The Other Son

by Nick Alexander

  There had been a moment when she realised, when she had grasped briefly the meaning of the word ‘enough’. There had been a short window of opportunity through which she had been able to identify the comfortable advantages of stasis, of being happy and contented with what they already had. And then something had happened and she lost it again.

  The doorbell rings, making her jump. The sound is still unfamiliar.

  She climbs down and chucks the wad of paper towels on to the sofa and places the cleaning spray on the coffee table beneath the chair, wondering if this will be the new sofa, or the kitchen table, or the pool guy.

  She trots excitedly through to the hallway and opens the front door where she signs disappointedly for a recorded delivery envelope. The delivery, it turns out, was nothing more than paperwork for Tim from HSBC. It’s probably something to do with the loan.

  Back in the lounge, she looks up at the window. Yes, it’s better, but the smears, though fainter, have not vanished entirely. From this angle, in this light, they still look pretty bad. Tim won’t, as she had imagined, be congratulating her after all.

  She sighs, murmurs, ‘Oh well,’ and lifts the chair from the coffee table.

  The chair legs, she sees now, have left deep, ugly dents in the surface of the brand-new table. She has been thoughtless, idiotic, to use a table and a chair as a stepladder.

  She sinks to her knees to study the scarred surface of the table, runs her fingers around the edges of the dents. In anger at herself, she groans and bumps her forehead gently against it.

  All she has ever wanted was to make things better, to make them nicer for Tim, for herself, for the boys. But even when she tries to make things better, she only makes them worse. Her eyes, she realises, are misting.

  Once the aged pool guy with the missing front tooth has finally tipped his buckets of foul-smelling chemicals into their swamp, and once the new five-metre sofa has been delivered and the old one whisked away, Natalya glances at her phone and decides that she just about has time for her plan.

  She phones Vladlena and gives her the evening and morning shifts off. She’s decided that she really doesn’t want Vladlena to leave them right now, and she also wants to spend more time with the boys herself. Giving Vladlena a break kills two hares with one shot. Or as Tim would say, two birds with one stone.

  The traffic this afternoon is terrible and there are roadworks and temporary traffic lights to get through, so the drive back to Dudley takes almost an hour. They have, in theory at least, been sharing the school runs three ways. In reality though, Natalya has only done it twice since they moved. She realises now just how tiring the journey must be for Vladlena, who has to do it five days a week. She realises that even with them paying her travelling time and costs and letting her stay over whenever she wants, the system is unsustainable. It’s amazing, in fact, that she hasn’t been complaining more.

  It’s almost five by the time they get home and Natalya’s too tired to deal with the raucous boys and too tired even to cook them a proper meal. So she lets them load up the Xbox and slings a frozen pizza in the oven before setting about ripping the bubble-wrap from the new sofa. She wonders what Alice would say about her parenting techniques. Nothing nice, she reckons.

  At eight, she puts the kids to bed and, worried by Tim’s absence, texts him and then just three minutes later phones him instead. In those three minutes she’s already started obsessing about his chest pains. He could be in hospital. He could be dead. By the time he answers, her own heart is racing.

  ‘Hi, babe,’ he says. ‘Sorry I’m late but I stopped off to get those speakers. I’m just about to leave. We’ll be there in forty minutes.’

  ‘Speakers?’ Natalya asks, then, ‘We?’

  ‘Me and the guy from the hi-fi shop. He’s gonna come and set everything up.’

  ‘But it’s eight fifteen, Tim,’ Natalya says. ‘The shop is still open?’

  Tim laughs. ‘For fifty grand, he’d stay open to midnight, sweetheart,’ he says.

  Once she has hung up, Natalya lounges back on the new sofa – it’s incredibly comfortable. It’s just a shame the leather is so cold to the touch. She looks around the room and tries to remember the speakers Tim showed her in the magazine, tries to imagine how they will look in this room, how they will impact upon the decor that she and Graham from Dash of Flash so carefully conceived.

  She’s a little angry at Tim for not discussing it with her, and a little concerned about what Graham will say, too. But she’s also glad that Tim has found the time to treat himself to something that makes him happy. She’s a little bit proud, too, that they’ve gone from being the kind of people who hide potatoes under the mattress to the kind of people luxury stores stay open for.

