcome hug.
Mark’s alarm grew as Ellen sniffed for real this time. “It’s been so quiet without you in the house,” she said. “Is everything all right? Are you getting on okay at school?”
“I told you on the phone. Everything’s fine. Are we going out? Like, for lunch?” Fen darted a defiant glance over at Mark.
What the hell had he done?
“What would you like to do, darling?”
“There’s this pizza place in Bishops Langley.”
Mark managed not to roll his eyes. She meant the one Mark had refused to take her to on the grounds that it was ludicrously overpriced and perfectly decent pizzas could be bought at any supermarket.
“We’ll go there, then.” Ellen darted an almost identical glance at Mark. “Do you want your father to come? Or would you like it to be just us girls?”
Fen looked at him. “You can come if you like.”
Mark knew how to take a hint. “Thanks, but I’m sure your mum would like you to herself for a bit. I’ve got things I need to be doing anyway.”
Ellen muttered something that sounded a lot like “So what’s new?”
“You can—” Fen glanced at Ellen this time, and stopped mid-sentence.
Ellen and Mark turned enquiring looks at their daughter. It was, Mark reflected, probably the first time in years they’d acted as one.
“Nothing,” Fen muttered. “I’ll go get changed.”
She scampered upstairs, leaving Mark once more facing Ellen’s unfair suspicion. “What was she about to say?”
“How should I know?” Mark protested. “I’m not a mind-reader. Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because I’d be wasting my breath, and you know it.” Ellen sighed. “Is she all right? She’s not been getting into bad company again, has she?”
“As far as I know, she hasn’t been getting into any company. Ells, she’s only been at her new school a couple of days. She hasn’t had a chance to make friends, good or bad. And I know she needs to make friends,” he added hastily. “I’m keeping an eye on it.”
Ellen didn’t look happy. “Are you sure this is really—Florence Esther Nugent, just what do you think you’re wearing?”
Fen stood on the bottom stair dressed in fifty shades of black, her eyes so heavily kohled, her face was a mirror of the death’s-head on her T-shirt. “Dad bought me this,” she said smugly.
Ellen’s lips had all but disappeared. “Did he now?”
Oh, what the hell. “Ells,” Mark said sweetly. “I know it’s hard, but I’m afraid you’ve got to accept it. Our little girl’s growing up.”
* * * * *
Mark paid for his moment of smugness when Fen and Ellen returned. He had to endure a stern lecture on age-appropriate clothing, most of which he actually agreed with, but couldn’t admit to doing so without relinquishing his self-imposed position as devil’s advocate. Then he had to turn comforter when Ellen’s anger, always a brittle thing, inevitably shattered into tears.
All in all, it wasn’t the most relaxing Sunday he’d ever spent.
The week that followed did little to reduce his blood pressure. True, Fen’s new school somehow managed to stay open the full five days, and if Fen broke any more school rules, her infractions weren’t of sufficient gravity to warrant informing Mark and/or sending her home.
Seeing Patrick by chance on Monday had shaken him, though. Patrick had looked so…vulnerable, standing there alone on the doorstep of the café.
It had been a lot easier to stick to his resolve when confronted with angry words. Mark wasn’t at all equipped to deal with hurt looks.
And he’d be seeing him again on Friday. April first. Mark’s apprehension over his coming induction into the Spartans was not lessened by the realisation it was to take place on April Fool’s Day. By determined Internet searching, he managed to track down some photos of previous Spartans being inducted—Patrick had been quite right; those photographs of Barry, bare-chested and hairy-shinned in a leather kilt, should have been censored for the sake of humanity—so it probably wasn’t some horrible practical joke they were playing on him.
He tried on the outfit, after making sure the blinds were closed and Fen was safely at school. He looked ridiculous. The only saving grace was the cloak, which was long and voluminous, and turned out on closer inspection to have started out life as somebody’s living-room curtains. The skirt—kilt—whatever—barely reached mid-thigh on his long frame, leaving a horrifying expanse of winter-pale, hirsute legs underneath. And the less said about what was visible above the belt, the better. The same Internet search had turned up a multitude of images from the 300 film, all of which showed the firm, bronzed bodies of actors who appeared to think if you only had a six-pack, you weren’t trying hard enough.
Coincidentally, he finally got around to making some efforts to improve his fitness during the week—he went running three times and did sit-ups and crunches every morning. They didn’t make him look noticeably more like the actors in 300, with their improbably sculpted bodies and impossibly defined abdominals, but at least he wasn’t getting any worse. Probably.
And the exercise took his mind off Patrick. Well, some of the time it did. Some of the time, the mindless one-foot-in-front-of-the-other slogging through the village, across the fields and down by the river just gave him more time to brood on the object of his hopeless affections. The second time he went out, he passed a couple of young men running together who caused his thoughts to drift in a wistful direction—they looked so happy together, the redheaded, more solidly built one turning to laugh at something his slender, dark-haired companion had said. Of course, they wouldn’t actually be a couple—they were undoubtedly just friends. But for a moment, Mark’s heart ached for that sort of easy companionship.
