The Garretts

An Extract from The Badger Biscuit Tin

How many hyperactive, irresponsible boys did it take to mess up Rachel Garrett’s immaculate kitchen in five and a half hours? Jessica would say… two. The first being her eleven-year-old twin brother, and the second? Her forty-two year old uncle.

Crash. Lian was here.

"I'm looking for Elliot Anderson. No, not Sanderson — hang on; who even is that? No, no, don't tell me — I want Elliot Anderson... You want me to spell it? I'm dyslexic, I guarantee we'll both be worse off if I try. Right, YES, Mr Anderson from South Harriford Art Festival! That’s the one. Yes, it's Lian Garrett asking... Oh. It might be under Sasillian Garrett... Ok, they've put me on hold, that's always fun... stupid made-up name, stupid parents," he grumbled.

She could hear the hold music from the hallway. Jessica opened the kitchen door to another set of crashes, grimacing as three and a half plates smacked against the wooden floor. Yes, three and a half. Lian must be searching the cupboards for breakfast dishes. That, or he had  just got distracted and opened a few cupboards at random. Another plausible theory. But where could the other half plate have gone? Jessica better find it before Mum did.

It was chaos.

The music stopped and Lian raised the phone to his ear once more.

“Right, there you are… Wait, I didn’t mean it like — never mind. Okay, have you found my portfolio?”

The harsh mid-morning sunlight shined squarely through her glasses. Jessica scrunched her eyes and went to shut the curtains behind her brother. Yes, it was 11:30 am, but Mum was working a bonus day and so Jessica would be enjoying her Saturday morning lie-in all day long. Owl slippers for the win. If only the rest of her family could leave for a couple of hours too.

“Morning.” Josh lay on the sofa, watching the TV upside down.

 "YES, that one!" exclaimed Lian loudly. "He's rejected my art? Can I ask why? No, no, I know it's not your fault, you're just doing your job. Lian Garrett."

The hold music resumed. Jessica turned to the sight of her uncle with his head in the top kitchen cupboard, precariously balancing a tray with coffee, eggs and bacon, the phone clutched in his other hand. The open egg box teetered on the granite counter, ready to smash right into the broken plates. Jessica had only looked away for thirty seconds. Rushing forward, she pushed the eggs a safe distance from the edge.

"I expect you think that I'm going to make you breakfast?" asked Lian, spinning around.

A drop of coffee splashed on the eggs. She eyed the silent phone and Lian froze, gasping. "No, not you, gallery person — I was talking to my — she hung up."

"I'd say that makes it breakfast time." Jessica shrugged.

"Sorry, you're about two hours late. See you at dinner."

"Like you didn't sleep until Uncle Thomas brought you lunch last Saturday," she retorted.

He grinned.

Lian was the coolest member in the family by a long shot. He was big in every sense of the word: very tall, and soft in the middle, which made him perfect for good hugs.

"Lian was just about to find me some breakfast," said Josh pointedly, flopping his legs onto the sofa.

"I was — what am I doing looking through your cake tins?" he asked, running his fingers through a messy afro. He stretched above the cupboards to put the tin back on top.

Jessica shook her head, sighing. "No one knows."

After last night’s salmon, Mum had left the kitchen sprayed, scrubbed and scoured. A teapot and coffee pot, two letters and a little whiteboard were the only items left on the counter. Now there were crumbs of toast sprinkled towards a jam-coated plate, and a cat-hair-covered jumper discarded far too close to the food preparation areas for Jessica's liking. It was sometimes hard to believe this man was married to Uncle Thomas; one straight-laced science nerd, one chaotic landscape artist, school wall organiser, queer group coordinator and occasional barista.

"Anyway, Rach was very clear. Balanced meals that include fruit, vegetables, protein and complex carbohydrates." Lian laughed. "I don't know what's got her stressed today..."

"You think that is Mum stressed?"

Lian threw a bowl of porridge in the microwave and grabbed the berries. "Regular stressed, yes. Stressed is her normal state of being, just like Tom. I love that man. Did you know he irons his pyjamas sometimes?” He thought fondly, gazing towards a photo on the wall where Uncle Tom stood between Mum and himself, with the twins, then five, in front. Then Lian got very distracted by the porridge as the microwave beeped. “Ooh — do you want to watch a movie later? What do you want to do today?"

