Paige realised she had never heard them mention a son, “Does he live nearby?” she asked.
“Um...” Arlene thought, rubbing the edge of the gold tasselled placemats nervously against her hands.
Paige could tell trying to recall the answer was distressing her, so she added, “I look forward to meeting him.”
Arlene brightened again, and said, “He teaches in the history department at the university.”
Paige heard the front door slam, and Eckland finally appeared, having wandered off earlier giving only his usual vague reasons.
“Ah, Paige!” He said, as if he’d forgotten that she was still there, “This is my son, Leo.”
Leo was surprisingly tall given both of his parents’ rather short statures and towered above Eckland as they entered the dining room together.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Leo said, extending his hand to Paige, who shook it awkwardly. Leo was clearly a similar age to Paige, or just a few years older, which Paige thought was odd considering how elderly the Ecklands were – in their late 70s or 80s.
“And you,” she replied.
“Are you a student at the university?” Leo asked, sitting down opposite Paige and helping himself to potatoes.
“No, I...” Paige didn’t really know how to qualify her job to him.
“Paige is my associate,” Eckland said.
“Associate,” Leo parroted back, giving Paige a wry smile. It seemed Leo was aware of his parents’ eccentricity.
“She is organising my papers for publication.”
“That must be... interesting,” Leo said, again with a hint of irony in his voice.
This time it wasn’t lost on Eckland, who loudly declared, “A noble job - he who is not a good servant will not be a good master!”
“Dad, I’m not sure Paige wants to be called your servant,” Leo said, ushering them to all start eating as he placed a Yorkshire pudding on his plate.
“I’m enjoying the work! I’m glad to be using my degree,” Paige said, trying to placate any tension from Eckland’s previous comment.
“What did you do before this?” Leo asked.
“A bit of this and a bit of that,” Paige said, somewhat ashamed to talk about her employment history in front of three university lecturers.
“Jack of all trades, master of none, except you have brains, Paige! And even after the unfortunate incident last week, you push on,” Eckland proclaimed.
“Incident?” Leo queried.
“I was attacked.” Paige said, going bright red as she gestured to the plaster on my neck and the bruises on her wrist.
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Leo said, honest empathy in his voice.
“Thank you. You also look like you’ve been in the wars,” Paige said, pointing to a gash, now healing over, that split the blonde hair on the right side of his head straight down the middle.
“Oh, this is nothing – I hit my head on a door, it’s an embarrassing story,” Leo brushed her comments aside just as he brushed his fingers through the hair on that side of his head, ruffling it so that it fell over the gash.
The rest of the dinner conversation was pleasant – Leo continued to mock his father’s ridiculous turns of phrase and his mother’s half-deluded stories about whichever TV character she was currently spending time with.
At 6, Paige made her excuses to go home, and Leo insisted on walking her up the road to the bus stop. Paige was hesitant, but Leo said he was heading the same way anyway.
“My house is just past the station,” he explained.
“Ah, I wasn’t sure if you were local - your mum couldn’t remember when I asked her,” Paige said, tentative about bringing up such a sensitive topic.
“Her mind isn’t what it used to be,” Leo agreed sadly, “She really is a brilliant scholar, but now she struggles to focus.”
“Was she in English, like your dad?”
“No, languages. She taught Latin, French, German – you name it. Her and dad have travelled the world a hundred times over.”
“Wow, what an amazing life they’ve had,” Paige remarked.
“Absolutely, my sister and I used to say they were like explorers. It made it easier to bear when they went away for weeks at a time when we were little,” He added.
“I can imagine that was hard. Does your sister live in Oxford too?”
“No, uh... she passed away,” Leo said.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t know, it’s ok,” Leo said, “My parents have never really gotten over it, but they don’t really talk about her now. Dad likes to act as if she didn’t exist. Mum rereads her favourite book a lot – Sherlock Holmes. My sister was obsessed with crime novels as a kid.”
“Me too, I love Agatha Christie and P. D. James.”
Leo nodded, adding, “I’m more of a Stieg Larsson man myself,” they exchanged a warm smile and Leo quietly cleared his throat, “Listen, uh... I was wondering if you might like to get a drink sometime?”
Paige was stunned. Perhaps her recent break up had blinded her to the possibility of anyone else being interested in her, but she hadn’t thought that’s where this was leading.
“Look, Leo...”
“Just one drink,” Leo pushed playfully.
“I’ve just come out of a relationship and... I don’t know...” Paige was floundering now, but she could see that they were nearly at the bus stop.
“Just the one,” He held up his hands, “I promise, no expectations, just two people talking about books. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
“Yes, actually, it does,” Paige admitted.
“Friday night, 7pm in The Punter?”
“Ok,” she said.
“Sounds perfect,” Leo said. They had reached the bus stop. They said their goodbyes and Leo walked away just minutes before the bus arrived. Paige choose a window seat and could just make out his figure walking up the adjacent road.
She noticed got out her phone and opened Facebook to pass the journey.
Someone from school, Jess Evans, had had her baby. The post read, “Aiden Lewis Evans, born 06/06/19, our beautiful baby boy.” Paige rolled her eyes, remembering how 15-year-old Jess had teased Paige for wanting children, swearing she never would.
Another post showed a friend from university getting her
