Thirty-six

Wanting Rachel so much still frightened Will. At any time, it seemed to him, she might decide that he was too much trouble, or worthless, or no good in bed. She might meet someone else; she might come to the conclusion that she didn’t want a relationship with anybody at all. She might die, suddenly, without warning, in a car crash on the way back from dropping Ali off at school. He felt as if he were a chick whose egg had been cracked open, and he was outside in the world shivering and unsteady on his feet (if chicks were unsteady on their feet—maybe that was foals, or calves, or some other animal), without so much as a Paul Smith suit or a pair of Raybans to protect him. He wasn’t even sure what all this fear was for. What good was it doing him? None whatsoever, as far as he could see, but it was much too late to ask that now. All he knew was that there was no going back; that part of his life was over.

Most Saturdays now, Will took Ali and Marcus out somewhere. It had begun because he wanted to give their mothers a break… No, that wasn’t true. It had begun because he wanted to wriggle his way into Rachel’s life, and he wanted to make her believe that there was some kind of substance to him. And it wasn’t as if it was the worst job in the world; the first couple of outings had been difficult, because for some reason he’d tried to do the education thing, and he’d taken them to the British Museum and the National Gallery, and all three of them had been bored and tetchy, but that was mostly because Will hated doing those things himself. (Was there a more boring place in the world than the British Museum? If there was, Will wouldn’t want to know about it. Pots. Coins. Jugs. Whole rooms full of plates. There had to be a point of exhibiting things, Will decided. Just because they were old, it didn’t mean they were necessarily interesting. Just because they’d survived didn’t mean you wanted to look at them. )

But right when he was on the verge of abandoning the whole idea he had taken them to the cinema, to one of those dumb summer movies that were pitched at kids, and all three of them had had a great time. So now it was a regular thing: lunch at McDonald’s or Burger King, film, shake at Burger King or McDonald’s, whichever they hadn’t been in at lunchtime, home. He’d taken them to Arsenal a couple of times, too, and that was OK, but Ali would still snipe at Marcus, given half a chance, and there was more than half a chance in a long afternoon in the family enclosure at Highbury, so football was kept for those rare times when they had run out of films that would not only insult their intelligence but the rest of them as well.

Marcus was older than Ali now. The first time they had met, when Marcus had been Will’s son for the afternoon, Ali had appeared to be Marcus’s senior by many years, but his explosion that day had blown his cover a little bit, and in any case Marcus had moved on in the intervening months. He dressed better—he had won the argument with his mother over whether he should be allowed to go shopping with Will—and he had his hair cut regularly, and he tried very hard not to sing out loud, and his friendship with Ellie and Zoe (which, much to everyone’s surprise, had endured and deepened) meant that he was more teenage in his attitude: even though the girls prized and cherished his occasional eccentricities, Marcus was beginning to tire of their whoops of delight every time he said something daft, and he had—sadly, in a way, but inevitably and healthily—become more circumspect when he spoke.

It was strange; Will missed him. Since the egg had cracked Will had found himself wanting to talk to Marcus about what it was like to wander about with nothing on, feeling scared of everything and everybody, because Marcus was the only person in the world who might be able to offer him advice; but Marcus—the old Marcus, anyway—was disappearing.

‘Are you going to marry my mum? ’ Ali asked out of the blue, during one of their pre-cinema fast-food meals. Marcus looked up from his chips with interest.

‘I dunno, ’ Will mumbled. He had thought about it a lot, but could never quite make himself believe that he was entitled to ask her; every time he stayed over at her house he felt impossibly blessed, and he didn’t want to do anything that would endanger his sense of privilege. Sometimes he hardly even dared ask her when he could see her again; asking her whether she was willing to spend the rest of her life with him seemed to be pushing it.

‘I used to want him to marry my mum, ’ Marcus said cheerfully. Will was suddenly seized with the desire to pour his boiling-point fast-food coffee down the front of Marcus’s shirt.

‘Did you? ’ said Ali.

‘Yeah. For some reason I thought it would sort everything out. Your mum’s different, though. She’s more together than mine. ’

‘Do you still want him to marry your mum? ’

‘Don’t I get a say in this? ’ Will asked.