  Edwin from Midland Hi-Fi leans his back against the second box and pushes it inside the open rear of Tim’s BMW X5. The first one is already filling the rear of his own white Peugeot van.

  ‘My wife’s getting tetchy,’ Tim says, sliding the phone back into his shirt pocket. ‘This won’t take long, will it?’

  ‘Once we get to yours, half an hour tops,’ Edwin replies.

  ‘I hope they sound good,’ Tim says. ‘It’s a big investment.’

  ‘It’ll be like having a band in your lounge,’ Edwin says. ‘TAD are the best you can get in this price range. And for the moment, these are the top of their range.’

  Tim nods vaguely and frowns, but before he can pursue that thought to its conclusion, Edwin has climbed into his van and started the engine. ‘So I’ll follow you, right?’ he calls out.

  As they turn on to the ring road, Tim runs the conversation through his mind and chews the inside of his mouth. Something’s worrying him, something about those two qualifying statements. He wants to stop the car right now. He wants to pull on to the hard shoulder and sort it out before it’s too late. But he doesn’t. He carries on driving – just a little faster than usual. Edwin follows on.

  When they get to Broseley, Edwin parks too close behind Tim in the driveway, so Tim has to instruct him to reverse up so he can open the hatchback.

  ‘So just before we do this,’ Tim says, once Edwin has joined him behind the X5. ‘What did you mean when you said they’re the best “in this price range”? And what about them being top of the range “for the moment”?’

  ‘Ha!’ Edwin says, laughing unconvincingly. ‘Worried you, did I? Sorry.’

  ‘Not worried,’ Tim says, though this pain across his chest is surely something not far off worry. ‘I just want to understand what you meant.’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Edwin says. ‘It’s just that the new range comes out in September. They fly us out to Düsseldorf to see it, which is cool. Well . . . to hear it, I suppose.’

  ‘So these are what? An old model?’ Tim asks, slapping the box with the flat of his hand.

  ‘No!’ Edwin says, looking scared at the thought that his sale might be evaporating. ‘No, these are the best they do at the moment. None of us know what’s happening in September.’

  Tim nods. ‘And what about in this price range? You said they’re the best thing in this price range.’

  ‘Stay cool,’ Edwin tells him. ‘These are amazing. These are great. You’ll love them. They’ll be fine.’

  ‘Fine?’ Tim repeats. ‘I didn’t think I was getting fine. I thought I was buying the best speakers that money can buy.’

  Edwin laughs at this – he actually laughs. ‘Oh, I doubt I ever said that,’ he says. ‘If you really want the best that money can buy, then you’ll be needing about six hundred grand for a pair of Omega Ones. And I bet if you look hard enough, there’s something out there even better than those.’

  Tim swallows with difficulty. Edwin has pricked his bubble and, like a leaky airbed, all of the pleasure, all of the optimism he had associated with buying these speakers is leaking out. Because evidently there’s always something better somewhere, and yes, there’s already something better than these TADs, worth a ‘mere’ fifty grand. He fe
els sick.

  ‘They’ll sound amazing,’ Edwin says again. ‘And if they don’t, I can take them back.’

  ‘Right,’ Tim says.

  ‘So are we doing this or not?’ Edwin asks, now lifting the end of the box and starting to slide it out of Tim’s car.

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tim replies, but without any of his former enthusiasm.

  When Natalya opens the front door, her expression shifts from initial pleasure through annoyance to shock. ‘Oh my God!’ she says. ‘Is so big!’

  ‘Hi, Madam,’ Edwin says. ‘Don’t worry, there’s a lot of packing around them. The speakers are smaller than the boxes.’

  ‘New sofa,’ Tim says, as they edge their way into the lounge with the first package.

  ‘Yes, is good, huh?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Tim says, now lowering his end of the carton to the ground. ‘My music sofa,’ he tells Edwin proudly.

  ‘Nice!’ Edwin agrees.

