Golden Boys Read Free Page A

who is tall and quite conspicuously handsome, who looks like an action-movie actor and whose presence only makes sense if the carpark is in fact a movie set, smiles radiantly and says, ‘Well, we’re delighted to meet you. I’m Rex Jenson, and this is my wife Tabby, and these are our sons Coltrane – Colt – and Bastian. We’ve moved into a house around the corner from you. It’s so nice to meet new neighbours.’
    Freya and her mother smile as if they agree it is very nice; in truth such friendliness is disconcerting, a gust of too-strong wind. Freya has never been introduced to adults by their Christian names, and it’s as startling as hearing a swear-word. ‘It must be exhausting, shifting house,’ says Elizabeth, grappling. ‘I don’t think I could do it.’
    â€˜Well, it’s not easy,’ the man agrees. ‘Nothing worth doing is, is it? But it will be worth it. It doesn’t hurt to shake your life up a bit. Change is always good.’
    â€˜Oh, yes,’ says Elizabeth hazily. These people are too elegant, too assured: Freya knows they are making her mother nervous. She’s shunting the pusher back and forth so Peter flops like a fish.
    â€˜It seems a lovely neighbourhood,’ says Tabby, the wife.
    â€˜Oh, it is,’ Elizabeth says, and flounders on: ‘A few palings get pulled off fences sometimes. Some kids were going around smashing letterboxes – remember that, Freya? When was that? People were waking up to find their letterboxes all over the footpath.’
    â€˜Ages ago,’ says Freya.
    â€˜It was a while ago. A year or two ago.’
    â€˜You get that kind of thing everywhere,’ says Rex. ‘It’s usually just kids.’
    â€˜Bad kids,’ says Dorrie.
    â€˜Kids letting off steam.’ Rex smiles. ‘Kids growing up. What’s a letterbox? It’s nothing. Something you can replace.’
    Freya and her family gape at him, this man so kind and cavalier that he could forgive an awful act of vandalism. Freya’s been taught about forgiveness all her life, but she’s never actually met anyone inclined to practise it. She glances at the sons, Coltrane and Bastian, who stand beside their mother as placid as giraffes. Their father’s attitude must be wasted on them, they look incapable of committing any kind of crime. It is not possible to imagine them racing off to play the pinballs, which is undoubtedly what Freya’s brothers have done. The Jenson boys look like they should be etched into stained-glass windows, Sebastian pierced with arrows, the arrogant child lecturing the learned men. And suddenly Freya feels overcome, unreasonably hot and testy. It’s time to go, but they stand as if paralysed beneath the man’s beneficent smile. Elizabeth asks, ‘What do you do, Rex?’
    â€˜I’m a dentist,’ he replies.
    â€˜Ook,’ squeaks Marigold, and Freya likewise shrinks. There’s nothing worse than that sprawling chair, that tray of dainty tools.
    â€˜Our dentist gives us lollies,’ says Dorrie.
    â€˜He yelled at me for crying,’ says Marigold.
    â€˜People must talk to you about teeth all the time,’ says Elizabeth.
    â€˜I don’t mind,’ Rex answers. ‘I like teeth.’
    â€˜Mum’s got false teeth,’ Dorrie informs him.
    â€˜Dorrie!’ Elizabeth gags, but Freya notes that the man’s expression does not alter even minutely, that he’s deaf to anything someone doesn’t want him to hear. Freya herself can’t help smirking; glancing away, she meets the eye of the tall boy, Colt. He’s a slighter version of his film-star father, with the same thick chestnut hair – a
mop
of hair, like the lush pelt of an animal – worn long around his face, the same cheekbones and eyebrows and perfect nose. The younger boy has the same mahogany curls but his face is like his mother’s, a pink