Missing You (26 page)

‘Do you need the bathroom?’ she asked.

‘Yes, no, dunno.’

Fen pushed him through the door, leaned against it, slid the bolt and pulled the cord to turn on the light. She knew Tomas had taken or smoked something he shouldn’t have, but she was afraid to ask the question outright. And she was even more afraid of her father, or Deborah, coming along to investigate.

‘Hurry up, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘Brush your teeth. You probably ought to lie down.’

She turned her back so he could use the lavatory, and chewed at her fingernail.

‘Tom . . .’

‘Sorry, Fen, I don’t feel too good.’

He was sick. Horribly sick. Their father must have heard for moments later there were footsteps on the landing and knocking on the door.

‘What’s going on in there?’ he called. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Tom’s poorly,’ Fen called back. ‘It’s probably something he ate. He’ll be OK in a minute.’

‘Should I ask Deborah to come?’

‘No,’ said Fen. ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll look after him.’

Sean sighs. He plays with Fen’s hair.

‘So you looked after Tomas. That time and all the other times?’

‘I tried to.’

‘Was it heroin?’

‘Later it was. I don’t know about then. It wasn’t something we ever actually talked about. Tom using drugs was always there between us, but we used to do our best to ignore it.’

‘I know that feeling,’ Sean says quietly. ‘Go on,’ he whispers. ‘Tell me what happened to Tom after that.’

For a long time, more than three years, Tomas was a functioning addict. He managed to keep his life going; he went to university and completed his degree. He did it for Gordon. He made his father proud. Lucy still has the photo of Gordon and Deborah standing on either side of Tomas in his robes and mortarboard on the day he graduated, and everything looks absolutely perfect. Nobody who did not know would ever guess that anything was wrong.

After that, Tomas found a flat in Manchester and Joe went to join him. Joe was bright and clever and he could have done anything, but what he wanted to do, what he believed he had been put on the planet to do, was to be with Tomas.

‘Were they lovers?’ asks Sean.

Fen shifts herself up onto her elbow and gazes down at him.

‘How did you guess?’

‘Just the way you talk about them. It’s kind of obvious.’

‘It was a secret,’ she says quietly.

Sean snorts. ‘Why?’

‘Oh, Sean, Merron isn’t like Bath. It’s isolated. It’s set in its ways.’

‘Surely it’s not
that
medieval.’

‘You’d be surprised. And at the college, it being a boys’ school, anyone who was the slightest bit different used to get bullied. You couldn’t show any sign of weakness, any vulnerability . . .’

‘Too much protesting?’

‘It was a very macho place. And our father – he was the headmaster – was forever writing assembly speeches subtly condemning . . . you know,
that
sort of thing. He didn’t want any sodomy going on in his school. Not on his watch, that’s what he meant.’

‘But it must have gone on.’

‘It did. And it wasn’t that Tomas was ashamed or anything, but he was just worried there’d be a scandal if people knew the truth.’

Tom had read cruel things in the papers; he knew how people would talk, and point fingers. He wouldn’t have minded what people thought of him, but he was worried about his father’s reputation, and Joe. He was afraid of the damage the truth might do to him and his mother. Mrs Rees worked in the college kitchens. She was very upright and God-fearing, very proud. Both families were vulnerable.

‘Who else knew about their relationship?’

‘They had friends in Manchester. But in Merron nobody knew. Only me.’

‘Were they very close?’

‘Oh yes. They were soulmates.’

Sean reaches up and strokes the side of her cheek with his knuckles.

Fen’s hand rests still on Sean’s chest. She can feel the vibrations of his heartbeat beneath her fingertips.

‘Did Joe take drugs?’

‘No, never. He hated them. When they started living together he helped Tomas get clean. I always thought Joe would be the making of Tom. He loved him so much. And once they were in Manchester, when Tom was normal again, they were so happy.’

‘So what went wrong?’

Fen sighs and lies back down on the bed. Her head sinks into the pillow. ‘My father became ill,’ she says. ‘It was cancer. Tomas had to come home.’

thirty-seven

Connor has a physiotherapy session in the pool. Fen is in the water, warm as a bath, watching what the therapist does so that she can replicate the exercises. Connor loves the water, and he is noisy and physical. Fen likes seeing him in this environment; he’s such a boy, naughty, splashing the therapist and then behaving as if the splash movement was involuntary.

