Page 103 of Husband Material
“Whereas Iwhat?” demanded Christopher.
“Come on, you werealwaysthe golden boy.”
At that, Christopher gave a hollow, single-shot laugh, like a bark. “Oh,was I?”
“Do you know how long they kept reminding me that you got better A-level grades than I did?”
“Well, I did.” Christopher gave a near-defiant near-smirk.
“That’s because the A-star grade didn’texistwhen I did mine. I got the best grades I could at the time.”
The near-smirk vanished, but the defiance got more defiant. “And Ididn’t. They had a go at me for only getting an A in maths until I was three years into my medical degree.”
Mia took half a step forward. She looked like she was about to pull out one of the last six pins in a game of KerPlunk. “Is itpossible,” she asked, “justpossiblethat they might have made you both think they liked the other one more?”
“Nonsense,” said Christopher and Oliver at once.
“Every time I spoke to them,” Oliver went on, slightly faster than his brother, “it wasChristopheris going to be a doctor,Christopherhas the loveliest girlfriend,Christophersaid the most interesting thing to us the last time we spoke to him.”
“Oliverwouldn’t be out so late on a school night,” Christopher shot back, “Oliverknows how to do what he’s told,Olivermakes time for us.”
“Well, Idid,” Oliver snapped back. “Instead of spending all my time backpacking and sightseeing and running around with my friends. Friends, by the way, who they made very certain to tell me all about.” He lapsed back into hisparentsvoice. “We don’t seenearlyas much of Christopher as we’d like, but then youhaveto give young boys their freedom and he’s so verypopular.”
Mia gave me a look of desperation, and I did my best to intervene. “Guys,” I tried, “one of you is a barrister, the other one’s a doctor. You are bothwaytoo smart to still be falling for this shit.”
“What shit?” asked Christopher, and to my dismay, he seemed to genuinely mean it. “Ollie here dideverythingthey wanted, so when Ididn’t, I got hell.”
Oliver sneered. He actually sneered. It was like I was dating the evil one in a costume drama. The one who’s determined to steal the hero’s tin mine. “You mean you did whatever the hell you liked, and they still thought the sun shone out of your backside, so I had to work twice as hard to get half as much—”
“I can’t believe you would even suggest—”
“Mia”—I announced over the top of the Blackwood brothers—“do you want to just run off together? I know I’m gay, but I reckon I can work something out.”
Stepping pointedly in between Christopher and Oliver, Mia took my hand. “Yeah, let’s go to Paris.”
Christopher flung a glance at us. “What are you two doing?”
“We’re leaving you for each other,” Mia explained, “because you’re both awful.”
“I mean,” I added, “you’re both in your late twenties or early thirties, and you’ve been talking about your fucking A-level results.”
There was a little silence. Not a this-man-has-made-a-good-point-and-we’re-chill-now kind of silence. More an O.K. Corral kind of silence.
At last, Oliver took one of his trademark I-am-being-calm-and-mature-and-you-are-not breaths. “Perhaps we are being a little heated. Christopher, I understand that what I did today caught you unawares. And in an ideal world I should have said something to you beforehand.”
He’d been trying to be conciliatory, but Christopher didn’t look conciliated. “‘I should have said something to you beforehand’? Is that the best you can do?”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to read ‘If’?” Normally I loved Oliver’s dry half jokes, but this clearly wasn’t the time.
“How about if you were going to find the backbone to talk back to our…to our…to ourcomplete prickof a father…” The moment the words were out, something lifted from Christopher Blackwood—a small something, admittedly, but something. “You should have done it when he wasalive. When it could be at least atinybit of use to either of us.”
A similar something, and similarly small, seemed to shift in Oliver too. “I didn’t plan for this.”
“I know you didn’t. Just. Fuck.” Christopher pulled at his hair in frustration. “I really, really, really resent having to go here because I in no way want to validate your grandstanding bullshit, but you remember that thing you said about how the worst of it is you’ll never know how it would have been different if you’d called him on his bullshit earlier?”
“Unfortunately not,” Oliver admitted. “I’m afraid, looking back, it’s rather a blur. But it feels like something I rememberwantingto say.”
“Well, how do you thinkIfelt listening to that?” And there was the note of challenge in Christopher’s voice again. But under that, a note of pleading. “Don’t you think I wanted to know whatmylife might have been like if you’d stood up for me just fuckingoncebefore you were fuckingthirty.”
