The Other Son

by Nick Alexander

  Alice’s shoulders are aching a little from hugging her knees so she stands and crosses to the big picture window. As she looks out at the empty pool, Boris runs to her side. ‘Are we going outside?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ Tim says immediately. Which is a shame, because Alice would have quite liked a short walk around the garden with Boris. ‘You’ve been out all morning. We’re staying in for a bit now,’ he tells the boy.

  Alice reaches to smooth Boris’s hair, but he flinches from her touch and returns to where Alex is lying on the rug.

  She starts to ask why the pool is empty, but thinks better of it. It probably has some kind of problem. Best not to mention it.

  ‘They must be enjoying having all this space to run around in,’ she says instead, and the atmosphere in the room seems to lighten under the relief of her compliment. But then, before she has even realised what she’s saying, she has added, ‘They’re so hyperactive, those two. They need a lot of room!’ And the atmosphere has noticeably darkened again.

  Alice pulls a handkerchief from her sleeve and starts to rub at a smear on the window. ‘These must be a bugger to clean,’ she says.

  ‘Yes, we need a proper window cleaning company to do them,’ Tim says. ‘Poor old Vladlena can’t even reach as high as you.’

  ‘I try too,’ Natalya says, ‘but is hard. You think you have done it, and then the sun is moving, and it’s not so good.’

  ‘Yes, I hate that,’ Alice agrees. ‘Newspaper and vinegar, that’s what you want. Newspaper and vinegar.’

  ‘Newspaper and vinegar,’ Natalya repeats. ‘This one I must remember.’

  ‘If you’ve got some, I’ll show you,’ Alice offers.

  ‘Mum,’ Tim whines.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just sit down. Just relax a bit, won’t you?’

  ‘I just wanted to . . .’

  ‘You’re not going to start cleaning the windows now, OK?’

  Alice shrugs and returns to the uncomfortable sofa just as Boris and Alex start to wrestle on the rug in front of her.

  ‘Boys, calm down,’ Tim says.

  Boris looks up and his little brother makes the most of the distraction by whacking him across the back of the head. The boys resume their fight.

  ‘Alex!’ Natalya shouts. ‘Sorry, Alice. They’re very exciting since moving houses.’ She stands and pulls the two boys apart, then sits them either side of Alice on the sofa.

  ‘Excited,’ Alice corrects. ‘They are excit-ed.’

  ‘Yes, sorry,’ Natalya apologises.

  Alice has always been drawn more to little Alex. Boris is something of a bruiser, a future rugby player no doubt, but with his blue eyes and David McCallum mop of hair, Alex looks like a sort of cartoon child, like one of those Japanese manga children. She tries now to put one arm around Alex, but he pushes her away and runs off.

  Natalya, who sees this happen, and who notes Alice’s pain, knows that it’s because Alice always tries to kiss them on the lips – which they hate – and because they both claim that she ‘smells funny’, which can only be because of that horrible perfume she always insists on wearing. It doesn’t suit her at all. In fact, Natalya’s not entirely sure that YSL Parisienne suits anyone.

  She has tried, on many occasions, to nudge Alice in a different direction perfume-wise. She has boxed and wrapped tens of bottles containing different expensive fragrances. But Alice, who is as stubborn as a mule, always goes back to Parisienne. Natalya suspects that she dumps her perfume gifts directly in the dustbin. She once gave her a jumbo bottle of Chanel No 5. She hopes she didn’t bin that one, at least.

  Alice, now desperate for a cuddle with one of the children, makes a lurch for Boris but he’s too fast for her. He, too, takes flight.

  It happens, she thinks, because the boys don’t know her well enough. Natalya and Tim virtually never come and visit them these days, and invitations to visit them are even rarer occurrences. ‘So how long have you been here now?’ Alice asks, that thought leading to this one.

  ‘Six weeks,’ Tim says. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Nat?’

  ‘Yes, nearly six.’

  Mentally, Alice rests her case. She bets there aren’t many parents out there who don’t get to see their children for six weeks in a row.

  Boris and Alex now reappear from the kitchen. Boris is making train noises and chasing Alex with a broom.

  ‘Boris, put that down,’ Tim says.

  ‘If he falls over with that . . .’ Alice warns. She’s imagining him running the broom head into some piece of furniture – imagining the broom handle knocking his teeth out.

