The Making of Us

by Lisa Jewell

  Daniel’s eyes opened suddenly and his strange gaze worked over the three of them again, from face to face, before his eyes once more grew heavy and closed. “Where is the boy?” he asked huskily. “The other one?”

  Lydia gulped. She’d known this was going to come up. She smiled sadly and touched her father’s shoulder. “He was my brother. And he died,” she said. “When he was a baby. It was a crib death.”

  She saw her father’s eyelids pinch together at her words. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew it. Poor little baby boy. How old was he?”

  “Six months,” she replied. “His name was Thomas.”

  “Thomas.” He tested the name on his dry lips. “Poor little boy. How sad. For you. For your mother. For all of us. How very, very sad.”

  He turned his face away from them then and let it rest heavily against his pillow. “Thank you, all of you, thank you so much for coming. I am happy.” He closed his eyes again and Lydia looked to Maggie, for instruction.

  Maggie smiled and approached Daniel’s side. “Would you like a rest now?” she asked, taking his hand in hers.

  He nodded, slowly and painfully. And then, a moment later, it became clear that he was already asleep. Lydia’s heart lurched. Suddenly she was back, back in that stifling hospital room in Cardiff, waiting for her father to die, wondering what on earth death would look like when it finally came.

  “Come on,” said Maggie, letting go of Daniel’s hand. “Let’s go and get a cup of tea. Let’s let him sleep.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Maggie drove them all back to Daniel’s flat at midnight when it was clear that he was still alive and that the last train to London had long since departed. They left Marc at the hospice. He was to spend the night on a guest bed, next to his brother, unable to bear the idea of Daniel dying in the middle of the night, all by himself. It had looked almost cozy in Daniel’s room, Marc tucked under a blanket, with just the reading light switched on, everything quiet, everything still; it was hard almost to believe that in the midst of all the peace and comfort was a dying man.

  They were quiet in Maggie’s car. There had been talking all day long, so much talking. They all needed just a few moments to digest what had happened. Lydia sat in the front seat, hair wrapping itself across her face in the cool breeze that came through the open window, her head turned to face the moving scenery. It passed her in streaks and flashes: streetlights and takeaways, bollards and traffic lights. And there, atop it all, a big full moon, staring down at her as though it knew what she was thinking. She gazed into the chalky contours of the moon and contemplated her existence, the arc that had started in a small cubicle near Harley Street and was about to end in a small room in Bury St. Edmunds. She thought about the thin, gray man in the bed, the man who had told her she was beautiful, and she tried to find a pinpoint of emotion, something to hook the whole thing on, but there was nothing there. He looked like a nice man. If his girlfriend and his brother were anything to go by, he probably was a very nice man. But he was not much more than that. A man. A nice, French man.

  She turned her gaze from the moon to the interior of the car. She looked at her gaunt brother, his face streaked in multicolors from the lights outside, staring blankly into the distance; and she looked at her pretty little sister, her phone in her hand, texting furiously with her thumbs, and she knew then that this was all that mattered to her. Not her father, but these two. Her brother and sister. She was glad she’d seen her father, glad for the sake of her own personal history that she could strike a line through that particular section of it, but it was not a father she needed, it was a family.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  “Right,” said Maggie, stifling a yawn while pulling things from a tall cupboard at the top of the stairs. “Maybe the girls could share the double bed in Daniel’s room? I’ll need to change the bedding, Marc’s been sleeping there. And you”—she directed her words at Dean—“could sleep down here, on the sofa, if that’s okay? There’s a load of blankets in here. Would that be okay?”

  Dean nodded blankly and took a blanket from Maggie’s outstretched hands.

  “There’s everything you need in the kitchen: bread, milk, juice, et cetera. And you’ve got my number, if there’s an emergency. If you need anything else, just call. I’m only ten minutes away. I could be here in a jiffy.”

  She showed them the kitchen, the terrace, the locks on the front door—and then, somewhat apologetically, she left. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning,” she said, “early. And if there’s any news in the night, I’ll let you know.”

  Lydia closed the door behind her a moment later, and then she and Robyn and Dean all looked at one another and it was immediately obvious that they were all thinking the same thing. It had been a long, sober and intense few hours and the mother figure of Maggie had just left them all alone. It felt, weirdly, given their ages, that they’d been left home alone. And after the weighty events of the rest of the day, it was almost like they’d been given permission to act their age.

  “There was a bottle of wine in that fridge, wasn’t there?” said Robyn, a mischievous glint in her eye.

  “Two,” said Lydia.

  “Yeah, and a whole rack of it over there—look.” Dean pointed behind them at a rectangular rack screwed to the wall above them in the hallway.

  “I’m not even tired,” said Robyn.

  “Me neither,” said Dean.

  Lydia smiled. “Well,” she said, “I was tired. But, Jesus Christ, after a day like today, I really need a drink.”

  “Shall we do it, then?” said Robyn.

  “It’s not as if he’s ever going to be able to drink it, is it?” said Lydia.

  Robyn looked at her in delighted shock. “Lydia!” she chastised. “You can’t say that!”

  Dean laughed and Lydia looked at him. “What?” she said.

  “You,” he said. “You’ve got no heart.”

  “I have got a heart,” she retorted playfully. “But it’s true, isn’t it? It’ll just go off if we don’t drink it.”

  “But what about the brother? He might want it when he comes back, you know, after . . .”

  “Look!” said Lydia, gesturing behind them at the wine rack. “There’s loads here! We’ll just replace it! Come on. He would want us to drink this. I know he would. He’s French, for God’s sake!”

