‘It’s not that simple, it’s … What I did to him is something that cannot be undone. I don’t deserve the chance to even try, I just … I want to make sure that he knows everything. I want to go knowing that I’ve told him the truth, because that’s better, isn’t it? To live with the truth. Would you write the letter to him, and promise not to post it until afterwards?’ she repeats.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘If you are sure that’s what you want?’
‘And you never tell, you never tell anyone what’s in it?’
No one has ever asked me that question before, and I take a moment to think. It’s true, I never talk about what’s in the letters, not to anyone.
‘Well, as long as you’re not confessing to a murder,’ I say, with a small smile.
‘Right, well, I need some time,’ Grace says, and I can see sleep is washing over her once again. ‘I need to think about it, think about what I want to say, and get it exactly right, because … well, because some would say that confessing to a murder is exactly what I’m doing.’
My darlings,
The first thing and the last thing I want to say to you is that I am so sorry. Everything you read in this letter should be all the things I tell you as you grow up. I should be explaining why the sky turns black at night, telling you not to climb trees, or to look both ways when you cross the road. I should be telling you that those boys aren’t worth the bother, and asking you what time you think this is – but I won’t be there. I’m so sorry, my darlings, I won’t be there.
My life has been so happy, but you two, you were the happiest part of it, and I know Daddy won’t mind me saying that because he feels the same. Daddy and I love each other very much, and when we had you two that love was doubled.
There is so much I want to tell you, but these are the things that I can think of now. Be kind to people, just be kind. You never know what other people are going through, so whenever you can, however you can, be kind. Be true to yourself. When I say that, I mean just live life the best way that you can, honestly, decently. You won’t be perfect; you’ll make mistakes, maybe hurt people, and people will hurt you. But that’s okay as long as you can know that everything you did, you did with the right intentions.
Don’t wait to start your life. I know what I said about boys, but later on, a good few years from now, don’t decide you are too young to fall in love, or settle down, or have children, or travel around the world, or become a rock star, or discover the cure for the common cold. Don’t wait for anything – just do it. There is never a right time, except for now. The right time is always now.
Be kind to Daddy. After three years or so (not before), let him fall in love again. And if you have a stepmother, be nice to her, as long as she is nice to you.
But, my darlings, you are only one and three years old, my Milly, my Lucy. Don’t forget me, please. Remember how I held you, how I kissed you, how I poured my love into you, into every pore, hoping that it would stick. Remember that, and feel it. Every day, for all the days that come, remember my love and feel it.
I will always be there.
Your Mummy
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STELLA
I turn the key in the lock and open the front door very slowly. I know at once that Vincent is awake; I can feel it in the air, somehow it crackles with his energy.
Cold, invisible rain has soaked me through to the skin. In the dark, I felt it gathering force in my hair and dripping down the back of my neck. I am too wet for a five-minute walk from the bus stop, and I don’t want to explain why. For a moment I don’t know what to do, except he’s heard the key in the lock now and I have to go in. I don’t even know why I keep my running a secret from him, except that it used to be his, then it was ours, now it is mine. Even though he’s started running again, even though quite soon he will be almost as strong and as fast as he was before, it will never be quite the same for him. The joy that he took from it, the addiction that he passed on to me, will never quite be his again, not the way it was. So I keep it secret.
‘You’re here,’ he calls out from the living room.
‘Where else would I be?’ By the time I’ve hung up my coat, and slung my bag over the end of the bannister, he’s in the kitchen, cooking eggs. He has a high-protein diet to help with his training. He looks good: washed, shaved. Perhaps last night he got some proper sleep. I reach for his face, and go to kiss him. Shuddering, he pulls away.
‘You’re freezing!’
There’s a laugh in his voice and I smile, putting my cold hands on the back of his neck. He grabs me and pulls me into his arms. A spontaneous, familiar moment, an echo from a past where we were lovers, but then we remember who we are now, watching each other, like strangers who have somehow found themselves in a thigh-to-thigh embrace.
