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‘Now,’ Jen says, drawing back from Todd and looking at him in his tiny dungarees. He stares back at her wordlessly in that soulful way that he used to. Inky eyes, snub nose, pink cheeks, a studious expression on his face. She holds up a wooden block and he takes it very seriously from her, then drops it on to the floor. ‘Shall we pile them up?’ Jen says.
Todd stretches his hand out very, very slowly.
‘As tense as a hostage negotiation,’ Kelly says.
‘What is it they say – toddlers don’t play, they go to work?’
‘Ha, yeah.’
‘I was obsessed with blocks when I was a kid.’
‘Oh?’ Kelly leans back on the sofa, putting his legs up over one arm. He closes his eyes. ‘Would’ve thought you’d be – I don’t know. On the flashcards. You know. Always learning.’
‘Really not,’ Jen says. ‘It took ages for me to read.’
‘I don’t believe that. You wordy lawyers … you’re all the same,’ he drawls, and Jen smiles in surprise. He was more acerbic like this. In 2022, he’s still dry but, here, Kelly comes complete with a chip on his shoulder. She’d forgotten. How much he used to moan about work, come up with various business ideas and abandon them. He seemed to want to succeed, then chicken out.
‘What’s on these flashcards, then?’ she says.
‘Definition of jurisprudence, for starters … one should know this by aged two at the latest.’
‘Of course. And what is that, Kelly – age …’ Jen hesitates. ‘Twenty-eight?’
‘Good at English, less so at maths,’ Kelly says, quick as a flash. ‘Twenty-nine. Forgotten my age already?’
‘You know me.’
Todd laughs suddenly, out of nowhere, and claps at Kelly. ‘Yes, yes,’ he says to him.
‘What was yours?’ Jen asks him, thinking of how she felt in the back of the car with him as they got pulled over, trying to reach that part of him that perhaps she never has.
‘My what?’
‘Favourite toy.’
‘Can’t remember.’ Kelly shifts on the sofa, eyes still closed.
‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’
Kelly sits up on an elbow, looking at her sardonically, emotional unavailability coloured across his features. How can Jen have missed this? ‘Why?’
‘Just wondering. I’ve never known. And we’re so far from where you grew up … you know, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who used to know you.’
‘They’re all so far away. My mum always wanted me to be a manager,’ he says, changing the topic. ‘Isn’t that funny?’
‘A manager of what?’ Jen is stacking the blocks up in front of Todd, who has his hands clasped in anticipation, but, really, she is thinking how evasive Kelly can be.
‘Literally anything. That’s what she wanted. After our dad piss— disappeared,’ he corrects himself, glancing at Todd, ‘all she wanted for us was stability. To her – a boring office job. One holiday a year. A mortgage on a little place.’
‘And you did the opposite,’ Jen says, but internally she is thinking: Our dad. Our dad. The man in the photograph with Kelly’s eyes. She knew she hadn’t imagined the resemblance. She blinks, shocked.
He avoids her gaze. ‘Yeah.’
‘You said our dad?’
‘No – my?’
‘You said our.’
