Page 46 of Bare
‘I've never been to your flat.’
‘I know.’
Rory was quiet. Then he said, very seriously, the register reserved for things said properly: ‘What time.’
‘Seven.’
‘What are you cooking.’
‘Risotto.’
‘You can cook risotto?’
‘I can cook a risotto that doesn't need rescuing, Rory, yes.’
‘That was mean.’
‘I was owed one.’
Rory laughed. The low one. He reached out and touched the back of the canvas where the pencilled date was, like he was closing a small ceremony.
‘The twenty-eighth.’
‘The twenty-eighth.’
Christmas Eve at Gemma's.
The house was cinnamon and roasting meat and the sweetness of a real tree dying slowly in a warm room. Fairy lights traced the window frame. Owen had put the tree up, slightly too large, its top branch bent against the ceiling. Freddie, in a Christmas jumper with a sequinned reindeer that flashed when you pressed its nose, was vibrating between the living room and the kitchen at a frequency that suggested he'd found the chocolate coins.
Neil stood by the window with a glass of wine, watching his son press the reindeer's nose for the forty-seventh time, and played his part. He smiled. He laughed at Owen's paper crown. He helped Freddie arrange mince pie and carrot for Father Christmas and wrote a note from the big man in disguised handwriting.
Gemma caught him in the hallway, between the kitchen and the living room. Tea towel over one shoulder. Mince pie in hand.
She smiled. ‘There's a painting on your wall, Neil. Four years of white walls and now there's a painting.’
He met her eyes. She held them. Patient. Unsurprised.
‘I... Rory painted it. He gave it to me.’ Quiet. Speaking the name here, in this domestic space with his son's laughter through the wall, gave it a weight it hadn't carried before.
Gemma's face changed. Warmer. She'd been waiting for this.
‘Freddie talks about Mr Cavanaugh eight hundred times a week. And you've started buying acrylic paint.’
He leaned against the wall. Coat hooks pressing into his back. From the living room, Freddie's laughter, something about Owen and the dog.
‘How long?’ Gemma asked.
‘Since you told me I was being stupid. Properly.’
‘And before properly?’
‘I think... Since September. Since the staff meeting. Since he walked in and I forgot how to hold a pen.’
She smiled. Fond. Exasperated. She knew him inside out. ‘That's very you. Most people forget how to speak. You lost the ability to grip a biro.’
‘I'm an English teacher. Pens are significant.’
‘Is he good to you?’ The smile faded. The serious question. She'd loved him. Still did. She needed the answer.
