Flip (20 page)

As much as he was crying for Beagle, he was crying for himself.

They buried him that afternoon in the back garden at Tyrol Place. Flip’s mum and dad were home by then, so the family, plus Cherry and Mrs. Jones, gathered solemnly at the border, where Beagle’s plot was marked by a wooden spoon inscribed with his name. After the ceremony, they withdrew to the picnic table to drink the wine Mrs. Garamond had produced from the fridge.

“To Beagle,” she said, raising her glass. “Much loved and to be much missed.”

Everyone echoed the toast. Even the “children” had been allowed half a glass. In the ensuing awkwardness, Cherry’s mother asked where the name had come from.

“A golden retriever called Beagle,” she said, smiling.

“What’s the story?”

She’d put the question to Alex, but luckily for him, Flip’s dad answered. “Ah, well,” he began, “when this one”—he pointed at Alex—“was about six, he said he wanted a pet for Christmas. We told him to write to Santa for one. But Philip couldn’t decide what pet he wanted, so I suggested he put down his two favorites and see which one Santa came up with.” The dad chuckled at the memory; clearly, it was a tale he’d told before. “He wrote: ‘Dear Santa, For Christmas please may you bring me a pet? These are the pets I want: a) dog; or b) eagle.’ And there you have it …,” he said, grinning, “
B-eagle
. Philip gets the dog and the dog gets a name.”

They chatted about pets—Cherry’s tropical fish, her sister’s tortoise, the axolotl Teri had always wanted but never been allowed. Alex didn’t even know what one of those was. His hands were still grubby from burying Beagle and it seemed too soon to be
socializing
. Cherry caught his eye but he couldn’t make out what her expression was meant to convey. Mrs. Garamond was saying something. To him? Yes. As he settled his gaze on her face, an image of his own mother’s features surfaced.

“I don’t think you do, do you, Philip?”

“Do I what?”

“See?” she said to Cherry’s mum. “In a world of his own.” Then, “Angela was just asking about you giving up cricket. Whether you missed it.”

“I didn’t give it up. I was dropped.” An inexplicable loss of ability, too many missed practices. Mr. Yorath had lost patience with his star batsman.

Flip’s dad looked uneasy, staring glumly into his glass as though fascinated by the reflections on the wine’s surface. As for Mrs. G., she wore her bright face with its tight smile. Cricket was one of several unexplained mysteries of the Philip who had evolved since the “London episode.” What the Garamonds wanted was for everything to return to normal. He saw an unspoken fear in their eyes that their son’s craziness loomed beneath the surface like a whale about to break for air. For all that they’d insisted there would be no stigma in his seeing a counselor if he chose to, the mum and dad were desperate to pretend that he was on the mend. That he didn’t need help.

“It was starting to affect his education,” the mother said. “All this sport.”

“Philip and Teri,” the father said, coming to his wife’s aid, “are both at such critical stages.”

Alex couldn’t listen to this. He went inside on the pretext of needing the loo. In the kitchen, he made himself a cheese-and-ketchup sandwich and stood at the counter eating it. The door opened and Teri came in.

“You okay?” she said. About Beagle, she meant.

“Yeah, kind of.”

She went to the fridge, took out a carton of orange juice and filled a glass. “The house seems … 
wrong
without him,” she said. “Like he’s here, but he isn’t.”

Alex nodded. He understood exactly. “It must’ve been horrible for you, Ter, finding him like that.”

Another of those things Philip wouldn’t have said, or even considered. The way the sister stared at him, it was as though he’d sprouted wings. He poured himself some of the juice, just to give himself something to do. From outside came the sounds of the others talking, Cherry laughing.

“So,” Teri said, lowering her voice. “What’s the story with you two?”

He shrugged. “I like her; that’s all.”

“But she’s
smart
,” Teri said. “She’s
interesting
. She’s
funny.
”

“I know.”

