“Nick? Hi, it’s Dad.”
“Hello.” His voice is flat.
“Listen, have you eaten?” Robert infuses his voice with enthusiasm.
“Er, no…”
“Well, I’m going to swing by and take you out to supper. I’ve had to work late and I’m starving…” Nicholas hesitates but Robert is determined: “Just a quickie, we can grab something in the pub near you. It’s on my way home.”
“Mum’s trying to get hold of you, by the way.”
“I’ve spoken to her, don’t worry,” he lies. “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”
There are four bells on Nicholas’s front door, three with scribbled names, one without. Robert rings the top nameless bell. He hasn’t been here since he and Catherine helped Nicholas move in three months ago. He pictures him making his way down the four flights. When he finally opens the door, he looks exhausted.
“Shall we go?” Robert beams, overcompensating for his son’s lack of enthusiasm.
“I’m not quite ready.”
“That’s fine; I’ll come up and wait.” And Robert follows him, holding back his strides to fit his son’s heavy tread, taking in Nicholas’s bare feet, the dirty soles; the post littering the hall floor; the stained, cigarette-burned carpet. Robert waits in the sitting room, peering into the kitchen, taking in the sink full of dirty plates; the blackened frying pan on the hob; the bin which needs emptying — juice and milk cartons, scraps of food spilling from the black bag. What you’d expect from a flat full of students, he tells himself, except Nick is the only one who isn’t a student. His flatmates are out and the place reeks of dope. He hopes that it’s from them, not Nick. Please don’t let him be back on weed again, he thinks, but he doesn’t want to risk annoying his son, so says nothing.
“Ready?” Robert pushes open the bedroom door and his stomach dips again. Pants, plates, jeans, cups, all dumped in their own filth. The duvet has a yellowish tinge to the edge where Nicholas’s face has rubbed against it. He is sitting on the bed putting on his socks. Robert watches him push his feet into the pair of black slip-on shoes he wears for work and feels another surge of anger towards Catherine. This is her fault. She pushed Nicholas away. She persuaded Robert that it would be good for him to be independent. There’s not even a lampshade on the ceiling light. His throat catches. He sees the mobile Nicholas had had as a little boy hanging from a hook intended for something else, the fragile paper wings of the plane crashing against the wall, not enough space for it to float freely.
“Come on then, mate, let’s get going,” and he gives his son an encouraging smile. He is determined to get through the evening without breaking down.
Father and son. A bottle of red wine. Steak and chips. Robert had persuaded the kitchen to serve them late. A loving father who wishes he had done this before. Wishes he had made a habit of it. He asks Nicholas about work but only half listens as he answers. Being a trainee salesman for John Lewis isn’t the career he and Catherine had hoped for their son, but nevertheless Nicholas seems to have enough to say about it to convince his father he’s all right and he’s perked up now he has eaten. He was ravenous. He tells Robert about training days and staff benefits. But is this really what he wants to do with his life? Is it enough? And does he really enjoy living in such squalor?
“So how are you finding it, the flat?” Robert asks. Nicholas shrugs, but then a smile tickles his mouth.
“Haven’t actually been there much recently,” he says, sticking his fork into Robert’s chips.
“Oh?”
“There’s a girl I’ve met. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time at her place.”
“So tell me about her.” This is good news.
“Not much to tell. Don’t think she’d be Mum’s cup of tea…”
“Well, it’s nothing to do with her, is it.” His tone makes Nicholas look up in surprise.
“So what’s she like?” Robert moves on.
“Nice. We’re hoping to go away this summer, if we can get the money together.”
“Really? Where?”
“Somewhere cheap. Maybe Spain. Or Majorca,” he says and grins.
“Spain.” Perfect. “D’you remember that holiday we went on when you were little? To Spain?” Nicholas looks irritated by the change of subject.
“No, I don’t.”
“You were about five. I had to go home halfway through because of work. You and Mum were there on your own.” He scrutinises Nicholas’s face for a sign, but there is nothing. A blank, revealing surely that something must have been erased.
“Vaguely. Not really.”
“It was only for a few days.” He wants to nudge his son into remembering without causing alarm.
“I felt bad about it at the time. I shouldn’t have left you. On your own. With just Mum.” Nicholas looks at him then shrugs.
“I don’t really remember, Dad. Don’t feel bad about it.”
Robert searches his face again for any flicker of pain, but detects none. Whatever he experienced back then has been buried deep.
“You should take your girlfriend somewhere nice. I’ll help you out. It must be hard on your salary, with the rent and everything.”
Nicholas is thrown. This is surely against the rules, Mum’s rules, but he’s happy to take anything he can get from his father.
“Thanks,” he says.
After Robert has dropped Nicholas back, he drives around until he is sure Catherine will be asleep. He parks outside the house and looks up at their bedroom window. The light is off. He takes the book from his bag, and lighting the first page with his phone, reads: “Victoria station on a grey, wet, Thursday afternoon. The perfect day on which to escape…”
He is too tired to face what it might tell him now, and it is the photographs which have seared his heart. He will read the book tomorrow. He Googles The Perfect Stranger from his phone, and finds the site for the book. But like Catherine, he finds nothing which tells him who the author might be, male, female, young, old. He presumes male, of his age. He reads the review and wonders who wrote it. He gets out of the car, shuts the door, then lets himself into the house. He listens, makes no noise himself, then goes up to the spare room.
23. EARLY SUMMER 2013
This is the second night running that Catherine has gone to bed alone. She had tried to stay awake last night, waiting for Robert to come home, but she couldn’t. When she woke the following morning, there was no sign that he had been to bed at all. It was only when she heard the front door close and ran downstairs that she realised he had, but that then he had left again without wanting to wake her.
He must be really snowed under at work to come back so late and leave so early in the morning. She had wanted to talk to him, ask him why he hadn’t called her and let her know what was going on, why he wasn’t home for supper. He is a thoughtful man. Yes, thoughtful. So thoughtful that he’d slept in the spare room so as not to wake her. He is pleased she is sleeping again and didn’t want to disturb her. And then again in the morning he must have made sure she wouldn’t wake, and she should have been grateful, but she wasn’t. She was uneasy. And her unease had grown during the day when her calls went unanswered and her texts received replies which were slow to come and terse in tone.