He said it so casually.
“How did you get over what happened with mum?”
“I didn’t. Actually, I had a go at Dad when I was drunk. He told me a few things. He should tell you a few things too.”
I didn’t respond.
“You need to move on from the resentment you have, Cal.” His voice was quiet, almost soft and I heard the father he would be at some point soon. He’d had enough practice with me. “I get how you feel and I know why, but you can still get to know him as an adult. He’s so fucking proud of you. In fact, if he shows one more nurse your Instagram I’m going to break his phone.”
“He would never do that.”
“Vic, what did Dad show those two nurses.” His voice was fainter.
“You with the lion. Got to say, that was fucking hot.” Victoria said into the phone.
“Now I have to kill you if she thinks you’re hot. It’s bad enough her thinking Seph’s cute.”
“Dad showed me with the lion?” It had been a fairly big deal. He’d been shot by a poacher but not killed and we saw him, writhing in agony, while we were on a night time safari. We’d managed to sedate him and operate successfully. The poachers – who had been acting illegally – we also caught. I’d been glad that Wren hadn’t managed to get her hands on them as I think she’d have turned them into soup.
Max made a noise that had yet to be defined but it was one he’d perfected at the age of about ten when he was pissed off with something and couldn’t swear.
“He did. You should phone him later and tell him about it. He made a donation to the facility you were at when they treated him. The lion that is, not Dad. He’s talked about Wren a lot too.”
“Don’t let him or Mum get attached to the idea of her.” Because she’d turned me down once before and I wasn’t sure I could offer her more than I could then.
* * *
The roomsuddenly felt too small, even though for the last few weeks it had been cosy rather than oppressive. I grabbed my coat from where I’d left it and walked into the hallway and out the door, not giving a shit whether or not I had my keys or my phone with me.
This was how it felt when you got close to someone. This was how it felt when you offered up a part of you that you didn’t even know you’d had in the first place and they didn’t want it.
As I walked – fuck knew where I was going – I went through the list of reasons why I wasn’t something she could deal with. I got that I had issues, even though I didn’t really know what they were. I knew my father had screwed me over because he’d never had much to do with me as a baby, and we’d just had a string of nannies that hadn’t stayed more than a few months because we were four children grieving for both our mother and our father as well, as he was in a cemetery called work. I knew that as a baby I’d cried for my mum but sometimes she’d never come and it was Maxwell or Claire who had eventually arrived to check I was alright. I’d been through this with a counsellor, I understood the science behind it. That brain circuitry, the bits that ensured attachment to my parents, my care givers, hadn’t formed right. Trauma. My brain neurons, the specialist communication synapse between them weren’t fully working meaning I didn’t see the world as a happy place.
“Are you okay, young man?” I looked up to see an elderly woman, struggling to carry two bags of shopping on a pavement that was too icy.
“I’m fine. Let me help you with your bags.” Marie had taught me different. She’d reshaped my brain, not knowing what she was doing, but she had. And she’d also taught me manners, because they didn’t cost anything.
“I’m good.”
She didn’t trust me; probably thought I was going to steal her shopping.
“I’ll carry it to your door. I’m not running in this.”
She paused, eyed me. “Take one. Then I’ll grip your arm to make sure you don’t zip off with my soups. It’s a bugger getting old. Digestion’s not what it was.”
I walked with her, only half listening to what she was saying, my mind completely focused on Wren. The life buoy that had been sent for me was now deflated and the ocean was a fucking cold place.
“So what’s causing that look on your face?”
I glanced at her as we walked down the short path to the terraced house, a million plants in the window.
“Nothing.”
“It’s a girl. Nothing like a touch of love trouble to make you feel like the world’s fallen apart.”
I followed her inside to the kitchen and put the bag on the counter. It was exactly as I’d expected, furnishings and décor stuck somewhere in the seventies, photos of various people dotted about the place.
She turned round. “Look. Hearts are meant to get broken. When they heal they get that bit stronger because you used it in the first place. Like a muscle. And we learn a bit more about how it feels to be on the other side. Boy like you will have already broken a few hearts, I dare say.”
