Finding You (30 page)

43 - Charlie

I have decided: all I want is to be heard out. All the long drive back home, the sunny Yorkshire morning lengthening into a squally afternoon, this has been the one thought playing out in my mind: what I did, I will own. What I did not do—tell Julia the truth about my visit to the Hermosa clinic—I will own that, too. I’d thought to spare her the pain of learning about my stupidity. I’d thought to spare myself the pain of her learning about my shame but in the end I see ... neither of us has been spared a thing. And in the middle of it all, there is still our troubled and enigmatic little boy.

My father, I have had to let go. My son ... I already know that I never will. Strangely, I knew this even before I walked out of the clinic with Lourdes that day; I knew it the moment I did the deed, took the test, and in doing so, betrayed both Hadyn and his mother. I already knew I’d never leave them, whatever the results, because I
loved
them. The heart—that powerful, restless place that I have no pretensions to any knowledge of—I saw, even then, it did not work like that. I was already captured, but will Julia believe any of this now?  Will she be prepared to listen to any of what she previously did not care to hear?

There’s a blockage on the M1 that holds me up for the best part of an hour while the chilly evening darkens early, slows me down, and after I enter Richmond, every single traffic light along the way turns red as I approach it. In my mind, all I’m longing to do is get back home, but I know there is a part of me that’s equally dreading it, a part that’s sighing with relief every time I have to step on the brakes.

At Blackberry House, the hall is faintly cold when I walk inside. The weather has changed, yes, but it feels as if no heating’s been on for the past couple of days. Was it really on Friday night I left this place? Julia said to me over the phone they’d been away. They’ll have been to her Mum’s, no doubt. That’s where all girls go to, I imagine, just like Rob said.  Did they leave here Friday night too, I wonder, or had they waited till Saturday morning to go? My eyes light on the baggage—her favourite carry-all suitcase—that’s sitting in the hall now. Her purse, half-open, displays the telltale edge of an airline ticket, and my heart goes to my mouth.

What ...
they’re leaving, then?
She’s taking him away somewhere. Where could they possibly be going to? I swallow, aware of my thoughts racing too fast, aware that there are many careful steps that must now be taken if she’ll ever want to accept me back in her life again. I put down my keys on the hall table. They make a shallow echoing sound and she must hear them because Julia comes out, now, from the sitting room. As the door swings open, I can see they must have both been lying on the settee together, watching the cartoons with the sound down so low, I couldn’t hear it before. She looks tired, I see. And sad.

And him?

He does not move from the settee tonight. I long to see him. When I come home every evening, he always comes to the door, looking for me. Sometimes, I see his funny little smile, his satisfaction at knowing that it is me, his daddy.
I am back
, and in a way I could never hope to explain that makes my whole day worthwhile.

‘He’s nearly asleep,’ she warns, her voice strangely neutral as she sees me looking over. She doesn’t take a step closer to me. Her arms are folded across her chest. But Julia does not feel ... the way I have been so scared she would feel: as angry and hurt as she was Friday night when I left the house. She feels different. Wary with me, yes. Aware as I am that we can’t just go back to how it was before. We feel in some way like virtual strangers: polite, distant. Careful as dancers on ice avoiding collision. 

‘Had a long day?’ My voice is quiet, a little broken, making conversation. I’m feeling my way back in and I see how sad her eyes are as she nods silently at me. I look at the floor and my hands feel cold and useless and I can’t think of a single other thing to say. All the words I rehearsed so carefully on the way down here, they fly out the open door behind me like moths. I turn away to close it, a heavy feeling in my chest now that I am home and I can’t find any words and the truth is, I find ... I am not longing for the chance to explain anymore.  I don’t want to talk! I only long to hold Julia close in my arms, to feel the warmth of a human embrace that consoles and understands without the need for any words, how much I’m hurting inside. I want
that
, more than I want anything else, more than I could ever have imagined, and yet that...

It is something that I am well aware now may never happen.

‘Your dad?’ She’s asking me. When did she come that smidgeon closer to me? I did not see her move.

I give a short shake of my head. I can’t say it. I hear her intake of breath at that, see her hands fly to her mouth. Her eyes fill with tears. Not for him—she barely knew him, I know that. Her tears are for me. And now that she’s started me off, there’s a strange gulping noise coming from my throat, a horrible sound like a wail that I try my best to temper down because
he’s nearly asleep...

‘I’m so sorry, Charlie.’  She pushes the sitting room door with her foot. ‘He’s ...’

I nod, and now I feel her hand on my arm. I turn to take hold of her hand, hold it like a precious thing, head bowed.

‘Did you make it up there in time?’ she’s whispering. She cares—
she cares
—and yet ... we cannot be natural together as we should be.

