I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day - Milly Johnson Page 0,93
his brain felt remarkably sober. ‘I could never stand the smell of it until about five years ago. Maybe I’m turning into him more with every year that passes.’ His expression told Luke that wasn’t the most welcome of prospects.
‘What did he look like? Like you?’ asked Luke.
‘Quite short, bullish though, big neck, oozed aggression and he marched everywhere as if he had a seriously urgent purpose. I seem to remember him being different before my mother left to how he was afterwards, less brittle, less stiff. She set off a stick of dynamite inside him and he never recovered from the blast.’
‘You couldn’t manage to keep a relationship going with your mother then?’ asked Luke.
‘She walked out on us both and didn’t look back. I tracked her down when I was sixteen but she had a new family with her second husband and I was part of a complicated past she’d painted over.’
Luke sighed, shook his head. He could never abandon his child, never relinquish the mantle of parenthood once it had been placed on his shoulders, couldn’t understand how people did.
‘Patterns don’t have to repeat themselves you know, Jack,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t be the sort of father my father was to me.’ Luke took a sip from his drink. ‘And Bridge definitely wouldn’t have been the sort of mother hers was either. She has a bank of love in her heart to spend.’
‘Why did you give her a tin of tomatoes for Christmas?’ asked Jack.
Luke gave a small chuckle. ‘We once made a meal out of them when we were totally broke. It tasted like nectar because we were happy. Just before we started to realise that you actually do need other things apart from love to live on, it’s not that romantic to be permanently worrying about where the next rent is coming from. That’s why I donate a percentage of the Plant Boy profits to low-income families, because I’ve been where they are and not all of them find their rope ladder to climb out of the hole.’
‘That’s noble of you,’ said Jack, then in case that came out as patronising added, ‘I really mean it. We should do something like that at Butterly’s. I’ve always taken a comfortable life for granted. Dad always chanted, Charity begins at home whenever anyone approached us for donations.’
‘You sound very different to him.’
‘I loved him, Luke, but I hope I am.’
Something was weighing down Jack’s eyebrows.
‘Penny for them,’ Luke asked eventually, as there was definitely some intense activity going on behind the wall of Jack’s skull.
‘I’m not convinced my present to Mary went down as well as I’d hoped,’ came the reply.
‘What did you expect to achieve from it?’ asked Luke.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘I’m…’ He shifted forward in his chair, leaned over to Luke not wanting to chance that he might be overheard. ‘I’m confused about what’s happening… there.’
Luke wasn’t sure what he meant. Jack, he had come to realise, was not great at putting emotions out there. Hearts worn on sleeves risked a battering, but that was the chance you took for enjoying the feeling of light and sunshine on them, for being willing to win the prize of love.
Jack chewed on his lip. The large malt was levering up his internal portcullis. He wasn’t used to letting people see inside the castle walls.
‘When Mary said just then that she was dreaming about leaving, about handing in her notice – I presume, I had a real moment of panic about that and I don’t know why. I felt something,’ Jack swallowed, pressed at his chest. ‘For Mary. I don’t know what though. Possibly reverence. Have you ever seen The Admirable Crichton…?’
This was painful, thought Luke, pinching the top of his nose with exasperation.
‘Jack, for fuck’s sake, you need to man up. I’ll tell you this for nothing. You are never going to find what you most want in your safe zone. What was Charlie’s life hack about ships not being built to sit in harbours?’
‘Yes, I see what you mean. Right. I have to… sail out there into the open sea.’
‘Exactly, my friend.’
Jack looked down into the glass of malt and found an idea in it. A perfect idea. At least, it felt like it at the time.
* * *
‘What were you dreaming about that made you shout out that you were leaving? You sounded very adamant,’ asked Bridge after she turned out her bedside light.
Mary groaned, plunged her head deep into her pillow.