Darkly, Deeply, Beautifully

by Megan Tayte

  ‘I didn’t. Cara and Luke did, to match Nanna and Grandad’s. They renovated after the fire.’

  ‘Fire?’

  ‘The fire here. The night I died.’

  ‘There was a fire?’ Her eyes darted around, as if checking for flames.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I thought you knew. The cottage caught on fire. I nearly died. Jude got me out, but I was too far gone – he couldn’t heal me. So that was the end.’

  ‘I didn’t…’ She swore. ‘That’s a horrible way to go.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘Luke was there. He made it peaceful.’

  She nodded. ‘All I thought about at the end, in the sea, was Jude. But it was Daniel with me, not Jude.’ She gazed into space for a moment, and then gave herself a little shake and said in her usual big-sister tone, ‘So you managed to set this place alight. I always said you were a danger in the kitchen.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said defensively (pushing from my mind the fish-finger fire of yesterday), ‘I’ll have you know it wasn’t a kitchen fire. Firemen said it was a candle that did it. We must have left one burning downstairs.’

  Sienna rolled her eyes. ‘Dummy.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘There was a lot of dumb stuff going on around here back then. Gas fire left on. Nearly run over by the Mini.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know. Brain tumour’ll make you accident prone. Though the near-death by falling brick, that one at least wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Scarlett, what are you on about?’

  ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’ I heard my phone ringing in the kitchen and stood up. ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No, wait,’ said my sister. She yanked me down to sit beside her. ‘You were nearly killed by a house fire, and a gas leak, and a car, and a falling brick?’

  ‘Well, yes. And some other stuff.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Er, I fell off a cliff at one point.’

  Sienna leaned forward and eyeballed me. ‘When was this? When you were still human?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you blamed it all on the effects of the brain tumour?’

  ‘Well, except the brick falling from the church tower. That was just an accident, before I got ill. And so was the cliff – Chester knocked me over.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  I tried to shake off her hand on my arm. My phone had rung off and I was anxious to go check who’d been calling. Could have been the hospital. Or Luke.

  ‘What are you getting at, Sienna?’

  ‘You. Near-misses. Brushes with death. Accidents that could just as easily have been not accidents.’

  I started shaking my head. She started shaking me.

  ‘Think about it, Scarlett,’ she said urgently. ‘A hand throwing that brick. Or turning the gas dial. Or shoving you over the edge. Or lighting a candle and knocking it. And then, a matter of months later, a hand gripping our mother’s throat.’

  I quit struggling with her grip on me and stared at her. ‘You think it’s all connected?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sienna grimly. ‘I need to think about this.’

  The phone started ringing again.

  ‘I should get that,’ I said, rising.

  She let me go this time. She was deep in thought.

  In the kitchen, I grabbed the phone off the counter, checked the display and pressed ‘answer’.

  ‘Scarlett!’ boomed a voice.

  ‘Luke,’ I said. ‘It’s really not the best time.’

  ‘Sorry. S’just quickie.’

  ‘What’s up? You sound… loud.’

  ‘Got a job f’you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Babysitting!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Jude needs to talk, right? To Sienna. So tomorrow, you have lil’ Jack the lad, and they can sort it all out. S’the plan.’

  ‘Whose plan?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Luke, earlier tonight when we spoke, and you said not to worry, you’d sort Jude out, what exactly did you have in mind to help him open up?’

  ‘Beer.’

  I groaned.

  ‘And Si found this bottle of blue liqueur… SI! WHAT’S THAT BLUE THING CALLED?’

  I heard a distant yell of ‘Jude’, then laughter.

  ‘Look after him, Luke,’ I implored. ‘He doesn’t need to wake up tomorrow in a total state.’

  ‘S’okay, we got pizza too. And chicken wings,’ my boyfriend told me, as if that was a valid answer.

  ‘I’m going now,’ I said.

  ‘’Kay. Love you!’

  ‘Love you too.’

  ‘No, really! All this stuff makes me think – we’re lucky we have each other, y’know?’

