“Once, only once, I made the mistake of saying to Liam that asking for two weeks’ compassionate leave from work might be viewed by some—his boss in particular—as taking the piss, when it’s just a pet that’s died and not an actual family member,” Vicky went on. “It didn’t go down well, and I apologized. Look, Sal, the point is, whatever you were going to put on Facebook, Liam would take one look at it and decide you’re the good sister and I’m the bad one. And he’d comment on your post, of course, and express his deepest sympathies, and then I’d have to read the conversation between the two of you in the comments, about your loss and his loss, and your pain and his pain. I know I could choose not to read it, but I wouldn’t be able to help it. And Liam would be way too tactful to say, ‘And your insensitive sister never understood’ but he’d be thinking it every single second, I promise you, and then he’d wonder if you were right and I was wrong in other ways too.”
Mum frowned. “Vick, I’m happily married and Liam knows that perfectly well. If you’re implying—”
“I’m not saying he’d decide hefanciesyou!” Vicky muttered something under her breath. “Oh, never mind. Do what you want. He’s a knobhead anyway. Why should I care what a knobhead thinks? I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t notice or care if the world’s burning to the ground as long as he and his dog are okay. Maybe I’ll close down my Facebook account and leave altogether. I don’t have time to do it properly—not anymore.”
Vicky was sounding agitated, so Mum said, “I won’t do a Furbert anniversary post if you don’t want me to.”
“You won’t? Sal, you’re a star!”
“It’s fine. No worries at all.” Remember, Mum had been trained to believe that her upsetting others mattered far more than them upsetting her, even when they were in the wrong. “I’ll ask the kids to put something up on Instagram instead,” she told Vicky. “The Facebook post isn’t the only thing I’ve got planned. We’re having a special commemorative dinner at—”
“Thankssomuch, Sal. Seriously. I owe you one. Bye!”
“I guess that’s that, then,” Mum said once it was just the two of us again. She stopped choosing photos, blinked away a few tears, and decided she’d use the story to entertain Dad later—since who could fail to laugh in the face of such blatant absurdity? (Do you get it yet? Absurdity impediment alert!)
“Oh, Furbles,” Mum breathed. “Furbles-Burbles. Your Auntie Vicky’s a bonkers loon. I mean, talk about overthinking things.”
Later, she told Dad, “It makes zero sense. Completely irrational! As if it hasn’talreadyoccurred to Liam, probably hundreds of times, that I’m obviously so much more of an animal lover than Vicky.Like, what new thought might have passed through his mind that hasn’t before if I’d been allowed to do the post I wanted to do?”
“Nothing,” Dad said. “Do it.”
“It’s fine.” Mum repeated her favorite self-deserting mantra. “Ree or Tobes can do it on Instagram. And I promised Vicky I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t have done that, should I, if it meant that much to me?” she said thoughtfully.
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Dad agreed.
“But I mean, you’ve got to marvel at the sheer craziness of it.” Mum laughed. “I only worked out later that there was a lot more to it—stuff Vicky either isn’t aware of or wasn’t willing to say.”
“Like what?” Dad asked.
“You’re going to say this is pure invention on my part and accuse me of being as insanely overthinky as her, but I know her so well that I know I’m right. She didn’t want me posting on Facebook because she’d have felt she had to leave a comment, wouldn’t she? Her dog-nephew’s first anniversary…”
Dad winced, fearing Mum was about to say the words “Rainbow Bridge,” which she wasn’t because she knew how he felt about that; in any case, she had no desire to trivialize my ascension to a higher realm with imagery that was both childish and inaccurate.
“If I’d posted about Furbs, Vicky would have felt obliged to comment. Lots of people who are Facebook friends with us both would notice if she didn’t and think it odd. And especially,Mumwould notice. She’d say something like, ‘I think it’d be nice, darling, wouldn’t it? I think Sally would appreciate it if you wrote something.’ And Vicky wouldn’t be able to stand that, having always been the good, approved-of daughter, but she’d be trapped in a double bind, because if shedidcomment,Liam would see it and think, ‘Oh, right, I see. Expressing your sympathies so sensitively when it’s your sister’s dog, but you’ve never left a single comment on any of my posts about Stilton.’ That’s what’sreallygoing on.”
Dad had the confused expression of one who had been left behind at either the second or third permutation. If Ree or Tobes had been there, they’d have accused Mum of “deeping it” in a way that was unwarranted.
I’m a better listener than Dad by far, and I thought Mum’s point was inspired. The trouble was, it was also incorrect, which I’d known for some time—from as soon as I’d reached Level 2, in fact, nearly a year earlier. One of the billions of new tidbits of knowledge allocated to me in Level 2 was the real explanation for Auntie Vicky’s Facebook intervention, which was this:
Vicky had told Liam many times that her sister, Sally, was unfairly negative about their father—who’d had his moments, sure, but was fundamentally a kind, loving, good parent that any child would be lucky to have. Sally’s perspective on him was ridiculously harsh. She hadn’t even been to visit his grave since he died—not once. How awful was that, after all he’d done for her, everything he’d given her?
That was what Liam had heard so far, and Vicky was confident it hadn’t yet occurred to him to wonder if Sally might be as more right than Vicky about dads as she was about dogs. If one day it should occur to him that there was another possibility…
Vicky found the idea unpalatable. No one must ever be allowed to wonder if her sister might have had a bad dad, in case that made it impossible for her, Vicky, to have had a good one.
It’s fascinating when you reach Level 2 and get to explore all theconnections and explanations you couldn’t see before. Here are a fewiffers, as we call them, that blew my mind when I first discovered them:
If Mum hadn’t felt forced to wait till Granddad died before getting her first dog…
If she hadn’t been too scared to say, “Actually, Dad, I’m a grown-up now and this ismyhouse, not yours. If I want to get a dog, I’ll get one, and you’ll just have to deal with it”…
If the innocence and innate goodness of dogs hadn’t felt to Mum like the opposite of whatever dark, scary thing lay at the heart of Granddad, never properly acknowledged by anyone but Mum herself…
If the world and people in it hadn’t kept socking her with the message that her desires, needs, and feelings mattered so much less than what everyone else wanted…
If she’d tolerated and smiled her way through substantially or even slightly less unreasonable and uncaring treatment in her first fifty-three years, so that she was much further away from her “Enough!” point when Detective Connor Chantree turned up at her door…
If even one of the above-listed “ifs” had applied, the Lambert-Gavey War would not have ended in the gruesome and shocking way it did.
