Kate noticed that Stella’s voice was just a little too high, just a little too loud.
She felt Freddie tense up next to her and, without thinking, reached out to hold his hand so that he remembered she was there for him.
‘It’s lovely to meet you too!’ Kate found herself replying breezily. ‘I’ve heard so much about you all, and can I meet little Lacey?’
Stella held the baby up and let Kate coo over her. She really was a very cute baby.
Kate smiled as Stella talked about Lacey’s dress and how difficult it had been to choose the right one. She was good at this. A couple of years of greeting and guiding visitors at the gallery had given her the ability to chat comfortably to people of all ages. But at the gallery all people ever really saw was the uniform. Here they were seeing her, wondering about her, and Kate could feel it.
Freddie left her side to place the wrapped photo frame on the gift table, and then veered off to the bar to say hello to his father. He returned shortly after with two flutes of Cham-pagne, looking guily and burdened.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked him, taking a drink.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
After another round of introductions to people whose faces all started to blur into one another, Kate was relieved when Freddie guided her over to the buffet. They filled their plates, then found an empty table near the back of the room where Kate hoped nobody would bother them for a bit.
‘You have such a nice family,’ she said, smiling.
‘I have a big family,’ Freddie said. ‘I don’t even know who half these people are.’
‘But it looks like they all care about you.’
‘I feel like they’re staring at me all the time.’
‘I don’t think they’re all staring, even though it feels that way. People are curious. And they care about you. Maybe you don’t have to be so scared of them.’
She extended a hand across the table and carefully entwined her fingers with his and let their hands stay there, right on the tablecloth, for everyone to see.
‘Well, we are boyfriend and girlfriend,’ Kate said as Freddie looked down at their hands. ‘Might as well be believable.’
‘I didn’t have a chance to come and say hello before.’ David strode over and sat himself next to them at the table, his shoulders broad and his legs planted wide.
Kate still couldn’t get over the similarities between them, and the differences too. That same nose, a little large and aquiline, possessed David’s face in a completely different way; his chin too was the same shape but bolder, sharper. Like someone had taken the form of Freddie, and puffed it all the way up as far as it could go.
‘So, Kate, tell me about yourself.’ David didn’t ask it, he demanded it, running a hand back through his hair.
‘Well, I work at an art gallery. The Central Art Gallery. The one near Trafalgar Square?’
‘Never been there,’ he replied proudly.
‘Oh, well you should visit. It’s pretty nice.’
‘Tell me something, Kate, why should I go and see a piece of art in a gallery when I can see the entire thing on my phone? I’ve got the whole Louvre right here!’
She couldn’t tell if he was teasing her.
‘I mean, you can, sure. But I think that seeing a real work up close, seeing the brush strokes, how the colours react under the lights as you move. I don’t know, it makes you feel connected to it somehow. Like, you’re seeing exactly what the artist intended. It feels important.’
David was watching her, assessing her. Something rose up in Kate, making her feel like she had something to prove. He turned to Freddie. ‘Perhaps you could learn something from this one.’
Kate watched as Freddie stared at his knuckles. She got the sense that he was shrivelling right in front of her.
‘You know, we’ve been trying to convince Fred to come and work for me for ages now? There’s a space for him at my place, but he’s always said no. Maybe you’re the one to help convince him.’
‘Who’s we?’ Freddie asked.
‘You know, Mum and Dad, Stella and me. We just want the best for you.’
Kate looked at Freddie again, her concern growing. Why wasn’t he saying anything?
‘But if he’s happy,’ she wasn’t intending on saying anything more, but now David was looking at her, ‘I mean, if you’re happy and enjoy the work, and you’re paid enough to live, isn’t that OK? Shouldn’t that be enough?’
‘We all love Fred and want the best for him,’ David reiterated.
‘But what about what Freddie wants?’ Kate felt as though she had gone too far. David was looking at her curiously now, cool disdain tempered by a polite smile.
‘Oh, I think I know my brother fairly well.’ He turned to face Freddie directly. ‘Come on, tell her.’
Freddie didn’t say anything.
‘For goodness’ sake.’ David rose from his chair. He looked as though he wanted to say something more to them both, but then thought better of it. ‘I must go and say hello to Cousin Giles. I’ll leave you two to enjoy the party.’
‘I’m sorry about him,’ Freddie mumbled once he was out of earshot.
‘He was all right. Are you though?’ Kate asked, leaning over the table so that she could be closer. She was holding his hand again. She hadn’t noticed when she’d decided to reach for it or whether it had been him who had reached for her.
‘Well, now you’ve met David.’
‘He wasn’t so bad.’
‘I think he liked you, to be honest.’
‘That was him liking me? It felt like a job interview. And I didn’t get the job.’
They sat for a moment together. Kate slowly chewed on a sausage roll.
‘Thanks for sticking up for me,’ Freddie said eventually.
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘No, it was me who didn’t do anything. I really should have done. But I don’t know what to say to him sometimes. He’s always been better than me. In school, in sports, in life in general. I’ve always felt like I never met his standards, like he was always a bit annoyed by having me for a little brother. He can’t understand that I might think differently from him, that I might want different things.’
‘I do genuinely think he wants you to be happy, in his own way.’
‘But his idea of happy, it’s not the same as mine.’
Kate nodded in silent agreement, watching David on the other side of the room, the ease with which he chatted to family members and other guests, the way he threw his arms out when telling stories, how his head tipped all the way back when he laughed. What Freddie perceived as perfection, Kate realised, was probably just a costume David had practice wearing. He wasn’t perfect – he just knew how to appear that way.
‘Hey, want to have some fun?’ she then asked, turning back to Freddie after what was starting to become an uncomfortable silence.
‘Fun? Here?’
‘Look, I don’t know what your family really make of me, but while I’m here and pretending to be your girlfriend, why don’t we dance? You up for it?’
‘I can’t dance,’ Freddie said, and the worry in his eyes made Kate want to laugh.