It was not until Adam had left home, he had once told Laura, that he realized how intense it had been, how pressured, growing up in the same house with his dad, with his mum, with Ned. The rows. The silences. The continual tension, never knowing when things were all going to kick off.
They paused at a crossing for a Land Rover to pass in the other direction.
‘I’m leaving,’ he told Ned, abruptly.
Ned had turned to look at him with a sudden frown.
‘What I mean,’ said Adam, keeping his voice calm and non-confrontational, his eyes on the road, ‘is that I want to hand in my notice. To exit the business.’
‘I see,’ said Ned. ‘And how long have you been thinking about this?’
‘A long time.’
‘A long time.’
There followed a pause.
‘And you’ve talked about this with your wife?’
‘I have.’
Another silence. Adam glanced at Ned. Ned’s eyes were on the road, his face thoughtful. They were over now on the wilder, less manicured side of the island. The trees overhung the road completely in places, branches of bushes slapping against the wing mirrors of the Land Rover as they passed. And all the time, as they drove in silence, as they turned onto the side road up to Ned’s own cottage, past the ‘Private’ sign, as he began weaving around the potholes that still remained on this stretch of thoroughfare, Adam was waiting for Ned to start screaming at him or pounding the dashboard and demanding he stop the car and fuck off and walk home.
It didn’t happen. Instead Ned asked him quite calmly why he had decided he wanted out. Was it more responsibility he needed? Less responsibility? A different role? Projects that were slightly more special? Adam shook his head.
‘So what do you want?’ Ned had asked him, and Adam had told him: something of his own, somewhere. Maybe in Melbourne – Ned had registered this, nodded – maybe somewhere else. Ned had asked about the menu, about the concept, made a couple of approving remarks, made a couple of suggestions. Ned had asked how he was going to afford all this. Adam had explained he wanted to be bought out. His was, after all, only a 10 per cent share. He had done a few rough calculations.
He was still mentally bracing himself for an explosion.
It still didn’t come.
Instead Ned had asked Adam what he calculated his share of the Home Group to be worth, at this precise moment, the logic behind his figures, what kind of arrangements and timescale he would consider, whether he had any particular buyer in mind. He had listened with the appearance of thoughtfulness while Adam tried to explain how much he had learned, working alongside his brother all these years: ‘And I’ve enjoyed it too, obviously, and it has been wonderful, there’s nothing I regret or resent.’
One corner of Ned’s mouth twitched very slightly at this.
‘It’s just that, the thing is, I need to see what I’m capable of myself now, you know? What I can make, what I can do. And if I don’t do it now then I don’t think I’m ever going to do it. I guess the truth is I just need to find out who I really am.’
Ned cleared his throat at this, glanced aside to check the wing mirror, turned his face very slightly away from his brother.
And instantly, Adam wished he could take those words back. What a stupid, weak thing to say. Like he was going on his gap year. Like he was one of Laura’s fucking floundering idiot clients. What a gift to Ned, to start gushing like that, to make everything he had been secretly thinking about and planning and dreaming of for years sound so flimsy and pathetic.
Ned hadn’t had to say much, barely needed to say anything, to make it clear who he thought was really behind this, whose idea he thought it all was, what he thought about that. And because he hadn’t said anything directly there was no way to jump on it, except to insist that he, Adam, was not just parroting Laura. How could he attempt at this point to convey to Ned what it might be like to be in a relationship, a serious long-term relationship; how could he explain the need to compromise sometimes, and how that could be a sign of maturity rather than weakness?