didn’t you tell me?’ Kenny asked.
‘Dad, I’ve tried to call but you never pick up the landline. And I’m not sure what happened to that mobile Rod bought you.’
‘Oh, I lost that,’ he muttered.
‘Right – okay. So, how are things?’ James asked, taking care to maintain a cheery tone.
‘Um, all right, I suppose,’ Kenny replied.
‘So, where’s Rod at the moment? Any idea?’
‘I’m … not sure.’ His gruffness had subsided a little.
‘Erm, Dad,’ James ventured, ‘Reena called me today. You know, Reena who owns the yellow house?’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Well … she sounded a bit worried. She said there’d been some kind of business at the cottage?’
Kenny frowned. ‘Oh, she’s a nuisance, that woman. Always sticking her bloody oar in.’
‘She’s always seemed perfectly pleasant to me,’ James said quickly. ‘She was just concerned that you’d been over to the house, and her guests said you’d, um …’
‘Is that why you’re here? To check up on me?’
‘Of course not,’ James replied, his jaw tightening.
‘What would I be doing at her place?’
‘I’m just telling you what Reena said.’
‘Well, I don’t know what she’s on about,’ Kenny muttered.
How to proceed from here? They fell into silence, and Kenny scratched at his beard and flicked his gaze down to the newspaper. While he looked reasonably presentable in a navy cable-knit sweater and brown corduroys, the facial hair was always a worry. On previous occasions James had noted all manner of food residue clinging to it. Beards were like dogs, he often thought: if you were going to have one, you had to be responsible for it.
As it was, Kenny owned two obese cats, Horace and Winston, who were currently snoozing on the matted hearthrug. James cast his gaze around the low-ceilinged living room with the faded rose-patterned wallpaper and the dimly flickering open fire. The room reminded him of one of those pubs you’d only ever find yourself in by accident; the kind where there’d be no food on offer apart from some out-of-date pork scratchings, and the barman would look at you with mild disdain as you walked in, as if you had no business being there.
James had grown up in this house, and while his mum had still been there, until he was six, it had seemed forever sunny, filled with her giddy laughter as she tossed her mane of glossy dark hair and cooked up pots of her funny hippie food. When James thought of Evelyn – which he tried not to too often – he remembered glinting green eyes and the sweater dresses she made for herself on her bewildering knitting machine, and often wore with wellies (a look he imagined not many women could have pulled off). It was so long ago, he was sometimes surprised he could remember her at all. But although the images were disjointed – like a handful of random snapshots grabbed from a box – they were still vivid to him. Sometimes, he could almost smell her musky perfume that she kept on the dressing table.
As if he had forgotten that James was there, Kenny snatched the remote control from next to his slippered feet and turned on the TV. Rather than sitting there, trying to communicate, James went through to make two mugs of tea in the kitchen. A quick scan of the fridge revealed that, although the milk was drinkable – just – the only other items in it were two open tins, one partly filled with baked beans and another containing a residue of rice pudding. James had long suspected that Kenny pretty much existed on tins and frozen ready meals. It took him less than one second to weigh up whether to remind his father that opened cans weren’t supposed to be refrigerated, before deciding against it. Kenny didn’t respond well to household hints.
Hoping his dad wouldn’t notice, James binned the tins and made a mental note to do a grocery shop first thing in the morning. At least there was a reasonably fresh loaf on the counter.
Back in the living room, he handed his father a mug of tea. ‘So, how long are you thinking of staying?’ Kenny asked as he took it without thanks.
‘Just thought I’d play it by ear, Dad,’ James replied vaguely. ‘So, um, when did you last see Rod?’
Kenny shrugged. ‘Yesterday, I think it was. He went out.’
‘Where to? Did he say?’
‘To a meeting or something. That’s what he said.’
James frowned. At least they were now communicating civilly, for which he was grateful. But what kind of meeting went on for a whole night and late into the next evening? ‘D’you know who he was meeting?’ James ventured as he sank into the doughy sofa.
‘Probably someone important,’ Kenny said, adopting a lofty tone now and turning back to the TV, as if that had settled the matter. They drifted into one of those evenings when Kenny would channel-hop randomly, whilst James sat there in bleakness, wondering how long he would have to stay here and feeling tremendously guilty for having such thoughts.
By ten-thirty p.m., his father was showing no signs of wanting to turn off the TV, not when there were life-enhancing documentaries about people-trafficking and migrant workers kept in inhumane conditions in a leaking caravan. To escape the grimness, James went through to the kitchen again, with the intention of washing up the dirty crockery that lay in the chipped Belfast sink.
A mouse scuttled across the kitchen floor. Clearly, the cats were pretty ineffective at keeping them at bay. James checked his phone and tried Rod yet again; he still didn’t pick up. It occurred to him that he could call Phoebe, but since Rod’s ex had reputedly taken a hammer to his beloved childhood train set, battering the hell out of not only the locomotives but all the tiny buildings and delicate figurines as well, he thought it best not to trouble her with any mention of his brother’s name.
James looked around at the scuffed cupboards and reassured himself that it wasn’t too bad in here. Perhaps it would have been fine to pop over just for Christmas Day itself.
On numerous occasions he had made an impassioned plea for his father to sell up and move to Liverpool, so he’d be closer – not that James wanted him close especially, but it would have been easier then to keep an eye on him. He had even found the perfect flat, in a new block with a lovely courtyard garden, which his father could have easily afforded – but no, he wasn’t having that. ‘I’m not moving for nobody,’ he’d thundered.
Perhaps, James mused, his brother would come back tomorrow from wherever he’d been, and everything would be fine? Feeling more positive now, he washed up and looked around for a tea towel that didn’t look as if a badger had given birth on it. He checked various drawers and cupboards, and finally the tall closet in the hallway where miscellaneous items had always been stored: bicycle parts and broken umbrellas – all those bits and bobs that, apparently, it was against the law to throw out. Only now, such items were no longer visible as every one of the six shelves was entirely crammed with pre-packed supermarket sandwiches.
James stared and felt his stomach shifting. Through their clear plastic packaging it was obvious that many of them had been festering there for some time. His worry about open tins being stored in the fridge seemed suddenly rather pathetic.
