Parting Gift (Parts 5 + 6)

Angela’s Catford flat had always been small, but now it felt crowded: not with people, but with intention. There were lists on the table, fabric samples pinned to the wall, a pram catalogue folded open on the sofa. The air hummed with a kind of nervous purpose.

When David arrived, Angela was dragging a chest of drawers across the bedroom floor, her hair tied up with a scarf, cheeks flushed.

“Help me with this,” she said, breathless. “I want the cot to go here.”

“There’s no cot yet.”

“There will be,” she said, smiling too brightly. “Soon.”

David took one end of the drawers. They heaved it into place. Angela stepped back, hands on hips, surveying the room like a set designer.

“Better,” she said. “More space. More light.”

“It’s the same light.”

Angela ignored that. She was already scribbling on the back of an envelope: cot, blankets, nappies, bottles, pram? ask Mum, paint bedroom? yellow?

David watched her, torn between tenderness and a tightening in his chest. She looked so certain, so determined. He felt like he was standing still while she built a life around him.

Angela had always been like this: bright, quick and socially fearless. She could walk into a room full of strangers and come out with three new friends and a dinner invitation. David had been drawn to that from the start. Her warmth. Her ease. Her ability to make the world bend toward her.

And she had been drawn to him too; not despite his quietness, but because of it. She liked his sensitivity, his inwardness, the way he listened. She said he was a real artist, not like the poseurs she met at college who talked about Warhol and Godard without ever making anything themselves.

“You see things,” she’d told him once. “Properly. You feel things. That’s rare.”

He’d believed her. He still wanted to.

But now the future was arriving faster than either of them had planned. This flat, this one-bedroom, slightly damp, slightly shabby flat, suddenly felt too small for all the things she wanted.

“We’ll need somewhere bigger,” she said now, almost casually. “A proper place. With a garden, maybe.”

David’s stomach tightened. “Right.”

“And you’ll need to talk to your parents,” she added. “About… everything.”

“Yeah.”

“And we should think about money. And work. And what we’re doing,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the kitchen

David nodded, though his mind was spinning. He wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to be steady, dependable and grown‑up. He wanted to offer something: a plan, a promise, a future.

The only thing he could think of was marriage.

But Angela wasn’t that sort of girl. Not with her ideas about freedom and independence and not being ‘tied down by old‑fashioned nonsense’. She’d laugh if he asked. Or worse; she’d think he was trying to trap her.

He felt suddenly, painfully young.

In something of a daze, he wandered into the living room. Terence was slouching on the couch, hands behind his head, perusing the cover of one of Angela’s magazines. This month’s Nova promised a profile of The New Woman: What She Wants and How to Be Her.

“Domestic bliss,” Terence said without looking up. “Doesn’t it make you want to chew your own arm off?”

David shut the door quietly. “Not now.”

“She’s nesting,” Terence said, turning his attention from the page. “Like a frantic little bird. Or a squirrel. Or something equally neurotic.”

“She’s excited.”

“She’s terrified,” Terence corrected. “And she’s pretending not to be. Which is worse.”

David sat on the opposite edge of the couch. “I don’t know what she wants from me.”

“She wants you to be a man,” Terence said. “And you’re still a boy.”

David flinched. “I’m trying.”

“You’re trying to keep up,” Terence said. “That’s not the same thing.”

Angela called from the kitchen. “David? Can you come here a sec?”

David stood. Terence rolled onto his stomach, kicking his legs like a bored teenager.

“Run along,” he said. “Be useful.”

David ignored him and went to the kitchen.

Angela was stirring something in a saucepan: tinned tomato soup, the cheap kind. The windows were fogged with steam. A radio on the counter played Your Song softly, Elton John’s voice warm and earnest.

Angela reached across the table and took David’s hand.

“We’re going to be alright,” she said. “Aren’t we?”

David nodded, though his throat felt tight. “Yeah. Of course.”

She squeezed his hand. “I know it’s scary. But we’ll figure it out.”

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to feel the certainty she radiated. But all he felt was the weight of something he couldn’t name pressing down on him.

After they ate, Angela went back to making her lists. David drifted out into the hallway, needing a moment alone.

Terence was leaning against the wall, his arms folded and expression sharp.

“You’re drowning,” he said softly.

David shook his head. “I’m just… overwhelmed.”

“Same thing.”

“I want to do the right thing.”

“You want to run,” Terence said. “You always want to run.”

David’s voice cracked. “I don’t know how to be what she needs.”

Terence stepped closer, eyes bright with something like pity. “You don’t know how to be anything. That’s the problem.”

David pressed his palms to his eyes. “Stop.”

“I’m trying to help.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m the only one who is.”

Angela’s voice floated from the living room. “David? Can you help me with this?”

David took a breath, wiped his eyes and went to her.

Terence stayed in the hallway, watching him go, with a small, unreadable smile on his face: half fondness and half something darker.

♫

Michael’s kitchen always smelled faintly of burnt toast and vanilla guitar polish. It was a small, square room with yellowing wallpaper and a Formica table that had belonged to his mum before she moved to Kent. A kettle hissed on the hob. Outside, the late summer evening was sliding toward dusk.

David sat hunched over a mug of tea, turning it slowly between his hands. Michael leaned against the counter, arms folded, watching him with that steady, uncomplicated patience he’d had since they were boys.

