by Mike Gayle
After five long minutes in this imaginary world Luke realised that if he was ever going to move on from the past then he had to make some changes to his present circumstances. He climbed out of bed, picked up the cordless phone from its cradle on top of the chest of drawers and dialled his brother’s mobile.
‘Hello?’
Luke was completely thrown. The voice on the other end of the phone was female and distinctly croaky as if its owner had just woken up.
‘Hi,’ began Luke. ‘I’m trying to get hold of my brother Adam, is he around at all?’
‘You’re Adam’s brother!’ The voice at the other end of the phone was suddenly a lot clearer. ‘Hi . . . yes . . . sorry . . . Adam’s . . . I’ll just go and get him.’ The sound went muffled but Luke could still make out the sound of his brother’s laughter.
‘All right, bruv?’ said Adam, coming on to the phone. ‘What’s going on?’
Luke’s curiosity was piqued. Was this another one of his brother’s conquests? Was he finally done with all of that Right Kind of Girl nonsense? ‘Who was that then?’
‘A long story,’ replied Adam. ‘So what’s up? No one’s seen anything of you in weeks. Is everything OK?
Luke decided he wasn’t that interested in his brother after all. ‘I’ve been thinking about how since this whole thing with Mum and Dad kicked off you’ve had to bear the brunt of it and, well, it’s time I did my bit, so while this might be the worst idea I’ve ever had I think I ought to take my turn in having Dad as a house guest. You’ve had him for way too long now so basically put the idea to him and if he’s OK with it bring him and his stuff round here, say . . . next weekend and I’ll take him off your hands.’
‘Are you sure? With you going AWOL like that I guessed that you had your hands full.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘So she’s back then?’
‘No,’ Luke swallowed. ‘She’s gone for good.’
‘And you want Dad to come and live with you?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Fine? Luke, you’ve barely spoken a civil word to Dad since he left Mum and now you’re coping with this thing with Cassie, how is it possibly going to be fine?’
‘I don’t know, do I?’ snapped Luke. ‘I haven’t got a crystal ball and I can’t mind-read either but we’ll work something out. So do you want me to take him off your hands or shall I just get Mum to forward his mail round to yours until Christmas?’
There was a long silence that Luke took to be his brother imagining living with Dad until Christmas.
‘OK, OK,’ said Adam. ‘Take him, he’s yours. But go easy on him, all right? He’s been through a lot and I’ve got a horrible feeling that it’s still a long way from being over.’
On the Saturday of the following weekend at just after nine in the morning Luke looked out of the window of his front room to see Adam pulling up in his Audi with their father in the passenger seat. For the first time in what seemed like years he felt compelled to smile. Was there anything more incongruous than the sight of his sixty-eight-year-old father in a flash German sports car? Luke was sure there wasn’t.
As Adam climbed out of the car and popped the boot open Luke wondered how it would be having his dad to come and live with him. It wasn’t as though Luke harboured any animosity towards his dad. Though he hated how much his father’s actions had hurt his mum he still loved him as much as he ever did. The problem was the sense of disappointment. By choosing to leave Mum he had let not just the family down, but himself too. Now he wasn’t just his father who liked sport, gardening and TV game shows, but also some bloke who had secrets, thoughts, feelings and who knew what else going on inside his head, Luke didn’t know how to talk to him any more. The normal stuff didn’t seem normal and the new stuff was too odd to comprehend.
‘Welcome to the Hotel Middle Bachelor,’ said Luke, trying to be jovial as he went to help Adam and Dad with the bags. ‘How are you, Dad?’
‘As good as can be expected.’ He winked in Luke’s direction just like he used to do when Luke was young. ‘So are you going to give us a hand with these bags or what?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ said Luke, somewhat relieved to discover that this was as awkward for his father as it was for him. ‘You leave all that there and I’ll sort it out.’
Later, Luke watched as Adam set their dad up in the living room with the TV on louder than strictly necessary before dragging Luke in the direction of the kitchen and closing the door behind him.
‘Are you sure about this? Because it’s not too late for me to take him back.’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘It’ll be a baptism of fire all right,’ warned Adam, ‘I feel like I ought to leave you with some kind of manual. You know, things that you should and shouldn’t do if you want to live successfully with Dad.’
‘Like what?’
‘Whatever you do make it clear at the start that in the twenty-first century it’s OK to eat a main meal that doesn’t feature lamb, beef, pork or chicken. You know I like a good steak as much as the next man but Dad nearly freaked out the one time I made him a vegetable chilli because there wasn’t any road-kill in it. And the other key piece of advice is to make sure that he remembers to lock the loo door when he goes to the bathroom. I forgot to do that once and well . . . let’s put it this way, I didn’t ever forget again. Other than that he’s OK as long as you let him watch whatever he wants on TV, make him regular cups of tea and drop plenty of hints about broken things that need fixing. Honestly Luke, that man loves mending things more than anything in the world. A while ago I mentioned a broken kettle that I was thinking about throwing away and last week he was up day and night trying to fix it.’
‘And did he succeed?’
