‘Like Rory's cheerful commission.’
‘Exactly like Rory's cheerful commission. The dentist's waiting room.’ She grinned. ‘He showed me the yellow canvas. I thought it was a protest painting.’
‘It was a protest painting,’ Rory said. ‘A protest against cheerfulness.’
Patrick brought dessert. Treacle tart, golden, the pastry short and crumbling. He set it down without ceremony.
‘Patrick's treacle tart has been known to cause mystic experiences,’ Rory said.
‘It's just tart,’ Patrick said. He walked back to the kitchen. He knew how good the tart was. He had no intention of saying so.
Neil ate the tart. It was, in fact, an experience. The pastry dissolved. The filling was sweet and dark and slightly bitter at the edges, the treacle doing something complex with the lemon and the breadcrumbs that shouldn't have worked and did.
‘I want to live inside this tart,’ Neil said.
‘Everyone says that,’ Tess said. ‘Patrick once made it for a wedding and the bride cried.’
‘Tears of joy?’
‘Tears of pastry. She said it was the best thing she'd ever tasted and that included the groom.’
Kieran looked up from his phone. ‘Can we not talk about eating grooms at the dinner table?’
‘We're not talking about eating grooms. We're talking about treacle tart.’
‘The subtext was clear.’
Footsteps on the stairs. Small ones, steady, small, steady footsteps. Bedtime was negotiable.
Beth appeared, trailing pyjamas and righteous indignation about bedtime. She hugged ‘Uncle Rory’ with ferocious grip, like he was furniture. Then she turned to Neil.
‘Hello. I drew this.’ She held out a piece of paper. ‘It's an axolotl.’
Neil took it. A pink blob with four legs, a smile, and an elaborate crown of feathers around its head. He looked at it seriously, without condescension. ‘The gills are particularly good.’
‘Most people think they're ears. They're not ears. They're external gills. They breathe through them.’
‘How do you spell axolotl?’
‘A-X-O-L-O-T-L. It's Aztec. They're from Mexico. They're critically endangered.’ She said this last part with the gravity of someone reading a sentencing remark. ‘Humans did that.’
‘That's true.’
‘It's not acceptable.’ She studied him. ‘You know about axolotls?’
‘A bit. My son Freddie doesn't know about them yet.’
‘How old is Freddie?’
‘Five. Nearly six.’
‘He can come next time. I'll teach him. The most important thing is that axolotls can regrow their limbs. Their hearts. Even parts of their brains.’
‘That's remarkable.’
‘It's the most remarkable thing in nature. If something breaks, they just... grow it back.’ She said it simply. Like a factthat should comfort everyone. ‘I think that's what we should all be able to do.’
Kieran looked up from his phone. ‘She's been saying that to everyone for six months.’