‘Naah, ’ said Marcus, ignoring Will’s interruption. ‘See, I don’t think that’s the right way. ’

‘Why not? ’

‘Because… You know when they do those human pyramids? That’s the sort of model for living I’m looking at now. ’

‘What are you talking about, Marcus? ’ Will asked him. It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

‘You’re safer as a kid if everyone’s friends. When people pair off… I don’t know. It’s more insecure. Look at it now. Your mum and my mum get on OK. ’ It was true. Fiona and Rachel saw each other regularly now, to Will’s agonizing discomfort. ‘And Will sees her, and I see you, and Ellie and Zoe, and Lindsey and my dad. I’ve got it sorted now. If your mum and Will get together, you think you’re safe, but you’re not, because they’ll split up, or Will will go mad or something. ’

Ali nodded sagely. Will’s urge to scald had been replaced by an urge to shoot Marcus and then turn the gun on himself.

‘What if Rachel and I don’t split up? What if we stay together forever? ’

‘Fine. Great. Prove it. I just don’t think couples are the future. ’

‘Oh, well thank you… Einstein. ’ Will had wanted his comeback to be sharper than that. He wanted to think of some sort of socio-cultural marriage expert whose name two twelve-year-olds would instantly recognize, but Einstein was all he could come up with. He knew it wasn’t right.

‘What’s he got to do with it? ’

‘Nothing, ’ Will mumbled. Marcus looked at him pityingly. ‘And don’t patronize me. ’

‘What does patronize mean? ’ Marcus asked, in all seriousness. So there it was. Will was being patronized by someone who wasn’t even old enough to understand what the word meant.

‘It means, don’t treat me like an idiot. ’

Marcus looked at him as if to say, well, how else can I treat you? and Will had every sympathy. He was really struggling to maintain the age gap now: Marcus’s air of authority, the been-there-done-that tone in his voice, was so convincing that Will didn’t know how to argue with him. He didn’t want to either. He hadn’t lost all face yet; there was still a tiny patch left, about the size of a small scab, and he wanted to keep it.

‘He just seems so much older, ’ Fiona said one afternoon, after Will had dropped him off, and he had disappeared into his bedroom with a cursory thank you and a brusque hello to his mother.

‘Where did we go wrong, eh? ’ Will asked plaintively. ‘We’ve given that boy everything, and this is how he repays us. ’

‘I feel as though I’m losing him, ’ said Fiona. Will still hadn’t got the hang of joking with her. What left his mouth with the weight and substance of froth on a cappuccino seemed to enter her ear like suet pudding. ‘It’s all Smashing Pumpkins and Ellie and Zoe and… I think he’s been smoking. ’

Will laughed.

‘It’s not funny. ’

‘It is, kind of. How much would you have given for Marcus to be caught smoking with his mates a few months ago? ’

‘Nothing. I abhor smoking. ’

‘Yes, but…’ He gave up. Fiona was determined not to see the point he was trying to make. ‘Does it bother you that you’re losing him? ’

‘Why do you ask that? Of course it bothers me. ’

‘It’s just that you’ve seemed… I don’t want to be crude about it, but you’ve seemed better recently. ’

‘I think I am. I don’t know what it is, but I just feel less worn down by everything. ’

‘That’s great. ’

‘I think I’m just on top of things more. I don’t know why. ’

Will thought he knew one of the reasons why, but he also knew that it would be neither wise nor kind to elaborate. The truth was that this version of Marcus really wasn’t so hard to cope with. He had friends, he could look after himself, he had developed a skin—the kind of skin Will had just shed. He had flattened out, and become as robust and as unremarkable as every other twelve-year-old kid. But all three of them had had to lose things in order to gain other things. Will had lost his shell and his cool and his distance, and he felt scared and vulnerable, but he got to be with Rachel; and Fiona had lost a big chunk of Marcus, and she got to stay away from the casualty ward; and Marcus had lost himself, and got to walk home from school with his shoes on.

Marcus came out of his room scowling.

‘I’m bored. Can I go and get a video? ’

Will couldn’t resist it: he had a theory he wanted to test out. ‘Hey, Fiona. Why don’t you get your sheet music out, and we can murder " Both Sides Now"? ’

‘Would you like to? ’

‘Yeah. Sure. ’ But he was watching Marcus, whose expression was that of a boy who had been asked to dance naked before a mixed audience of supermodels and cousins.

‘Please, Mum. Don’t. ’

‘Don’t be silly. You love singing. You love Joni Mitchell. ’

‘I don’t. Not any more. I bloody hate Joni Mitchell. ’

Will knew then, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Marcus would be OK.