From the Outside

by Clare Johnston

  ‘Of course,’ Sarah swiftly replied.

  Once seated in the living room, with Sarah happily bouncing her son on her knee again, Ben began.

  ‘You asked me some time ago if I would be a godfather to Harry.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah smiled politely.

  ‘Well, if the offer still stands I would like to be.’

  Sarah remained silent but sat with her head tilted to one side, obviously expecting him to continue.

  ‘I’m still very unhappy about the Paul Davis situation,’ Ben added. ‘But I won’t do anything to jeopardise my relationship with Harry so, I want you to know, that I’ll be there in whatever way I can.’

  Sarah dropped her gaze to the floor, her eyes welling with tears.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve upset you, Ben. And I’m ever sorrier that I’ve lost you as a friend,’ her voiced wavered as she fought to stay composed. ‘I still want you in my life… and I want you to be close to Harry. I should have made that clear long before now.’

  Ben exhaled sharply. It had been so tough not knowing when he could see little Harry, and having to take whatever scraps of time Sarah would throw at him.

  ‘I’m still struggling with what you’ve done, Sarah. I can’t understand it. I had started to feel...’ He paused, grasping for the right words. ‘Like you were such an established part of my life. Now, suddenly, you’re a stranger to me again.’

  The tears were rolling freely down Sarah’s cheeks as she listened.

  ‘Don’t give up on me, Ben.’ To his surprise, she reached out and touched his hand causing him to freeze. He stared at his feet and wondered how they’d ever got to this place.

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said finally, pulling his hand from under hers. ‘I’ll see you at the christening.’

  Ben and Emily arrived at the church twenty minutes early as requested by Bob who wanted to brief Sarah and the godparents on their duties. From what Ben could gather from the short briefing, he was merely expected to sit at the front, stand to attention when asked to, then take charge of Harry when Sarah handed him over.

  Thankfully seated once again, Ben carefully took stock of the guests as they arrived, keeping a look out for Paul Davis. As the church continued to fill out with a mix of friends, family and regular Sunday worshipers, Sarah took her place next to Ben, with Rosa seated on her other side speaking animatedly with a woman sitting behind her. Ben turned to look at Sarah but found her lost in thought, her eyes directed straight ahead. He saw once again her fragility; a mix of anxiety and sorrow etched on her face, and he leaned in close to whisper: ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly aware of her surroundings and of little Harry struggling on her lap. She corrected his position and smiled at Ben, but he could see she was still somewhere else.

  He cast his eyes fleetingly over her wrap dress, which hung closely to her slim frame, his gaze then returning to her face when he became aware that Emily, who was seated directly behind, was watching. He smiled but her lips gave only a fleeting flicker in return.

  ‘Where’s Davis?’ Ben whispered to Sarah, unable to contain himself any longer.

  ‘He’s not coming,’ she replied curtly. ‘I need to talk to you later about that.’

  Ben wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or fearful at that comment, but he thought it was a good sign that he hadn’t come today. Surely, their relationship couldn’t be very deep if he hadn’t even bothered to attend her son’s christening.

  The service was mercifully short, due in part to Harry making his feelings very loudly known when Bob wet his head – and then keeping going pretty much for the rest of the service. That’s my boy thought Ben, chuckling to himself at the sight of the minister struggling to make himself heard over his nephew’s relentless wails.

  Once the service was over, Ben looked around for Emily who she spotted greeting Jason and what looked like a very glamorous young woman. Taking Harry from Sarah, Ben headed over to where they were standing.

  He hadn’t spoken to Jason since that evening at the centre where he’d disappeared before talking through what was troubling him. Ben had left a couple of unreturned messages on his mobile, but Emily assured him Jason had been really busy.

  ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the world-renowned artist Jason Weir,’ Ben joked as he approached the group.

  ‘Hello there big man,’ Jason said warmly. ‘And this must be the star of the show.’

