“S’when the communion wafer becomes the Body of Christ.” Edmund tossed his heavy hair from his eyes and tore into one of Gwen’s bags of kettle chips, without acknowledgment. “You take the host.” He laid a large crisp on his own extended tongue in illustration.
Nathan hooked his arm around Gwen’s neck and pulled her closer, his exhalations loud and heavy against her ear. She was pleased by this display of possession and desire, and somewhat less pleased by the smell of his breath and the slightly glazed look in his eyes. He had grown sloppy, and his laughter came in loud, forced shouts. The group was raucous with freedom but Nathan seemed further gone than the others, his head lolling, occasionally pulling her to him and plunging a rather clumsy tongue slightly too deep into her mouth.
The afternoon settled. The boys played a brief game of football but soon gave up in the heat, balled their obsolete school jackets, and stretched back in the grass. Gwen lay down dutifully beside Nathan, who rolled over and began to kiss her, messily and ostentatiously, until Charlie threw a Wine Gum at them and to Gwen’s relief he stopped. She sat up again. By now she’d hoped to be alone with Nathan, perhaps somewhere in this park, walking, talking, holding hands, shaking their heads in awe at the extraordinary bond they shared.
Today marked a momentous transition, and counting down toward it had steadied her in some of her darkest moments. She had pictured that first moment in which the huge oak doors creaked open. She’d imagined Nathan swinging her around with joy at his liberation, not only from school but from all the academic constraints that had hampered his ability to take care of her. Today, Nathan would assume the mantle of his responsibilities, solemn as a graduation gown. She would see him come back to her, and see her once again. It had already begun when, on the walk here he had hung back from the others, had pulled her for a moment down a quiet stable mews, cobbled, blue plaqued, and she had recognized in him the old fresh urgency, undiminished. Though she now found even the idea of sexual contact repellent, almost intolerable, her heart had leapt. Teenagers have always been forced to take these quiet public corners and make them private, temporarily, and here, with Nathan’s heavy breath and roaming hands, was proof that they were once again normal teenagers. The daylight and his waiting friends ensured she was safe to sigh, and pull him tighter, and imitate his frustration. She found herself rising above the scene. She saw her red head bent close toward his dark one. They could have been parents, bound together inextricably, and eternally. Can you believe it? Those two down there, kissing—forever united. Look at them!
• • •
AT HALF PAST FOUR the group began to stir. There was a general agreement that they should go back to Yard and meet those who had been in afternoon exams and then move the celebrations to a pub behind Victoria Street, or perhaps to Marina’s house, in Vincent Square. Gwen tugged on Nathan’s sleeve and whispered, “Now we can go to Covent Garden.” It was already much later than she’d hoped. They would have to rush if they were to make it to the Taiwanese bubble tea place, before heading home in time for James’s barbecue.
“Come and meet Dom and the others from Geography, ma petite.”
She shook her head. “We’re meant to do something just the two of us.”
“I tell you what.” Nathan stepped back unsteadily and slung an arm around Charlie’s shoulders. “This is what’s going to happen. You go and do what you need to do in Covent Garden. She needs to go shopping,” he whispered to Charlie, confidentially, “and then you come back and meet us in the pub. We’ll be in the pub, and you can come back and meet us.”
“Or at Marina’s,” added one of the girls, unexpectedly. She was a few feet away; though they had seemed busy gathering their belongings, collecting crisp packets, brushing grass from their clothing, everyone was in earshot.
Gwen shook her head again. “I’m going.” Her voice came out louder than she’d intended. “I’m not coming back again. I’m going home.”
“Okay, baby, have fun. I’ll be home in . . . soon. I’ve just got very business— I’ve got very important business to attend to, which is the business of celebrating.”
She set off across the lawn and he loped a few steps to catch up with her.
“Are you pissed, baby?” he asked, in a different, private voice. She didn’t care. Respect concealed from his friends had no value. Shouldn’t he want to be alone with her?
“No,” she snapped, “you’re pissed.”
