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“Yes. Okay.”
“And we’re proud of you,” said Dad.
“Please stop ganging up.”
“And we support you no matter what,” Dad continued.
“Except”—Mum took over—“when you’re a dick to nice boys.”
“I’m always a dick to nice boys,” I told them.
“And I hope”—Dad again—“someday you’ll feel like talking to us. Or at least to somebody.”
I sighed deeply. “As you pointed out repeatedly to the nice boy I was a dick to, I’m bad at talking.”
“Are you…” Mum asked warily, “are you working on anything right now?”
“Yes,” I lied.
And that, thankfully, put an end to that. Along with the rest of the conversation.
Mum, never inclined to stay in one spot for very long in general, bobbed up again. “And now I’m going outside to wait for Leo.”
“Won’t that be weird?” I asked. Which, I should have learned long ago, was an utterly useless question to direct towards my mother.
She did a sort of stubborn duck face. “I don’t care if it is.”
And off she went.
Of course, this left my father and me alone with nothing to distract us. But we were good at having nothing to say to each other. We’d had lots of practice. Thankfully, Leo wasn’t gone long enough for it to progress much beyond a mild sense of mutualwelp. I spotted him through the window, coming down the towpath, carrying one of those heavy-duty woven bags partially full of twigsand branches. With the beanie pulled down over his ears and his coat zipped right to his chin, I couldn’t imagine ever sparing him a second glance. Except now I knew the exact shade of his irises by firelight, and at midnight, and first thing in the morning, and when pleasure stole softly into him. I knew the shape of his mouth when he smiled and when he kissed. I knew all the things you shouldn’t know about a man you were already in the midst of leaving.35
Mum met him on the riverbank. Said something. Then he said something back. It was a fairly brief exchange but it still somehow managed to go on longer than I thought it would. Then Leo put down his bag and folded into Mum’s arms and they were hugging. Dad and I exchanged glances. I shrugged. He smiled.
He’d fished both coats out of the cupboard and was waiting with them when Mum and Leo came aboard.
“Time to go, Clem?” he asked.
“I think so.” Turning back to Leo, she grabbed his collar and pulled his face down to hers. “And you’re welcome anytime, you hear me?”
He nodded. And, oh fuck me, his eyes were damp. “Yes. Thank you so much.”
“Leo”—my dad stepped forward for his second handshake of the day—“it was lovely to meet you.”
“Thank you,” said Leo again. Looking, as everyone at some point did around my father, like he was about to receive his degree certificate. “And you too.”
And that, by rights, should have been it. Except then my dad—the one who could usually be counted on to shut up andgo away—paused, looking thoughtful. “Is that your copy of theMeditationsI spied?”
I made a noise of frustration. “Well, it’s not fucking mine.”
My father put a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “‘Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice.’”
Which—well done, Dad—made the tears Leo was holding back actually start to fall. I don’t know if my parents noticed or not. Either they’d thought it best to pretend they hadn’t or were too busy bundling back out of the boat. At the very least, they were finally sodding going.
But no. It was just Mum lulling me into a false sense of security.
“Oh—I forgot.” She stuck her head back inside. “I meant to ask. How does the toilet work, Leo?”
“Fuckoff,” I roared.
