Then I’m catapulted into the hall, bag exploding on impact, and my unmentionables, as my mother would describe them, tumble out of it onto the pristine floor.
‘What a muddle!’ I exclaim, now apparently channelling the narrator from the Thomas the Tank Engine series, because itwould be far too big an ask for me to converse normally. ‘Thought we’d have to call the fire brigade to dislodge us!’ I barrel on.Stop making a thing of it!
He’s still standing there, my suitcase in his hand, staring at the impact site. And at me. Listening to my sister, whose muffled voice is persisting from inside the bag. Perhaps he’s trying to work out what he has suggested here, and whether it’s too late to redact his offer.
‘I really appreciate this,’ I gush, scooping out my phone, ending the call, and trying to stuff my things back into the bag, which, having split in half, has now retired.
‘You won’t even know I’m here!’ I over-promise, staggering up from the floor.
‘In the same way that a cyclone might pass me by?’
Please don’t be witty, too!
Following him upstairs, I say, ‘You look like the sort of landlord who’d have a full disaster plan printed in a binder on the coffee table.’ Now I have a mental picture of him in a bright red hard hat, which he would ably carry off, in a delicious mix of white-collar worker and emergency hero.
He shows me into a furnished bedroom with leafy views across Haig Park. Then, having deposited my suitcase on the bed, he steps back, lingering in the doorway. I zip open my bag, aware of him leaning against the frame, feet crossed at the ankles in that unintentionally confident way that invites easy conversation, while I start flinging everything into the piles I should have attended to before I moved. A rogue stiletto, destined for donation, plants itself in the pot beside him, monstera fronds waving as if a storm is going through.
He bends down and retrieves the shoe, so now he’s standing there, holding it, looking at me in the manner of PrinceCharming as he says, ‘You don’t strike me as someone who’d be easy to marshal in an emergency. You seem more like the threat itself.’
I meet the amused sparkle in his eyes and am struggling to articulate a clever response when he tosses my shoe aside, checks his watch, and in a completely understated, humble and matter-of-fact tone, says, ‘I’ve got a BBC interview with the British secretary of state for the environment at eight.’
Oh, yes. I’d momentarily forgotten I’d shacked up with one of the world’s leading experts in changing ocean currents. In an attempt to mitigate any rogue fangirling, I plaster on a neutral expression, as if it’s normal for people in my circle to utter such sentences, and mumble, ‘Of course. Yes. That’s—’Vitally important? Enthralling? Extraordinary?
‘Shall I heat up some soup?’ he asks when I’m unable to complete my sentence. It’s like being socked in the face with one glorious suggestion after another. ‘Do you like red or white wine?’
I’m sure I can’t even remember!
‘Throw me your keys,’ he adds. ‘Don’t want you to get towed.’
So now he’ll put a roof over my head, rescue my car, pour me a drink, and serve me dinner before doing his absolute best to salvage the planet before bedtime. And there, unavoidably, trots a piece of my heart in his direction. Already.
10
FRASER
‘Don’t let Parker get attached!’ Maggie had warned that first week, over an emergency coffee to ‘strategise’ the apparently wild development of my having uncharacteristically blurted an invitation for Josh’s ‘Sully’,of all people, to become my part-time nanny, dog-minder, music-teacher and flatmate, even temporarily. She could never abide the label ‘fickle’ (It’s outrageous internal misogyny from your mother, Fraser), but that was before Audrey was quasi parenting her child, and she went into panic mode, reminding me in no uncertain terms of the holy trinity: ‘Parker needs stability and certainty and predictability.’
Was she always this rigid?
‘It’sforParker,’ I’d explained. ‘You remember the demands of my work. And Audrey understands her, musically.’
Parker had been delighted from the start.Daddy’s pretty friendfrom Uncle Josh’s concert moving into her house? Once the two of them gravitated to the piano together, I had no hope of deescalating the budding attachment, no matter how nervous it made Maggie. And now, several weeks in, my house isalivewith music, all the time, whether Parker is home or not.
When she’s not working through an increasingly complex classical repertoire, Parker has been teaching herself pop songs—on a specific mission to learn the entirety of Taylor Swift’sdiscography. I catch Audrey in the doorway now, in jeans and a bulky bottle-green cardigan, nursing a hot cup of tea and listening, her face bright with interest.
‘May I join you?’ she asks at the end of Parker’s emotional rendition of ‘All Too Well’.
Parker launches into the piece again—she has the hyper-focus you’d expect from a neurodivergent child—and shuffles along the piano stool, making room. Audrey sits beside her, pulls her brown hair up out of the way, and places her hands on the keyboard, effortlessly turning Parker’s piece into a duet, mashing it with ‘Champagne Problems’. I know that’s the song because, as a single dad, I’ve made it my business to study all things Taylor Swift, keen to stay relevant in Parker’s life.
Up until now, they’ve only listened to each other play. So I’m astonished at how seamless this first go is. The way they anticipate each other’s every move, as if they’re a seasoned duo, their first duet soaring.
Forget Maggie’s instruction not to let Parker get attached. Audrey is bonding with our daughter in a language Maggie and I don’t speak. If this is what it was like between Audrey and Josh, it’s no wonder their reunion seemed so charged. Nobody can touch a shared passion like this. It’s poetry.
When they finish the piece, Parker is wide-eyed. She’s never experienced this sense of being met exactly where she is, only to be so expertly lifted higher.
‘Should we mix “Enchanted” with “So High School”?’ Audrey asks before glancing at me and smiling. My daughter has stars in her eyes. It’s as if Taylor Swift herself has moved into our house and taken a seat beside her at the piano.
The whole scene chokes me up when I realise this is the first time in years that I’ve felt liberated to truly enjoy my child.Watching her play, I’ve always felt this pride. Excitement for her. Hope that she’ll cherish this love for the activity she adores and that it will soothe her through all the hardest parts of her life.
