Chapter Text
He left school at 16 and worked odd jobs for a while. University wasn’t an option for kids like him. The fourth of eight children born to a single mother living in the East End, he needed to fend for himself and send some money home to his mom and younger siblings when he could. He didn’t drink or smoke, mostly because he couldn’t really afford to do either. He worked odd jobs for a couple of years, including working the counter at a sandwich shop.
He didn’t grow up going to church too often, because his mother worked as a housekeeper seven days a week. He wasn’t sure if he believed in God, but he did believe in fate. Because one day when he was working at the sandwich shop, the most beautiful woman in the world walked in and ordered lunch.
On their first date, they walked around London, and sat and held hands on a bench across from Buckingham Palace. He told her she was pretty enough to be a princess. She tried to imagine what it must be like to live somewhere like that. He told her it’d be impossible to keep clean. She laughed and said they must have staff for things like that.
“Imagine, though,” she said dreamily, “just once, to be able to wear a fancy gown and dance in the ballroom at Buckingham. I’d feel like a movie star, or like I’d died and gone to heaven.”
He didn’t bother making ridiculous promises to her. He was a practical man and he knew some things just weren't in the cards for someone like him.
He married Gemma when he was 20 and she was 18. Her parents wouldn’t let her get married before that. They could’ve snuck off and eloped but he didn’t want to start off his relationship with his in-laws on the wrong foot. So he waited.
Well, he waited to marry her. They didn’t... wait, per se.
She was pregnant at the wedding, but she wasn’t showing so it was their little secret. And when Valerie was born less than nine months later, they just claimed she was born a bit early.
Two years later they had Simon, and a year after that they had Oliver.
His own dad left when he was two, but he’d had a couple of short-term stepdads that weren’t terrible. They never stayed, though. He swore to himself he’d never abandon his children. He’d provide for them, put food on the table and clothes on their backs. He didn’t see any need to play with them or be their friend, that was more of a woman’s job.
Growing up, their youngest son was always a little different. Not bad, or difficult, just... different. Maybe it was because he spent too much time with his mother and sister. Although Simon was well, Simon was a rough and tumble boy, like his dad had been growing up. Oliver was never like that.
Then he’d decided that maybe Oliver would grow out of...whatever this was. He spent most of his time alone, reading and scribbling things in notebooks. He wasn’t like Simon or Valerie, who were always outside playing with the other kids in the neighborhood.
“He’s sensitive, that’s all,” Gemma told him. He nodded, but he worried. Worried his son would be picked on at school if he didn’t toughen up.
He and Gemma had both grown up Anglican, but he saw the Bible as an old book that didn’t have a lot to teach him. She took the sermons more seriously, quoted the Bible to him sometimes, and even volunteered to be a lay reader during services. She also thought it was important to raise their kids with some kind of faith. So he went along too, to be a good father, and to make Gemma happy.
With three children to raise, he got a steady job working in a warehouse. It was a job he enjoyed. He started out moving boxes around but when he was trained to drive the forklift, he got enough of a raise to move the family out of the East End and into a nicer neighborhood. The house was small, but it was theirs. It had a tree in the yard for the boys to climb and have friends over to play. He even started taking the boys out to play catch on Sundays before he left for work. The dining room had a spot for a little china cabinet, and Gemma was so proud to be able to fill it with her wedding china. He felt like he was being a good husband and father and provider, a real success in life.
Until the accident.
He was working in the warehouse when someone knocked a shelf over. The metal crossbar landed right in the middle of his back, knocking him down. He went to his GP, who prescribed him some pain medication even though he didn’t see any major damage. The doctor also told him to take two weeks off, which...wasn’t really an option. So he didn’t.
The pain never went away. He developed a limp from trying to avoid putting too much pressure on one leg when he walked because it made his back act up.
He became angry and resentful about not being able to do the things he wanted. He stopped spending time with his children, annoyed that he couldn’t throw the ball around with them the way he did when they were younger. Gemma prayed for him, prayed for the pain to go away.
The day he screamed in pain and dropped a box at work, Gemma and the kids insisted he see another doctor. That one couldn’t find anything either, but suggested he wear a back brace and stop doing manual labor.
He went to his boss and prayed to a God he’d never really believed in that he wouldn’t be fired. He was never sure if it was divine intervention or luck, but he didn’t lose his job. Instead, they transferred him to a job in security.
At first it was boring, watching the cameras, watching his pals do work while he sat on his ass. But it paid well, and no one seemed to resent him for it. Sometimes it was even kind of interesting. He started working swing shifts, usually from 6pm to 3am, because he got paid more to do the same damn thing he did during the day: watch the monitors. None of the computers had internet access, so he read and got very, very good at solitaire.
It was the reading that changed his life.
