Love Is a Thief

by Claire Garber

  ‘I don’t know what kind this is.’

  We both fell silent.

  ‘It’s disconcerting, Kate,’ he said, stifling laughter. ‘That’s what kind of staring it is. Dis-con-certing. I think we should nickname you Stare Bear.’

  ‘Peter, I think that almost counts as smiling. I think I just saw you smile.’

  ‘Never. No smiles. It’s not my thing.’ He kissed my hand and pulled me even closer to him. We both went very quiet. I thought he’d fallen asleep but he reached up and gently stroked the side of my face, his finger tracing lines along my cheek, my nose, my lips. My face moving mere millimetres, responding to his touch like a petal starved of sunlight. He ran his finger gently along my lips. I found myself holding my breath, watching his beautiful face. I was waiting, wanting …

  ‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he whispered.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I don’t know how to have you in my life in the way that I want.’ He still had his eyes closed, but he was frowning.

  ‘What do you mean? I’m here. Peter. I’m here.’

  I waited for him to utter another sentence but a few seconds later he fell fast asleep.

  family times are happy times

  As my parents don’t celebrate Christmas, or any kind of religious festival, and I don’t like to celebrate my birthday, Grandma Josephine’s birthday is one of the few occasions when we attempt to be in the same country as each other and sit down for a delightful family meal. My parents had flown in 10 days earlier, a brief visit before an 18-month stay in Kazakhstan, and I’d managed to avoid seeing them until this evening. I was hoping Peter’s attendance would provide a buffer between me and their intrusive questioning and undisguised disappointment.

  the floating restaurant | pepperpots

  I arrived in the floating restaurant to find Peter sitting in silence at the table. He scowled at me as I walked in, pulling me into a whisper as soon as my bum touched my seat.

  ‘You didn’t tell me your parents were going to be here!’ he shout-whispered.

  ‘I didn’t?’ I said innocently, knowing full well that no one agrees to come to dinner if they think my mum’s in town. ‘Sorry, I must have forgot …’ I said, trailing off because Peter looked explosively angry yet at the same time slightly tearful. For a split second he resembled his 9-years-old self.

  My dad noisily cleared his throat.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, turning to them. ‘Hi, Dad. Hi, Mum,’ I said in a teenage mid-tone. My mother glared at me. ‘Sorry. Hi, Richard. Hi, Regina.’

  ‘You’re not allowed to call your parents Mum and Dad?’ Peter whispered.

  ‘I’m an individual, Peter, not a vessel for the creation of future generations,’ shrieked my octave-crushing mother, elbow-deep in a bowl of peanuts. ‘I am a person with a name, not a job description. You wouldn’t call Kate “Writer”, would you?’

  ‘It’s not everyone calling you “Mum”, Mum,’ I whinnied. ‘It’s just me, your actual daughter, who wants to call you Mum, and they’d call me Feature Writer actually.’ I couldn’t help myself. My mum rolled her eyes and clicked her fingers for the waiter to come over. Grandma kissed me on the forehead before taking her seat at the head of the table. The Vietnamese pool boy snuck in and pulled up a chair next to Grandma, gently placing a hand on her knee. It was a classic Winters family dinner, with my parents who didn’t raise me, Peter who raised himself, Grandma my primary care giver, and the pool boy whose role was somewhat undefined.

  ‘Darling, tell your mother what you have been doing at work,’ Grandma said, serving the pool boy with some wine. ‘Kate has been brilliant at True Love. She’s doing some ground-breaking work.’

  ‘I’ve been following her writing,’ my mum snapped, peanut crumbs on her face.

  ‘Have you, Mum, I mean, Regina?’

  ‘Yes. I was surprised you hadn’t called me to ask what I gave up for love.’

  Peter knocked over his glass of wine.

  ‘Well, I was saving that for tonight,’ I lied, passing Peter a napkin. Not at any point since I first conceived of the idea had I ever, ever thought about asking my Regina. ‘So, Regina, what would you have done at my age if you didn’t think you would fall in love, have kids and settle down? What did love steal?’ I beamed at her in an idiotic way.

