Family Night

Car

The only thing more embarrassing than her Karen-style haircut was her ignorance of it.

She wasn’t driving. She had been scheduled to drive but when that task entered its doing phase she’d predictably backed out, leaving Patrick to drive them to the house instead. She was in the passenger seat applying rosé balm to her cracked lips.

University was finished and he was back for the summer, though this particular summer had stretched through to the end of October and would soon meet the month of November. Suitable jobs were hard to find and part of him knew that even though they wanted to kick him out they never could. Mom never could anyway. She had been kicked out, even younger than him at the time, so he knew she’d never allow that to befall him.
Did that count as exploiting her? He looked into his lap, stared at the Audi’s black leather seats with pinprick guilt. In answer to his question only a shrug emerged, but maybe the shrug said enough. He was more willing to live with the current state of affairs than take a job that didn’t befit him. So yes, for as long as said job eluded him this would be the first summer in the history of Britain in which the sun would set at four-thirty.

(ii)

Patrick was a blessing, driving them everywhere like he did. She’d gotten into the brandy last night and her head hadn’t let her forget it. In the dropdown mirror she parted her blonde fringe, enjoying its Barbie-doll perfection. She was ready for the party.

Party.

It was best to use that term loosely. Patrick had re-acquainted with an old work colleague and been invited to dinner on the south side of town. When she thought for more than a moment about it she felt an impulse to cringe. It was going to be stuffy, full of low conversation. Gordons’ 0% gin and low fat/low sugar tonic at best. She wanted to scream.

She rolled her eyes in the mirror. Those were the exact kind of cynical comments Andy would make. By far the worst thing about being a parent was that when you recognised your child’s flaws in yourself, you couldn’t say you got it from them. She saw him on his phone in the rear-view mirror, tapping away. The car-seat and Tamagotchi were gone, and the man in the driver’s seat wasn’t the same man who had donated her some sperm over two-decades ago, but her baby was still in the back, ready to be shown off. Only she wouldn’t be showing off his ability to stand up for three seconds or to pull a cute smile. He was a qualified engineer now (at least, she thought that was how it worked. Who really knew? In her day university had been for rich tossers and she wasn’t one of those).

The cynical impulse proved to be exactly that: momentary. It made way for excitement. She’d married Patrick five years ago but they had been a couple since Andy was first learning how to hold his cutlery. Meeting someone from his old life before her felt sacrosanct, exciting, taboo, like the time they’d tried handcuffs in the bedroom.

Then again, that hadn’t lasted more than one night. She’d gotten sore wrists and Patrick had kept checking if she was all right. They weren’t suited to handcuffs in the bedroom. How well-suited were they for the south side of town? As the aircon sucked up a warm draft of manure-stained air she realised they were close. The party, or whatever it was, would start very soon.

(iii)

Katy Perry’s Yes and No song came on the radio and Jo leaned in to the volume knob. ‘Ooh I look this one,’ she said, turning it clockwise. She sat then with her arms limp on her lap, staring blankly out the passenger side window, not looking in love with the song at all.

Patrick was just glad for some music to pass the time. He hadn’t worn a suit in over a decade, and although the emergence of flat fields and livestock on the south side of town meant he could see the sun was almost hidden behind the horizon to his right, he was sweating more than when it had been up. The collar was choking him and the tie was too long, coming to rest at the base of his crotch.

Jo touched the top of his leg. ‘You okay, Pat?’
‘Yeah,’ he said casually, ‘I’m all right.’
‘Thank you so much for driving.’

She leaned over and kissed his left cheek. He patted her lovingly on the shoulder with his right hand.

She returned to staring out the window. Was she nervous at all for tonight? Did she realise that it wouldn’t be at all what they were used to? No karaoke, minimal drinking and instead of an all you can eat enjoy yourself style menu there was bound to be the kind of food you got in Michelin starred restaurants. Little platters of muck somebody pulled out from their own arse so they could get their own head back up in there.

The black feathers at the edge of Jo’s collar made her look a bit like an ostrich and…no! Don’t even think that. Women had a way of sensing dissent and another argument was the last thing they needed. Her dress would be fine; it was beautiful in fact. His suit would be the cheapest in the house by far but he didn’t care. And Andy’s choice to wear double denim (jacket and jeans) would be fine too. It would have to be…the only clothes shops on the south side of town were independent tailors and there wasn’t time or money to look for one of those now.

