by Sophie Ward
‘And biscuits?’
‘And one biscuit.’
‘Call it a cookie,’ Arthur shouted after him.
‘You’re a cookie,’ Greg shouted back.
In the kitchen, Greg put a banana on a plate with a napkin and tried to imagine his own father doing such things. A bath, a cuddle, a snack. The only time his dad came to his room was if he was in trouble. He placed two biscuits next to the banana, changed his mind and put one back in the packet. That was the problem, he thought, the reason his dad had stayed away. If you’re not careful you put all the cookies on the plate.
When Hal returned from work, Greg was asleep on the sofa with the television on.
‘Hard day?’ Hal kissed Greg’s ear and sat down next to him.
‘Oh, you know. Sent a woman to the moon. Raised an orphan.’ Greg stretched. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Late. There was only one entrance at the venue so we had to wait until the guests left before we could clear out. And I think you’ll find Arthur has three parents. He’s the opposite of an orphan.’
‘That’s not what it felt like. You want wine?’ Greg reached for the bottle and poured them both a glass.
‘It was only one evening.’
‘I don’t mean that. He wanted to talk about Rachel and I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I’m sure you said the right thing. Did you get to the school on time?’
‘Maybe we should sit down with Eliza and go over what we want to tell him again.’
Hal sat up. ‘Just how late were you?’
‘Eliza and I get on fine, she’s just a little … controlling. And I want to be there for Arthur. I want to help.’
‘It’s been two years and you have helped, big guy. More than helped, we couldn’t have done it without you.’
‘Shucks,’ said Greg. He thought it was probably true. They had all needed him in their different ways, all the adults. And now it was Arthur’s turn. ‘The kid’s at a different stage now. We need to re-group.’
‘Okay, let’s have lunch together. Next Sunday.’
‘Definitely lunch. I couldn’t handle dinner.’ Greg closed his eyes. ‘And I wasn’t that late.
‘Come on, Superdad. Let’s get you to bed.’
‘Don’t you want to know about the woman on the moon?’
‘Consider it foreplay.’
They took the glasses to the sink and Hal washed up while Greg ate the mini apricot meringues Hal had brought home from the party.
‘Thanks for looking after Arthur today,’ Hal said. ‘I know it’s all more than you bargained for.’
‘As long as you keep paying me in dessert,’ Greg said.
Arthur sat on a bar stool and ate blueberries while Hal whisked eggs for French toast. Greg had returned to the sofa.
‘Are you taking me to school?’
‘Yep.’ Hal tapped cinnamon into the mixture.
‘Okay.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I wanted to talk to Greg some more.’
‘We’ll see you at the weekend. Or you can Skype later.’
‘Greg can’t Skype. He doesn’t like the way his hair looks.’
‘True. One piece or two?’
‘Three. With syrup. And butter.’
Hal put a piece of bread into the pan and handed Arthur a glass of milk.
‘What did you want to talk about?’
‘He said mummy is living in space and I want to know where.’
‘He said what?’
‘How old do you have to be to go to space? As old as mummy?’ Arthur kept his eyes on the pan in Hal’s hand.
‘Greg?’ Hal spoke to the body on the sofa.
‘You’re going to drop the bread.’ Arthur nodded at the tilted pan.
Hal returned to the hob and fried the French toast. Greg didn’t move.
‘Will you come to space with me? Will mum?’
‘No one is going to space, Arthur. Eat your breakfast.’
‘Mummy couldn’t live here because she wasn’t well. So she’s gone to another planet.’
Hal took his coffee and sat on the stool next to Arthur. ‘We talked about what happened to mummy, do you remember?’
Arthur nodded.
‘And we read that book,’ Hal continued, ‘about the badger?’
‘But mummy isn’t a badger. She’s like Goldilocks. She can live in space as long as everything is just right.’
The boy dipped his toast in the pool of warm lime juice and maple syrup on the side of his plate.
‘Greg? Are you listening?’ Hal said.
Greg put a hand over the sofa and waved.
‘Any thoughts?’
‘Is there more French toast?’
The buzz of a mobile phone vibrated through the ceiling. Arthur slipped off his stool and took his plate over to where Greg lay.
