‘I mean without Teddie. It’s obvious you like her, and that she feels the same.’
‘I don’t think she likes me like that. We’re friends.’ The final part of his statement took him by surprise too, but he realised it was the truth. They had become friends. Drew had looked up the meaning of friendship when he was much younger, at a time when he was finding it difficult to form lasting relationships at school. He’d known there must be a logical answer, and that researching more about friendship was the best way to find a solution to the problem. In the end the definition had been far more straightforward than the solution, which had taken a lot of trial and error to come to. The dictionary he’d consulted had described friendship as ‘an attachment between people based on personal regard’. He had high regard for Eden, and she seemed to value the insight he’d been able to offer her into Teddie’s autism. So by that definition alone they were friends. There was more to it than that, though; it was a feeling he wasn’t sure it was possible to quantify. He couldn’t have put his bond with Teddie into words either, let alone have looked up a definition for either of those things in the dictionary.
‘The best relationships are based on friendship and I’m willing to bet if you ask her out, she’ll say yes.’
Apprehension fluttered in his chest at the thought of risking his friendship with Eden, because of how much it meant to him. But an even bigger part of Drew still wanted to take the chance. The easiest way to cope with that was to focus on the bet that Gwen was offering, rather than everything he had to lose. ‘What’s the wager?’
‘If she says no, I’ll pay for your wine gums for the next year.’
‘And what will I have to give you if she says yes?’
‘A front row seat for the wedding.’ Gwen dropped the perfect wink, and much to Drew’s surprise once again, he found himself nodding, but then something hit him.
‘I think what I might really need is a penalty to pay, if I lose my nerve before I ask her.’
‘You have to come to my belly dancing class. Only once, but joining in will be compulsory.’
Drew looked at her for a long moment, picturing just how awful it would be to have to go through with a forfeit like that, but then he surprised himself for a third time. ‘Okay, you’ve got a bet.’
Gwen reached out and shook his hand. ‘We have indeed and no welching on it, Drew, because I’ll find out if you do.’
‘I know you will.’ Drew picked up two packets of the chocolate buttons Gwen had recommended, and two bars of Dairy Milk. However Eden responded when he finally got up the nerve to ask her out, he didn’t want to lose her friendship. She’d said chocolate could make any difficult situation better, and he might just need all the help he could get.
* * *
The Spotted Pig may have sounded like the kind of gastro pub Drew might have suggested taking Eden to, if they’d gone out on their own, but it was actually a newly opened children’s farm a few miles inland from Port Kara. Drew had suggested they take Teddie there because the pathways around the farm had been specially designed to facilitate wheelchair access. He’d seen how Eden had struggled with Teddie’s buggy sometimes and, although the little boy could be a runner when the mood struck him, most of the time he didn’t want to walk far. The farm was open until 7p.m. in the summer months, so they’d decided to head over for a couple of hours after work.
‘It’s so lovely to be out in the sunshine.’ Eden smiled at Drew as they stopped by one of the paddocks where a fat little Shetland pony, who was almost as wide as it was tall, was scratching its bottom against a fence post. The view beyond the field looked out on to open farmland with just a glimpse of turquoise-coloured sea in the distance. It was a beautiful day and it felt a world away from how Drew spent his days at work. He’d never have come somewhere like this without Eden and Teddie, but she was right, it was good to be outside and feel the sun on his skin.
‘My mother used to take me to the farm up the road to see the animals. She’d been at school with the farmer, and he never minded us roaming about on his land.’ When Drew thought about the times his mother had been happiest, after Flora’s death, it was always on days like that – trips out where it had just been the two of them. He didn’t remember ever hearing his father make his mother laugh and there was something very wrong about that. ‘I don’t think there were places like this when I was a child.’
‘What, in the olden days?’ Eden grinned and he raised his eyebrows, smiling too.
‘And the seven years between us makes all the difference I suppose?’
‘How do you know how old I am?’ She narrowed her eyes for a moment, as if him knowing that kind of information made her uneasy for some reason, and he wished he hadn’t said it. It made him feel as if any kind of exchange between them that didn’t centre around Teddie was off limits, but surely that couldn’t be true. They’d shared a lot about their lives during their meet ups, and yet suddenly it felt as though the rules might be changing. Drew was almost tempted to ask Eden if she could define the rules for him, because it would make him more comfortable, except he knew he wasn’t supposed to ask questions like that. He was supposed to just be able to pick up on the trajectory of a conversation, or the dynamics of a relationship, without having them spelt out to him. The trouble was, autism didn’t work like that, at least not for Drew.
