She turned away and sat down, fingers digging into her temples.
‘Get out,’ she said.
Before I left I handed her the photo she had taken down, but she didn’t even look at it.
Her gaze followed me out.
*
I had eight missed calls from Harriet and three from my parents. Once I was in the car I called Harriet back, but I knew what she was going to say. In a way I had been waiting for it for years and felt as though I had already grieved for my brother by projection.
Rain was hammering the windscreen and I turned the engine off.
Harriet answered on the fourth ring, sounding hollow.
There was a painful silence where both of us waited; for me to guess or for her to confirm. Eventually the pressure became too much and I cleared my throat.
‘Um…’
‘You should really call Mum and Dad,’ she said.
‘When did you find out?’
‘This morning. Someone came to the house.’
‘How…? How did it happen?’
‘Shot down.’
The windscreen was covered in a moving sheet of water, rippling downwards as the roar intensified.
‘Nic, promise you’ll come. Tomorrow, if you like. I’m going over now but… if you need some time—’
‘I’ll come tomorrow morning.’
‘Thanks.’
There was another silence. This one went on for so long that in the end I hung up, knowing that we had nothing more to say to each other.
15
My Audi sat uncomfortably next to their dark blue Ford.
Before I went inside I took off my Rolex, bought for me by Mark and worn every day since last Christmas, and took my father’s old watch out of the glove compartment. It had been repaired three times, had a face of faded old-fashioned numbers and a leather strap that was coming apart in a few places. But he would notice if I stopped wearing it.
Thanks to a series of promotions they had moved to a slightly bigger house in a nicer part of London, but I still didn’t like coming back. All I could see was the absence of myself; my room converted into a study and only two pairs of shoes in the porch. It was like looking into a parallel universe where I had never existed, and their lives looked better, less complicated.
It was Mum who answered the door when I knocked. I was hoping that it would be Harriet; it was easier to act in front of her.
‘Oh, Nic.’
She flung her arms around me and I already felt as though I didn’t deserve it. I hugged her back but it didn’t feel the same after all this time. I had known this was going to hurt.
‘It was good of you to come, we thought you… Never mind.’ She stood back, stroking my cheek. ‘Are you all right?’
‘God, yeah, I’m OK. What about you?’
‘Oh, you know…’ She waved the question away and pulled me inside. ‘Go and say hello to your father. I’ll get you some coffee, you want coffee? Harri’s in there too, go and see her.’
It was her way of coping, talking through everything, keeping the words coming no matter how trite they were. It wasn’t surprising, considering that she had to do most of Dad’s talking as well.
Mum went into the kitchen and I found myself taking deep breaths as I approached the living room.
I smiled at Harriet first, sitting with her legs up on the sofa. Dad didn’t stand up for me and I hadn’t expected him to. He nodded at me, muttering my name, and we shook hands as if I was meeting royalty.
Anthony Senior was a stately-looking man in his late fifties. Tony had often joked that the only way to make him feel truly uneasy was to give him a hug, or show any affection at all. It had been funny because it was true, but we all knew that underneath the banter it was pretty fucking sad.
‘So where were you yesterday?’ he said as I sat down.
‘Sorry, I was working.’
‘Sorry…’ He shrugged. ‘This is what it takes, eh? To make you come visit your mother at Christmas. You should be ashamed.’
‘Don’t worry, Dad, some things never change.’
‘Don’t give me smart talk.’
Already. He had started it already. The speed of the assault had broken his personal record.
‘So how’s work?’ I asked.
‘Understaffed. Overworked.’ He waved a hand at me. ‘You wouldn’t understand. Eh, are you OK for money?’
I could have bought his house from him and still had savings to spare. He knew that, but he asked the same question every time. For years I had been telling them I worked as a freelance consultant, which was almost true. Only Harriet knew better.
‘Yeah, I’m fine for money, Dad.’
‘Are you sure?’ He insisted on pressing me, even though he must have seen my car parked outside.
‘I’m OK, honestly. More than OK.’
‘You always did have a tendency to lie when you were in trouble. You remember his tales, Harri?’
I glanced at Harriet but she had suddenly become captivated by the Father Christmas figurine standing by the fireplace. Tony had stolen it from someone’s doorstep one evening, drunk, and fallen asleep on the landing with it in his arms. Since then it came out every Christmas, and if you flipped a switch at the back it would do a dance. I could relate.
Harriet seemed to be counting under her breath, her lips barely moving.
‘Business is great, I’m fine for money.’
‘Business?’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Is that what was so urgent yesterday?’
‘Well, I had to meet a client. You can’t just cancel—’
‘I’m not an imbecile, boy.’ He took a sip from his drink, probably brandy, and peered over the top of his glass. ‘Don’t get me wrong, we were always surprised you made so much of yourself, but don’t tell me about business. I know business.’
After a silence that I didn’t have the energy to break, he gestured at me again.
‘Are you still living with that… colleague of yours?’
‘Mark? Yeah, yeah, he’s still my flatmate.’
He shook his head. ‘Hm… It’s odd.’
‘What?’