  ‘Well, I’d done all those things by the time I was your age. All of them.’ She shoved an olive in her mouth and some oil dribbled down her chin. I noticed Peter holding his fork so tight it looked as if he was going to stab someone. ‘But I suppose if I were to be alone forever I would have liked to be a camel racer.’ Bloody typical. I am sure she does this for attention. ‘They have a very intense race programme, more races per season than Formula 1. The prize money is substantial. The best racers are celebrated as heroes, well, in the Arab states. And I was very talented. My first boyfriend, Abdal Malik, was keen for me to race his family’s herd.’ She shoved an asparagus tip in her mouth and it dribbled butter on her chin. By this point there were so many different food groups on my mother’s face I was surprised Gillian, that aggressive nutritionist from the TV, didn’t pop up and start laboratory tests on my mother’s skin.

  ‘So, Peter,’ my dad mumbled, a way of speaking he has learnt from years of being spoken over by my shrieking mother, ‘how is your father?’

  And now my mum had knocked over a glass of wine.

  ‘Actually I don’t know,’ Peter Parker replied, loudly. ‘My father and I don’t speak.’ His jaw was clenched.

  ‘Since when?’ I said, turning to Peter.

  ‘Since I was 15.’

  ‘Oh, Kate, you always buy me my favourite things,’ Grandma said, unwrapping her present. ‘I feel very spoilt. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ I said, watching my mum, who seemed to be watching Peter, who seemed to be watching her. She seemed transfixed by him, or more precisely by the fact that he had his arm along the back of my chair, his hand on my shoulder. While it was nice that he felt he wanted to touch me it felt more as if he was clutching my shoulder for stability than offering parentally appropriate mealtime affection. He left his hand there for the entire dinner, my mother staring at it every second minute. By dessert my mother’s questioning turned to him.

  ‘So, Peter, you’ve not said much this evening. How are you? What’s new in your life?’ She was talking to his hand, not his face. ‘Is there anyone special in your world?’ My dad shuffled uncomfortably on his chair. The table was oddly silent. I realised I was holding my breath. Peter was staring at my mother with what could only be described as murderous intensity. He took a large gulp of his wine before speaking.

  ‘You always were overly interested in the love affairs of my family, weren’t you, Regina?’ He spat the word Regina. I turned to face him. I felt as if I had just switched tables, dropping into a totally different dynamic, one with undertones, undercurrents and a general lack of understanding on my part. It was like the bloody Sopranos. ‘Are you checking up on me, Regina? Hoping I have found some semblance of happiness from the ruins of my broken childhood?’ Peter took another large swig of wine. My mother had gone quite pale.

  ‘Goodness, that was dramatic, Peter.’ I giggled. ‘It was like you were reading from a Dickens novel!’ I chuckled nervously, looking around the table to find no one else the least bit amused.

  ‘It was an innocent question,’ my mum said. ‘I ask Kate the same thing all the time.’

  ‘She really does,’ I whispered to Peter.

  ‘I think you’re more concerned I will tell your daughter about you.’

  Peter’s words hung in the air like celebratory bunting. My mum, dad and grandma all seemed to be intently studying the contents of their plates.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Peter, please.’ My grandmother’s voice was gentle. ‘I don’t think tonight is the night for this conversation.’

  ‘There is no good night for this conversation!’ he barked at Grandma.

&nb
sp; ‘What conversation?’ I asked, apparently invisible to the rest of the table.

  ‘Maybe you are worried, Regina,’ Peter continued, glaring at her, ‘that I am going to implode like my mum, a destructive force of nature, taking your daughter with me. Don’t worry, I am pretty sure my emotions were switched off around the age of, oh, I think around the age of seven, if memory serves me.’ What the hell was going on? ‘“Give me the boy until he’s seven and I’ll show you the man.” Isn’t that the saying, Regina?’ Peter downed the contents of his wine glass. ‘Well, I wasn’t a man at seven, Regina, but I certainly was one by the age of fifteen.’ He poured himself yet another glass of wine and pulled me on my chair closer to him.

  ‘I just wanted to know Peter’s relationship status.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Isn’t that what they call it on Facebook? I was just being polite. I mean, you could be dating Kate for all we know. So? Are you? Are you two dating?’

