“But you did like your job. Do like it, I mean.”
“I might have preferred to be an architect.” He says this so frankly it breaks my heart a little.
“Oh. I never knew that.”
“Ah, yes, but you see, Claire, you never asked.”
It’s true. I’d always assumed he was happy where he was, that he didn’t have the imagination to question it — when in fact, all these years, I was the one who lacked the imagination to find out. I draw a “C” in the sugar dusting the table, then scrub it out.
“You’re right: I never did. I’m sorry.” He waves my apology away. I prop my chin on my palm. “I wish I wanted to be an architect.”
“Ach. It’s not the most secure profession nowadays.”
“I mean, I wish I knew what I wanted.”
“Maybe…” Dad lifts his can, puts the opening to one eye and peers in, as though seeing the future inside, “there isn’t going to be a magic job that will solve all your problems. There’s a whole world between any old thing and the thing. What does Luke think? About your situation.”
My mouth droops and the fog of self-pity closes in. “I think Luke’s had enough of me.”
Dad’s mobile thrums in his pocket; he lowers the beer, takes the phone out and freezes. “It’s your mother,” he whispers. His eyes dart to the window in a move I recognize at a near-genetic leveclass="underline" wild paranoia that she’s out there watching him. “What’ll I do? Will I answer? What shall I say?”
“Take it,” I say, “but I’m not here.”
“Well, hello!” he warbles in the same too-bright voice he used when he answered me earlier. “I’m terrific!” He snaps his fingers at me in this urgent, dictatorial way, then at the dog. Though it would be easier for him to leave the room, I take Hazelnut by the collar and guide her into the hallway. When I get back into the kitchen, he’s saying, “Everything’s fine. No-no, nothing, no-no, nothing, nothing urgent. See you soon, then. Cheerio!” He drops his phone on the table and massages his forehead. I hand him another beer from the fridge.
“When is she coming back? Let me help you clean up some of this before I go.”
“Aren’t you going to stay?” he says.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“I thought you two had sorted things out.”
“She’s talking to me again, which is something, I suppose, but…” I sigh. “She’s cooked up this theory, and even though I know going along with it’s the path of least resistance, I just…I can’t. It feels like a betrayal to myself. To child-me. I don’t know.” I run a finger around the mixing bowl, decide I’m drunk enough to ask: “What do you make of it all? This stuff with Mum about…whatever. Gum and the war wounds and his, you know, with me in the bathroom and everything.” The batter is delicious: sweet, silky and rich.
Dad twists his wedding band, mouth in a line.
I say, “You know what? You don’t have to answer. You’re in a difficult position. You’ve probably only heard her version anyway.” I scoop up another round of batter.
“If I’d—” He stops, starts again. “Claire, if I had known at the time what was going on, I would have found it very difficult—”
“Which is why I never said anything! I didn’t want to cause trouble.”
He clears his throat, still twisting the ring. “I hadn’t finished. I would have found it very difficult not to give the old bastard a war wound he’d have been in no hurry to show off.”
I laugh, looking up at the ceiling so that the pooling tears won’t spill. Dad slaps his hands on the table.
“Now! If you’ll excuse me, I’d better go and check that our hairy colleague hasn’t defecated in the hall.”
Dog
Before Mum comes home, we clean up the kitchen: I wash; Dad dries, in accordance with age-old tradition. Afterward, we have some bread and soup to soak up some of the alcohol. Hearing pounding at the door, we look at each other, and get up to open it together. Sue Thompson is standing with an empty lead in her hand, craning her neck to look down the street.
“Sue! We were just about to call,” Dad improvises. I look at him admiringly: who knew he had it in him? “We’ve had a visit from your little furry fellow. Claire, why don’t you go and—” but Sue’s already marched in past us.
—
“Where did you find her?” she demands in the kitchen, crouched by the dog but fixing us each in turn with a blunt, unrelenting gaze from behind her glasses.
“Out the back,” says Dad. “We were going to call, but then you showed up.”
I nod, obediently, corroboratively, sidestepping to block the beer cans from Sue’s view.
“I’ve been out in the car, searching all over, and was about to give up but thought I’d knock on doors just in case…” She draws her eyebrows together. “Did you say you only found her just now?”
“Is Hazelnut a Labrador?” I ask, before Sue can get too intimate with the timeline.
She allows a smile. “Labrador retriever.”
Hazelnut wanders over to Dad, sitting alert but very still at his feet.
“She’s lovely,” I say. “I’m not really a dog person”—Sue’s smile falters a tiny bit—“but she’s…really great.”
“You might have heard she’s getting an award next Monday,” says Sue, pronouncing it “Mundy.”
“Really? A dog-show sort of thing?”
She looks affronted. “A Community Spirit Award. From the mayor?”
“Wow,” I say, not daring to look at Dad. “That’s wonderful. I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“Ceremony at the town hall. Everyone welcome. Mundy at four.” Her head periscopes from me to Dad and back again. “Evan’s giving a reading of a poem he’s written specially.”
“What a talented family,” I say.
“That…sounds like a very…unique…occasion,” Dad manages.
“Well, she is very unique.” Sue explains that in her dotage, Hazelnut has become a locally renowned and much-loved assistance dog, who divides her time (and Sue’s) between old people’s homes, primary schools and libraries, spreading cheer among the immobile, shy and lonely folk in the local community.
“I hope I’m never up against Hazelnut for a job. Her resume blows mine out of the water,” I say.
“Well,” Sue says, not contradicting me, “it’s a gift she has, really, an extraordinary way of seeking out the people most in need. You either have it or you don’t.” She gives a helpless shrug. I glance across at Dad, who is frowning down at his feet, absently stroking Hazelnut’s glossy head. In the heel of one of his socks, a tiny perfect circle of flesh glows white through the worn gray fabric.
Mum
At the sound of Mum’s key in the door, Dad and I lift our drinks in solidarity.
“Did you have any luck with the missing bin lid — Oh.” She stops, seeing me, the drinks, the cake. “A party.”
“Surprise!” I hug her.
“What are you doing here?” She pulls away, taking in my leggings, Luke’s jumper and (eyes lingering at head level) the Christmas-cracker crown I’d forgotten all about. Sue Thompson must have thought we were the crazy ones. “Interesting outfit. Did you have an accident?” she says.
“We’ve been baking!”
“And drinking, I see,” she says, stepping toward the cake.
“Well, Dad baked. I did the icing.”
“Okay. Is it supposed to be a…snowman?”
“It’s supposed to be a fruitcake. But it got burnt.”
“Excuse me,” says Dad. “All that happened was, the top browned at an exponential rate vis-à-vis the remainder.”