“Both can be true, in very different ways,” he said, sorrowfully, “the American way and the British. I prefer the English way, in this case. I’m pissed in the British sense; you’re absolutely right and I highly, highly, highly, highly recommend it. Don’t be pissed with me.”
“You said we’d talk after the exams. You said we’d hang out, and we’d talk about everything—”
“Fuck, seriously?” He bent down and began bundling his jacket into his school bag. “Not now. I am not thinking about that today. It’s literally the last thing I want to think about, I’ve just finished my exams. S’the end of my exams. S’s my big day.”
“I spent the last day of my exams in hospital. And P.S., it’s all I think about. All the time. It’s not like, a choice, I can’t just decide, ‘Oh, I don’t want to think about this today.’”
“Well then you should get over it,” he said shortly, standing up again.
She stared at him and he nodded vigorously, in agreement with himself.
“Seriously. Get over it! Come get drunk, come toast the end of my exams. You missed it for yourself because of the thing, so come toast the end of your exams, too! We should be celebrating the fact that you can drink; drinking’s awesome. Not drinking is just . . . a waste. Come toast the fact that we had a fucking lucky escape, we got like a, a get-out-of-jail-free card, baby; we should be toasting. Cheers!” He raised an invisible glass to her, squinting slightly.
Perhaps he sensed that he had gone too far here as he then lurched forward and tried to kiss her with sloppy tenderness, but Gwen jerked herself free and began to run across the lawn, lowering her head and succumbing, finally, to her sobs. When she reached the path she turned to see that Nathan had lit a cigarette, and with this dangling from his lower lip was bouncing a football from knee to knee with a maddening, surprising coordination. She did not wait, in case he didn’t look up. A lucky escape. She hated him, and herself.
42.
Today Nathan would come back for the long summer holidays. It had been a blessed relief to be without him, but Gwen had been so excited earlier, racing up and down to model outfits, carefully painting too much garish color on her pale face. For Gwen, and for James, Julia gathered her strength and went to welcome the children in the hallway when she heard the key.
It was Gwen alone, and she had been crying.
“Where’ve you been? What’s wrong? What happened, Dolly?”
“Everything’s fucking stupid!”
“What’s stupid? Where’s Nathan?”
“Who cares? I literally hate him. I hate my life. Stop asking me questions.”
Julia waited while Gwen kicked off her sneakers on the doorstep, in the immediate path of anyone who might want to come in or out.
“You don’t have to stand there looking at me like there’s something wrong with me!” Even Gwen did not sound convinced by this complaint. She tried again. “There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m fine; stop looking at me like I’m a fucking invalid!”
“Enough, now. I won’t be spoken to like this. I don’t know what’s happened but you can’t just come in here and instantly take it out on me. Where’s Nathan? Why didn’t he come home with you?”
“Nothing’s happened,” Gwen whined, extending this last word over several seconds, and pitches. She was pulling her shoes back on.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s literally none of your business! I’m going around the corner to make a ph
one call with some privacy, okay?”
After the front door slammed, Julia paused. Then she threw it open and called after her daughter.
“Wha-at?”
“Bring back some ice cream, Dolly, something nice that you really fancy.”
Gwen grunted noncommittally, and then the gate swung shut behind her. Julia gave a small moan of anxiety. She should have spoken her conviction aloud in time to do something about it: it was a terrible idea for Nathan to come home for the summer.
• • •
IN THE KITCHEN, singing to Bon Jovi beneath a pair of Nathan’s green, padded headphones, James had missed the shouting. Nathan had requested a barbecue for his first night of freedom, and James was making barbecue sauce. Saskia had just arrived from Boston and was sequestered upstairs with her friend Rowan, who was spending the night.
“Why didn’t he come back with her?” he asked when Julia lifted an earphone to update him.
“I don’t know. I think they’ve had an argument; she’s in the most revolting mood. She’ll be back any minute.”
“God save us. Where’s that apricot jelly?”
“We can’t still have that, it was from Christmas.”
“This’ll blow your mind, I promise you. What did they fight about?”
