‘You have two missed calls on your phone too. Are they going to arrest Mum?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I’m pretty sure they could only arrest Mum if I pressed charges. Anyway, maybe they just want to speak to us again about the neighbour.’
‘Could you make them arrest Mum?’
‘I don’t want them to.’
‘But what if you did? Could you?’
‘I never would.’
Max considered this for a moment.
‘Do you want to go out and get some ice cream? I have some money.’
‘You don’t have to buy me ice cream, Max.’
‘OK. But can we go and get some ice cream?’
‘All right.’
I dressed with care, and put on a clean white shirt because I didn’t want to pull anything over my head. The skin beneath the bandages burned and itched, but from what I could tell in the mirror, and from feeling through the dressings, I was much less badly hurt than I had expected. My balance wasn’t good on the stairs, but I decided that was the morphine.
Millicent was on the sofa in the living room, reading a book.
‘You’re up,’ she said.
‘I’m up.’ I tried to smile, but it hurt.
‘Dad and I are going out, Mum,’ said Max, with great formality.
‘Sure, honey.’
We ate our ice creams. Max had chosen the same for both of us – strawberry, blueberry and double chocolate, with fudge sauce. It was more ice cream than I wanted, and far sweeter than I wanted ice cream to be, but I was hungry and I ate it all. The coffee was surprisingly good, and cut through the cloying sweetness. I wondered if I could face going outside for a cigarette.
‘That was a big thing you did, Max, bringing me here, and buying me ice cream and coffee. Makes me proud to be your dad.’
‘It’s good that Mum didn’t come.’
‘What do you mean, Max?’
‘She didn’t even ask to come. And if she had I would have said no, and I think she knew that, because she …’ He was searching for the words. ‘She wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on. Would she, Dad?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What she did to you.’
I touched my cheekbone involuntarily.
‘It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened, Max.’
‘I don’t just mean that. That’s only the bit people can see.’
He left this hanging for a moment.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked at last.
‘The neighbour.’
‘It doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Or the end of our marriage. And I shouldn’t have told you. Not the way I did.’
‘It’s OK. Can I have a shake?’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you want some more coffee?’
‘Great.’
He looked down at the coins on the tray. Not enough for both coffee and milkshake. I gave him a fiver, and he scooped up the coins.
‘I’m going to have a cigarette, Max. Watch that no one takes our place.’
He rolled his eyes and joined the queue. I got to my feet. Everything hurt. I took my coffee cup and went outside.
There was a missed call on my phone. Rose. I had not made it to her brother’s funeral.
Who’s Rose?
Had there been an edge to Millicent’s question? For a moment a dangerous thought lurked at the edges of my mind. But no, Millicent had struck me because I had forced her into a corner.
He thinks you’re a bitch.
I had used Max against her. There was nothing more to it than that. I should never have used Max against her.
When I’d finished smoking I went back in and carefully arranged my body on the slick mattressed seating of the booth. Max was waiting; he hadn’t started his milkshake. He picked up my coffee in two hands and gave it to me.
‘Hello, Man-cub,’ I said.
‘Hello, Wolf-man.’ Max slurped his milkshake. ‘Mum took my picture of Grandpa. Can I have it back?’
‘I don’t know, Max. I don’t think so.’
‘Why? It’s mine.’
‘Because I don’t think Grandpa meant you to have it.’
‘I promise I won’t take it to school again.’
‘It’s a very private picture, Max. You didn’t tell me you’d taken it to school.’
‘But you can tell he meant for people to see it.’
‘I don’t think that man’s family would want you to have it. Especially not if you’re showing it to people at school. He deserves some respect, Max, and some privacy.’
‘But that man was our enemy.’
‘He isn’t any more.’
Max rolled his eyes. ‘That’s only because he’s dead, Dad. Korea’s still our enemy.’
I reached for a cigarette from the packet in front of me, then realised I couldn’t smoke it. ‘North Korea,’ I said, ‘and it’s complicated.’ I put the cigarette behind my ear. ‘Max,’ I said, ‘who did you show the picture to?’
‘Only Ravion Stamp. But he said Grandpa was a murderer, and I got angry, and he went spectrum and told on me to Mr Sharpe for punching him.’
‘You punched him?’
