Page 94 of Pansies

At least Alfie had access to a…whatchamacallit…a halfway house, between investment banking and the rest of the world. He wouldn’t be cast adrift on too much money and too little anything else. He could drive to London next Monday, get fired, come straight back. Figure out the rest of his life after. South Shields wouldn’t have much use for someone with a master’s in econometrics and mathematical economics, but Fen did. At least for a little while. Assuming he ever let him do anything.

Alfie very nearly slapped his steering wheel in frustration. Except no amount of bad feeling could have made him touch his Sagaris with anything other than loving hands. He didn’t want to get in Fen’s way or trample over him. He just wanted to help. Was Fen ever going to see that? Or was Alfie just going to have to watch supportively and space-givingly while Fen ran himself, and the shop, into the ground?

Well, fuck that. He was willing to do that therapy bollocks to a point. But only to a point.

He snuck a look at Pansies through the rearview mirror. Fen had put the kibosh on pretty much anything he could do in the shop—he hadn’t said anything aboutoutside, though. Which made Alfie remember that bloody awful word, splashed so gleefully across the grille, and gave him his plan for the day.

He drove back to B&Q, which turned out not to stock what he wanted, so they sent him to the Halfords near Washington instead. And, honestly, that was fine—wasn’t like he was short of time.

He invested in safety goggles and gloves, solvent and wire wool. It was a bit less exciting than his last shopping trip, but at least he knew he wasn’t going to fuck anything up this time. He might not have been able to hang a shower rail or mix plaster, but he could clean a fucking wall. That took no skill at all, just the will to do it, and Alfie had never lacked for will.

Washington had always seemed pretty exotic to Alfie when he was growing up. His dad used to drive them up every once in a while so they could go to the big shopping centre. He was pretty shocked to discover that, compared to the gleaming glass temples of London, the Galleries was actually kind of small. To say nothing of concretey, and even a little bit run down. Yet somehow Billy had managed to get lost in it once. They’d found him, several nervous breakdowns later, in the ice cream shop, staring dreamily into the freezer with its magical rainbow of flavours.

That place was long gone. Alfie couldn’t even remember what it had been called or where it had been. But he remembered the ice cream: one scoop of your favourite flavour in a wafer cornet that tasted faintly of dust and paper, eaten while they were all perched in a row on the rim of the fountain andbusier shoppers hustled by. The blue-green water had smelled of chlorine, and you were meant to throw pennies in for a wish.

His dad had this weird habit of biting the bottom off his cone and sucking the ice cream through. Billy had tried to copy it once, and ended up with most of his ice cream on his shirt. Then there’d been tears, and recriminations, and finally bitter protests. He’d got another cornet, though. At the time, Alfie had suspected a ploy to get more ice cream, but he’d probably been jealous. They’d both wanted to be like their dad. It was just Billy was braver in his trying.

He got underway again at about two, after a hasty pub lunch, suddenly realising that the epic journey from South Shields to Washington, which had required theLord of the Ringscassettes and promises of ice cream before Alfie and Billy could be coaxed into the car, actually only took about twenty-five minutes. It was a bit scary how much smaller the world got when you grew up.

He passed through Cleadon on his way to Pansies. Which sort of somehow led him to pulling into the driveway of his parents’ house. Though not before checking to see if there was any sign of his dad’s car, which there wasn’t.

He stood for a minute or two on the doorstep, feeling like a lemon, before finally ringing the bell. He probably still had a key somewhere, but just walking straight in would have felt wrong.

After a bit, the door opened and his mam peered out. She looked surprised, but not entirely in a bad way.

“Alfie, pet? Is summin wrong?”

“No, Mam. Nowt’s wrong. I was just around like.”

They hugged, a bit awkwardly because Alfie’s mam seemed to be one of those women who got smaller with age and he was afraid he’d squash her.

“Eee, well come in, then. I’ll put the kettle on.”

He followed her into the hall, with its flock wallpaper and all the family pictures going up the stairs.2

“Why don’t ye go and have a sit-down?” His mam nudged open a door for him.

“Wha?” His exclamation brought them both up short. And Alfie suddenly felt completely lost in the house where he’d grown up. “Mam, it’s me. You know I don’t go in the good room.”3

“But I don’t see you very often, love.”

“Yeah, but I’m not aguest.” He was silent a moment. “Besides, what if I spilled tea on something?”

“Well, then I’d have to kill ye.”

Now that sounded more like it. Alfie grinned, and they went into the kitchen together. Alfie’s dad had done it up properly when Alfie had been quite little. He’d been too confused by the chaos to really understand what was going on or why, and then it had simply been the kitchen. But he looked at it now with eyes that had lost their familiarity, and what he saw was so much love. Which was a fucking weird thing to notice about your parents. Except there it was, in the mellowed light that painted golden streaks upon the floor, and the pale halos left on the kitchen table from uncountable cups of tea.

Shit. Alfie swallowed.

“Have you seen me decking?”4

“What? Oh.” He dutifully went to the window and peered out at the back garden. “Looks good, Ma.”

“Doesn’t it, though? I saw Wendy from next door eyeing it up from ower the fence just the other day.”

“Did Dad do it?”

“Aye. Took his time aboot it, mind.”

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