sex twice recently. He knew he was pushing it last night, but he got his own way, more focused in his determination than he might usually have been because of the great shag they had last week. This time was nothing like as good, but at least it happened. Angel doesnât often give him blow jobs and he is never sure if she likes oral sex either. Funny not to know that about your own wife. Anyway, fuck it; he got laid, even though it was as a direct result of being turned on by Jeannie. Sex with an uninterested spousemight be a hollow victory, but at least it is an affirmation that he is alive. As is sobriety. Nick is standing outside the kitchen, feeling a little foolish now with nothing on. There is a rumble of thunder coming from the coast, and lightning licks across the sky. A pair of shorts belonging to Jem is in a crumpled heap beside a huge super soaker gun in the yard. Nick puts them on. It is a shame Jem didnât join in the water fight at the Gildoffsâ last night. OK, so he and Coral, Peter and Joanna were in the two teams, but Joanna was doing it to impress Jem. There was no doubt about it, from the lingering looks she cast his way when they were sitting on the edge of the pool eating the kebabs Peter had made. Nick felt he might have looked foolish joining in the childrenâs game, but fuck it, Peter did too. Angel was always complaining that he didnât get involved enough, and frankly, he felt so randy he needed to get in the water to cool down. Angel was subdued all evening. She said she had a headache, but it must have gone or he never would have got her to have sex with him. God, Peter Gildoff must have a headache this morning; he must have put away half a bottle of whisky last night. Nick shudders, standing in the kitchen doorway in the gently malevolent pre-storm morning. Whisky would never be his weapon against himself.
âA man can say he is truly successful when the Scotch he drinks is older than the woman he is sleeping with.â This was Nickâs fatherâs dictum. A difficult one for his teenage son to respect, and bewildering too, as the years passed and Nickâs fatherâs hairlinereceded, his stature diminished and his girlfriends got steadily more nubile.
A man can say he is truly a loser when his son is older than the woman he is sleeping with â Nick was waiting for it to get to that stage, looking forward to toasting his dad with a superbly barbed speech on some God-awful family celebration, but he never got the chance. Silas Stone died with much less of a flourish than he lived, in pain, alone in hospital, visited regularly by his ex-wife Naomi and less often by his only child, his sixteen-year-old son Nick. Nick was appalled when his mother first began visiting Silas.
âWhy are you doing that? He doesnât deserve to be visited by you. Heâs nothing to do with you, Mum.â Naomi smiled her sepulchral smile, and Nick realised that to her Silas had stopped being the focus of her heartbreak and become her favourite thing â a duty.
Nickâs anger was directed at his mother. He saw her feeding Silasâs insatiable need for women; he did not recognise that she was feeding her own yearning to be needed. Nick was isolated and confused; his mother had cared only for him since Silas left ten years before, and now she was returning to the man whose absence Nick had experienced in her crying into her pillow night after night. Nick could not understand how she could forgive him. He didnât realise that forgiveness becomes a compulsion, no longer a choice, in the face of death. Or it can. Nickâs resentment of his father was something he kept locked in himself. He felt he had no choice but to be Naomiâs companion; he was a reluctant Mummyâs boy, he wasafraid of her need of him, but if he did not stay close to her, she would be alone. He could not imagine his mother alone.
It was ironic then, that once Silas died,
âA man can say he is truly successful when the Scotch he drinks is older than the woman he is sleeping with.â This was Nickâs fatherâs dictum. A difficult one for his teenage son to respect, and bewildering too, as the years passed and Nickâs fatherâs hairlinereceded, his stature diminished and his girlfriends got steadily more nubile.
A man can say he is truly a loser when his son is older than the woman he is sleeping with â Nick was waiting for it to get to that stage, looking forward to toasting his dad with a superbly barbed speech on some God-awful family celebration, but he never got the chance. Silas Stone died with much less of a flourish than he lived, in pain, alone in hospital, visited regularly by his ex-wife Naomi and less often by his only child, his sixteen-year-old son Nick. Nick was appalled when his mother first began visiting Silas.
âWhy are you doing that? He doesnât deserve to be visited by you. Heâs nothing to do with you, Mum.â Naomi smiled her sepulchral smile, and Nick realised that to her Silas had stopped being the focus of her heartbreak and become her favourite thing â a duty.
Nickâs anger was directed at his mother. He saw her feeding Silasâs insatiable need for women; he did not recognise that she was feeding her own yearning to be needed. Nick was isolated and confused; his mother had cared only for him since Silas left ten years before, and now she was returning to the man whose absence Nick had experienced in her crying into her pillow night after night. Nick could not understand how she could forgive him. He didnât realise that forgiveness becomes a compulsion, no longer a choice, in the face of death. Or it can. Nickâs resentment of his father was something he kept locked in himself. He felt he had no choice but to be Naomiâs companion; he was a reluctant Mummyâs boy, he wasafraid of her need of him, but if he did not stay close to her, she would be alone. He could not imagine his mother alone.
It was ironic then, that once Silas died,
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