He’d lived in many towns and cities across the country but home, Wetsdown, was the most cleanly divided of them all. North of the line was an urban landscape of musky accents and brutalist council buildings. South of the line lived the People of Nowhere; accents were abandoned in favour of news-reporter speak. They built brand new farmhouse mansions designed to look two-hundred years old. Jo and Andy had lived in the north when he’d met her. Clark White, the man whose home they were visiting tonight, had always lived in the south, even when they had been at school together. Patrick had grown up on the border between the two sides, reaping the benefits of both, and had his own house with Jo and (once again after supporting him for three years in Loughborough) Andy there now.

He pulled the Audi onto Clark’s drive. It was circular, laid in red (and the occasional stylised black) bricks and already loaded with two family-sized Bentleys and a Porsche. There was a matte black garage door visible under the drive’s own Victorian-style street lamp. Patrick supposed it was the doorway to an underground carpark full of Clark’s own vehicles. Andy lurched forward, hanging in the gap between the two front seats.

‘Sit back a bit,’ Patrick said.
‘Is this really who you used to work for? He must be fockin’ loaded.’
Jo asked: ‘Yeah when did you work for him? Were you still there when we first started going out?’
As he backed the car into a free space on the drive, Patrick rolled his eyes and huffed a sigh of frustration. He cut the engine. The Audi’s front lights slowly faded, leaving only the Victorian street lamp to guide them. It spit out enough light for them to see the tan wood front door.
‘No,’ Patrick said, ‘I told you before that I went to school with Clark. You’re thinking of John Sutton.’
‘No because you said Clark was your old boss.’
‘No I didn’t, Jo, I promise you I didn’t say that.’
She shrugged, holding her shoulders up in a short freeze frame with her palms facing the ceiling. ‘Well I dunno.’ She dropped the pose and looked back out the window.
Andy fell back into the backseat laughing. Patrick said: ‘It doesn’t matter. Let’s go inside then shall we?’
‘Sure,’ Andy said. He sat forwards impatiently against the passenger seat to be let out. Three-door cars. What a first world problem, as they liked to say nowadays.

Patrick climbed out and saw Jo do the same. Andy slipped her seat forwards. As he tried to get out she shut the door on him. A muffled shout came from inside the car: ‘Mom! What you doing?!’
‘Oh God I’m so sorry,’ she said, leaning down to open the door. Patrick pointed and laughed at Andy who even through tinted windows was the picture of rage. ‘Sorry, Andy,’ Jo said as he finally got out.

Patrick was still laughing, unable to contain it. Bad luck and awkward situations always had a way of finding Andy and Patrick had always had a way of making of fun of him for it. Andy cracked a smile then and that was nice to see. If it were five years ago the teasing might have provoked an argument with the fragile teenager’s ego, though that obviously wouldn’t have stopped Patrick from laughing.

‘Let’s go then,’ Andy said.
‘Yes come on everybody,’ Patrick replied. Back to reality. No more step-son locked in the car routine. He brushed a hand over his bald head (he had lost it at Andy’s age and still had a photo somewhere of him and good old Jack Staines laughing their heads off with a snooker cue pressed against Patrick’s temple) to remove any sticky micro-hairs left over from shaving.

The house was square-based, like a castle, and too deep to make out how much volume there was to it. The height was easy to see; three stories of orange brick, complete with a stained glass window in the centre of the front face of the house.

With a deep breath he led them to the door. Inside, he heard the sound of chaste laughter and realised the party had already reached its peak without them.

Party

Fockin’ loaded. Something he would probably never be.

Andy stepped inside the biggest house he had ever seen, even by south side standards, expecting to be speechless at the beauty. What he found was an entrance wider than most, with stairs running up and around to the second floor and, if he craned his neck, stairs on the second floor which proceeded to the third. The walls were white as chalk in the July sunshine. But it was clinical and untouched. He’d read Ellis’ American Psycho last year and the entrance hall made him think if Patrick Bateman could come to life and live in town, he’d choose here. Maybe there were already dead girls in the downstairs toilet…he wanted to run and check but remembered his age.

Ages 0 – 10 were plush zipper coats. The teens were Brian May leather jackets and the front buckle was wound hole tighter for every year of your life, but adulthood was a straightjacket woven out of shame. So he didn’t run, couldn’t even. He stood still and smiled in the entrance hall as a stranger with big teeth, a pink linen blouse, three inch heels and office trousers greeted them with an awkward, ‘Hi there…you must be Jo and Patrick.’ Grey hair betrayed her age but her figure was well kept, her skin smooth. A walking, talking silver vixen, perhaps?