  ‘Why do you care what I do with your daughter?’ Peter said incredulously. ‘Are you worried you’ll have to see my dad at the wedding?’

  ‘Wedding! What wedding?’ I said in a high-pitched giggle.

  ‘Because I don’t think my dad will be getting an invite to the wedding.’

  ‘There’s that word again!’ I beamed at the table. ‘Wedding!’

  ‘Or are you jealous, Regina? You don’t want Kate to have what you couldn’t. Because Dad didn’t want you any more after she died. I know that. I saw the letters. He didn’t want you any more.’

  Oh, my God.

  I turned to Peter.

  ‘Peter, what’s going on?’ But he was still looking at my mum, who was staring at Grandma so fiercely I thought her eyes were going to shoot across the table like missiles.

  ‘Well? Should Peter and Kate be seeing each other?’ my mum asked Grandma, gesturing towards Peter and me. ‘Isn’t anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?’ Mum shrieked.

  Peter looked from my mum to my grandma. It was as if he was trying to do the maths but it wasn’t adding up. Then I heard him catch his breath.

  ‘How long were you having an affair with my father?’ His words were barely audible.

  My mum wouldn’t look up from her plate.

  ‘HOW LONG?’ he yelled, slamming his hand on the table, sending the plates and glasses flying.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a bloody holiday romance, Peter!’ she screamed back at him.

  ‘Before I was born?’ he asked her. ‘Before we were born?’ he said, grabbing onto my arm as if I were a prop. By now I felt pretty dizzy and it wasn’t on account of the wedding chat.

  ‘Ten years,’ my dad said solemnly. ‘She was having an affair with your father for ten years.’

  ‘No.’ Peter started shaking his head. ‘No, no, no.’ He was shaking his finger at my mum. ‘NO!’ he yelled, stumbling backwards, away from the table, clutching his head in his hands. Then he put his hands over his mouth, took a deep breath and turned to face me. I didn’t know if he was going to lunge for me or run from me. For a second I thought he was about to break down, there and then, crumble to the floor in tiny pieces, but instead the emotion burst out of him like a bomb. ‘NO!’

  ‘Peter, calm down.’ Grandma tried to get up but the Vietnamese pool boy kept her back.

  ‘Are you fucking joking me?’ Peter yelled at my mother, pacing backwards and forwards, each turn looking back at me. ‘ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING?’ he yelled at the top of his voice, pointing at me but speaking now to Grandma.

  Luckily only a tenth of the other ancient diners in the restaurant had noticed the yelling, shouting, pointing and pacing. Two or three of them had turned to stare. Their Parkinson-induced hands appearing steady in comparison to the trembling hands of Peter Parker. At that moment I was more fuzzy-headed than any senile dementia sufferer in the room.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ He turned on my grandma. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Peter,’ my grandmother said very calmly, ‘I didn’t know the length of their relationship until last week. It was Regina’s wonderful birthday gift to me, wasn’t it, darling? You gave me your dirty laundry as a present.’

  ‘But is it possible?’ he pleaded with her.

  ‘Peter, I just don’t feel in my heart that it’s the case, OK.’ She was very matter of fact, as if she thought he would accept her opinion, sit back down and finish his lemon meringue pie.

  ‘But it’s possible?’ he asked her again. ‘It is possible?’ Peter’s face was a mixture of pain and disgust. He was falling apart before my very eyes.

  ‘Yes, it’s possible!’ my mother shrieked. ‘I was sleeping with them both when I fell pregnant with Kate. Far better someone bloody well mentions this now before we have a herd of six-fingered children running about with ogle boggle eyes and learning difficulties.’

  ‘Regina, I have never raised my hand to a woman,’ my father said, throwing his napkin on the table, ‘but I swear to goodness that if you don’t shut up I will ruddy well do so tonight.’

  By this point Peter was standing, practically catatonic, staring at me, his jaw clenched so tightly I feared it would ping off at the joints and explode out of his head. Slowly he turned to face my mother. In a disgusted whisper he muttered,

  ‘How could you?’

  She blinked back emotion before lifting her defiant chin high in the air and saying,

  ‘Because I was in love, Peter. I was totally in love with your father.’

