Page 102 of The Square

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR - ALEC

Once upon a time, Christine said something to me. It was a private moment. We were sitting on a dock somewhere… Antigua? Anguilla? Angola? Don’t recall.

All I remember is that we had done something. Something typically dangerous and dramatic and altogether impossible, in the course of which an item was probably stolen and someone was maybe killed. It’s better than fifty-fifty odds that was the case. And in this quiet moment after the fact, Christine admitted to me that sometimes she dreamed of a different life.

I asked her, “What kind of life, nunu?”

She said, “I don’t know. One where I go to a cubicle, or maybe a small office, and am, like, a personal assistant or something.”

I laughed. I laughed so hard. She slapped me on the shoulder, telling me to stop. But it just seemed ludicrous to me. Because there is no way that Christine would ever be satisfied with a life like that. Something as boring and tedious as the kind of lives that others have. But I also laughed because I couldn’t imagine why, of all the dreams a person might dream, that is the one she chose for herself.

I can now.

Sitting in the back of the SUV, staring out the window as the city streets of London become country roads to… wherever, I understand. Perhaps it’s the pastoral placidity of it all, but something docile and domesticated doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world at present. I’m sure that paying bills and showing up at some office on time, lest one be reprimanded for tardiness, would get wearisome. But I’m also sure that in a scenario like that, the chances of having to formulate a plan to kill your baby brother before he tries to kill you and possibly the people you love—for the second time—is greatly diminished.

We’re not heading to Eliza’s, it would appear. We’re being shuttled in the opposite direction to Theo’s house. This is where the Watsons have convened to work out, with the three of us, exactly what happens next.

No one has spoken since the car pulled up and we got inside. Not a word. Danny looked at Charlie with a bit of a scowl. Christine looked at me with something akin to longing. And Brenden looked at his phone, playing some type of escape room game.

And now we find ourselves pulling up to the cottage. It’s quaint and sweet. Just like Eliza’s. The Watson brood have always been somewhat frugal with their money. I know they earn a fair amount of it, doing what they do, but for them, it has always seemed that just somewhat better than where they’re from has been good enough. That placid, docile life that Christine once mused about… the Watsons seem to have discovered it.

The SUV rolls to a stop and we all step out. There is the slightest chill in the air, but it is an otherwise lovely day. In some respects. In other respects, it is a horribly ominous one. I don’t imagine the two are separable.

Entering through the main door, I hear the sound of tiny feet galumphing down the stairs. The child called Andra sees the five of us and immediately runs over to…

Danny.

She tugs at his hand and says, “Hopscotch,” as she jumps up and down. She has quite a great deal of energy, this one. A restless and demanding spirit.

She probably gets it from her mother.

In any case…

Theo descends the stairs after her, and Russell and Eliza enter from another room. Eight of us stand looking at each other somewhat awkwardly while one of us continues to enjoin that hopscotch be commenced directly. Danny appears both distracted and flattered. It is a charming look on him that I can’t help but smile at.

“Andra, come here,” Eliza commands, and the little girl obliges. She joins her mother, as do Brenden and Charlie. And the tableau is now made unmistakably manifest. On one side of an imaginary dividing line are me, Christine, and Danny. An unlikely trio that, at a glance, would not be easily recognized as a family. And other the other side, five Watsons who it would be impossible not to observe as one. In the middle: A small Watson-Berg. Or possibly van der Watson. Whatever one might call her, she is the lone, unifying element that causes us all to be here now.

Eliza’s eyes drift across the three of us. I see no judgement, exactly, but there is an unmissable assessing. “You look rested,” she says to me. “Got a shave, did you?”

“So it would seem.”

“And you all had a good evening? Comfy? Happily reunited?”

“Lize,” Russell interrupts, but she goes on.

“Nobody creeping around your place in the middle of the night, were they?”

“Lize, come on,” he says again.

“Mummy, this is boring,” the child says, looking up at her mother.

“Why don’t you go practice in Uncle Theo’s foam pit, love?”

The child’s eyes go wide. “Really, really, really?”

Her mother nods her head. “Just don’t jump from too high.”

The little one doesn’t respond, just goes tearing off to the rear of the house somewhere.