The Crane Wife(41)
Author: Patrick Ness

‘We are happy–’

‘I thought you’d finally found someone to match all that was wonderful about you, George.’

‘I have–’

‘But she holds something back?’

‘Rachel, I am not having this conversation with you– ’

She stepped closer to him. He remembered too late that he should step back.

‘But how is that better than me?’ she asked.

She stepped closer again, close enough now for him to smell her, her perfume triggering all kinds of memories of kissing that neck, that too-young neck that made no sense at all for a man like him to be kissing. He could also smell the wine on her breath. That weird green glint in her eye hadn’t faded, but she was still Rachel, beautiful and brutal.

‘I’m trying to change,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I want to give. I’ve never given, George? I’ve only taken? But now that I want to give, there’s no one I can–’

She lunged forward to kiss him.

He leaned back, though perhaps not as far or as quickly as he could have (he instantly, guiltily thought), and it became less a kiss than a glancing blow. There was only the one attempt, but when Rachel stepped away, he could see Kumiko over her shoulder, leaning out the back door, looking for him in the dim back garden.

‘George?’ she called.

But in the low light, he couldn’t tell whether she’d seen anything at all.

‘I wonder if we could have everyone’s attention?’ George said, standing near the doorway of the kitchen so that everyone could hear him, Kumiko by his side.

‘About time,’ Amanda heard from a man who introduced himself only as Iv. (‘As in short for Ivan?’ she’d asked, to which he’d answered ‘No.’) He’d spent his entire conversation with her talking about ‘interplays of medial and indeed medium dynamics’ in George and Kumiko’s art while ignoring every bit of Amanda’s scoffing incomprehension.

‘Kumiko and I just want to thank everyone for coming,’ George said, putting his arm around Kumiko’s shoulder.

‘That’s Kumiko?’ a woman in a suit whispered nearby. ‘I thought she was a maid.’

‘We welcome our friends and family,’ George said, raising his glass towards where Amanda was standing with Clare and Hank, Mehmet a foot or two behind. ‘And all our new friends, too.’ He paused, coughed. ‘We have a little announcement to make.’

There was an almost audible creak of tension in the room, Amanda thought, as all the well-dressed strangers simultaneously straightened their postures a quarter of an inch.

‘It’ll be the tile series,’ Amanda heard, in another whisper.

‘It won’t be,’ someone immediately contradicted. ‘That’s only a rumour.’

‘What series?’ a third person whispered.

The first two tutted at the third’s display of ignorance.

‘I know this will come as a shock to some of you,’ George said, specifically looking at Amanda.

‘He’s not,’ Clare said, behind her.

‘Not what?’ Hank asked.

And just as Amanda realised what her mother meant, George said the actual words.

‘Kumiko has graciously agreed to be my wife.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Amanda said, standing almost aggressively close to him.

‘Good night,’ George said to the slightly disgruntled faces filing out. He could hear some muttering, particularly among all those who had approached him after the announcement, asking with stricken faces when the sale would start. They’d been almost universally disbelieving when he’d said he had no intention of selling anything tonight.

Though, in hindsight, he could probably have made a mint.

‘George,’ Amanda insisted. ‘You nearly gave Mum a heart attack.’

He looked at her, and had to blink several times before he could properly see her. Which was strange, as he didn’t think he’d drunk that much.

‘Why would she be upset?’ he asked. ‘We’ve been divorced for–’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said Amanda again, and the angry hurt on her face was almost too much for him to bear. She looked exactly as she did as a twelve-year-old, when he and Clare had used what little extra cash they’d had to replace a badly worn-out cooker without even knowing how much Amanda had been counting on finally getting contact lenses to replace her glasses, a wish neither of them knew existed up until the moment Amanda burst into furious yet extraordinarily sorrowful tears behind her spectacles. They’d found contact-lens money the next month, but the cloud of worry they shared over their difficult, unexpected daughter was never quite manageable again after that. He still worried the same about her now.

So why hadn’t he told her?

‘I just . . .’ he said. ‘It was all very sudden.’

‘She’s moved in, though, and you didn’t mention that either.’

‘She hasn’t really moved in. She’s still got her flat–’

‘And I’ve only met her once. Once.’

‘And you said you liked her. Good night, now! I think he made a rude gesture at me, did you see that?’

‘I do like her. She’s . . .’

Amanda stopped and her eyes seemed to focus on some internal image with an expression he could only describe as unnerved reverie. And then he wondered why he was feeling so hot all of a sudden? His skin was shedding sweat like a natural spring.

‘I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I really am. I just . . . I have so little of her, do you see? So much of her is just completely unknowable. And I get greedy for any tiny bit of her I can have.’ He looked down at the wine glass he still seemed to be holding. ‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted it to be something only I knew. A part of her that was only mine. I’m sorry if that sounds awful, but she’s so–’

‘I understand, Dad,’ Amanda said, but gently. She looked past him over to where Kumiko was handing Clare, Hank and a woozy-looking Mehmet their coats. ‘I think I actually do a bit.’

He touched her gently on the arm. ‘I like it when you call me Dad.’

She turned back to him, and he caught a glimpse of such heartbreak in her eyes that he wanted to take her in his arms and never let her leave this house again, but then she gave a brittle smile and it was gone. ‘I’ve got to get JP,’ she said.