The foot finds her.
Some part of her.
He isn’t sure which part.
Mild air arrives from the window and also something like light, or a sort of thinner darkness anyway, something that makes the space of the huge room around him palpable without quite being visible.
He remembers now that as they were falling asleep she said something about Thomas.
She said that it wasn’t only Jacob—that she was worried about Thomas as well.
It was the last thing he wanted to hear and he didn’t really respond.
Instead he stood up and opened one of the windows, letting in the sound of the rain.
She was still talking about Thomas, her voice sort of murmuring sleepily in the dark, while he stood there at the window, looking out at the rain. Or not looking at it. Listening to it. It wasn’t visible. The garden was dark except for the red points of the security cameras.
She had seen Thomas.
That was what she was telling him.
For nearly two years she hadn’t seen him, he had been avoiding her.
Now she was saying that she had seen him, a few weeks before.
In the morning he opens his eyes and sees the Monet oil sketch on the wall. It was a present from her first husband. For their fifth wedding anniversary or something like that. Just a simple sketch of a beach scene, a few dozen brushstrokes, about the size of a piece of letter paper. Still, a Monet, and Karl Nyman probably paid a six-figure sum for it. It’s in a fairly ornate frame on the wall next to the bed and it’s the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes.
He’s alone in her bed now.
He wasn’t aware of her leaving it.
For quite a long time during the night, after the rain had stopped, he lay awake in the silence troubled by memories and then, when light had already started to appear at the windows, he finally fell asleep again and slept until a few minutes ago.
It must be nine o’clock, or even later.
Outside the sun is shining and the room is quite light and he’s looking at the small Monet without seeing it and wondering if he dreamed those things about Thomas.
That he has a drug problem now.
That after some sort of overdose incident Mathilde put him into the Priory.
That when Helen visited him there a few weeks ago he said he didn’t want to see her and sent her away.
Did he dream those things?
He doesn’t think so.
He looks at the Monet. A beige beach under a gray sky. Some figures on the beach, one of them holding a parasol.
As he looks at it he hears voices from the garden—the nanny’s sharp voice putting a question, twice, in exactly the same tone each time, and then, after a pause, Jacob’s listless answer.
The sounds draw him back to the present.
To the fact that it’s Saturday morning.
That he has to talk to Jacob today.
He sits up and as he does that another sound starts—the sound of the shower in Helen’s en suite.
She must be in there.
Probably she left the bed only a short while ago herself.
He moves around the room picking up his clothes from where he left them last night, and when he leaves a minute later the sound of the shower is still going on.
It’s nearly four o’clock in the afternoon when he finally knocks on Jacob’s door.
“How are you?” he asks him.
Jacob is sitting at his desk doing something on his laptop. “Fine,” he says.
“What are you doing?”
“Playing Minecraft.”
“Okay.”
István stands at his shoulder looking at the screen.
“How long have you been playing it?” he asks.
Jacob shrugs.
“Since after lunch?” István asks.
“Maybe.”
“I think you should turn it off now.”
Jacob’s screen time is supposed to be limited to two hours a day.
He sighs and finishes up.
“Do you want to go for a walk in the park?” István asks as he’s doing that.
“No.”
“It’s nice out.”
“I don’t want to.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Jacob shrugs.
He’s still sitting at his desk facing the now-dead laptop screen.
István is still standing behind him.
He says, “Mummy says you want to change schools.”
He says it without any sort of plan of what to say next. “Is that true?” he asks.
“No,” Jacob says.
“No?”
Jacob shakes his head.
“That’s what she said. Did you say that to her?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What did you say?” There’s a silence. It’s obvious that neither of them is enjoying this. “That you’re not happy at school?” István asks.
Jacob doesn’t deny that.
He just sort of shrugs again.
It makes István feel very sad suddenly that this conversation is taking place at all, that it needs to take place. He says, “Mummy said you’re having trouble with some of the other kids. Or one of them.”
“What do you mean trouble?”
“I don’t know.” There’s another silence. “Is it true?”
Jacob is staring fixedly at a particular point on his desk.
István tries to help him. “Mummy said this kid’s name is Toby.”
Jacob just keeps staring.
“You can talk to me about it,” István says.
“I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“You talk to Mummy about it.” There’s another silence. “You don’t mind that she told me what you said to her?”
“No.”
“She told me you wanted to change school.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“That’s what she told me.”
After a few moments Jacob says, “She asked me if I wanted to.”
“Okay.” Jacob’s phone pings as some sort of notification arrives. They both ignore it. István says, “And what did you say?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“So maybe you do? Want to change school.”
“Maybe.”
“Why? Because of this Toby?”
Jacob doesn’t say anything.
István sits down on his son’s bed.
There’s yet another long silence, during which Jacob’s phone pings again.
István isn’t sure what to say.
He feels helpless.
He feels as well that a space has opened up between himself and his son. A year ago there wasn’t anything that Jacob wouldn’t talk to him about, in the way that it’s obvious that he doesn’t want to talk to him about this.
He says, “What does Toby do? Do you want to tell me about it? He’s just not very nice to you or what?”
István knows Toby by sight now. He’s a normal-looking kid. Maybe even slightly shorter than Jacob.
“Does he hurt you? I mean physically.”
“Not really,” Jacob says.
“Not really?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Jacob doesn’t say anything.
“What does he do, then?” István asks.
“I don’t know.”
“He says nasty things?”
Again Jacob doesn’t answer the question.
“Are you scared of him?”
There’s another silence, which István takes as a yes.
He says, “Why are you scared of him?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob says, after yet another long silence.
Slightly anguished now, István says, “When did this start?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob says.
“Has he been there all the time?”
“What do you mean?”
“Since you started school.”
“No.”
“No?”
Jacob shakes his head.
“When did he arrive, then?” István asks.
“Last year.”
“Last year?”
“Yes.”
“And are other people scared of him too?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do they want to leave the school?”
There’s another silence.
“It’s very important to stand up for yourself,” István says.
“I know.”
“That’s very important in life.”
“I know.”
“That you don’t let people push you around.”
“I know.”
“I know it’s not always easy.”