There were less people at Donny's birthday memorial this year, I realised; a declining trend I could only imagine would continue. I wondered how long it would take until it was just me and Mum sitting by ourselves, the sole remaining mourners.
I knew it would take a few years to shake Fletch off, at least. He was there, as promised, sitting next to Mum and forcing a laugh as he told some story about one of Donny's surfing misadventures. He glanced up from time to time and met my eye, but each time I looked away, wanting him to keep his focus on Mum.
Daz was there too, I noticed as my horizons broadened beyond Fletch and my mother, and a few other of Donny's friends. Mum loved having them there, I could tell, but I could see that she was noting the change in them from the previous year, same as I was, seeing them grow to the age Donny should've been, but never would be.
Maybe, like me, she was wondering what Donny would've been like at 22. Would he have gone to uni? If so, what would he have studied? Not Marine Ecology, I knew that. He'd loved surfing, had begged for the move to the Bay for just that reason, but he'd been in love with the idea of it; the lifestyle and the babes, and all that stuff. I couldn't imagine him ever sitting out on a board, like Fletch had described, thinking about the meaning of life and how everything was connected. Not a deep thinker, my brother.
There was a knock on the door and it opened, making Mum's head swivel round lightning fast to see who had entered. I pursed my lips and took another sip of the revolting Scotch as one of Donny's old nurses was revealed, smiling and making her way over to greet some of her colleagues. I hoped I was the only one who'd seen Mum's shoulders fall slightly and the momentary pall of disappointment on her face.
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help feeling frustrated at her. I wanted her to be stronger, to toughen up and deal with the fact that Dad wasn't going to come. Why didn't she get it? What part of her make-up made her still hopeful after all these years? Whatever it was, she hadn't passed it on to me. I'd known from the second she'd told me that Donny was 'out of remission' that it was only a matter of time before Dad was effectively gone from our lives.
I realised suddenly that someone was standing next to me, murmuring compassionate clichés or asking about uni (it was always one of the two), and I quickly excused myself and headed for the corridor. I turned up to these Godforsaken pantomimes, but I drew the line at joining in.
There were people in the corridor as well, though, their faces softening into the blurred lines of polite sympathy as they saw me. The honey-toned spirit in my glass sloshed as I escaped them too; retreating to the nearest room I knew I'd be free from well-meaning gawkers. Donny's room.
I closed the door behind me and leant against it, apprehensively surveying the space I hadn't entered in years. It was technically much the same as the last time I'd seen it; all his possessions on the shelves, single bed in the middle of the room, surf posters on the walls, but it was wrong somehow. Like a set designer had tried to recreate it from a description and ended up with a pale imitation. It wasn't messy enough to be Donny's room, for a start. The doors to the built-in cupboards were closed when before they'd been open with clothes exploding out of the drawers or hung haphazardly on the rail, and there wasn't a collection of dirty plates and glasses scattered across the floor.
The unnatural orderliness made the room seem even barer than my old room, which had been stripped back to just basic furniture after I'd left to live on campus. Therein lay the difference, I suppose, I'd left to live, taking my stuff with me. Donny's possessions had stayed behind, frozen with him at 19.
I didn't know whether Mum was keeping Donny's stuff as some sort of shrine, or whether she just couldn't bring herself to deal with packing it away. Once uni was finished, I told myself blurrily, I'd ask her and, if she wanted, help her sort it out. It couldn't do her any good living in this house with this room pretending that Donny was about to come home any minute and complain that she'd been in his space tidying up again.
Hidden as I was from the well-meaning gawkers, I felt the tense energy that had got me through the last few hours desert me. Unsteadily crossing the room, I curled my legs under myself on the carpet, leaning back against Donny's bed. I felt very small down on the floor, and had a sudden appreciation of how the world must have seemed for my brother during his last few months spent flat on his back. It must have been pretty damn dull staring up at the plain white ceiling day in and day out with only Mum and Fletch for company. It'd only been their company because I hadn't been able to bring myself to see Donny when he'd declined to the barely human stage, and my dad, well...
