Jonty had made an effort to join in, but it seemed as if four-year-old Lucien, sitting on Jonty’s other side, was listened to more than Jonty. Am I just being over-sensitive?
When Devan’s mother and his sister Venice brought two enormous strawberry pavlovas to the table, things quietened down as conversation changed to murmurs of approval.
“You’re a brilliant cook,” Jonty said. “This is delicious.”
“Anyone can make a meringue,” his mother said.
“I can’t,” Cato said.
His mother might have answered Jonty, but she immediately struck up a conversation with Venice’s husband about the hospital he worked at. Devan didn’t miss Jonty’s quiet sigh.
“Do you read?” Ellen asked Jonty over Lucien’s head.
“I did learn, yes,” Jonty said.
Ellen laughed. “That serves me right. What do you like to read?”
“Gay romances. Violent crime thrillers. Non-fiction. Devan’s diary.”
There was an intake of shock from more than his sister.
“Very boring,” Jonty said. “Meeting HL at two. Dinner with RR next Wednesday. Cut nails on Tuesday. He never does anything exciting. No bungee jumping on the 7th, or spelunking on the 10th.”
Devan smothered his laugh.
“I read quite widely,” Jonty said. “Devan says you write literary fiction. I must admit, I don’t really get what that means. I looked it up, but saying it’s a story that tries to be bigger than the story itself sounds pretentious, as if anything that’s not literary fiction never comments on significant issues.”
Devan could sense those around the table tuning into the conversation.
“I read a romance about an American cowboy going to Russia to teach Russians how to be cowboys and I learnt so much about all sorts of things. Cattle ranching, the way Russians think and behave, how to reinsert a prolapsed uterus, not that I could try it myself. I… uh. I read for fun, to be entertained. I want to be transported to another world, and to lose myself in that world. I really don’t want to be lectured to on social issues, or have to read page after page about something I have no interest in or even worse, be told that just because I didn’t get the book, I was somehow inferior and not intellectual enough to admire the beauty of the author’s language.”
“Really!” Devan heard his mother snap. “Ellen was almost up for a Booker Prize nomination.”
Ellen’s eyes were sparkling. “Along with a whole load of others.” She laughed. “Jonty’s right. The worst sort of writer of literary fiction is the one who believes the hype, that they’re writing something that’s worthier than commercial fiction. It’s not true. It’s just different and not to everyone’s taste, just as every genre is not to everyone’s taste. Do I want to sit by a pool and read some character-heavy, barely-plotted story about a barn in Nova Scotia? No, I’d rather read about an American cowboy in Russia.”
Devan loved his sister more at that point than he ever remembered loving her.
“I don’t read her books,” Cato said. “They’re too complicated.”
Ellen huffed. “So says someone doing a PhD in a subject none of us understand.”
“Jonty does,” Cato said. “Tell them, Jonty.”
“I’m fascinated by the use of gravitational lensing to characterise the dark matter environments of galaxies and galaxy clusters, and statistical properties of the cosmic mass distribution. The interstellar medium’s like MI5, it holds so many secrets. I mean, how brilliant that all this material is held and recycled between tenuous, diffuse regions and dense molecular clouds, from where it can be converted into stars, then tied up for long periods before being ejected back into the area it came from through stellar winds or other outflows.”
For a long moment, Jonty silenced the room.
“Wow,” Venice said.
Jonty shrugged. “We’re all miracles of matter.”
You are so perfect. Devan wanted to drag him upstairs and fuck him.
“Well, Ellen’s books are beautiful,” Venice said. “Nigel and I have read them all.”
“Have you read my latest, Devan?” Ellen asked. “The Curious War.”
“He’s started it.” Jonty nudged him. “Remember?”
Devan did remember and smiled. “He began the day as he always did by counting how many shades of green he could see through the window of his prison.”
Ellen’s face lit up.
“Don’t ask him about it yet,” Jonty said quickly. “He won’t even talk to me about a book until he’s finished it. I’d give him about three months. He’s very slow. He runs his finger under the words and says them out loud. So cute.”
Oh you little bastard. Devan pressed his fingers into Jonty’s thigh. Hard. But everyone, even his mother was laughing.
Once his mother had enough help clearing up, Devan whisked Jonty away. “We’re going for a walk. Don’t tell Cato or he’ll try and come with us.”
They managed to grab their coats, put on boots and beanies and slip away without anyone noticing. Devan clung to Jonty’s hand as they set off across the garden.
“She’s being a bitch,” Devan said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t call her that. She’s being fine. She just doesn’t want you hurt again.”
Devan gave a heavy sigh. “She is hurting me by not being nice to you.”
“I’ll wear her down. By the end of our stay she’ll be all over me and love hens. You’ll see.”
“Please don’t even mention hens. She really doesn’t like them.”
“What about turkeys?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ostriches?”
“Jonty, I have no idea.” He took a deep breath. “You know I said that Griff wouldn’t be here…”
“Oh, is he coming?”
“Apparently. Mum doesn’t know.”
“Did you think about leaving?”
Devan glanced at him. “I’m not going to leave.”
“Good. Except…”
“Except what?”
“I didn’t bring him a present.”
Devan laughed.
“I could let him open the last day on my advent calendar,” Jonty said.
Devan sighed. “He wouldn’t realise the sacrifice that was. I’ve never seen anyone so excited about an advent calendar. And it isn’t even one with chocolates.”
Jonty smiled. “All those exciting little windows. I was hoping for naked men, but maybe tomorrow?”
“Oh God.”
Jonty sighed. “I’ve got something I can give him.”
“I daren’t ask what, but I need to give him something.”
“Not a thump or a piece of your mind?”
“I don’t want to sit there with nothing to give him if he’s handing presents out to everyone. Maybe Dad has a bottle of wine I could wrap up.”
“How about forgiving him instead?”
“It’s Christmas not his hundredth birthday.”
Jonty laughed. “So what does he like doing? Could you arrange an activity day?”