  ‘I know. Now go drink a pint of water.’

  ‘’Kay. Love you!’

  ‘Love you too,’ I said, and hung up.

  Back in the living room, I broke the news to my sister: that her baby’s father was, quite likely, fairly drunk right now and he’d apparently volunteered me to babysit Jack tomorrow.

  I thought she’d flip out, but her lips quirked a little at the corners. ‘Jude, drunk?’ she said. ‘That’s new.’

  ‘And not advisable,’ I said, remembering too well the stench of vomit on my clothes from the last – and only – time Jude had got tipsy before.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Clearly he’s not in his right mind. But it’s good he wants to talk again.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Will your nanny have Jack?’

  Sienna blinked. ‘Why? I thought you were going to look after him.’

  ‘Er… of course! If you’re happy, then I’d love to!’

  ‘Right.’ She stood, ready to leave. ‘I’ll drop him off in the morning. Say eleven?’

  ‘Fine for me,’ I replied brightly.

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Scarlett, are you sure you’re up for babysitting?’

  ‘Of course!’ I said. ‘Piece of cake!’

  She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. She’d discovered a long stem of stickyweed attached to her trousers, courtesy of her earlier flowerbed slump, and was trying to prise it loose.

  ‘Will you be okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. And… thank you, for tonight.’

  ‘No need to thank me. I just wish I could do more.’

  She was examining the weed in her hand. Caught up in its sticky leaves was a tiny white wildflower. She stroked it gently.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, so quietly I barely heard her. ‘For hurting you.’

  ‘And I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘For believing the worst of you.’

  She looked up then, and her eyes were glittering with emotion. ‘Is it over then, Lettie? You and me, are we… can we be sisters again?’

  Her finger was still on the lonely flower, and I touched my own to the fragile petals.

  ‘We always were, Enna,’ I told her, because in my heart that was the truth.

  ‘Cara… surrounded… babies!’

  ‘Okay, calm down. It’s only natural, after the last few days, to feel overloaded.’

  ‘No… babies!’

  ‘Can you turn down the telly? I can barely hear you over that squawking and crying.’

  ‘Oof!… careful now…’

  ‘Scarlett?’

  ‘… not for eating… yucky…’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Cara, are you there?’

  ‘Yes. Where are you?’

  ‘Jingly Jim’s… Woah! Watch out for the…’

  ‘Whose house?’

  ‘Google it!… oh no…’

  ‘Scarlett?’

  ‘Gotta go… naughty giraffe…’

  *

  Cara found me a half hour later in the baby section at Jingly Jim’s Soft Play Extravaganza. Jack was army-crawling along a crash mat towards a huge plastic caterpillar tunnel. I was kneeling in a nearby corner, out of the way of the twenty-or-so roving babies around us, watching my nephew with unblinking eyes and rocking ever so slightly back and f
orth.

  ‘Awesome!’ declared Cara, sinking down beside me. ‘So you’re babysitting? Which one is Jack?’

  I pointed a trembling finger at the little redheaded wriggler beside us.

  ‘Oh, isn’t he lush!’

  ‘He doesn’t stay still,’ I croaked, never taking my eyes off him. ‘And he chews everything – even other babies’ hands. And he cries when stuffed giraffes fall on him. And when I pick him up, he squirms about.’

  Cara seemed to find all of this most amusing.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m doing!’ I wailed. ‘Sienna said he’d be quite happy in the cottage, but in the space of ten minutes he banged his head on the coffee table and got his arm stuck under the sofa and ate a wood louse. So I rang Sienna, and she said these soft play places were totally babyproof, so I got him in the car – and it took me twenty minutes, Cara, to get the car seat strapped in, and he yelled so much he went a horrific shade of red, and I got here, and I got him in the baby enclosure, and it’s still a nightmare! I mean, some kid just crawled up to him and dribbled all over his face. And he just lay there and grinned! Eurgh!’

