The Adults

by Caroline Hulse

  The front door slammed. Matt entered the room, pulling his beanie hat off to reveal hair pumped with static, lifting in all directions. He ran his hand through it, an action that made no difference at all.

  Scarlett followed Matt into the room, her yellow princess outfit accessorized with squeaky pink wellingtons. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Alex experienced a moment of surreal pause, as she always did when she heard Scarlett say “Dad.” Matt’s behavior in their real life was so unfatherly, the word sounded jarring to Alex’s ears. I think you’ll find there’s been some mistake.

  Alex had learned a few years ago that, now, when friends told her they were pregnant, Alex wasn’t meant to say, “Unlucky. Are you going to keep it?” But still. There were people being grown-ups, and then…there was Matt.

  Alex turned to Scarlett. “Scarlett!” The pitch of her voice sounded patronizing, even to her; she lowered it. “Morning, mate.”

  Scarlett looked at Alex. “Good morning, Alex.” She turned to Claire. “Can I have the iPad?”

  “Nope.” Claire reached into her handbag and got out a box of cards decorated with princess pictures. “You can play with these.” She turned to Alex and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

  Alex clicked her mouth. “Good parenting. Impressive.”

  “Always.” Claire pushed herself up from the sofa. The white spots on her pajamas weren’t quite opaque enough and Alex could see the dark shadow of a nipple underneath. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Help me clean up the breakfast things, Matt?”

  Get acquainted. Alex was determined not to react. All right, so she and Scarlett weren’t close, and, admittedly, Scarlett had just greeted her with the formality of someone completing a banking transaction—but the idea they weren’t acquainted was taking it too far. Was that what Claire really thought?

  Did she think Alex was terrible with children?

  Worse, was Alex terrible with children?

  Scarlett put her princess cards down in a semicircle. She was talking out loud, explaining things like a TV chef.

  “Can I play with you?” Alex gave Scarlett her warmest smile. “Will you teach me your game?”

  Scarlett shook her head. “I’m playing with Posey.”

  In the kitchen, Claire pulled an overfull bag out of the rubbish bin. “Maybe you should ask Posey to do something else so you can join in with us?” Claire tied the top of the bin bag. She glanced at Scarlett.

  Scarlett fixed Claire with a glare.

  Claire blinked back. “We’ve discussed this. This is a special family weekend and we need to concentrate on human family. If you want to do the pony trekking and the swimming pool, Posey has to stay behind.”

  At the sink, Matt splashed an excessive amount of water around. “There’s only room for one person on the pony.” He glanced at Claire, deadpan, then back at the sink. “It’s health and safety.”

  Claire turned back to Scarlett. “You were really excited about pony trekking. Remember? You get to ride a real, live horse?”

  “And they don’t make helmets with ear holes for rabbits.” Matt looked up at Claire and Alex for appreciation; Alex gave him an eye-roll.

  “It’s like living in the film Harvey,” Alex said.

  Scarlett didn’t look at her.

  “I think this is a great opportunity for family reading time before we go swimming.” Claire said. “So why don’t you take Posey to your room and leave him there. You can bring a book back on your own.”

  Scarlett stared at Claire.

  Claire stared back.

  “Come on, Posey. You can pick a book for yourself.” Scarlett left the room, hand stretched out behind her, leading her invisible rabbit.

  Claire looked down at her spotty pajamas. “Time for clothes, I think. Swimming in half an hour, everyone?”

  There were murmurs of agreement. Alex watched Claire head up the stairs.

  Would Claire put that perfume on now, she wondered?

  Alex pressed her lips together in self-disgust. There was too little to do here, that was the problem.

  “Matt, pass my bag, would you?”

  Matt gave Alex the bag and she got her book out. She leaned back on the sofa and flicked through the pages.

  She’d tried to start this book three times already. It was something improving she’d bought at a train station, on the way back from speaking at a conference for healthcare professionals. Something the papers told her she must read before she died. Something she’d bought when, for a moment, she’d forgotten she didn’t care.

