From the Outside

by Clare Johnston

  ‘His entrepreneurial initiatives continued into adulthood. The rest of us could only look on in awe as he built up a staggeringly successful business empire around his online auction site, yourlot.com.’

  Ben cleared his throat again before glancing up fleetingly at the people spread out along the pews before him, all listening attentively.

  ‘His success also spilled over into his private life. Eleven years ago he met Sarah and they married three years later in this very church. On the morning of their wedding, Harry told me he was the luckiest man on earth, but the truth was that Harry created his own luck. He didn’t wait to find out what life had in store for him, he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve and he set about accomplishing it with vigour.’

  Ben glanced at Sarah, then looked quickly back at his notes.

  ‘He made it look easy but nothing was ever left to chance. If he wanted something he pursued it until it became a reality. When he first met Sarah she was dating another law graduate from Edinburgh University and she told him she had no intention of ending what was a happy relationship. Where others would have heard ‘no’, Harry heard ‘not quite yet’. From that moment on he asked her out daily, until two months later she finally gave in and agreed to a date. It was this mixture of tenacity and self-belief that marked Harry out from ordinary men.’

  Ben paused again now to rearrange his notes. I could see how hard this was for him. The energy he had piled into giving his speech a strong start had given way to exhaustion.

  ‘What life gave Harry, he gave back,’ Ben forced himself on, ‘setting up the Melville Youth Foundation five years ago when he was still a relatively young man himself at 39, to help disadvantaged teenagers get on a career path. He cared deeply about the futures of these young people. Their victory was his victory, their losses his own personal defeats. His outstanding contribution to the community was recognised three years ago when he was awarded an OBE by the Queen.

  ‘He was a loving son to my mother, Anna, and father, John. And they were so proud of his achievements,’

  I noticed Ben swallow hard, emotion now obviously starting to get the better of him. He raised his hand and swept it roughly across the front of his hair.

  ‘Harry Jonathan Melville had so much more to give this world... in particular, the young people he fought so hard to help. It is on behalf of them now that I say thank you, Harry.’

  With that Ben, head bowed, face crumpling, collected his notes and walked silently back to his seat having delivered a speech I would have previously thought him incapable of. This was the first of many surprises he would deliver – a man I considered my polar opposite but whom, until now, I believed I knew inside out.

  CHAPTER two

  I HAD ALWAYS WONDERED how Ben filled his days, and now I know. He usually gets out of bed at 8am and makes himself a cup of tea while listening to the news on the radio.

  He showers, gets dressed, then takes a walk past the harbour at Newhaven, one of the city’s rapidly developing coastal areas with cafes, shops and businesses sprouting up where once there were just neglected buildings and warehouses.

  Often he stops to buy a Guardian newspaper and a few groceries on the way home, then, seated in his kitchen, he’ll sit and fret about the state of the world while drinking another cup of tea.

  He cleans obsessively. Same routine every day of spraying and wiping surfaces and putting bleach down the kitchen plughole and toilet.

  At one pm precisely he has his first drink. I knew exactly what that was about. Touch a drink in the morning and you had a problem. Drinking at lunchtime though was acceptable, so he would head off down to the pub to sit with a quiet pint and read a book. Then he’d walk back to his flat past the harbour where he would often stop and rest against the tall stone wall that stood between him and the rocks below, and he would look out past the lighthouse across the water to Fife.

  The sea could so often determine his mood. Choppy waters would stir his agitation and restlessness and he’d walk quickly back home where he would sit at his laptop and obsess over all the things that had and could continue to go wrong in his life. He’d fret over the lack of money in his account – even though dad was financially propping him up. He’d check the job ads again, then slam the laptop shut with the realisation that he simply couldn’t face spending eight or more hours a day stuck with strangers – or with anyone. There were limited things he felt comfortable with. Going to the pub, and taking a walk past the harbour were two of only a handful of activities he enjoyed.

  On the days when the sea was calm, its tranquility would radiate through Ben. He’d stand looking into the waters sometimes for half an hour or more, and in those moments of peace he would have a vision of himself as someone who could once again cope in the world, make something of himself.

  In his flat, nothing was out of place. I had only actually visited him there once in the 10 years he’d owned it, but I hadn’t quite appreciated at the time just how tidy it all was. Ben was certainly a mystery. A strange mix of out-of-control and totally controlling.

  Forty-four years of age and now an only-child, in the not too distant future, my brother realised he would also become an orphan. That situation should have suited such a life-long loner, but somehow it left him deeply unsettled. He was a loner with a fear of being alone.

  My death had hit Ben much harder than he, or I, could have ever imagined.

  He’d been born first only to live in the shadow of his brother – and now I was dead where did that leave him? He felt exposed.

  In the evenings he would drink more – typically beer or wine but occasionally whisky if he wanted to completely remove himself from life for a few hours. He usually fell asleep in the armchair again, eventually taking himself off to bed when he found himself still sitting upright in the early hours.