Julia sank down into a chair. “I have no idea but she seems really rattled, and now she’s marched off again. I think she knows Saskia’s here with Rowan and probably wanted to phone Katy and compose herself a bit. It might have been quite uncomfortable being around all Nathan’s school friends, and I imagine she feels quite guilty and ambivalent about celebrating anything. She’s so tired. And the last day of her exams—that was not a good day.”
James had found the remains of the apricot jam, as well as another unopened jar Julia didn’t recognize that read FIGUE in elaborate curlicues, and he was dumping their contents into a stainless steel bowl along with the entire squeeze bottle of ketchup. “She’s wiped out, she needs time. We’ll just take it very easy for the summer,” he said, squirting, “and make sure you guys get lots of time alone together. Mom-and-daughter time.”
Julia rose and put her arms around him, peering around his shoulder into the contents of his bowl. “Thank you. That looks terrible,” she said, her chin moving against the solid curve of his bicep. He grinned. “It’s going to be awesome, just you wait. It’s Nathan’s all-time favorite. They’ve done it, you know. I’m so damn proud. They’ve been unbelievable little mensches for the last few weeks, both of them; it’s a huge night tonight. We got these kids through . . . through a war zone. Think what they’ve been contending with, both of them; it’s unimaginable. I really think she’ll turn a corner now, you’ll see. She’s not had any space. Do you think I should make guacamole? The avocados are like bullets, I’d have to try and microwave them or something. Gwen likes hot dogs, right? I got ballpark hot dogs and relish. Next time we go to Boston I have to take you to a ballgame, you’ll love it. Actually you’ll hate it but I’ll love it. You’ll love it when it’s over, maybe.” He ducked to kiss her behind her ear.
The day Nathan’s exam timetable had been published James had swapped his clinic in order to be free to prepare this banquet. Along with the frankfurters, barbecued chicken, and grilled peppers he had made some sort of Cuban-style sweet corn with feta and mayonnaise, and had come back from Queen’s Crescent with a watermelon the size of a small house pet. It felt far too soon to be celebrating anything but when consulted Gwen agreed it was still a good idea, and had even offered to bake Nathan an end-of-school cake—online she’d found a recipe for some elaborate confection that spilled out jelly beans. Gwen was surely the child more deserving of treats, but Julia had been happy, at least, that she was once again planning creative activities. In any case, given Gwen’s mood the cake now seemed rather unlikely. What little enthusiasm Julia had for the evening had evaporated. James had a great deal for which he ought to be grateful—his daughter was visiting from college, his son had finished senior school. She had a child enraged, beneath whose eyes bloomed mauve stains of exhaustion. It had only been, after all, a few weeks. Revelry was not her uppermost concern.
• • •
BY NINE P.M. Nathan still had not come home or called, and Julia persuaded James to eat. Gwen had taken herself to bed, the first time that Julia had seen her be openly rude to Saskia, who had tried and failed to convince her to have dinner with them. Gwen had responded with an unpleasant comment about James’s cooking, had clattered around preparing herself Marmite toast, leaving butter, loaf, Marmite jar, and a good many crumbs all over the counter, and had then clumped upstairs with her plate, looking thunderous.
“I’m going to sleep,” she told Julia, who had followed her upstairs, anxious. “There’s nothing to talk about, life is shit. I’m literally eating this toast and going to sleep in four seconds. See you tomorrow,” she relented, and allowed herself, stiffly, to be hugged. Julia held her daughter’s bird-narrow frame for as long as she was permitted, and then returned to James and the girls. Her heart remained upstairs. The evening would be easier if Saskia had not brought home a stranger.
Rowan had arrived in a crisp white shirt with a sharply pointed collar, black tailored trousers that ended high above her ankles and were held up by black, snakeskin suspenders and a pair of polished black wingtips, very small. Her pallor was accentuated by comically oversized black-framed glasses, and pinned to one of the suspenders was an Art Deco crystal brooch, shaped like a Scottie dog. When they’d met at Christmas, Gwen had gazed down in open distrust at this severely attired pixie-person, and her scowl had hardened when Saskia said, “Rowan’s supercreative; she makes loads of stuff, like you,” in a misguided attempt to find common ground. That had been her last visit. Julia hoped Gwen would sleep in, and that Rowan would leave early in the morning. Home should be a sanctuary, not Piccadilly Circus. Saskia’s belongings were already strewn around her music room.
