I sigh. ‘Shall we just dish up?’
The dinner represents one of those rare, blissful occasions when everyone is both on excellent formandwell behaved. Plates are scraped clean, conversations are civilised, nobody fights or complains. My mother seems to be having the best 72nd, or possibly 73rd, birthday anyone could ask for. She loves her cake, even though it’s only my old faithful red velvet recipe and falls some way short of the three-tier, knitting-themed spectacle Jacob found on YouTube and suggested I whip up after work one night.
‘There’s not long till your own birthday, Jacob,’ says Dad. ‘Have you had any present ideas yet?’
‘Well, I was thinking of maybe a 3D printer,’ he says, ‘or a freeze-drying machine.’
‘What on earth do you want those for?’ I ask.
‘You can use them on bananas,’ he explains, apparently impressed.
‘You can print out a banana?’ Mum asks.
‘No, but you can freeze-dry one,’ he clarifies.
‘They cost about two grand, Jakey. Bit of an expensive snack,’ says Leo, catching my mother’s eye so they can share a conspiratorial chuckle.
‘Then maybe a Padel racket. I was thinking of joining the club Rowan is in.’
I lower my cutlery. ‘Jacob, youcannotjoin any more clubs.’
‘You’re ineverything, mate,’ Leo laughs, ruffling his little brother’s hair.
My eldest son, it seems, is having a good day. Just like he always does when he’s around his grandparents, both of whomseem to think that the sun shines out of his backside. As is their right, of course. He’s their first grandchild, the apple of their eye and, in their presence, is invariably pleasant, engaging – and basically unrecognisable. After dinner, he stands to clear away the plates and tops up his grandma’s drink, as her loving gaze follows him back to the table.
‘How about a game of charades?’ he suggests. ‘What do you reckon, Granddad – are you up for it?’
‘Go on then, sunshine,’ says Dad, pushing away his chair. ‘As long as you don’t keep choosing songs I’ve never heard of. At least do the odd one from my era.’
‘Mozart then?’ grins Leo.
‘Oi!’
What follows is the most enjoyable hour of family fun I’ve had in as long as I can remember. It would almost have been wholesome if it weren’t for my mother’s attempt to act outBaywatchwith the use of two Jaffa oranges as props. As the kids fall about laughing, I can’t help wishing Leo would behave like thisall the time.
Afterwards, Dad insists on going back up the ladder – despite having had two halves of Heineken – while Leo invites his little brother up to his room to play Fortnite, a privilege so rare that it was Christmas Day last time it happened.
‘I really don’t know why you worry about that boy so much,’ Mum says afterwards. ‘He’slovely. Obviously, he hasn’t got that from his father’s side . . .’
‘Iknowhe is,’ I concede – because, frankly, the last couple of hours give me genuine hope. ‘I’m not lucky enough to see this version of Leo as often as you do.’
She flattens her mouth and raises her eyebrow, an expression that might pass for sympathetic until I realise it’s just patronising. ‘Are you going through The Change, love? I was moody then too. Your hormones are all over the place. It’s easyto lose your temper over the slightest thing. You just need to try and keep a bit of perspective . . .’
‘It’s notme, Mum. It’shim,’ I protest, feeling as if I’m twelve years old again and being – wrongly – blamed for the time my cousin Ali set fire to the curtains on a sleepover.
‘All right, love,’ she says gently, patting my hand. ‘Feel free to talk to me about it. Not that my symptoms were that bad, unless you count biting your father’s head off whenever he left the lid off the butter dish.’
‘You still do that,’ I point out.
‘Well, yes. You’d think he’d have learnt by now.’
Part of me wants to tell her about Leo’s vaping – and the lying about it – but something always makes me conceal the worst examples of his behaviour. Part of it is because I know it would only upset her (she watched a documentary about them once and is now convinced that fruity vapes are one small step from crack addiction, homelessness and withdrawal from civilised society). But there’s some other reason why I don’t give her the full picture, which I struggle to define beyond this: I’m ashamed. In front of my own parents.
‘All I’m saying about Leo is that I wish he would take his GCSEs seriously,’ I continue. ‘He needs to knuckle down and start focusing more. He’s only going to get one shot at this.’
She opens her mouth, clearly trying to think of a way to blame this on Brendan, but fails. In the end, she settles on: ‘Not everyone is academic. Does it really matter in the scheme of things?’
‘Of course not. All any of us want for our kids is that they’re happy and they reach their potential. But he hassomuch potential – he’s been in the top percentile of his cohort throughout his entire school years. He said the other day he wanted to be a rugby player. It’s ridiculous.’
