by Stacy Travis
“Fine. Show me around your house a bit.”
It was as if I’d asked him to recite a poem he’d memorized for school. He walked slowly from room to room, intoning in a bored voice, “This is my mum’s sewing area. She’s a quilter. You can see the piles of fabric and the machine. Here’s where me pop keeps his books…” He demonstrated by waving a hand in front of a bookshelf. We made it to his childhood bedroom, where he still set up camp.
There were some photos of him with friends on a dresser and a blank wall painted red. He had no evidence of hobbies and no artwork on the walls, ruining my vision that all kids in the UK had British invasion posters and old guitars they played in their spare time. Nigel told me he was into rap, much to the dismay of his father, who I met a few minutes later when we went out back.
“Out back” was a sprawling field of tall grasses which got their verdant color and health from the prodigious amount of rainfall that seemed to be a constant there. I’d read the average rainfall was forty to fifty inches a year. There was no need for a carefully watered central park in a country where every direction looked like an endless painted landscape.
“It’s nice out here.” I inhaled a deeper breath than I’d taken in days. Even when I’d made it to the treadmill, I’d felt like my lungs were stifled.
Something was happening, and I didn’t like the way it felt. Lately, my heart wasn’t in my work the way it always had been. I needed to turn that around. My work was my life. Your life? Really? Sounds healthy.
“Get you a beer?” Nigel asked, leading me to a cooler packed with bottles of Nut Brown Ale and Irish lager.
“I do. Yes.” If it will shut up my brain, yes.
Nigel’s dad introduced himself as Tom and shook my hand. “Always enjoy it when Nigel brings his mates by the house.”
“We work together, Pop. It’s different.”
“What, you’re telling me I can’t be friends with the blokes from work? We’re supposed to stand on ceremony or something?”
“No, but…” Nigel, who always had a swagger and confidence at work, suddenly seemed unsettled in front of his father, as if he didn’t want me to think he was trying to elevate his importance at work.
“Nigel’s one of the best PAs we’ve got. And despite that, I consider him a friend,” I said.
Nigel rolled his eyes, reached for two beers from the cooler, and handed one to me. Tom was already halfway finished with his own and had two empties on the table in front of him. I had no delusions about trying to keep up with him.
Tom indicated a couple of lawn chairs across from him, and we sat. “You’re not gonna pepper him with a bunch of questions, are you?” Nigel asked suspiciously.
His father laughed and ran a hand over his stomach, which strained the buttons on his oxford shirt. “Nah, I’ll leave the interrogating to your mother. I just want to sit and drink in peace.”
Almost on cue, Nora came out of the house with a tray of meat pies, which she placed on the metal table with a pile of napkins. “These are my mother’s recipe,” she told me, fanning the steam that emanated from the tops of the pies. “So if you don’t like them, don’t worry about offending me. Or her, for that matter, because she’s dead, may she rest in peace.” Then she turned and walked back into the house.
“See what I mean? She’s not shy, my wife. She’ll be so clever at telling you stories, you won’t realize she’s really asking you questions until you’ve sold her half your livelihood.”
“Pop, leave it,” Nigel said. I looked from father to son, noticing the strong resemblance. Nigel had his father’s build, his auburn hair, and his square jaw but none of his ruddy pallor. His freckles and pale skin were all Nora.
Settling into my chair with a cold beer and a hot meat pie, I felt pretty good—not entirely content, because the brewing conversation I’d yet to have with Nikki weighed heavily on my mind, but damn near close. Nigel’s parents were the dose of fresh air I needed.
I loved that they were so normal. And just as soon as I thought it, I started feeling exceptionally sick of myself and my constant search for people who I could describe that way. Is it because they remind me of something I’m trying to recapture? Something that used to exist in my life? Or something I’ve never had?
“Nigel, do you have any siblings?” I asked. I felt a little guilty that in weeks of working with him, I’d never asked before.
“I have six. Three brothers, three sisters.”