‘Yes,’ Mom replied, a drawn out sound that made him laugh. She had pushed her north-side twang away to sound as stateless as this greeting woman. She did the same whenever she answered the house phone.

And who was this greeter? A guest, he presumed but…who exactly? His straightjacket slipped a moment: ‘And you are…?’
Mom gave him a disapproving glance. By the time you’re fifty-three the straightjacket comes with steel clamps for the arms. What a thing to look forward to.

‘I’m Zoe…’ Then came an awkward chuckle.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Patrick said, scratching his cue ball.
‘I’m Clark’s wife.’ She was bobbing her head as she spoke. ‘A lot of…family here tonight. Cousins and second cousins and, er, lots of…lots of strangers to you. All a bit…complicated, isn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it,’ Mom said.

Andy thought: That’s not confusing at all. But of course he nodded in agreement, ushering in a silence as long as a solstice night.
Mom looked from Zoe to Patrick a few times before saying, ‘So, shall we get a drink?’

‘Of course,’ Zoe said. They followed through an archway door to the right of the stairs. The aesthetic changed from the modern sort of American Psycho look to a timber farmyard feel in the open planned kitchen/living room where everybody was sitting. One old bird had a clear drink in a crystal glass. There were bubbles rising up through the liquid. Gin and tonic? Perhaps but if so it didn’t show on her. Maybe it was her first of the night. Maybe in thirty minutes she’d be tits out on the tables.

But he doubted it.
At the parties his mom and Patrick hosted, like his twenty-first the last February, people rarely sat. Many were standing and smoking in the square back garden. For those inside there was too little seating space to go around and sitting meant missing out on the conversation, so, like any good concert, standing was the only way. The kitchen counter was busier than most bars on a Friday night. People made their own drinks, and the alcohol flowed like the sun burns skin red. To see a party full of people sitting was as foreign as guten tag, perhaps even more since he had a D-grade GCSE in German but never had he even contemplated a party full of aircon and large leather recliners.

Zoe took their drinks orders and offered to make them. Mom protested but Zoe insisted. That was nice. When Andy asked for a gin and tonic and she produced a real bottle of real gin that wasn’t alcohol-free, that was even nicer – even if it had taken some even realer digging through the backs of cupboards.

Zoe said, ‘Ooh, I’ll need to…see some ID, won’t I?’ and giggled, and that wasn’t so nice. It wasn’t offensive, just so embarrassing for Zoe that he cringed. It was frightening too: How long was tonight going to last? In real and perceived time. Probably quite long on both fronts.

A little girl in a purple princess outfit ran between their legs. She had a magic wand with a pink star on the end of it. Andy pretended to laugh but there was a sinking feeling that she was going to pester him. Something which would only make the night last longer.

The girl circled back and tugged his arm.
‘Aw,’ Zoe said. ‘She’s always making new friends. This is my granddaughter, Abigail.’
‘Aw,’ Mom gushed. ‘Hello, Abigail I love your beautiful dress.’
‘Thank you,’ the girl replied, gurgled even. Did we all sound so alien when we were small or was it just kids today?
Patrick sipped his drink and leant on the kitchen island. There lay three different types of exotic fruit juice and a tap with an instant boiling water option. A low fat/low sugar tonic water was stood up beside a no e-numbers pack of twelve red Fruit Shoots. They obviously didn’t work. Or they did and little Abigail had a secret stash of cocaine in the bedroom. He looked up, saw how high the ceiling went, and thought in a house like this it wasn’t so unlikely.

The little girl whispered something to Zoe. ‘Andy,’ she said.
‘Yes?’ he replied with a straightjacket smile.
‘Abigail would like to show you her playroom.’ Zoe then mimed and mouthed Go on, go on, she’d love to show you.
‘Oh I’m–’
‘Yes,’ Mom said, ‘aw that’s such a lovely idea. Go on, Andy, go and see the playroom with Abigail. Go on.’
‘Oh yeah, I’d really love to actually. Thanks.’
She leaned down, hands on knees. ‘Do you want to go and show Andy your toys then?’

The little girl took his hand and led him away at lightspeed. The last thing he saw of his home world, the adult world, was Patrick by the kitchen island, miming his classic point, rock his head side-to-side and laugh routine.

As he rose the first flight of stairs with this unknown child he took comfort in the fact that he at least still had his gin. He was, at least, escaping the recliners.

