One Step Closer to You (5 page)

Ben leads me into his sitting room. I stare at the modern fireplace, the brown leather sofa with matching armchairs that look as if they’ve never been sat upon, and the stark white walls. ‘I’m bored,’ Louis says, clearly realising that this isn’t a child-friendly place. No toy diggers, trucks or toolboxes scattered on the carpet, only pristine wooden floors.

‘Why don’t you play a game with Emily?’ I suggest, distracted by a painting with a giant orange splodge in the middle of it.

Emily edges away from us as if we’re poisonous. She hasn’t said a word since we collected her from school. I can’t imagine what’s going on inside her head. She probably doesn’t know either. She must be confused and scared, yet unable to express it, and from the little I know about Ben, I doubt he can help her either, especially when he’s grieving too.

‘Do you want to read your book, Emily?’ Ben asks, as if
reading from a script. ‘Or have a snack before dinner? Juice? Watch television?’

Unsurprisingly they opt for television and a juice.

I follow Ben into the white kitchen, with nothing on the counters except a music system and coffee machine. In the middle of the room is an island with two modern silver stools. He opens the fridge, reaches for the milk and two cartons of apple juice. He switches on the kettle. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Thanks,’ I say, feeling faintly uncomfortable in this show home. I look at Louis and Emily watching television, their mouths wide open like goldfish. ‘The moment that thing is on, they turn into zombies.’

Ben hands me a mug. ‘Emily probably watches too much, but I don’t know what else to do with her. She won’t play with her toys.’

Toys? What toys?

I saw you at the meeting
.

‘Maybe she needs counselling,’ Ben continues.

‘Um. Maybe.’

Throwing money at the problem probably isn’t the answer. But then again, if he can’t talk to her
 …

I look around the kitchen. She needs a home filled with fun and love. She needs to understand what’s going on. I have no idea how a child sees death. It’s frightening enough for an adult to lose a parent, so what does it mean for Emily? She needs Ben to talk to her about Grace to keep her memory
alive. Does she ask questions, like Louis is beginning to with his father? It’s hard for Louis to understand why he has no dad when the man is still alive.

Louis jolts me from my thoughts, saying he needs the loo.

‘Sure. Just round the corner, last room on right,’ Ben says. Louis wants me to come with him, clingy when we’re not at home.

As we walk down the hallway, hand-in-hand, I can’t help taking a quick peep into Ben’s room. There’s an exercise bike and double bed, a bedside table with nothing on it. No photographs or things that tell me anything about him. This flat isn’t a home; it’s more like a stage where the actors don’t know their lines. We all have four walls around us that can be filled with laughter, hope, security, love and all other kinds of feelings. These walls house sadness. When Matthew and I lived together they housed fear.

*

We all eat lasagne (delicious, thanks, Gabriella) round the dining room table. ‘Then Polly’s going to teach me how to plait your hair, Emily,’ says Ben stiltedly. ‘Come on, you must be starving.’ He takes the fork, scoops some food on to it.

Emily turns her head away from him. Ben puts the fork down. ‘You need to eat,’ he says, fighting not to lose his patience.

‘Mummy says if I don’t eat I’ll shrivel up!’ Louis waves his fork in the air.

‘I don’t have a Mummy anymore,’ Emily says. ‘She’s dead.’

It’s the first thing she has said this afternoon and it makes me want to cry. I glance at Ben, who looks lost.

‘I’m so sorry, Emily,’ I say. ‘You must miss her very much.’

She nods. ‘Her heart went wrong. Mummy said you go to heaven,’ Emily continues, shoving food from one side of the plate to the other.

‘What is heaven?’ Louis asks.

‘It’s a place where all the most wonderful things are,’ I say. ‘All the things that make you happy.’

Louis thinks about this. ‘Custard tarts?’

‘Oh yeah, loads of custard tarts.’

‘Is there a garden?’ Louis continues, ‘So I can play stomp rocket?’

‘Yes,’ Emily says to my surprise, ‘there is one big garden with flowers and lots of dogs.’

Emily is a beautiful girl with her long shiny auburn hair, heart-shaped mouth and oval green eyes. She just needs to eat. She’s nothing but skin and bones. A puff of wind could surely blow her over.

