‘I know. But—’
‘Your last flat was four floors up. It’s always going to be quieter
when you’re away from street level.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t like it here? Already?’
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‘No! I—’
‘Because it took us long enough to find it.’
Tom stopped. His uncertainty, reticence even, was still there. But
he knew that it was important for her and for them that he dulled it.
‘Esme, no. I’m not . . . I’m happy here. I just wish there were fewer
people in Belsize Park.’
‘I’m sure everyone who lives here thinks the same. That’s London,
though. Isn’t it? Nobody wants to live anywhere near anyone else.
But nobody wants to leave to live nowhere near anyone else.’
‘I have no idea what you just said.’
‘Think about it,’ Esme said. She stretched her arms out and
yawned, signalling the end of that debate.
‘Also,’ she said, ‘you’ve brought too many CDs with you. We’ll
have to get rid of some. There’s that hospice over the road.’
‘Right. You can stop that now.’
‘What?’ she said, as Tom sat down on the floor and motioned to
a box marked ‘FICTION A-M & VASES (FRAGILE!)’.
‘If we’re talking about having too much crap, then what about
your books? Four boxes of them. Most of which you’ve already read.
Why can’t they go to the charity shop?’
‘I might want to read them again,’ Esme said bluntly.
‘Seriously? What is the likelihood of you ever reading . . .’ he said, picking up a book at random, ‘ The King of Torts by John Grisham.’
Esme went to defend herself but Tom cut her off.
‘While we’re at it, why did you ever read The King of Torts by John Grisham?’
‘On holiday! I like to read page-turners on holiday.’
‘So you’re basically admitting that you will never read this again
unless you happen to suffer long-term memory loss when we’re in
bloody Marbella or somewhere.’
‘No. Look, I probably won’t read it—’
‘So let’s chuck it out then!’ Tom said, preparing to throw the book
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onto the ever-expanding charity-shop pile they should probably have taken care of before they moved. But Esme grabbed his arm.
‘No! I will decide when I throw books out. Not you.’
‘But—’
‘No,’ she said again, picking up his copy of Faded Seaside Glamour by a band called Delays.
‘What are you doing with that?’ Tom said.
‘Let’s make a deal. One for one?’
‘Absolutely not,’ he said.
‘CDs are worthless now anyway. Literally no one will own them
in, like, two years.’
‘Except me. The record stays.’
‘And stop calling CDs records. Records are cool. CDs are point-
less.’
‘ Stop calling CDs records,’ Tom repeated, in a high-pitched, whin-ing voice.
‘Childish,’ Esme said.
‘I might listen to that again. You know you won’t read this again.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘No. The point is that you hate chucking stuff away. Even when
it’s bloody useless.’
‘I could say the same about you,’ Esme said, as Tom began to
laugh. ‘What’s funny?’
‘You look like you’re about to throw that CD at my head.’
‘I’m keeping it away from you. Anyway, I might if you don’t put
the book down.’
‘You first.’
‘No chance.
‘Fine. We’ll play a game to settle it.’
‘Oh come on.’
‘Each of us picks up one thing that we think should be thrown
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out and asks a question about it. If the owner gets the question right, it stays. If they’re wrong, it goes.’
‘Only if I can go first,’ Tom said, ending their Mexican stand-off
by turning the book over to read the blurb on the back. ‘As a side
note, I find it strange that you are so good at coming up with games
on the spot.’
‘I am a loss to television,’ she said, still holding the CD.
‘Okay. So, who is the main character in The King of Torts?’
‘Clay Carter,’ Esme said, without so much as a thought.
‘How the fuck do you know that?’
‘How do you forget a name like Clay Carter? I win. The book
stays.’
Tom threw the book down on the floor next to Esme, where it
joined hardback editions of the Winnie the Pooh books and signed
copies of the first three Harry Potters, for which the keep/chuck
game was not necessary.
‘My go,’ Esme said. ‘I want you to name track three on this CD.’
Tom drew a blank. He had not listened to the album since he’d
bought it some years ago. If he was being honest, it was doubtful
that he’d played it the whole way through.
‘You have no idea, do you?’
‘Hang on,’ he said, prepared to take a punt on anything. ‘Erm.’
‘Five seconds.’
‘Es!’
‘Three. Two.’
‘Shit.’
‘One. Answer please.’
‘Fine. Pass. I have no idea.’
‘The answer is “Long Time Coming”. Know it?’
‘Actually yes. It was the single. Only good song on the album.’
‘Well, you might want to give it one last play,’ Esme said, begin-
ning a separate pile next to the books. ‘Because it’s gone.’