I almost choked on my beer. “Six? Do they all live locally?”
“Most of them do. My oldest brother and one sister live in London, but the rest are local. Three are married with kids. I’m the second to youngest.” He shrugged like a family of seven kids was an everyday thing. Maybe it was.
“Wow.” I shook my head. “No wonder your mom cooks for an army. She’s used to it.”
Tom laughed. “You noticed that? Yeah, she still hasn’t gotten over the fact they’ve moved out—even the ones who are married. So she’ll be bringing care packages to them all tomorrow with whatever’s left over.”
“That’s sweet.”
Nigel studied me and nodded. “You don’t get along with your family.” He said it as a statement. I’d gotten used to his directness, but it still struck me as odd that he didn’t have any question in his voice when he said it.
I shrugged. “We get along great but don’t live in the same city, so we don’t see each other that often.” I didn’t feel like bullshitting them with the made-for-print version of my life, and since they didn’t seem to know it already, I went with a vague, harmless version of the truth. I assumed that would end the conversation.
But I hadn’t seen Nora, who’d just arrived behind me, pushing a rolling cart with her entire dinner on top. “Who doesn’t see each other that often?”
The smell hit me immediately. A fragrant steam from the stew combined with the scent of warm bread, and I felt embraced by a childhood I’d never known I was missing. “Oh wow, that smells amazing.”
“Yes it does. These are my own recipes, not my mother’s, may she rest in peace. And thank you for noticing. I’m glad all your senses are primed, because my food will delight you.”
“It already does,” I said. “Can I help with anything?”
“No, just grab yourself a plate and help yourself,” she said, gesturing to the shelf on the trolley she’d wheeled out, where a stack of plates and utensils were neatly laid out, along with cloth napkins and filled water glasses. As I bent to grab a plate, she leaned in and whispered, “And don’t you think we’re done with the topic of not seeing your family that often.” Then she winked.
We scooped stew and sliced bread and plated pieces of mince pie. Then we ate. “Oh my God, this is delicious,” I told Nora, salivating with each bite of home cooking.
“I’m chuffed to bits you like it. But if you take the Lord’s name in vain again in my house, I’ll give you a proper beating.”
Even though Nigel’s yard looked nothing like Tribeca, being there reminded me how much I missed being at home.
What the hell is happening to me? I used to be able to go from project to project and work nonstop without thinking about it. I loved the cleanliness of hotels and the fast pace of working on projects that were constantly different.
But I wasn’t feeling it anymore.
After dinner, Nora leaned toward me while Nigel and Tom took the dishes into the house. I started to get up to help them, but she gently pushed me back into my chair. She cracked the top on a beer, took a healthy pull, then clinked it against my bottle on the table before putting hers down. “Now, tell me why you don’t see your family, and don’t try to pull punches. I’ll know if you’re lying,” she said.
The sun had set somewhere behind us, but the sky was pale blue, and bright shadows still danced on the stand of trees at the far end of the grassy field. I liked that time of day. It felt calm, because the bulk of daytime was over, but there was still plenty of light to enjoy before night took over.
I didn’t want to lie to her, but I also had a decent idea that I wouldn’t see her much, if ever, after that night, so I didn’t feel like I had to spill all the details of my life. I’d given enough interviews that I knew how to dance around a subject I didn’t want to touch. “We don’t live close, but I see them when I can. I travel a lot for work.”
“You part of the crew? Nigel has aspirations of working on lighting. He tell you that?”
He hadn’t, actually, and I wondered why not. Maybe because I hadn’t asked. “I’ll talk to him about it. Maybe I can help with it.”
“So you work in lighting, then?”
“No, I’m an actor, but I know a lot of people on crews. They’re always looking for good people.”
“Ah, you’re the talent, then? Isn’t that what they call it? Nigel didn’t mention your role at his work.”