  ‘Boris! Stop!’ Natalya orders, but the boys carry on regardless. Ken raises one eyebrow and catches Alice’s eye. And Alice knows what he means, and agrees.

  Tim makes to stand up, so to save him the effort and perhaps the shame of having to physically intervene, Alice grabs Boris’s arm as he runs by. When he kicks out at her shins in an attempt to break free, she instinctively slaps at his legs.

  Everything stops. Even The Wild Beasts stop singing – by coincidence it’s the end of the track. Boris, looking furious, turns to check out his parents’ reaction. And seeing them surprised, concerned, angry even, he starts to howl. He rolls to the ground and clasps his leg.

  ‘Ha!’ Ken laughs. ‘He’ll make a good footballer, that one. Oh, me leg, me leg!’

  ‘Boris,’ Alice says, reaching half-heartedly towards him. ‘I didn’t hurt you. You know I didn’t.’

  ‘I’d sign him up for Man United right away if I was you,’ Ken says.

  Tim glances at Natalya, then turns to face Alice. ‘You didn’t hurt him, Mum,’ he admits, ‘but please don’t hit the children. You know we don’t do that here.’

  ‘I didn’t hit him,’ Alice protests. ‘It was just a little slap.’

  ‘No, well, please don’t. We don’t physically abuse our children in this household. We’ve been through this before.’

  Ken snorts. ‘Physically abuse?’ he repeats derisively.

  ‘It was just a slap,’ Alice says, turning to Natalya for support. ‘Not even a slap – a tap. That’s all it was.’

  But Natalya looks as upset as Tim about it.

  ‘Kids need a slap sometimes,’ Ken offers.

  The temperature in the room seemingly drops ten degrees.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Tim asks, sitting up straight and gripping the arms of the chair like he’s on a roller coaster about to loop the loop. ‘Would you like to repeat that?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start making a fuss,’ Ken says. ‘I’m just saying what everybody thinks. That sometimes kids need a bit of discipline. Sometimes a slap is the only thing they can understand.’

  Tim chews his bottom lip. ‘I can’t believe you’re saying that to me though,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, come on, Tim,’ Alice pleads. ‘You know what he’s saying. And, after all, it never did you any harm, did it?’

  What Tim wants to say, the phrase that runs through his mind, is, ‘So which bit are we talking about? Which bit specifically never did me any harm? Are we talking about the boot in the face? Or the belt across the back? Are we talking the chipped tooth, or the broken wrist? Are we talking about my head being held under the bath water, or my being locked in the cupboard with Matt for a whole night?’

  ‘I’ll, um, go set the table,’ is what he actually says.

  ‘But it’s done, Tim,’ Natalya tells him.

  ‘Then maybe I’ll do it again,’ Tim says, already leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

  Boris continues to wail theatrically. The noise, amplified by the resonance of the room and perhaps by her impossible desire to slap the boy again, drives Alice to distraction. Ken, she can see, is getting edgy too.

  ‘Any chance of a drink?’ Ken asks.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry,’ Natalya says, standing. ‘I tell Tim.’

  She finds him in the kitchen, already fixing a tray of drinks.

  ‘A Bloody Mary for you, I’m guessi
ng?’ he says with a wink.

  Natalya smiles weakly. ‘A double,’ she says. ‘And quick.’

  ‘So you’re waiting for hotter weather, I assume,’ Ken asks once she returns. Natalya frowns, so he points outside towards the swimming pool.

  ‘Oh, a fuse is broke,’ she explains.

  ‘Broken,’ Alice corrects.

  ‘Actually, in England, we say “blown”,’ Ken offers gently. He thinks Alice is too hard on Natalya about her English. Natalya is a pretty lass, and in Ken’s book, pretty lasses get extra leeway.

  ‘Yes, blown is even better. A fuse has blown,’ Alice agrees.

  ‘Is it heated?’ Ken asks.

  ‘No, we switch it off.’

  ‘But when it’s full, it’s heated?’ Ken asks, speaking slowly as if Natalya might be stupid rather than foreign.

  ‘Oh yes, it has a heat pump. I think this is right, yes?’

  ‘Yes, love, that’s right,’ Ken says. ‘A heat pump. That’ll be nice. The kids will love it.’

  ‘I hope.’ Natalya turns and smiles at Tim, who is returning.