Max sniffed. ‘Didn’t Mum tell you I punched him?’
‘I assumed he punched you.’
‘Maybe she didn’t know. But you have to go to a meeting with Mr Sharpe. Sorry.’
Millicent hadn’t told me about the meeting, either. We were all of us so strung out; we were barely getting by. Maybe I would have punched Ravion Stamp if I had been Max.
‘Why did you hit him, Max?’
‘I don’t know.’ The child’s response to the adult question. But he meant it. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t know why he had punched Ravion Stamp.
‘You found a dead body, Max.’
‘So?’
‘Max, that kind of shock can make people very angry. And very sad. It can make them do things they wouldn’t normally do.’
Max slurped at his milkshake. ‘But Grandpa wasn’t angry when he came back from the war,’ he said. ‘And people were trying to kill him.’ He blew back down the straw. A huge viscous bubble rose gently through the uniform pink liquid.
‘I think he was, you know. I think your grandfather suffered a great deal more than he told people.’
‘So why didn’t he tell anyone?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Men don’t, always.’
‘Anyway, that’s not why I get angry. Not the only reason. Dr Å says it isn’t.’
‘Oh?’ I said.
Max shook his head. ‘I heard them. Mum and the neighbour in the garden. What they called each other.’
‘What did you hear, Max?’
Max went very quiet. What did he know? I wanted to push him, but wasn’t sure I could keep my feelings to myself. Instead I took the cigarette from behind my ear and examined it. Perhaps I shouldn’t be upset that Max was angry. Perhaps Millicent would say it was entirely appropriate.
What did you hear, Max?
I put the cigarette in my mouth and reached for my lighter. Max put his hand on mine, stopping me.
‘You can’t smoke here, Dad.’
I looked up at him. His eyes glistened, and his lower lip curled.
‘This must all have been very hard for you Max,’ I said.
Max began to cry. I reached over to embrace him, but he shook me off. He covered his eyes with his hands, and sat as still as he could, his body spasming in silent, racking sobs. I looked around, not knowing what to do. I got to my feet, and moved to his side of the booth, sliding in along the slicked leather; I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to hold him to me. I wanted so badly to push him on what he had seen, what he had heard. But I had already said too much to him about Millicent’s affair. When all this was over, he needed to be able to respect his mother, whether or not we were still together.
After perhaps ten minutes, Max took his hands from his eyes. I hugged him very tight.
‘People can see, Dad.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Yes. You can sit over there again.’
I stayed where I was. We sat there for some time. I toyed with my cigarette, and Max toyed with the last of his milkshake.
‘Dad,’ he said at last, ‘Dad, you know how you never hit me, but you said Scottish Grandpa used to hit you with a hairbrush, and you were really afraid of him?’
‘He didn’t use a hairbrush. Where did you get that from, Max?’
Max shrugged. ‘Grandpa liked being a gunner.’
‘I’m not really sure he liked it.’
‘He did, Dad. He told me. But he also shot people with a rifle, and stabbed them with knives.’
I thought of my father standing proudly there with his comrade, thought of the bruising on the face of the dead man. There was no attempt to prettify the scene. I wondered if they had beaten the Korean man before they had killed him. I wondered how many other photos he had posed for like that.
‘Is it bad that Grandpa hit you?’
‘I don’t know, Max, those were different times.’
One night my mother used the term
shell shock
at dinner in front of guests. Although she had not been talking about him, my father became very quiet. He waited until the guests had left. He waited until he was sure that I was asleep; he even came into my room to check. But I was awake, and I heard my mother’s pleas through the wall: she had not been talking about my father.
Afterwards I heard him apologise to her, as he used to apologise to me. He was ashamed of his trauma, ashamed of the trauma he was visiting upon us.
If my father had lived a little longer I could have asked him. I could have tried to understand what made a good man pose with his beaten enemy: what made a loving father beat his only son with his army-issue leather belt?
He was a good man, though. That’s what complicates things. My mother and I loved my father, and eventually the beatings stopped.
‘Dad,’ said Max on the bus home. ‘Do you think sometimes the police arrest people even though they didn’t kill someone, because they can tell they’re glad they’re dead?’
‘The police aren’t going to arrest me, Max. Is that what you’re talking about?’