‘And cars? We don’t have a car. Do you have a car, Emily?’

She nods. ‘Uncle Ben has a car with no roof.’

‘Not for long,’ he mutters.

‘I want to see heaven,’ Louis announces. ‘When can we go, Mum?’

‘We can’t. People don’t come
back
from heaven.’ Please stop asking awkward questions, Louis.

‘Oh. Why not?’

I cough. ‘Well …’

‘Maisy’s name was written in the red book today,’ he interrupts me, thankfully. I remind Ben that Maisy is Jim’s daughter, noticing how relieved he looks that we’ve changed subjects too.

‘Why was she in the red book?’ I ask.

‘She flushed lots of paper down the toilet.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She came into the classroom with toilet paper stuck on her skirt!’ Again Louis howls with laughter, thinking this has to be the funniest thing ever.

‘What’s the red book?’ asks Ben.

‘If your name is in the little red book it’s because you’ve been very naughty,’ says Louis, rather self-righteously.

‘Do you think your name is in it?’ I ask him.

He blushes, even his ears turning pink. ‘I don’t think so, Mum. No.’

‘Do you think your name might
possibly
be in there?’

He pauses. ‘Possibly.’

‘Do you think you probably
are
in the red book?’

Louis puts down his knife and fork, taking his time to answer. ‘I probably am, Mummy, yes.’

There’s a pause before we all laugh, even Emily. I catch Ben looking at her, as if she has never laughed before. She eats a mouthful of lasagne, and then another. Mentally I am urging her to eat just one more. As we clear up the plates,
Ben tells me that Emily’s eaten more tonight than she has in weeks. ‘You’ll have to come over more often,’ he whispers.

*

‘OK, so you take a strand in the middle, here,’ I say, ‘and then you go to the sides …’

‘He’s not scratching the floor, is he?’ asks Ben, looking over his shoulder at Louis racing his car around the flat.

‘Concentrate on this, please,’ I tell him before muttering, ‘control freak.’ It takes one to know one.

He raises an eyebrow. ‘Bossy-boots.’

‘Ow.’ Emily pulls away, touching her hair.

‘Sorry, sweetheart. You take this strand over the other and then you take another from here …’

‘I’ll never be able to do this,’ murmurs Ben, watching avidly. ‘It’s harder than astrophysics.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Emily repeats.

‘And then you plait some more … like this … and look …’ I tie the hairband at the end of the plait and swivel Emily round to face me. ‘So pretty.’ She touches the back of her head tentatively, before saying, ‘I like you.’

My heart melts. ‘Well that’s good news, because I like you too,’ I say. Ben and I swap positions on the sofa, Ben asking Emily to sit down on the floor again, in front of him. He rolls up his sleeves as if he means business. We undo the plait; Ben brushes her hair.

‘Ouch!’ she shrieks. ‘Uncle Ben!’

‘Wimp,’ he says, and for the first time tonight I think he’s enjoying himself. ‘Like this?’ Ben grabs a section of Emily’s hair.

I lean towards him. ‘Gently. That’s right, bring it over this strand …’

‘It’s coming loose, oh shit, I mean sugar.’

‘Oh shit,’ repeats Louis, charging around the house, now with his emergency helicopter.

‘Oh shit,’ Emily joins in.

‘My fault, sorry,’ murmurs Ben when I tell Louis off for saying the ‘s’ word. ‘There.’ Ben ties the plait together with a bright pink band.

‘Not bad,’ I judge. It’s wonky and won’t stay in for long, but, ‘you have potential. Go and have a look in the mirror, Emily.’ She slopes off towards her bedroom. I urge Ben to follow her.

Emily’s room is smaller than Ben’s, with a single bed, pink-spotted duvet, and a toy sheep on her pillow. There’s another modern painting on the wall, this one with a red splodge in the middle. It looks like a nosebleed.

‘It’s nice,’ she says, heading out again, avoiding eye contact. Ben perches on the edge of her bed, sighs as if he has the world on his shoulders.

