day.
Too bad summer was over.
‘Come on, tart, get it together,’ James shouted as he rushed past on the way to breakfast.
Richard groaned, but knew he couldn’t put the day off any longer. Again, his stomach churned. Why did people always use the word ‘butterflies’ when ‘knot’ was so much closer to the truth?
‘Morning, son.’
Dad was already sitting at the glass-topped table in the centre of the kitchen, deep in his morning routine of reading the Financial Times and drinking his first brew of the day. As usual, he wore a blue pinstriped suit with a white shirt and patterned tie. The air was pungent with the greasy, sweet-and-sour smell of bacon, eggs, and coffee.
Richard came around the table and dropped his things at the foot of his chair.
Ah yes, Dad and his pinstriped suits. He’s so proud of them—has them tailor-made at Savile Row. He does look good in them, though. I overheard a couple of the mothers saying so at sports day, just after Mum—
‘Don’t you look smart. Now, come here and let me help you with that tie.’ Dad stood up and reached towards the bedraggled snake around Richard’s neck. In a clatter of pottery and glass, his coffee cup lurched over the edge of the table.
Richard whipped out his hand and caught the falling cup like a toad whipping its tongue to catch a fly. Not one drop spilled.
Dad gaped. ‘Good catch.’
‘Wow, how the f—’
He caught himself almost immediately, but Dad was already instinctively glancing at the door as if at a ghost. Richard knew what he was looking for—or who. He’d seen Dad doing this a few times ever since Mum had left. Ever since she’d abandoned them. Mum hated swearing. She would’ve been standing there with her ‘telling off’ face, her eyebrows raised in a V like a cartoon witch.
Dad’s face took on a familiar sad look. ‘Sad’ wasn’t really the word for it; ‘lugubrious,’ a word he’d discovered recently in an old novel of Mum’s, was a much better fit. That’s what angered him the most about her leaving, watching Dad’s normal level of almost childlike enthusiasm fade to a shadow of its former brilliance.
Richard set the coffee cup in the centre of the table and shifted uncomfortably.
What did we do that drove you away, Mum? Was it that time I broke the glass in the conservatory window? Because I was sick all over your favourite rug? Why couldn’t you even have said goodbye? You could’ve at least told us why—why you hated us.
Dad was looking at him again, his eyes glinting in the kitchen spotlights. ‘Impressive. Since when have you been able to do that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Never mind. You saved my favourite mug—and more importantly, my coffee. You’re Daddy’s little hero today.’
He choked back the tears and tried to swallow the snooker ball in his throat.
‘Ooh, Daddy’s little hero,’ called James from the doorway.
‘I’m not a hero. Don’t call me that.’
Dad stood up and wrapped one arm around Richard. His messy hair added even more height from Richard’s puny thirteen-year-old perspective. ‘Don’t be like that, James. You know you’re my little hero too.’
James stuck out his tongue. ‘Take that! I’m a hero too.’
Dad gulped the remainder of his coffee. ‘Right, boys. It’s time for me to go and sell some hedges.’
Richard groaned. I guess he still thinks it’s funny that I used to believe he actually sold hedges. I wonder how he came to own a hedge fund, anyway?
‘See you tonight,’ Dad called as he disappeared.
Richard moved glumly over to the table, where Dad had left the usual ingredients so he could make sandwiches for lunch. They all had to pull together now that they were only three. It seemed strange now that Mum had once done all the household chores. According to the local girls, that was an antiquated way to live, but Mum had seemed to enjoy it. She’d seen it as her place to look after the home. Out of Mum and Dad, Richard wondered who had the better deal, if either.
But doing the family chores had grown on him, and he now found them therapeutic. He finished the two sets of sandwiches with ham and cheese. Pickle on the inside to ensure bread integrity, as he put it. He pictured himself in a sandwich-making world championship where such things mattered. The commentators would scrutinize his knife skills and bread-arranging technique, giving him marks for speed and style.
‘Come on then, Hero,’ urged James. ‘We’d better get going.’
‘Stop calling me that. I’m not a hero.’
‘Whatever . . . Hero.’
Apparently, there was nothing he could do. The name had stuck.
James stopped at the hallway mirror and brushed his hair, perfecting his suave, side-parted look.
‘Let’s go,’ Richard said with a groan.
James spun around and presented himself theatrically. ‘Gotta look good for the ladies, bruv. And you’re gonna need to look cooler than that. Wait there.’
He ran upstairs, where Richard heard him rattling around in the bathroom.
‘Right, bruv, let’s try this.’ He teased a ball of hair wax through Richard’s thick black hair, just like his, to make it stand slightly on end. ‘There you go. Perfect. They’re gonna love you.’
They picked up their bags, slung them over their shoulders, and headed out of the door. They walked in silence for a few minutes.
‘First day at Wellesworth College, eh? You excited?’
‘Yeah. Kind of nervous, though.’
‘Don’t worry, bruv, it’ll be fine. And anyway, I’m always there if you need me.’
James was an old hand at the quintessentially English private school. He only had one more year to go after this one.
Richard eyed his brother without trying to appear too interested. Was he as cocky when he first started? Was he ever like me? He reached up and carefully plucked a strand of waxed hair out of his eyes.
‘Thanks, James.’
Chapter 2
Richard
His hands were slimy with a film of grease, his insides as hollow as the Tin Man in the ancient Wizard of Oz movie he’d seen as a kid. He wasn’t a kid now, though; he was a full-fledged teenager. Right?
He followed James dutifully through the kind of cold, overcast morning that was so common in September. The air was heavy with water; it was about to rain. Now and then, a little whirlwind of red and yellow leaves danced around them. They approached the school gates
