Free Junction X by Erastes

there was so much to it,” she was saying as I put the tray on the table. “Neither of the twins showed any interest in trains, although we did try them with a set when they were younger. Ed had a brief encounter, as you know. I think that’s why he loves Rachmaninov .” She laughed at her own joke, but Alec didn’t get it and gave her a brittle smile; as if he knew he was missing something.
    She continued to chat to the boy—young man, I corrected myself—and I sat there, warm and comfortable in the sun, looking at both of them in turn. He complimented the garden, and she stood up and offered to show him around. The back of the garden was separated into little sections that you couldn’t see from the centre of the attic, and, as she led him off across the lawn, she was explaining the four different “rooms” that she had designed. I smiled. It surprised me that he was so considerate as to notice that the garden was her pride and joy.
    I watched as she led him toward the herb garden, and I was suddenly struck with the similarity between them. They were much of a height, and, although Valerie’s Nordic hair was pale and platinum beside Alec’s darker head, they could have been brother and sister. Alec’s young body was like hers: his legs longer than most, his torso lean, her chest nearly as flat as his. Lazily, my eyes drifted downwards, noting that their legs were the same length. He was wearing the tight pair of jeans he’d worn before, and I found myself staring at the way his legs seemed to go on forever joining his backside with the minimum of fuss. The only difference between Alec’s legs and Val’s was that Valerie’s bottom was a little more padded than his.
    I remember being amused at how similar my wife and Alec were. It’s hard to look back and believe that I was that blinkered.
    They disappeared for a while into the garden rooms at the far end and emerged about five minutes later. I wondered what Alec thought; I couldn’t imagine that he’d really be interested in Japanese shrubs and rockeries. I saw him say something to her and she laughed. As they re-joined me, she bent down to kiss me.
    “I’ll leave you to your trains,” she said. “I’m off to pick up the twins, and then I’m going into town. It was your first day at St. Peter’s last week, wasn’t it, Alec?”
    He nodded.
    “You’ll have to tell the twins what you think of the Upper School. They long to know—it’s so secretive with all those high brick walls.”
    Alec actually stood up as she left us. Surprised at the old-fashioned gesture, I found myself rising to my feet with him. This won me a rather smug look from my wife.
    We sat for a while in silence after she’d left. I wondered why I found it harder to strike up a conversation with him after his apparent ease with my wife. His face had darkened slightly, and he looked a little bored. I wondered if I had looked the same when forced into company with my parents’ friends. He made no overtures of conversation but simply sat in silence playing with his drink. I felt a rush of irritation—or at least I took it for irritation—that he had nothing to say to me.
    Annoyed by the silence and by my own inability to strike up a conversation with a teenager, I stood up. “Well, let’s go in. I got the box down from the attic this morning.”
    I took him through to the conservatory, where I’d unpacked the engine and some of the rolling stock, and sat down on a wicker chair to watch him. I had a chance then to study him a little more closely than I had before. His face was squarish, his chin blunt. His eyes were large and grey, and his brows and lashes were slightly darker than his hair. His mouth was straight, turning neither up nor down, a decision that life would make for him, as it did for us all, but his face was naturally serious. Later I was often to tease him that he gave the impression of someone who is always thinking serious thoughts. Deceptive. Strong currents