  ‘So was my mother, Regina!’ he yelled. ‘So was my mum!’

  Then Peter Parker did what Peter Parker does best and he left, just as all the staff in the restaurant brought out a birthday cake for Grandma singing ‘Happy Birthday’. The strange thing was, we all stayed sitting at the table. Grandma blew out the candles and made a wish. My father refilled all our glasses with wine. We finished eating our desserts. Everyone agreed that the chocolate fondant was a better choice than the cheese and biscuits. I had a quick espresso. Then I put my napkin on the table, got up, pushed my chair neatly under the table and finally put on my coat ready to leave.

  ‘Dad,’ I said, walking to his side of the table and crouching down next to him. ‘I’m sorry for you, I really am,’ I said, kissing him on the cheek.

  ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with, Kate,’ he said, not looking at me.

  ‘No, Dad, you can’t. But you can choose just about everything else.’ I stood up and turned to face my mum.

  ‘I don’t think we will be seeing each other again, Regina.’ It was the first time I had felt more comfortable calling her by her first name. ‘So take care of yourself, as I am sure you will, please don’t contact me, and definitely definitely don’t try to contact Peter. Grandma, I will be waiting for you in your villa.’

  grandma’s villa | pepperpots

  It was like the direct-eye-contact 700lb-bomb-detonation scenario all over again. No one could look at each other. And by no one I mean me. My eyes were ogle boggling all over the room trying desperately not to land anywhere near Peter.

  ‘You weren’t even sick,’ Peter said, pacing up and down the room.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Sick—you haven’t been sick. You threw up at Mary’s house when you thought I had a girl in my apartment. You felt sick after finding my letters to your grandma but this, this happens, we find out we might be related and what, not even a bit of nausea?’

  ‘I can’t believe that is what you are focusing on,’ I said, staring at floor.

  ‘Well, I don’t understand it. Why weren’t you sick?’

  ‘I don’t feel sick, Peter, because I don’t think there is a reason to feel sick. I just don’t believe we could be … er … siblings.’ Had he looked at the difference in our complexions?

  ‘But you can’t look at me? If you don’t think it’s true then why can’t you look at me?’ He was right. I had been talking to a magazine stand slightly to his right.

  ‘I don’t want to look at you until we have this all straightened out. I don’t want to
have any images of you in my head when you could have been my … I just think it’s best I keep my eyes on the floor.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, mulling it over. ‘Oh!’ he said, both of us swinging round to face opposite walls. ‘I really wish you’d told me that’s what we were doing,’ he said as we stood back to back.

  ‘Peter, I can’t process any of this, that it was my mum who took away your family from you. I just, I don’t know what to say—’ Peter stayed silent. ‘I miss her too, you know, Peter. I miss your mum too. I still remember playing with her, and the picnics when she would cut sandwiches into funny shapes, and hide-and-seek in your garden. I still think about her.’ Still nothing from Peter. Just his back against my back, solid, constant. ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Would you have wanted Regina in your life if you’d known?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Well, I wanted you to have a family. I wanted you to be happy. And from a purely selfish point of view I really didn’t want to see the look on your face when I told you. I wouldn’t have been able to bear it. So Josephine and I decided it was best if you didn’t know. I went away. Problem solved. And I wanted to start over. I’m sorry, Kate, but I did. I needed a fresh start. It was the right thing for me.’

  ‘Was it as bad as you thought, my face tonight when I realised—was it as bad as you’d imagined?’

  ‘Actually it wasn’t. You were still giddy from talk about imaginary weddings.’

  ‘There was no giddiness! The restaurant was overly warm. And the giddiness I feel now is mostly nauseous.’

  ‘But you don’t feel sick?’

  ‘Peter!’

  ‘Kate, I wanted you to have a relationship with your parents. I wanted you to have a mum. There was no point both of us going without. And you were giddy.’

  ‘I don’t have a relationship with my parents. I never have. Grandma has always fulfilled that role. And my mum, my Regina, well, she’s just so, she’s so … horrible.’

  ‘She really is horrible.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can look at me without thinking about what she did.’

  Peter stayed very silent.