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They played the game three more times, during which Tom lost albums by Elliott Smith and Ryan Adams, while Esme gave up a
yellowing, beaten copy of an Ian Rankin novel adorned with a ‘3
for 2’ sticker from a long-defunct bookshop chain. Then he realised
that Esme was working down towards CDs he either really liked or
had some sentimental value. Gifts bought by friends. Signed copies.
Even a limited edition or two.
‘I’m not sure I like this game,’ Tom said, just as he was about
to relinquish a copy of The Three EPs by the Beta Band. ‘And I’m rubbish at it.’
‘I think it’s good.’
‘Well you would. You’ve only lost one book.’
‘I have a talent for games.’
‘For games you’ve made up on the spot.’
‘Maybe so. But all of my games have a message behind them.’
‘This one being “relieve Tom of his stuff ”.’
‘Or better still “memory and compromise”. Good qualities when
you’re building a life together, don’t you think?’ Esme said. ‘For
whatever’s next for us.’
She smiled at him and he smiled back. From outside came the
noise of a loud car stereo and a group of kids laughing. A dog barked, a truck reversed. All sounds he’d have to get used to if this house was going to become a home.
‘Ignore it,’ Esme said, handing him a book. ‘It’s my go.’
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CHAPTER FIVE
6 – 7 pm
OLD SECRETS AT OUR
FIRST CHRISTMAS
December 2007 – Lowestoft, Suffolk
Anne Murray rinsed out the gravy boat the family only used at
Christmas and passed it to Tom. This, as much as anything, was
one of their Christmas traditions. Tom’s dad, Gordon, would have
a brandy and a cigar (marking the only time of the year he was
allowed to smoke in the house). Sarah, his sister, and her fiancé,
Nathan, would choose some music and set up the dining table for
games. Tom and Anne would wash up and talk and tell each other
what they might want from the year to come.
Today, however, something was different. There was a third person
in their post-Christmas lunch clean-up line.
‘Where does this go, then?’ Esme said, displaying a large crystal
bowl that had been used for fruit salad. Tom noticed his mum wince
as Esme held it up.
‘Top shelf of the larder, love. There’s a box for it.’
Tom took a stack of plates over to the cupboard where the best
china was kept, storing them away for another year. Esme meanwhile
joined Anne at the sink and picked up a damp tea towel.
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‘Is it strange,’ Anne said, ‘being away from your family at Christmas?’
‘We only left them this morning, Mum,’ Tom said.
‘I know. I mean on Christmas Day.’
‘We were—’
‘No. Not at all,’ Esme interrupted. She was firm but polite.
Determined to stop Tom snapping back again with that exasperated,
irritated tone people use when they think their parents are saying
something daft.
‘I just hope we’ve been a nice change. Not too annoying or weird,’
she said, permanently convinced that her family was difficult and
unruly, rather than normal.
‘It’s been lovely.’
‘What normally happens at yours then? Around now. Don’t tell
me you’re all doing something intelligent while we just loll about
like a bunch of gluttons.’
Esme laughed. ‘Nothing really,’ she said. ‘In Hungary people cel-
ebrate more on Christmas Eve. It’s about the only thing my parents
still do traditionally. On Christmas Day they might go for a walk
or watch a film. But that’s it.’
‘So no turkey or anything?’
‘Carp,’ Tom said.
‘Sorry?’
‘They eat carp. Like from the river.’
‘Carp?’
‘He makes it sound awful. But it’s really nice.’
‘You had it too?’ Anne said to Tom, sounding a little surprised.
Perhaps unable to imagine her son – who as a child refused any food
that was not breadcrumbed – eating carp.
‘I did,’ Tom said.
‘Carp,’ Anne said again, slightly disbelieving.
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of cod than it is here,’ Tom said, repeating what Esme had said to him a week ago with an authoritative tone.
‘We also make gingerbread and wrap it up for the neighbours.
Then go to church for midnight mass.’
‘Oh. You’re . . . well . . .’
‘Religious? Not really. We just like the carols at Christmas.’
‘Lovely, isn’t it? Did you take Tom with you?’
‘No,’ Esme said, smiling at Tom, who by 10 p.m. had eaten too
much stuffed cabbage and poppy-seed cake and fell asleep in an
armchair in front of the Christmas Eve Top of the Pops re-run, waking up at 3 a.m. with a blanket thrown over him. ‘He stayed at home
with my dad.’
Tom remembered waking up in that cold living room. It was a
strange place, but he had never felt so immediately at home any-
where. Tamas and Lena Simon had taken him in, told him stories
about meeting and living in a foreign city in their early twenties,
given him gifts and brought him a little way into their family.
‘Is there anything else I can help with?’ Esme said, dropping a
handful of cutlery into a drawer beneath the hobs.