(ii)

It wasn’t long before he wanted the recliners again. In the playroom there were more than five little girls building a fort out of teddies – unicorns, bears, emojis and Disney princesses – and he couldn’t cope. He thought the carpet was purple but he could hardly see it through the top layer of toys and dolls’ houses. He was the Wicker Man, burning with embarrassment as the pestering children spun around and softly smacked at him with their plushie magic wands.

(Get me out get me out get me out.)

‘It’s a very lovely room, girls.’
As he backed his way out he tripped on Buzz Lightyear and spilled half his gin. Great. By the time he got back down the hospital stairs what was left of the cobweb bottle would be gone and he hadn’t managed more than a sip.
(Get me out get me out get me out.)
‘I’m going to go back down anyway.’
Could they even hear him? Why did they all look the same? Why was everything so funny?
‘Daddy!’ Abigail screamed, running past Andy to the playroom door. Andy’s eyes followed her, stopped as suddenly as she did at two tree trunk legs, and looked up. There stood a man in a pinstripe navy suit, bright red tie, rose on the right lapel. His hair was brushed back with pomade. He looked around Andy’s age but with a kid as old as Abigail he was probably in his late twenties.
‘Don’t shout, darling. I’m in the room with you.’
She hugged his legs tight.
‘How do you do?’ He pushed Abigail aside and held a hand out to Andy.
‘Hi. I’m Andy.’
‘Pebby’s what they call me. What do you do then?’
Andy was stunned by the question. ‘I’m sorry…? What do I do?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I just finished an engineering degree.’
‘Tip-Top then. I’m a Balliol boy myself. Econ and Philosophy. Let me guess now…Lincoln, right?’
‘Loughborough actually. Lincoln was one of my choices though.’
‘Loughborough?’ He scoffed. ‘Is that in Cambridge?’
‘Loughborough University. I didn’t go to the University of Lincoln.’ And Andy was the width of a hair away from saying Why the fuck would you assume I went to Lincoln just because of my face?!
Pebby turned his nose to the ceiling and back down again as if to make a thorough inspection of Andy. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘And who invited you to this house?’ Suspicion bloomed in his eyes.
‘What?’ The way he’d asked that made Andy feel naked, like he was the identical twin of a serial killer and the cops had the wrong guy. ‘A, er, guy called Clark. We know him.’
‘Clark is my father. He makes odd decisions sometimes.’
Pebby left, continuing down the hall towards an ajar door. In the darkness behind it, Andy saw a toilet.
‘I bet your shit still stinks, tosspot,’ he murmured to himself. Then the girls were teasing him again. He was too polite to leave but after thirty more minutes his sanity was broken and he had to leave.

On his way down the stairs he heard phantom footsteps chase behind. When he turned there was no one, no little girls. He rushed down before the gin disappeared.

(iii)

Patrick breathed a sigh of relief as Clark entered finally into the room. He had started, strangely, to worry they were at the wrong house.
On the lapel of his navy suit lived a bright red rose. His hair flayed out in short grey curls. Two days ago he had been white as his hideous walls. He had either been on holiday for two weeks in the space of two days or sat under a UV lamp for five hours in preparation for hosting this…event. Party seemed a strong word.

‘Pat-Rick! What a great man to see.’
Patrick leaned up from the kitchen island and shook Clark’s hand. ‘Thought you were going to gilt me for a minute then.’
‘Not at all. You’ve met my gorgeous’
(boring)
‘wife, I see.’
‘I have indeed, and a few of the others. What a fabulous house you’ve got.’
Clark smirked and shrugged. ‘What can I say? And this must be your wife Jo.’
‘Hiya!’ Jo said. That turn of phrase concerned him a little. Hello would have been a safer bet.
‘Hello my dear,’ Clark said. He kissed both her cheeks and she made a little ooh sound.
‘Come on then, Pat, I’ll show you to the mens’ room. Leave these girls to natter.’

Jo flicked her eyebrows up, a symbol for Patrick not to leave her alone with Zoe. Anyone but Zoe! those eyebrows screamed. And he couldn’t blame her: in the space of ten minutes Zoe had tried three times to start a conversation about the need for more bespoke furniture. But could he say no to Clark? It was his house and they were there at his invite. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said to Jo, kissing her cheek before following Clark.

The mens’ room was laid in dark carpet and smelled of cigar smoke. There were three pool tables – or snooker? He couldn’t tell the difference – on the far side with a Billiards sign hanging above them. There was a fully stocked bar and a working bartender scrubbing up pint and short glasses. Around the other side lived a professional roulette table and that excited him most of all. He loved a game of chance.