  Now Cara was helpless with laughter. ‘Baby enclosure,’ she said, grabbing her side. ‘Like a zoo!’ She spotted my glare and sobered up a little. ‘Sorry. But really, Scarlett, what a fuss over nothing. Look at him.’

  ‘I AM! ALL THE TIME! SINCE THE WOOD LOUSE, I HAVEN’T TAKEN MY EYES OFF HIM!’

  ‘So you can see he’s as happy as Larry.’

  Unfortunately, a little girl picked that exact moment to toddle over to Jack and whop him over the head with a plastic banana. Jack was quick to express his outrage.

  ‘Oh no!’ I cried just as Cara said calmly, ‘Oopsy-daisy,’ and scooped up my squalling nephew. Instantly, he quietened and snuggled his head onto her shoulder.

  ‘How did you do that?’ I said in wonder.

  ‘Simple. I relaxed.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You just need to relax, Scarlett, and follow your instincts.’

  ‘What instincts?’

  Cara addressed my nephew: ‘Silly Auntie Scarlett, hey?’ Jack grinned and patted her on the cheek affectionately with a drool-soaked hand as if they were old buddies.

  ‘You’re some kind of baby whisperer,’ I breathed.

  Cara laughed. ‘Not in the slightest. Now come on, Auntie S. There’s a mighty whiff coming from this little man’s nether regions, and you look like you’ve had just about as much as you can take of Jingly Jim’s.’

  She stood up and stepped over the low fence. I followed, weak with a combination of relief that we were leaving this place and misery that I was, it turned out, absolutely terrible with children.

  *

  Thank heavens for Cara. And baby wipes. And mashed banana. And ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. And a stuffed elephant named Bob – all of which, added together, equated to a little boy tucked up in his pushchair sleeping contentedly and two friends sitting down at the kitchen table for a much-deserved cuppa.

  ‘Look at him,’ said Cara. ‘Sleeping like an angel. Oh!’ She laughed. ‘That’s apt. He will be an angel someday.’

  ‘We’re not angels, Cara.’

  ‘Kinda.’ She took a sip of her drink and winced.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Sienna cleaned me out of coffee last night. Soup-in-a-cup is all I have.’

  ‘You do know you’re meant to stir it, right, after adding the water?’

  ‘I did!’

  She grabbed a spoon off the table, skimmed a lump of beefy powder off the top of her soup and eyed it dubiously.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said gloomily. ‘I’m an awful cook, an awful aunt…’

  ‘… an awful positive thinker.’ Cara gave me a light punch on the arm. ‘Enough with the self-pity! Yes, you’re lousy in the kitchen. But the aunt bit is rubbish.’

  ‘I just assumed it would come naturally,’ I told her. ‘I mean, Sienna and Estelle make it look so easy. And it’s not like I’ve never been near a baby. I helped to deliver little Alex!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cara. ‘But have you ever been solely responsible for a baby?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘So there you have it. It’s about experience. I babysat from the age of fourteen. I’m used to being left with munchkins.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think that’s it. You’ve seen how Jack lashes out when I pick him up. He doesn’t like me.’

  ‘He likes you fine. He just doesn’t like being picked up like he’s a sack of potatoes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have to hold him right to your body. Then he feels safe.’

  ‘You see? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘You’ll learn it.’

  ‘I should already know it!’

  ‘How – magic? What is this, Scarlett? Why are you giving yourself such a hard time?’

  I focused on fishing a lump of sweetcorn out of my cup and spooning it into my mouth. It was kind of crunchy.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Cara. ‘You’re feeling like a failure next to Sienna and Estelle because you think they handle babies better than you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’re feeling like a failure next to Sienna and Estelle because they have babies?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’re feeling like a failure next to Sienna and Estelle –?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘In that case, it’s about you and Luke. Either it’s that you’ve realised babies are little bundles of yumminess, and you’re frightened you’ll never have one if you and Luke go for the hands-off-but-together option. Or it’s that you’re thinking Luke may embrace the idea of parenthood, which means having a baby, which means being a mother someday, and that frightens you. Or… it’s a bit of both?’