  Beneath Natalya’s critical gaze, they unbox the first speaker, then return outside for the second one. And even though the speakers are taller than Natalya herself, even though Vladlena will need a stepladder just to dust them, they don’t look unreasonable given the scale of the room.

  ‘Nice space,’ Edwin says as they pull the packing away from the second speaker.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Edwin returns again to his van, then begins to unroll ten metres of thick, outrageously expensive speaker cable.

  ‘We must have wires?’ Natalya asks. She’s still seated on the sofa, her hands beneath her thighs as she watches events unfold.

  ‘Of course,’ Tim says. ‘How do you think they work otherwise?’

  Natalya shrugs. ‘Wi-Fi maybe?’ she says.

  ‘Wi-Fi’s not hi-fi,’ the man from the shop tells her. ‘In fact, it’s distinctly lo-fi.’

  Once wires have been uncoiled and ends have been stripped, once Tim’s amplifier has been connected and the valves have started to glow, the moment of truth arrives.

  He selects a CD – John Grant – but then changes his mind and chooses St. Vincent instead. He slips it into the player and then glances back at Natalya. ‘Ready?’ he asks.

  She nods. ‘Not too loud,’ she says, her eyes flicking towards the stairwell. ‘The children . . .’

  Tim laughs. ‘I’m afraid that tonight, for once, if it wakes them, it wakes them!’ he says, glancing at Edwin conspiratorially.

  Boys, Natalya thinks. ‘OK,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘But just for trying. Just short time.’

  Tim checks the track list on the back of the CD case and then, deciding on track one, he simply hits the play button. ‘Rattlesnake’ starts to whisper from the speakers. He reaches for the volume dial. And as the sound increases, the music sounds . . . terrible.

  ‘Um, that’s a difficult track,’ Edwin says, his forehead furrowing as he heads towards Tim in a damage control operation. ‘Perhaps start with something more . . .’

  ‘Wait,’ Tim says, raising one hand to hold him back. He switches to track two. Then track three. He fiddles with the base and treble controls. He ups and lowers the volume, pivots the speakers left and right. But whatever he does, St. Vincent sounds truly horrible.

  ‘Hmm . . . let me check the phase,’ Edwin says, scampering behind each speaker to check the connections. ‘No, they’re fine . . .’

  After having played a few seconds from each track on the album, Tim ejects the CD and puts in Metronomy’s Love Letters instead. It’s his favourite album of the moment, mellow and sweet, but it too sounds horrible, worse even than in the car.

  ‘I think is the room,’ Natalya says, looking around. She can hear the sound bouncing off all that polished concrete. It seems to be assailing her from all directions. It’s making her feel like her head will explode.

  ‘Yeah,’ Edwin says, ‘I think you have too much space. I think you need more furnishings. More textiles.’

  ‘Too much space,’ Tim repeats. Tell that to the guy in the advert, he thinks.

  It’s almost eleven by the time Edwin pulls away down the drive. Tim closes the front door and returns to the lounge. He turns off the hi-fi, then lies down on the sofa and puts his head on Natalya’s knees. He reaches, automatically, for the TV remote control.

  ‘Don’t, Tim,’ Natalya says.

  ‘Huh?’ Tim asks, straining to look up at her, his finger hovering over the on/off button.

  ‘Don’t turn TV on,’ she says.

  ‘Why? You wanna listen to those fuckers?’

  ‘No, I want to talk with you,’ Natalya says. ‘We don’t talk so much now.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Tim says, laying the remote across his chest, and then, deciding that the implied temporary nature of the gesture is rude, he reaches down and places it beneath the sofa. ‘Sure. What about?’

  ‘Just life,’ Natalya says. ‘We sometimes need to talk about life.’

  ‘OK,’ Tim says doubtfully. ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’m sorry about speakers, really.’

  ‘Why are you sorry?’

  ‘Because you’re sad. So I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, OK. I’m not really sad,’ Tim says. ‘Well, maybe a bit, but . . .’

  ‘I don’t understand why you keep this. The man says he can return them, yes?’

  ‘I know. I guess I just felt a bit . . . Not sure . . . Obligated maybe? I mean, he came all the way out here and everything. And a bit daft too.’