I wasn’t surprised. Nigel wasn’t at all starstruck, and he’d barely remembered to tell his parents he’d invited me to dinner. I sipped my beer, which had gotten warm in the hour since I’d opened it.
“That must taste like swill by now,” Nora said, plucking it from my hand and using it to water the grass. She popped the cap on a fresh one and handed it to me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re very polite,” she said, “for an actor.”
I didn’t know what to make of that.
Her face widened into a grin. “I’m just teasing you. But I suspect you think people treat you differently because you’re an actor. Are you famous?”
“In some places, people know who I am.”
“That why you’re not close to your family? Because you’re more famous than they are?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a relief to hear. I was worried you’d outgrown them. It can happen when a child lives on a different social tier than the rest of the family. But if it’s not that, then why?” Her questions were matter-of-fact, as though she was interested in getting to the bottom of something puzzling. As if to prove that, she added, “I’m not judging.”
I shook my head, but I didn’t have a ready answer. No one had ever asked me the question. Partly, that was by design. My public story about my family background reduced the need for explanation because it was sweet. “I don’t know the reason, actually. We just kind of drifted apart.”
She shook her head. Then she punched me in the same way she’d decked Nigel earlier. “I feel that we’re friends now, so if I feel like someone needs sense knocked into ’em, I’m gonna come out and do it. And you need sense.”
I couldn’t help smiling at her. “Why’s that?”
“Any boy who isn’t close to his parents… well, there has to be a reason, doesn’t there? A good one. Do you have one?”
I ran a hand through my hair, wondering how my life had brought me to that moment, feeling like I was suddenly on a therapist’s couch at my PA’s parents’ house in Ireland, while the back of my mind couldn’t let go of Nikki’s “a lot of things” that needed discussing. It was a lot to take in at the end of a long workday. I almost felt like drunk Triss might be preferable to an inquisition about the one part of my life I’d never discussed. Yet there we were.
I had a choice. I could tell her what I told everyone and leave it at that. Or I could tell her the truth. Two months ago, it wouldn’t have been a debate. But the status quo I’d always clung to felt tired.
So I took another big swig of my beer for confidence, and I told her what she wanted to know. “My mother’s from Spain, and my dad’s from the States. Boston. They met when my mom was a professor at a school where my dad was earning his accounting degree. She loves to cook, and he’s terrible at it.” I paused. That part of the story was easy. I’d told it a hundred times.
“That sounds lovely. Do they get along?”
I could have lied some more about my family. It would have been easy. As an actor, I could make anything sound convincing. But it felt wrong to lie to Nigel’s mom after she’d cooked me dinner and told me not to take the Lord’s name in vain. “My mother cheats on him. She’s done it for years. He pretends he doesn’t know, but he does. And it eats him up. That’s partly why I don’t see them very often. It’s hard to watch them pretending.”
She reached a comforting hand out and patted me on the knee but said nothing.
So I told her the rest. “Plus, my dad is terrible with money. He makes bad investments, and he’s always one car repair way from going broke. But my mom puts up with it because she feels guilty about her infidelity, and he beats himself up because he thinks he’s failed her. He resents her, he resents me, he’s depressed, and he blames himself, but she’s the only thing he knows, so he stays. And I give them money, so I suppose I enable the whole thing.”
I hadn’t expected to say all of that, but once I got rolling, the words took over.
When I finally stopped talking, I took another sip of my beer. It tasted much better than I remembered from a few minutes earlier. Colder and crisper, as if there was a new clarity to my senses. I looked at Nora, wondering what the kind, committed parent of seven children would think about my mess of a family.
She nodded at me and patted my knee again, as if I’d done a good job reciting my alphabet lesson. “I reckon… carrying all that around must make you well annoyed.”
I laughed. Her directness, the way she summed up ten years of frustration and inertia in our attempts at a relationship, cracked something open.
“It does. I guess you could say it does,” I said.
“Is there hope?”
