Another World Read Free Page B

to have him out of their hair. Once or twice Nick’s tried, but as soon as Gareth becomes seriously upset – and of course he does, it’s like taking the teat out of a baby’s mouth – Fran switches sides. She’ll never ever back Nick up. And he’s left feeling… neutered. Yes, that’s the right word, neutered. He’s so powerless in the situation he wonders why Gareth bothers to dislike him.
    Behind the locked door, Gareth starts to clean his teeth. No scrubbing up and down, no wearing away of the gums. ‘Like stencilling,’ the dentist says. Done properly, it takes a long time. Flossing next. And then another go with the brush at all the places where he’s drawn blood.
    When he’s finished he spits, rinses his mouth, spits again, then turns on the tap and watches the pinky-white splats swirl away.
    Lastly, he gets Nick’s toothbrush from the rack, runs it several times round the lavatory bowl, under the rim where the germs lurk, inspects it for too obvious bits of shit, and restores it neatly to its place. Then, exchanging a glance with his reflection in the mirror, he dabs the last flecks of foam from his lips and goes, slowly and carefully, downstairs.
    Miranda eats the burnt potatoes stoically, making no comment. Gareth spits them out. Nick takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, thinks better of it. The meal proceeds in silence except for Jasper’s good-humoured babble.
    ‘Is he talking yet?’ Miranda asks.
    She’s only trying to make conversation, but Fran, undermined by the table manners of one son, doesn’t feel like discussing the linguistic inadequacies of the other. ‘Would you like baked beans instead?’
    ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Nick says. ‘He can eat what he’s given like everybody else.’
    Fran glares at him. Why, Nick thinks, is he continually goaded into acting like Gareth’s father – his ‘real’ father, whatever that means – and then choked off the moment he attempts it? Even when they’d gone to see the educational psychologist together he’d scarcely been allowed to say anything. He’d had to sit and listen while Fran propounded her theory that poor little Gareth was being bullied at school. Perhaps he is. But what precipitated his referral to the school psychology service was an incident in which he and another boy had upended a four-year-old and rammed his head into a lavatory bowl, which they then proceeded to flush.
    Which hardly counts as being bullied.
    You don’t like him, she’d said, when Nick finally exploded.
    No, I don’t, he thought, looking at the gob of spat-out potato. Who could?
    ‘Can I get down now?’ Gareth asks.
    ‘Yes, all right,’ Fran sighs. ‘Off you go.’
    Clearing away the table a few minutes later, Nick says, ‘He warmed up to Miranda, didn’t he?’
    ‘Jasper?’
    ‘I didn’t mean Gareth.’
    ‘More than she did to him.’
    ‘She’s not used to babies.’
    ‘Christ Almighty, Nick, will you stop defending her before she’s attacked? She doesn’t have to like babies. I wish I didn’t.’
    ‘You don’t.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Like babies. You like the idea of them.’
    ‘Oh, very bloody clever. I just wish I wasn’t too tired to appreciate it. I was up all night, remember?’
    ‘Fran, what do you want me to do? I’m doing the bloody decorating –’
    ‘Don’t make it sound like a favour. You live here too, you know. And Miranda.’
    ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ A pause. ‘You knew I had a daughter. I took Gareth on.’
    ‘No, you didn’t. You’re a lousy stepfather, you know you are.’
    Nick starts to speak and checks himself. ‘Well, whatever I am, at least I’m here.’
    ‘Meaning? No, go on.’
    ‘Doesn’t matter.’
    ‘Meaning his father wasn’t?’
    ‘Let’s not have a row, Fran. Not tonight.’
    ‘We’re not having a row!’
    ‘Well, he wasn’t, was he?’
    ‘All right, he wasn’t. So what else is new?’
    Nick sighs and puts his hand on the bulge. ‘How’s number two?’
    ‘Three. You