And what a nerve from his parents to display this split moment of joy, considering the day turned out to be a verbal bloodbath.
He’s yet to grasp why it did. He can hear Fred’s defiance, Alice’s hysteria and Milton’s abrasiveness, but the words remain gibberish.
‘Why aren’t you ready? We are about to leave.’
Charles shivers and looks dazedly at his mother, who’s standing on the landing.
They can’t be about to leave, she’s not wearing makeup. She looks younger without any artifice. He should tell her. She reminds him of the woman who cleaned his grazed knee, back when it was acceptable for him to stumble and fall.
Alice climbs down the stairs. ‘Are you feeling alright?’
‘Why were you fighting?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You were fighting.’ Charles lifts the tinsel again. ‘The Christmas before Fred died.’
She starts and tenses up in a way Charles would usually feel sick over. It’s unfair to spring the loss of her child on her. But it’s also unfair to brainwash a grieving son like she did, so he can’t find any damn to give about her sorrow.
‘Why were you fighting?’
‘No one was fighting. What has got into you?’
‘You were.’ He gestures at a family photo where their forced smiles are petrifying. ‘Look at him. Look at you. You were always fighting. Fred hated it here, and you were—’
‘Stop it! We had some minor disputes, but we always resolved them quickly. Why would you try to find drama where there was none? Have you been drinking?’
Charles smiles, like he did for the portraits. The woman in front of him doesn’t need makeup to conceal the ugliness of her past. She’smoulded a mask she can’t take off. This woman would let him bleed so he would learn to watch his step.
‘Alright, my bad.’
‘Gather yourself, Charles. And hurry to change into your ceremony clothes. Your grandfather requested that we arrive before—’
‘I’m not going.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’d rather swallow petrol than watch my racist, homophobic, sexist grandfather give a speech about tolerance and peer support. But you can tell my father that I have food poisoning, if you want to avoid too much drama.’
Alice clasps the handrail, both her nostrils twitching. ‘If you believe that I will condone such behaviour, you are deluding yourself.’
‘Good thing we always resolve our minor disputes quickly!’
Charles waits for a few seconds. If she became hysterical, he could use it to translate the gibberish from that Christmas, seven years ago. But the shock muzzles her, so he shrugs and climbs up the stairs.
Once in his room, he rushes to his wardrobe, squats down to rummage through his organised mess and pulls out a rubbish bag. He tears it open and sits on the parquet floor, spreading the shreds of notebook pages in front of him.
He will never manage to reassemble his paragraphs the way they were, but reading his broken sentences might help him rewrite his theories and storylines.
FIFTEEN
Charles is too busy braving the Fred storm and navigating his internal Loris winds to wonder why he hasn’t endured the most intense Milton thunder.
Alice clearly hasn’t told his father about the staircase argument, but Charles can’t bring himself to care about her motivations. He doesn’t care either about the frequent edgy looks she now gives him, when she’s not involved in a family conversation and believes he is. He’s done questioning his parents’ demeanour and second-guessing his sanity as a result.
He smile-walks through Christmas. Puppet smiles that give them the impression that they’re pulling the strings. He accepts the gifts, the impressed kisses and the praise. But once alone, he scrubs his hands, cheeks and mind clean, to fight the lies he’s been subjected to.
He doesn’t have a complete picture of the truth to embrace instead. He’s missing too many pieces of the Fred puzzle, and some he’s in possession of are still pitch black. But his conversation with Patty confirmed that he wasn’t twisted to have doubts about the Frederick portrayed in his house and has unlocked his capacity to sort out his memories. He can’t necessarily pinpoint why they’re inaccurate but he knows when they are.
