The Mussel Feast Read Free Page B

my father would say, potatoes have a high heat capacity, that’s the more accurate way of putting it. But when my father was away on business we burned our mouths on potatoes as before and shouted, Christ that’s hot, and Mum said that the mussels looked off and poisonous, and when my brother said toxic she laughed and said they’d become truly inedible. Afterwards we wondered whether by then we already knew what was up, but of course we couldn’t have known; we talked the whole time in hushed tones, as we still imagined that the door might open at any moment and he’d be standing there and catch us talking about him, and that really wouldn’t be right: instead of being delighted to see him and jumping up to welcome him back home, we’d be caught red-handed talking about him, and nobody wanted that. Anyway, nobody dared to because he could be extremely sensitive and unpleasant, he couldn’t bear people whispering behind other people’s backs; but after I’d said, well, so what if something has happened to him – out of pure spite because my mother had already switched to wifey mode, but she hadn’t reacted horrified, only saying, we’ll see – after that, for it sounded as if she didn’t think it so terrible either, we wondered what we would do if he didn’t come back now, and soon it turned out that both my brother and I would prefer him not to come home; we no longer liked being a proper family, as he called it. In truth we didn’t see ourselves as a proper family. Everything in our lives revolved around us having to behave as if we were a proper family, as my father pictured a family to be because he hadn’t had one himself and so didn’t know what a proper family was, although he’d developed the most detailed notions of what one was like; and while he sat in his office we played at being this, even though we’d far rather have let our hair down than be a proper family. Of course, all this came out very hesitantly; to start with I kept quiet because I thought, if he does eventually come back then Mum will blab, and my brother also thought she’d blab, and I thought my brother would blab, too, because he wants to play the loving son with my father, and my brother thought that I’d blab because I wanted to show that I was Daddy’s girl. In those days, you see, we still said that I was Daddy’s girl, and my brother was Mummy’s boy, as my brother was very affectionate, a cuddly boy, and was forever kissing Mum. I didn’t, I wouldn’t have any of that; I take after my father, I thought, who was a logician, and my mother and brother were anything but logicians. And that’s the reason why we, my father and I, always mocked them. And they were very wary of saying anything to me, complaining to me about my father, because they thought I’d blab about them to show everyone I was Daddy’s girl. In actual fact all of us blabbed, everyone blabbed about everyone else if I think about it, and my father was burdened by the family’s blabbing, even though he’d enjoy it as well, for it meant he was very important in the evenings, resolving matters in his family as he imagined happened in proper families. He’d drink beer and cognac and interrogate us in order to find out what had been going on, and we gave our statements in turn while the others waited outside. In the end he’d draw logical conclusions, fix punishments and mete them out; we were all pretty scared, to be honest, because the punishments were fixed according to logical conclusions which none of us could really understand. I pretended to understand them; it was to my advantage if they believed I was Daddy’s girl and therefore logical, although in truth I couldn’t really understand my father’s logic and only pretended to. Neither of the other two could pretend. It was clear they belonged together because they’re cuddly rather than logical, forever wanting to give each other kisses; while I belonged with my father, because I’m