Page 90 of Everything That Kills Me
Jack squeezed his knee, then put his hand back on the wheel. “You’re very interesting. Tell me more.”
“My mum used to arrange the most fantastic birthday parties. I had a pirate-themed one where she’d made two ships out of cardboard and we painted them. They were big enough for me and my friends to hide behind and we shot at each other with water pistols. I had a dinosaur party and she let me paint the walls in the dining room because she was going to decorate after. She drew the dinosaurs and I applied the paint. There’s a picture of me doing it. I was naked.”
“Is there? Right.”
Zeph chuckled. “She had to buy some special paint because the dinosaurs kept coming through the emulsion she applied. And the birthday cakes… I remember every single one of them. Before she died, she made an album of pictures of me and her, and the cakes. She could have organised birthday parties and made cakes for a living.”
“What did she do?”
“Maths teacher. I suppose I get my love of maths from her. And the piano. She was…” Zeph’s voice broke. “I still miss her. My life would have been so different if she’d been in it.”
“What about your dad?”
“I’m not sure he ever really liked me. I was a disappointment. He’s mad keen on sports and I’m not. I preferred doing puzzles and reading to watching football on the TV. He bought me a Man United kit but I wouldn’t wear it. He gave up then. Mum made up for his lack of interest but once she’d died, I was an inconvenience. I know it takes two to have a conversation, but he’s never made any attempt to get in touch with me since I left.” Zeph paused. “That sounds like I want him to get in touch when I don’t.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely. Do you remember your mum and dad?”
“My father was a…bad man. My mother drank too much and took drugs. I used to hide from them. They hit me.”
“How young were you when they died?”
“Six.”
“Were your parents the reason you’re in witness protection?”
Jack shook his head.
Three more shakes of the head to subsequent questions and Zeph got the hint. The chat was one way.
Between chats and podcasts and music—slug sex was awesome—time passed quickly. Jack suggested they drive down the west coast of France and found somewhere to stay for a longer period and Zeph was fine with that. Once they were in France, he googled places while Jack was behind the wheel, then Zeph took over. Jack found somewhere and booked it. Zeph didn’t mind going with Jack’s suggestion, but when Jack described the house he picked, it didn’t seem much different from any Zeph had looked at.
“I wish you could talk about yourself more,” Zeph said quietly.
“You know why I can’t.”
He did. If Jack had been a leading expert in something unusual, such as…feathers, or slug sex, and Zeph had mentioned that to someone, who’d told someone else and so on, it could lead to Jack being located. The littlest detail could result in disaster. Chaos theory in all its mathematical glory.
“Do you think there’s a name for someone who knows a lot about feathers?” Zeph asked.
“Plumologist? Is there a name for someone who asks weird questions?”
“I think it begins with Z.”
Jack laughed. “The place I booked before we left is coming up soon on the right. If we don’t like the look of it, we’ll drive on.”
“It will be fine. All we need is a bed.”
“Do we need a bed?”
Now Zeph laughed.
Villers-sur-mer was a small French coastal town. The rental was west of the settlement and Zeph parked next to it.
“Wow, it’s windy,” Zeph said as they climbed out of the car.
“Not cold though.”
