IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

14. Watering the plants (and Timmy)

Hello!! I'm back!! 

I'm really sorry for the lack of updates on this story. For ages I was trying really hard to write but my heart wasn't in it. I've found inspiration again, though. No promises, but hopefully it'll stick. 

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"Normally, cake makes me sad. But that, it was very nice," Timothée remarks.

"Makes you sad?" Una asks. Looks up at Timmy, who is sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs and plucking grapes from the carton next to him every thirty seconds or so. Popping them in his mouth. (He did try throwing the first few and catching them mid-air, but the first two attempts failed and he stopped after that. Una almost wishes he had carried on. It was funny to watch.)

Timothée makes a humming sound, a sort of grunt. "I ate some cake the other day and it made me unhappy. Which was a shane."

"A shane," Una repeats, rinsing soap suds off a cake plate.

"Wrong?" he asks, chewing thoughtfully.

"Shane is a name. A shame is like. Dommage."

Timothée swallows. "How do you know dommage?" he asks. His voice sounds like a smile.

"My French teacher used to say it all the time when people were messing around. Or when you did badly on vocab tests," she snorts.

"She said it a lot to you, hein?"

It takes Una a moment to process. She wipes the blade of a butter knife with the sponge. "I did fine on my vocab tests,' she scowls. Smiles when she sees the grin blossoming on Timmy's face. He's not always the best at making jokes - they don't always make sense, or he waits too long to say them - but Una doesn't mind. Sometimes it makes it funnier than he intended.

(And she bets he's quick-witted in French. Bets he's the kind of person to jump in when you make a mistake or say something stupid. She bets he can barge in with something so quickly that you can't help but laugh, stunned. Or maybe he's like this all the time, regardless of language. Maybe he's just methodical, placid, easy to please and even quicker to try and please others.)

There's silence as Timmy hands her another cake plate and she dunks it into the washing up bowl. Starts to scrub. Una's trying to remember what they were saying before, trying to keep up the conversation. For some reason, she's enjoying it.

"What kind of cake was it?" she asks, and Timmy shrugs. Fiddles with the segment of grapevine between his fingers.

"It wasn't very good but it made me think of home."

Una has nothing to say, so she holds her hand out for another plate. Timothée seems almost hesitant to give it to her, holding it back for a moment as if he's about to say something and has thought better of it.

--

A couple of days later, Frank, Timmy and Una are sat at the bottom of the garden. Frank is writing something, Una is reading. Timmy is listening to music with shitty headphones that leak at least ninety percent of the sound. Una is sure she'd be able to make out each word of the lyrics if they weren't all in French and incredibly fast.

She reaches under the table and nudges Timmy's foot with her own. He does nothing, his head tilted to the sky, eyes closed. She nudges him again, sliding her socked foot up his calf. Una watches as Timmy's mouth pulls up at one corner, as he draws his foot away from her. He still hasn't opened his eyes.

"Timmy," she says. Frank looks up.

"Timmy," Frank says, and Timothée jolts his head upwards like he's only just realised Una is trying to talk to him. He was definitely just ignoring her.