Rentboy

wasn’t creeped out by being alone in a dark room with his dead father. He felt safe
    for the first time in his life. At his mother’s bedroom door he slipped inside. The bottle on the
    bedside table was still half-full. With big eyes his mum looked at him, seeming both afraid and
    hopeful. “It’s over,” he said simply. “In the morning I’ll call 999 and say I found him shot dead. If
    anyone asks you if you heard anything or saw anything, you tell them you were drunk and slept through
    the night.”
    Tara nodded, reaching for the wine bottle. Though he wanted to snatch it away and pour the
    contents down the sink, Fox did nothing. Without booze she might not sleep tonight, and she needed to
    sleep just then. They had wanted this and planned it, but they were both in shock that it had happened.
    “It’s going to be different from now on, Mum.”
    “I love you, Afton. I’m so sorry for all the rotten times, your miserable childhood and all the
    years you’ve spent looking after the twins instead of being a teenager.”
    All the anger he had harbored against his mum, his resentment of her drinking, faded in the
    aftermath of the man’s words. “Be good to your mother.”
    “I love the twins, and we can’t change the past.” He kissed her on the cheek. “It’ll be better from
    now on. Get some sleep. I’m going to.”
    In his bedroom Fox opened the wardrobe. The twins must have looked like that in the womb,
    wrapped around each other, their limbs entwined, eyes closed, utterly peaceful. Now they could
    know that peace all the time and not just when they slept.
    Gently he shook them awake. “Come and get in bed with me. Everything’s fine. Dad’s asleep.
    He’s never going to wake up again.”
    Faces creased with confusion and sleepiness, the twins crawled out of the wardrobe and into
    bed on either side of Fox. He clung to them, looking at the door. On the other side of the landing their
    father lay dead, shot in the head by a professional killer.
    Perfect.
    Now if only Eddie would talk to him again.
    Chapter Eighteen
    In the small, cool interior of the nondenominational chapel, the Reverend Godfrey Rooke recited
    the funereal service for Captain William Baillie. Decorated with flowers, the coffin rested on the
    catafalque behind him awaiting cremation.
    “Pathetic fallacy,” Fox whispered into his mum’s ear. She looked lovely. William Baillie’s
    death had taken years off her. The bright floral-patterned dress was full in the skirt to hide her
    swollen torso. She wore a shawl despite the heat of the day to hide the fact that the rest of her body
    was so thin.
    “What?” Tara had drunk very little over the past week while they prepared for the funeral, but
    she still smelled strongly of alcohol. Her attar of roses cologne did little to mask it. Before they left
    for the service, she had sat in the kitchen with them while they ate breakfast and unapologetically
    drunk half a bottle of wine. Fox had not commented.
    “It’s a literary term for when the weather mirrors your mood or emotions.”
    “The sun is cracking the flags out there. It’s a gorgeous day.”
    “Exactly,” Fox replied. “It can only get better from here.”
    The funeral was very small with only two decorated military men in uniform, Fox, Tara, the
    twins, and a few relatives who had long since stopped getting in touch because William Baillie had
    made visits impossible.
    “Please rise while we bid Captain William Baillie farewell,” Godfrey said.
    A shuffling of feet followed as everyone rose, but the atmosphere was dry, hollow, with a
    general sense that everyone wanted it over with so they could leave. There were no tears, and no one
    read a eulogy.
    “We commit the earthly remains of Captain William Baillie, husband, father, and honored
    soldier, to the flames. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
    Like a magic show, the coffin began to move backward while at the same time a pair of heavy,
    dark blue curtains closed slowly. The twins started to clap. Fox had taken them to the pantomime a
    few times over the years, and everyone clapped when the curtains closed, so they did it automatically.
    Fox still wasn’t sure if they fully understood that their father was not coming back. An embarrassed
    silence followed the applause, which the twins appeared completely unaware of.
    “God go with you,” Godfrey said, indicating the end of the service. The moment the words were
    out, the aunts and uncles