I sit down next to him, wishing I knew all the right things to say. I glance around the bare room before Ben tells me, ‘I was close to Grace, we used to talk on the phone most days, she was always nagging me to come and stay.’
He smiles sadly. ‘I knew Emily well enough, but I’ve never been that great with kids, as you can probably tell. The idea of having one myself …’ He inhales deeply, as if it were never on the agenda. ‘And now she’s here, it’s like we’re almost strangers.’

‘It’s bound to take time,’ I reassure him. ‘Where are her toys?’

He gestures to the window box at the foot of her bed. I open it, and inside are dolls, a basket filled with wooden fruit and vegetables, a toy till and a pair of wooden stilts, everything heaped up. ‘She doesn’t want to play with them anymore,’ he says.

I think about this, completely unqualified in this area, but something tells me that Ben needs to try a different tactic, because it can’t get much worse. ‘She probably does, but maybe you need to play with her. Does she have a picture of her mum?’

‘I’ve got albums.’ He looks out of the window. ‘I thought it might upset her, you know, seeing photos of Grace. At night I find her looking out into the sky.’ He stares ahead. ‘Asking for her Mummy.’ He turns back to me, panic in his eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’m cut out for this.’

‘Yes you are.’ I sit down next to him. ‘You’re all she’s got, Ben. She’s lost the most important person in her world, she can’t lose you too.’

‘I know, but …’

‘You’re her uncle, her
father
now.’

We sit silently. I want to ask him about AA. ‘Ben, do you mind me asking but …’

‘You saw me.’

We glance at one another awkwardly again until I say, ‘You didn’t stay long. I wanted to come after you … Was it your first time?’

‘No, been to a few. I’m not sure it’s for me, all that sharing stuff, talking about
feelings
.’ He pulls a face. ‘Listening to how old Bob found himself in the dustbin but crawled his way out of it.’

I find myself smiling. ‘It’s not all like that. I’ve met some incredible people.’ I think of music producer Ryan, lovely old Harry, my sponsor, Neve.

‘Why were you there?’ He stares ahead.

‘Drink. You?’

‘Drink and drugs. Drink
went
with the drugs. A couple of glasses of wine, a line of coke. My dealer was on speed dial.’ He shrugs. ‘This was years ago, Polly, when I worked in the City. I went into rehab when I was thirty, haven’t looked back. I don’t know … I wasn’t wavering the other day, or maybe I was, but what with losing Grace and Emily living with me, life has been a little crazy.’

I look at Ben. He’s got money, the designer suit, looks (if only he’d get rid of that beard) the cushy pad, but all I can see is emptiness inside. ‘If ever you need to talk, if you need a friend …’

He turns to me, warmth in his dark-brown eyes. ‘You’ve already helped with the plait situation.’ He pauses, pressing his head into his hands. ‘I am worried about losing clients. I can’t seem to focus, I need to …’

‘Listen,’ I interrupt, ‘anyone would be struggling right now in your shoes. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’

He nods. ‘When did you start drinking?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘Fourteen!’

‘Oh believe me, people start younger than that.’

‘Why did you?’

‘I don’t know. I felt nothing inside,’ is all I can say. ‘Escape, I guess. The only time I felt at peace was when I drank. You?’

He thinks about this. ‘The normal route to life, you know, marriage and children, it seemed pretty dull. I was determined not to go down the same path as my mum and stepdad. They had a marriage I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy,’ he confides. ‘I thought I was better off living the high life, drinking and partying to excess, I didn’t want to invest in any relationship that got in the way of my freedom. I see now that that way of living is no route to happiness.’ He stops, runs a hand through his thick wavy hair. ‘Boy, this is getting a bit heavy. I hardly know you.’

‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk to complete strangers.’

‘Not
quite
so complete now.’

We smile, and in that moment I see something flicker between us, something that tells me we are going to become good friends.

I’m in the kitchen being told off, my father telling Mum to calm down. She’s spitting with rage as she reads a letter from my headmistress. ‘Why did you do it, Polly?’

To earn money to buy cigarettes, I set up a hairdressing camp in one corner of the playing field with my best friend, Janey.

