‘Fine. Empty. The house is immaculate. You could perform surgery on the kitchen floor. The garden looks like it's been combed. Everything's in its place. The cushions, the ornaments, the coasters. It's a show home that's been lived in for thirty years without anyone leaving a mark.’
Neil drank. ‘They love Freddie. He’s the only. He's the only person in the family who generates warmth. They orbit him. When he's not there, the house goes cold.’
‘And you?’
‘I'm tolerated. I've always been tolerated. I'm the son who didn't do engineering. Who married a woman and then stopped being married to her without adequate explanation. Who moved to a flat they've visited twice and rearranged the furniture both times.’
‘They rearrange your furniture?’
‘And my spice rack.’
‘Your spice rack?’
‘My mother moved the cinnamon.’
‘The same cinnamon you don't like?’
‘She moved it to the wrong place. Between the chilli flakes and the coriander. It should be between the cardamom and the cumin.’
‘I love that you have a position on cinnamon placement.’
‘Everyone should feel strongly about where the cinnamon goes.’
‘Nobody has a position on cinnamon placement. You are the only person on earth with a position on cinnamon placement.’
‘Then the world is disorganised and I'm the last line of defence.’
Rory laughed, the low one, the one Neil felt in his spine. ‘And your dad? You've barely mentioned him.’
‘There's barely anything to mention. He's a presence. A mass. He occupies his armchair and the armchair occupies the room and the room is his territory and nobody enters without permission. He built a career in insurance on the principle that saying less gave away less. He applies the same principle to parenting.’
‘Does he talk to Freddie?’
‘He reads to Freddie. That's different. Reading is following a script. Talking is improvisation. My father doesn't improvise.’
‘Neither do you.’
‘I'm aware.’
Rory was quiet for a beat. His hand on the wine bottle, not drinking. ‘Do they know? About you?’
‘No.’
‘Would they...’
‘No.’
A wall that was load-bearing. Rory left it.
‘My Mum knew about me before I did,’ Rory said. He was offering, not redirecting. His own version. ‘In the worst way. Sheknew and she was terrified. She came from a generation and a background where it where you just didn't. She never said a word about it. Ever. But I could feel the not-saying. She'd flinch when the topic came up on telly. Leave the room when I brought a male friend home. The flinch was worse than any word would have been.’
‘My parents don't flinch. They change the tv channel.’
‘Same thing. Different abuse.’
‘Christmas Day,’ Rory said. ‘What time do you escape?’
‘Five, if I'm lucky. Six, if my father starts talking about the garden.’
