The Summerhouse by the Sea. Jenny Oliver
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waited. He swallowed. He dried the saucepan, wishing he could suck the words back into his mouth.
Max, sensing something was about to kick off, picked his plate up from the table, squeezed between them to put it next to the sink, then disappeared with his laptop.
‘Look, I didn’t mean it quite like that. I just meant . . .’ Rory paused. What had he meant? To all intents and purposes, they had had to just plough on with a course in life. They had been twenty-one. Claire had been pregnant. Of course they were going to get married.
Claire was still focused on the now very clean dish.
‘Anyway,’ Rory ran a hand frustratedly through his hair, trying to divert the subject away from his faux pas, ‘we’ve got to sell Gran’s house. It’s the only answer. My life is stressful enough without knowing there’s a veritable goldmine sitting across the Channel that could pay off a whack of our mortgage. Have you seen that area? It’s not a sleepy little village any more. Even the bloody hipsters have moved in. I saw them with their beards and their trendy restaurants. You know a place is up and coming when there are lime green single-speed bikes chained to the lampposts.’
‘We have enough money, Rory.’
‘We could have more.’
‘Everyone could have more. We do OK.’
‘Claire, if you saw how much money goes out of my account every month to pay for all this, you’d be saying sell the Spanish place as well, believe me.’
She put the dish down on the draining board. ‘I know how much money goes out, Rory, because the same percentage goes out of mine. You don’t earn that much more than me.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Rory sighed, shaking his head, his tone implying he couldn’t say anything right. Then, after a pause, as they silently washed and dried, he started to feel a little hard done by. He knew he shouldn’t say anything else, but as the feeling grew he found himself unable not to, and added, ‘I think actually it’s fair to say that I do earn quite a lot more than you.’
Claire smacked a saucepan down on the counter and turned around. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes,’ he said. Then, a little less certain, ‘I think so.’
‘Oh my God. You are so frustrating. Why say it? Why do you always have to have the last word? Does it ever occur to you why you earn so much more? Because you got to trot off around the globe to build your career while I stayed here to bring up our child. I was basically your live-in babysitter, Rory. And I’m well aware that it was a choice that I made, but it would be nice if you could recognise it every now and then.’ Claire exhaled, rubbed her forehead, forgetting she had rubber gloves on, and then had to wipe the suds away with her sleeve. ‘I don’t earn as much as you, Rory, one because my industry doesn’t pay as much, but two because it took me twice as long to get where I am because I had a child to look after. Our child. And maybe, if you paid me the amount that childcare costs these days, I would have as much money as you.’
‘I don’t want to have an argument, Claire.’
‘That’s such an infuriating answer.’ She put her hands on the sides of the sink and looked up at the ceiling in exasperation. ‘Who wants to have an argument? If you don’t want an argument, why say it in the first place?’
Rory was starting to feel out of his depth. He wanted it to end, but the stubborn feeling that his point hadn’t yet been recognised made him soldier on. ‘Because the fact is, the majority of the money worries in this family fall on my shoulders.’
‘Oh my God!’ Claire’s cheeks had flushed red with annoyance.
Rory’s phone buzzed. He put his hand into his pocket.
‘Don’t you dare get your phone out.’
Rory stopped, but when he found he didn’t want to let go of the phone in his pocket he was suddenly reminded of the dirty old comforter Max had had as a baby.
Claire sighed. ‘Sometimes it would be really nice not to have to compete for your attention with that thing.’
He could see frustrated tears start to build in her eyes. He knew how annoyed she’d be that she was crying. He wanted to call a little pause, to reach out and touch her arm or something, but equally he couldn’t back down. He felt like pointing out that everyone wants time alone in a relationship and he chose to spend his on his phone – would she prefer it if he started getting the newspaper delivered like his father and disappearing off to read that every evening?
The thought that the Eskimo-snow director’s announcement would have been made on Twitter by now flitted into his mind.
Again Claire started to say something but then stopped, shook her head, as if it were all pointless. ‘Well, as far as I know, we’re not destitute. I think we have enough money for your sister, who nearly died last week, to spend a summer by the beach in Spain. Don’t you?’ She moved away from the sink, pulling her rubber gloves off, and walked over to the fridge to get the white wine. As she poured herself a glass she looked up at Rory and said, ‘I know you work hard, but not everything is about money. I think sometimes you treat us like we work for you. But we’re your family. You can’t just bulldoze over people, because one day they’ll stop suddenly and realise that they are just “ploughing forward on a fixed path in life”.’ She raised her brows as she repeated his words. Rory looked down at the floor. ‘If you can’t see the problem in you saying no to Ava then you’re not the person I thought you were.’ She left the kitchen and disappeared into the hallway, clearly unable to be in the same room as him.
Rory exhaled. He shut his eyes for a second then reached into his pocket and got his phone out. He didn’t want to think about anything that had just happened. He wanted to ignore it all, read the text that had come through, focus back on a world he understood: his BAFTA nemesis’s project reveal and the all-consuming race for the top prize.
But at the foot of the stairs Claire paused and turned. ‘You need to make sure Max has done his homework,’ she said, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw his phone. ‘You know, Rory, I wonder sometimes if it were between me and that sodding phone, who would win.’
‘I got a text.’
‘What does it say?’ she asked, coming back towards him.
Rory opened it, then said, a little sheepish, ‘My parcel will be delivered tomorrow between ten and twelve.’ Then he paused, his mouth curving up into a half-smile. ‘Will you be in?’
‘You’ve got some nerve, Rory,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t give me that look. Don’t think you can get away with it with that look.’
‘You love that look,’ he said. Knowing he’d got her now. It would all be alright.
She glanced down at the rug, straightening the tassels with her foot, to pretend she wasn’t smiling, but he could see that she was. ‘You need to make sure Max gets off that computer and does his homework.’
‘Aye aye, Captain.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re really annoying.’
‘And that’s why you love me.’ He stepped forwards, about to put his arms around her but his phone rang. ‘Oh God, this is work, I have to take it.’
Claire looked up, completely dumbfounded. ‘Don’t you dare take it.’
‘I have to take it.’ Pressing Answer, he said, ‘Hello, hi, yeah, Bruce, what’s happened? What? How?’
But before he could say any more he felt the phone plucked from his fingers. He tried to tighten his grip but he’d realised too late and could only scrabble for the shiny surface. ‘What the hell? Claire, what are you doing? Hang on, Bruce,’ he shouted.
With the aim of the county netballer that she had been until they’d had Max, Claire took a few paces backwards and hurled his phone into the downstairs