‘She said she liked it, Mum.’ The girls brought along a picture from a glossy magazine of a hairstyle they liked and Janey and I copied it. It was all going so well until Lucinda wanted a short spiky hairdo like Helena Christensen’s. I thought I’d copied it faithfully, but clearly from the letter Mum is reading, Lucinda’s parents are furious.

‘Lucinda was pleased!’ I stress again.

Mum steps forward, hits me so hard across the cheek that even Dad is shocked.

I stagger back, tears stinging my eyes.

She tells me how disappointed and ashamed she is of me, and soon her words become a blur. I can’t listen. All I hear is, ‘Go! You’re grounded for a month.’

Slowly I head upstairs, feeling guilty and wretched. I stop when I overhear Mum talking to Dad. ‘I’m not being hard! My mother hit us all the time, never did us any harm. If we’re not careful she’ll turn out like Vivienne.’

I catch my breath. Vivienne? Why is that name familiar? I recall sitting on the stairs the night after Hugo was dropped off at school. ‘
Think of it as medicine
,’ Dad had said.
‘It’ll help you sleep.’

‘
I don’t want it! It’s poison!
’

‘
Gina, you’re not Vivienne!
’

Vivienne. Who is she?

*

Later that night, I lie awake, missing Hugo. I wish I could go into his bedroom, talk to him like we used to.

When Hugo left home three years ago a light switched off in the house. When we sat down to supper, none of us could look at the empty seat opposite mine. We’d gone from a comfortable square to an awkward triangle. Mum can’t disguise anymore that he is undoubtedly her favourite child. Hugo is ten now, but when he was eight his school was approached by the British Ski Club for the Disabled. I can still recall Mum’s excitement when she had told Dad and me that they had selected only three of the pupils to train
and compete for the Paralympics. ‘And guess who they’ve picked!’

I want Mum to look at me with that same pride, but at my school we’re lucky to get forty-five minutes of sport a week. By the time we’ve changed into our kit and trekked to the lacrosse field it’s time to turn round and get changed again. I’m not jealous of Hugo, not at all. I really look forward to seeing him each weekend and particularly love our cooking sessions. I am in charge and we make apple crumble and chicken pie for our Sunday lunch. Often we’ll pretend to be on a television show demonstrating our skills. Hugo says he wants to be a newsreader or chat show host when he grows up. I smile, remembering how one time when we were making sultana scones, Hugo mistook the jug of gravy sitting in the fridge for milk. We howled with laughter, bits of chicken fat bobbing about in the mixing bowl, Hugo saying, ‘Now, folks, that’s
not
how to do it.’

We go for long walks by the lake and Hugo promises he won’t tell Mum and Dad that I smoke, though admits he wishes I didn’t, saying my teeth will turn yellow. He laughed at me when I told him I wanted to be a pothead and play in a band with Janey when I’m older.

When he’s gone I feel lonely and the house plunges into darkness. Unable to sleep, I get up, walk over to my wardrobe, open the door and nestled on one of the shelves, underneath a couple of jumpers, is a half bottle of wine. Curious, I’d nicked it from Janey’s kitchen one evening
after school, shoved it in my rucksack without even Janey knowing. I wonder if she’s been grounded for a month?

I tiptoe downstairs into the kitchen and open one of the cutlery drawers. In the darkness I feel for the corkscrew. Got it. Quietly, I head back to my room.

I plunge the corkscrew into the top of the bottle, twist it round. Finally I pour some of the golden liquid into my glass. Tentatively I take a sip. It slides down my throat easily; I feel warmth coursing through my body. I take another sip and squeeze my eyes shut, feeling another hit of syrupy warmth and sunshine. That’s better. I feel good. I take another. And another. Soon all the worries about no more pocket money and being grounded fade away. The burn of Mum’s palm striking my cheek disappears. I can’t explain why, but I feel like an outsider, as if I don’t belong in the family. Sometimes I think Mum hates me. I shut my eyes and try to blot out those words I overheard sitting on the stairs outside the kitchen, ‘
It’s hard not to love Hugo more
.’

I empty my glass and pour myself another. I smile, not feeling so alone anymore. The wine takes me to a happy place, far away from home.