Will smiled and crunched the ice cube between his teeth.
Danny looked around the room. “You know, me and your mum came to this café on our very first date?”
Will frowned and looked around as if the café had suddenly materialized around him.
“Nothing’s changed by the looks of it. Even the tablecloths are the same.”
Will peeled his elbows from the sticky laminate.
“Think he was here then too,” said Danny, tilting his head towards the man asleep at the next table.
Will smiled.
“I wanted to take her somewhere nice, but neither of us had any money. Well, I had a few quid but I’d lost it all trying to win something from one of those grabber machines.” Danny made a claw with his hand and lowered it onto Will’s head. “You know that battered old teddy bear in your bedroom? The one that Mum gave you? I won that for her. It probably cost me ten times more than it would have cost to buy in a shop, but it got me a kiss at least.”
Will looked like he’d just seen a pigeon get hit by a truck, not fatally but enough to leave it mangled by the roadside.
“Too much information?” said Danny.
Will nodded emphatically.
“Sorry about that.” Danny took a sip of Coke. “You might not know this, but your mum knew all about you before you were even born.”
Will frowned as he tried to make sense of what Danny had just said.
“It’s true. She told me everything, right there at that table thirteen years ago.” He pointed to a vacant table in the corner.
Will turned to look.
“We were chatting about stuff, just getting to know each other, you know? Favorite colors, favorite films, favorite ways to upset our teachers, that sort of thing. At some point she asked if I ever wanted kids, which I wasn’t really expecting. I mean, it’s a pretty serious question for a fifteen-year-old, right? She just wanted to see how I’d react, but I didn’t know that at the time. She always liked to mess with people, didn’t she?” Will nodded. “Remember when she told that Jehovah’s Witness she was a devil worshipper?”
Will laughed. He drew a circle on his forehead with his finger.
“That’s right, she even drew a pentagram on her forehead. Poor guy didn’t know what to say. We never saw him again, though, did we? Anyway, so she asks if I want kids, and I say yes. I hadn’t given it much thought, but I figured that was probably what she wanted to hear. Then I asked her the same question, and she nodded and said one word. You know what she said?”
Will shook his head. He leaned forward without touching the tablecloth.
“William. That’s what she said. I didn’t know what she meant so I asked her to explain, and she said, ‘That’s his name. William.’ And then she went on to describe everything about you as if you already existed—as if you were sitting right there with us at the table. Blond hair, blue eyes, big feet, handsome as hell. She even knew you’d have a birthmark on your arm.”
Will admired his birthmark as if it weren’t a natural phenomenon but a gift his mother had given to him.
“Crazy, right? I laughed when she said it, but I stopped when I saw how serious she was. You know that look she gets. Anyway, you arrived a couple of years later, and you were everything your mum said you’d be, but even more handsome, of course. It was the most amazing thing. It was like you’d always been a part of her, right from the beginning, you know? And so even though she’s not here anymore, she’s not gone really, because now she’s a part of you. She’s in your smile, she’s in your eyes, she’s in the way you always used to pronounce the silent l in salmon. I see her every time you hold your toothbrush with your little finger sticking out like the queen when she’s drinking her tea. I see her when you pout in your sleep like you’re being told off in your dreams. I see her whenever you use your knife and fork like a rightie, even though you’re left-handed, and I definitely saw her when you were tearing up that dance floor back there. I see her every time I look at you, mate, and that’s why I could never, ever forget your mum. Because as long as you’re here, she’ll always be here too, you know?”
Will nodded slowly, his eyes so glassy that Danny could see his own reflection in them. He took some napkins from the dispenser as the waitress arrived to clear their plates.
“Food that bad, was it?” she joked.
“He’s just got something in his eye,” said Danny, winking at Will. “Want to grab some ice cream on the promenade?”
Will’s face brightened at the mention of ice cream.
“Thought you might.” Danny downed his Coke and returned his wallet to his pocket. “Come on, let’s—uuurrrp!” He slapped his palm over his mouth, but the burp had already escaped. Will burst out laughing.
“Sorry about that,” said Danny, his face turning redder than the plastic lobster trapped in the fishing net above him. “How embarrassing. Come on, let’s—”
“Uuurrrp!”
Danny looked up to find Will grinning mischievously.
“That’s not funny, Will.”
Will’s grin faltered at the sound of Danny’s Dad Voice.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to burp louder than your father?” said Danny. He let rip with another burp, this one deliberate. Will giggled and did the same, and Danny responded with a belch so loud that it woke the old man asleep at the next table.
“Sorry,” said Danny, raising a hand in apology. “It’s the Coke. It’s very gassy.” He rubbed his chest for emphasis and tried to keep a straight face, but he burst into laughter the moment he saw Will sniggering at him from across the table. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 22
He wasn’t sure when it had happened exactly, but as Danny took a bow and thanked the crowd for their time, their applause, and, most importantly, their money, it occurred to him that he had, at some point since purchasing the panda suit, started to enjoy his newfound profession. He was commanding bigger crowds than ever before and he was making more money than anybody else in the park. He was still putting every ounce of energy into his performances, and he was still taking a sweat-soaked costume home every night, but it no longer felt like work because it no longer felt like a chore. He’d spent his entire adult life laboring on building sites without even the slightest recognition for a job well done. He’d spent so many years taking orders from people who couldn’t order a pizza without screwing it up. He’d seen more than one colleague get seriously injured and each time wondered if he’d be next, especially during the winter when everybody’s minds were as numb as their hands and accidents became routine. And now here he was, being applauded and cheered by scores of people for dancing in a park, without anybody telling him what to do or how to do it (apart from Krystal), where the only real threat to his well-being came from children trying to hug him and inadvertently head-butting him in the testicles.
Thanks to the panda, he’d also started to feel increasingly closer to Liz. Dancing had been such a big part of her life and now, unbelievably, it was a big part of his. Even though it was far too late for them to enjoy those lives together—to practice together, to watch Dirty Dancing together, to tear up the town together—doing something his wife loved so much made him feel as if he understood her just that little bit more. Danny felt, in the strangest way, that he knew his wife even better now than he did when she was alive. It was almost as if the panda had ceased being a costume and become like a medium, holding Danny’s hand in one paw and holding his wife’s in the other and connecting them in a way that he never could have imagined.