‘You’ve been quite helpful enough,’ Anne said. ‘Go and sit down.
Tom here can finish up.’
Esme put a tea towel featuring a crude, primary-school illustration
of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer down on the kitchen worktop
and left Tom and his mum.
He turned the radio up a little. ‘The Fairytale of New York’ rang
around the kitchen for what felt like the ten thousandth time that
winter, as Tom filled his mum’s wine glass from the enormous bottle
of prosecco she was keeping cool in a paint-splattered bucket full of
ice and cold water because it wouldn’t fit in the stuffed fridge.
‘Well then?’ he said.
‘Well what?’
‘Well what d’you think?’
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Tom’s mother paused for a second, grabbing a ladle from Tom before he put it in the cutlery drawer rather than the utensils pot.
‘She’s perfect, Tom. Just perfect.’
He smiled and went to thank her. But before he could, Anne was
off with a list of Esme’s virtues.
‘She’s clever and funny and nice to have around the place. Oh,
and ever so pretty, Tom. Ever so.’
‘I’m glad you like her.’
‘And you do, too.’
‘Well, yes. Of course.’
‘I mean more than that though, don’t I?’ she said, loading al sorts of implications, emotions and possibilities into such an ordinary
word. ‘I can see it. She’s different, this one. Not like Niamh or
Emma, or . . . who was the other one? The Australian.’
‘Carla.’
‘Yes, Carla. Esme’s different. Something more. Your dad thinks
so, too. So does your sister. And Nathan,’ she said, referring to his
sister Sarah’s fiancé.
‘Nathan?’ What the bloody hell does he know? He never met
the others.’
‘Oh, he just likes to feel included, doesn’t he?’ Anne pulled off
her rubber gloves with a snap. ‘And what about her family? You get
on alright?’
‘Fine, yeah. They’re nice. Really nice.’
‘You don’t sound very convinced.’
‘No, I am. I like them. Yesterday was fun.’
‘Must’ve been strange. Celebrating on Christmas Eve like that.’
‘It’s good, though. Means we always see both families over
Christmas.’
‘Hmm,’ Anne said, re-organising the cupboards where Esme had
either put things in the wrong place, or balanced one thing a little
too precariously on top of another.
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‘What?’
‘The way you said that. “Always see both families”.’
‘And?’
‘You make it sound proper. Like there’ll be more Christmases.’
‘There will, I hope,’ Tom said.
The mention of it, the thought, sent him a few years into the
future. He saw an older version of himself in Esme’s family home
with her parents. For a brief second he even pictured someone else
entirely. A child maybe, their presence signified by a scooter by the
door rather than any physical manifestation. Tom quickly shook it
away. It was too soon to think of anything like that. Maybe that
kind of thing wasn’t for him at all.
‘That’s nice, Tom. And do you think she’s . . .’ Anne said, turning
away from the cupboard above the cooker to mime slipping a ring
onto a finger.
‘No. Esme’s not like that.’
‘Not like what?’
‘She doesn’t like marriage. Hates the idea of it.’
‘Why?’
‘She just does, Mum. And it’s not one of those things you should
ask her about.’
‘Okay,’ she said, in a way that suggested she wasn’t about to leave
the topic alone.
‘Mum,’ Tom said.
‘I just think it’s sad.’
‘It is what it is.’
‘But you’ve talked about it, then?’
‘Only to confirm that she’s not interested.’
Tom saw her trying to resolve her clear liking for Esme with this
distaste for the more traditional elements of the family that she had
built her own life around.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Maybe she’ll change her mind.’
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Tom thought about arguing back against this, but knew there was no point. Esme had been clear with him about her feelings on
it and he didn’t care enough to try to change her mind.
‘Sarah will be starting soon, won’t she?’ Tom said, thinking about
his sister, who was in the process of setting up decks of cards and
gambling chips from a set that only ever saw the light of day at
Christmas time.
‘In a minute,’ Anne said, her voice now serious. ‘There’s some-
thing I want to ask you, Tom.’
He knew what was coming. He had been expecting it. But before
he could answer they were interrupted by a voice from the living
room.
‘Rummy! All set up.’
‘We should—’
‘Not yet,’ Anne said, firmly.
‘Mum.’
‘Tom. We have—’
‘Not now,’ Tom snapped, and left her alone in the kitchen.
Fifteen minutes later, the Murrays were halfway through a game
when Esme quite deliberately caught Tom’s eye.
‘You okay?’ he mouthed. Her answer came in the form of a smile
and another large sip of red wine. Then she laid down three aces and
a run of hearts – five, six, seven, eight.
Jamie Fewery Page 7