Fiction

The present

The man asks questions the boy cannot answer. Sometimes, such as now, on the highway late at night returning home from Sydney, it’s like playing Tetris in one’s head. Dangerous against the oncoming traffic.

The man does not know if his biological father ever wanted custody of the boy and his sister. Probably not, though perhaps his parents discussed it over the phone.

“You’ve no chance,” the boy’s mother said. “They’re not living with you and that tart.”

As far as the man can tell, this conversation, if it happened at all, must have taken place in 1976 or 1977, when the boy and his family still lived in the north of England. The long hot summer. The Silver Jubilee.

No, there would have been no such conversation, for his mother would have refused to accept the call. The man adjusts his posture.

“It’s him,” the boy’s grandmother says. “Love, you’ll have to speak to him sooner or later. You’ll have to sort things out.”

The boy’s mother shakes her head. She’s lost more weight. She’s jagged with rage. She’s wearing a sundress. Her shoulders are tanned. She’s frayed at the edges. It must be the lights.

“I won’t,” she says. “I’m not.”

The boy’s grandmother presses her hand more tightly against the mouthpiece.

“What should I say? What do you want me to tell him?”

“Tell him he’s a bastard,” the boy’s mother says.

She springs from the settee and rushes upstairs, slams the bedroom door behind her. The boy’s grandmother lifts the phone to her ear, but the line is dead.

Given time, the man sees more than he could have seen. He overtakes a truck.

It is the first Boxing Day after the separation. His paternal grandfather collects the boy and his sister, promising their mother that he will have them back by 5pm. Their father waits in the car. Ada’s pram and a box of toys are loaded into the boot, and a rudimentary car seat is set in place. Between him and Ada, in the back, is a plastic shopping bag with two bottles of breastmilk and a container of formula, should they prove insufficient.

The man recalls no conversation. They arrive.

Their father’s youngest brother, Keir, helps the boy and Ada to the house, where their grandmother greets them at the door.

“Did it go all right?” she asks.

The man cannot see the face that provides the answer.

They move inside. There is a woman at the dining table. Young, 20 or 21, even younger than his mother. She stands, smoothing down her skirt. Long fingers. Pretty. Suede boots.

“This is Jennifer,” his father says.

The boy reaches for his grandfather’s hand and leads him to the living room, to where Keir has deposited the box of toys. There is a real Christmas tree lushly trimmed with tinsel, with half a dozen presents under it.

“They’re for you and Ada,” the grandfather says.

“We opened presents yesterday,” the boy replies.

“Look,” Ada says, pointing to her dress. “And Jane,” she says, taking her doll from the box.

The other grown-ups come through to the living room, where they form a semicircle around the boy and Ada. Their grandmother walks to the tree and picks up one of the presents.

“Here we are,” she says. She sits down on the settee. “Who’s going to help Ada unwrap her present?”

Keir kneels dutifully before his mother, as though preparing to be knighted. He takes the present and begins to untie the string. Out comes a rattle in the form of an ice-cream cone.

“What is it?” asks Keir, shaking the rattle beside his ear.

Neither Ada nor the boy is interested.

“And another one,” their grandmother says. “Let’s have another one. Here, who’ll help this time?”

Their grandfather bends to pick up two presents, then takes a seat beside his wife.

“I like opening presents,” he says.

The first present is for the boy. He is tempted, but he does not move. The grandfather opens the present slowly, unveiling a red and white home-knitted bobble hat with matching scarf and gloves.

“Very smart,” the grandmother says, admiring her work. “And who’s the next one for?”

The grandfather turns the present over and over in his hands.

“It’s for Ada,” he says.

Ada has been playing with Jane, one ear cocked, spaniel-like. She stands up.

“I can do it,” she says.

She takes hold of the present and tears the paper unceremoniously, causing her grandmother to stiffen. Inside is a denim pinafore and a yellow jumper.

“Won’t you look pretty,” her father says. “Do you like them?”

Ada nods and the room exhales.

Over the course of the morning, as the extended family arrives for lunch, Ada and the boy receive many items of clothing, toys, picture books, a football and a tin drum. Ada is nursed and ogled and spoken to in a variety of voices. Jennifer keeps her distance.

In the late afternoon the boy and Ada are taken upstairs and bathed by their grandmother and the aunt who one day soon will emigrate to Canada. Ada’s hair is washed and brushed, dried and plaited.

The boy and Ada arrive home in their new clothes. It is shortly after 6pm. Their mother thanks their grandfather and takes the children inside, where in the hallway she removes Ada’s coat.

“Where’s your dress?” she asks.

The dress has been rolled up and placed in the plastic shopping bag, alongside the empty bottles and the formula.

“Right,” their mother says. “Pyjamas, now. And I suppose I’ll have to brush these out before you can go to bed.”

To their mother, the boy and Ada must seem like Trojan Horses, harbouring boasts and cudgels. And how must she seem to them? Grey and tired, as though she’s spent the day lying in an empty bath.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on June 21, 2025 as "The present".

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