The House That Made Us by Alice Cavanagh

Author:Alice Cavanagh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2023-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

29 July 1997

They had congratulated Dan on his sudden promotion, heard all about his new LA office, wondered at the vastness of his salary, but still Mac and Marie couldn’t grasp what it was their son actually did at his record label desk.

‘R&A,’ they would muse. Then, one of them would say, ‘Hang on, it’s A&R.’

Whatever it was, Dan was strutting like a peacock about his move to the States, champing at the bit to get away from London.

From us? wondered Mac, who felt he should have a speech prepared, some sort of paternal advisory monologue, for the boy who confounded him. So much spirit and magnetism. And kindness too, but well hidden beneath the arrogance. Mac longed to beckon out that soft side of Dan, but it was heavily armoured with silk-lined suits and a cock-of-the-walk bravado. Besides, the ‘boy’ is twenty-six years old; the person he was least likely to listen to was his tortoise of a dad.

There were times – so many times – when Mac would have welcomed a fatherly pat on the back, or even a fatherly reprimand. He had yearned, since he first studied the faces in his parents’ wedding photograph, to know what they thought of him. He knew, instinctively, that Ed would have been a shining example, a mentor in how to father. But that was not to be, for Ed or Mac.

He shook off such sepia gloominess, to smile into the lens of Dan’s high-tech new camera.

Beside him, Marie, her red hair choppy with a straggly fringe that Mac tried and failed to like, revelled in having all her ducklings around her, and the sorrow of waving one of them off across the Atlantic. ‘Look at my babies, all grown up!’

‘Mum.’ Emma, who had finally introduced her boyfriend to the Mactavishes, said, ‘Ollie will think we’re crazy.’

‘Nah, you sound just like my mum, Mrs Mac.’ Ollie Jones had won Marie’s heart the moment he arrived, handing over chocolates and a bottle of something, and taking a heavy minimart bag out of her hands. He was gallant, but within the strict parameters acceptable to independent-minded Emma. He was handsome too, always a plus for Marie, who longed to get her hairdresser’s hands on his short dreadlocks.

‘Sorry, only my barber’s allowed near. Afro hair’s different to your hair.’

‘I’ll learn!’ Marie had given up on Emma; she would never be permitted to chop her daughter’s long hair into a Rachel, and had to stand helplessly by as it grew and grew and grew.

The cab was late. Dan checked his enormous watch – it was, thought Mac, like a town hall clock – and cursed, as SJ tailed him, pawing at him, begging for affection like a cat.

A voluptuous Renaissance creature reimagined in black Lycra, SJ had a high-voltage, carefully curated sex appeal. ‘You promised!’ She addressed, as ever, Dan’s retreating back. ‘You said we’d go for dinner before you left.’

‘I forg—’ Dan thought better of that excuse, grabbed her, kissed her. ‘I’ll make it up to you.

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