‘Look, just come over when you can, okay? I have something to tell you.’
Angus was the world’s worst communicator, so if he was reaching out to me, it must be something important. ‘No, tell me now. What is it?’ I snapped. I saw the doctor’s eyebrows leap up his forehead, and he scooted off in his chair, making himself busy on the far side of the room.
I heard Angus sigh again, the longest and most elongated sigh I’d ever heard in my entire life, as if he was making sure every little ounce of carbon dioxide was removed from his lungs.
‘I was looking through the papers today, and I found Abe. Abraham Clark.’
‘What?’ A surge of panic, anxiety and glee began to flow around me, my heart beating faster again. It was that same feeling that had coursed through my body when I’d seen O’Neill there on the day we moved in, watching us from his garden as he watered his potted plants. I could still see that image, burnt into the hard drive of my brain, of him attempting a half-smile, half-grimace, as we hauled our stuff into the house. And now I felt overwhelming dread, like it was all going to happen again. An urgency, a deep, crushing kind of panic, that I needed to fix.
The door to the consulting room opened, and there was Gareth, holding the door in one hand, clasping the cup sheepishly in the other. He spotted me just as I put down the phone, and his face dropped to a scowl. The doctor, in all his saintly composure, must have picked up on this as he tried his best to defuse the situation with a smile.
‘Record time,’ he said, as the door slammed shut with a thud.
TEN
FRAN
It was a silent walk back to our cars. The doctor had told us about the subsequent next steps when Gareth had returned after…depositing. I wasn’t really listening. I hated it when Gareth was angry. My own bouts of ferocity consisted mostly of me doing some loud shouting and slamming some doors, before quickly getting over it and being ready to make up. But with Gareth, he would just sit there, seething and marinating in his own rage for a handful of hours at least – sometimes days, if I got really unlucky. The normally optimistic and energetic man became monosyllabic and abrasive, only speaking in grumbles and murmurs. Not even the offer of a blowjob could get him out of his self-imposed funk.
I tried calling him a few times on the drive home, but naturally, he didn’t pick up. I got home first and waited for him with Mep on my lap, perched on the steps outside the front door, facing the huge white tent that enveloped O’Neill’s house next door. About ten minutes later, he pulled up onto the drive and stayed sitting within his car. I knew he was trying to avoid talking to me by pretending to be busy. This was the classic Gareth move. ‘Men need processing time,’ I remembered a uni friend once saying to me.
I watched him pretending to put away his work stuff in the relevant compartments when I knew for a fact he would have already done that meticulously before he left the station.
‘You’re going to have to get out eventually,’ I yelled to him. But he pretended not to hear. He stayed in the car, face neutral, shuffling around the pages in the car manual for the millionth time.
It was only a few minutes later that I decided this was silly, and also, it was far too cold to stay sitting outside. I swung Mep from my lap onto my chest, strutted across the driveway, yanked open the car door, and sat in the passenger seat.
‘So, you going to ignore me for the rest of the evening?’ I asked him.
‘Maybe,’ Gareth grumbled contemptuously.
Mep, furious that he was being denied entry to his palace, gave a small growl as he scratched at the car window with his paws.
‘Gareth, come on, don’t be like this,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m sorry. Is that what you want me to say? You know what I’m like when it comes to Angus. I’ll say it again, okay? I’m sorry. Are we friends now?’
‘Just why?’ Gareth said, raising his voice, breaking out of his emotionless zombie state. ‘Why did you have to take his call right there and then in the bloody fertility clinic? Could it not wait? What was it even about?’
‘It was nothing really, I just…’ I lied, letting my voice trail off.
‘No, go on, tell me. Tell me what happened that was so interesting that it just couldn’t wait,’ Gareth snapped.
‘It was just something he saw in the paper,’ I said, as softly as I could, trying to calm the situation. ‘He thought it would be of some interest to me, okay?’
Gareth raised his hands up as if to say, ‘I was right’, and slapped them back down on the steering wheel. We both satthere quietly for a few more moments. Gareth reached his arm out towards me – I thought maybe to grab my hand as a peace gesture, but instead, he pushed his hand underneath Mep and pulled him over the console to place him on his lap. I decided to let it slide. He needed Mep more than I did right now. However, I didn’t think Gareth realised quite how hard he was stroking Mep; every time he patted his head, I could see the poor cat’s eyeballs bulge out of their sockets.
‘I just don’t get why you feel the need to drop everything for your brother-who’s-not-really-your-brother the very minute he needs you,’ Gareth said, as Mep discovered what feline botox would feel like with Gareth rubbing his head maybe slightly more forcefully than he realised.
‘Oh, come on, don’t be cruel,’ I said. He had something of a point, but I couldn’t help that I was worried about Angus. He had been through a lot. Well, we both had. But then I remembered it was different for Gareth. He had no idea about Edith, about the fire.
‘I’m just frustrated, okay? That’s all – I’m frustrated,’ Gareth said, more calm and considered now, like he was choosing his words carefully. ‘This is something serious that is going on between us – this is our future, as we plan a family together – and I don’t get why Angus had to ring you during the time you were getting your…fucking fanny scanned, nor do I understand why you had to pick it up. Could you not have just let him go to voicemail and called him back later?’
There was another little interval of silence, which I wasn’t sure was making us calm down or just winding us up more, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt my body convulse and shudder as I clasped my hand over my mouth. I burst out a cackle; my Wicked Witch of the West cackle, as Gareth liked to call it.
‘What?’ Gareth hissed through his pout.
‘Getting your fucking fanny scanned?!’ I managed to say through the hysterical laughter that was making my whole diaphragm shake uncontrollably. ‘Fanny!’ I repeated, through my shrieks.
I could see Gareth try not to break. He wanted to laugh; Iknewhe wanted to laugh. He turned his face to try and stare at the wing mirror, but I raised my finger, pointing at him.