He was hurrying out the door to go to work one evening. He’d just finished the last Mickey Spillane mystery and needed something new to read. He saw a book on the table in the front hall, one of Oliver’s library books. He hoped it wasn’t something he needed for school, and scooped it into the briefcase the kids bought him last Christmas.
When he pulled it out just after midnight, he cursed. It was an art history book. He’d always considered himself a practical man. Art was not practical; it was something rich people used to decorate their fancy houses. He shoved the book to the side and pulled out his deck of cards.
He lost three games and walked the premises twice before he got bored enough to flip open the cover.
At first he just looked at the pictures. There were quite a few of naked women, and he apologized to Gemma in his head when he lifted the book to peer at them more closely. Eventually, he started reading the text beside the pictures, explaining why these particular paintings were important culturally and historically.
Three days later, he finished that book.
Four days later, at the age of 40, he got a library card for the first time in his life.
Every night while he worked, he read more about art and artists, even learning the names of certain paint colors.
He came into the kitchen one day to find Oliver flipping through the book he’d just checked out, a biography of Monet. He looked vaguely guilty when his dad walked in. “Sorry, I just, I was just looking.”
He smiled. Valerie and Simon were away at uni, and he was proud of their ambitions but it was odd not having them around anymore. He’d missed out on so much time with them while he was struggling with anger and pain. Oliver was the only one still living at home full-time, and he felt like he only had a year or two more before his youngest child would be gone too.
“Where’s your mum?”
“Next door gossiping with Mrs. Siler,” Oliver said with a grin.
He took a deep breath, wondering if he was being foolish to ask...but it was Oliver’s library book that had gotten him interested in art in the first place.
“You’re into this art stuff, yeah?” he tried.
“Um, yeah, I mean, it’s cool, I guess.” He looked oddly hesitant to continue talking. “My art teacher is a pretty interesting guy. He’s an artist himself and he’s been really encouraging about my work, so--”
He felt just as surprised as he did when the shelf knocked him over. “You’re an artist?”
Oliver adjusted his glasses anxiously. “I mean, I’m not very good yet. But I like to draw and paint, when I have time.”
He sat down at the table, next to his son, the one he thought he knew and obviously didn’t know at all. “Could I see some of it?”
Oliver stared at him. “Erm, I guess so?” He left the room and came back with several sketchbooks. He flipped through the first one and pushed it aside with a little self-conscious laugh. “Those aren’t, er, very good.” He finally opened one that was full of dark black line drawings of random objects, flowers, tables, 3-D shapes. “This one is mostly shadow work.”
He brushed a stubby finger over one of the lines. “Charcoal?” he asked, and his son’s face lit up in surprise. “Yeah,” he nodded.
Oliver opened another book and pushed it toward his dad. “These are mostly collages, we were studying--”
“Matisse,” he interrupted.
His son was staring at him like they’d never met before. “Yeah.”
He took a deep breath and opened the first book, the one he’d originally pushed away. “This one has some figure drawings, but I’m not very good at people yet.”
He nodded, slowly flipping through the book. There were sketches of bodies, backs, legs, feet, arms, necks. A few faces, but not many.
Oliver shook his head and pointed to a spot where he’d obviously erased many times. “Faces are tricky.”
“You’re quite good, Oliver.” He was immediately ashamed of the tears he saw in his son’s eyes. Were his children really that unaccustomed to receiving praise from him?
That night at work he was flipping through the newspaper someone on day shift left in the breakroom. There was an exhibit of Monet’s work at the British Museum. He folded the paper carefully and tucked it inside his briefcase.
The next day after school, he tapped carefully on Oliver’s bedroom door. The music that was always playing stopped and the door opened a crack.
“Sorry, I’ll turn it down,” Oliver said, and started to shut the door again.
“No, wait, I--” Feeling suddenly foolish, he held the paper out to his youngest son. “Would you be interested in going with your old man to a museum this weekend?” He looked down as Oliver took the paper out of his hands. “You probably have plans with your friends, so…”
Oliver let the door swing open a little wider, not inviting him in but not keeping him out, either. “I...no, I’d love to.” He adjusted his glasses. “I mean, that’d be cool, I guess.”
He nodded, happier than he’d expected to be. “Good, then. It’s a, erm, plan.”
Oliver nodded back, and shut the door with a pleased but slightly baffled expression on his face.
Saturday afternoon found him on Great Russell Street, with his son, exploring the museum’s collections until closing time.
While they were looking at the artwork, Oliver told him about school and friends and his life, things he’d never talked about before. In return, he told Oliver about work and how bored he got sometimes, how he sometimes felt guilty because he wasn’t doing man’s work. Oliver seemed to bristle at that a little bit, but he thought nothing of it.