Or did he? The handful of men smoking at the room’s circular central table had a good chance of being total snobs. That kind of snob culture had driven him away from his last office job.
Why was he even at this…event? He couldn’t answer himself. All he had learned for certain since entering this mens’ room was that party had been far too strong a word after all.
‘This is Patrick, boys.’
‘How do you do?’ said each one of them as he shook their hands. A final man appeared: a man wasting his youth by trying to appeal to the older generation. That was obvious from his pinstripe suit and pomaded hair. It reminded Patrick of his own father in the 70s.
At the table Patrick sipped his drink and listened. There wasn’t much for him to add.
‘Jane and I got the lawn done.’
‘Oh you did?’
‘I’ve been needing mine for a long time now.’
‘Well we got ours done and I tell you what…some gardeners charge eighty pounds per hour nowadays. That was a shock.’
‘Can’t afford it, Pebby?’
A raucous laughter followed that comment. Patrick managed a grin.
‘It’s not about that. It’s about the principle of it, right? If you get eighty quid for cutting the grass what am I going to start paying the interns?’
An even fiercer bray of laughter then. But in Patrick’s gut, discomfort.
He said: ‘I wish I’d gotten eighty quid an hour when I first started work.’
The others made sure to smile through the silence that followed. A silence so thin it could be broken by a baby’s breath.
‘Yeah,’ the man named Pebby eventually said.
‘This is my son,’ Clark said, pointing at Pebby. ‘Go on, Pebby, tell them all the good news now Patrick’s here.’
‘I’d almost forgotten myself,’ he said. His smirk left Patrick unconvinced. ‘I made MD at Morgan Stanley.’
(rising enthusiasm after Patrick’s had dragged them to the gutter)
‘I move into my new office Monday morning.’
(close to climax, excitement rivalled only by VE Day)
‘Actually,’ Pebby added, ‘the PA’s moving the stuff over as we speak.’
(so close so close people almost on their feet)
‘And she’s not getting eighty an hour, don’t you worry about that.’

Punchline! And they were up. Time’s turntable had spun them past Patrick’s dud and they were back on a no.1 record. Pebby had a standing ovation from all of them. Of course Patrick joined in. Joined in despite his realisation that this was the house of no fun. At least their enthusiasm diluted his embarrassment.

‘Ah stop it, stop it, really. It’s actually only the first level of MD, so I guess it’s no big deal.’
‘Well done, Son,’ Clark said. ‘We’re all very happy for you. Thoroughly…thoroughly deserved.’ He clamped his hands on the back of Pebby’s shoulders and addressed them all like a president delivering a speech: ‘To think, nearly ten years since my son achieved the highest first in his year at Oxford. Now one of the youngest VPs in history.’
‘Enough about me anyways. What do you do?’ Pebby asked.
‘Me?’ Patrick said.
‘Yeah. What’s your business?’
‘Oh I just work for myself. Little business printing and binding leaflets and things for different companies.’
‘Oh.’
Some silence, some time for a drag on the cigar or a sip of brandy.
‘Can’t pay well.’
Clark scoffed in a seemingly uncontrollable way.
Patrick said: ‘It’s okay, I’m not bothered. I do all right. Not MD of Morgan Stanley money but it’s all right.’
‘I don’t think anyone had any doubts about that,’ Clark added. ‘MD money is something we can all only dream about.’
‘Let me see your tax receipts then!’ Pebby shouted, lively and hyper again. ‘He makes more money than me, I’d bet half my stock on it.’
‘But at thirty?!’ Clark shouted, and they all laughed again. ‘I was only making about three-hundred-K at thirty.’
‘Wow,’ Patrick said.
‘Patrick,’ Clark said, ‘is a man of the working classes. We knew each other in school before your grandfather moved me out to Wetsdown Academy.’
‘Before,’ the whole group said in startling unison, ‘the merger.’ And they were hyenas once more. David Attenborough would be here any minute. He might already be. One of these clones in suits might have been a robot with cameras in his eyes and mics in his ears.
‘Yes, it’s good to have you here, Patrick. You might learn something.’

That stung. On the way here he had wondered why he was even taking part. Was he a token to them? A plaything in a zoo to gawk at? Scoff at? This really was the antithesis of a good Saturday night.