  ‘Daft?’

  ‘Stupid,’ Tim says. ‘I feel a bit stupid for spending that much.’

  ‘Is not stupid,’ Natalya says. ‘Is a mistake.’

  ‘Well, sometimes mistakes are stupid.’

  ‘No, in Russian, mistake is mistake. Stupid is stupid.’

  ‘All the same . . . Actually, you know what?’ Tim says, the decision forming as he speaks. ‘Can you do me a favour?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A really big favour?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can you make them disappear?’

  ‘The speaker?’

  ‘Yes. If I leave you the number for Midland Hi-Fi . . .’

  ‘The man from the shop? This man?’

  ‘Yes. Can you phone him and get him to come and get them? Tell him I’m happy to pay a restocking fee, or delivery costs, or his time or whatever. But can you just make it so that they’re gone when I get home? So it’s like it never happened? The whole thing is making me feel ill.’

  ‘Yes,’ Natalya says, ‘I can do this. Is making my ear hurt.’

  ‘And get him to bring the old ones back, before he sells them.’

  ‘The white ones? He has these?’

  ‘Yes, I traded them in. Get him to bring them back. I think this room’s gonna sound shitty whatever speakers we have, so we might as well just keep the old ones.’

  Natalya nods and runs a hand across Tim’s hair. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I think this is good decision.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And can you maybe do for me something also?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tim says. ‘Anything.’

  ‘Because I do a stupid thing too.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes, so you don’t get angry, OK?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘OK, I’m going to tell you now. So you’ve promised not to be angry, OK?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes!’ Tim laughs. ‘Now what? You haven’t boil-washed the kids again, have you?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ Natalya confirms. ‘They’re like babies again. But that’s not it.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Look at table.’

  ‘The table?’

  Natalya nods towards the coffee table.

  ‘OK,’ Tim says doubtfully. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Look carefully.’

  Tim sits up. He leans forward and drags the coffee table towards them. ‘Oh, shit,’ he says. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I try to clean window.’
>
  Tim nods. ‘I, um, saw that they were clean,’ he lies. ‘But I don’t see the . . . Oh, you stood on the table? In what – stilettos?’

  Natalya shakes her head. ‘So stupid,’ she says. ‘I put chair on table. To reach up high.’

  ‘You put a chair on a brand-new table? To clean the windows?’

  Natalya nods. She looks as scared as she feels.

  ‘No kidding,’ Tim says.

  ‘No kidding,’ she repeats.

  Tim sinks to his knees just as Natalya had done, and again, just like her, he runs his fingertips across the damaged surface.

  Natalya has a lump in her throat. She thinks she’s probably going to cry. ‘You’re angry?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ Tim says, sounding stern if not actually angry. ‘Is this from . . .?’

  ‘Tu Casa,’ Natalya confirms. ‘Yes. Expensive.’

  ‘What are we talking? Five hundred?’

  ‘More.’

  ‘A grand?’

  ‘Yes. It’s bad, huh?’

  Tim raises his hands to his mouth and exhales slowly, then regains control of himself and says, ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll take it back tomorrow. They’ll fix it. They owe me.’

  ‘You think so? Really?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tim says. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Then, noticing the tremor in his wife’s voice, he sits back on the sofa and throws one arm around her shoulders, pulling her in. ‘Hey!’ he says. ‘Babe. It’s fine, really.’

  ‘I’m so stupid,’ Natalya whispers.

  ‘As we say in Russia,’ Tim says, imitating her accent, ‘mistake is mistake. Stupid is stupid.’

  ‘And you’re sure? That they can fix this?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘When you buy stuff at that kind of price, the customer service has to be amazing.’ In truth, Tim thinks that he’ll probably have to pay for a new table. But, yes, he’s sure at least that they’ll fix it.

  ‘Oh, Timski!’

  ‘It’s done,’ Tim says. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘And you must forget this speakers,’ Natalya says.

  ‘Exactly. It’s a deal.’

  ‘They were fifteen, right?’ Natalya asks. ‘Fifteen thousand?’ Once she has said it, she doubts that this is possible. ‘No, I get this wrong. It’s less, yes?’