He gave a wolfish, sinister smile. “Flexible.”
•••
Later,after they had dropped Maxi off at Montessori, she braced herself for a coffee and a chat, but her father yawned once, looked pale, and said it was time to “rest and recharge.” His hotel was near Liverpool Street Station. She put him on the train at London Fields and immediately rang Dan. “He said his timings areflexible.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That he could stay on and on forever? He was so embarrassing at Montessori drop-off. He was reading out the labels on the shelves for the children’s shoes. ‘Olympia, Olive, Land, Leaf…,’ and then he goes, like he was still reading, ‘Dirt, Solar Panel, Pussycat, Rubbish Truck.’ Then he looked into the classroom and said…No, I can’t say.”
“Say,” Daniel said, resigned.
“He said, ‘So, therearestill white children in England.’ Oh God.” She stared up at the gray sky. “I won’t survive this visit.”
•••
The next day,Friday, was the day Adam didn’t do his show, and Montessori pickup was early, at twelve instead of three thirty. Adam would take Roger to pickup. Daniel and Coralie would stay home to prepare lunch. They’d all eat together as soon as Adam and Roger got back with Max.
Florence, at school all day and sad to miss out, had left a drawing of herself behind “for Grandad.”
“What’s this meant to be?” Roger scoffed. “A bitremedial.”
Daniel hadn’t arrived by the time Adam and Roger left for pickup. Coralie feared she’d have to start the lunch prep alone. But at twelve, the bell rang. She opened the door to find a stranger.
Well, it was Daniel, but his ponytail had gone. With his sleek new conservative haircut, he could have been a solicitor or an estate agent.
“It wasn’t worth it,” Daniel explained as they embraced. “I can’t cope with Roger’s remarks.”
Coralie checked her phone and found a WhatsApp from Adam:He made the joke about the names again. Rain’s mum didn’t laugh.
In the kitchen, Daniel took in her supplies at a glance. “We’ll need some more bread,” he said. “Because I’m going to use the last of it. Can you tell Adam?”
She watched as, in Dan’s hands, the unloved contents of her vegetable box became a delicious gratin and the remains of a sourdough loaf became bread crumbs for the top. “Is he bad, do you think?”
“Roger?” Daniel said. “Yeah.”
“Self-obsession isn’t a crime.”
“Sometimes I’ll be lying in the bath, or sitting at the table with a coffee, and I hear footsteps coming toward me. I know it’s only Barbie, the man I love, and who loves me, because I’m in the house we share together, on the other side of the world from Dad. But my heart races, I feel sick—I’m cowering, like Madonna being sniffed by a pit bull. The body doesn’t lie. He was bad.”
Was he bad morally? Or was she, for not being able to love him? Her mother had spent much of their marriage scuttling like a rat to avoid Roger Bower’s eagle eye. That was sad. A bit pathetic? Coralie liked to think that she had her father’s measure. Little compliment there, little courteous question there! Judicious application of afascinated listening face; no sudden noises or movements! It wasn’t too tricky. If she could do it—handle him—why couldn’t Mum? Or Dan?
She remembered a long-ago family trip to Lake Toba, a vast lake in the crater of a volcano. She walked ahead with Dad as he discoursed at length about the geography of North Sumatra. Trailing far behind them, Mum looked after Dan. Suddenly, Dan (who must have been, what—seven?) collapsed on the ground, wailing with exhaustion and boredom. “Roger!” their mother screamed, startling their local guide.
“Here we go,” Dad said. “Well, you know what they say.”
“What?” Coralie was twelve, on holiday from boarding school and enjoying being treated (however briefly) like an adult.
“It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys.”
She was an eagle, like him—that seemed to be what he was saying. Wasn’t it?
We can do this the easy way or the hard way.That’s what baddies always said in films. What kind of idiot chose the hard way? Mum and Dan, that’s who. They couldn’tnotstruggle. They couldn’t choose the easy way.
Now grown-up Dan got the gratin ready to serve, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the oven. He must have been reading Coralie’s mind. “You were always Team Dad.”
“I wasn’t!”
“Well, you weren’t on Mum’s and my team.”