  It seemed to me a miserable existence. But Ben didn’t seem so much unhappy as resigned. In a strange and unsatisfying way, at peace. I now understood my brother’s need for an unwavering daily routine. Change, of any description, stirred deep anxiety in him. Yet change was coming and there was no place to hide.

  Two weeks after my death and Ben is shuffling around nervously on Sarah’s doorstep, desperately hoping she’d forgotten inviting him for dinner so he could head home to his little flat and drink the bottle of red wine that was sitting on the kitchen table waiting for him.

  He found it very difficult to be in new situations. He imagined her opening the door only for him to panic and have to rush past her to the bathroom to throw up.

  That fear of vomiting in public was always with him. Ever since he’d started throwing up in the changing room toilets as a boy before rugby on a Saturday morning, the anxiety about doing it in front of other people had virtually left him imprisoned by his own mind.

  He swallowed hard as he heard footsteps approaching the door. It opened and there she was, smiling obligingly as always, ushering him in. Ben reluctantly stepped forward and stood in her embrace for a deeply uncomfortable and very long few seconds until she let go. He had patted her back awkwardly, wishing all the time that he didn’t find everything so damned difficult.

  Finally, he took a seat in the living room of the plush townhouse we owned in Edinburgh’s exclusive Stockbridge area, while Sarah fetched him a drink.

  She returned quickly and handed him a very full glass of wine, clutching another in her left hand which was equally generously charged.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.

  But she didn’t move. Her eyes searching his, desperately seeking traces of her dead husband. Traces she would never find. He looked away quickly and took a swig from his glass.

  ‘Have you seen Dad?’ he asked as she took a seat in the armchair opposite him, perching formally as if conducting a job interview.

  ‘Yes, I dropped in to see him earlier. He’s doing okay. Bit tearful, but I think he’s coping pretty well.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ben. This was going to be a long evening.

 
‘How have you been feeling?’ she asked with genuine concern.

  ‘Okay.’ She was looking for more detail, he could tell. ‘Bit up and down. You know.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, glancing down at her wine before taking a large gulp of the red liquid as though it were blackcurrant juice. He noticed now the dark circles that had formed under her eyes, the frailty of her hands clasped tightly around the wine glass. Ben guessed she probably hadn’t slept or eaten much in the two weeks since the funeral.

  ‘How are you coping, Sarah?’

  She stared deep into her drink again, her eyes welling up.

  Ben froze, hoping there wouldn’t be an emotional outburst. He suppressed another wave of nausea and took a drink of wine.

  ‘I miss him, Ben,’ she said, her face twisting with pain. ‘What am I supposed to do? I barely did a single thing without consulting Harry first. He handled all the bills, all the financial stuff. Now I’m supposed to just pick up when there’s this glaring hole in my life.’

  She was searching his face again; this time for answers he didn’t have. He rarely had answers to anything. The fact she even asked angered him.

  He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat as he tried to think of something suitable to say.

  ‘Time will heal,’ was the best he could manage.

  But by now she was rocking on the edge of the armchair, her distress increasing by the minute – as was Ben’s just watching it.

  ‘If it’s too much my coming, I’ll just head home, Sarah,’ he suggested hopefully.

  ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Stay here, Ben. I need to talk to you. I feel like I hardly even know you and you’re – you were – Harry’s twin brother. Why weren’t you two closer?’

  ‘We were just different that’s all. We didn’t have much in common.’

  ‘You were brothers, born on the same day to the same mother and father. That’s something in common. Harry tried time and time again to be part of your life. He wanted to involve you in his business but you knocked him back. Every time. Did you not care?’

  ‘I cared,’ Ben finally fixed her stare for a second before glancing at the door, trying to control his desperate urge to leave. ‘It was complicated.’

  She tilted her head back and closed her eyes as she let out a long, world-weary sigh.

  ‘It was such a wasted opportunity, Ben,’ she said, opening her eyes to fix him again. ‘You’ll never get that back.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, his head bowed. He supposed she was right to confront him on another one of his many failings. But it wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to build a closer relationship with me, he just hadn’t known where to begin. We were emotional strangers who had grown up in the same house.

  ‘He left a will you know,’ Sarah continued, studying his reaction. ‘He apparently wrote it the month before he died – which is just weird.’ Her voice was distant, as if she were describing another family’s tragedy. ‘Anyway, you’re in it.’

  Ben looked at her, unsure of what was coming next.

  ‘He wants you to run his foundation, Ben. To continue his work with young people.’

  Ben stared at her as she spoke, his eyes wide as saucers.

  ‘Will you do it?’ Her tone was challenging, harsh even.

  He started to shake his head, thinking of all the reasons why it would just never work. After all, he had never held a job down for more than a couple of weeks, how could he help others try to make something of themselves? He had nothing to offer them: no experience, no success stories, he carried with him only a legacy of failure and disenchantment.

  His eyes darted around the room as he prepared to let Sarah – and me – down again. Then he noticed for the first time a tiny picture on the mantelpiece showing the two of us, aged five, dressed in little summer sailor suits, arms locked round each other, beaming into the camera. He remembered the holiday in France where the photo was taken. We had stayed on a farm in the Loire Valley where Ben and I spent two weeks chasing each other around the barns and outhouses, taking delight in ruthlessly scaring the chickens and watching them flee in panic. In this picture there was no tension between us. We were just brothers at a time in our lives where I had no idea of my own power, and he was a stranger to panic attacks.