They ate from their laps in their square scrap of back garden. In his earlier enthusiasm James had grilled two packets of hot dogs, and a cold stack of these, alongside a lukewarm mound of baked potatoes and a tray of now slightly wrinkling corn cobs, lay on a card table around his centerpiece, a heaped platter of barbecued chicken wings.
“At what point do we get worried about him?” James asked, though he had clearly begun to worry some time ago.
“I don’t think he’ll come back tonight, Dad.” Saskia frowned at her phone. She was sitting next to Rowan, cross-legged in the center of a sun-lounger, hunched over and typing furiously. “I think he’s pretty wasted.”
“What did he say? I’m glad he’s communicating with someone, at least.”
“He’s somewhere with Charlie. It’s got a million spelling mistakes and then, ‘Tell Dad seed tortilla,’ and then a zillion emojis.”
“Seed tortilla?”
“‘See you tomorrow,’ maybe.”
Rowan cocked her head, birdlike. “God. I still think of your little brother as an actual child. It’s insane to think of him old enough to drink, and now he’s finished school! Supercrazy.”
And he was nearly a father, thought Julia. Supercrazy.
The girls both stood and announced that they were going out, and would come home quietly at an unspecified time. Neither offered to help clear away dinner. Julia regarded Saskia, who looked rather blowsy and dishevelled beside her sharp little friend. Her hair had grown too long, and though she had gained weight at college she had not bought clothes to accommodate it. Buttons strained. Julia dismissed the urge to tighten Saskia’s bra straps, and to tie back her hair. Rowan, by contrast, had made an effort. She was severe-looking and not pretty, but had polished herself into a striking presence.
James pressed several ten-pound notes into Saskia’s hand, which were accepted without comment, and then the girls disappeared.
“What can I say? My people cater for emergencies.” Jam
es gave a resigned look at the groaning card table.
“I would have taken some of it to Philip tomorrow but I’m not sure he needs my deliveries anymore. I must say, as bizarre as it all is, it is nice to think of him being taken care of. Strange. I never thought it would be Iris I’d have to worry about.”
“You don’t have to worry about Iris, do you? She’s been taking care of herself just fine since, what was his name?”
“Giles.”
“Right. Since Giles moved to France.” James gave her a cheeky grin, proud to have absorbed this family vernacular, and Julia shrugged off the ungenerous part of her that considered his use of it unseemly.
“She hasn’t really been alone alone; she’s had Philip on the other end of the phone. And text. And e-mail. And fax machine. Even when Giles was in the picture they were always in touch.”
“Well she couldn’t expect him to be at her beck and call forever if they weren’t in a relationship any longer. What was he getting out of it?” James asked, reasonably, and Julia fell silent, considering. Iris and Philip had seemed immoveable as a mountain range yet, unexpectedly, Philip had moved. What had seemed hewn from granite had shivered to pieces like glass.
“I was thinking, I probably should have figured he’d want to spend tonight with his friends. Your old dad’s barbecued wings aren’t the most rock-and-roll way to mark your high school graduation. If that damn kid is not coming back, I’m opening another beer. Would you like one?”
Julia shook her head. Her plate had been sitting on her knee and she moved it to the grass. James went inside, returning with his beer and a roll of plastic wrap, and began to cover the chicken. “I should have figured. I mean, when you think of the last few weeks—the kid needs a break.”
“Gwen needs a break.”
An edge in her voice made James stop. “Of course she does. There’s no competition. We’re never going to play that game, baby, let’s not start. There’s only one team here.” He dragged his chair over and sat and faced her, looking serious. “It’s been awful and they both need a break. Thankfully it’s not Gwen’s style to go out drinking like a frat boy, and my son—every now and again he gets the urge to behave like the dumb teenage boy that he is.”
The Awkward Age Page 24
