Our Picnics in the Sun (30 page)

“Adam,” his father said, in his deep calm voice, “I’m sorry, but
I’m afraid it doesn’t matter how much you object. No thinking father would let his son play with a toy that glorifies bloodshed and violence.”

In the dark, Adam broke into high, squealing sobs that shook the bed. Tears poured down his face and into the pillow. After he’d watched him break the Razorback in two and put it, along with the Brad Turner figure and the Eclipse mask, in the recycling bin, he was so weak with hatred and grief that he hadn’t the power to stop his father drawing him on to his lap and holding him for a long time. He remained rigid in his father’s arms. “I’m sorry you’re upset, Adam,” he said. “But never mind, eh? Tomorrow you can finish your dinosaur and play with that.”

T
he evenings by the fire are no more. The logs are used up and I haven’t the strength to chop more and bring them in, and naturally Theo doesn’t offer. It means I retire earlier and earlier, even though it’s cold upstairs. I slip into Adam’s old bedroom, lie down under the covers, and wait for the moment when Theo comes through the door. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. No matter; the privacy of waiting for him in the dark is enough. The waiting’s more necessary to me than the moment itself, and that’s what I look forward to all day; his arrival, if it comes, is all the more thrilling for it. I do not feel guilty, although I never put on a light. By and by I get up and go to my own room across the quiet hall, my movements loose and easy. I can relax. Well, not relax.

It’s too strange for that. And so unexpected, when I am so much older than he is, and looked upon his presence here as filling the place of a son, not a lover. I had no inkling that was what I would allow him to become. Is that what he is? I do not feel I am in any way betraying Howard. I’m not hiding from him anything more than I hide from myself. I have hidden much from myself. Theo understands I’ve had to, over the years.

But now that Howard’s back from Jocelyn Lodge, the practicalities take over. I’m swamped with things to do—I didn’t use the time he was away to get on top of the jobs at all, so I’m a little overwhelmed—and Theo is keeping his distance. I get hardly a glimpse of him or a word all day, especially as Nurse Jenny keeps coming by to check that Howard is settling back in all right. I see her eyeing the house for signs of mismanagement. She leaves a sheet
called “Dietary Guidelines for Mobility Impaired Patients” and a leaflet about getting help with your shopping. She asks if I’ve had time to stock up, because Howard’s really found his appetite again. Howard’s very chirpy and agrees, in whole words. He even gets up and sees her to the door. I think he winks at me on his way, slow but unaided, back to his chair in front of the television, but it could be accidental. I find myself smiling, anyway. Something to tell Theo later.

But with all this commotion going on, I grow afraid. Usually it’s only in spells of tranquillity that Theo will emerge at all, and he only speaks in an atmosphere of perfect safety.

But, to my relief, he is back, and now there’s a new side to him. He’s playful.

Bread-making, for instance. It’s fun now in a way it never used to be, although I still make terrible bread. I don’t eat it (nor does Theo). It’s for Howard. He likes it, or he should, since I am making it to his old requirements. At least more or less: that’s where the fun comes in.

When he was away, I went through some of the junk upstairs looking for stuff to burn in the stove now that the logs are used up, and I came across his “Bread Is Life” poster with the list of Rules. It’s vital that the Bed and Breakfast guests understand the philosophy here, was what he said, quite defensively if I remember right, when I questioned the wisdom of putting it up in the dining room. I showed it to Theo. He says it’s nuts, and he says it in a tone of voice I maybe should have used to Howard in the first place.

It’s not just the bread. Theo now admits he has never even heard of most of the things Howard considers important (or considered—it’s anybody’s guess what matters to him now). He asks what Howard thinks he’s trying to prove, and I do find that a little shocking. My loyalties are divided. Well, I tell him, Howard would say it’s about living modestly and naturally and responsibly, he would say that Adam and his generation should be grateful to people like us. “For what, exactly?” I hear Theo ask. I see the friendly bewilderment on his face.

For the way we tried to live, I repeat. For what we tried to be. Frugal. Responsible.