“Well, my plan is to watch Void: Carter Returns when episode 3 streams at exactly 12 pm. Clara is at gymnastics until half-past, and I need to rub it in her face at school on Monday that I saw it first.”

Jessica attempted to wrestle the remote from her brother.

"Absolutely not!" replied Josh. "I was here first. You can watch it whenever — that’s the point of streaming. Let's just watch The Murderous Clown Hunt."

Jessica rolled her eyes.

"Absolutely!" said Lian. "And you can tell your mum all about it later, wouldn't she be thrilled?"

“Josh, I told you, the TV is mine from twelve. Get off,” snapped Jessica. “It’s 11:55. Lian, tell him to get off the sofa.”

"Josh, give her the TV," he replied, distracted.

“No, it’s mine!”

Jessica gasped.

“What?” asked Lian, whipping around.

She pointed to a drying smudge of white paint splodged on the counter. “Lian! Grandma and Grandad are coming tomorrow!”

He grimaced. “Sh- sugar.”

“Nice save.”

“Who cares? It’s just a tiny mark,” said Josh, rubbing at it with his finger.

“Okay, new plan. Void can wait. I’ll get Mum’s cleaning wipes, Josh, you start soaking the mark with a cloth, and Lian… tidy up a bit? No offence, but our house is a complete disaster and it’s not even 12 pm!”

Jessica ran to the cupboard, returning with the wipes. Lian had his head in the cupboards again and she followed behind him, picking up a trail of destruction. "You almost spilled the pasta."

"You sound like your mum," he groaned. "Or Thomas."

"Yeah? And you're supposed to." Jessica peered under the kitchen cupboards, finding the other half plate to match the half that fell. That meant that Lian put half a plate back in the cupboard, only to let it fall again. What was he expecting to do with a half? He wasn’t thinking, that was it. 

"Stain’s almost gone. See, Jessica? Not that hard. Lian — can you give me another painting lesson?" asked Joshua, rifling through sheets of drawings. "There's this girl in my class who's good at art — I bet she's been staring at my quads already when I'm playing my guitar, but another skill won't hurt."

"Ew, I do not want to hear about your love life!" said Jessica, covering her ears.

Lian snorted. "Your quads are in your legs, so I don't know what you think you're doing with that guitar."

Josh stared at him. "Right — since when are you the muscle expert?"

"I'm not completely dim, I listen to Thomas... Sometimes. Anyway, where was I?"

"You were talking about painting," Jessica reminded him.

"Yep, brushes out and I will bestow upon you the gift of learning from the absolute master," he grinned, opening yet another cupboard in search of art supplies.

"He's modest, too," she muttered.

"Hey! What's the point of being an art teacher if I can't flaunt these skills?" He spun the brush between his fingers. It dropped.

"You teach in your friend's cafe once a week," sniggered Josh. "Uncle Thomas earns the actual money."

He gasped, faking offence. "Just because I'm not a radiologist... I call that discrimination against artists." Lian was always one for a hyperbole.

Josh pointed at the right shelf and they gathered around the kitchen table, newspaper spread across to avoid spillages.

“I thought we were meant to be cleaning?” Jessica reminded him.

“A little family bonding will do us good. Do me a favour and switch on the new Void, will you?”

Jessica smiled. Clara wouldn’t be home from gymnastics yet. On Monday, Jessica would have all the Year 7 bragging rights for being the first to watch this week’s episode.

"Flat brushes are better for acrylics," Lian told them, looking at the round-edged brushes they had. "When we're next at our house, I'll get you both a couple of cheap canvases and you can try my paints."

"What are acrylics?" Jessica asked.

"These," he replied, gesturing to the paints in pots. "Acrylics are like plastic when they dry; they're hard and create bright colours. Watercolours are weaker and are like painting with water — like the name. Is it spelled the same or just pronounced that way?"

"Yep, spelled that way," replied Jessica.

"That's good, I like that," he replied.

"Oi, Jessica, pass the blue!" said Josh, tiny flecks of paint adding to his collection of freckles. A dab of green stuck ginger curls to his head.

She reached for the blue tub, giggling.