“She doesn’t wear fake tan, have unfeasibly large boobs or the personality of a
Big Brother
housemate.”

Not long ago, Teri’s words would’ve been edged with malice. But this was
nice
teasing.
Friendly
teasing. Clearly Teri liked this new girl in her brother’s life, and by association with her, he had risen a few notches in Teri’s once scathing estimation. Even so, Cherry was one more brotherly oddness for her to get her head round.

“Come on,” she said after a moment. “We’re being rude.”

As they rejoined the others, Alex sensed the mood shift in Flip’s parents. With him indoors, out of the conversation, they must’ve relaxed. But now he was back again and it was like the air had flinched.

Who
were
these people?

He looked at them in the gathering dusk as they sipped wine and talked, their features slowly dissolving into the shadows, and Alex was struck by how totally out of place he felt among them. The mum, the dad, the sister, Mrs. Jones … even Cherry, if he was honest. None of them had the first idea who he really was. In all his weeks as Philip Garamond, he’d never felt such an impostor.

“What’s this about a
clarinet
, Philip?” Flip’s mother said, pasting that smile on her face again. “Angela was just—”

“I got sent home from school today.”

It was like he’d smashed a glass. Alex waited for one of the parents to speak but neither did. So he showed them his hand, told them what he’d done.

“You … punched … Jack?” Flip’s mum said, as though he’d used a foreign language and she was having to translate. Or as though being sent home from school was related to the purchase of a clarinet, if only she could work out the connection.

“It felt good, actually. I just wish I’d hit him harder.”

He looked at Cherry and saw that she was as shocked as the rest. Why was he behaving like this? Alex couldn’t have said. It was just something about the way the mum and dad had been chatting to Mrs. Jones, to their
guests
, as though everything was okay with Team Garamond. All that false, middle-class civility. Mr. Garamond made eyes at him, as though to say it wasn’t the time or the place, but Alex didn’t give a stuff whether Cherry and Mrs. Jones witnessed this. Let them. Let them see what a sham this whole family was with him in it.

Alex turned away, barging back indoors and slamming the door behind him.

He was lying on his back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, when there was a knock at the door, accompanied by Cherry’s voice. Alex hadn’t bothered to turn the light on and the room was etched in gloom. As he watched her come in, he saw she was struggling to pick him out at first in the unfamiliar bedroom.

“Camouflage,” he said, pulling himself up to a sitting position, the suddenness of his voice clearly startling her. “If I’d kept still, you wouldn’t have known I was here.”

He had no idea what he was gabbling about. Cherry came fully into the room and sat down on the end of the bed, in the depression where his feet had been.

“Big bedroom,” she said, giving it the once-over.

Alex switched on the lamp, which shed a soft amber glow on the walls. He tried to think of something to say.

Cherry saved him the trouble. “We’re going,” she said. “Mum’s just using the loo and … I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. And, you know—”

“See if I was all right.”

She smiled. “I seem to be doing a lot of that today.”

“Last time, the dog died—I hope this doesn’t coincide with another fatality.”

But Cherry had become serious again. “Why are you so
unhappy
, Philip? I don’t mean about Beagle; I mean generally.”

“Unhappy? Am I.”

“Hitting Jack”—she gestured towards the door—“that business downstairs.” She took hold of one of his feet and gave it a tug, as though to shake some sense into him. “Happy people don’t go round fighting and slamming doors.”

Alex didn’t say anything.

“The other day, playing the clarinet in the shop, and when we took Beags down to the river … talking back to back, you know?” Her hand still held his foot but she was stroking it now, absentmindedly, making abstract patterns with the tips of her fingers on his instep. “You weren’t unhappy
then
. Today it’s—I dunno—it’s like—”

“Like I’m a different person?”

She squeezed his foot. Hard. “Are you going to keep finishing my—”

“Sentences for you?”

