Out!

by JL Merrow

  “Au contraire.” David thrust the flowers at Mark, who found them heavier than he’d expected and nearly dropped them. He hadn’t realised they’d come already in a vase of water.

  Nestled in the crook of David’s arm, Mark could now see, was a teddy bear, nattily dressed in a trench coat, fedora and dark glasses. David held up the bear and waggled one of its little paws at Mark. “This is Gregory—well, you did say to bring my boyfriend, and he’s the only man who shares my bed at the moment. Ooh, would that be the little moppet? Shouldn’t she be at school?”

  Mark turned to find a wide-eyed Fen staring at them, clearly too startled to protest at being called a moppet. Or little, for that matter.

  “This is my daughter, Flo—Fen.”

  David arched an eyebrow. “Floffen? Rather avant-garde.”

  Unexpectedly, Fen giggled. Mark stared. He’d had no idea she was still capable of doing that. “It’s Fen,” she said. “But they named me Florence.”

  David made a tch sound with his tongue. “Parents. What are they like? Come and say hello to Gregory.”

  Mark blinked again at the sight of his sullen, overly mature teenage daughter eagerly shaking a furry paw.

  “So are you a friend of my dad’s?” she asked. “Seeing as he’s obviously not going to introduce us properly.”

  “I used to be under him—at the office, that is. Not anymore, though.” David made an exaggeratedly sad face. “David Greenlake. You can call me Davey. So go on, tell me all about yourself.”

  Fen reverted to sullen type. “Nothing to tell. My life is so boring, stuck out here with no one I know.”

  “Don’t believe it for a second. I bet you have the boys queuing up at your door.”

  “The boys in my class are just so lame.”

  “The girls, then?”

  “No.” Fen flushed.

  “Stray cats and dogs?”

  Her eyes went momentarily wide—then she giggled. “Not yet. But we’ve only just moved in. Dad, can we get a cat? Can we?”

  “Um… I’ll think about it, all right?” Mark wasn’t sure where he stood on the question of cats, having always thought of himself as a dog person.

  Not that he’d ever owned a dog, but he’d wanted one, as a child. His father’s response had always been “Course you can, son—just not right now. Soon as the business is up and running,” or “Just give it six months or so, when I’m not so strapped for cash. I promise.”

  He’d still been saying it when Mark left home.

  “Only I couldn’t have one before ’cos Mum’s allergic, but now I’m living with you there’s, like, no reason not to, is there?” Her eyes shone with an almost religious fervour.

  Next time Mark looked, there’d probably be a shrine to the goddess Bast set up in the hallway. “I said I’ll think about it, okay? Having a pet is a big responsibility.” If a cat was what she really wanted, then they’d get one, but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a couple of weeks to see if this was just a six-day wonder.

  “Oh, Daaa-aaad. Don’t be so boring.” Her eyes raked him up and down, as if to say, You even look boring, you fuddy-duddy old fart.

  Although if her eyes were to verbalise, they’d probably do it with a few more interjections of like and totally.

  Mark was willing to admit he might have been reading too much into a glance—but there was nothing ambiguous about the way David’s gaze had followed hers and was now examining him with a kind of fascinated horror, as if seeing him properly for the first time. “Oh. My. God. Is this what you wear when you’re not in the office? We have got to sort out your wardrobe.”

  Mark frowned down at his shirt, which was a perfectly decent brushed cotton with a tweedy check. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “Nothing at all, if you were in your dotage. Put it this way, I’m no longer surprised there’s yet to be a second Mrs. Nugent.”

  “I told him,” Fen put in, more animated now. “Everything he wears is brown or grey. It’s horrible. Totally. Like he’s someone’s grandad. Someone’s dead grandad. In, like, a programme on the History Channel about rationing or something.”

  “Well…brown can work,” David said, his head on one side as he stared at Mark’s lower half with disconcerting intensity. “He does have rather lovely brown eyes.”

  Mark smiled, flattered—not to mention relieved to discover David’s gaze did apparently lift above crotch level, if only occasionally.