‘That reminds me,’ the man to Patrick’s left said. ‘Let me tell you about a trade I made the other day…’

(iv)

Andy found them again, just about to serve the food in the dining area. There were three long buffet tables at the end of a piano room. The lighting was low. More recliners, more lush rugs and hushed voices. Mom was being spoken at by the food section. He went to her, desperate to eat. Rich people tended to have good taste. He’d learned that in Loughborough. Meat from the butchers or a farm shop, which this presumably would be, was always worth the extra cost.

When he reached his mom he caught the end of her dry conversation.
‘So what I’m saying is,’ Zoe said slowly, ‘can’t we just get yoga even further into the mainstream?’
‘Yeah,’ Mom replied.
‘Clark keeps telling me I’m fine as I am but this waist could do with a tuck and yoga really helps with that kind of thing…really helps…’
Mom nodded. Then fell a silence between them. She had medicated herself with the gin, he could see it in her bug eyes, and he was desperate to join her.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Oh there you are!’ Mom said, coming to life.
‘Well you’re the one who sent me away.’
She leaned close to whisper: ‘We need to get away from her. I know she means well but I’m just bleedin’ bored, And.’
He nodded.
‘Everything okay?’ Zoe said brightly.
‘Just fine,’ Andy said, swaggering towards the buffet. Southsiders always had real sausage rolls. Ones made with fresh pastry and smooth, melt-in-the-mouth meat. He rubbed his hands together. ‘What have we got then?’
There was a lot of green in the spread. Some brown bread sandwiches that looked tasteless. Where were the sausage rolls…?
(where are they?!?!?!?!)
‘Anything that isn’t a vegetable here?’ he asked. His throat dried up.
Zoe burst into laughter. ‘Sure there is…yeah…’
Andy waited, holding his patience so tight his hands might bleed. ‘Is that…is there a joke there or…?’
‘And!’ his mom hissed.
‘I’m just asking, I just can’t understand what’s going on.’
‘Well,’ Zoe said, ‘it’s a vegan spread, isn’t it? So…yeah…veggies is it I think.’
‘A what?’
Zoe recoiled like he’d spat at her, not knowing how badly he wanted to do so.
‘Andy’s not used to veggies,’ Mom slurred. ‘He doesn’t do veggies.’
‘I am, I do, just not usually for an entire dinner. Bit of getting used to.’ His mom’s bug eyes and Pisa-stance made him smirk. He really needed to join her. He really needed a bloody drink.

‘But you should know all about it,’ Zoe said, ‘being a scientist and all that. Your mum’s told me all about it. Climate change and all that…yeah…’
First: he was an engineer. Scientists have higher IQs which makes them stupid enough to do the most important work for less money. Second: the climate change can of worms wasn’t one he had time to get into, definitely not with an unknown entity like Zoe, but to summarise that vegan equals good and non-vegan equals bad was about as stupid an argument as could be conceived. Third and most important: his university achievements were an embarrassment to him. He had scraped a two-two and there was a long way to go before he could really call himself a success. He wanted to forget Loughborough but his mom wouldn’t let him. Some part of him thought he’d be the same one day, full of pride for his children no matter what. One thing he’d learned in the years since buying his first lottery ticket was that life was a series of rungs on a ladder, and there was no denying that promotion. Time was coming to drop some more responsibilities on your desk whether you liked it or not, and most people, when they got there, responded in quite the same way as their ancestors had. So yeah, he understood why she was the way she was. That didn’t make it any easier for him to bear now though.

‘We can, er, go and have a look at the vegetable patch in the grounds later. I mean it’s more like a farm…he-he…yeah…’
He ignored that and turned to his mom. ‘Where have you left the gin? Is there any left?’

‘In the kitchen,’ she said, throwing back the rest of hers with a smirk, her free hand on her hip. ‘But I’m going for another now and that’ll be the lot.’
‘No, no, no, no…’ he said, strutting away before she could get to it. She threw her head back cackling as he went.

He made himself the strongest drink he could, using every drop of the remaining gin. It worked out as a two-and-a-half measure. It would do. He winced as the low fat/sugar tonic touched his lips. The sour taste of the tonic was the sharp prick before the dentist numbed your mouth.

(v)

The occupants of the mens’ room moved to join the women. The first time he got a proper look at the girls, Patrick wondered if, with all his education, Andy couldn’t invent a kind of metal detector for silicones. If you had one in this house it would beep all night.

Patrick quite liked the selection of food but he knew Andy would be hating it and that made him smile, made him point and laugh and shake his head again. Jo had long-since lost the plot and he couldn’t blame her. He wished he had too but there hadn’t been enough brandy in the mens’ room. He was stuck in a sober limbo that even Andy had crawled his way out of.

