Page 46 of Dreams Come True at the Fairytale Museu
‘Will youpleasetalk slower?’
An endless litany of different noises of aggravation. He sounds beyond frustrated, and like he keeps starting to say something but being interrupted.
Eventually he says, ‘Whatever the problems are, email them to me. I literally cannot do this, as you well know. Goodbye.’
There’s the sound of a phone being slammed down onto the table, and another growl of annoyance at, presumably, the person on the other end who he’s hung up on.
And I realise I’m stuck. If I go back downstairsnow, he’s going to hear the floorboards creaking and know I was up here listening in. And if I make myself known, he’s going to know I was up here listening in.
Honestly, the intricacies of eavesdropping should be taught in schools so nosy people know what to do when they find themselves in these situations.
I decide that head on is the best way to tackle it, and take a deep breath and force myself to run up the rest of the stairs. Maybe he’ll think I’m so fast at climbing them that I was downstairs this whole time and made it up here in three seconds flat. That’s possible, right?
Except… when I go into the kitchen, he’s sitting at the table with the Tablet of Gloom and his laptop open, his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, massaging his temples like he’s trying to stave off a headache, and I’m surprised by how harangued he looks. ‘Are you okay?’
He jumps at my unexpected arrival and lifts his head, revealing a face that looks even more exhausted than the rest of his demeanour does. ‘Yeah, fine.’
I can see the cogs in his brain turning as he mentally calculates how much I might’ve overheard, and I’m about to say something about keeping fit by running up the stairs, but he desperately looks like he needs someone to talk to, and I drop any form of act. ‘Are you in trouble?’
‘In every conceivable way.’ He answers instantly without thinking it through as he goes back to rubbing fingers across his forehead, looking like his attempts to avoid the headache are failing fast.
I could prod for more info, but I’m a firm believer that there’s nothing a cup of tea won’t make better, so I go over to put the kettle on and throw a teabag into a mug each.
His head is still in his hands and his fingers have moved on to rubbing his scalp when I put the mug of tea down in front of him and give his shoulder a squeeze to make him lift his head and slowly blink tired-looking eyes open.
Those eyes follow me as I walk round the table and take the seat opposite him, and then he looks down at the mug like he’s still trying to work out what it is.
I sit down and take a sip of my own tea and then raise the mug like I’m doing a toast, and it’s like he’s been in a world of his own because he blinks back to awareness and connects everything that’s happened in the past few minutes all at once. He wraps both hands around the mug like he’s cold and takes a long sip.
‘Ahh, that’s good. Thank you.’ He looks over at me and shakes his head. ‘So much. You have no idea how much I needed that.’
‘I like to think one of my hidden talents is a sixth sense when it comes to tea.’
He lets out a laugh and sits upright, putting one hand on the back of his neck and rolling his head around to ease the stiffness, and when he takes another sip, he slumps down in the chair and leans backwards, letting his eyes drift shut again.
I stretch my leg out under the table until I can push at his foot with mine. ‘You can talk to me, you know.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ It’s a quiet mutter that sounds like he didn’t intend to say it out loud, and then, yet again, his brain catches up and he blinks weary eyes open and looks at me across the table and backpedals. ‘Yeah, thanks. It’s nothing. Just… my mother. The company. Phones. I’ve got this thing where I… I can’t…’ He stops mid-sentence and his eyes flit away from mine and focus on a cobweb in a high corner of the kitchen ceiling, and he shakes his head. ‘Nothing. That parent-child dynamic. My mother has a unique ability to make me feel like a child with one lash of her tongue. There’s nothing like having a parent as your boss to make you feel inadequate and undermined.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I nudge his foot again with the toe of my shoe, wishing that he’d complete a sentence without abandoning it halfway through. ‘Is this because of me? Because of what we’re doing here?’
He gives me that look again, like he’s trying to seeinsideme and determine whether I can be trusted before he decides how much to share, and I get that all-too-familiar sense that everything he does share is strictly curtailed into the most palatable version, and not necessarily the mosttrueversion.
‘Yeah, it is.’ He eventually settles on an answer, and it sounds like an honest one. ‘This whole living exhibits thing is gaining a lot of attention. People are talking about it and my company’s on the warpath. But you know what, if I’m going against them then maybe for the first time in my life, I’m doing something right.’
He takes a fortifying sip of tea and his words sound fierce, but the look on his face is nowhere near as assured. ‘The attention the escaped exhibits are getting is reflecting badly on our company because wewereintending to knock it down. My mother has got investors questioning our morals. One has threatened to pull out because of the potential backlash surrounding this project. Another has got a son who’s following us online and he’s threatened to cut ties with us if we were to forge ahead, and no one’s happy about the conflict of interests.’
‘What’s the conflict of interests?’
‘I am.’
‘Oh. Right. I thought your job was to save the museum,’ I venture carefully, feeling like he’s going to realise I’m wheedling for information at any moment, because Istillfeel like I’m missing something about this whole situation.
‘It is. But my job and my mother’s vision don’t always align. Basically, investors aren’t happy and she’s not happy, and no one’s happy either way.’
‘But that’s a good thing, right? In terms of trying to save it, backlash from the public and especially from investors is likely to turn this around, right?’
‘Yeah.’ He runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. ‘Yeah.’
