According to YES by Dawn French Read Free Book Online

doesn’t meet her gaze once. Glenn exists for him mostly in his peripheral vision. Not since he was a little boy has Kemble looked directly, unflinchingly, at her. It might be that, like many people who meet her, he doesn’t want to see himself reflected in her disappointed eyes, or it might be that he would risk her seeing right through him and knowing that in his deep heart of hearts, he is raging. He resents all the control she has wrought over him, his marriage, his kids, his father, over their whole family, and of course he is too afraid of her to confront it. Too afraid of how he might feel and how he might fail if he had to function without it. Would he simply crumple to the floor if the strings were cut now? It’s been fifty years of dominance, does he even have any usable legs left to stand on?
    Certainly at the moment, he needs the support of his parents, not least because he would be genuinely homeless if it weren’t for them. He has let Natalie remain at their marital home, but he begrudges it badly. He knows it’s the right thing to do, it’s where the boys live, the divorce is basically his fault, this is the price he pays. But how high the price? It feels wretched to be living back with your parents when you’re fifty years old. Nothing reeks more of failure than the smell of your childhood bedroom when you’re an adult living in it. But here he is, in jogging pants, sitting up in his old teenage bed, with his laptop propped up on a pillow in front of him.
    Glenn taps lightly on the door, and immediately enters with all the entitled deftness of a rude chambermaid. He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence, ‘Come …’ before she is in the room and firmly plonked on the end of his bed. Kemble is instantly uncomfortable, he feels like a little boy caught reading rude mags under his covers. Glenn looks right at him. Kemble fidgets and avoids her gaze as usual. He puts his computer aside, and pulls his legs up towards his chest. The big man who throws his weight around in the boardroom and wears a Rolex watch is ten years old again.
    Glenn kicks off with, ‘This light can’t be good for your eyes.’ He has only heard that twenty thousand times before, and it catapults him back to eight years old.
    ‘It’s custody business, Ma … got to do it.’
    ‘Hmm. How’s that going?’
    This is combustible stuff. He doesn’t want to go there, it will ignite a big angry discussion. He wants to hide. Like a six-year-old.
    She persists, ‘Are you having problems?’
    ‘Problems?’
    ‘At work, Kemble. Problems.’
    He shakes his head, avoiding anything difficult. Feeling four years old.
    ‘Good,’ Glenn says, ‘my good little man.’
    Two years old now.
    ‘Don’t let your father down, Kemble. Don’t let anyone down.’
    ‘I’ll try.’
    ‘I know you will, darling.’
    With that, Glenn pats the bed. Not her son. The bed.
    She gets up, smiles pitifully at him, and leaves, closing the door softly behind her. Just in time to narrowly avoid her baby son creeping back up into her uterus.

Straight
    The twins are hypnotized by giant robots that change into … other kinds of robots in the
Transformers
movie they’re watching, so Rosie slips out of the TV room and walks along the corridor until she comes to the door she thinks is Thomas’s office. She can hear mumbling from inside. Thomas is sitting at his desk, drinking a whisky, and reading aloud from a book of John Donne poems.
    ‘Death be not proud, though some have called thee
    Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.’
    He tries again, with a cough and a deeper voice
    ‘Death be not proud …’
    There is a gentle knock at the door which startles him.
    ‘Yep? Come in!’
    The door opens, and it’s Rosie, who looks a bit apologetic. ‘Sorry, hello, can I … sorry, is this a good time?’
    ‘Uh, sure, come on in. Have a seat.’
    Rosie sits in one of the big leather chairs opposite his big leather desk. She is suddenly aware of just what