‘Sort of. He spent about twenty quid on spare parts from some shop that he knows on the Manchester Road. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I could have got a brand new one in Tesco five quid cheaper . . . he just seemed so happy I had to let him have his day.’
Luke took out two cans of Coke from the fridge, opened them and handed one to his brother.
‘So did he put up much resistance when you suggested that he came to mine?’ asked Luke.
Adam shook his head and took a sip from the can. ‘I think he could see that he was on the verge of outstaying his welcome.’
‘And what did you tell him about Cassie?’
‘Not a lot. It’s not like you’ve actually told me a great deal. I just said that I thought you guys might have hit some kind of rough patch and that Cass was living with a mate for a while. Was that OK?’
‘It’ll do for Dad, won’t it. He’s not going to interrogate me like Mum would.’
There was a short silence and then Adam said: ‘So it is really over then?’
Luke nodded. ‘I thought we’d somehow miraculously work out a position where she’d forget about wanting to be a mother some day but it never happened.’ Luke looked down at the floor and scratched his arm nervously. ‘I can’t believe this, you know. I just can’t.’
‘And there’s nothing that you can do?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like changing your mind for starters.’
‘Is that what you’d do?’
Adam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s a messy situation. I can see both points of view.’
‘A nice piece of fence sitting there, mate, but no, I don’t think I can change my mind.’
‘That’s a real shame. Mum’ll be devastated when she finds out. First Dad, now this . . . she’ll feel like the whole family is falling apart.’
‘Maybe it is,’ said Luke, looking out through the kitchen doorway in the direction of the living room.
‘Families can be difficult.’
Monday lunchtime. Russell (along with ninety per cent of the population of Manchester’s various office blocks) was in the Market Street branch of Tesco Metro getting together everything he needed to make dinner for Angie and himself that evening. In his shoppin
g basket were the ingredients for baked potatoes and vegetable chilli: two large baking potatoes, a tin of chopped tomatoes, one small tub of chilli powder, a can of kidney beans, a tub of sour cream and a box of mushrooms. He was now trying to locate the chill cabinet that housed Tesco’s cheese selection while simultaneously wondering if he was going to be able to fit all his shopping into the fridge they had at work.
Russell couldn’t believe how much he was enjoying his life of domesticity. He liked waking up in the morning and feeling Angie’s arms still wrapped round him; bringing her a morning cup of tea before he dived into the shower; automatically slipping bread into the toaster the moment he heard her flick on her hairdryer; the text messages and emails that they exchanged throughout the day; the fact that by three o’clock in the afternoon all he could think about was getting home so that he could see her. Even if all they did was eat pasta, share a bottle of cheap wine and watch Waking the Dead, it never felt as though the evening had been wasted.
Having located the cheese cabinet Russell selected a packet of on-offer Cheddar, dropped it into the basket and was about to head towards the checkout when he saw a familiar figure staring into the very next chill cabinet. It was Cassie. Without recourse to his conscious mind, his brain conspired with his lips and vocal cords to call out her name.
‘Cassie!’
She turned, momentarily bewildered. ‘Russ?’
How long had it been since he had seen or heard from her? Weeks? Months? He set down his basket of shopping, stepped over and embraced her just as he always used to do. Though he knew it was wrong it felt good to hold her and as his conscious mind caught up with his subconscious and issued a severe reprimand, Russell noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Cassie’s embrace wasn’t as strong as it used to be; it felt as though he had been holding her while she had merely allowed herself to be held. He looked down and saw that her face was turned slightly in towards him and the palm of her left hand was open and flat against his coat. It was only then that Cassie’s tears became audible.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, craning his neck to look at her directly. She shook her head. ‘What’s wrong, Cass? Whatever it is you can tell me, can’t you? I’m your kid brother.’
It was a reference to an old in-joke they came up with when Luke and she first got together. Cassie had commented to Russell that she had always wondered what it might be like to have brothers and Russell had joked that if she could put up with Luke for long enough she would find out as he and Adam would officially adopt her into the family and teach her the ways of the Bachelors.
‘Come on, you can tell me, Cass.’
She sniffed, repeatedly wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
‘Know what?’
Cassie shook her head. Even though it was difficult to believe, Russell knew that the one thing in the world he had never thought would happen had become a reality.
‘Oh, Cass,’ he said, squeezing her tightly. ‘Mate, listen, don’t worry about a thing, OK? Let’s get out of here and get you a stiff drink.’ And without a second thought about the shopping that he had abandoned on the floor Russell led her towards the exit.
Just like Tesco Metro, the All Bar One on Kings Street was packed with the lunchtime office crowd but thankfully most of them seemed content to stand in large groups talking rather than sitting down at tables so after not too long a wait Russell and Cassie were served and found themselves a spare table at the rear of the bar.
Russell wasn’t sure how to play this situation. The idea of Cassie and his brother having split up was just too bizarre. They were the perfect couple. What could have brought them to this point? Neither was the type to cheat, they got on like a house on fire and were engaged to be married. How could they of all people have gone wrong? The answer when it finally emerged took Russell completely by surprise.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said. ‘You guys have really split up?’
‘I can’t believe Luke hasn’t told you.’
