The Heart Broke In Read Free

in and seeing me without my clothes on!’ Dan rolled over on his back, laughing, making sounds of disgust and sticking out his tongue.
He’s a good boy
, Ritchie thought.
He’s going to be fine
. He had wondered whether Dan was being bullied at school, but there was a man in him, even if it was going to cost a packet to bring it out. Ritchie asked Dan if there was anything he wanted. Dan stopped laughing and lay quietly on the grass, with his face turned away from Ritchie, listening and blinking.
    ‘Would you like a guitar of your own?’ asked Ritchie.
    ‘I’ve already got one,’ said Dan.
    Ritchie remembered the child-sized electric guitar Dan never played and the drum kit he didn’t touch.
    ‘Why did you want Daddy’s guitar, Danny love?’ said Ritchie. ‘What’s wrong with yours?’
    Dan turned his face further away and sniffed and Ritchie saw tears on his cheeks. Ritchie didn’t understand. He laid his hand on Dan’s shoulder and asked him what the matter was.
    ‘Nothing,’ said Dan. ‘You don’t care. You don’t care about me and Ruby.’
    ‘How can you say that?’ said Ritchie. ‘Don’t you know how important it is to me to be a good father to you? Have you any idea what it was like for me growing up without …’
    ‘I know,’ said Dan.
    ‘You just made an augmented fourth there. I
knoooow
. La
laaaaa.’
    Dan was sitting up, watching him and listening without crying or smiling, a half-familiar expression of slyness on his face.
Perhaps that’s who he really is, perhaps he is the school bully, the boss of the playground, the one the other children fear
, Ritchie thought with sudden hope.
    ‘If you made so much money without a father,’ said Dan, ‘why is it better for me to have one?’
    ‘What a terrible thing to say!’ said Ritchie slowly, trying to decide how he felt about it. Different paths forked out from what his son had just told him, and he could follow any fork, and still be Ritchie. On one path, he yelled at his son that he was a heartless, ungrateful little brat. On another, he said nothing, stared coldly at Dan, turned round, walked back to the house – ignoring any appeals for forgiveness – and shunned his family for the rest of the day. The third fork would see him shaking his head, laughing softly, running his hand through Dan’s thick fair hair and telling him he was a clever chap.
    This was the way he chose. He reached out his hand for the top of his son’s head, but at that moment Karin called Dan’s name from the far side of the orchard. Dan got up so quickly that Ritchie’s hand brushed his ear instead. Dan glanced at his father, confused by the awkward touch, and a little frightened, as if he thought he’d accidentally avoided a blow, not a caress.
    ‘Shall we go on the swing?’ said Ritchie.
    ‘Mum’s calling me,’ said Dan. ‘I’m too old for the swing.’
    Ruby came galloping towards them, laughing, and Ritchie caught her under her arms and lifted her up, holding her highso that her head blocked out the sun. He weighed her precious squirming density. Chaotic strands of hair fell over her face and Ritchie savoured the wholeness of her attention. ‘Shall we go on the swing?’ he said, and she nodded, and without looking at Dan Ritchie put Ruby down, took her hand and walked with her to where the rope swing hung from the branch of an old chestnut tree.
    He pushed Ruby on the swing and decided he would have a shot. Ruby told him he couldn’t, he was too fat, and while he told her not to be rude, he wondered whether it would take his weight. He sat down carefully on the length of wood and heard the branch creak. Dan and Karin were coming towards them. He shoved off with his heels, let go of the ground and swung to and fro. The creaking of the branch became louder. It wasn’t so much the fear of the branch breaking as his sense that the tree was in pain that made him stop and step off the swing when Dan and Karin came up.
    The moment his feet were