‘Your age, still living like… students. Is that not odd? It’s not just me. It’s strange.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, surely you should be living by yourself or with a… woman, by now? Is it because you didn’t go to university, you living like you are now?’
‘Look, Dad, just because I’m over twenty-five it doesn’t mean the only options are living on my own or with some girlfriend. Why can’t I live with a friend? Loads of people do it.’ I looked over at Harriet, wanting to draw her into the conversation to take some of the pressure off me. ‘What do you think, Harri?’
She stared at me, mortified at the prospect of having to speak.
‘Um… Well, Mark sounds cool,’ she said.
I saw Dad raise his eyebrows and shut my eyes in despair.
‘Not everyone has to follow your schedule, Dad,’ I said, listening to Mum clattering around the kitchen and wondering whether any of us were going to talk about Tony, about why I was actually here.
‘By your age I was married and your brother could already read.’
‘Well…’ I reddened in my effort to find a response. ‘Sorry I missed the deadline.’
It was uncanny, the way he could always make me feel like a piece of shit for not being more like him. I reminded myself of all the reasons why I hated him, why Harriet hated him, and still felt defenceless, overpowered in the face of his relentless disappointment.
‘I’m going out for a cigarette, please.’ I fumbled for the packet inside my coat, looking at nobody.
‘Outside,’ he said.
‘I know… that’s why I said out.’
I walked through the glass doors to the dining room and let myself out of the back door. There was water running off the roof of the shed in the corner, though it had stopped raining for a spell. My hands were shaking. I had spent whole nights fantasizing abo
ut punching him in the face, but I never did, and probably never would.
As I lit my cigarette the door opened behind me and Harriet stepped out with a rollie. She had made an effort for the occasion, tied her hair back and put on a tiny bit of weight.
‘Skinning up here?’
‘It’s baccy, not… wacky.’
‘You look nice.’
She shrugged.
‘Are they all right?’ I asked.
‘No. No, they’re really not. It’s just their way of coping, I suppose. At least Mum was crying and stuff yesterday, but Dad, he’s just fucking…’ She made a vague gesture. ‘I don’t even know. He’s just been his usual fucking self.’
‘Always said we got the talking gene off Mum.’
‘That’s better though, isn’t it? Talking about stuff? I mean, I’d rather that than… that. I’d hate to have people wondering what I was thinking all the time.’
There was a silence.
‘God, he’s such a massive cock,’ she said, blowing some smoke rings.
We both looked at each other and laughed. For a moment I felt almost young, but I stopped when I recognized that expression on her face.
‘Hey, wait… Are you high?’
She glanced at me with black eyes and sighed.
‘You are, aren’t you?’
‘God, give it a rest, you’re like an old fucking woman.’
She put one of her hands out, palm upwards, to test if it had started raining again. It was hard to know what to say when she didn’t look angry any more.
It was a tired argument and the anger had gone stale and turned into doubt. Neither of us had the energy to think up another original insult.
‘You know, I can barely remember what Tony looked like,’ I said as I sat down on the back step, warming my hand around the end of the cigarette. ‘Isn’t that fucking sad?’
She shrugged again, her eyes on the back fence, the ivy and purple flowers. If it weren’t for the difference in eye colour we’d both look like Dad, but the dramatic features suited her more.
‘No point being so morose,’ she said.
‘This is morose?’ I shook my head and couldn’t help smiling. ‘I want some of the crack you’re on.’
‘It’s good shit.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘So, you’re still living with Mark?’
‘Ha! And?’
‘Well, let’s just say Dad has started making the connection with you never bringing any girls home.’
I grimaced. ‘Come on, you and Tony met that girl once, you know… the one with that weird tattoo from the private school?’
‘Whatever, I’d totally approve. You seeing anyone now?’
‘Not really. There is this woman…’ I replied with a wry smile. ‘Well, she’s married and it’s a bit weird—’
‘Married, you say?’
‘Yep.’
‘Scandal. What’s her name?’
‘Dave.’
She laughed. It was cool, doing this again.
Harriet sat down beside me and shut her eyes for a long time.
‘It’s a pity, isn’t it?’ she said when she opened them again. ‘That they had to lose the best one of us.’
There was a stabbing pain, right in my gut, and tears sprang to my eyes before I could stop them. ‘Oh God, Harri…’
‘It’s true.’
‘No, I know.’
‘You know, I was thinking about giving up. Not everything, but the Class As are too expensive.’
‘How can you say that?’ I looked sideways at her. ‘You’re fucking high right now.’
‘Duh, of course I’m fucking high right now.’
There wasn’t anything I could say to that, so I checked my phone instead. There was a missed call from a number I didn’t recognize, and there was a voicemail. I put the phone to my ear.
‘Don’t bother trying to work out how I got your number.’
I had put a face to the voice before he even identified himself. I had also stood up and, without being fully aware of what I was doing, started walking towards the back gate.
‘It’s Matt. We need to talk. I’ll be on South Bank outside the National Theatre in an hour and a half. It’s your choice if you’re there or not.’
The line went dead.
‘What?’ Harriet called from the back door.