  Ben looked away for a moment and allowed a wave of grief to wash over him before steeling himself long enough to glance back at the photo; our arms entwined and faces pressed gleefully together. Why did we let go, he wondered? What was it that forced us apart?

  He closed his eyes and thought of the many days he’d stood by the harbour imagining a life more meaningful than the one he was now living.

  And then Ben uttered the words that surprised even him: ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’

  Sarah sat back in her chair, her mouth slackening as she realised he was serious.

  Later that evening, back in the security of his one-bedroom flat, Ben sank another glass of wine. He felt even more agitated than usual, terrified of what lay ahead the following morning – his first visit to the Melville Centre.

  Sarah had told him he would be meeting the three full-time staff who ran the centre – the very idea of which filled him with terror. Why had he agreed to it? Little did any of them know just how much it was going to take for him to walk into the building, let alone sit with strangers and have a meaningful conversation.

  He glanced at his mobile phone. He could call Sarah now and tell her he wouldn’t be able to make it. Then he visualised her angry, disappointed scowl and suddenly the idea of making the call became scarier than going to the meeting.

  What were they expecting him to say? God forbid they’d be looking for him to make some kind of speech. And what would he say to the forty youths who came through the centre’s doors each week? The whole thing was horrifying – he himself was a bigger drop-out than any unemployed 16-year-old could ever aspire to be. Wasn’t that what everyone thought? He must have been out of his mind to have agreed to take on the job. A stupid emotional gesture at the height of his grief, he thought, taking another large gulp from his glass.

  Then Ben remembered there was worse to come, because our father, who had always taken more than a passing interest in my work at the centre, had offered to be there ‘to ease him in’. While Ben was sure Dad was simply trying to be supportive, the thought of his eagle eyes, weighing up his every move added to the pressure even further. Ben had tried to talk him out of coming when they’d spoken on the phone earlier, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Nonsense,’ he’d bellowed. ‘The very least I can do is introduce you to the team, and I know your brother would have wanted me to be there with you on your first day.’

  Together, Dad and I had been a formidable – and intimidating – double-act. In many respects, Ben felt our father had brought out the worst in me, bolstering my competitive streak and writing off my bullying as ‘assertiveness’.

  Ben’s sense of humiliation from our treatment was never stronger than after a rugby game he was forced to play in at the age of thirteen, watched from the sidelines by both myself – a keen rugby player – and Dad. As a tall and skinny teenager, Ben was as physically unsuited to the game as he was mentally. Playing in the wings, it was the coach’s hope that, with his long legs, he’d be able to charge past the other players – but in reality, the only speed he gained was in running away from the ball to avoid contact of any sort. It was cold and there were a million other places he would have rather been and he had no intention of playing well enough to get permanently selected for the team. Throughout the game, he had been aware of Dad and I heckling from the sidelines and furiously shaking our heads at him.

  ‘Get a move on you loafer,’ I’d hollered across the field, much to the amusement of Dad and several other players who were near enough to hear it. But not even his family’s obvious embarrassment was enough to motivate Ben, in fact it made him more resolute in his desire to do badly.

  When the game was over, Ben left the changing rooms to find Dad and I chatting with a
group of other parents and pupils outside. As he approached he could hear Dad’s voice booming over the others: ‘Dear God, my six-year-old niece could have outplayed Ben. He looked more like an old-age-pensioner chasing a letter down the street than a rugby player chasing a ball.’

  The other parents had chuckled with various degrees of amusement, but I had practically split my sides at this joke – because I knew how much it had hurt Ben.

  ‘What a loser,’ I howled, in between great gulps of laughter. But rather than correcting my crass remark, Dad had ruffled my hair in a gesture designed to portray me as the lovable rogue. I turned to see Ben stopped in his tracks just a few feet away. The hurt in his eyes wiped the smile from my face.

  The rugby pitch had been my stomping ground in my youth – as my business became in adult life. Ben had made a fool of himself back then when forced to follow in my sporting footsteps, and he couldn’t help but fear he was about to do it all over again as he took over the running of the Melville Centre. And there, watching from the sidelines as he had done all those years ago would be Dad.

  CHAPTER three

  LOOKING BACK ON IT, my decision to write a will one month before my death was indeed weird timing and I can’t honestly say what compelled me to do it other than my accountant’s constant nagging. ‘There’s too much at stake for you not to have your estate in order,’ he would frequently remind me.

  His words finally hit home one night as I left a fundraising event for the centre that Sarah and I had hosted. I remember being struck by the thought that if I died there’d be no one left to keep it going. Surprising that I hadn’t been similarly concerned for my business but, by then, the foundation had become my major driving force in life. It was like an addiction. Help one disadvantaged kid, watch them succeed and you wanted to help them all. Turning lives around made me feel good about myself. And I liked the Harry Melville who ran that centre.