“No?” he prompted.
She shook her head, smiling, and stared at the sunset. “I thought he was gonna be like me, you know? Free-spirited, nature lover, bit of a rebel, the sort who doesn’t care what everyone else thinks about him. Then I ended up with this kid who loves school and is like a genius at maths, and he hates parties, and if I didn’t drag him out now and then, he’d spend his whole life indoors on his computer. I mean, I love him to pieces, I really do.” She looked right into Mal’s eyes, her gaze earnest. “I just . . . I just don’t get him. He’s too like Jory.”
“What’s wrong with that?” It came out sharper than Mal had meant it to. He offered her a top-up as an apology.
She gave him a lopsided smile as she held out her glass. “Nothing. I don’t know how to talk to him, though. He’s all quantum mechanics and computer games and nanotechnology, and I can smile and nod, but basically it’s all whoosh.” She mimed something flying over her head.
“Yeah, but . . . does Jory know any of that stuff?”
“That’s the weird part. He’s all into his ye olde knights and damsels stuff, but somehow when Gawen talks, he gets it. And if he doesn’t get it, he goes away and reads up on it till he does. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Like, there was this trading cards game Gawen was obsessed with a while back, and I read the manual three times and I still didn’t have a clue, but Jory taught himself in a weekend so’s Gawen would have someone to play with.”
Mal took a long swallow of his cider. He felt kind of weird, watching her smile get wider and her eyes turn softer as she talked about Jory being this great dad. “You ever wish you and him were, you know, together?”
Kirsty burst out laughing. “Fuck me, no.” She shook her head, still giggling. “Don’t get me wrong, I love him, I really do, but him and me? Not a chance.” She gave Mal a sly look. “Thought you were well in there, though. What happened?”
Mal screwed up his face. He didn’t want to bring Dev into it all. He hadn’t even told him about Jory yet. It didn’t seem right, telling everyone his business. “Ah . . . It’s complicated. I . . . I’m not in a good place to start something like that. And there’s family stuff going on . . .” It was technically true. Just not Mal’s family.
She was nodding. “Know what you mean.”
“You see much of his brother and sister?”
“No more than I can help. They don’t like me much.” She gave another of her little half laughs. “Not sure those two like anyone except each other.”
Mal gave her a look. “You don’t mean . . .?”
She frowned—and then burst out laughing, a loud, earthy sound that filled the air and would probably have the neighbours coming round to complain if she kept it up. Or to ask if they could stay and have some of what she was having. “Oh God. Don’t even make me think about that. No, God, no. Nothing like that.”
“Thank Christ for that.” Jesus, what had he been thinking, asking that question? That would’ve been a fucking fantastic thing to have to explain to Dev about his mum and his uncle.
“Although mind you, I’ve never seen either one of them with a lover,” she said in a teasing voice.
“Oi, don’t start. Kinda weird, though, innit? Jory keeps saying how his big bruv’s so hung up on Family with a capital F—you’d think he’d be keener to have one himself.”
“Would you? I reckon it was the best day of his life when Jory went and provided him with an heir so he wouldn’t have to do anything messy like make one himself.” She took a gulp of cider. “My Gawen’s going to have a lot on his shoulders when he grows up, poor love. I know Bran reckons he’s going to take over the family property empire one day.”
Anyone would think the poor kid was Bran’s, not Jory’s. “Sounds like he’ll be well minted at any rate.”
“I’ve always wanted him to make his own way in life. Not just follow in his uncle’s footsteps.” She leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes for a minute. “So what do you do for a living? I bet you didn’t blindly go into the family business.”
Mal had to laugh. “Yeah, well, that’s where you’d be wrong. I’m a Tube driver, like me dad before me.” Funny how he didn’t mind saying it. She was so easy to talk to. Somehow, as the sky got darker and the warm breeze cooled, Mal found himself pouring out the whole sorry story of his introduction to London Underground’s suicide statistics. “It’s just . . . you have to sit there, and you know it’s gonna happen, and it takes like forever. And afterwards, you think, I had all that time, why the bloody hell didn’t I stop it?”
“But you couldn’t, right? Trains take, I don’t know, a hundred yards to stop, don’t they? More?”
“I wasn’t even going that fast. I’d braked, coming into the station. He was on the platform . . . Shit. You don’t wanna hear about this.” He buried his face in his hands.
“I don’t mind. If you want to talk about it, go ahead.” She reached over and stroked back Mal’s hair from his forehead. “I never used to believe in all that time-slowing-down bollocks till I had a scare with Gawen when he was a tot. And it is bollocks, cos it’s not like you can do anything with all that extra time. You just get to suffer longer.”
Mal nodded jerkily. “What happened?” He