He’s wearing his most basic leg – the model he uses for getting round the house – and shorts. If I look down I’ll see a metal rod ending in a training shoe, but I don’t look down; I know he doesn’t like me to notice his differences. When he sees me watching him, something tenses in him, as if me looking reminds him of everything that has happened. And so I simply try not to look too closely.
‘Good shift?’ he asks me. He hasn’t let me go yet, and I take that as a good sign. I hold my breath, heart racing, alert to his every movement, like some small mammal that happens to find itself in the path of Shadow’s stalk. I nod and smile, carefully. Those beautiful blue eyes look clear and calm. Here, right now, in this close-cut frame, everything is the same as it was.
‘Pretty good.’ I think about Issy and Grace, but I don’t say anything. I never talk about work.
‘I dreamed about you,’ he adds, almost talking to himself. ‘It was nice.’
‘If you dreamed, then you slept?’
‘Same as usual,’ he says. And just behind the scent of toothpaste, there is something else: his minty breath has a slight tang of alcohol. He was drinking quite recently. Perhaps that’s why his eyes are bright and his smile is so relaxed. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. It doesn’t matter how the smile comes, as long as it does.
‘You look nice,’ he adds. ‘All wet and flushed. It must have really rained on you between the bus stop and here.’
‘No umbrella again.’ I roll my eyes, theatrically. ‘I must have a dozen in the cupboard under the stairs, and yet never take one out with me. I don’t feel pretty. I feel rank. I should have a shower …’
‘Don’t go … It’s been a long time since we stood like this, hasn’t it? I …’ He shrugs. ‘I miss it.’
I falter; he is trying. I think he is trying, or at least the last drink he had has melted away some of his reserve. This is new, at least in recent times. He is reaching for me, holding me, and, whatever the cause, I like it. I want it. It would be better if my heart would stop beating so furiously for a moment so that I can think, so I can take my time discovering the best way to react, but instead it insists on swelling with hope, because that’s what we humans do.
Never have I been this nervous in the arms of a man, especially Vincent. I wasn’t even this nervous before he kissed me for the first time. I didn’t have time to be; we were so caught up in the maelstrom of our lust for each other. Perhaps it’s that – the knowing that, once, everything physical was so easy for us – that terrifies me now. And there’s something else: for Vincent to want me like this, he has to see me, and when Vincent sees me something inevitably happens that makes him angry. With every second that he draws me nearer, his hands travelling slowly over my ribs and hips, I’m waiting for that reaction to happen – for him to pull me close, only to let me go, as if touching me might scald him. We might still want each other, but we resist each other too. Two magnets pushing against the laws of attraction.
The planes of his cheeks graze mine, and his arms tighten around me. I breathe in the scent of him. My arms stray around his neck, and I feel him shift against me, balancing his weight on his natural leg as he bends to kiss my neck, just below the jaw.
‘Vincent,’ I whisper. We are closer than we have been in months. The frozen moment has happened, and still he goes on – his hands finding their way under my clothes, his mouth hot and searching against my neck. Maybe this is it: this is when our life together starts again, when all the stopped clocks start ticking and all the held breaths can be released. This is new, this is better than our first kiss, or any of the kisses after that when I got used to him reaching for me, and he got used to me being there. This is more important than our first kiss as husband and wife; this is our first kiss now, like this, since he came home from Headley Court. And if it’s a first, that must mean it’s a beginning, and I let the hope soar within me as he slowly breaks the kiss to look into my eyes.
‘I missed this.’ I dare to smile, my lips curving against his, pulling back a little to have a look at him. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘Do I need a reason?’ he says.
‘No, I just …’
He stops my words with his mouth, and I wonder if it can be this simple after all.