‘You said that your thirtieth birthday was possibly the saddest milestone birthday anyone has ever had.’ Drew shrugged. ‘And that at least your mum had bought you a cake for your next birthday, now that you’re home again.’
‘I’d forgotten I’d told you that. It’s just I wondered if…’ Eden shook her head, seeming to answer her own question before she’d even asked it. ‘It doesn’t matter; I’m being silly.’
‘You thought I’d been looking you up on the hospital system?’ Drew could see in her eyes that he was right. Eden told him that she didn’t have social media accounts because of Jesse. She’d said her ex could find her if he really wanted to, but that she didn’t want to give him any motivation to try. If she was out of sight, she might be out of mind. It was obvious how worried she was about what might happen if Jesse did decide to find her, and that she might not be able to stop him from seeing Teddie. After all, he hadn’t committed any crimes as far as social services were concerned. She’d told Drew there was a chance she might be able to make a case for coercive control, but it would be hard to prove and there was no way of knowing what a court would decide. Drew could understand why that made social media feel like an unnecessary risk, which could give Jesse access to the life Eden was living now, so she knew he wouldn’t have been able to look up the details of her age that way. He tried not to feel hurt that she’d assumed the worst of him, looking up private information about her in the hospital’s online records. He understood how hard it was for her to trust anyone and he had to accept that sometimes she might doubt him too.
‘I’m sorry.’ Eden cast her eyes down towards the floor for a moment before looking up again, giving him a half smile. ‘I forget just how much stuff I’ve told you. Like I said before, I seem to have found myself an unpaid therapist, whether you like it or not.’
‘I like it.’ He wasn’t sure whether it was a good idea to admit that, but seeing as he had no idea what the rules of their interactions were supposed to be, all he could do was fall back on what felt safest and tell the truth.
‘I’m glad, because I like it too.’
It was almost as if Drew could feel Gwen standing next to him, whispering in his ear that now was exactly the right moment to ask Eden if she’d like to go out with him some time, just the two of them, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth to form the words. In the end, it was Eden who broke the silence.
‘Apparently there are some newborn calves in the barn. Maybe we could take Teddie over to have a look at them?’
‘Actually that’s why I suggested coming here.’ Drew was still second-guessing the boundaries of their conversation, but she’d asked for any insight he might be able to give her about growing up with autism, and what he was about to say fell into that category. ‘My speech wasn’t delayed in the same way Teddie’s is, but for a long time I found it difficult to get people to understand what I was saying. Sounds were easier to connect with than words, I liked the repetition of them. There was this book my mother read me, about monkeys. I must have only been about four or five, and she asked me what sound a monkey made. I can still remember the feel of the ooh ooh ooh sound and I couldn’t seem to stop doing it. I don’t know if it was because of how it made me feel, or the fact that my mother understood the sound I was making so much more easily than she did some of my words when I spoke. I just wondered if it might help Teddie too. Focusing on making sounds that mean something, like the noise that cows make, might work better than trying to push him towards saying actual words… Sorry, no, push is the wrong word, I wasn’t saying that’s what you’re doing.’
Drew was tying himself up in knots and he was beginning to wish he hadn’t said anything at all, but then Eden put a hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay, I know exactly what you mean. I want him to speak, of course I do, and I can see how frustrated it makes him not being able to tell me what he needs. Right now him speaking seems impossible, but I can see how him being able to repeat the sound an animal makes in response to a question could be a bridge between understanding and language. And I think you might be a genius.’
Drew couldn’t help smiling at Eden’s words. He was still getting used to someone having that much of an effect on him. He might not have received much praise from his parents, but he’d had plenty about his work over the years. This was different though, this was personal, and it meant far more when it came from Eden than from anyone else. Even so, he couldn’t just accept the compliment and say thanks, it would have made him feel far too awkward. So he made light of it to take the focus off himself, the way he always did. ‘I’d like to pretend this is a new breakthrough that’s all my idea, and that I’m some kind of expert on the best methods of communication, but there’s a reason I chose to work with patients who are already dead.’