  Alex turned back to the start of the book again. One last chance, then it was going to the charity shop.

  She stared at the first page and tried to make the words into sentences that stuck. But—no. She was drifting again.

  Just be normal. Like all of this—creaky toilets, singing Christmas trees, invisible rabbits, five-day weekends, bald men in too-short shorts walking round aggressively at 9 A.M.—is normal.

  18

  Patrick sat down on the sofa in the lounge. He got his book out of his rucksack and placed it on his knee.

  Across the room, Alex was reading Ulysses. Patrick was impressed. He had always wanted to read Ulysses himself, but never had. (Or maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe it was that he wanted to have read Ulysses, which was a little bit—but significantly—different.)

  Patrick looked at his own book, a paperback thriller recommended by his personal trainer. On the front of the book, the large writing was the color of blood. Underneath it, a buff man ran with a gun.

  Patrick wished he’d brought something classier, now he’d seen Alex with Ulysses. He knew from their sweating conversations that his trainer was well-read. He could have recommended a hardback, at least.

  Patrick looked out of the window toward the lodge next door—Nicola’s lodge—and quickly looked away. He realized his leg was jiggling; he stopped.

  He’d only just been for a run. How could he be needing to do more exercise already?

  On the other leg of the L-shaped sofa, Matt laughed into his mobile phone.

  “Of course.” Matt had slumped in a supine position, dangling his feet off the edge of the sofa, holding the phone a fair way from his mouth. “I’ll pop down for a visit and we can get it sorted after Christmas. If you’ll extend the contract, we can work something out.” He laughed again. “Don’t thank me. Well, I’d like to say it was my idea to get you a thoughtful Christmas present, but we both know it wasn’t.”

  Patrick wanted to tell Matt to hold the phone closer to his mouth.

  “Yeah, I’m useless as shit. My boss’s PA got it. What did she get you?” Matt listened to the reply. “Nii-ice.” He said the word with an extra syllable. “Don’t be flattered. You know how much you spend with us? I get to lord it round our office just because you’re too lazy to get off your arse and look for a cheaper supplier. I’m going to buy a Jet Ski just from the commission I get from your account. Maybe I’ll let you sail it as a thank you.”

  He laughed and threw his head back. “OK, ride it.” He picked at something sticky that had attached itself to his jeans. “Well, maybe not a Jet Ski. More like a canoe. But if you extend the contract, I’ll get myself a nice Jet Ski.”

  Patrick wondered how one man could find so many things as funny as Matt did when he was on the phone.

  “Yeah, not much coastline in Nottingham. Perhaps I haven’t thought it through. But maybe in the leisure center? But would a Jet Ski fit in a locker?” Matt laughed again. “OK, laters. Have a good break, my friend.”

  Matt pressed the end button on his phone, still laughing a little.

  It was a work call, Patrick realized. Jet Skis and lockers, Matt calling his client “lazy” and admitting his own terrible organization skills. And that was how Matt spoke on an actual work call with an actual client.

 
; How he’d ever managed to attract a woman like Alex—a woman like Claire—was beyond Patrick. It certainly couldn’t have been through good planning. Everything that had come to Matt had clearly come to him through right-place, right-time dumb luck.

  Patrick watched Matt. He was just sitting there on the sofa now, a leftover smile on his face. Doing nothing.

  “There are some books in our room if you want to borrow one, Matt.”

  “Ah, thanks, Pat, but I don’t read.”

  “You…don’t read.”

  “No.” Matt grinned. “Life’s too short.”

  Patrick didn’t know what to say to that.

  “I do mean to read more—I know books can be all right if you get a good one. But they can be an arse to get into, you know?”

  Patrick gestured with his paperback in Matt’s direction. “I like reading. I read every time I go on a train journey. I read at least one book a week.” He noticed himself saying this, and tried to ignore the fact it wasn’t true.

  Matt laughed. “Good for you, Professor Plum.”