The kiss is a long, delirious, wonderful kiss. He nuzzles my neck. I hear him sigh. I feel his hands cupping my bottom, squeezing it, and dragging off my sweatshirt, and I am annoyed at my scrubs – so shapeless and sexless. I throw them aside and fling my arms around him, pressing my body hard against his, hungry for the feel of him. I’m not thinking about anything except how much I want him. And that’s the problem. For one second I allow myself to forget who we are now, forcing him off-kilter. He loses his balance and stumbles, and in a foolish, confused moment, I try to steady him and make things worse, and he goes down, onto the kitchen tiles. His head bangs against the plastic bin with a dull thud.
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’ I reach out, but he waves my hand away.
He’s smiling, laughing even. A little uncertain, I smile too, kneeling down on the floor next to him. He picks up a carrot peeling from under the fridge and puts it in the bin. There’s no anger or shame there – his eyes are bright, glittering almost. They make me feel less afraid to look at him.
‘Well, as we’re here,’ I say, half smiling. Leaning over I kiss him teasingly.
‘Go have your shower,’ he says, and his voice is not cold, or cruel. I realise he just doesn’t want me to be here when he gets up off the floor. ‘I’ll make you a bacon sandwich to take to bed.’
I hesitate. If I let this joyous, perfect moment go like this, unfulfilled, how do I know that another moment like this will come again, or that this one is even real?
‘The shower can wait.’ I smile, trying to remember that I am the girl he once stayed up all night to talk to, the girl that he said was his addiction. My hands run up under his shirt.
His hands close over mine, holding them still.
‘Not now. Hey, you must be so tired,’ he says. And his gaze drops from my face, as if something he had forgotten for a moment has suddenly come back to him. ‘I need to get sorted for work. We can pick up where we left off another time.’
‘Vincent …’ I try not make his name sound like a plea, and I fail. ‘It’s been so long, and … I love you, you know. I don’t care about … anything. I just love you. Can’t we just … can’t we just be us, for a little while, please?’
I hate myself for being so needy, for being so desperate, but I am. I am desperate and my need tumbles around before I can dam it.
He turns his face away from me, but not so fast that I can’t see the tears standing in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’ I say. ‘I don’t mean to … crowd you? Rush you? I don’t really know what it is that I’m doing wrong, but I do know that I don’t mean to do it.’
‘It’s not anything that you do, it’s …’ He hesitates. ‘It’s me. I’m trying.’
Putting my arms around him, I press his torso close to mine. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. I’m sorry. You were so happy a moment a go. Please, please don’t let it be me that makes you sad. I can’t bear it if it’s me.’
I hear a sob, somewhere deep in his chest, and then, somehow, without either of us really knowing how, we’re kissing. I can feel the passion building, the yearning and hunger, and something else too. The tears are still wet on his cheeks and I can feel his anger as he shifts his weight. Lying flat on the floor, he pulls me on top of him. We roll and suddenly it’s his weight on me, pressing me into the cold tiles. Closing my eyes, I feel his hand tugging at the straps of my bra, pulling them off my shoulders. I feel his mouth close around my nipple and I want him so much. My fingers rake through his hair, my hips arch up to meet him, and I feel the emotion flowing out of him – the need, the want, the fury. And with my eyes closed I search and search for just a trace, just a glimmer of what is not there. The love.
I tug at the ties of my scrubs trousers, shimmying them off, and he fumbles with the zip of his jeans. His T-shirt, scented with stale alcohol, rubs against my breast as he struggles to find his balance. And then we are joined again. I feel the pleasure and the relief surge through me like a sigh, and, for a moment, I am myself again. I am his, moving beneath him, his fingers gripping my hair in handfuls.
He shudders as he climaxes, relaxing into my neck. Staying there, breathing heavily, I wrap my arms around him and hold him. This is important. This moment means something; it’s a beginning after months, almost a year, of polite conversation and false starts. Now we are connected. We have begun again, taken our first step on the road back to each other. It’s a victory, it’s a chance – a chance I’d thought was long past. It’s a start, here on the kitchen floor, with yesterday’s or the day before’s carrot peelings.