‘We’re going to be late,’ Hal said as he headed upstairs. ‘You’ve got five minutes, Arthur. And don’t give away your breakfast.’
Greg peered from one eye in time to open his mouth for a quarter piece of toast soaked in syrup.
‘S’good,’ he said when he’d swallowed.
The boy stood in front of him, sleep-shaped hair and a maple moustache.
‘You going to wash before you leave?’
Arthur shook his head.
‘Clean your teeth?’
‘Nope.’
The plate on the coffee table in front of them had one more quarter of toast left. Arthur sat down. He took a bite and held the rest out to Greg.
‘Our secret,’ Greg said.
Hal returned with Arthur’s bag.
‘We’ve got to go.’ Hal looked at Greg. ‘I’ll see you later.’
At the door, Arthur let Hal put a jumper over his head.
‘Mummy said we shouldn’t have secrets, Greg,’ Arthur shouted as he struggled into the neck hole.
‘The dead one?’ Greg asked from the depths of the velvet cushions.
‘Yeah.’ Arthur smiled. ‘That one.’
Hal pulled down the jumper and gave his son’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘We’re going to be late.’
A minute later the door closed behind them.
Silence filled the flat. Greg mopped up the rest of the maple syrup with his fingers and lay down again. Work could wait. He wanted to replay the conversation with Arthur a few times first.
Eliza had opened the French windows and laid the table outside in the middle of the garden. A late autumn sun flooded the kitchen but the cold air circled the furniture and Greg wondered how they could possibly endure a meal outdoors. What was it with the British and al fresco dining? There wasn’t even a patio heater.
‘Hope it’s warm enough,’ Eliza said. ‘I couldn’t bear not to be out in that sunshine.’
She used to be sensible, Greg thought, now she was more like Rachel every day. Maybe that was what happened when your partner died, you compensated by absorbing them in an effort to maintain balance. Greg imagined his mother in St Louis with a can of beer in one hand and a wrench in the other. ‘You going to stand there with your finger up your ass, or you going to pass me the claw hammer?’ In his mind, his mother had grown a beard.
‘Red or white?’ Eliza said.
Greg stared at her.
‘Wine.’ Hal touched Greg’s head. ‘You okay there?’
‘Sure.’ Greg let his mother morph back into her lavender cardigan with matching hair. ‘Just thinking about my mom.’
‘How’s she doing?’ Eliza handed Greg a glass of white wine and stood in front of him, head tilted.
Greg didn’t know how to take the sentiment. He had grown used to British sarcasm and was suspicious of earnest enquiry with an English accent.
‘Enjoying the role of grieving widow after a lifetime of rehearsal,’ he offered.
Eliza leant so far back Greg thought she was going to fall over.
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean … my mother is …’ Greg was relieved to see Hal�
�s interest in the conversation had faded as soon as his mother had been mentioned. His husband was staring at the garden as though he might start digging the flowerbeds. ‘My mother and father didn’t get on much.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Eliza nodded.
‘It was never going to work. Straight couples shouldn’t spend so much time together. They get confused.’
‘Confused?’
‘The gender divide deepens with domesticity. It starts with the trash; she does the indoor trash, he does the outside garbage. She vacuums, he gets a leaf blower. Separate nights out with the girls and the guys. Before you know it, you’re in a sex war. It’s not natural. Look at Hal, he can whip an egg white and mow the lawn. I just watch.’
There was a pause before Eliza laughed. But she did laugh, Greg thought as they sat down to lunch in the garden. He pulled at his jacket and noticed how Eliza’s formerly smooth face had lined. They had laughed often in the early days. There had been plenty of evenings shared as Rachel’s stomach grew, and it had seemed as if all their lives, not just Arthur’s, were beginning.
He helped himself to the stir-fry and watched Hal’s expression as various dishes were placed on the table. In the weeks after her death, Hal cooked in what was thought of as Rachel’s kitchen, or delivered meals at the weekends, until the day Eliza asked him to stop. ‘She said they needed to get back to ordinary food, ordinary life,’ Hal told Greg. ‘But I like cooking for them. It’s what I do. She doesn’t understand how much food Arthur needs.’