  Scarlett came back in the room with felt-tip pens and some paper.

  “Did you leave Posey in your room?” Matt asked.

  Scarlett flopped onto the floor and lay on her stomach. “Yes.”

  “Good girl.” Matt lay down next to her, also in a prone position. “Give me some paper. I’ll race you to draw a horse. I’m good at horses.”

  Patrick watched them draw. So, Matt didn’t read. It wasn’t so unusual—Claire didn’t read. But that was because Claire was always busy with other things. Whereas Matt…Matt wasn’t. And Matt didn’t even care.

  Patrick put down his book and picked up his laptop. He glanced around to check Claire wasn’t there, then pulled up the Ironman web page. He looked at the home page, at the picture of the shiny-muscled, self-satisfied man celebrating success in his sunglasses—the image that had repelled Claire so much.

  But the image didn’t look so bad without Claire looking at it over his shoulder. And while—true—the man looked so slappable, basking in his over-trained success, the image was much less annoying when Patrick transposed it in his mind. When he pictured his own face in that image instead.

  Patrick pictured his own biceps, swollen from training; his medal glinting in the sunshine. (Admittedly, there wouldn’t be much sun in the Welsh valleys that time of year. And Patrick might look a little bit damper than this man in the photo, because of his sweating thing.)

  Patrick shut his laptop with a guilty snap.

  He picked up his book and opened it. Instead of reading, he watched Matt and Scarlett drawing amiably together. It was so long since Patrick had done something like that with his own daughter. She was a teenager now, but still. It was so long since he’d done anything that looked as relaxed as that with Amber.

  “The thing is,” Scarlett said to Matt, “it’s hard to draw Blossom limping.”

  Matt rolled onto his left side, straining to see her drawing. “Why’s Blossom limping?”

  “She’s hurt her fetlock. And she’s got one eye shut because she’s got conjunctivitis.”

  Matt laughed. “Poor Blossom. Shall we get her to the glue factory?”

  Matt raised his gaze to glance at Alex across the room.

  Scarlett wrinkled her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

  “Your dad’s just being silly, Scarlett.” Alex looked up from her book to make eye contact with Matt. “He says the oddest things. I can barely understand him myself most of the time.”

  Patrick felt the crackle of deadpan humor between Alex and Matt. He felt himself tense. He and Claire didn’t look at each other like that, like they were sharing secret jokes and didn’t even need to speak to make each other laugh. Patrick really wanted them to look at each other like that, but they didn’t. He wasn’t sure now that they ever had.

  But he knew the average British couple had sex once a week. He and Claire had way more than that so they must be doing OK, at least statistically.

  “Scarlett,” Patrick found himself saying, “shall we show your daddy our dance?”

  And he and Scarlett did the routine they’d developed to that EDM song, their hands on their behinds, jumping backward like they were in a music video.

  Matt stood up. He was smiling as he watched Patrick dance with his daughter. No sharp comment, no attempt to win Scarlett back to the horse drawings. Nothing.

  So when they finished their dance, Patrick went further. “Scarlett, how about you and me go outside and race to the post box and back?”

  Scarlett squealed with excitement.

  Matt smiled and patted Patrick on the back, in the style of one who thinks another is a good sort.

  Patrick was not a good sort, he knew. Not right at that moment. Far from it.

  That was when Patrick realized—properly realized—that he couldn’t rely on Matt to make this weekend fun. That the sporting events would be friendly and aren’t we all winners here and it’s the taking part that counts.

  Claire bounced down the steps. “Everyone got their stuff ready for swimming? Shall we go in five?”

  “Ah, Pat.” Matt patted Patrick on the arm in a gesture of sympathy. “You can do the post-box thing another time.”

  Patrick looked down at the hand on his arm, then back up to Matt’s smiling face.

  He just didn’t get this man at all.

  19

  Alex abandoned her book. She collected together her swimming things, thinking.

  How had she let herself get here?