He’d had it in his grasp, too—before he’d thrown it all away. Was Patrick right? Would Fen really take the news of him having a boyfriend with equanimity? She seemed to like David well enough. Perhaps she’d cope perfectly well with her father being gay.
Could he take the chance she wouldn’t? And in any case, would Patrick still want him after all that had passed between them?
At least Fen was starting to develop some healthy outside interests. She’d decided, entirely of her own volition, to go along to a children’s and young people’s theatre group that met in the village hall at four o’clock every Wednesday. Mark was rather proud of his strategy for encouraging her to go, which had consisted of mentioning it once and once only, and then just leaving the flyer he’d picked up in the chemist’s shop lying around next to the biscuit tin.
He’d read an online article recently that bemoaned the “poshness” of acting as a profession—apparently there was barely a young actor in the country who could c
onvincingly portray a working-class man. So it ought to be safe enough for Fen, from the point of view of not falling into bad company again. And she’d loved acting when she’d been tiny. Mark hadn’t been able to take the time off work to go to see her school plays, of course—at least, it hadn’t seemed possible at the time, although he was hard pressed now to recall exactly what had been so urgent—but he’d seen videos. This time, he told himself, he’d be there in person, applauding the loudest.
Assuming she stuck it out for more than one session, of course.
There wasn’t a lot of leeway between Fen getting home on the bus from school and it being time to leave for the drama class, so Mark greeted her arrival Wednesday afternoon with, “Right, still up for drama? If you’re getting changed you’ll have to be quick.”
“Well, duh. I’m not going like this,” she muttered, dumping her bag in the middle of the hall. Mark sighed and moved it somewhere less hazardous as she stomped up to her room.
He counted it as a win that he’d only looked at his watch three times before she came back down, in black leggings, black skirt and a black jumper. While not necessarily approving of such a funereal ensemble—hadn’t she been the one to tell him to wear brighter colours? Why didn’t the same hold true for her?—Mark would have had to admit it suited her a lot better than maroon. “Ready? Let’s go, then.”
“Why are you coming?”
“To take you there?”
“I don’t need you to hold my hand, Dad. I’m old enough to go walking through the village on my own. It’s not even dark.”
“Humour me,” he said firmly. “Won’t it be nicer to walk there together?”
“S’pose they might ask for some money,” she said grudgingly, which was all the agreement Mark was likely to get.
“Did you have a good day at school?” he asked, as they left the house.
“’S all right.”
“Made any friends?”
“Daaa-aaad.”
“What?”
“You can’t just ask that stuff.”
He couldn’t? “Why not?”
“’Cos it’s private, all right? Have you sorted anything with David?”
“Oh—yes, actually. He emailed me today about going to see Wicked. Interested?”
“Well, duh.”
Mark tsked audibly. “I think you meant, Yes, please, so kind of you to offer to pay extortionate sums for theatre and train tickets, you’re a wonderful father, how can I ever repay you?”
“Whatever. So we’re going? Dad, we’re going, aren’t we?” She looked so much prettier when she smiled. Prettier, and younger too.
Mark smiled back. “Yes, we’re going. I’ll ask him to get tickets for half term.”
“And we can meet him early, and have a meal out in London, yeah? It’s gonna be sick. But we’re seeing David again before that, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
“Well, yeah. Or…or he’ll think you don’t like him except for theatre trips.”
Mark bowed to the inevitable. “I’ll give him a ring while you’re at the group, how about that?”
“Tell him to come over this weekend.”
“Darling, he might actually have a life, you know.”
“He doesn’t have to come for the whole weekend. He could just come one night for tea, couldn’t he? Dad, let’s get pizza. I haven’t had pizza for ages.”
It had been three days, as Mark recalled. “We’ll see, all right? He might have plans.”
They’d reached the village hall by now, a surprisingly spacious building which, on closer inspection, proved to encompass a small library as well as the main hall. Large notice boards were emblazoned with posters exhorting villagers to make use of various local support groups set up for those affected by diabetes, Down’s syndrome and dementia, to name but a few. There was also a poster advertising the Thursday food bank, which caught Mark up short.
Somehow he hadn’t expected evidence of actual need in such a pretty, outwardly affluent village.
“It’s in here, Dad,” Fen huffed impatiently. “Are you coming or what?”
“Just looking at the notices. You know, we should join the library—”
“Daaa-aaad.” Fen tutted.
Mark took that to be shorthand for You’re so old and boring, why aren’t you dead yet? He suppressed a sigh and followed her into the main hall.
Once inside, they were greeted by a…person. Mark blinked. He? She? They were definitely young, with pale skin and dark hair, and a face so multiply pierced it probably constituted a serious risk in a thunderstorm.
