Page 36 of Dead Serious Case 4 Professor Prometheus Plume
She pulls back, pulling a tissue from her pocket and wiping her nose as she looks up at Danny. “I’m really sorry I didn’t say something before.” She hiccups,
“It’s okay,” he says quietly. “I probably shouldn’t have just walked away and cut everyone off.” He glances over at Nick and Leigh. “I think there’s enough sorry to go around.”
“I’m really proud of you, Mum, for standing up to Derek.” Leigh wraps her arms around Shirley as well, so she’s sandwiched between her two youngest children.
Shirley sniffs loudly. “I don’t want to be mad at any of my kids, and I don’t want anyone to feel as if they’re not welcome in this house.”
“It’s out of your hands now, Shirley,” I interject. “You told everyone they’re welcome here, but you’ve also laid down boundaries.”
She sighs and steps out of her children’s embrace. “I’m so sorry, Tristan. I’m sure that wasn’t what you were expecting when you came to visit.”
“Come and sit down.” I reach for her and she takes my hand, then lowers herself onto the sofa next to me. “Danny, why don’t you get your mum a cup of tea?”
“Thank you, love,” she says as Danny hands her a cup. It trembles in her hands, the china rattling against the saucer. “I don’t know why my hands are shaking.”
“It’s the adrenaline, Gran,” Nick says from the armchair he’s settled himself in.
“Is that the first time you’ve–”
“Stood up to anyone?” Shirley gives a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Stupid, isn’t it? A grown woman like me too afraid to stand up for herself.”
“It’s not stupid,” a quiet voice speaks from across the room. We all turn to look at Ellen, who glances up from the book she’s been reading. “It’s not who you are. Some people just aren’t confrontational and don’t know how to handle dominant personalities. You may feel bad because you think you didn’t stand up for Leigh the day she left home, but you were the one who went around and asked your friends to donate things for her—food, clothes, all the stuff she and the baby would need. You’re the one who petitioned the council to move her into her own flat where she and the baby would be safe. You may not have known when she went into labour because no one knew to call you, but the second you found out Nick had been born you told Dad that you didn’t care what he chose to do but you were going to be a part of your daughter’s and your grandson’s lives, and you were. You were there for every scraped knee, every school play. You babysat when Leigh had to work. When it mattered, you showed up. Why don’t you tell Danny what you told Dad the night he left?”
“What?” Danny’s eyes widen and he turns to his mum. “You said something to Dad?”
When Shirley didn’t look as if she could force the words past her throat, Ellen answered, “She told him he was a fool, that he should care more about his children hurting than what other people thought of them. That he was going to lose you if he didn’t stop perpetuating the prejudices that he was raised with.”
They all stare at Ellen for a long time like she’s a family pet that’s suddenly started talking, and I get the impression she doesn’t speak often and when she does, it’s not usually so profound.
“There are too many secrets and miscommunications in this family, all because no one knows how to open up and talk to each other. So maybe you should stop feeling guilty or assigning blame and just talk to each other.”
“Ellen,” Leigh starts, only to go silent again, clearly lost for words.
“It never bothered me that you had a baby or that Danny is gay. The truth is that I’m not good with people, even the ones I’m related to. I prefer my own company—it’s quieter.”
Without saying another word, she picks up her book and begins reading again.
Danny seems surprised that Ellen has spoken and from what he’d said previously, I had got the feeling she sided with her older brothers. However, watching her now, and the way she withdraws from everyone and seems irritated by them disturbing her reading, I get the feeling she’s been unfairly judged.
After studying his sister quietly for a moment, Danny finally turns back to his mum. “Did you really say that to Dad?”
She sighs. “Danny, Leigh, you may not believe it, but your dad loves you. He loves all of you.” She looks over at Mark, Jack, and Nick. “He just doesn’t know how to show it. He was raised in a very hard environment. You younger ones never really knew your grandfather, but he was a tough man. There wasn’t a lot of love in your father’s house when he was growing up, so he never learned how to show it.” She turns back to Danny. “He was never the same after you left, but honestly, I don’t know if he’ll ever be capable of showing you how he really feels.”
Danny nods slowly, his expression troubled, like his whole vision had just shifted.
“Why don’t you tell us all about you and Tristan?” She smiles at me. “How you met, your jobs, what it’s like living in London. I want to know everything that’s happened this past year.”
So we do. We finally take off our coats and sit for ages drinking tea and telling everyone left how Danny and I met when he performed CPR on me after I choked on an ice cube, then follow that up with stories about the flat, Jacob Marley, Chan, and the other drag queens at The Rainbow Room. We leave out all theI see ghostsandwe saved the world from a chaos monster because of a magic doorstuff. But Mark, Jack, and Leigh are fascinated by our lives and our friends and keep asking questions while Nick listens quietly and Ellen ignores everyone in favour of her book.
Shirley inhales every word, just happy to have Danny back. Mark and Jack are both funny and tease Danny, but in the sweet way that adult brothers sometimes do. There’s no undercurrent of spite like there had been with Derek. Euan and Gareth seem to have made themselves scarce. Although Euan apologised and I believe Shirley has given them something to think about with her apparently uncharacteristic outburst, I doubt they’ll change overnight, if at all, but I hope they do, for their own kids sakes if nothing else.
Leigh is hilarious, an unstoppable force of nature. But Nick, he’s the one who reminds me the most of Danny. Not only could he be his uncle’s double, but he seems content to sit back and let everyone else speak, and not in the sullen, stroppy way teenagers often do, more like he’s just taking everything in. I get the feeling he’s had to grow up a lot quicker than most kids his age. There’s a mature and confident calmness about him not a lot of eighteen-year-olds possess.
Finally, Danny glances down at his watch. “We really do have to get going. Tristan and I need to get to the hotel.”
“Oh.” The one word clearly shows Shirley’s disappointment. “Are you ever going to come back?”
“Permanently? No,” Danny says. “London is my home now. But”—he looks at me and I nod—“Tris and I will visit sometime.”