The Other Son

by Nick Alexander

  ‘Did you enjoy it, Nat?’ Ken asks Natalya as he leaves the room.

  In the kitchen, Alice is putting mugs of tea and plastic beakers of hot chocolate on a tray. ‘Can you take that plate of sandwiches through, love?’ she asks.

  ‘I told you, Mum, we ate already. None of us is going to eat anything.’

  ‘If they’ve only had hot dogs, then I’m sure they’ll eat something,’ Alice says.

  ‘They won’t. And if those drinks are for the boys, they don’t like hot chocolate any more either.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘It’s brand new. Just came out tonight.’

  ‘What rubbish!’ Alice says. ‘It’s freezing out there. This’ll warm them up.’

  ‘It was cold,’ Tim admits, ‘but at least the rain stopped.’

  ‘You wouldn’t get me standing out in the rain to watch a load of money go up in smoke.’

  ‘Why not? You used to take us to the fireworks every year. And often enough it rained.’

  ‘Yes, well . . .’ Alice says, adding the sugar bowl and three teaspoons to the tray. ‘I suppose it’s just one of those things you have to do when you have kids.’

  ‘Exactly! Oh, Mum, Nat will want coffee. Can you do her a coffee instead? Or d’you want me to do it?’

  Alice shakes her head and puts the tray back down. ‘Now he tells me!’ she says.

  ‘So how have you been, Mum?’ Tim asks as she pours the tea down the sink, rinses the cup, and reaches for the instant coffee.

  ‘Oh, you know . . .’

  ‘Not really. That’s why I’m asking.’

  ‘Your father’s been very difficult.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . .’ Tim says. His father’s difficult nature is not really a conversation he’s prepared to have any more. His mother has been married to him for long enough, in his opinion, for that difficult nature to have become a given. His mother’s shock, her supposed outrage at each new distasteful episode of his father’s (mis)behaviour smacks somehow of dishonesty as far as Tim is concerned. It’s like moving to Finland and then complaining about the cold.

  ‘He’s been complaining about the gas bill all week,’ Alice says. ‘He says I use the oven too much.’

  ‘But the central heating is gas,’ Tim says. ‘That’ll be what’s putting the bills up, not the bloody oven.’

  ‘Well, quite!’ Alice says. ‘But you just try telling him that. And it’s your father who keeps nudging the thermostat up all the time.’

  ‘Cook slowly, gas mark three, forty years,’ Tim murmurs.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just being silly.’

  ‘He says he’s got Alzheimer’s now,’ Alice says. ‘That’s the latest thing.’

  ‘Really? That’s worrying.’

  ‘Oh, it’s only any time I ask him to do or buy anything,’ Alice says. ‘He never forgets his own stuff.’

  ‘Who has Alzheimer?’ Natalya asks. She has appeared in the doorway. Both she and Tim do absurd amounts of back-and-forth-ing when they visit Alice and Ken. Neither can ever quite decide which room, which parent, makes them the least uncomfortable.

  ‘Dad says he has it,’ Tim says. ‘But Mum says it’s selective.’

  ‘Very selective,’ Alice says, handing Natalya her drink. ‘Here, I made you coffee.’

  ‘Selective?’ Natalya asks.

  ‘He only forgets things he wants to forget,’ Alice explains.

  ‘Hmm, well,’ Tim murmurs. ‘At least he’ll never run out of those.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Timothy,’ Alice says.

  ‘Sandwiches?’ Natalya questions, frowning. ‘For who? Not for us, I hope.’

  ‘I told her,’ Tim says. ‘But you know Mum.’

  ‘If you don’t want them you can take them home,’ Alice says. ‘You can have them for lunch tomorrow. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.’

  ‘And these are for the boys?’ Natalya asks, pointing at the plastic mugs of hot chocolate.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ha!’ she laughs. ‘So now we see how Boris don’t like chocolate!’

  ‘Doesn’t,’ Alice corrects. ‘Doesn’t like chocolate.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Natalya’s expression darkens. She hates it when Alice corrects her.

  ‘But your English is getting much better, dear,’ Alice adds, trying to lessen the blow. ‘You just need to take more care with your does and doesn’t. And all that trouble you have with your prepositions.’ She lifts the tray and heads down the hallway towards the lounge.