He had a glass of dark brandy in his hands. Ten feet from the room’s central piano stood a tall, black bookshelf. Patrick wasn’t a reader but he knew the central rung of the shelf was where people displayed their most beloved books. On Clark’s, right in the middle, was a collection of Paul Cooper novels, including his two most popular stories: A Five Pronged Pitchfork and James Orleans. He was surprised to see a popular writer on such a bore’s shelf. He’d looked up expecting to see Nietzsche or Dostoevsky or some other shite like that. Patrick loved all the Paul Cooper adaptations.
Clark approached him from the food table. ‘Looking at my Cooper collection? Didn’t expect that did you?’

‘No I didn’t actually.’
‘He’s quite the man. Had an interesting life. Did you know he was from not too far up the road?’
‘I had heard that, yes.’
Clark grinned, nodded, then said, ‘Pat, can I ask you to have a word with your wife? She’s frankly acting far too outlandishly.’
‘She’s not broken anything has she?’
‘No but I suspect she might.’
Patrick didn’t know what to say. The conversation went into the background of his mind to compute.
Jo came and put her arms around Patrick’s belly, a warm companion for a cool October night. The wide room felt small as the chatter grew louder. More than a couple pairs of eyes were glancing over at Jo and himself. He looked down at Jo’s bulging eyes and slanted smile and realised why it was so. Yeah she’d had a few drinks but was that not allowed on a Saturday night?
He would have expected to feel ashamed of her but instead he laughed, bowed his head and massaged his closed eyes.
‘What?’ she asked, laughing too.
‘Just…nothing–’ but he broke into hysterics. ‘I love you.’
‘Aw, I wove you too,’ she replied.
Clark was scratching the back of his head and passing apologising looks to the other guests. ‘Where’s this son of yours then, Pat?’
‘You mean Andy?’ he tried to say. It came out like a skipping record because he was fighting off Jo’s tickling fingers.
‘Yes.’
‘Here I am,’ his step-son said, trotting over to escape from Zoe. ‘What do you need?’
‘I’ve heard you’re a great engineer now. What’s all that about then?’ He spoke so far down to the twenty-one year old he might as well have been calling from the ISS.
Jo’s eyes were fireflies, full of pride as her boy stepped up to speak. Though Andy wasn’t his, Patrick was as proud as she was. He had just enough biological distance from the lad to encourage him more sternly to get a job but it didn’t take away from the success Andy had proven he was capable of obtaining.
‘When’s the piano starting up, Dad?’ Pebby asked from across the room.
‘Ah-Ha! Thank you for reminding me.’ Clark started for the piano.
‘Hang on,’ Jo said, ‘aren’t you going to hear what Andy has to say? Go on, Andy, tell him all about it.’
‘No,’ Pebby said, ‘go on, Dad, give us some Bach. Just wait till you hear his Bach,’ he added to his friends.
‘Hang on, mate,’ Jo said. Patrick braced for impact. ‘You’ll get your piano but my son was in a conversation there.’
Patrick whispered: ‘It doesn’t matter, come on.’
‘No! It does. Tell them how you got your two-two, Andy. That’s right, enit? I couldn’t be more proud.’
‘Don’t shout,’ Patrick hissed, cringing.
‘No,’ Andy said, pulling his mother in for a hug, ‘it’s not good actually. That’s why I can’t find a job and I can’t move out.’
‘But you’ve done so well,’ she replied.

Andy’s expression made Patrick realise how much the boy had grown up since the days of flying him around on tiny chairs. He had suspected there was something stopping him moving out, and to say it out loud must have taken a lot of courage. He respected it.