Mark was struck by a vague sense of familiarity, but was fairly sure they hadn’t actually met. He must have seen…them…around the village at some point, that was all.
The person smiled at Fen. Mark could swear the piercings jangled. Or possibly it was just their frankly alarming boots, which, with all the buckles, studs and chains adorning them, appeared to be made out of more metal than leather. Mark caught Fen eyeing the boots and hoped she wasn’t picking up fashion tips.
“’Ullo, you new here? Come on in and meet Hev.” The voice, with its rough edges yet light tone, gave no clue to the speaker’s gender.
What with the grungy, shapeless clothing, Mark was still wondering when they were handed off to the promised Hev, who’d been over by the rather impressive stage talking to a group of around a dozen children who appeared to be aged from around ten upwards. Beginning to think he and the online article must have got theatre people drastically wrong, Mark was almost relieved to find Hev was the pretty—and relatively conservatively clad—mixed-race girl who’d been at the Three Lions the night Mark had met Patrick. Almost, because the memory was accompanied by a stab of regret which he ruthlessly quashed. “Oh, hello. Are you the group leader?”
“Yeah. Heather Matthews.” She held out a slender arm, and he discovered she had a firm handshake. “I work for Masons, who sponsor the group. And this is?”
“Fen,” Fen said quickly, presumably worried he might introduce her as Florence.
“My daughter,” Mark clarified. “Is it all right for her to join partway through the year? We’ve recently moved into the village.”
Heather turned her sharp gaze on Fen. “As long as you’re okay with only getting a small role in the end-of-year production, yeah? We started working on it back in January, so it’s all cast already, but there’s always room for more in the chorus. And it’ll be a good way to ease you into the group, see if you like the way we do things here, yeah?”
Fen nodded.
“Right.” Heather turned back to Mark and went on briskly. “We just need full name and emergency contact details, then it’s twenty quid for the term.”
“Really?” Mark blurted out. Then he realised it could be taken in two ways. “I mean, that seems very cheap.”
Heather smiled. “We get a grant as well as the sponsorship, so yeah, really. And we’re all volunteers, so it’s just the hall hire that needs paying for.” She glanced at the clock, now showing five past four.
Mark took the hint and paid up quickly after scribbling down his mobile number on the photocopied form she’d handed him.
“You can go now,” Fen said firmly. “I’ll see you later.”
Mark cast a final eye around the hall. Group numbers had swelled to around a couple of dozen, most of them girls but with a few boys who were punching above their weight in the volume department. With their hoodies from Marks & Spencer and their sensible plimsolls—Mark hoped Fen’s Doc Martens would be forgiven for one week—they all seemed reassuringly middle class.
“Don’t worry,” the person with the piercings said from behind him, leading Mark to jump a little and wonder how on earth stealth was managed while carrying around so much metal. “She’ll be fine. They’re good kids here. We ’ad a couple of louts last year
, but Hev don’t stand for no nonsense, so they din’t stay more’n a couple of weeks.”
“Um, thanks,” Mark said. Telling himself firmly he was doing the right thing, he left.
When he got home, there was a seven-foot spear propped up on the doorstep. It had a Post-it note stuck to the blade that simply said, See you Friday.
Oh God. The induction was really going to happen.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Mark was halfway back to the hall to meet his daughter when a text pinged through on his phone.
It was Fen: Dont pick me up. Goin to cafe w Lex.
Lex? Short for Alexia, presumably. Or perhaps Alexandra. There had been a few girls of similar age to Fen at the group, and it was good she’d made a friend. Even though it would have been rather more considerate to tell him of the change of plan before he’d set off to meet her. Still, perhaps she hadn’t had the chance, or had only just received the invitation from the mysterious Lex. Mark wondered if it was someone who went to her school.
Will you be back for tea? he texted back.
NO IM GOIN TO CAFE. Mark swore he could hear a silent DUH at the end of that text message.
Be back by seven, he sent, and wondered if he was being too lenient.
There was no reply. Mark waited five minutes, then re-sent the text.
Ten minutes later, his phone pinged back at him: K.
That, he supposed, would have to do, although he’d have preferred a wordier answer. And since when had K become a thing, anyway? It made Mark’s fingers itch to add a prosthetic O.
He sighed. The phone call to David regarding the planned theatre trip had turned into an exchange of woes—David complaining loudly of how unreasonable Charles was being, and how the office just wasn’t the same without Mark, and Mark bemoaning his lack of connection with his daughter. Which was fine, really; in fact, Mark felt significantly better having vented somewhat and hoped David did too.
The trouble was, Mark had somehow managed to slip in a bit of venting about his upcoming induction to the Spartans, or rather the ridiculous costume they’d be forcing him to wear. At which point David had been all over that like glitter on a pride parade, and insisted on coming round Friday night to help Mark with his makeup.