  ‘Yes, this is little Harry,’ said Ben, looking down proudly at his nephew.

  ‘He didn’t appreciate getting his head wet,’ Jason laughed.

  Ben turned to look at Jason’s blonde and leggy companion.

  ‘This is my girlfriend Virginia,’ he informed Ben.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said, holding her hand out which Ben shook firmly, smiling as he registered the very clipped and polished accent with which she spoke. He looked at Jason and marveled at how far this talented young man had come. What a tragedy it would have been if his gift had been kept hidden forever.

  ‘And where did you two meet?’ Ben asked, intrigued.

  ‘At a preview of Jason’s work in Soho,’ Virginia answered matter of factly.

  ‘Are you an artist too?’

  ‘An art lover,’ she replied.

  Ben glanced at Jason who winked cheekily in return.

  ‘Well, there’s plenty to love about this guy,’ Ben said, playfully slapping him on the back. ‘Is all well with you?’ he asked Jason quietly, hoping he’d understand the implication in light of their last meeting.

  ‘Aye, I’m good pal. Sorry I didn’t get the chance to hang around at the Christmas Party, but my mum called to ask where I was. I’d forgotten I’d promised to go over to see her.’

  ‘No problem. Be nice to catch up with you soon though. Will you give me a call?’

  ‘Course I will.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Ben, thinking how much he had missed his young friend in recent weeks.

  Still on a high from the christening, Ben mingled happily with Sarah’s guests at the reception she had organised at a local restaurant. Those assembled were a bit of a who’s who of Edinburgh establishment, and Ben was surprised at how many of them he actually now knew. There was a day, not so long ago, when he would have rather sunk into the floorboards than mingle with industrialists, lawyers and financiers.

  As he turned to see Emily merrily hob-knobbing with a well-known media couple in the corner of the restaurant, Ben couldn’t help but wonder what had changed within him and why. His life was unrecognisable from only a year ago when he’d been living almost as a recluse. Now here he was; a respected pillar of the community. In the last twelve months, Ben had spent a lot of time thinking about fate and whether certain things were meant to be. He’d had a feeling of destiny all his life, yet he never knew what he was destined for. But the day he walked into the centre, with all his awkwardness and embarrassment, deep down he had known. He belonged there.

  He’d had that same feeling the night he first met Sarah. He didn’t know what it meant, he only knew that something about his world had changed.

  He checked the room again for Paul Davis but still couldn’t find him in the crowd. Ben prayed Sarah was right and that he wouldn’t show up and ruin this happy day. It then dawned on him that he hadn’t seen Sarah – or little Harry – in some time. When, after he’d taken a good look around the restaurant, he still couldn’t see them, he stopped the manager and asked if he knew where they were.

  ‘She’s with the baby in the side room at the back,’ the manager said, in his thick French accent, nodding towards a door at the other end of the dining room.

  ‘Thanks.’ Ben quickly took off in the direction he’d been pointed towards.

  As soon as he opened the door, he could see Sarah perched on a chair in the corner, leaning over the baby’s pram. The room was dim and Ben couldn’t see whether Harry was asleep or not.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sarah whispered. ‘He’s out for the count
. I was just about to come back through.’

  ‘Mind if I sit with you for a moment?’

  ‘Please do.’ She pulled another chair over next to hers while Ben closed the door behind him and sat down.

  ‘It was a lovely ceremony,’ he leaned close to Sarah as he spoke, endeavouring to be as quiet as possible.

  ‘It was. And thank you for coming. For a while I was afraid I’d lost you.’

  Ben thought for a moment. He was about to say he came for his nephew, but they both knew there was more to it than that.

  ‘I can’t lose any more family,’ he finally replied.

  The two sat quietly for a moment, listening to Harry’s deep, contented breaths as he slept, before Ben broke the silence.

  ‘I’m glad we’re spending today celebrating, otherwise I’d have sat at home feeling miserable and trying to figure out the most appropriate way of marking the first anniversary of Harry’s death.’