‘Are you really proud of me? I mean, I just don’t feel I’ve achieved very much.’
She hooked her hands over his neck and pulled him down to her height. ‘You’re mine and that’s good enough. Love ya! Love ya!’ she said.
‘You too,’ he replied as they embraced.
‘All right,’ Pebby said, ‘let’s all stop to hear all about this kid’s two-two. I’m sure he’s got loads of stories about how he sat on his arse all day.’
‘Pebby!’ Clark said.
‘Sorry. Backside.’
Andy came off his mom and straightened himself. ‘Is there a problem, mate? First you were obsessed about whether or not I went to Lincoln – which was pretty fockin’ random – and then you’re on my back for having a conversation with my own mom.’
‘I should clarify,’ Patrick said, ‘everybody keeps calling him my son but he’s my step-son. Just so we’re on the same page.’
‘Oh right,’ Pebby said. Everybody was staring oddly then. ‘Divorced are you?’
‘I was. Is that a big deal?’
Pebby scoffed and stepped closer. ‘I think it says a lot about you, yeah.’
‘All right, mate,’ Patrick said, looking him in the eye but stepping back towards Jo and Andy by the bookshelf. They were a safety net for him, one which he did not always fit neatly into, but which was always there when he needed it. In spite of the differences they sometimes had, he knew the feeling was mutual between them. ‘It’s my life. You know, Clark,’ he said to his old school mate, ‘I feel a bit strung up here. Were we invited just to be laughed at or something?’
‘Yeah, Dad, why did you bother with this lot?’
Jo left the safety net to step right up to him. ‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up, mate?’
Patrick, panicking, reached one arm out to pull her away.
‘Get off.’
‘Go on, Mom!’ Andy said.
She pointed at Pebby’s nose. ‘I’ve been divorced too, mate, so get used to it. As for your party, I think it’s a load of shit. Nobody talks to Patrick like shit. Not a single…little…anyone. And to Andy? pff…for-get it!’
‘If,’ Clark said from behind her, ‘it’s a load of…you know…then you won’t mind leaving. I invited you here to show you a little bit of our lifestyle. Thought you might enjoy it. Frankly, Jo, I think you are an immature lady. Hardly a lady at all.’
Patrick though showing a little bit his lifestyle was a synonym for gloating. Suddenly he was happy for Jo to go without her muzzle.
‘Well at least I’m not a fucking wanker, aye?’ she said.
‘Pathetic.’
‘This party, Clark, is a load of fucking shit. So why don’t you just do one…See ya! Come on, Patrick, I’m not listening to these arseholes any longer. Ooh I want everyone to start yoga’
(hysterics from Andy, ashamed laughter from Patrick)
‘well what a fucking conversation that was!’
‘Oh dear,’ Patrick said.
Andy couldn’t manage a word while the laughter had him. He had always enjoyed chaos.
Clark marched them to the front door. ‘You’re just immature and I can’t believe what an embarrassment you’ve made of yourselves. Go on, the lot of you.’
‘Bor-Ring!’ Jo shouted as they fled through the front door together.

(vi)

They closed the Audi’s doors and he lit the engine.

‘I won’t have anyone talking to Patrick like that,’ she announced to them. ‘Nobody. Not in front of me.’ She turned to look at Andy, pointing a finger at Patrick. ‘This bloke wouldn’t harm a fly and I’m not having anyone take advantage of that!’
‘All right,’ Patrick said quietly, ‘all right. Calm it down a little.’ He pushed her pointed finger away slowly, as if it were a loaded gun.
‘I’m sticking up for you.’
‘I know, I know. Thank you.’
She folded her arms and stared, as she had been only ninety minutes ago, out the passenger window. ‘Right, Pat, get us home and we’ll have a good night. We need to salvage what’s left of it after that shit.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I think that’s going to be necessary.’
‘You’ve got some strange friends, Patrick,’ Andy said.
His mom, as if reading Patrick’s mind, answered: ‘I know yeah.’
‘Not friends anymore, I suspect.’
‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘And what a shame that is.’
‘Yeah, not at all.’ He sighed. ‘Right then. Let’s go home.’

He put his foot down to leave but they came to the gate. It took him an agonising ten seconds to work up the courage to press the intercom. It was made more difficult by Andy calling Clark names from the back and Jo egging him on.

Home

He stepped inside the kitchen/diner and threw the house keys onto the sofa. Snowball fled through her flap in the backdoor. Patrick spread his arms above his head and shouted, ‘Okay, everybody, we need to salvage this night. Set up the karaoke, Andy! Wahoo!’

Well that was easy. Karaoke consisted of three wooden spoons and a YouTube video. Before long they were blasting it in the garden, each with a fag in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, half cut on brandy and gin, embracing in a family hug as they screamed along with Alicia Keys and Jay-Z. The straightjackets were off. For just a few hours they were escaped patients of the oldest and largest asylum, population seven billion.

As the song wound down, Andy pulled them tighter into the trim arms of his denim jacket. Tomorrow, despite knowing he had underperformed in university, he would go back to decrying every job he could find as not good enough for him and the charade might last just another few weeks before Mom’s patience ran out. But for one shining moment he saw what was really anchoring him to home.

These two old gits were his favourite people.