  He places the tray on the coffee table and starts to hand out the drinks.

  ‘Ooh, Martini,’ Alice says, taking her own glass from Tim’s hand. ‘You know me so well, Timothy.’

  ‘I should hope so after all these years,’ Tim says. He hands Ken a can of Stella.

  ‘Are you cold, Mum?’ Tim asks, and Alice becomes aware that she’s rubbing her arms.

  ‘A bit,’ she says. ‘I dressed a little optimistically, I think. I thought it was summer when I looked out this morning.’

  ‘It’s not that warm in here,’ Tim admits. ‘Can we turn the heating up a bit, Nat?’

  ‘It’s that big window,’ Alice says. ‘You can feel the cold air coming off it when you sit over here.’

  ‘Is up already,’ Natalya says, ‘but it will take a while. An hour maybe. The room is so big.’

  ‘It’s too big,’ Alice says. ‘It’s going to be a bugger to heat in winter.’

  ‘That’s the third time you’ve said that,’ Tim points out.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ Alice says.

  ‘I think we can move to dining room,’ Natalya suggests, trying to interrupt the flow of that particular conversation. ‘It’s warmer there.’

  ‘I suppose it’s lunchtime anyway,’ Alice agrees, glancing at her watch. ‘And I’m starting to feel quite peckish.’

  Once everyone is seated in the dining room, Tim returns to the lounge for Alice’s glass of Martini. He stands and looks back out at the garden. The sun has vanished now. It might even rain.

  He forces himself to take a long, deep breath. He’s feeling stressed and anxious. He’s feeling angry, he realises, and he needs to calm down before he joins the ordeal of the dinner table; otherwise he’s likely to lose the plot.

  Just two more hours, he tells himself. In two hours’ time, they’ll be gone.

  He had imagined, rather stupidly, that Alice might congratulate him on the house. He had imagined her patting him on the back and saying, ‘Well done, son. You’ve done good.’ But instead of that, it’s too big, it’s too cold, there are smears on the windows, and yes, it’s going to be a bugger to heat in winter.

  So it’s still not enough. It’s never enough. Not for Alice, not for Natalya, and not, ultimately, for Tim himself. It’s like being at the gym on one of those rolling roads, running to keep still. And just like at the gym, the only real measure of progress is how fast you can run in order to stay still and how long you can keep it up for. And Tim is running. He’s running at full tilt right now. And he doesn’t think that he can possibly run any faster. But it’s still not enough.

  His chest feels tight. His left arm is hurting, too, and isn’t that meant to be the sign of an impending heart attack?

  Alice and Ken, he thinks. Bloody hell. Alice and Ken! He shakes his head in despair and laughs sardonically. And then he laughs again a second time, only this time it’s real. Because a revelation has just popped into his head from a source unknown.

  The revelation is this: that he needs to abandon the idea of ever gaining his parents’ approval. Because he can see that clearly now, so clearly he wants to write it down somewhere in case he forgets it again and the moment is lost. Yes, for some reason, for some reason that is entirely beyond his comprehension, a reason that has nothing to do with Tim himself and everything to do with his parents’ personal brand of madness, nothing Tim has ever done has ever been enough, and nothing – he sees this now – will ever be enough. He needs to give up on the idea of pleasing them. Because how much weight would be removed from his shoulders if he just stopped expecting their praise?

  He snorts and shakes his head, and at the sound of heels, he turns to see Natalya crossing the room to join him.

  ‘You’re OK?’ she asks.

  Tim nods and lets his wife take his arm.

  ‘Come,’ she says. ‘We can do this. We’re halfway through now.’

  Tim rolls his eyes comically. ‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘we’re halfway through.’

  Lunch goes off without a hitch. Tim’s revelation about his relationship with his parents lasts through three full courses of traditional Russian dishes.

  Alice, who is making an effort, manages not to mention the temperature of the house. She even remembers, in extremis, to thank Natalya for the food. ‘That soup was still very peppery,’ she’s shocked to hear herself say, ‘but lovely. So thank you!’ she adds.

  ‘And your stroganoff was bloody marvellous,’ Ken tells her. ‘The best ever.’

  It’s after coffee, when they’re pulling on their coats, that things go haywire again.

  ‘So when do we get to see you next?’ Alice asks as she buttons her coat.

  ‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Tim says, sounding pre-exasperated by the question. ‘Soon.’

  ‘Tim’s going to come over one night and help me fix the roof,’ Ken says, then to Tim, ‘We’ve got a leak and I need someone to hold the ladder. You’ll give me a hand, won’t you?’

  ‘He’s too old to be going up ladders,’ Alice says. ‘It’s too high up.’

  Tim laughs. ‘Sorry, Dad, I don’t do roofing. But I can send a guy over to fix it for you.’

  ‘Some Pole, I expect,’ Ken says. ‘All gaffer tape and sawdust and spit. That’s the trouble with roofers – the only bit you can see is the bill they hand you at the end.’

  ‘He’s not Polish,’ Tim says. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with the Poles. Bloody good workers actually. But Gary’s from Runcorn, if you must know.’

  ‘A Scally?’ Ken says. ‘A genuine Scally from Liverpool? Well, that’s reassuring! Renowned for their honesty, they are!’

  ‘Look,’ Tim says, ‘I can give Gary a call and it can all be fixed by the weekend, or you can just buy a bigger bucket to catch the drips. It’s your choice.’

  ‘I don’t want some stranger tramping about on the roof breaking more tiles than he fixes,’ Ken says. ‘All I need is someone to hold the bloody ladder.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Tim says. ‘Take it or leave it.’

  Because just like anything Tim is able to offer his parents, it’s never quite what they need. If he did go to help Ken repair the roof, it would all end in tears anyway. The repair wouldn’t work (and that would be his fault) or he wouldn’t be holding the ladder properly, or Ken would want him to climb the ladder and fix something he has no idea how to fix and then shout incomprehensible instructions at him while he did it. Yes, there’s always something wrong. And it has always been thus.

  ‘I’ll leave it then. Thanks a lot!’ Ken says sarcastically.

  ‘So how about next weekend?’ Alice asks, trying to bring the conversation back to the subject at hand.

  Natalya looks at Tim. She looks alarmed, so Tim pulls her to his side and links one arm around her. ‘Sorry, but we’ve got a thing next weekend, haven’t we, Nat?’

  ‘Yes,’ she lies. ‘A . . . birthday. Tim’s work friend.’


  ‘That’s right,’ Tim says. ‘I knew there was something. It’s Perry’s birthday.’

  ‘It can’t last all weekend, can it?’ Alice asks. ‘Because they’re doing a special kids-go-free deal over at—’

  ‘There’s no way, Mum,’ Tim interrupts. He doesn’t want her to finish her sentence. He doesn’t want her getting the kids onside with whatever it is.

  ‘OK,’ Alice says sourly. ‘I get the picture. Come on, Ken.’

  ‘What picture?’ Tim asks, his anger suddenly frothing like a pan of boiling milk. ‘We’ve just spent the whole day together. And you’re already getting in a huff because we can’t do it all again next weekend?’

  ‘I’m not in a huff,’ Alice says. ‘But we never get to see you any more. We never get to see the boys.’

  ‘You’re seeing us now,’ Tim says, waving one hand in front of her eyes. ‘We’re here, Mum. Right here, right now.’

  ‘But it’ll be months before we see you again, I know it will,’ Alice says. ‘You know what it’s like. If I phone Natalya, she doesn’t even answer. And she certainly never phones back. And if I phone you, you tell me you need to talk to Natalya first. It’s like . . . I don’t know . . . getting a hang-glider through that Israeli defence shield.’

  Natalya has moved away from Tim and crossed her arms. ‘You know what, Alice?’ she says, switching into combative Russian mode. ‘I am so busy. With no help from anyone. With . . .’

  ‘Well, except for the maid,’ Ken says, stepping in to defend his wife. ‘And the designer.’

  ‘I am SO BUSY,’ Natalya repeats, ‘with the moving and the boys and . . .’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ Alice says. ‘The point—’

  ‘YES is point,’ Natalya says. Tim tries to reach for Natalya’s arm again, but she jerks it away. ‘Because I am not . . . how you say . . . social secretary for Tim. If you need to see your son, you should phone him. I can’t decide when Tim is free. I don’t even know this.’

  ‘That’s not exactly fair,’ Tim says, feeling torn between his mother and his wife – feeling stressed and anxious again. ‘You know that pretty much anything you decide goes, Nat. As far as the weekends are concerned, anyway.’