‘Looks good,’ Hal said now.
Eliza blushed. ‘I nearly gave up and asked you to bring lunch.’
‘I would have done.’
‘See, Hal, that was a little too quick.’ Greg glanced at Hal. ‘Cooking for you is intimidating.’
‘You too?’ Eliza asked Greg.
‘I have my moments.’
Hal snorted. ‘Like the Horseshoe? A grilled sandwich with French fries in cheese sauce.’
‘I could go for that.’ Eliza handed the salad bowl to Hal and sat down. ‘A Croque Monsieur.’
‘Exactly. Hal loved it. We even drove to Springfield when we saw my mom last summer, just so he could try the original.’
‘For the historical perspective,’ Hal said. ‘When’s Arthur getting back?’
‘I’m picking him up from my sister’s at four.’
Greg twirled some noodles round his fork and considered how best to approach the reason they were there. Hal had called Eliza and requested a lunch to discuss Arthur but he had not said why they wanted to talk. When did their everyday conversation become impossible? Every word burdened by twenty-one grams of guilt. They no longer thought of each other as friends, Greg realised. They were more like colleagues in the business of Arthur.
‘Did you tell Arthur that Rachel was an alien?’ Eliza peered at Greg over the rim of her wine glass.
‘Is that what he said?’
‘Pretty much. He came home with a story about Rachel living in space, a fairy tale.’
‘Greg thinks all the interesting things happen on Mars,’ Hal said. They had argued for days about what, exactly, Greg had told Arthur.
‘He wanted to know if you could live in space. I said it was possible, in the right conditions. The kid misses his mom so he decided she could be alive somewhere.’ Greg took a breath. ‘It is kind of what you guys already told him.’
Hal and Eliza exchanged a look that reminded Greg of his parents when he was a child. The ‘which-one-of-us-should-sort-this-out’ routine. Cloud wisps trailed across the afternoon sun. Greg shivered.
Hal started. ‘We said she was ill and her body didn’t work any more.’
‘And we talked about death,’ Eliza said, ‘about what happens when you die. We did not say she was living somewhere else.’
Greg picked at the ginger from his salad. He wasn’t surprised that the conversation was focused more on his culpability than on Arthur’s emotional state. Hal and Eliza were the ones who cared for Arthur, saw him every day, took him to the therapist. Greg had been at work. He hadn’t been part of the routine. But since Arthur’s last visit he had felt more than an understudy for the boy’s parents. He had his own part to play.
‘You didn’t say anything about her staying alive in your memory?’
Eliza frowned. ‘Are you being defensive?’
‘I’m saying we’ve all told Arthur that Rachel lives on, in some way. Metaphorically, sure. But he doesn’t know the difference.’
‘Maybe we should go back to the therapist,’ Hal said, ‘if Arthur needs to talk.’
Greg saw Eliza’s shoulders sag.
‘I don’t think that’s what he needs.’ Greg held his palms up. ‘He wants to talk about Rachel without the high church condemning him …’
‘We’re not religious,’ Eliza interrupted.
‘I mean the reverence,’ Greg said, ‘the positivity. The special language.’
Hal answered. ‘Eliza and I talked about this in therapy with him. Anger and bad feelings, that’s a healthy part of grieving. He can have those feelings but we don’t have to join in.’
Eliza nodded. Her lips were pulled tight and Greg thought she might cry.
‘I want to know; why is it such a big deal for you guys if Arthur thinks Rachel is in space?’
‘Because it’s not true,’ Hal said, ‘let’s start there.’
‘Because he will think she might come back. And she won’t,’ Eliza added.
The light in the garden had muted. Long shadows faint on the grey-green grass. Greg watched Hal take Eliza’s hand as a thin tear slid down her cheek. I will never be part of this, he thought, this English scenery. It doesn’t matter how much my accent slides, or how old my house is.
‘We don’t understand what’s happened ourselves,’ he said, ‘how can Arthur?’
They both turned to him.
Hal said, ‘Don’t flake on me now.’