Something in my stomach suddenly twisted painfully, and it couldn't just be attributed to the fact that I'd been drinking single malt on an empty stomach for the past couple of hours. It wasn't fair that Dad got to skip out on the unpleasantness that was this evening. Why did I have to show up to this God-awful excuse for a party when he didn't? What happened to the supposedly genetic predisposition of a father to be there for his daughter?
I knew it was a lost battle, but needing some way to vent some of the drunken fury I always found myself infused with on this day, I snatched my phone out of my bag anyway. Tapping to the contacts and pressing the connect button, I lifted the phone to my ear and drummed my fingers impatiently against the plastic cover as it rang.
One thing that could at least be said about my father was that he couldn't let a ringing phone go unanswered, and so it was only a few seconds before his gruff voice came through, a false echo of what it would've been like if he was actually there with me.
"Hello, sweetheart."
'Sweetheart', a word that usually covered a multitude of sins, but wasn't going to cut it today.
"Do you know what day it is?" I asked belligerently, and although I couldn't see him, I could picture the exact way his shoulders would've hunched and the frown that would've pulled briefly at his lips. Dad didn't like questions, he liked platitudes.
"Thursday," was his clipped response and my hand clenched around the glass of amber liquid that was supposed to be for him. Like father, like daughter.
"Don't be an arsehole, Dad," I snapped.
"Don't ask facetious questions, Lara," he snapped back. "Yes, I know what day it is."
"So why aren't you here?" Oh God, the Scotch had a lot to answer for, there had been a definite whine in my voice. You're not six years old, I told myself crossly. Don't be that girl.
A heavy sigh came down the line, momentarily turning our conversation to static. "Because your brother's dead," Dad said eventually, "and I'm not about to celebrate a birthday that doesn't exist."
There was a sick sort of catharsis in hearing the blunt truth after hours soaked with empty banalities, but I knew that the way my mum had looked so crumpled on the couch deserved a better response than that.
"It doesn't exist for Donny, but it does for Mum," I pointed out, starting to feel pretty crumpled myself.
There was a pause and then he sighed again. "You're a smart girl," he said tiredly, "you can't be harbouring any fantasies about your mum and me getting back together."
What?
"I'm not saying you should jump Mum at Donny's bloody memorial," I protested.
"So what are you saying?" He said, and I could hear his typical impatience creeping in.
"I'm saying you should be here," I muttered, wishing I'd had this conversation when I was sober. "You should, I don't know, be holding her hand or something."
"You're there, why don't you hold her hand?" He asked pointedly and, as I poured a heavy silence down the line, he added, "Not that easy is it?"
No, it definitely wasn't, but at least I was trying. At least I'd turned up.
"She was your wife!" I exclaimed furiously. "It's not the same. You chose her! You had a kid with her! Two kids," I added as I belatedly remembered my existence in the family unit.
"You're getting hysterical," was Dad's flat reply.
"I'm not getting-" I started to object, but he was ta
lking over me in the brusque manner I knew so well.
"We'll talk later, sweetheart, when you're feeling less dramatic."
And the line went dead.
I slowly lowered the phone down to my side. Hysterical. Dramatic. Were those the words Dad used to justify leaving us? That we womenfolk were just too much damn work to handle alone after the only other masculine presence in the family was wiped out? If I hadn't expected it, I would've felt betrayed.
I was still sitting there, vacillating sloppily between numbness and the accused hysteria, when there was a knock on Donny's door.
"Only enter if you have more Scotch," I instructed coldly, but there was no bottle in Fletch's hand when he appeared round the jamb.
"No Scotch," he said quietly. "Can I come in?"
I was all ready to mutter 'if you must', but the words stuck in my throat at the sight of him and, instead, I just nodded. Suddenly seeing myself through his eyes, slumped on the floor, smelling of alcohol, I straightened and smoothed my side-fringe in an attempt to look more together than I felt.