‘I’m on to you, Connor Weller, ’ says the therapist, pulling a mock-cross face and wagging her finger.

Connor laughs again. Fen leans back into the pool. The ends of her hair float around her. She fingers the golden M and looks down at her legs which are distorted, white, rippling in the water. She thinks of Sean and she twists the chain round and round her fingers and she drifts.

She thinks of the things she can’t say aloud to anyone, and she wonders if Sean is right. She wonders if it is time to let go of her secret. She could tell Sean what happened the night Joe died. He would understand. But there is somebody else she should tell first.

Connor squeals and splashes and the noise echoes in the chlorinated, hot atmosphere of the hospital pool and yet Fen hears nothing. She thinks of her brother, falling. She wonders what was in his mind. The room, the pool chamber, revolves around her in slow motion as she bends her legs and immerses herself, then drops right down so that the water covers her face. She keeps her eyes open. Chemicals sting her eyes and she sees colours and movement, distorted, beautiful and unshaped, like underwater kaleidoscope patterns; in the bubbles and waves and currents she hears the underwater winds and the strange sounds that remind her of whale-song.

Her body wants to rise. The air in her lungs pulls her to the surface. Her feet won’t balance on the tiled bottom of the pool. She straightens her legs and emerges from the water. She pushes the hair out of her face with her two hands.

‘Watch this, Mum!’ says the therapist, and she lets go of Connor, who gamely doggy-paddles to the side of the pool, holding his chin high out of the water, laughing and gasping for breath all at the same time.

‘Hooray!’ Fen calls, clapping her hands together. ‘Hooray for Connor, the best boy in the whole wide world!’

thirty-eight

Amy has her nose pressed up against the window. She’s watching the sea lions dive and swim. Her hands are flattened against the glass on either side of her face. Each time she exhales she clouds up the window in front of her mouth. She is transfixed by the movement of the creatures, by their sleek, muscular ballet, by their eyelashes and their snouts. Sea lions are her favourite animals. She loves them in the water, and out. It is her ambition, one day, to be the keeper of the sea lions at the zoo.

Belle takes her camera out of her handbag.

‘Go and stand beside her,’ she says to Sean.

He obliges, feeling awkward, like a boy in a new school uniform.

‘Amy, Mum wants to take a picture. Turn round for a moment,’ he says, nudging his daughter.

She doesn’t hear him. Or else she ignores him.

Belle takes a picture anyway. Then one of the wardens offers to take a picture of the three of them together, and Belle comes to stand on the other side of Amy. The resulting shot, when they look at it on the little screen at the back of the camera, shows the two adults smiling self-consciously, leaning their heads towards one another above the child, who stands oblivious, with her back to the camera and her fingers star-fished against the window.

‘That one’s my favourite,’ she says. They all look exactly the same to Sean. ‘That one’s called Ariel. The big one is Nancy and the one with the cut on her tail is called Keisha.’

‘They’re all girls?’

‘Mmm.’

Sean watches for a moment. He can see why Amy likes the sea lions. They seem to be enjoying themselves in the water.

‘When I’m looking after the sea lions, I’m going to wear a wetsuit and swim with them,’ Amy says. ‘I’m going to be one of their family.’

‘What? You’re going to eat
raw fish
!’ Sean exclaims, raising his eyebrows. ‘You’re going to swallow them whole?’

Amy shoots him a withering look.

‘Just because you’re in the same family doesn’t mean you have to eat the same things.’

‘No,’ Sean agrees, ‘it doesn’t.’

He looks behind him. Belle is sitting on a bench, holding her bag on her lap. She is gazing into the middle distance.

Sean feels not quite right, as if he’s drunk or dreaming. He and Belle are behaving with artificial politeness and courtesy. Conversation between them is stilted, every question seems loaded, every answer evasive. They have to be careful not to touch on subjects that could accidentally hurt the other, or prompt the memory of some lie or argument or even some good time that they shared. Belle seems to be finding the situation as awkward as he is.

Sean wanders over to the bench, sits down and offers Belle a piece of chewing gum. She shakes her head. Sean thinks they are behaving like a Victorian couple who have just been introduced and who know nothing about one another, not two adults who shared the same bed for eleven years. He rests his elbows on his knees and folds the gum wrapper into a tiny square.

