Page 22 of Playing By Ear

“Yeah. So much is different, but also the same.” Jamie pointed across the room at the floor-to-ceiling window facing the back garden. “I remember when we got those curtains.” He also remembered why they’d got them, what the previous curtains had been used for.

Belinda sent him a warning glare, like she would’ve kicked him had she been close enough.

“So.” His father spread his hands. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” He overpronounced each word in that way he had, mocking the notion of standing on ceremony.

Jamie turned his head toward Belinda.

“Gonnae no look at her,” Dad said. “Look at me.”

“I…” Jamie had expected his sister to ease them into this difficult conversation. But she’d left him adrift, so he blurted, “I heard you’re dying.”

Belinda coughed on her food. “Fuck’s sake!”

“That’s right, I am.” Martin gripped the arms of his chair, his knuckles bulging white. “Are you trying to throw it in my face?”

“No! I-I’m…really sorry.” Och, he actually meant it. “That’s why I’m here.”

“To say sorry?” his father boomed, face reddening.

“Not ‘Sorry’ like an apology—cos I’ve done nothing wrong—but ‘Sorry,’ as in…” He struggled for words that would appease his father and also be true. “I wish this wasn’t happening to you.”

His dad said nothing, only burned his ghost-blue gaze into the space between Jamie’s eyes. The only sound came from Belinda, still coughing.

“Also,” she said hoarsely, “I thought maybe Jimmy—sorry, Jamie—could help.”

“Help with what?” Jamie and his father asked in unison.

“Not the business, obviously.” Belinda wiped a knuckle under her watery eyes, then frowned at the mascara smeared on it. “But anything else.”

Jamie’s jaw clenched. Anything else could encompass a lot of unmentionable tasks.

“I don’t need help,” their father snapped. “Not from a stranger who doesnae even want to be here. Do you, Jimmy?”

“I—”

“Dad, you need someone you can trust,” Belinda said, “now more than⁠—”

“Trust?” Martin unfurled himself from the chair to tower over them. “Trust the lad who left this family without a single fucking word?”

“What was he meant to say?” she asked. “He wanted nothing to do with our business.”

“I never cared about that, and you know it.” Martin spoke directly to Jamie with his skull-skewering glare. “You could’ve stayed in the family and done your own thing, the way your cousins did. But no, you had to renounce all comforts”—he gestured to the platter of food—“just to prove you’re too good for us. A fucking insult, so it was.”

Jamie shook his head. “I never meant to⁠—”

“I accepted everything, Jimmy, everything you are. I didnae care if you wanted to play guitar instead of learning the business. I didnae care if you liked the laddies. You know how lucky you are for that?”

Jamie nodded despite himself. Some of his friends’ parents had rejected them for being queer. But at least they weren’t murderers.

“This is all beside the point,” Belinda said. “Dad, if you won’t admit you need help, then let me admit I need it. I’m taking over the business much faster than we ever expected. I can’t handle that and being your part-time carer, not to mention being a wife and mum. By letting Jamie help you, you’d be helping me.”

She always had been brilliant at placating their father’s pride.

Martin shook his finger at her. “I see what you’re doing, doll. You’re not as clever as you think you are, not when it comes to⁠—”

Martin broke off and squeezed his eyes shut. One hand flew to his head as he gave a strangled cry.

“Dad!” Jamie leapt to his feet, spilling his sandwich.