  “And brown will bring out the remaining colour in his hair,” David added.

  Mark stopped smiling.

  “Not, however,” David continued, “that brown. And really not in corduroy.” He placed Gregory on a comfy chair and rubbed his hands together. “Now, take me to your wardrobe.”

  “Is this really necessary?” Mark asked in a valiant attempt to regain control. “I’m sure you’ve got things you need to be doing—”

  David waved airily. “Oh, things, people…but this is much more important. And it’s going to be such fun! Come along now.” He offered an arm to Fen, who took it, giggling, and led him upstairs.

  Mark followed in resignation. It could have been worse. Much worse. After all, if Fen’s school hadn’t closed for the day, David might have inveigled his way into Mark’s bedroom without a chaperone.

  “You know, you’re really very different out of the office.” David chatted away as, gleefully assisted by Fen, he pulled clothes out of cupboards and drawers, flinging some of them on the bed and others in the direction of the wastepaper basket, which had now largely disappeared from sight. “You always used to be so…masterful. Of course, as they say, clothes maketh the man.” He fixed Mark with a sorrowful gaze. “And those clothes do not maketh a man. Those clothes barely maketh a hamster.”

  Fen giggled.

  Mark rolled his eyes. “Just call me Penfold.”

  Two unnervingly similar blank stares were turned on him.

  “From Danger Mouse? Originally voiced by Terry Scott?” Mark winced as the looks turned, if anything, even blanker. And a touch pitying.

  “He’s a hamster,” Mark muttered, picking up a sweater from the reject pile. “In a cartoon. What’s wrong with this one? It’s not grey or brown.”

  “Dad, it’s puke green.”

  “It’s moss. And if you ever have vomit this colour, be prepared for a swift trip to hospital.”

  “Moss? More like some kind of diseased algae.” David leaned his head so far on one side Mark was tempted to warn him it might fall off. “How can I put this? Green, in its place, can be acceptable. The right green, which this is not. Certainly not for you. Who did you say used to buy your clothes? Were they visually impaired in some manner?”

  Mark tsked under his breath—not quite daring to do it audibly. “I’ve been buying my own clothes for some considerable time now,” he said drily.

  “Really?” David’s eyebrows shot up far enough to conclusively disprove the rumours he’d had Botox. “In that case, why aren’t you better at it?”

  Fen giggled. Again. “I tried to tell him.”

  David looked sorrowfully at her. “Somebody is well overdue for an intervention. You’re not busy right now, are you?”

  She shook her head. “We got a day off school ’cos the boiler exploded yesterday.”

  “Ooh, were there any casualties?” David asked eagerly.

  “What?” Mark’s heart appeared to be developing arrhythmia again. “What do you mean, exploded? The text from school just said there was a fault. Exploded?”

  Fen rolled her eyes. “It was, like, the least exciting explosion in history. There was just this really big bang, and when we looked out the windows, there wasn’t even any smoke or flames or anything. Nathan Ibrahim was saying Mr. Anderson, that’s the caretaker, got half his face blown off, but it wasn’t even true, ’cos Serena saw him later, and he was fin
e.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing. Not for Mr. Anderson, of course,” David amended halfheartedly.

  Fen matched his glum expression. “I know. Boring or what?”

  “Wait a minute.” Mark felt rather strongly that they were more than missing the point here. “You’re telling me you and all the other children were in mortal peril and the school didn’t see fit to inform the parents even after the fact?”

  “Oh, Daa-aad. I just told you nobody died.” Fen gave David a sharp look. “Was he like this when he was at work?”

  Mark’s “Like what?” was ignored in favour of David’s “Hmm, no,” as he cocked his head to the other side this time. “I think it’s retirement that’s done it. You see it a lot. Too little to occupy their brains, so they just sort of shrivel up.”

  “I am not retired!” Or, Mark felt strongly, in any way shrivelled.

  “Then why, pray tell, do you dress like it?” David folded his arms with an air of triumph. “Come on, we’re going out. There must be department stores even out here in the wilds of Hertfordshire, mustn’t there?”