  ‘I don’t even know what is prepositions,’ Natalya says quietly, once Alice has gone.

  ‘Nor me,’ Tim says, lifting the plate of sandwiches. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it.’

  As if to prove their parents wrong, Boris and Alex dive into Alice’s sandwiches. They look like they haven’t been fed for days.

  ‘You see!’ Alice says triumphantly. ‘The poor things are starving!’

  ‘Boris ate almost two whole hot dogs,’ Tim says, ‘plus a load of other junk.’

  ‘It’s all the excitement,’ Ken says, jiggling him up and down on one knee. ‘Isn’t it, Boris?’

  ‘Hot dogs are lovely,’ Boris tells him. ‘With ketchup but not that horrible yellow stuff.’

  ‘He tried mustard,’ Tim says, ‘. . . wasn’t keen.’

  ‘Hot dogs are full of rubbish,’ Alice says again. ‘It’s all the rubbish they sweep up off the floors of the abattoirs. All the bits they don’t know what to do with. I saw it on television. They zap it all with some chemical to kill all the bugs. Jamie Oliver was going on about it.’

  ‘Mum . . .’ Tim protests.

  Alice purses her lips, sighs, gently flaring her nostrils as she does so, then adds, in a controlled tone of voice, ‘But kids do like that stuff. You two were the same.’

  Tim observes her struggle between light and dark, her fight between Jekyll and Hyde. He watches the effort it takes for her to be positive and mentally thanks her for it. At least she makes some effort these days. At least around her grandchildren, she tries.

  ‘So how much are they charging for tickets these days?’ Ken asks, his obsession with the cost of everything ever-present.

  ‘Fifteen quid a head,’ Tim replies. ‘Nine for the kids. Nine quid each, that is.’

  ‘Fifteen pounds?’ Ken says. ‘That’s madness. It used to be ten bob in my day.’

  ‘Yeah, but the minimum wage wasn’t six-seventy an hour then, was it?’

  ‘No!’ Ken says, as if this somehow proves his point. ‘It wasn’t! It was more like eight quid a week. It wouldn’t even get you a couple of hot dogs now.’

  ‘It’s not that now though, is it?’ Alice says. ‘Surely it’s not really six-seventy, is it?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. The minimum wage is exactly six-seventy. And anyway, it was worth it, wasn’t it, boys?’

  Boris frowns at him.

  ‘You enjoyed the fireworks and the funfair?’

  Boris nods.

  ‘So it was worth it. Sometimes you have to pay the price to make everyone happy, Dad,’ Tim says, a disguised barb at his father’s increasingly problematic relationship with money. And why do old people get so tight? Tim wonders. He actually opens his mouth to ask his father the question, but thinks better of it just in time.

  Natalya, who has spotted an opportunity, speaks instead. ‘Is like the house,’ she says, avoiding looking at Tim, afraid of his glare.

  Tim had specifically asked her during the drive not to mention the new house. He knows how his parents latch on to things and worry about them. There really wasn’t any point provoking nights of insomnia for his mother until the deal was confirmed, he had said. And Natalya had agreed. But it’s too late now. ‘What house?’ Alice is asking.

  ‘It’s not even a sure thing, so just . . .’ Tim shakes his head.

  ‘You’re not thinking of moving again, surely?’ Alice says. ‘Poor Natalya has barely finished unpacking from the last time.’

  ‘Oh
, I don’t mind!’ Natalya tells her. ‘Is beautiful house.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Alice says. ‘“It” plus “is” makes “it’s”, so “It’s beautiful”, not “is”.’

  ‘Sorry, yes, “it’s”,’ Natalya says.

  ‘So when is this happening?’ Alice asks, leaning forward in her chair and already, Tim notices, starting to wring her hands.

  ‘It might not be happening at all,’ Tim says, still glaring at Natalya.

  ‘Tim make a very low offer. He hopes they will cave.’

  ‘I’d hardly call two . . . I’d hardly call that much money a low offer,’ Tim says.

  ‘This is what the estate agent say,’ Natalya says. ‘Not me. So . . .’

  ‘Where is it?’ Ken asks.

  ‘Really!’ Tim exhales, laughter in his voice. ‘Can we all just wait and see if the bloody thing happens before we get our knickers in a twist?’

