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He hmms as he considers my predicament. “You’ll be training to start with anyway?”
“For a couple of months.”
“What have you got to lose, then? See if it’s a fit.”
I turn and smile. “Maybe. Right now, I just want to get out and visit the local village, buy some trinkets and eat a hot lunch. How about you?”
“Right after I’ve had a hot woman.”
He wades towards me, takes me by the waist the drags me back over to his side. Straddling his lap, he looks up into my eyes and murmurs, “Love you.”
“Love you.”
A few hours later, we’re eating hot bacon and brie paninis in a cosy, quaint coffee shop, our purchases in bags at our feet, steam rising from the teapot in front of us, lots of other tourists crammed in – and I have my eye on the cake display for later. This is a perfect day for me.
“I’ve been meaning to ask but haven’t wanted to…”
He looks at me, knows what I’m referring to. “My dad.”
“How’s he doing? Your mother said anything?”
“John texted me the other day,” he says with a sigh, drinking some tea, “he said Dad’s down the pub again.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“That’s awful. Doesn’t your mum ever say anything?”
“This is years we’re talking about here. Years of saying he’s going to the newsagents, and three hours later he arrives home pissed, excuses himself by saying he bumped into someone. He once came to pick me up from work in town and was an hour and a half late because he got side tracked. If it’s not that he’s off to the newsagents, he’s going out for a takeaway which took longer than he thought. He used to take me and the lads for sweets on Sunday afternoons but really he’d leave us in the car while he went drinking the whole time.”
I shake my head. “Oh my god. He drove you around pissed? He left kids in the car? Even in summer?”
He’s nodding fast. “Just the tip of the iceberg, honey. Trust me.”
Paul makes light work of the crusty panini, devouring it much quicker than I am.
I’m happy he’s opening up and telling me things; that he feels comfortable enough to do that now.
“You know, growing up, I always thought you were all so tight. I used to look at you from the outside in and think you couldn’t ever be pulled apart. I’ve never been close to Lauren or my mother. They’ve never had the appetite for life I have. My dad is staid, would never say boo to a goose, but remains the most quietly intellectual person I’ve ever known. He’s boring but he’s solid. I used to wish he’d wake up one day and just do a little dance or a singsong or something just to prove there is somebody in there, you know?” I chuckle and so does Paul. “Your dad on the other hand, he hid it so well because nobody knew. Everyone thought he was a charming, life-and-soul type of guy. That was all. We grew up thinking he was just a geezer. We didn’t know better.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, his eyes telling me a different story, “he hid it well, a high-functioning alcoholic is what they call him. One of the worst things about being the kid of an addict is the lying to yourself. Seeing your mother lying to herself and knowing that’s the only way she’s coping, even though it makes me angry just thinking about all that, when you’re in it – in the eye of the storm so to speak – it all becomes normal, lying all the time. We had to pretend to everyone else it wasn’t happening because we knew if people started calling him out, that’d make him all the more likely to drink. Make him even more prone to self-damage. What you probably saw was three brothers sticking together through thick and thin because we were the only ones who truly understood. And my mother? She still loves him, even after everything. She will bury him like a martyr even though he’s whacked her, belittled her, made her watch as her kids got beaten, you name it… he’s done it. Whether he remembers or not, he’s done some really nasty shit, and somewhere deep down he must know what he’s done to all of us and hates himself… and the vicious cycle… I don’t know how you get out of that tornado he’s in, I don’t. I know for a fact he’d never get clean if any one of us asked him. Not on your life.”
I reach across the table for his hand and shed a tear. “I hate that he hurt you. I hate it.”
“Do you know what I hate?” he asks, stony-faced and angry.
“What?”
“That my poisonous relationship with him kept me away from you for so long. That’s the worst thing he’s ever done to me. I could’ve lost you. I could’ve— Well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“It doesn’t.” I squeeze his hand. “All that matters is we stick together and you tell me how you’re feeling. That’s all.”
“It feels better already, talking,” he says, “I know I can trust you.”
“You can trust me with your life.”
“I know.” He finally wells up, catching his breath before he lets anything go.