‘You’re looking really good,’ she says eventually, with a tentative smile. ‘The bachelor life obviously suits you.’

‘I’m doing OK.’

‘Your shirt is ironed.’

Sean looks down. He hadn’t noticed. ‘That must have been Fen,’ he says.

‘You’ve got her well trained.’

A shiver of irritation Mexican-waves through his body, from one set of fingertips, via his brain, to the other.

‘It’s not like that,’ he says.

‘No. Of course not.’

She pauses then asks: ‘So is it serious? You and her?’

It feels entirely inappropriate to Sean to discuss Fen with Belle.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, to buy time, but even as the words come out he recognizes their ambivalence. ‘Yes,’ he says quickly, ‘yes, it is. I mean I’m serious about her. She’s been very good to me. She’s all that’s got me through these last months.’

Belle nods. ‘Thanks for rubbing it in,’ she says. ‘Actually, I know what I did to you.’

‘Look, I’m not trying to be difficult, but you asked and—’

Amy is beside him, patting his shoulder.

‘Daddy, the man said they’re going to feed the sea lions at three o’clock and I told him I wanted to be the person who looks after them when I grow up and he said I can give them a fish so I can practise!’

‘He never did!’

‘He did! And I said it was my birthday and he said I can give them two fishes! And I said I wanted to give Ariel the fish because she’s my favourite and he said . . .’

Belle stands; she walks away.

‘That’s fantastic, Ames!’

Sean watches Belle’s back, her defeated air. She walks away, out of earshot. Then she looks up, towards the sky, as if she is taking a couple of deep breaths. God, that woman knows how to wind him up. He puts his hand on Amy’s shoulder, then rubs her arm affectionately.

‘Amy, is Mummy all right?’

‘Mmm . . . only she cries sometimes when I’m in bed.’

‘She cries?’

‘Yes, she’s sad because Lewis has moved out.’

‘Oh.’

‘At first she cried all the time and then Nanna Amanda came to stay and she took Mummy to the doctor and he gave her some pills to make her better.’

Sean swallows. ‘Oh dear.’

He looks again at Belle, standing some way away. Then he takes Amy’s hand. ‘Come on, you,’ he says. ‘We ought to feed you before you feed those sea lions.’

They run to catch up with Belle, then they walk through the zoo gardens together.

‘So how is everything with you?’ he asks his wife.

‘Fine. Everything’s fine.’

‘I haven’t had any letters from your solicitor,’ he says, keeping his voice low so Amy can’t hear.

‘No.’

Sean waits, but Belle does not expand on this.

‘Amy told me Lewis has left,’ he says gently.

‘Yes.’

‘Was there somebody else?’

Belle bites her lip. She says to Amy, ‘See that giant tortoise over there? You run ahead and we’ll catch you up.’

When Amy is out of earshot she sighs. ‘No, there was no one else. It would have been easier if there had been. I asked him to leave. I couldn’t stand living with him.’ She laughs in an ironic and knowing way. ‘He turned out to be an arrogant pig,’ she says. ‘He never stopped talking about himself and his work. It was so . . . wearing.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t think he really cared for me. I was something of a trophy, that’s all.’

‘I’m sorry,’ says Sean. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

Belle glances at him sideways. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It means a lot to me that you still care.’

They walk over to the tortoise pen where Amy is watching a giant tortoise eat a tomato, masticating with regal solemnity.

‘How’re your . . .’ Belle and Sean say together, at the same time, and they both laugh.

‘My parents are good. They went on their first cruise,’ says Belle, ‘in the Med. Spending my inheritance. How’s Rosie’s fashion business doing?’

‘It’s just a cover for her unhealthy obsession with the early 1970s. I don’t think she makes any money but she gets to email David Essex fetishists worldwide.’

Belle laughs. She clutches her handbag.

‘Darragh puts up with it,’ says Sean. ‘It leaves him free to play unimpeded golf.’

Belle laughs again. It’s a false, brittle laugh.

Sean does not like to see her like this. Oh, it’s true that she drove him mad with her superior, supercilious, patronizing act when she was with the Other, but he prefers that to this nervy unhappiness.