  I spent a moment working through Cara’s words slowly. Complicated, but spot on.

  ‘Man you’re good,’ I said. ‘Everything I’ve told you the past few days – the Vindicos, Sienna, me and Luke and this baby thing – how come you don’t get utterly mind-mushed like me?’

  She shrugged. ‘I always did like a complicated plot.’

  ‘Cara,’ I admonished, not for the first time in recent months, ‘this is my life, not one of your films or books.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But you must admit, it has the feel of a young adult saga. No, wait, you’re nineteen now. New adult then?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue,’ I told her. I took a sip of soup and gazed out of the window. ‘Haven’t a clue about anything, in fact. Mum’s still lying there. Sienna’s stirred me up with talk of someone out to get not just Mum but me too. Luke’s at work now wondering whether to never sleep with me again or possibly create tiny not-quite-human people. And I’m…’

  ‘You’re what?’

  ‘Lost,’ I said bleakly.

  Cara eyed me sceptically for a moment, then put down her mug, crossed her arms and said, ‘Nope. I don’t buy it.’

  My jaw dropped. Given the circumstances I’d just outlined, how could she challenge me? Of course I was lost. Life, as usual, was an almighty mess. Before I could protest, she held up a hand.

  ‘The family stuff is one thing. Families are never straightforward. But you and Luke – I think you, at least, know exactly what you want.’

  ‘Well, of course I do. Him!’

  ‘Him at a distance? Or him as close as can be?’

  ‘I can’t ask him to –’

  ‘Forget about him. Forget about tiptoeing about to keep him happy and loyal. What do you want?’

  ‘I want…’ I eyed Jack in his pushchair. He’d shifted in his sleep and Bob the elephant was now nestled next to his flushed cheek, held tight by chubby fingers. ‘I want the possibility to exist, at least,’ I said.

  I met Cara’s steady gaze. ‘Selfish, right? Naive? Pathetic?’

  She reached over and grabbed my hand and squeezed it painfully hard. ‘No!’ she whisper-yelled. ‘No! How is wanting to be a mum one day anything but n
atural and bloomin’ brilliant? It’s your right to want that. You’re a woman.’

  ‘Hardly. I’m only nineteen.’

  ‘So? That’s a number, Scarlett. Just a number. And anyway, you may not fall pregnant for ages. Years. I mean, you use protection, right?’

  ‘But Luke… the child’s future…’

  Cara rolled her eyes. ‘You two make far too much of this Cerulean business. You forget how amazing it is to have the gift to heal. Look at me, Scarlett! Look at my legs! Think of all the things your child could do. How could that ever be a bad thing?’

  ‘But the life comes with limitations.’

  ‘So? Don’t all lives, really? I mean, take me and Si. We want to leave the cove, move to London, be in the buzz. But I won’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of Luke and you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter right now. The point is, limitations aren’t a reason to give up. And since you met the Vindicos, you know there’s a wider world. By the time your child is all grown up and a full-on kinda-angel, who knows what choices he or she will have?’

  A grunt from the pushchair caught our attention. Jack was awake and looking around with bleary eyes. His bottom lip began to wobble.

  ‘Hey, little man,’ said Cara before he could decide to cry. And in one fluid move, she stood and unstrapped him and lifted him and plonked him onto my lap.

  My nephew and I regarded each other. Fear gripped me, and it would have been so easy to project that emotion onto Jack now – to decide it was him, being around him, that made every muscle in me tense up. But Cara’s probing had forced a single realisation to the front of my mind: it wasn’t Jack I was afraid of, or any baby for that matter. It was the invisible baby hovering somewhere close by – the baby that didn’t exist and may too easily never exist.

  Jack’s little body was heavy and hot on my knee and he smelled like bananas and baby powder. He whimpered and I reached out a hand and stroked his tufty hair. Smiled at him. Said, ‘Hey, Mr Jack.’

  He blinked. Had a think.

  I relaxed back into my chair.

  He rested back onto me and set to work fiddling with the buttons on my cardigan.