Lark Song by Jane Bailey

Author:Jane Bailey [Bailey, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477805121
Google: dUKKtAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 35889204
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Published: 2018-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

33

OUT OF HARM’S WAY

Will thought things were pretty wonderful for the rest of the holidays. Aunty Rachel rang Mum regularly and that made her happy. Once she spoke to Will on the phone and said to tell Mum that Duncan was ‘a keeper’, and that if she didn’t already have a boyfriend she would be going for him herself, so she’d better watch out. She emailed them all the photos she’d taken, and Freya gazed lovingly at the five of them: her and Duncan, Sophie, Will and Jack with Biscuit the horse. ‘You even look like a family,’ Rachel had put on the email. And they did. A very happy one.

On New Year’s Eve Duncan made them all a great lasagne and served it up speaking Italian. He taught them Italian phrases and promised to take them all to Italy sometime. Even Sophie learnt Buon appetito! and Prego. Afterwards they went out to watch the low-budget fireworks in a field by the pub. When they’d got back and Sophie was in bed, Duncan mentioned the photo of the five of them he’d spotted above Mum’s bed. He really liked it. He stayed over that night. It seemed like the natural thing to do. Nobody minded, least of all Will.

What Will hadn’t been able to tell his mother – or anyone – was how angry he was with his father. It wasn’t just because of the refusal to accept his sexuality (although that really was the pinnacle of his fury); it was also because his father died before he could prove anything to him or make him proud. He could not, could not, forgive Dad for not being there when he got an A* for his Art GCSE, and an A* for Photography as well. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Oh ye of little faith! He had needed to see his dad’s reaction to that. Dad who did so many good deeds, Dad who was always right about everything, Dad who just knew Will would grow out of his gayness and fall in love with a girl, Dad who thought Art was a waste of space: that Dad. He wanted to see that Dad’s face when he saw Will’s success. He wanted his dad to happen upon his work, displayed all along the school corridors, on parents’ evening. He wanted him to be there when he received the Art Prize at prize-giving, and he wanted him to hear what Mrs Scriven had said about him. (‘And now for the artist whose paintings this year have blown me away, an artist you are all going to hear more about, so just remember you heard it here first . . . Will Gray!’) After all that crap from Dad, and just when he needed him, just when he could’ve made him proud, he goes and buggers off and sodding well dies! Well, that wasn’t something you could calm down about easily.

And although this wasn’t something to be proud of, he

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