Now she mentioned it, Mal could smell it—something rich and meaty, with a strong hint of tomato and garlic. Suddenly he was starving. “Right, yeah—sorry about that. Uh-oh. Think I just died. Gotta work on them dodge-rolls. You ready for your tea, JJ?”
“‘JJ’?” Kirsty asked, as Gawen shut down the game and scrambled to his feet with all the grace of a new-born elephant.
“Jory Junior,” Mal explained with a shrug by way of apology.
She winced. “Call him that again and you’ll be wearing your dinner, not eating it.”
“I don’t mind, Mum,” Gawen said, pushing back his glasses with a finger.
“You’re your own man, Gawen Roscarrock, and never forget it,” she said, turning to lead the way downstairs.
Dinner was Moroccan lamb with couscous, which they ate with forks sitting out in the back garden around a weathered wooden table. Mal tried not to laugh at Gawen carefully picking out every single bit of dried fruit from his couscous and piling it on the side of his plate. He didn’t do too well. Gawen sent him a shy, guilty smile.
“That’s all I need, you encouraging him,” Kirsty said with a mock glare in Mal’s direction as she grabbed the bottle of cider and gave them both a top-up. “I ought to make you eat them instead.”
“Hey, no problem. Nothing wrong with getting your vitamins.” Mal slid his plate next to Gawen’s and scooped the little pile of reject fruit onto his dinner.
The back garden was like the front one, except different. Half of it was paved over and the rest was decking, but there were plants all over in bright earthenware pots, and climbing things growing up the fence on all three sides. It was filled with reclaimed-looking furniture that’d probably sell for a fortune if you shoved it in an antique shop somewhere like Notting Hill. Mal could just see Kirsty scouring auctions and house sales for it. Maybe skips and rubbish dumps too—she didn’t seem the sort to worry about getting her hands dirty.
He’d never lived in a house with a garden, so he’d never really got it when people on the telly talked about outdoor rooms, but yeah, here, he could totally see it.
“You lived here long?” he asked, fairly sure he knew the answer.
“Since just before my baby here was born.” Yeah, he’d been right.
Gawen went pink. “Mu-um.”
“Get used to it, mate.” Mal ruffled Gawen’s hair. “I’m twice your age and got me own home, and my mum ain’t stopped calling me her baby yet. Hey, this is awesome. Authentic African recipe?”
“Sainsbury’s magazine. But close.”
A large, fluffy cat with a fuck-off expression and only one eye jumped up on Kirsty’s lap. She stroked it absently with one hand, and carried on eating with the other.
“Yours? Or is he only visiting?”
“Well, I feed him, but I think he belongs to himself.”
Gawen leaned over to pet the cat in his mum’s lap. “He just turned up one day. I call him Tigger.”
“Yeah? You sure, mate? He don’t look all that bouncy to me. Maybe we should get him on a trampoline.”
Gawen giggled. “Have you got a cat?”
“Me? No. I’m a rat man. Always have been.”
“Explains a lot,” Kirsty said, and cackled.
“Oi, watch it, you.” Mal chased the last of his meal around his plate, not wanting to waste any.
“Rats caused the black death.” Gawen’s voice started off disapproving but ended up like a question.
“Jesus, you cause one little plague that killed off half of Europe, and nobody ever lets you forget it, do they? And it wasn’t the rats, smarty-pants. It was the fleas that carried the germs. Wasn’t the rats’ fault no one had invented spot-on treatments yet, was it?”
“How many rats have you got?”
“Seven. Uh, no, six, since Hermione died. And no, not of bubonic plague,” he added pointedly.
“Were you sad when she died?” Gawen asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I was. She was a good rat.”
Mal glanced over at Kirsty, expecting a smart comment, but she just raised her glass of cider. “To Hermione.”
He smiled, touched. “To Hermione.”
Gawen broke the moment by getting to his feet. “Mum, I need to do my homework now.”
“Course you do, love. Don’t worry about the dishes. Me and Mal’ll clear up.”
She didn’t make any move to leave the table as Gawen went inside, so Mal topped their glasses up. It was nice sitting here, out in the fresh air with the sky turning pink. “He’s a good kid.”
“He is.” Kirsty stood up, the cat tumbling off her lap without even a yowl, like he was used to it. “Let’s go sit on the bench. It’s the best place to watch the sun go down. Better make the most of it—I think the weather’s on the turn.”
Mal grabbed his glass and the bottle and joined her on the bench. It was the old-fashioned wrought iron type, but she’d stripped it down, painted it sky blue, and bunged on a few patchwork cushions. And it faced right at the blaze of colour in the sky as the sun disappeared over the hills. Dev’s bloke, Kyle, he’d have loved that sky. He’d done a couple of paintings of sunsets, the colours all way too vivid to be accurate, except they were, Mal realised, gazing at what was in front of him. Funny how your mind did that. Had to turn down the brightness on reality before you could believe in it properly.
“Nice view,” he said, and yeah, well eloquent, mate. Embarrassed, he nodded to the wooden shed beside them, painted to match the bench. “That where you keep your driftwood—you know, the stuff you haven’t done anything with?”
“The smaller pieces are in there. I’ve got a garage for the larger bits.” She fell silent again.
“Is Gawen arty like you?” There hadn’t been much sign of it in the kid’s bedroom, unless Mal was doing him an injustice and he’d painted that mural himself, but you never knew.
She half laughed. “Gawen? No. He’s not arty.” Then
