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“Have you had dinner?”
He paused as he put his bag on the sofa, where the bedding from the night before was still neatly folded. “No.”
“Then don’t be an idiot and come eat.”
Callum grunted something that Isobel wasn’t interested in and followed her down the narrow hall. As they entered the kitchen, Jack looked up and frowned at Callum.
“Behave,” Isobel told him.
She grabbed an extra place setting before taking her seat at the table. She handed the plate and cutlery to Jack to put in the spot for Callum. He looked like he was handling a nest of wasps.
There was a large pan of food in the middle of the table, and Isobel reached for the spoon to dish it up. Callum was still standing in the doorway, watching them all as though they were a science experiment he had to monitor. Isobel glanced at Sophie and saw she was looking at Callum in exactly the same way.
“This is Callum,” Isobel told her daughter. “He’s a friend of mine and he’s going to eat with us, if he ever sits down.”
“Clalumm,” Sophie said, her
eyes still on him.
“Callum,” Isobel corrected.
“Claaaauuuum,” Sophie said.
“Whatever,” Isobel said as she reached for her daughter’s plate.
With the same sort of caution a bomb disposal expert would employ, Callum pulled out the last chair at the table and sat down. Sophie continued to stare at him, and Callum did his best to avoid her eyes. Isobel dished out food for everyone, making sure the boys got plenty, before she sat back in her chair. It’d been a long time since they’d had a man at the dinner table. It felt strange, and the tense atmosphere wasn’t helping to make it better.
They ate in silence as Sophie stared at Callum, Jack glared at him and Callum ignored them both and looked around the room. Isobel let her gaze scan the room and tried to imagine what Callum saw. The kitchen cupboards had been installed sometime in the eighties and were dated and worn. Their burnt-umber colouring was the fashion of the time, but now it just looked dirty. Since her landlord wouldn’t let her paint them, she’d concentrated on trying to brighten up the rest of the room.
She’d painted the walls a pale blue, bought cheap white curtains with blue daisies on them for the windows and found some blue pottery at the second-hand shop in Campbeltown, which she displayed on the counter. There were chips in the pottery, but Isobel didn’t think anyone would notice. The floor was clean, but the linoleum was curling up in places—another thing her landlord wouldn’t fix. The table and the chairs they sat in were another thrift store find. None of the set matched, but Isobel had painted it all white to make it look like it belonged together. Overall, Isobel thought she’d done an amazing job with very little. She was proud of what she’d achieved. She’d made a home for her family. It might not be the richest, or the most sophisticated, but it was cute and welcoming, and that was all that mattered.
“You’re making my mum self-conscious,” Jack said.
Isobel stopped eating. “No, he isn’t.”
“He’s looking at the place as though it’s a dump,” Jack said.
Isobel looked at Callum, who had yet to touch his food. She cocked her head and considered him. “I don’t think so. I think he’s probably stayed in places that were a whole lot worse than this. I’d say he’s either thinking about how fast he can run from the table or about how secure the house is.”
Callum’s eyes bored into hers. “You should have replaced that window. Glass is more secure than wood. Glass makes a noise when someone breaks it.”
“Security, then,” Isobel said. She looked over at the narrow, boarded-up window beside the back door. “I asked the landlord to replace it. He never got around to it, so I painted it white and hoped for the best. I don’t think it looks so bad.”
He scowled. “It isn’t about looks. It’s about safety. A two-year-old could get into this house.”
“I’m three,” Sophie told Callum proudly.
Callum considered her for a long moment, as she waited for his response. “Well done?” he said at last.
Jack shook his head.
“Eat your food,” Isobel told Callum. “We don’t waste food around here.”
Callum obediently picked up his fork and started to eat.
“What’s you got on your face?” Sophie leaned towards him as though she might grab the stubble covering his chin.
He backed up. “Hair.”