‘He wouldn’t,’ said Russell matter of factly. ‘It doesn’t work like that in our family. I was the last to know when his marriage broke down too. It’s a younger child thing. The way it goes in our family is that Adam gets told pretty much everything, Luke knows what Adam chooses to tell him, Mum and Dad get informed on a need-to-know basis and I only find out when there’s no way left of keeping it a secret. I don’t think anyone in my family accepts that I’m not a snot-nosed schoolboy any more.’
‘Families can be difficult.’
There was a long silence. Russell took several sips of his pint while Cassie absent-mindedly stirred the ice in what was left of her vodka and tonic. Russell had a million and one questions but wasn’t convinced that this was the time or the place and yet there was one he couldn’t prevent himself asking.
‘I’m still finding this too hard to believe,’ he said. ‘There’s definitely no way that you and Luke will get back together?’
Cassie shook her head. ‘No way at all. It’s horrible, Russell. Really horrible because I love him . . .’ she corrected herself, ‘I loved him so much but we couldn’t make things work the way they were. It took all the strength I had to leave him. But looking into the future all I could see was the two of us growing more and more resentful of the things that we felt we didn’t have.’
They talked some more, focusing mainly on the break-up. Cassie told him about their final conversation. Russell considered his own feelings about Jayne and the niece that he loved but never got to see. Russell had liked Jayne to begin with and had thought that she and Luke had been good together but though he was aware of Luke’s faults and understood that there were two sides to every story the evidence spoke for itself: what kind of person would deny the child her right to see her father? Luke might have not been the best husband in the world but he had always been a good father and the Bachelors as a whole had done everything to support both Luke and Jayne. To have taken Megan away like that for spite seemed one of the most cruel acts one human being could perpetrate against another. It was no wonder Luke was so screwed up about starting another family but that didn’t make his reasoning right. When you really love someone, thought Russell, you can’t let the past dictate the future. When you love someone you have to put his or her needs above your own.
‘Listen,’ he said, as they jointly realised that they were fast running out of lunch hour. ‘I meant it about being your kid brother. Whether you’re with Luke or not, you’re still family, so if you want anything make sure you ring me. Ring me for a chat, for a drink, or even if you just want someone to be with you while you sit in silence. I’m there for you Cass, OK? All you’ve got to do is ask.’
‘Didn’t mean to disturb you.’
Luke was pleased with himself. With a week of living with his father under his belt without a single argument between them he was now officially a saint. The key to his achievement was simple: shutting up in the face of provocation and making every effort to accommodate his father. When on their first Sunday as housemates Dad had woken him from a deep sleep by bringing in a tray containing a full English breakfast Luke thanked him profusely and ate it without question. When the following Monday evening he had returned home from work to discover that his father had pruned back the plum tree in the garden to such an extent that it looked like a very tall twig stuck in the mud Luke thanked him for his efforts and listened keenly to his somewhat radical theories on plum-tree maintenance. And when a few days after that Luke had decided to work from home in order to make some kind of headway through the backlog of admin only to have his father knock on his study door every hour on the hour asking him if he wanted tea/coffee/breakfast/lunch/dinner Luke didn’t lose his temper. Instead he resigned himself to the fact that he was never going to get anything done for the rest of the day, called it quits at two p.m. and spent the rest of the afternoon with Dad tackling the nightmare of disorganisation and junk that was his garage.
During this ti
me, although they discussed in a general fashion everything from the latest evolution of Russell’s love life through to City’s prospects in the premiership, they had yet to a say a single word about Dad’s relationship with Mum or his own relationship with Cassie. Of course part of Luke was happy that this was the case. Thanks to his divorce he knew how uncomfortable such conversations could be when undertaken by two people as bad at communicating as he and his father. But at the same time, the longer these subjects went undiscussed the more prominent they became in his own mind and if he didn’t do something about it soon, the subject would leap involuntarily from his lips as though he were suffering from a hitherto-undiscovered form of Tourette’s Syndrome. With this in mind, pulling back his bedroom curtains and peering at the sun outside Luke made up his mind that today was going to be the day. He would make himself a coffee and then tackle the task at hand.
He was about to make his way downstairs when there was a knock on the door and Dad entered holding a plate with sausages, bacon, eggs and tinned tomatoes on it in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.
‘Didn’t mean to disturb you. Just thought you might fancy a spot of breakfast. I’ll leave it down here, shall I?’ He gestured to the floor at the side of the bed.
‘Cheers, Dad.’
‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Fine, Dad. You?’
‘Not so bad. That spare bed of yours is a lot more comfortable than you might think to look at it. Did it cost much?’
‘I dunno, Dad. I can’t remember. I’ve had it ages.’
Dad nodded but Luke could see that he didn’t quite understand how his son could not know what price he might have paid for a major piece of furniture.
‘Your mum and I paid six hundred pounds knocked down from twelve hundred for our current bed in the House of Fraser post-Christmas sale eleven years ago. Best bed I’ve ever slept in.’
Luke was unsure if his dad was genuinely enthused by beds or had simply run out of things to say that wouldn’t result in a further widening of the space between them. Whether he had had his morning coffee or not, this was the ideal moment for him to talk to Dad.