‘Have you had any news of your sister lately? How is she?’ He softens slightly, though he still refuses to say her name.
‘If you went to visit her, I’m sure you’d know.’ He sighs again and now I understand why my mum always wanted to shake me when I’d communicate only in exaggerated exhalations as a teenager.
‘Bye, son.’
‘Yeah, bye, Dad. Love—’ He interrupts me this time by ending the call and the three beeps of rejection finish my sentence for me.
Was he always like this or is it only now that I notice his sheer lack of affection? Everyone knows everything about everyone in New York, but my family don’t seem to know one thing about each other. Dad and Jimmy both lost themselves, though I can’t find it in me to pity my father. His was a choice; Jimmy’s was not.
Sitting up on my bed, I notice for the first time that my grandmother lingers in the doorway, still in her dressinggown and curlers, though wearing an expression of grief. ‘Sorry for the earwigging, son,’ she says, then gestures to the bed. ‘May I?’ I nod and she sits down beside me.
‘Do you really think I’m like him?’ All of my confidence slips from my body until I feel like a child clutching at the hem of my grandmother’s dress searching for comfort after I’ve fallen and grazed my knee.
‘You are the spit of my son,’ she replies with a sad smile, and my stomach drops from under me. My body’s response feels like a betrayal, but I know, deep down, that he’s not the person I want to be. ‘But the man you were just talking to isn’t my son.’
I can’t help but look at her, confused. She simply takes my hand in hers and holds it close to her, rubbing the thin skin of her thumb over my knuckles affectionately.
‘He used to have such a fire in him. Everything he did he put his heart and soul into it, which was good when it was good, but bad when it was bad. That boy, gosh, he could charm his way out of anything with his smile. We could have a blazing row about him being an arse in the village but he’d never walk away without that cheeky grin or telling me he loved me.’ She holds my gaze as she speaks and I watch as her eyes grow glassy with the memories. Squeezing her hand, I wait for her to clam up again, recompose herself, like she usually does, but she allows the emotion to flow.
‘He felt so strongly about so much. His films, his friends, his family, everything would seem to affect him more than anyone else as though his feelings were more finely tuned than everyone else’s.’ She looks about the room, and mygrandmother’s eyes settle on the same set of cameras I snooped around with on my very first night here, and she smiles with her memories.
I find my voice again, remembering the photos on those cameras, remembering how much my father is adored in this village. ‘I don’t think that is me though. I’ve never found anything to put my heart, soul, or even my brain into. I just feel like I’m tumbling through life never really settling, never really finding my place, just rolling, rolling, rolling, too slow to reach anywhere good, too fast to appreciate anything along the way. I always just end up getting myself in trouble and I don’t know how.’ It’s strange, opening up. It’s strange being sat beside my grandmother whom I never knew on my dad’s childhood twin bed in the village he grew up in that I also never knew existed. In these last few weeks, my whole world has been flipped upside down and now I have no idea what the truth even is. Who am I? What am I doing? What the fuck is going on?
‘You know half of them old farts down at the Big Apple don’t love your dad because he’s in a few films down at the pictures. No, they remember him back in the days where he was a little shit, stomping on flower beds and chasing sheep. They love him because whilst he did all of that stuff, he looked after them, like your Beatrice does now. He drove them round the bend, but he’d do anything for any one of them. When he learnt to drive, he did the shopping for half the village, he helped our Tracy down the pub, he’d go round Barbara’s for a cuppa tea and a natter after her husband died, to keep her company. She met you well before I ever did. The cow.’
A little of her true nature peeks through at the mention of her local nemesis, and I can’t help but laugh.
‘Now I know you might not see it in yourself, but I do. So does Miss Norton.’ With the sound of her name, my cheeks burn subconsciously and I press a hand to my stubble in hopes of dousing the flames a little. My grandmother notices, and her sad reminiscent smile turns into the smirk of a woman that knows more than she lets on. ‘I might not waste my evenings in that place, but I still have a few dickie birds in the village that keep me in the loop. Yep, I know what goes on in my hayloft …’ There’s no point trying to cool my face now as it burns with such ferocity, I’m sure it could take down this house and leave only the rafters. ‘But they also tell me what you’ve been doing for them.’
‘But I haven’t done anything?’ All I’ve done is save the skin on my own arse. I’m here because I’ve been told to be.
‘Just because you do things for yourself, doesn’t mean they don’t impact all of those around you. You can be a little arrogant cock sometimes, but all this stuff you’re doing with Beatrice, it’s brilliant, son. The village is buzzing. You’ve given a load of retirees who have been forgotten by all their own kids something to live for, some excitement, a reason to get their glad rags out, a reason to get out of the house and find out what you’re up to. Even us miserable codgers like to see someone doing something special. And it’s you that’s special to these people, Arthur.’ She sweeps a tissue paper hand over my cheek, and I realise that I’m crying.
‘Now, you could choose to follow your dad’s path; put himself first and won’t even do owt for his own boy now.Or, you can stop pretending like you aren’t a good person and stop waiting for opportunities to jump out and bite you on the arse and go and grab them by the balls instead.’
‘I thought you were posh when I first saw you.’ I shake my head in disbelief, amused at her explicitness.
‘The cane and tweed usually have that effect. But we’re proud to be common round here. We don’t need to be owt else but who we are, and when that sinks in for you, you’ll be free, my boy.’
Before I can reply, a notification pings loudly on my phone and I grab it without a second thought. An email lights up the screen from Dad’s PA with the subject heading:2x BFI GALA TICKETSand one line of message that reads:don’t fuck it up.
Nan reads from over my shoulder, and rolls her eyes. ‘Maybe my boy is still in there somewhere.’ She uses the top of my head to push herself to her feet. ‘Come on then, lad, my hayloft isn’t going to tidy itself.’
Chapter 27
Beatrice
Well, that was fucking dreadful.
The sheep stare at me whilst I cry. Not out of any sort of inter-mammal sympathy, but because I’m crying into their feed and they’re impatient for me to finish my breakdown so they can have their breakfast.
‘All right, all right,’ I concede and empty out the bucket and their attentions shift instantly. ‘Bunch of arseholes.’
The rest of my jobs around the farm take longer than usual as I drag my heels through the dirt like some sort of cartoon personification of depression. I just can’t bring myself to function beyond what is necessary. The conversation alone has exhausted me, and Arthur’s rejection is enough to make me want to climb into the nearest dyke to curl up into a bed of nettles or a discarded shopping trolley.
For years, I have lived a life that I can control. I work, Iwork, and I sleep. Nothing can creep up and take me by surprise, nothing I do has any opportunity to throw up any unwelcome emotions; it’s all safe. Arthur Cavendish has bulldozed it all. He’s infiltrated my work, he’s intruded on my sleep, and he’s penetrated every last one of my emotions and I hate myself for letting that happen.
Tommy would shake me, more than likely. And he’d laugh. He never liked any of my potential suitors. They were never good enough in his eyes, and all of the things I forgave through my love-tinted glasses, he never could. I can picture him now, shaking his head, telling me I’m a fool for allowing a bloke to make me feel like this. But then again, I know he’d love Arthur – well, after they got through Tommy’s distrust of anyone who owns a pair of ski salopettes. They’d bond over movies, or clothes, compare their shoe collections, Tommy’s trainers and Arthur’s loafers.