Fletch didn't seem too bothered by my appearance, though, as he closed the door gently behind himself and came to sit beside me on my dead brother's floor as if it was the most normal place for us to be. I felt a strong surge of gratitude towards him as he left a significant gap between us; the last thing I wanted was anyone, him, touching me when I felt so fragile.
I was less grateful to him a few seconds later, however, as he sat there not saying anything. It wasn't that I wanted him babbling away with empty condolences like all the others outside, or prying into me to try and find some emotion that I wasn't willing to share, but the silence felt like yet another pressure. So I broke it.
"I talked to my dad."
"Yeah?" Fletch was clearly being careful to keep his voice neutral. "What did he have to say for himself?"
An ugly snort rose up my throat and I took a bitter swallow of my drink before I said, "Put it this way, if there was ever any doubt about where I get my people skills from, it's been put to rest."
Considering Fletch's usual, explosive, reactions to comments like these, I half expected him to go into some sort of rant on my behalf, was even looking forward to the distraction. Unfortunately, after the night that he'd called Salida, he'd apparently done some meditation or other calming rubbish because he'd maintained a sanguine, almost distant, attitude with me ever since. It seemed it was an attitude he was planning to continue with, as the jerkiness of his nod was the only indication he gave of what he thought of my dad's absence.
So it seemed that I still had control of the conversation. I liked control, was a huge fan in fact, but this didn't feel quite like the control I was used to. Maybe it was the Scotch, maybe it was the fact that control hadn't felt much like control since Fletch had held my boots hostage, either way, the way I found myself scouting around for something to say felt decidedly uncontrolled.
"I used to come in while he slept," I said eventually, realising that it was no good trying to avoid talking about Donny. It was the one day I couldn't just pretend he hadn't existed, especially not sitting against his bed staring at the little huddle of athletic trophies on his bookshelf, all proudly bearing his name.
"I couldn't be around him when he was awake because I didn't know what to do when he started coughing or being sick or..." suddenly remembering how effortlessly Fletch had handled all that, I frowned at him. "I'm not like you, OK? I can't...I don't like being around sick people. They suffocate me." I realised I was twisting my fingers round and round in the hem of my dress and forced myself to stop, smoothing out the wrinkles I'd caused then cupping the cool whisky glass with both hands instead.
"What I'm saying," I finished firmly, bringing myself back on track, "is that Donny didn't see me for weeks before he died."
There was a beat of silence and then Fletch drew his feet up and leant his arms along his knees, staring at the closed door behind which the soft murmuring of mourners could still faintly be heard.
"He knew."
I didn't register his words for a few seconds, and even when I did, I was still confused. "What?"
"Donny knew you came in to see him."
I stared at him in disappointment. That had sounded exactly like the sort of insipid inanity I expected from the people I'd gone into Donny's room to avoid.
"God, spare me the Hallmark card speech," I groaned, adding in a high-pitched voice, 'I'm sure he knew deep down that you were there, Lara.'" I dropped the imitation and continued in frustration, "I don't need any empty reassurance crap, Fletch, I was just saying-"
"I don't mean in a spiritual way or whatever," he interrupted me, "I mean he knew. He told me."
"Told you?" I repeated suspiciously. "What did he say?"
As Fletch leant his head back against the bedrail I was astonished to see that a tiny smile was suddenly pushing at the edges of his lips. "He said: 'Lara's been coming in when she thinks I'm asleep and just looking at me, it's bloody creepy'."
For a moment I thought I was going to laugh, but then I felt something harsher start to swell up inside my chest. I pushed at it, flattening it back down, but it kept building back up until I couldn't take it anymore and I jumped to my feet. The sudden movement splashed some liquid out of my glass where it ran over my fingers and dripped onto the floor. As I stared at the mark the spill left on the carpet, I felt my tired eyes start to sting. I'd tried not to disturb the room's sanctity by sitting on the floor rather than risk putting a single crease in the doona cover, but I'd still managed to desecrate it. I just couldn't make anything turn out as it was supposed to anymore; Livvy, Stefano and Saskia could testify to that.
