Free The Other Son by Nick Alexander Page A

Dot snorts. “Actually, Martin complained a lot too.”
     
    When Alice gets home, she finds Ken at the kitchen table, eating. “You took your time,” he says. “I had to make myself a sandwich.”
    “Poor you,” Alice says, shrugging her way out of the coat. “That must have been exhausting.”
    “No,” Ken replies, sounding confused by her sarcasm. “But I was worried about you.”
    Alice raises one eyebrow at this and pulls the two new frying pans from the Ikea bag and places them on the kitchen table. “We needed new pans. I left you a note.”
    “Yes...” Ken says doubtfully. “I didn’t think it was going to take all morning though. I suppose you were with that friend of yours.”
    Alice returns to the hall to hang up her coat. “Dot?” she asks lightly. “No, why would you think that?”
    “I know you were,” Ken says when she returns.
    “Well, I can assure you that I wasn’t,” Alice lies, looking Ken straight in the eye and smiling blandly. “Actually I don’t think I even want to see her at the moment. I’m finding all this separation business a bit disturbing.”
    “Oh. Well, good.” Ken says. “So, how much were these new toys?”
    “They’re not toys. They’re tools for making your dinner. And the big one was twenty, and–”
    “Twenty quid? For a saucepan?”
    “There’s no point buying rubbish,” Alice says. “That cheap one you got hasn’t even lasted three months. And the small one was fifteen.”
    “So you’ve spent thirty-five quid on saucepans?” Ken asks. “You’ll be the ruin of me, woman.”
    Alice laughs. “We can afford a couple of decent frying pans, and you know it.”
    “You’re not safe to shop alone,” Ken says. “You always just buy the most expensive of everything. That’s how you choose. You just look at the prices and choose the most expensive one.”
    “You can come next time,” Alice says. “You’ll love that.”
    “OK,” Ken says. “I will.”
    Alice laughs again. “You like shopping like a ferret likes fennel.”
    “Why wouldn’t a ferret like fennel?” Ken asks. “Jim Perry had ferrets and they ate just about anything you threw at them. I never actually saw them eat fen... Oh... You’re just being daft again. You and your ferrets!”
    Alice shrugs and turns her attention to removing the labels from the new frying pans. Fifty years together, and Ken still hasn’t got the hang of her funny metaphors. How can anyone be so resistant to humour? Alice wonders. Fifty years she’s been saying that things are as slow as a sausage, as quick as a quibble or as finicky as a finicky ferret, and still Ken doesn’t get the joke. It had been Joe who had started that one, by describing an obnoxious bus conductor as being as fat as a ferret .
    “But ferrets aren’t fat,” Alice had protested.
    “OK,” Joe had retorted. “As fat as a fat ferret, then!”
    Alice gently washes the remains of the labels from the pans. Yes, they’re just frying pans, but they’re really rather lovely. Heavy, and stainless steel and smooth shiny Teflon. If you whacked someone around the head with one of these, they’d be a goner. And yes, they were expensive, but like Dot says, what the hell?
    “So are you going to make me an omelette in that new pan of yours?” Ken asks.
    “I’ve just seen you finish a sandwich.”
    “It was just a sandwich, love,” Ken whines. “A man can’t survive on a couple of slices of bread.”
    Alice nods slowly. “Maybe,” she says. “If we have eggs. And if you’re nice to me.”
    “But I’m always nice to you!” Ken says. He might be joking. And then again, he might not. He might just believe it.
     
    That night, Alice is awoken just after two. At first she’s not sure what woke her, but then the noise comes again: two cats flighting in the back garden.
    She closes her eyes and waits, but sleep does not return. Her knees and ankles ache for some reason. She wriggles in the bed, struggling to get comfortable.