Eliza shook her head. ‘That isn’t the point. Of course we don’t have all the answers, but we need to protect Arthur. You can’t play with his feelings like this, Greg. It’s not fucking fair. On any of us.’
‘Wait a minute. We just substitute all the conventional religious stuff with voodoo nonsense.’ Greg’s voice rose. ‘I’m sorry, Eliza. Not just you, all of us. We say she’s dead but we behave as if she’s on the other side of the mirror.’
A door slammed in the distance and the group looked back at the house. Beyond the louvred shutters of the French windows, the kitchen glowed in the gathering gloom.
Hal stood up. ‘It’s going to rain.’
Greg helped him collect plates from the table. Eliza didn’t move.
‘I walk into a room and I expect to see her. I go to sleep and she’s waiting for me, standing in a doorway, always just out of reach.’
‘That’s normal,’ Hal said, ‘Of course you want to be with her.’
‘But she’s not there, is she? Greg’s right, we haven’t got a clue. We put all the words in the right order and pretend to understand what they mean.’ Eliza stared at them. ‘But we don’t know anything.’
The two men stood facing Eliza, the towers of dishes in their hands. Rain spots darkened the silvered wood of the table. At the fringes of the garden, the wind caught in the trees. Greg thought about Arthur and Rachel and the three bears. He thought about the forest.
‘We’re looking at this the wrong way round,’ he said. It was almost too dark to see their faces. ‘We want to have answers; we think we should give Arthur explanations, but we can’t. Because death doesn’t mean anything.’
The outline of Eliza stood up. ‘It means something to me, Greg. And it means something to Arthur. Don’t you dare tell us it doesn’t.’
‘Of course, that’s what we feel. But it’s like a computer, we can program the computer with all the information about, say, falling in love, but that wouldn’t help the computer understand what love is.’
‘Because computers don’t feel anything! My God, Greg, do you
ever leave the office?’
There was a rattle of plates and he felt Hal’s hand on his shoulder.
‘Babe,’ Hal’s breath was warm on his cheek. ‘You’re not helping.’
‘We can’t understand death because we haven’t died.’
A sob came from the outline of Eliza. Hal’s hand moved down to Greg’s shoulder and gave him a shove.
‘Come off it,’ Hal said, ‘shouldn’t we go and get Arthur? Eliza?’
Rain dripped on the back of Greg’s neck. He wanted to wipe his glasses even though he couldn’t see anything now. The three of them had become blackened shapes in the yellow light from the house.
‘We can’t die and live,’ he said.
‘We can’t die and live,’ Eliza echoed.
‘That’s why we don’t understand it, why it has no meaning.’
He reached one hand up to smear his glasses with his sleeve and lost his balance. Stepping back, his feet shot out from under him and he landed on the wet lawn with a cry as the china smashed against the table, the chairs and bounced on to the grass beside him.
‘Damn,’ Greg said, after a moment’s silence. ‘Sorry.’
‘You alright there?’ Eliza asked, moving over to where Greg had fallen.
Hal walked across the broken plates. ‘Greg?’
‘I slipped.’
‘Bloody wet out here.’ Hal put an arm out.
‘It’s raining,’ Eliza started to laugh, ‘We’re standing in the pouring rain, in the dark, talking about death.’
‘Yes,’ Greg said, ‘Sorry to spoil the party.’
Greg waited in the hallway while Eliza’s sister shouted for Arthur. He had met Fran plenty of times, but he didn’t want to venture any further into the house.
‘Hal’s waiting at your sister’s,’ Greg explained, ‘I said I’d brave the rain.’
‘Is it raining?’ Fran frowned. ‘Why didn’t you drive?’
‘I wanted to walk. What’s a bit of rain?’ Greg swivelled his shoulders to demonstrate the amount of water he had absorbed. ‘But you know the Brits. Lightweights.’
‘Oh. Not us. We used to picnic in a layby on the M6 for New Year’s Eve on our way up to Lytham St Annes. Arthur!’ She called up the stairs. ‘Come on, he’s waiting.’
Greg smiled and thought, not for the first time, how glad he was that he had married into Eliza’s new family and not her old one.