Page 40 of The Fool
“My place,” he answers and grins widely at the same time as he revs the engine to go. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Er…no, fine with me,” I reply nervously.
We drive through the city until we reach a more suburban area. The houses are gated and beyond luxurious to even look at, let alone live in. It’s the type of place you would want to bring up a family with the picket fence and customary pet dog. It’s not where I was expecting someone of Nathaniel’s reputation to be residing, something that my expression must convey without any sort of subtlety. He laughs over my wide eyes and confused expression but continues driving past rows of ridiculously expensive homes without comment.
“You realize Lily and Cam live just through there,” he says, pointing in another direction, the houses now looking more familiar. “If I was going to be moving away from my youthful days near the coast, I was at least going to live near the people I care about.”
“Oh, well, that makes sense, I suppose,” I reply with a simple nod. “You really love your brother, don’t you.”
“Most of the time,” he says with a smile. “Me and Helena used to get on pretty well too, but then she got married and things changed. Cam and I have always been close, but after Evan, we sort of lost that relationship with her.”
“Hmm, well my brother and I are very close too,” I begin to explain, “and I was close to my sister until…well, you know.”
“Wanna talk about it?” he asks, but from the look on his face, I think he already knows the answer.
“No offense,” I reply, “but discussing my family problems with my boss isn’t really on top of my list of things I want to do.”
“Fair enough.”
When we finally arrive at his house, I am overwhelmed by how big it actually is. It’s modern and imposing but it does have a beautiful garden with wildflowers growing out front. Someone has planted a climbing flower at the base of the house, wisteria and clematis, if I were to guess. I wonder if Nathaniel has the green fingers or if someone else has done it for him. I would hazard a guess at it being the latter of those two options.
Nathaniel opens the door for me while I sit here gawking at his abode. As soon as I tear my eyes away from the magnificence of this place, I shuffle out behind him and wait while he walks up to the front door to enter a security code. I wait until he invites me in, remembering that the last time I went inside the home of Nathaniel Carter, I was drunk and distraught.
When we enter the marble hallway that leads straight to the living/kitchen area, my eyes are overwhelmed by the sight of the over-the-top show home of a room. It’s typically masculine with its dark wooden edges, stainless steel appliances, and marble countertops. It’s magnificent, enviable, and expensive, but it’s still a show home. I half wonder if he simply moved in and forgot to make it his own. The only thing I can see that he might have purchased separately is a huge television that’s hanging on the wall in the living area. Beneath it is a grey sofa and one navy armchair. Everything is straight lines and hard.
I almost return to looking at the one human touch in here, Nathaniel himself, when something catches my eye. Just like me, he has one solitary family portrait sitting on a dark wooden sideboard. I cannot help but walk straight over to study it in more detail, not least of all because it shows a child version of both him and Cameron.
“I’m about eight years old in that one,” he says, pointing to the photograph in question. “Cam would be thirteen, which would make Helena eleven or twelve; there’s only a year between the two. Poor Hels wasn’t planned, though it didn’t make her any less loved. Dad’s always been highly protective of his little girl, much like Cam or I would be with a daughter, I suppose.”
“My dad’s the same,” I tell him with a smile, remembering the games we used to play where he would be the monster and Emma and I would be his victims. Mom would constantly shout at him for being too rough, though we’d always end up laughing. My parents love one another, as well as us kids, more than any family I know. It’s why I didn’t tell them the full story of what happened; I didn’t want to be the one to spoil the illusion of their perfect family.
“Which one of you was the biggest headache for your parents?” I eventually ask, guessing it was one of the boys.
“Definitely Cam,” he says with a smirk. “Trouble is, I always got roped into his dastardly plans, so more often than not, I’d get it in the neck too. I remember when we were on holiday once, at the beach, and Cam had got hold of some stink bombs. Don’t ask me how; he kept his secrets highly guarded. Cam and I set three of them off in the corner of the beach, then waited for the sand to clear.”
“What did your parents do?” I gasp, not being able to picture the top boss being such a terror.
“Mom let rip on us, but Dad gave us a secret thumbs up for allowing us to claim the prime place to set up our stuff,” he says, laughing over the memory of it. “Even Helena found it funny.”
“I have to ask, what’s with your sister?”
“Helena has always been quiet, she never liked being in the limelight, not like Cam and me. To be fair, Cam and I were always encouraged to try everything, to be brave and chase whatever adrenaline rush that struck our fancy. He wanted us to be the head boy, the captain of the football team, and he usually turned a blind eye when it came to us and girls. But when it came to Helena, he worried about her becomingoneof those girls. He made it clear that boys and girls would always be treated differently; the world doesn’t care if that’s fair or not, it’s still the way it is. Trust me, if you met his parents, you’d understand why he drilled this message home. They didn’t even approve of Mom, and she was valedictorian, volunteering extraordinaire, and more polite than the queen. But she didn’t dress like a fifty’s housewife, so she was considered too ‘edgy’.”
“Wow,” I gasp with wide eyes, having a better understanding of why Helena is the way she is.
“She settled into the role of the swot up until she was seventeen. My parents went away for the summer, so she went to stay with our cousin. When she came back, she was different, sad but also discontented with the way she had lived before. Even though Dad wasn’t keen, she went away to college. She went a bit rebellious, dyed her hair pink, partied, and went to work a summer abroad. For a short time, we got to see the real her; she was actually really cool to hang around with, but then…”
He trails off as though he’s thinking about whether he should be telling me any of this. I guess it’s not his story to tell, not to mention I’m a work colleague.
“It’s ok,” I reassure him, “you can tell me if I’m being too nosey.”
“No, it’s just kind of sad,” he says contemplatively. “She fell pregnant by her now ex-husband, Evan, who turned out to be a complete douchebag. She was only twenty. He proposed to her, and of course, my father thought it was the best outcome given the situation, so he convinced her to accept. Marrying him so young sucked the life out of her and destroyed her newfound self-confidence. As soon as he put his ring on her finger, she reverted to the quiet, little, shy woman you see today.”
“That must be hard to watch,” I utter, thinking of Helena hiding behind her reception desk at work. She’s always very polite and friendly but also reserved, choosing very much to keep to herself. I’ve never seen her with any real friends, besides Lily, and, other than Nathaniel, she rarely talks to anyone past a friendly greeting.
“Well, at least she eventually divorced him a few years ago,” he says. “He attacked Lily shortly after that.”
“What?!” I gasp in shock. “What do you mean ‘attacked’?”