  It was because of Matt. Infuriating, lovely, patience-defying Matt.

  Matt had been Alex’s twelfth date in the year since she’d split up with Steve of the Sherlock coat and the neat fingernails and, it turned out, intolerably bad temper.

  Alex recorded all her dates on a spreadsheet. You couldn’t run experiments like this without some kind of controls. She’d seen, early on, the risk inherent in Internet dating—that, with each date, her expectations were required to increase to justify her previous choices. All the while, her dating capital was shrinking, due to her increasing age and the decreasing size of the untested market.

  Brutal, but Alex was a realist. Hence she set up the spreadsheet to ensure she was making optimal decisions.

  Internet dating, in Alex’s opinion, was a lab-condition-equivalent of real life, like growing a relationship in a Petri dish. And when you did things under lab conditions you did them from a place of knowledge, with proper assessment and control samples. There was no room for self-serving bias in Alex’s lab.

  * * *

  —

  On their first date, Alex got to the pub before Matt. She found a table in the corner and settled in, moving the chairs an appropriate distance apart, wondering why she was here in her dating jeans on a cold Wednesday night, when she would have a better time with just her laptop and her sofa.

  Matt was on the phone as he arrived.

  Alex blinked at him as he pulled out the chair across from her and, still talking, smiled apologetically and continued his conversation.

  Alex had an instant urge to reach for her coat.

  This guy must be one of these corporate cocks, out to impress her with loud talk of how the Geneva office is going to shit when they hear this or Neil doesn’t understand EMEA’s growth potential or whatever else it was that kind of man wanted other people to overhear him saying.

  Instant spreadsheet fail.

  Alex reached down for her bag and zipped it up.

  “If he didn’t have the keys to the lockup, then what was he playing at putting the synthesizer on eBay?” Matt put his hand over the phone and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry, Alex,” he whispered. “I’m really looking forward to meeting you.”

  He smelt faintly of shaving foam, and like he’d recently eaten some to
ast.

  After a second’s hesitation, Alex put her bag back under her chair.

  “Can you believe that guy?” Matt flipped his hair out of his eyes. He made a wanker gesture with one hand. “Some people.” He shook his head. “Anyway, let me go. I’m making a bad impression on my date and she looks really nice.” He paused. “Not that looks are all that matters to me. As you know, mate, obviously.”

  He smiled at Alex again. He listened into the phone a minute longer. “I’ll call you later. I’m going now, stop talking. Stop talking, I’m not listening. Pff—and like that—I’m gone.”

  Matt switched off the phone and put it in his pocket.

  He blew his fringe out of his eyes. “He wouldn’t shut up. I told him you were waiting.”

  “I heard.”

  “I’m not usually this rude.”

  “If you say so.”

  “It was my mate, Walshy. His life’s gone to shit and he is threatening to end it all. But I didn’t want to cancel on you. Sorry I was late, I know it’s unforgivable.”

  “But—you were talking about eBay…” Alex reordered her thoughts. “Do you need to go to him?”

  “He’s just having a bad day. I’ll pop round to Jean’s later. His mum’s.”

  “Is it fair to involve his mum?”

  “That’s where he lives now, he moved back home when his last start-up failed.” Matt paused. “I’m not explaining it well—he won’t kill himself, don’t stress. It’s not an urgent thing. He’s been saying it since we left school.” He saw Alex’s face. “Look, don’t worry. He’s not even a nice man. Self-absorbed and angry at life. He doesn’t stop for elderly gents at zebra crossings. Worst-case scenario, it wouldn’t even be a massive loss.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  Matt smiled. “Mostly.”

  “I thought he was your friend?”

  “He is. Old friend.” Matt said it like that explained everything. “But can we stop talking about Walshy, because it’s a waste to depress ourselves with his shit when he’s not even here. So, more important”—he sat forward in his chair—“apart from being thirty-five and five foot eight and nonreligious and dating men in the thirty-one to forty age bracket, Alex Mount, who and what and how are you?”