  ‘It felt right.’ Sarah smiled. ‘He knows how much we miss him.’

  ‘He’d have loved little Harry,’ Ben said, expelling the emotion with a long and forceful breath. He felt Sarah’s hand tuck in under his arm as he stared intently at the floor, trying to keep himself from completely surrendering again to his grief.

  ‘I keep thinking about how much time Harry and I wasted. Too caught up in our pathetic jealousies to just be brothers and help each other out.’

  ‘Well,’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe you’ll get a chance to make it up to each other one day.’

  ‘Do you actually think that? Do you think we’ll see him again?’ Ben turned to look at her, desperation flickering in his eyes.

  ‘Yes. I still feel him around us,’ she smiled. ‘Two nights after Harry was born, I was sitting on the side of my bed watching him sleeping as we are now and I could swear I felt his father’s presence in the room. For the briefest of moments, I felt the three of us together as a family… and it was really wonderful.’ She looked away, her lip crumbling, paving the way for Ben to let go of what little reserve he had left.

  He put his arm around Sarah, resting his head against hers, oblivious to a world outside the room where they sat.

  Several minutes passed before their spell of silent grief was broken by baby Harry loudly passing wind in his sleep.

  Within seconds they went from tears to laughter. It was the perfect tonic in a deeply gloomy moment. Feeling relaxed and at ease with his former sister-in-law again for the first time in weeks, Ben asked the question he’d been desperate to put to Sarah all day.

  ‘What happened with Davis?’

  She shook her head and sighed. ‘I realised it was madness, Ben. The act of a desperate and lonely woman. It was over almost as soon as it began, but I’ve not known how to tell you. I didn’t want you to become angry again when you realised I’d put you through all that agony for a quick, pathetic fling. Or should I say another quick, pathetic fling.’

  She looked up at him, searching for a reaction. But rather than feeling anger, Ben felt overwhelmed with relief. He instinctively moved closer to Sarah until he could almost feel her breath on his skin. He was aware of his heartbeat quickening with every passing moment and wondered if it was so loud that she could hear it. She didn’t move away. He reached to touch her face and began wiping her tears with his thumb, but when their eyes met and he saw her confusion he snapped back into reality.

  ‘Sorry, Sarah,’ he said, feeling his face flushing. ‘Got a bit lost in thought there.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ she whispered, silence falling between them again. She reached out slowly and took his hand in hers, holding it for a moment with the familiarity of a child clutching a comforter. ‘We’d better go back into the restaurant,’ she said finally.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben, forcing himself to stand and walk out behind Sarah into the crowd when all he’d wanted to do was stay with her in the private world they had shared for just a few minutes.

  And as he made his way slowly through the guests he caught Emily’s gaze across the room. She quickly averted her eyes and continued her conversation. A silent statement, Ben thought, that spoke louder than words.

  Although only a ten-minute journey, the taxi ride home from the restaurant felt so much longer to Ben and Emily. With Ben’s flat now sold, he had moved lock, stock and barrel into her home with the plan being to start looking for a new property to buy as a couple. Just weeks ago Ben had been excited about their new life together and their wedding which they had discussed holding around Christmas time at a castle in Perthshire. But the excitement had faded as he became more and more consumed with the whole spectacle of Sarah and Paul Davis. In truth, he hadn’t really taken the time to analyse his feelings and had simply thought he’d been outraged about her choice of partner rather than the fact she was seeing someone. He also knew the fear of losing his nephew had been a major factor in his anguish. But sitting next to Emily now in the back of the cab, it was becoming all too obvious to both of them what the real problem was. It had been silently eating away at their relationship since New York.

  ‘The day seemed to go well,’ Ben said as chirpily as possible, trying to ease the tension between them that couldn’t have been broken with a hammer.

  ‘Yes,’ Emily answered curtly.

