Page 28 of Bare
‘I was painting AND listening.’
Neil put the painting on the fridge. BRAVE in purple, between the school photo and the hospital photo. And the word in his son's unsteady hand was closer to accusation than decoration.
The fridge was his gallery. Freddie's monsters, Freddie's trees, the dragon with the button eye that had been painted three separate times because Freddie believed the dragon's story was ‘not finished yet, Dad, he hasn't found his treasure.’ Now BRAVE in purple. The fridge door was running out of space. One was going to fall.
Dinner was fish fingers, salad and mashed potatoes, Freddie's favourite, Neil's default, the meal he could assemble in fifteen minutes, requiring no thought. He stood at the counter watching the oven timer while Freddie set the table with the anarchic precision of a five-year-old.
‘Dad.’
‘Mm.’
‘Is Mr Cavanaugh lonely?’
The question arrived.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because he talks about Kieran a lot. Like, a LOT. And Miss Greaves says people who talk about someone a lot are either inlove or lonely. And I don't think Mr Cavanaugh is in love with his brother because that would be weird.’
‘Miss Greaves says a lot of things.’
‘Miss Greaves is very wise.’
‘Miss Greaves is twenty-four.’
‘Wisdom has no age, Dad. That's what she said.’
‘Did she.’
‘She said it to Oliver when Oliver said she was too young to know about dinosaurs.’ Freddie arranged his fork with care. ‘But is he lonely? Mr Cavanaugh?’
‘I don't know, mate. I don't know him very well.’
‘You could know him better. You could invite him for fish fingers.’
‘I don't think Mr Cavanaugh wants fish fingers.’
‘Everyone wants fish fingers, Dad. Fish fingers are universal.’
‘Now, where did you pick up universal?’
‘Mum.’
Neil served the fish fingers. Freddie ate three. Negotiated for a fourth. Lost. Accepted defeat with the resigned grace of a diplomat who knew the next round of talks would go differently.
Bath time, The Gruffalo, the breathing that settled within thirty seconds, and Neil alone in the kitchen with the word lonely sitting on the counter beside the ketchup.
Was Rory lonely? The flat suggested not, the canvases, the music, the mess of a life being lived. But the clean glasses on the coffee table.
The glasses set out before Neil arrived. The hope embedded in their placement. Rory lived alone with his work and his brother. He'd taken the wine glasses out because someone was coming.
Neil washed the dishes. Dried them. Put them away. Stood in the kitchen and thought about loneliness and fish fingers andthe tree with BRAVE in purple on the fridge and his five-year-old had seen something in his art teacher that Neil had missed.
Or hadn't missed. Had seen and shelved. Different shelf.
Monday morning.
Rory was already there. Two cups, the second appearing on the counter at the exact time Neil arrived, at the exact temperature Neil preferred. ‘Morning, Ashworth.’ The surname. The public mask.
