Mark Haddon - The Red House

Alex took a large bite of bread. Give me a shout if you need help, yeh?

Then he, too, was gone and Dominic felt proud of his son. The young taking over the world; maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

♦

Daisy stepped on to the landing and saw Melissa disappearing like a hotel chambermaid bearing a folded pile of clothes. Then Alex appeared in his towel, with a chunk of bread in his mouth. Bit of an adventure downstairs .

Yeh?

Twisted his ankle. Touch of hypothermia. He’s in a hot bath . He gently moved her aside. Now I need a shower or I’m going to go the same way .

Suddenly she couldn’t bear the idea of being alone any longer. Can I come into the bathroom with you?

He raised his eyebrows. If you really want, I guess . Because, after all, it was the kind of day when the normal rules had been temporarily suspended, so they went in, she shut the door behind her and sat on the toilet. Vosene, Miracle Moist, Louisa’s chequered pink washbag. He turned the shower on, took another bite of bread, placed the remaining crust on the rim of the sink then dropped the towel and stepped behind the big plastic panel, turning away from her to protect his modesty. Dints in the side of his bottom, the muscles in his back, unexpectedly at home without his clothes. She remembered how she felt about her body when she was swimming, not caring what it looked like, just enjoying the way it worked. They felt like the children , again.

So you’re a bit of a hero, then?

I wouldn’t go that far . But she could hear the pride in his voice. God, this feels good . His pleasure in the hot water oddly more intimate than the sight of his body.

She liked being in here together, hiding almost, comforting and secret. But he’s all right now? His silhouette blurred and fogged behind the steamy plastic.

I think so . He bent down to clean the mud off his ankles. He was pretty far gone when I got him back to the house . Squirting shampoo onto his hair. What a pillock .

I saw he’d bought loads of new running kit .

Not looking very new now .

She sat quietly for a while. He turned the shower off and stepped out, turning away from her to pick up his towel and dry himself. Like a model, but like a little boy, too. He put the last piece of bread in his mouth and said, Right. I need to pee at this point in time, which feels kind of weird so you might want to, like, stand over there and look the other way .

I think I might be gay . As if someone else had spoken on her behalf, as if someone had pushed her off that top board. Time stuck, rippled banners of light on the water’s surface way below, the ring of cold and the blue silence.

You think? He really had knitted his brows, as if he were struggling with a crossword puzzle.

Does that sound totally insane?

A bit . Lesbian. Christ. He’d never met a lesbian, never really thought about them outside porn, except they weren’t really lesbians. Too good-looking. Or was that being prejudiced? Does this mean you’re not a Christian any more?

I’m scared, Alex . She was going to cry. And now you have to say something. Please?

He had to think about this and it was complicated. If she was male it would freak him out, trying not to picture the sex part. But this? He imagined her having a girlfriend which would be sort of like having two sisters. Unless the girlfriend was horrible, or ugly.

Please?

He tried to sit down on the toilet seat beside her but it was too small, plus he was half naked, so he knelt beside her and gave her an inelegant hug.

I kissed Melissa .

What?

I kissed Melissa .

Holy shit. Is she a lesbian, too?

It was kind of an accident . She ripped off four squares of toilet paper and blew her nose.

He moved to the edge of the bath. I kissed her, too. She wasn’t too keen on that, either . He expected Daisy to laugh but she didn’t seem to have heard. She is pretty fit, though .

She called me a fucking dyke .

And suddenly he got it, why she was terrified. The shit she was going to get. Losing all her friends because of the church, those sanctimonious arseholes kicking her out, maybe. He wanted to slap Melissa’s face. Is this, like, a new thing?

No. Yes. I feel like such an idiot .

They were silent for a few moments. This flatness. Surely the moment deserved more, mariachi trumpets, a thunderbolt striking her dead. I told Mum .

And…?

She was crap. As usual .

Christ , said Alex. This is one bizarre day . Daisy looked offended. Bizarre in a good way. You know, Richard not being dead after all, and you… What? You not being dead either?

Alex? Dominic was calling from downstairs.

Alex stood up. OK, now I really have to pee. Go and tell Dad I’ll be down in a couple of minutes, yeh?

She didn’t move. He felt it, too, a sense that the event should be marked in some way. But how?

Dad shouted again. Alex…?

♦

He lay on the sofa, big jumper, mug of sweet tea, left leg up on Louisa’s lap. She put the bag of frozen peas aside and began winding the elderly bandage around his ankle. First aid box under the sink from circa 1983. The door of the fire was open so that he could feel the heat on the side of his face. Franck in the background, the violin and piano sonata, Martha Argerich and Dora Schwarzberg. There, that should do it . He felt a little queasy on account of the Mars Bars Alex had forced him to eat in the bath, that jittery fatigue and joint ache like when you had flu. Louisa fastened the bandage with a safety pin. Little waves of anxiety rose and fell, the body’s alarm system saying, This is not right , though he knew, objectively, that he was recovering. Just clipped the edge of severe hypothermia, if he remembered the textbooks correctly. Louisa lifted his ankle and slipped a cushion under it to raise it a little higher. Paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing in the final stages. Always unnerved him that image, the body of the old man naked in the cupboard. Bit of a shock to find that dying might be unpleasant after all. He’d always assumed that the brain shrank to fit the little door you left by, Montaigne being knocked off his horse and so on. Die in a hospital, that was the lesson. Decent morphine driver. But it felt good, being looked after like this. Louisa laid the frozen peas back over his ankle and picked up her Stephen Fry. Ridiculous that it should take such a big adventure to make them do this, simply sit next to one another doing nothing. But that pillbox, the one behind his father. They went inside, didn’t they? He and Angela. He can remember the smell of urine and a smashed Coca-Cola bottle. Camping or caravan? Chips out of newspaper, trying to surf on a blue lilo.

Richard? She touched his shoulder.

He came round. I’m just tired . She was examining him but he couldn’t read her expression. Her words of last night. Your plays. Your films . He was selfish, wasn’t he? All those years with Jennifer, two single people sharing a house. You’re right. I do expect you to fit in with my life .

I shouldn’t have said those things .

But they’re true . Up there on the hill, he had forgotten about her, hadn’t he? He thought he might die and he didn’t remember that he had a wife. I worry that you might have married the wrong person .

Hey. Come on . She rubbed his shoulder.