  ‘You certainly knew a lot of people there, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped again. ‘And it was just as well considering you shut yourself away in a room with Sarah.’

  Ben could feel himself reddening with embarrassment. ‘We only chatted for a few minutes while she tried to get Harry to sleep.’

  ‘You barely spoke to me all day, Ben. You were too busy either fawning over your sister-in-law or over the movers and shakers you were trying to squeeze cash out of for the centre.’

  ‘Did you ever consider that you might just not be that fun to talk to?’ Ben was looking at her directly now, but she quickly turned her head away and stared purposefully out of the window.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘She has something I can’t compete with, Ben.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about you and Sarah and the baby.’

  ‘He’s my nephew, and he comes first. That’s it.’ Ben looked at her defiantly.

  They spent the rest of the journey in silence – both wondering what tomorrow would bring now the unsayable had been said.

  Once home, Emily decided to go for a bath and have an early night, leaving Ben to stew on his own in the sitting room. He spread out across the sofa and switched the TV on hoping to find something good to distract him. Flicking through the channels he found only reality TV shows, lame comedies and dramas, none of which interested him. He settled for watching the news, but despite trying to follow the ins and outs of the latest political crisis he soon found his mind straying to Sarah and their bewildering encounter that afternoon. He couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d actually kissed her. It would have broken every rule in the book and meant that he’d not only betrayed his future wife but his own brother too.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled loudly as he realised the magnitude of his situation.

  He would have to try and control his feelings for Sarah in the hope that they’d eventually go away. And he’d have to face up to the reality that there would no doubt be another man on the scene again soon. How long had these feelings been there? Since the day he met her, was his answer. He remembered how I had proudly presented her at the restaurant all these years ago with a look that told Dad and Ben that I’d landed the big prize – a beautiful, intelligent woman. The fact she’d cheated on me had come as a major blow to Ben, but not a major shock. The few times he had seen her in the last few years before my death she always appeared troubled. Where once she had shone in her own bright light, she had eventually been forced to step back into my shadow.

  Ben had feared in the early months after the car crash that Sarah was leaning on him too hard; that replacing
me with my brother was the urgent emotional substitute she needed while carrying a baby. Now, he realised what he had really feared was how easily he could have fallen into that role. How natural it all felt, yet how unnatural it would seem to an outsider. And so he had resisted.

  As Ben’s mind continued to churn over his feelings, his tiredness got the better of him and he began to drift off to sleep until he found himself in an armchair in his old flat where I was sitting opposite him on a wooden stool by the window, smiling.

  There were no words spoken as we sat together, yet in those few subconscious seconds Ben understood completely.

  He woke with a start at the sound of Emily opening the bathroom door. As he took in his surroundings, he couldn’t shake the aura the ‘dream’ had left him with; the images so vivid, so unlike anything he had experienced before. He tried to recall what had happened between us, yet all that remained was the sentiment I had expressed. That I was on his side.

  He heard Emily’s footsteps in the hallway and steeled himself at the thought of what she was about to say. He knew how hard this must all be on her. It felt like the two of them were cornered and surrounded with no obvious way out. Until she spoke.

  ‘I can’t carry on like this, Ben. I feel like Lady Di with Charles and Camilla.’ She smiled at her own joke, clearly trying to make things easier for both of them. God, she was a trouper, Ben thought.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  ‘I think you should go in the morning. I don’t think you belong here any more. You can sleep on the sofa tonight.’ They looked at each other, the finality of their situation dawning on both, before Ben nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry it’s ended like this. You deserve a lot better.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘I guess you could call it karma.’

  Jason took a few steps back to assess his latest piece of work destined for New York. This one was a special request from a long-term client of Mark’s who had sent him a picture of his two young sons laughing and tumbling around the floor together, which he’d asked him to recreate as a large pencil drawing. While Jason had been unsure about how the drawing would work out, looking at the final article he was pleased with what he’d done. He thought the client would be too.