I’d avoided thinking about it, because in the back of my mind, I knew that if I admitted to being hopeful about something better with my parents, I was opening myself up to disappointment. “Truthfully, I’m not sure. They seem to have accepted the way things are.”
“Have you?”
Damn this woman. I knew I wasn’t lassoed to the lawn chair, but I might as well have been. Sitting under her sharp gaze, I didn’t dare lie, and I knew I couldn’t leave without satisfying her questions with real answers. “I’m… not sure. Maybe I can help them and fix things.”
She reached out and smacked me again. She had a decent right hook.
“With seven kids, did you use that arm a lot?” I asked.
“Every bloody day. Every time they said something wrong. Which was every bloody day.”
“What did I say wrong?”
Her expression changed, and instead of looking at me with her sharp-eyed gaze, her face softened with the love of a mother who sees her youngest duckling wandering off and has to shoo him back in line with the others so he doesn't get lost.
“Now I understand why you look so hopeless. You’re trying to fix things. Why do you think you need to do that? Just accept the situation. Even if it’s messy. It’s what life is—messy. Maybe that seems strange to you since you’re an actor, and you’re forgetting we don’t all look like they do in the movies. And we don’t get a script with a happy ending. We’re all just people. If you try to keep something perfect in a box, you’re only going to be disappointed when you take it out and it doesn’t look the way you remembered it. The messy stuff is what lasts. Do you like brownies?”
The non sequitur confused me, but I nodded. “Sure.”
“Well then you know. It’s not the perfect squares from around the edges that taste good. It’s the mushy, undercooked stuff in the middle. And the scraps.” She tilted back in her chair like her work for the night was done.
All I could do was nod. It was a lot to take in.
Nigel and Tom appeared from the house, carrying a berry crumble cobbler and steaming cups of coffee. They’d dispensed with the trolley cart and carried everything on a twin set of trays. Nigel leaned over and picked up a couple of beer bottles from the table near me. “Sorry I left you to the wolves, mate. Hope she didn’t rip you a new one.”
“It was fine,” I said. Because it was. I hadn’t experienced that kind of mothering in a long time, and I didn’t mi
nd.
“My pop and me, we know better than to venture out when she’s on a tear, so we cleaned up the kitchen. Twice.”
I couldn’t help laughing, which made Nora turn toward us suspiciously. Nigel held up the empties he’d just picked up as evidence he was just doing some innocent straightening.
“We did the dishes, Mum,” Nigel said. I found it amusing to see that mom-whipped side of his, which wouldn’t dare give her the surly attitude he gave me at work.
“Good boy,” she said. Then, she turned to me and whispered, “The cobbler is Tom’s mother’s recipe. She dropped it off earlier. You don’t have to say you like it. Or even eat it.”
Tom pretended to glare at her but then leaned in and kissed her cheek. “Thank you for dinner, love. Brilliant as usual. Especially the mince pie.”
“You do love your mince pie.”
“I do. And I heard what you said about my mum’s cooking. Tsk tsk, Nora.”
“You heard nothing. Now if you’ll all excuse me, all the cooking and chatting has me knackered. I think I oughtta skip dessert and get some sleep.” She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek before whispering, “That was my excuse. You’re meant to conjure your own reason to skip the dessert.”
Then she was gone. I looked at Nigel and had a new appreciation for him. “So. Six siblings, huh? Are you the runt of the litter?”
“You really want to get into that with me, mate?” he challenged, puffing his chest and stretching to his full height, with was easily five inches shorter than me.
Tom spooned a heaping plate of cobbler and alternated bites of it with sips of beer, which must have had the effect of washing down each bite so that the flavors mixed. When he caught me looking, Nigel said, “Yeah, that’s how he gets through it. But it’s his mum, so he had to learn a technique.”
We stayed a little longer, but by ten, I wanted to get back to my hotel. I said goodbye to Nigel and Tom and left them drinking together out back.
On my cab ride, I started thinking about Nikki and our impending conversation. I had a feeling it might be messy.