“So,” Michael said, in the tone of someone easing into a difficult subject sideways. “How’s things?”

David shrugged. “Alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Not really.”

Michael nodded, as if that was exactly what he’d expected. He didn’t push. He never pushed. They’d been friends since school: two boys who’d found each other in the music room, one with a head full of ideas and the other with hands that could make anything sound good. Michael was the rock solid one, the lad who liked Chuck Berry riffs and pints after football. David was the one who brought in strange chord shapes and lyrics scribbled on the backs of exercise books. Together they made something neither could make alone.

“You want to talk about it?” Michael asked, not looking directly at him.

David stared at the steam rising from his tea. “Angela’s… she’s… it’s all happening fast.”

Michael nodded again. “Yeah. It would.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“No one does,” Michael said. “Not at first.”

David let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You make it sound simple.”

“It’s not simple,” Michael said. “It’s just… life.”

David swallowed. “I’m scared.”

Michael didn’t flinch. “Course you are. You’d be mad not to be.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the kettle ticking as it cooled.

Then Michael said, lightly: “Listen... I’ve been talking to a bloke at the pub. He’s putting on a night next month. Wants a couple of acts. Thought maybe we could do something.”

David looked up sharply. “A gig.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’d be great.”

“I’m not… I’m not good in front of people.”

“You’re good with me,” Michael said. “And I’ll be there.”

David felt something twist inside him; hope and dread tangled together. He loved playing with Michael. It was the only time he felt like he wasn’t faking it. But the thought of an audience made his throat tighten.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“That’s all I’m asking.”

Michael smiled in his warm, uncomplicated and loyal way. David felt a rush of affection for him, the kind that made his chest ache. He wished he could hug him. He wished he could say any of these things out loud. But feelings were things you played in minor chords, not things you said.

“I should get going,” David said.

“Yeah. Alright. And Dave.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re not on your own. You know that.”

David nodded, unable to speak.

He didn’t go home straight away. His feet took him where they always took him when the world felt too loud.

The cemetery was quiet in the late summer dusk, the air cooling fast and the sky turning a deep, bruised blue. The gravestones cast long shadows across the grass. A blackbird hopped between them, unbothered.

David sat on the bench near the older graves, the one he always gravitated toward. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. His breath came in shallow gasps. His thoughts spun.

He didn’t know how to be a father. He didn’t know how to be a partner. He didn’t know how to be himself. Everything felt too big, too fast and too heavy.

“You look like you’re about to sink.”

David didn’t turn. He knew the voice.

Terence stepped out from behind a yew tree, barefoot, his trousers rolled up, as if he’d wandered out of a dream rather than a city. His hair was wild and his eyes bright in the half light.

“What are you doing here?” David demanded.

“I knew you’d come,” Terence said. “You always come here when you’re falling apart.”

David looked away. “I’m not falling apart.”

“You are,” Terence said gently. “And that’s alright.”

He sat beside David on the bench. “You remember when you were little,” Terence said. “You used to come here with your notebook. You’d lie on your stomach and draw monsters and planets and whole worlds. You’d talk to yourself for hours.”

David frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“You don’t remember anything,” Terence said. “You forget the bits that mattered.”

A breeze moved through the yew branches, making them whisper.

Terence spoke again, softer now. “You had so much in you. So much that didn’t get to grow.”

David’s throat tightened. “What does that mean?”

Terence didn’t answer. He just looked at him with eyes that seemed older than he was and sadder than they should be.

“You’re scared,” Terence said. “Of being ordinary. Of being trapped. Of being responsible. Of being seen.”

David swallowed hard. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.”

“That’s the point,” Terence said. “You’re not supposed to be anyone. Like I’ve told you before. You’re supposed to make something. That’s all.”

David felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered.

“You can,” Terence said. “You just don’t believe it yet.”

The cemetery stretched out around them, vast and still, the sky darkening overhead. David felt small. Lost. Like he was standing on the edge of something he couldn’t name.

Terence leaned closer, voice low. “Careful, Dave. This is where the ground starts to give way.”

David looked at him, heart thudding. “What are you talking about.”

Terence smiled; not kindly and not cruelly, but knowingly. “You’re standing in quicksand. And you don’t even realise you’re sinking.”

A gust of wind swept across the graves, flattening the long grass. The first stars trembled faintly above the rooftops. David felt suddenly exposed, as if the whole world were watching him wobble.

“I’m not sinking,” he said, though his voice sounded thin, even to himself.

“You are,” Terence said. “You’ve been sinking for months. You just thought it was the ground shifting under you. But it’s you. You’re slipping. Bit by bit.”

David wrapped his arms around himself. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” Terence said. “That’s the saddest part.”

David stared at the gravestones, at the names almost worn away by weather. He felt like one of them: a name fading, a life not realised.

“I don’t know who I’m supposed to be,” he whispered.

Terence stood, barefoot on the gravel. “Come on. Let’s get you home before you disappear completely.”

David hesitated, then he followed.

The cemetery stretched out behind them, vast and silent; the darkness pooling in its hollows like water. David felt the sensation Terence had described, as the ground beneath him seemed to shift. Not literally, but in the way a life shifts when the weight becomes uneven and too much to hold.

As they walked, Terence hummed something tuneless under his breath: a half-remembered melody from childhood, or from somewhere else entirely.

David didn’t ask what it was. He didn’t want to know.