Rolling off me, Vincent rests with his back to me. I watch as he drags his jeans up onto his hips and then with some effort pulls himself into a sitting position, his back against the fridge, rubbing his hands over his face. I get up and sit next to him, leaning my shoulder into his.
‘Cup of tea?’ I ask him shyly. Once, long ago, this time – the time after we made love – was the most precious to me. The minutes when I would feel his need for me in every breath and word, in every gesture. The moments when his gaze would pour over me as if I were the most fascinating, wonderful creature that ever existed. He made me feel like being apart from me would be like snuffing out the sun. Now, he can barely look at me, but maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s a long road, and we’ve only taken the first step, and first steps are always painful. Perhaps it’s taking them that counts.
‘Why don’t you leave me?’ he says, now. The words are so unexpected that I feel them physically hit me, heavy and sour, pushing me to my feet – my sudden ray of hope gone. ‘Why don’t you just go, because you know that I can’t? I can’t fucking go, I’m stuck here. Why don’t you just run away?’
‘Vincent, I love you.’ I battle to wipe out those last few words, those last few seconds. ‘I don’t want to run away from you, I want to run to you, I always have. You are the end of my journey, my finish, more like. You are home and I love you.’
‘Well, don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t love me. I don’t want you to.’
Dear Janey,
Yes, it was me. It was me in 1978: I took your Tiny Tears doll out of your room when you were out the front playing under the willow tree. I took it and I snuck out the back door, and crossed over the road, and chucked it face down in the canal. I threw stones at it until it sank.
When you came back in from playing, you couldn’t find her and you cried and screamed and sobbed great big snotty sobs – do you remember? You said I must have done it, but I said I hadn’t, I’d been reading all that time. I let Mum turn the house upside down, and you kept crying and crying until your eyes were like two fat red golf balls. I knew I couldn’t admit to it, not even after I started to feel bad about it, because if I did, Dad would whack me into next week. But I did feel bad about it because you’d wanted that doll for such a long time, and they’d saved up to get it for you. And then I felt bad because Mum said that if I’d sworn I hadn’t done a thing then s
he believed me because she trusted me. And she said that she expected the doll would turn up one of these days. Well, it never did. And you never got another doll like it.
I don’t know why I did it. I think I was just jealous. You were three years younger than me, and sweeter and pretty. And Mum treated you like the baby instead of me. But I have felt bad about it ever since; even though we grew up to be good friends and you’ve been the best sister I could ever hope for, especially this last year. You’ve been like a rock for Lynn and the kids.
So this letter is coming to you with a new doll, a new Tiny Tears doll that the nurse went out and bought for me. This one wees, as well as cries – all the mod cons. Janey, I’m sorry, really sorry that I threw the last one in the canal. You didn’t deserve that.
Cheers, sis. Love ya,
Jim xx
THE FOURTH NIGHT
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOPE
They say I need to build up my stamina, so I am pacing up and down the hall, wondering if taking a few steps will ever stop feeling like I’m climbing a mountain. When I pass Issy’s room I see that she is alone, gazing out of the window – her pale big eyes full of the dark afternoon sky, her new best friend, the cat they call Shadow, on her lap.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Mum getting a cup of tea?’
‘She’s gone for a shower in the relatives’ apartment,’ she says. ‘I’m trying not to die till she gets back.’
‘Shit, you won’t, you’re not going to, are you?’
She shrugs. ‘They all seem to think it will be quite soon, but not so soon that she couldn’t go and have a shower. The main thing is that I want to stay awake, which means that I have to feel pain. But I want to stay awake. I mean, I don’t want to miss it, when it happens. Does that sound weird?’
I stand on the threshold of her room. There are posters lining the wall, her pink iPod is on the bed next to her and there’s a column of books, all of them with cracked spines and pages that look like they’ve been well thumbed.
We Are All Made of Stars Page 9
