Page 99 of Sleep

Mabel was good. I had no worries about them nailing this. But I was worried that their dad was still suspicious of my intent. A father’s prerogative, I supposed.

“I can promise you, Francis, there are no ulterior motives here. Sometimes we just fall in love with who we fall in love with.”

“And you fell in love with my Mabel. You’re a billionaire with a glass penthouse. We live in a council house.”

“Worlds apart,” I agreed. “But I if you met my mother, you would perhaps see that we’re actually not so different after all. We’re both loved. We both have parents who, sometimes unconventionally, love and support us. And at the end of the day, we both turned out pretty well, I think.”

“Mabel was very happy after that party you took them to.”

“The office Christmas party. It was rather dull, I’m afraid. But I did let them take me to Nando’s afterward. I had chicken.”

“Then you had heartburn for days.”

“Yes. Not the best experience, but it made them happy.”

“That’s all I ask for, Jonathan. Make my Mabel happy.”

“I will do my best, sir.”

“Oh, stop with the pompous stuff. Now…” He pushed the tablet towards me. “I’m halfway through this Wordle game.” “I need help. I’m completely stuck. Now that I don’t have the carers coming in, I have nobody to ask.”

“I have a Teams meeting in half an hour that I have to prepare for.”

“I’ll make you a cup of tea, you can prepare after. You haven’t had a break since this morning. I can hear you, you know. Getting up at all hours, wandering around the house. And this big computer is taking up all my table.”

“I do apologise.”

Francis rolled his eyes. “You need to take my Mabel and move back to that glass tower of yours. I hear you have a Christmas tree coming.”

“I have indeed.”

“We used to have a tree. I think it may be in the loft. Trudi loved Christmas.”

“Then maybe we should get that tree down. See if it’s still any good?”

“I…” He put his hands on the table, visibly trying to compose himself. “I haven’t been up in the loft for years. It was always…you know. Trudi who did things. Got things down. Put things away. And Mabel? They have their own life. I never wanted to burden them.”

“If you’d like, I could go take a look. Do you think Trudi would mind?”

They all spoke like Mabel’s mum was still right here in the house, called out her name and made each other laugh. It was all part of some long-standing joke that if they didn’t, she’d haunt them.

I loved Mabel. I also had great affection for their dad.

And that’s how Mabel found us—both sitting on the floor and crying with laughter as we opened boxes and tried, very clumsily and badly, to decorate a Christmas tree.

“We put up the tree,” Francis said, holding up a dusty bauble. “For Mum.”

“For Mum,” Mabel repeated, as stunning as always in their sharp suit with a yellow vintage scarf tied in their hair while I was wearing their pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt I’d found in a bag. It had a picture of some nimble American songstress holding a guitar on the front, was creased to high heaven and far too big for me, not to mention covered in dust, no doubt as was the rest of me. That loft had been a mess.

“Your mum loved Christmas,” I offered weakly in defence because we’d brought the mess down with me, and Mabel had vacuumed only yesterday.

“This is very surreal,” they said, sitting down in the armchair. Francis got up on his knees to place another bauble on a plastic branch, while I continued to stare at Mabel, hoping they would talk. The tension was pouring off them, because of their interview or the present scenario, it was hard to tell.

“I hope I haven’t overstepped,” I said.

They smiled and shook their head. “Not at all. Mum and I bought that tree at some garden centre sale, in the middle of summer. It was, like, five pounds or something—ex-display—and it was the most beautiful tree we’d ever seen. I still remember because we brought it home and put it up, just to check that everything was in the box. All the baubles came with it. A total bargain.”

“It’s still pretty,” I said.

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