  ‘I can’t see why we’re not allowed to discuss it, Tim,’ Alice says. ‘You’re the only one getting his knickers in a twist. Unless it’s a long way away . . . Is it a long way?’

  ‘No, not far,’ Natalya says, still keen to get the in-laws onside, even as she begins to doubt the wisdom of having mentioned it, even as she senses the capacity for the conversation to spin completely out of control. ‘Just Broseley.’

  ‘Broseley?’ Alice says. ‘But that’s in Shropshire!’

  ‘It’s fifteen minutes more, Mum,’ Tim says. ‘Not even that. And, as I keep saying, not that anyone’s listening, it’s not even—’

  ‘Yes, not even a sure thing. We heard, Timothy. We all heard you.’

  ‘The thing, these days,’ Ken says, ‘is that you have to pay the asking price. I saw it on that programme. The one with the bald chap and the lassie – the bloke with the posh suits and the lisp.’

  ‘It’s not a lisp,’ Alice says. ‘He just can’t pronounce his r’s.’

  ‘Location, Location,’ Tim says.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. It’s because of the housing crisis, apparently. Whenever they put in a lower offer, the houses get snaffled by someone else these days. He’s always telling them – what’s his name?’

  ‘Phil Spencer,’ Alice says.

  ‘That’s the one. Well, he’s always telling them to go in at the asking price, and they never listen.’

  ‘Thanks to you, Ken,’ Natalya says, bowing theatrically. ‘My point exact.’

  ‘Why are you moving anyway?’ Alice asks. ‘What’s wrong with the current place?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with the current place.’

  ‘Well, then, why change? Are you sure it’s going to be worth all the angst?’

  ‘What angst, Mother?’ Tim asks, starting to feel exasperated. ‘There is no angst.’

  ‘Well, the cost, and the move, uprooting everyone . . . The boys will have to change schools.’

  ‘That’s not what you’re worried about though, is it?’ Tim says. ‘You’re worried about the extra five minutes’ drive.’

  ‘It was fifteen about a minute ago,’ Alice says. ‘I’m glad it’s getting closer. By the time you’ve bought it, it’ll be in the back garden.’

  ‘It’s about another ten minutes. That’s all. Ten minutes.’

  ‘We hardly see you as it is.’

  ‘And now you know why,’ Tim says, opening his arms to embrace the scene of family bliss.

  ‘I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ Alice says. ‘I’m sure I don’t.’

  ‘Is very beautiful,’ Natalya says, trying to nudge a smidgen of positivity back into the conversation, though she suspects that it’s a lost cause. ‘It have five bedroom and a pool and—’

  ‘Five bedrooms?’ Alice interrupts. ‘What on earth would you want five bedrooms for?’

  ‘Unless they’re thinking of—’ Ken starts.

  ‘We’re not thinking of anything,’ Tim tells him. To Natalya, he adds, ‘And Nat . . . please . . . just button it. Christ!’

  Natalya shrugs. ‘I discuss our life with my in-law,’ she says. ‘If this is not allowed, maybe you should deliver me a new copy of Little Red Book.’

  ‘What red book’s that then?’ Ken asks.

  ‘She means that we’re not in Soviet Russia,’ Alice explains. ‘She means that we’re still allowed to discuss things.’

  ‘Thanks to you, Alice,’ Natalya says graciously, even though the Little Red Book was Chinese, not Russian.

  ‘Five beds in Broseley, huh?’ Ken says. ‘That’s gotta cost a pretty penny. That’s got to be over a million, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not discussing this any more,’ Tim says. ‘You won’t get one more word out of me. We’ll let you know if anything actually comes of it.’ He glances at his watch. ‘And now we need to get going. It’s almost eleven and the boys have had a long day.’

  ‘But you’ve only just arrived,’ Alice protests.

  ‘It’ll be a quarter to twelve by the time we get home.’

  ‘It would be gone midnight if you lived in Broseley,’ Alice says pointedly. ‘In fact, I bet you wouldn’t have even come this far for the fireworks if you were living all the way out there.’

  Tim closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, then opens them and gets to his feet. ‘Right, that’s enough. I’m suddenly very, very tired.’ He shoots Natalya his harshest glare, and she, in return, curves her shoulders, bulges her eyes, and opens her hands at him in a ‘What did I do?’ gesture.

  ‘Just get the kids together, will you?’ he says, shaking his head and heading for the door.