Cherry laughed. “See, this is exactly my
point
. Ten minutes ago, you’re acting like a ten-year-old throwing a strop and now you’re … you’re not.”

“It’s because I’m with you,” Alex said. “I’m happy when I’m with you.”

He’d meant it but was worried that it had sounded naff or insincere. Typically, her face gave little away. But she was thoughtful for a moment, gazing at the window, where the last light of the day was seeping from the sky and where the reflected bloom of the bedside lamp hung on the glass like a water color sun.

“Your feet smell,” she said, letting go and placing her hands in her lap. “Why do boys always have smelly feet?” Then, turning to him, she said, “That time a few weeks ago, in the car park—you were unhappy then, as well. I’ve never seen anyone look so … I dunno, like you’d just found out someone had died or something.”

They heard the bathroom door open and footsteps on the landing. Mrs. Jones’s face appeared in the doorway. She smiled at Alex. Then, to Cherry, she said, “Philip’s dad wants me to look at his bassoon—” As the double meaning struck her, she burst out laughing. They all did. Her eyes glittered. “Oh dear, I do wish I hadn’t said that.” She cleared her throat. “
Anyway
 … he’s thinking of selling it and I said I’d quote him a price. I’ll give you a shout when we’re ready to go.”

She left, pulling the door properly shut.

“She’s nice, your mum,” Alex said as they heard her retreat downstairs.

“Yeah, she is.” Cherry nodded. “She’s great, actually. I get on better with her than I do with my sister.”

Alex thought of Sam, and of his own mum. His dad. Did he get on well with them? He hadn’t really thought so before; it wasn’t that they
didn’t
get on, either, just that they ticked along. Four people living under the same roof. Sometimes it was fine; sometimes it wasn’t. You lived with your parents, your kid brother, and you didn’t really think about it all that much. But being with the Garamonds these past weeks had made him realize how much he loved his own family. Flip’s mother and father weren’t worse parents, or better … they just weren’t his. Alex didn’t want to talk about families with Cherry—about Flip’s family, anyway, and that was where this would lead. So, changing the subject, he said, “She was brilliant today, taking us to the vet like that. You both were. I mean, you missed orchestra and everything.”

“We couldn’t exactly leave him in the garden, could we?” Then, quietly: “Poor old Beagle.” And as though suddenly remembering something that had been bugging her, she said, “You
lied
to me about his name. You said that was the name he had when you—”

“I was embarrassed,” he said. “Writing letters to Santa and that. You know?”

“But that story was so
sweet
. ”

There he was again, lying to her. One lie after another after another. There was no end to it. Never would be. So long as he had to be Philip for her—so long as she saw Philip whenever she looked at him—Alex would remain concealed behind a screen of deception, closed off to her.

He drew his knees up under his chin. In the soft light, Cherry’s skin was almost luminous, her hair looking like she’d sprinkled it with glitter.

“I went to Manchester yesterday,” he said. “With Rob.”

“Your cousin?”

Alex shook his head. “We’re not cousins.”

“Oh. I thought—”

“No. It’s something else I lied about.”

If Cherry wanted to understand why he was so unhappy, she should’ve been in that VW combi, hearing Rob spell it out for him: he could make the best of it, stranded in Flip’s life … or drive himself crazy, stalking the life he used to live.

Before he realized it, Alex was crying. He tilted his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and let the tears come, not caring what Cherry made of it.

“Philip.”

And she was there, moving up the bed, one hand on his knee, the other on his arm, then his hair, the side of his face, his cheek. Stroking. Wiping at the streaks of wet. Both hands now. Cradling his head, drawing it into her shoulder and letting him sob against her. After a moment, she eased him away from her so she could look at his face, drying him with the too-long sleeve of her top. They were breathing distance apart, her eyes locked on his, searching them, as though the key to all this was right there, in the patterns of his irises, if only she could decipher it.

She moved to kiss him.

Gently, he stopped her. “I need to show you something first,” he said.