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‘Did you see when he asked her to pass the wine – when their hands touched? Well, the woman just barely covered it, but I saw her flinch away.’
‘What do you think he meant when he said it was all Arianne – that everything they had was down to her hard work? It felt as though he was suggesting perhaps they wouldn’t be together if not for her efforts, didn’t you think?’
‘You know they don’t own the house?’ he told us. ‘Patrick’s friend lets them stay there, rent-free.’
‘Arianne, now there’s a girl who thinks highly of herself.’
‘Did you know, Patrick wrote the score for that BBC thing, the period drama with Audrey whatshername? Oh, of course you know. He’s only mentioned it every single time we’ve been.’
‘I’ve been wondering. I don’t think they usually say grace. Not when we’re not there. They always stumble over what to say.’
‘Oh, I know he has a beautiful voice and he plays all those instruments, but don’t you find the way he performs like he does so… excessive, sweaty, like he’s on a stage? Don’t you find it sometimes a bit aggressive, a bit obscene?’
‘I know it’s not kind to laugh at the proles, but when they bring out the cheeseboard at the end with the plastic wrappers still on and the crackers in their boxes, it is a little heart-breaking.’
And then the strangest: ‘You have to be careful of the gays,’ my father said. ‘You never really know what they’re thinking.’
‘Who’s gay?’ was my first question.
‘Who’s gay?’ said my father. ‘Any man who works in theatre. Don’t you know that, darling?’ He twisted around to look at me with a head tilt. ‘That’s why,’ he said, ‘we could never truly be friends.’
They weren’t really friends? As far as I could tell, they were the only friends my parents had ever had.
‘Oh, they’re good fun,’ my father said. ‘The gays are always fun. And we can have our fun so long as we don’t get too drawn in.’
I didn’t want to ask why, because I knew the answer, and I also knew my father was about to spell it out anyway. It was one of his favourite subjects.
He twisted round again, taking his eyes off the road to look me and Tristan each in the eye. ‘God made men and women to love each other. To procreate and spread his love. The gay lifestyle is a…’ He could barely bring himself to say it, though he always did, spitting out the words. ‘Disgusting, depraved, degenerate act of subversion against God.’ And he reached over to my mother and ran his fingers up and down her thigh, and I watched her go as still as a rabbit.
I should never have bullied Georgia. Tristan and I should never have started those rumours about Miss Smith. Even at the time, we knew that. But it was instinctive, and once we started, it was impossible to stop. Hurt and lie, hurt and lie. It’s the only way to keep going. Because the moment you stop to think, it all falls apart. Every last thing.
‘What was that?’ Lydia hisses, putting a hand on my shoulder.
We stop and listen, and then Tristan roars, ‘ASH! AVA?’
There’s a thudding and muffled shouts and then we’re all running towards it.
71
AFTER
‘What do you want?’ asks a short-haired white woman with faded pink tips. ‘What do you really, really want?’ She takes the chair next to me.
All the inmates are milling about the canteen, sipping tiny plastic cups of orange squash. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ plays from inside the kitchen.
I smile, not understanding, wondering if she’s making a Spice Girls reference – if it’s intentional. She holds up a tray of face paints.
‘Oh. Don’t worry about me,’ I say.
‘Oh, go on,’ she says, and she seems a little desperate. I decide the Spice Girls reference was, indeed, intentional.
I smile again. People like you when you give them what they want. ‘Okay, then.’
‘What shall I do?’
‘Let your imagination take you,’ I say, leaning back as she grins and dabs her sponge in the green.
It’s Halloween. We’re going to watch a film called Bodies Bodies Bodies, which is one of the guard’s favourites, and which, I suspect, might be in breach of the Human Rights Act under freedom from torture.