I turned and walked back towards her, dropping my cigarette. ‘Harri, I’ve got to go.’
‘You’d better be fucking joking.’
‘It’s really important.’ I grasped the sides of her arms, almost like a hug. ‘I’ll be back if I can.’
Her eyes were glassy with frustration. ‘You always do this, you always leave me in the shit.’
‘I’ve got to go—’
‘Do you have any idea what it’s like when no one else is here?’
‘Oh, come on, don’t be so dramatic.’
‘It’s hell, Nic! The way they look at you! It’s all right for you, they don’t see you often enough to think they can fix you!’
I didn’t know what to say. ‘I promise… I’ll… explain later.’
‘Oh, fuck off.’ She pushed me away from her and sat back down on the step with her cigarette, shaking her head. ‘I knew you’d do this. I knew you’d realize that if you stayed around long enough one of them would see through all your bullshit. Fucking coward…’
Almost shaking with anger, I bypassed her guilt trip and went inside, through to the kitchen.
Mum was boiling something, blurred by the steam. She did look her age now, I thought again.
‘Mum,’ I said.
‘You all right, Nic? Are you hungry?’
‘I’ve got to run, I’m really sorry. Work… It’s work.’ I spread my hands. There was no way I could make it sound less pitiable, less like I was running away.
‘Oh, we hoped you would stay…’
There was disappointment etched across her face. It may have been the steam but her eyes looked glassy. I wished, more than anything, that her expression wasn’t so familiar. Even the most basic requirements of being a son, I had failed at a long time ago.
‘I’ll come back later, if I can… Tomorrow, if—’
‘Nic, it’s fine. It’s work, it’s important.’ She gestured me forwards and hugged me again. ‘Do come back, I don’t know how you’re getting on these days…’
‘I will, I promise.’
She pushed me back to arm’s length. ‘Make sure you say goodbye to your father.’
I left the kitchen, looked towards the living room, hovered for a moment imagining the scene, and slipped out of the front door into the porch. I could hear the soft tapping of raindrops against the roof before I let myself out.
Dad wouldn’t understand, I thought, but at least he didn’t know anything different where I was concerned. Harriet was right, really. The spoilt bitch was actually right. It felt almost easier to live up to their expectations than try to exceed them now.
16
I received another text as I was coming out of the underground but I didn’t recognize the number. An hour and a half had proved a tighter deadline than I had thought, after trying to find a parking space as close to the city centre as I could before taking the tube. It pissed me off that so many of the most urgent moments in my life were dictated by London’s fucking transport system.
I was fifteen minutes early when South Bank came into view through the misty rain, past the myriad of heaving chain restaurants. For a while I’d struggled to remember what Matt looked like. I remembered that he was a screamer. That, and he had bad skin.
I stopped by the shallow steps to the National Theatre. People were streaming inside for a performance. Someone took the back of my arm and I started walking without any resistance, my heart quickening for only a second.
His grip was tight, but there was no power there. He was walking with a slight limp.
We walked to the edge of South Bank where there was a wall, a steep drop, and then the Thames.
‘I
wanted to show you something,’ he said.
I looked at him. What I could see of his face, the part that wasn’t obscured by the hood of his coat, was swollen and yellow with stale bruising. I remembered him now, but with the marks and the rough cut across his top lip he looked older.
He handed me a photo.
The younger Matt, the one that I remembered with the spots and without the bruising, was sitting next to Emma Dyer on a leather sofa. Their eyes were red. From the cans of beer down by their feet and the uncomfortable flash reflecting off Emma’s legs it looked as if they were at a party. Kyle sat on the back of the sofa with his feet on the cushions next to Emma. All of them were smiling, but looking in different directions; Matt was looking at Emma, Kyle at Matt, and Emma at the camera. There was something a little uneasy about it.
‘Kyle carried this around all the time,’ Matt said, swallowing. ‘I know you don’t believe me, but I wanted to say… we didn’t kill her. I promise we didn’t.’
I noticed that one of his arms was held awkwardly across his chest in a makeshift sling.
He followed my gaze and raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t get all the credit.’
I looked at the photo again. Emma had her hair tied back, bringing Pat’s heavy eyebrows and aggressive stare into prominence. They looked striking on such an angular face. There was something about her that reminded me of Harriet and I wondered whether that was where she had been going. Fast-forward a few years and would she be the girl with the heart tattoo I had seen in Kyle’s house? Slumped against a headboard with a used needle sticking out of her arm…
Like I give a fuck.
When I looked at Matt again he was watching the people going into the theatre, casting his eyes up and down the walkway.
I handed the photo back. ‘How did you get like this?’
He sniffed, turning away from the wind so that the rain stopped hitting his face. ‘I jumped out of a window. Or… y’know, through a window. You wouldn’t believe how fucking solid they are. In films people just sail on through like it’s nothing, but fuck, it… really hurts.’
‘Why?’
‘To get away.’ His lower lip trembled and he put the photo back in the pocket of his coat. ‘I know I acted like I didn’t know what was going on with Hudson… But there’s no point keeping that up now, I suppose.’
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