I nod again, and now she’s leading me through to the kitchen, pushing me onto one of the wooden country kitchen chairs and she’s gone to boil up the kettle for some beverage. I think she asked me,
Do you want any tea? Do you want anything to drink at all?
And while I do not care about the drink, the warmth of compassion in her voice, that’s what I care about, that’s what sustains me when the vision comes back to me of Dad’s empty bed on the ward when Rob and I went in to finish off this morning. Why had that affected me so? I had not even realised that it had.  The starched white sheets, all flat and crisp, all the paraphernalia that had been around him cleared away ... it had brought it all home, that he was gone. He wouldn’t be coming back anymore. Julia pushes this warm drink into my hands—she must have cooled it first from the tap—and she sits there with me for a bit, her hand over my hand, not saying a word.

‘Rob ...’ I gulp at last, ‘he never made it there in time.’ I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand. Does she see now why it was I‘d had to rush off, leave them the way I did? Will she understand it?

‘
You
did, though?’ She’s looking deep into my eyes, searching out heaven-knows-what for an instant.  ‘You were there when he died?’

‘Yes.’ I look into the cup of drink she’s made me. There’s a bubble floating on the top, from the tap.

‘So you were ... all alone. When it happened?’

‘Not alone.’ I glance at her. Does she seem a little disappointed at that? She moves back a bit. Stares down at her hands now. What’s she thinking, I can’t tell?

‘I could have saved him, you know, J.’
Is this too much to share with her at this stage? Now that we’re almost strangers ... almost enemies ... again?
‘I could have got his heart re-started but he’d left instructions and I had to watch him ...’ The words run out on me now and my throat ... it clams up, feeling sore like a football’s got stuck in there and Julia ... she just stands up suddenly, abruptly, making me look up at her, wondering what it was I’ve said that was wrong. And I wonder once again ... what is that suitcase doing in the hallway, where is it she’s been planning to go next?

‘It’s a very terrible situation to have been put in,’ she says from the cupboard. She’s pulling down another cup—making herself a drink now, too? I think it’s only so she’s got an excuse to do something, and I wish she would come back. She can have my drink if she likes; I don’t want it. I only want her to be here. ‘I only wish ... I could have been the one who was there with you, if it wasn’t Rob.’  She sounds sad again.

‘Perhaps it was better that it was the nurse, though,’ I say quietly. ‘They’re used to all the hell that breaks loose when the alarms all go off at once ... it can be distressing.’

‘The nurse?’ J comes and sits down beside me once again. ‘It was the nurse who was with you in the ICU at the end? Not Rob and not ... anyone else? Not
Lourdes
?’ she asks painfully.

I look at her in astonishment. Is
this
what she’s been thinking? Good God.

‘J ...’ I begin, and I see a warning light come into her eyes. I stop. I guess I’ve earned this, haven’t I? ‘She is the
last
person I would have wanted to be up there with me.’  I want to say more, fill up all the silence that follows with all the things I practised saying when I was driving back home, but my throat won’t let me. It hurts too much. Julia looks deep into my eyes again. Can she see the truth in there?
Can
she?

Can she see that all I need right now is a hug? I need it so much. I don’t need any drink, and I don’t need to talk or explain or describe or
do
anything at all. I just need a hug. And now, over her shoulder, through the kitchen door, I spy my sleepy Bubba, one of his old baby bottles hanging from his mouth, sidling in as he clocks my return. He hovers by the door, not coming any closer once he knows I’ve seen him, but his eyes are wide open and curious. Does he recall how I left him on the stairs Friday night? How I went away and left him when he was crying?

‘Hey,’ I say gently, opening my arms wide for him to come to me even though I know he will not come. He doesn’t.

And then I see it: the battered, soft fur creature that’s hanging loosely under one arm, the grey fur of its trunk sticking up over the top just enough for me to see it. Bap-Bap. His favourite toy that Julia carried with her all of last year everywhere she went, when she was trying to find Hadyn. She had it with her that day in the park when we found him, but we never brought it away. I swallow, turning to look at Julia questioningly.
We left that elephant behind in Spain with Illusion
. She’s said it a thousand times ... could she have found it at the bottom of a suitcase somewhere, could we have had it here with us, all along?

She must have.

‘Who’s that?’ I say. ‘Bap-Bap?’ A small grin forms in the corner of Hadyn’s mouth, a grin that turns into a pleased glint of recognition in his eyes. He lifts the elephant up high for us both to see: his trophy and his prize.

‘
Bap
,’ he says, and Julia’s eyes open wide in surprise. I think mine must, too. We both laugh, pleased as punch despite everything and then Julia sniffs and pats my hand. It is not a hug, not yet, it’s only a small gesture.

But maybe it’s a start.