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“Look,” I say, “I know I don’t know either of yez very well, but from what I’ve seen I reckon you could do a lot worse than to wind up like Les Forest.”
“And that’s what you want from me, is it?” Jonathan’s gone very still. “To be a man who’s content to bounce from shit job to shit job, never fighting for himself or anybody else, always playing with a losing hand, too weak to turn it into a winning one?”
I don’t have a clue how to deal with any of that. So I pull a Julie Andrews and start at the very beginning. “First off, I don’t want anything from you. Not in the sense of wanting you to be different like.”
“You’ve been constantly asking me to be different.”
“I’ve been asking to behave differently vis-à-vis being a dick. But how you act isn’t who you are.”
He doesn’t seem convinced. “You are what you do.”
“No. You do what you do. You are who you are. The fact that your dad worked shit jobs doesn’t make him a shit person—”
“Of course not.” It’s good to know that Jonathan’s opinion of Les isn’t quite low enough that he’ll let that slide. “But it makes him a failure.”
Jonathan’s pacing is doing my head in. So I get up and standin front of him, hoping he’ll stop. And he does because the alternative is either to crash into me or turn left like a woodlouse in a maze. “He’s not a failure. He did what he had to do. Imagine what your life would’ve been like if your dad had been too proud to take help from anyone or do a job he thought was beneath him.”
A shadow flickers in Jonathan’s eyes as we stand there staring at each other in this half-decorated room. Gollum butts him on the shin but, for once, he’s paying more attention to me. “If he’d been less willing to accept defeat, you mean?”
Sometimes I wonder why I like Jonathan Forest. But, oddly enough, this is not one of those times. Maybe I’ve got into the habit of arguing with him. Or maybe I keep arguing with him because I’m sure, deep down, there’s someone worth reaching. “Yeah,” I say. “Knowing when you’re beat isn’t a bad thing. Because now and again, you justare. And trying to hold onto stuff you’ve not got any more helps nobody.”
“So I should be grateful my dad let the world treat him like a kicked dog.”
I reach out, not really thinking about what I’m doing, and my hand fetches up against his arm. He gets even stiller, but he doesn’t draw away. “Aye. You should. Because you might not respect what he did, but you wouldn’t be where you are or have what you have if he’d not.”
“Everything I have, I’ve built myself.”
“Out of pieces he gave you. And that Del gave you. And the rest of your family gave you.” I’m getting half-tempted to shake him now. “I’m not running you down and I’m not saying you’re not a remarkable man who’s achieved amazing things within the highly specific sphere of bed and bathroom retailing—”
Jonathan interrupts me with a sound I’ve never heard him make before. And I realise it’s kind of a laugh. “How flattering.”
I sigh. “It’s true, though. Youarea remarkable man. But getting to where you are’s had a cost, and it’s not a cost everybody wants to pay, and not everybody should.”
“People who have other people depending on them should pay it.” He puts a hand on my wrist, like he’s going to pull my hand off him, but somehow doesn’t. And it’s a bit weird to be touching and having a row at the same time. Still, here we are. “I’ve done all of this so that I can support the people I love in the ways my father never could.”
“Aye, but you’ve done it by letting them down in ways he never did either.”
“I have not—”
“You have, Jonathan. Just look around you.” I give him a moment to do just that, hoping the sad remains of the Christmas decorations would make my point for me. “Your family are doing fine. They don’t need your money—”
“But what if something happens?” he asks, in this tight, urgent voice.
“It already did. It happened fifteen years ago and you all got through it. Because you had each other. And you’ll always have each other unless you push everyone away. Which, to be clear, is what you’re doing.”
For once, Jonathan doesn’t come snapping back with something dismissive or mean.
So I go on. “All they wanted was to spend time with you and you fucked that up. I mean, imagine what it’s like for your dad, knowing his own son has dedicated his life to being as little like him as possible.”
“It’s not,” Jonathan says, very quietly, “that I don’t want to be like him. It’s that I don’t want to make the same mistakes he did.”
And now I do give him a little shake, though with his hand on my arm it’s more of a squeeze. “He didn’t make mistakes. A bunchof bankers in Belgravia made mistakes. Your dad made choices. And his choice was to put his family ahead of his pride.”
At last, Jonathan tugs himself free of me. Then he crosses to the sofa, sinks down on it and puts his head in his hands. Gollum jumps up next to him in that catty way he’s got that I like to think is him being empathetic but is probably just him spotting an opportunity to sit somewhere warm and immobile.
I hover, not quite knowing what to do. I think I’ve finally got through to him, but I might have also broken him. Figuring he probably needs space, I’m just sneaking out the room, when he looks up at me. His eyes have that faint tinge of red they get when you’re technically not crying and steering very hard into that technicality.
“Sam,” he says. “Don’t go.”