A turquoise sky lighting the daffodils flowing in the breeze, maybe a dab of yellow warming the upper areas of the canvas. Lian’s landscapes weren’t simple and boring like this. There was always a moment of chaos within blades of grass or frothy sea.  

The pungent smell of the acrylics made them cough, so Lian moved to open the windows behind the sofa and beside the kitchen.

"Great view from here isn't it?"

He stared towards the wide landscape that was Harriford Green stretching towards the rest of London. Ancient red brick buildings transformed into your everyday Starbucks and Sainsburys, modern apartments, trees dotted through the square that housed the markets at Christmas time. Jessica knew that if she tried, she could almost see Lady Antoinette’s Academy, her new school.

"Yeah. If only Mum wasn't such an indoor cat, we could have a garden to go with it," she sighed.

"I get you. Thomas doesn't want to move either. I know he hates our little place just as much as I do but he doesn't want the stress of moving," sighed Lian.

"You should find a house and just tell him on the day you leave," Jessica suggested.

He chuckled. "If only it were that easy."

"It's not as if he's picky at all, he'll be fine!" said Josh sarcastically. He dipped the brush thickly and dabbed it onto the paper.

"Watch, watch, don't put that much paint on at once," Lian told him, rushing back to the table. "If you make a mistake, it'll be quicker to dry and easier to paint over if you use less paint at a time. What is it?”

“It’s you, see the hair?”

Jessica leaned across to see, pushing her glasses back. Josh’s paper had a dark blob on top of a lighter blob, on top of a pencilled Star Wars jumper. It could be Lian, or a rotten potato in a jumper.

“That’s not my skin colour,” Lian complained, studying the image past its potato-y outline.

“Right, okay, you mix it then.” Josh shrugged.

Lian pulled back a seat and leaned over a pile of newspaper, curls falling forward as he delicately added smidges of black and white to some brown and yellow to create a warm shade of brown. Carefully, he smeared a dash of the newly-mixed paint on his arm to match it. No more potato tones. Jessica continued to stroke the green, a bold colour seeping through the messy sketch on her page.

"What is it?" Lian asked, turning his head curiously.

In all honesty, she wasn't really sure. "Well, I started by doing flowers in a field, and then I thought the green paint would make a cool snake, but it turned out more of a blob." Jessica frowned, holding the paper up and twisting it sideways to see it from a new angle. Nope, still blobby.

"Art is all about experimenting. One of my favourite things to do is grab a canvas and just let my mind wander and see what I paint," he replied, passing the new brown paint across the table to Josh.

Jessica nodded, deciding that abstract art wasn't really her thing. The flower-snake-blob had been fun, but now she wished she had a real picture — ugh, she could’ve painted Bob. Bob the Cat would beat Blob the Snake any day.

"We should clean up soon," Lian suggested, standing up. "I think we should do some cooking, make your mum and Thomas something as well for when they get back. He hasn't been feeling well for days, it'll be nice if he can just walk in, sit down and leave afterwards without doing the dishes."

"What are we having for dinner?" Joshua asked.

"Pick what you like," replied Lian.

"Well, you know what we'd like," Jessica told him. “Takeaway pizza."

"Ha, ha, very funny," he said sarcastically, "your mum would love that."

"So, anything, meaning only boring foods?" Josh grumbled.

"I never said you could have anything. Learned pretty quickly not to do that," said Lian, lifting the paints and crumpling up the newspaper. Jessica giggled, noticing a large splodge of brown staining his light blue t-shirt. Lian hadn’t noticed. “But it doesn't need to be boring either. Why do you think home-cooked food is boring? What about curry with vegetables and rice?"

"Do we know how to make that?" asked Jessica.

"If you read the recipe out for me, then I'll make it," Lian suggested.

"Only if we can watch a movie at the same time," Joshua said at once.

"Fine," Lian conceded. "Movie on the TV — no 15s or 18s — you read the recipe, Jessica keeps me right on the ingredient labels, I prepare and cook. Deal?"

“Deal," the twins said in unison and reached across the table. They separated to accomplish their various tasks before Mum and Uncle Thomas returned. Maybe things would get done if Jessica relaxed like Josh and Lian sometimes.