“That’s all right,” Hugo said, carefully spooning sauce onto his plate. “I just want to tell you this before I forget. You’ll all be relieved to know that I have a plan for the house. And about time too.”
All of us stopped eating. “It’s going to the whole lot of you,” he said. “The three of you and your fathers: equal shares. This may seem like I’m passing the buck, leaving you lot to make the big decisions—I probably am—but it’s the only way I can think of that allows for all the ways your lives might change. Who might get married or have children, or more children, or move out of the country or back again, or be a bit strapped for cash and need somewhere to live . . . I’d love to be able to picture all the possibilities, but I don’t have it in me; I just get muddled. A few days ago”—to Leon, with a wry, painful half grin—“I was completely convinced that you had a little girl. Just a baby, with curly dark hair.”
“God forbid,” Leon said, with a shudder of mock horror, helping himself to naan bread. He didn’t look great—eyebags, his jumper had been washed too many times and he badly needed a shave, which gave his edgy-young-thing look a jaded, seedy tinge; he was managing perky banter, but the effort showed. “I’d rather have a rabid chimpanzee. No offense, Su and Tom, your kids are total angels, just saying.”
“I was worried because I knew you weren’t with the mother any more,” Hugo explained, “and I was afraid you wouldn’t get time with the baby if you didn’t have a good place for her to stay, so I thought you might be the one who needed the house most.”
“I’d pay good money to see Leon with a baby,” I said. I didn’t want to listen to this. “It’d be like some cheesy sitcom where the kid gets left on the wrong doorstep. Wacky adventures ensue.”
“I was trying to think of the baby’s name,” Hugo said, refusing to be sidetracked, “to put her in the will, and of course I couldn’t. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember you ever actually mentioning the baby, and from there I managed to work out the rest. But you can see why I don’t think I’m the best person to make the long-term decisions.” His smile, flashing up at us, was too wide; telling that story had hurt. “So the house goes to all six of you. That should solve the main problem, anyway: it can’t be sold unless all of you agree. Beyond that, it’s up to you.”
“Thanks,” Susanna said quietly. “We’ll take good care of it.”
“We will,” I said.
“I won’t let the baby fingerpaint on the walls,” Leon said, “cross my heart,” and Hugo laughed and reached for the rice, and we all went back to talking at once.
I had caught something in Leon’s face, though. Later—when Hugo had gone up to bed, and the rest of us were tidying up, me and Leon loading the dishwasher together—I asked, casually, “Are you not cool with Hugo leaving the house to all six of us, no?”
“It’s his house. He can do what he wants with it.” Leon didn’t look up. His voice was flat and brittle; now that Hugo was gone, he had dropped the chirpy act. “I just think it’s a horrible idea. That’s how you get family feuds.”
“He’s doing his best,” Susanna said, over the rush of running water as she rinsed the takeaway containers. She looked a lot better than Leon did, fresh and rested in a soft sage-green jumper that suited her, hair studded with little bright flower clips that I figured had something to do with Sallie. “We’ll work it out.”
“The five of you can work it out. I don’t even want to know. Send me a piece of paper to sign when you’ve all decided what you want to do.”
“What?” I demanded. “You were the one who was losing your mind about hanging on to the place—”
“That was before a skeleton showed up in the garden and fucked up our entire lives. Excuse me if that wrecked my happy associations just a teeny bit.”
Or, more like, that had been back when a new owner with gardening ambitions could have set off the hidden landmine; now that it had already exploded, there was no need to be territorial any more. As evidence went it wasn’t much, but it gave an extra boost to the rising sense that tonight was my night, all its currents running my way. “Fair enough,” I said agreeably.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Susanna said. “It’s gone now. The grounds are a hundred percent police-certified skeleton-free. How many places can say that?”
Leon shoved another plate into the dishwasher with a clatter. “Then move in. What part of ‘I don’t care’ is confusing you?”
I recognized this mood, restless and electric and contrary, the mood that when we were kids had always ended with the whole three of us getting grounded, or having to hide the broken pieces, or on one memorable occasion being nabbed by a security guard and held in a back room full of cleaning equipment until I managed to talk us out of it by explaining in heartrending detail—while the others, in fairness to them, played along beautifully, Leon rocking and banging his heel off his chair leg while Susanna stroked his arm and made soothing noises—my poor little cousin’s disability and what it would do to his ailing mother if he got arrested. Getting anything out of him in this mood would be like pulling teeth. “What you need,” I said, “is another G and T. What all of us need, actually. Cucumber or lime, or both?”
“Cucumber,” Susanna said.
“Lime,” Leon said promptly. “It’s too cold for cucumber.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? Anyway it’s warm, I don’t know why I even bothered with a coat—”
“Hang on, let me check, is it June? Are we sitting on a lawn full of daisies? No? Then cucumber doesn’t belong in—”
“We’ve got both,” Melissa said cheerfully. “I think there are lemons, too, although they might be a wee bit depressed. Everyone can have what they like best.”
“Tom, what’s your vote?” I asked.
“Oh,” Tom said. “Count me out. I think I’ll head home.”
“No!” I said, doing deep disappointment. “It’s early. Just have the one.”
“Ah, no. I’m driving—”
“Oh, that’s right! You told me! Jesus, my head—”
“—and I don’t want to leave my mum with the kids for too long,” Tom explained. “Zach’s been acting up a bit, the last while.”
I didn’t blame him for being in a hurry; “acting up,” by Zach’s standards, probably involved a SWAT team and a biohazard squad. “I know Zach’s a little bollix sometimes,” Susanna said, reading my expression, “but we’ve been working on it. He just needs to get his head round the idea that other people are real too, and he’ll be fine. He was doing a lot better, but finding the skull threw him for a total loop. If other people are real, then obviously that means the skull was a real person, and that’s way more than he can handle. So his head’s wrecked and he’s being a pain in the hole.”
“Right,” I said. “Fair enough.”
“It is, really,” Tom said, patting his pockets and peering around as if he might have dropped something. “It’s a bit of a headwrecker even for us, isn’t it, and we’re grown adults. He’ll be fine in the end. Have a great night”—waving vaguely and benignly at all of us; and to Susanna, who tilted up her face to meet his kiss, “No hurry. Enjoy yourself.”
“Sorry,” Leon said, to all of us, when he was gone. “For being bitchy.”
“You’re OK,” I said. Melissa smiled and threw him a lime: “There,” she said. “To make things better.”
“I’m just a total stress ball today. I got a really pissy phone call from my boss, throwing a massive fit about when I’ll be back—”
“In fairness,” Susanna said, slicing cucumber neatly, “you can see how they might want to know.”
“He didn’t have to be a gigantic arsehole about it.” Leon leaned back against the counter and pushed his fingers into the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know why I let it get to me. I’m probably going to move anyway. I’m bored of Berlin.”
“What?” I said, startled, turning with the gin bottle in my hand. “What about Whatshisname?”
“His name’s Carsten. Do I go around forgetting Melissa’s name?”