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“Celebrations continue on this Mothering Sunday --”
The murmur of the BBC World news-reader brings Mycroft out of his deep contemplation over a Customs and Revenue briefing. He looks up from his desk at the television flickering across the room. He pauses. With one long finger on the remote, he turns it off.
Anthea must have left it on before she left for lunch at her mother's. That was – he checks his watch – three hours ago. He hasn't eaten yet. He's a little hungry.
His gaze goes back to the blank flat screen. He can still see the graphic in his mind's eye, high-resolution, red. Mothering Sunday.
He leans back in his desk chair and sighs. A moment passes. A memory comes.
He is small, in the nursery, watching a flickering fire. It too is red around the edges. He knows he's not supposed to touch it, he's seen burns before, he knows they can be categorised. First-degree burns are superficial. Third-degree burns go below the surface and eat away at the person.
The scent of Chanel No 5 reaches him – it's stronger than the fire – even before the rustle of his mother's skirts as she crosses the threshold. “Mycroft, why aren't you in bed?”
“Just watching, Mummy,” he says, trying to emphasize his distance from the fire, to emphasize what a good boy he is.
“Not an answer.” She frowns, and for a moment he has her undivided attention. He categorises her: going out for the evening, hair done, lacy shawl draped over her elbows, red red lipstick. She's carrying a brown paper package, however, which doesn't fit the rest of her – but then she's there, close, and he gets to his feet before she can put her hands on him, he doesn't know why. She hesitates, then, “Do get into bed, Mycroft.”
“Yes, Mummy.” He sounds dutiful. He is dutiful. Mostly.
When he's in, bedclothes up to his chin, she leans over. Chanel No 5, stronger, and now he can smell the gin-and-tonic she always has before she goes out. She air-kisses his forehead so as not to smudge her lipstick. Then she lightly drops the brown paper package on his stomach. It's a book, he thinks.
“For you, for tonight and for always.” She smiles back at him even as she's leaving. “For Mummy's boy.”
Now, forty years later in a warm study with cold rain curtaining the windows, he knuckles the bridge of his nose. The old ache is still there behind his eyes.
Then he rises and crosses to the wall of books beside his desk. Third shelf down, tucked in a corner beside the copy of Dante his father had given him when he turned twelve, the book Mummy gave him. The binding is as pristine as that long-ago night – he has always been tidy, always found it important to keep safe what he's given if he can – but the pages are slightly yellowed. He opens the book to the fly-leaf.
To Mycroft, from Mummy. Because he likes the Wild Woods and cakes afterward. Then, dashed off as if an afterthought, Je t'aime.
He thinks of the copse behind their country house, and of seeking adventures around every tree in his solitary afternoons, and then eating the packed lunch Nanny had made for him. There had always been a cake, small, chocolate, perfect. He still doesn't know how Mummy knew about those afternoons – she wasn't ever around – but she had done.
(When Sherlock came along, the copse became an island suitable for junior pirates to conquer. Mycroft had supervised, keeping his brother safe from a distance, but the wood was no longer Wild for him. He knew the boundaries too well. He had responsibilities.)
Smiling, he puts the book back in its place. Then he heads for the kitchen.
There, sitting over a pot of tea and a healthy bowl of soup from Fortnum and Mason their housekeeper had left in the refrigerator, Anthea finds him. He looks up from deep contemplation of curried chicken, and says, “Hullo, my dear,” and categorises her. Hair sparkling damp, she hadn't used an umbrella; shoes already off, which means she wants comfort; tension in her eyes and mouth, which further suggests her mother was predictably difficult.
It's not, he knows, that Anthea's mother doesn't love her. It's that she doesn't understand her. Nevertheless, he doesn't like to see the aftermath of the family time.
“Hullo, darling,” she says, tired.
He kisses her then. Even now, on a cold rainy afternoon, he feels warm when he touches her, and he tries to minimise the distance, to bring her in safely to share what he feels. She whispers something he can't quite hear and burrows her hands under his waistcoat, flattens them against his back, curls her fingers into him. They kiss for a long, long moment.
Then she pulls back. She's fine now, he sees with some relief. She gently pulls the curl on his forehead – why she likes that, he can't quite imagine, but she does – and says, “I brought you booty from lunch, darling. Cake. Black Forest.”
“All right. But two forks,” he says, “you need to eat half.”
She kisses him again, lightly. “If you insist.”
She bustles around, getting out plates and forks, and he goes to the cupboard where they keep the candles and chooses two pillars. He sets them on the kitchen island and lights them with his father's lighter, which is kept in a drawer with the knives.
He stands for a moment, watching the small flames, red around the edges, thinking about different levels of burns, about tea on a riverbank, about how he sees the Wild Woods now in every briefing and flicker of disaster on a computer screen. He thinks of pirates climbing over dead trees and taking the fall, then getting up and shouting “Victory.”
Then he holds Anthea's chair for her and, once they're settled, feeds her the first bite of cake. Care-taking is a pleasure, not a duty.