Theo has nothing to say to that. Then I feel sad and angry, thinking of all the self-sacrificial years I let Howard persuade me I was making a difference for my successors on this greedy planet, and it turns out, guess what, all the while the planet was filling up with Theos, millions upon millions of them, a whole generation of unblemished souls who don’t want a shred of sacrifice from me after all, not a single thing, not so much as a passing thought. With or without my sacrifices Theo reckons things might get patched up all right, planet-wise (he does use such phrases). Not perfectly, obviously, but when was the world perfect? It’s a little patronizing of people Howard’s age, Theo murmurs, to suggest the world might not go on turning if it was left up to people
his
age.

Anyway, he finds Howard’s Bread Is Life rules hilarious. He has taped the poster up on the kitchen wall under the shelf where I keep the scales and mixing bowls. Just putting it there turns the whole idea of bread-making into a joke. I shouldn’t laugh. But the kitchen is now full of fun.

No sooner is the poster on the wall than a line appears through the
h
of
Dough
in Rule 5.

Theo says, “Who’s Doug, anyway?”

And I say I have no idea, but at least he’s alive.

It’s just a silly joke, but it sticks. Now we have this banter going all the time.

Is Doug still in bed? No, he’s just risen.

What’s Doug trying to prove? Maybe just that he’s alive?

Soon enough, all these exchanges appear scribbled on the margins of the poster along with little naked podgy cartoon figures—Doug
the Dough. They make me laugh every time I look at them. It’s just a bit of harmless fun.

I rinse my hands at the tap and shake my wet fingertips at Theo, who’s watching from the big kitchen chair. Drops of water glint on the floor.
We use only wooden bowls, boards, and spoons
, I sing, setting the cold weight of a stoneware dish on the counter.
No lifeless materials such as metal or pottery are allowed
. I tip the flour into the enamel scales and add extra bran (Howard’s bowels being a law unto themselves), and with a teaspoon I measure out the dried yeast from its packet. It’s good and dead; it runs into the spoon like pulverized bone, and smells of meat.
No machines are used
, I say, fixing the dough hook into the electric mixer.

In the past, when the bread took me half a day and tired me out and still failed to rise, Howard would ask me why I ever expected it to be easy. Bread called for the labor of fingers and hands, and wouldn’t I have to admit that what I felt was a
good
kind of tired out? Well, all I do now is flick the switch. “And you know what, Howard?” I say aloud over the noise of the mixer, answering his question at long last, “this feels better.” There’s an uncertain laugh, and I make out Theo’s voice, talking to me from the big chair.

He’s always asking me about my life. Anything can come up.

The hens, for instance. “What’s the point of keeping them? We don’t get more than a couple of eggs a week now. Why not?”

I go through the reasons. It’s getting dark earlier, and hens need daylight to lay. Or maybe the feed’s not quite right; they only get scraps, after all. But probably they’re just old, I tell Theo. They’re all old ladies now.

“Get some new ones, then,” Theo says.

I’m surprised at how definite he is about this. I can’t, I say. I can’t bring new birds in without upsetting the old ones. It upsets the pecking order. Anyway, there’s only room for about six.

“Then let’s get rid of the old ones,” Theo says. “Eat them. Make room for new ones.”

I decide not to take this seriously. Besides, I don’t want lots more eggs, I say. There’s no passing trade for them in the winter.

“Are you fond of cats, would you like to have a cat?” he asks next. His voice is drowsy, and hard to make out under the drone of the mixer.

A cat might get in and kill the hens, I say back, as I watch the dough forming. And, I go on, even if it didn’t, we couldn’t let a strange animal anywhere near them—then they wouldn’t lay at all. They could die of fright. Anyway, Howard’s allergic.

“Too stupid to live, then,” Theo says, “as well as useless.”

You’re in a funny mood today, I tell him. Quite often, he’s in a funny mood. It’s as if he doesn’t know his own mind, comes out with one thing, then the opposite. The mixer is whipping the dough up into a fizzing swamp of lumps and farty gray blisters, the beater hurls and thumps it against the side of the bowl. I smile; this is how it’s done. There’s a crazy, necessary violence in it.