  “Yeah, there’s a decent one in Bishops Langley. Dad took me there to get stuff for my room when we moved in. Come on, Dad. We’ve only got a few hours before it shuts.”

  She grabbed one of Mark’s arms. David, who was apparently a lot bolder when freed from the constraints of the workplace, grabbed the other.

  Mark sighed. “Fine. We’ll go shopping. If that’s what’ll make you happy.” In fact, he hadn’t seen Fen with a smile this wide since… Since primary school, probably. It made the prospect of becoming a fashion victim for an afternoon seem a very small price to pay.

  And, well. If they did manage to come up with something decent between them, it wouldn’t hurt to wear it to the next Spartans meeting. Not that anything was ever going to happen between him and Patrick, obviously. But it’d be nice to feel that the attraction wasn’t totally one-sided.

  As Fen, still smiling, chivvied him into his car and David climbed into the back with her, Mark wondered for a moment whether he might be overdoing the caution. After all, Fen had clearly taken to David, an obviously gay man. Maybe the revelation that her father was also gay would ruffle fewer daughterly feathers than he’d thought?

  That evening, after David had departed, leaving Mark with a significantly fuller wardrobe (and with a significantly emptier wallet) Mark decided to sound Fen out about the subject. He managed to catch her before she’d disappeared into the black hole of her bedroom.

  “Fen?”

  “Mm?” Fen looked up from her phone.

  “It was nice, David coming to visit, wasn’t it?” Not the most scintillating conversational opener, but damn it, it had been nice. Fun, even, despite the constant denigration of Mark’s sartorial choices. Fen hadn’t seemed to feel the need to be constantly at his throat with David there. She’d been, well, much more like the daughter he remembered from rare days out with Ellen, back when they’d still been at least trying to be a family.

  David had stayed for a fish-and-chip supper bought in the village, and Mark had, for once, bowed to Fen’s demands to be allowed to eat it in front of the telly and, more specifically, the latest reality show. The cast had consisted of overly made-up and cosmetically enhanced young people, every detail of whose personal lives both David and Fen seemed to be intimately acquainted with. Despite the fact that some of these details were things Mark would personally have hesitated to disclose to his doctor. He’d been somewhat relieved to find David and Fen’s chief enjoyment seemed to come from ruthlessly mocking what they were watching. At least Fen didn’t seem to show any signs of wanting to be one of them.

  “Well yeah,” Fen answered. Mark struggled for a moment to recall what he’d been talking about. “Least boring day we’ve had here. He’s all right. I can’t believe he used to work for you.”

  Mark frowned. “Why not?”

  “Well…he’s funny. And he knows about fashion and music and stuff. He told me I should make you take me out to shows and stuff in London.”

  “We could do that,” Mark began.

  “Nah. It’d be boring with just you.”

  Okay, that stung. Mark tried not to let it show. “We could invite David to come with us,” he suggested.

  “Can we? That’d be brilliant.” Her face lit up like the London Eye at midnight on New Year’s Eve. “Thanks, Dad. I want to see Wicked and Sweeney Todd, and David says Kinky Boots is really good too. And we need to see Les Miserables too, even though it’s lame ’cos, like, everyone’s seen that except me. When can we go?”

  “I’ll talk to David and see when he’s free, all right?”

  “Soon?” Fen persisted hopefully.

  “We’ll see. David does have a job to go to, you know.”

  “Well duh. The theatre’s on in the evening, so that doesn’t even matter.”

  “Yes, but I don’t think it’d be appropriate on a school night.”

  “Daaa-aaad. We’re like, literally half an hour out of London here.”

  “And the rest. Look, I said I’d talk to him. And the shows may be booking months in advance.”

  “So get on with it, yeah?”

  “I’ll email him tonight. Is that soon enough for you?”

  “S’pose.” Then she broke into a beaming smile. “It’s going to be brilliant.”