Feeling the ghosts of good deeds gone awry pushing down on top of me at the same time I caught sight of a photo of a young, wild-haired, gap-toothed Donny on the bedside table, was too much. A sticky feeling of panic sprang up all over my skin and I needed to get out, needed to breathe non-grief fettered air.
"I have to go," I mumbled distractedly, setting the tumbler down to block my view of the picture of Donny. When all the glass did was magnify the old image of my brother, I tore my eyes away and started fishing in my bag for my car keys. I'd just closed my fingers around the ridged metal and drawn them from the depths of my tote, however, when they were plucked out of my grasp. As I startled in surprise, Fletch's hand rested against my hip to steady me.
"Don't!" I snapped, blindly recoiling from the support. "I have to-"
His hand withdrew immediately, but he didn't pass my keys back over.
"You're drunk, babe, you're not driving," he said calmly, his dark eyes incredibly soft. "Go say goodbye to your mum, and I'll take you wherever you want to go."
I'll take you wherever you want to go.
As I drank in his words, the anxiety that had been clawing at my throat withdrew a little. Steady, constant, Fletch, my Fletch, offered the promise of escape without even seeming to know what it meant to me.
As he turned towards the door I almost convulsively reached for him and, although I didn't actually touch him, he stopped and looked back at me in surprise.
"Could you-?" I started to ask awkwardly, before abruptly switching tack and saying, "I think Mum would like you to say goodbye too, you've been more here for her today than me."
It was the truth, but so was the way I'd hidden from her, unable to cope with the almost alien level of her grief. The basic fact was that I wasn't sure I could face her on my own.
The understanding on Fletch's face at this point was almost painful to see, but he didn't make a big deal out of my cowardice, just nodded again and stepped back to let me pass through the door first. I briefly pressed my palm to his chest in wordless thanks as I passed him, but didn't linger in Donny's doorway. The need for escape was still pounding a steady tattoo against my ribcage.
I found Mum in the kitchen, slicing cheese to put onto the huge platter of buttered bread next to her on the counter. Good old Mum, still making sure everyone was fed and watere
d even as her back bowed with sadness.
"Hey." I stepped forward and, turning, she opened her arms automatically to draw me in against her. I wished her hugs felt like they had when I was younger, but it wasn't the same now I could prop my chin on her shoulder. Sorrow had literally shrunk my mum.
I clutched her tight, regardless, smelling her familiar perfume and feeling the heavy pendant she was wearing pressing against my throat. This bit I could do, the hugging was easy and good, it was the other stuff I couldn't give her. The memory sharing and the false joviality were just plain beyond me and that's why I had to go.
"I'm sorry," I mumbled against her neck. "I can't-" I didn't have to finish, though, as she stopped me with an extra tight squeeze and I heard her say,
"I know, sweetheart. Thank you for coming today, I know it's not really your thing."
Some dark humour almost made me smirk at the expression she'd used. My thing? Like the memorial had been a chick flick and I was more of an action girl.
Feeling guilty at finding levity where there shouldn't have been any, I quickly muttered, "I'll come back in a couple of hours and help wash up." My chest tightened uncomfortably at the thought, but I told myself it'd be easier to come back when everyone else had gone.
Mum pulled away, however, shaking her head and saying, "I appreciate the offer, but I'll be fine." I opened my mouth to argue and she smoothed my hair back from my face and smiled a misty little smile. "Sweetheart, I love you, but you're so drunk I'm not letting you anywhere near my good crockery." She kissed my cheek and then released me to reach for Fletch.
"Take care of her," I heard her mutter into his ear as she gave him a quick hug, and Fletch inclined his head slightly before looking purposefully towards the archway. As if summoned, Daz was suddenly by Mum's side offering to help put the sandwiches together; the handover between the boys seamless.
The Do-Gooder Page 21