Max brightened. ‘Did they tell you that?’
‘No, Max, no, they didn’t tell me that. And I’m not glad that the neighbour’s dead. It’s a terrible thing.’
When we got home Arla opened the door.
‘Oh, yeah, Dad, Arla’s coming to stay,’ said Max. ‘The reason I didn’t tell you was I forgot.’
Arla laughed and kissed Max, and he let her take his hand and draw him across the threshold.
‘Well, this should complicate things in interesting ways,’ I said. ‘How’s the life promiscuous?’
‘I guess right now it beats the life monotonous,’ she said, reaching up to be kissed.
Arla still had that West Coast sheen. She had cut her hair into a long bob and looked polished and poised in a knitted vest and knee-length skirt. Even in high shoes she was tiny: a smaller, sleeker near-facsimile of her older sister.
Millicent came in from the kitchen.
‘So, why are you here, Arla?’ I said. ‘What can we help you with this time?’
‘I asked her to come,’ said Millicent. ‘I figured
we
could use the help.’
I looked from Millicent to Arla to Max, then back to Millicent.
‘You were unconscious, Alex,’ said Millicent.
‘Right enough,’ I said. ‘The house is yours, Arla. London is yours. But I’m not unconscious any more so we don’t need any help.’
‘All good,’ said Arla, voice light as spun sugar.
‘Alex,’ said Millicent simply, ‘I’m going to need you to get Max ready for bed.’
‘But I want to talk to Arla,’ said Max.
‘Bed,’ said Millicent.
‘Mum …’
‘Max, what say tomorrow you skip school and we hang out?’ said Arla.
‘I’ll get into trouble.’
‘Not if I ring your principal and say I’m your mom.’
Max stared at Millicent. Arla stared at Millicent. Millicent looked appalled but she nodded gently.
‘Can I have twenty-four hour ’flu?’ asked Max.
‘Sure, Max. ’Flu is good.’
‘Can you say I’m delirious?’
‘Sure, Max. Delirious is super-good.’
I sat on the edge of the bath as Max brushed his teeth.
‘Dad, why did you call Arla promiscuous?’
‘I didn’t call her promiscuous.’
‘You said, “how’s the life promiscuous?” And then she said you were boring. Because really you were saying she’s a slut.’
‘We were both joking. And don’t say slut.’
‘Girls call girls sluts.’
‘Max, don’t say slut any more. OK? I don’t think she’s a slut, and she doesn’t think I’m boring. OK?’
‘If you say so, Boring Dad.’
He spat and rinsed.
‘Max, you haven’t really brushed your teeth.’
‘Because I was talking to you, Dad. Dad,
is
Arla promiscuous?’
‘Max, drop it.’
‘Is she, though?’
‘Bed.’
I sat on Max’s bed and watched him fall asleep. He looked so very young, and so very beautiful. He stirred slightly when I ruffled his hair, and I watched him from the doorway for a long time. Millicent touched my arm; I realised I hadn’t heard her come upstairs.
She nodded at Max. ‘We made that.’
‘Yes, we did, didn’t we?’
I held her to me, felt her breath on my neck.
‘It’s fiendishly clever, whatever it is,’ I said.
I held her very tight and we stood, watching the rise and fall of Max’s torso; I found myself without anger for the first time in days.
Sleep of the innocent.
‘I need to apologise to Arla, don’t I?’
I asked Arla to forgive my thoughtlessness. She hugged me, told me it was all good, and that I was being far too English about things. I corrected her by pointing out that I was Scottish. She hugged me again, and said that sort of confirmed her point. I apologised again.
Arla had bought two bottles of good island whisky at the airport. Millicent opened Max’s bedroom window so that we’d hear him if he woke, and we sat on the grass drinking and talking. Arla drank her whisky with ice. Millicent and I drank it the Scottish way, dripping water from our fingers into the glasses.
‘Three drops of water. No more.’
‘You’re freaking kidding me, right, Alex?’
‘No, Arla, I’m deadly serious. You’re killing it with ice.’
‘So three drops of water? What’s with that?’
‘Releases the esters. Which for some reason improves the flavour.’
‘Ooh. Science,’ she said, valley-girl style. ‘You Brits sure are smart.’