  Fen hadn’t forgotten about it the following day. First thing Saturday morning, Mark was met with a demand to know if he’d sent the email. (He hadn’t, so sue him, it’d been late and he’d been tired. Also, he hadn’t wanted to give David the wrong impression by seeming too keen to see him again.) Then she’d pestered him until he’d sat down at the laptop and done it. It was, Mark found, extraordinarily difficult to come up with a coherent sentence with a teenager tutting over his shoulder.

  Finally he hit send. And Fen disappeared back to her room.

  One headache dealt with, the universe apparently decided Mark was due for another. Ellen rang. Mark took a deep breath before picking up the phone. “Ellen?”

  “Well, who else would it be?”

  Mark couldn’t tell if she was being tetchy or playful. Which was a fair commentary on what their marriage had been like. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine. Is Florence there?”

  “Ah, yes. She’s upstairs. Has she not been answering her phone?”

  “She’s been answering. Most of the time. I wanted to talk to you.”

  There was a silence. “What about?” Mark prompted.

  “Oh, you know. How she’s settling into her new school. That sort of thing.” Ellen’s voice sharpened. “She’s not been getting into trouble, has she?”

  “No, no. Far from it.” The hair thing had just been a misunderstanding and really didn’t count.

  “Making friends?”

  “It’s a bit early to tell, to be honest. But I’m sure she will.” Mark’s tone was, without even consulting him, getting heartier and more patronising by the minute. He winced at the sound of his own voice.

  Ellen, however, didn’t appear to have noticed. “And… Is she happy?”

  “She… Well.” Mark wasn’t at all sure what she wanted to hear. She sounded sad—did she want to be reassured Fen was missing her too? “We had a good day yesterday, actually,” he said quickly. “The school was closed because of boiler issues, and I had a friend from work come round. They got on like a house on fire.”

  “A friend?” Ellen’s tone could have been used to cut glass.

  “Yes, just a friend. I do have them, you know.”

  “Don’t start.” Ellen was definitely tetchy now. She spoke again before Mark had time to retort that he wasn’t starting anything. “Are you in tomorrow?”

  “Er, yes?”

  “I’m coming over to see Florence. If that’s convenient.” Her tone made it
clear that nothing short of a minor zombie apocalypse would be accepted as an excuse.

  “Fine,” Mark said shortly. “But make it after twelve o’clock,” he added, remembering it was the pub crawl tonight. “Fen will probably want a lie-in.”

  “Lunch, then,” Ellen said decisively.

  Mark froze in horror. Sunday lunch with Ellen had always meant a roast dinner, “because that’s what Sunday lunch is supposed to be.” Would she expect him to manage roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and gravy? Apple crumble for afters? How did one even make gravy, anyway? Could you buy it at Waitrose? “Lunch?” he queried, a bit croakily.

  There was an audible tsk down the phone line. “Don’t worry. I’ll take her out somewhere. I’m not expecting you to cook.”

  * * * * *

  “Your mother’s coming over tomorrow,” Mark said over dinner. He’d made pasta, feeling a good lining to the stomach was probably called for in anticipation of the night’s revelry.

  Fen looked at him, then down at her half-eaten macaroni cheese (packet mixes were a godsend). He’d thrown in a few mushrooms, peas and cherry tomatoes so she’d get something healthy, and there was now a sad little vegetable graveyard on one side of her plate. “She’s coming here?”

  “That is what I just said, yes.”

  “She’s not staying, is she?”

  Mark blinked. “I don’t think that would work, sweetheart. She’s got to be able to get to work.”

  Oddly, Fen seemed to brighten at that. “Oh. Okay. Can we have ice cream for pudding?”

  “If you put some fruit in it.” Mark gave her a stern look. “I don’t think your mother would be too pleased if you came down with scurvy.”

  “Daaa-aaad. Nobody gets scurvy these days. They put vitamins in everything.”

  “Apart from teenage girls, by the look of it.”

  “And they’re bad for you if you eat too much. People die.” Fen seemed to relish the prospect. It was her next question that really floored him, though. “Dad, do you wanna watch a DVD after dinner?”