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“But it’s—”
“Really.” Les has this sort of dignified, resigned quality to him, but now he just seems sad. “I understand things have been difficult,” he says to Jonathan. “But right now we all need a bit of space. See you around.”
And they go, and the rest of the family goes with them because it’d be awkward as piss if they didn’t. So about six minutes later there’s just me and Gollum and Jonathan left in the partially decorated middle reception room.
He doesn’t say anything. He just starts aggressively cramming things back into boxes. Except then he comes across one box in particular. The little one, the one that has everybody’s special decorations in it that’s meant to go last on the tree and be traditional and that. And he picks it up, and he looks at it.
And then he just starts crying.
CHAPTER 19
I don’t say much because there’s not much to say after someone’s told you in no uncertain terms to mind your own fucking business, but I make Jonathan a cup of tea and he takes it sitting on the sofa in the middle reception room with Gollum on one knee and the box of special decorations on the other. It’s open now, and I can see that on the inside it’s full of a mix of all kinds of bits and bobs. There’s a torn-and-taped-together snowflake made from sugar paper, a bright red bauble with a grinning red-cheeked Santa on it, a glass apple, and a lot of other random bits of stuff I can’t quite make out as clearly.
“I was going to suggest you put the guinea pig in here,” he tells me. “But that might not be a good idea.”
It’s an old cardboard box with “DECS” scrawled on the top in faded felt tip, so I’m really not sure it can take the immense symbolic weight Jonathan’s putting on it. “Why not?” I ask.
He stares at his tea and doesn’t answer.
“Look,” I try, “about—I mean—if what happened had anything to do with what happened.” Good one, Sam. Clear as mud that was.
He keeps staring and keeps not answering.
And having already brought him a cup of tea, and tried to raise the extremely awkwarddid you flip your lid at your familybecause I kissed you that one timequestion, I’m not sure where else I can go.
“I’m fucking everything up,” he says, and it’s touch and go whether he’s talking to me, his tea, or Gollum.
“No, you’re not.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t consider you the best judge.”
So he’s going to be like that, is he? I guess kissing him that one time was part of the problem after all. “I mean, I’m pretty familiar with fucking up, so there’s that.”
The look he shoots at me, then, is half-betrayed and half…well. I’d almost call it longing if we were different people in different circumstances. “You’re not, though, are you? Not in the same way.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, because it feels like I’m being accused of something, though I’m not sure what.
“You know how to”—he makes a slightly restrained gesture on account of the tea and the cat—“do all this. People like you, even when they shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t? Why shouldn’t they? I’m not a serial killer or a Big Mac.”
“Oh, don’t be naive,” Jonathan snaps.
You shouldn’t roll your eyes at a man who’s just been crying but I do. “Is this still because I kissed yez?”
“Yes,” he says emphatically. Then, “no,” equally emphatically. He slams his tea down on the coffee table, slopping it everywhere, and I’m about to go get some paper towel, before I realise that’d be one part too Stepford. “I knew from the beginning that this was a bad idea. And, believe me, if you’d had anyone else, I’d have sent you off with them and none of this would have happened.”
I’m sure Jonathan doesn’t realise how low that is, but that’s fucking low. And while my dad would always tell me to take the high road, he’s not here right now, and when it comes to JonathanForest, I’m getting really sick of being the bigger man. “It would,” I tell him. “Believe me, it would. If there’s one thing I’ve seen in the last few days, it’s that you need nobody’s help to drive people away. Even your own family.”
He’s gone cold, like his tea. “And what do you know about my family?”
“I know they’re not perfect, but who is? And I know they keep showing up for you, even though you’re doing your best to stop them. And I know your dad didn’t deserve to have you go off at him like that, because nobody does.”
“My dad will be fine.” There’s an odd note of contempt in his voice. “He’s had a lot of practice taking shit.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t give him more.”
He glares up at me. And Gollum glares with him, the traitorous bastard. “Remember when I said you should mind your own business? You should, because it was less than twenty minutes ago.”