  ‘So what was that all about, Nat?’ Tim finally asks, as he pours himself a whisky.

  Tim has driven them home in silence and carried the boys, already sleeping, to their beds.

  Natalya, looking unusually sour, is already on her third shot of vodka by the time he reaches the lounge. ‘What is what?’ she says, looking back at him from the sofa.

  ‘We agreed. We decided, together, not to worry them.’

  ‘Huh!’ Natalya says. ‘You want me to be friend with them, then you want me to not tell them anything! This is your problem, not mine. Perhaps you should decide how you want me to be one time for all.’

  ‘That’s not the point. The point is that we discussed it, in the car,’ Tim says, attempting to keep the discussion within the narrow confines of their agreement and Natalya’s failure to respect that agreement.

  ‘So how you want me to be with your parents, Tim? How?’ Natalya asks. And this is the problem with trying to discuss anything with Natalya. This, Tim reckons, is the problem with trying to discuss things with women in general. Whereas men tend to keep each subject in a separate folder in a labelled filing cabinet so they can extract one subject and discuss it before carefully putting it back, women prefer to hurl everything into one big pot. It’s all just spaghetti with every subject knotted up with every other, so that it’s almost impossible to discuss any one thing without discussing everything.

  ‘The point isn’t how I want you to be with my parents,’ Tim says. ‘The point is why, after we decided not to mention it, did you go ahead and bloody mention it?’

  ‘You agreed to not tell them, Tim,’ Natalya says, rising and crossing to the bar for yet another refill. She’s feeling trembly and unsure of herself, yet angry and accused at the same time. It’s a complex and uncomfortable mix of emotions and the vodka seems to be helping. ‘It’s what you do,’ she says. ‘You decide things and then you tell me, and then you decide that I agreed.’

  ‘You make me sound like some kind of dictator,’ Tim says, ‘when that’s not what happened at all. What happened is that I explained how my parents work, and we agreed it was best not to tell them, and you told them anyway because you had some half-baked idea that they would tell me to up my offer. Which is to really misunderstand my parents’ relationship with money. And now Dad will talk of nothing else for a month, and Mum won’t sleep for worrying about it, and all for nothing because we don’t even know if we’re going
to get the damned place.’

  ‘Because of low offer,’ Natalya says. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Two point five million is not a bloody low offer!’ Tim says.

  ‘Even Ken understands that this is not how market works,’ Natalya says. ‘Even the bald man on the television knows this.’

  ‘So now you’re going to give me lessons in property prices?’ Tim says. ‘You’re going to give me tips on negotiating techniques? Really?’

  ‘Perhaps you need!’

  ‘So you really want to go there, do you?’ Tim says. ‘You really want to demonstrate that you have absolutely no idea what your husband does for a living, what he does all fucking day while you’re sitting around drinking vodka?’

  ‘Oh, Tim!’ Natalya says in horror. ‘How dare!’

  ‘Look, I . . .’

  ‘You are like dictator,’ Natalya says, her voice rising. ‘It’s like Timski Putin. No one can discuss. No one can share. It all have to be secrets and silence. Because Putin can’t do when people disagree. Oh no! Everyone must bow to the great Timski Putin.’

  ‘You’re shouting,’ Tim says. ‘You’re losing the plot.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Suddenly the only words Natalya can think of are Russian ones. It happens when she gets really angry. ‘K Chortu!’ she says, waving one hand dismissively at him. Tim knows what it means – go to hell.

  She grabs the bottle of Stoli from the bar and struts from the room.

  In the kitchen, she slumps at the kitchen table and pours herself another drink. She stares at the darkness beyond the kitchen window and tries to calm down.

  She’s being unreasonable. She can sense that much, even as she fails to control it. And it’s true that she had agreed not to tell Tim’s parents, even as she had agreed with herself that she might tell them all the same if she suddenly felt like it. It was just that Tim hadn’t known that. But it was a kind of treason, she can see that now, and the fact of her treason makes her feel both guilty and angry at the same time.

  But there’s a larger picture here as well. There’s the fact that Tim is always convinced that he’s right, that he knows best about every bloody thing. There’s the fact that no discussion has been possible about how much they might offer on the house, the subtext being that it’s Tim’s money, after all. Which is all the more annoying because it’s so patently true.