  Within a few minutes they had collected glasses, a corkscrew and a bottle of something very expensive-looking from the fridge and were clustered together on the floor in the living room, watching Lydia pull out the cork. Someone had switched on the table lamps and the terrace door was open, letting in wafts of chill night air, and Robyn lit a candle and it all felt very cozy and very natural. The clock on the mantelpiece said it was almost a quarter to one.

  Lydia raised her full glass of wine to her siblings and said: “To us. Whoever the hell we are.” And as she looked at them, she suddenly realized exactly who they were. They were the kids. Just that, pure and simple. Not “kids” like the sort of kids who ran in and out of the same house, belonging to the same people. Not the sort of “kids” who were referred to by their parents when they weren’t around. Have you seen the kids? But kids, nonetheless. “Daniel’s kids,” she said with a smile. “In all our lovely glory.”

  Robyn grinned. “We are pretty lovely, aren’t we?”

  Dean scoffed. “Well, you two are. But I’m a pig.”

  The girls laughed affectionately, and then all three of them brought their glasses together and said, “Cheers.” Dean found a CD player and put on the only CD in their father’s collection that all three of them could countenance listening to: Reload by Tom Jones. It made for a jaunty, earthy sound track to their laughter-filled conversation, almost partylike, and Lydia felt filled with warmth and affection as she watched their young faces, smiling and animated in the glow of the candlelight. And then she saw, almost like a ghost, another face to the left of theirs, another young man, smiling and laughing, a young man who looked a bit like Ly
dia, a bit like Dean and a bit like Robyn, a young man with a Welsh accent and a big sister called Lydia. A young man called Thomas.

  “Another toast,” she said, breaking into the conversation, “to Thomas. Our lost brother.”

  Their faces grew serious at her words and for a moment she felt guilty for souring the jolly atmosphere, but then they smiled and brought their glasses to hers and said, “Yes—to Thomas. God rest his little soul.”

  Surprisingly, nobody talked about Daniel. It was as though they were in a bubble of their own making, an impenetrable world into which they let only the things that they thought would be amusing or interesting or exciting. Tomorrow morning they would be taken back to the hospice by Maggie Smith and they would probably, presumably, if they weren’t too late, watch their father die. But tonight was about them and their secret club of wonderfulness.

  “So listen,” said Dean. They were halfway through the second bottle of wine taken from Daniel’s fridge and he was making a spliff on the surface of Daniel’s coffee table. “What’s with the gay guy?”

  Lydia grimaced at him. “What gay guy?”

  “The one who’s living with you. The one with all the . . .” He cupped his hands around his chest to indicate overdeveloped pectorals.

  “Bendiks?”

  Dean laughed. “Yeah,” he said.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Dean sniggered again and looked at Robyn, who was also laughing, and Lydia felt the distance of the years yawning between them. “Bendiks,” he replied, snorting with laughter. “You know . . . Bend? Dicks? It’s really funny.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Because he’s gay!” hooted Robyn. “So, you know, he has to sort of bend his dick. To get it into other men’s bottoms!”

  Lydia raised her head with understanding and let a smile break over her face. “Ah,” she said. “I get it. I can’t believe I never thought of that. But he’s not gay.”

  “Oh,” said Dean, still laughing, “I think you’ll find he is. Totally.”

  “No. Honestly. He’s not.”

  “Who the fuck is Bend Dicks anyway?” asked Robyn impatiently.

  “Bendiks is my lodger,” said Lydia. “He lives with me. And he’s also my personal fitness trainer.”

  “Oh,” said Robyn, making a wide O of her mouth. “I see.”

  “What!” Lydia laughed.

  “But seriously, Lydia,” said Dean. “He’s as gay as fuck. It’s obvious.”

  She tutted and smiled and said, “Seriously. He’s not. I thought he was too. But then I asked him.”

  “What? For real? And what did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He just . . .” She paused. “He kissed me.”

  Their eyes opened wide and Robyn covered her mouth with her hands and for a moment Lydia felt like their ancient aunt.

  “Well,” said Dean, “I suppose that means that I was wrong. But I could have sworn . . .”

  “He plucks his eyebrows,” said Lydia, and Robyn and Dean laughed again. “Really—men who pluck their eyebrows just look gay. Don’t they?”

  “Well, yeah,” said Dean. “Tell him to stop. Tell him he’s giving out the wrong signals.”

  And at that very moment Tom Jones launched into “Sex Bomb.” All of them laughed at the appropriateness of the sound track. Dean had finished assembling the spliff and he suggested that they sit out on the terrace to smoke it. The girls followed him, Robyn with a blanket around her shoulders, Lydia in her cardigan. The air outside was sharp and chilled and the rattan chairs were damp beneath their skin.

  “Nice view,” said Robyn, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I didn’t notice we’d driven so far from town.”

  Dean brought a lighted match to the tip of the spliff and lit it. Lydia watched him, suppressing a maternal desire to tell him that he really shouldn’t, that it was bad for him, that he’d said he’d stop. But Dean had a mother. That was not her job.

  “What’s it like where you live?” Robyn asked her.

  Dean laughed.

  “What?” said Robyn.

  “Nothing,” said Dean, “just a good question, that’s all.”

  Lydia sighed and smiled. “I live in quite a big house,” she said. “Dean thinks it’s funny.”

  “Have you been there?” asked Robyn, directing wide eyes at him.

  “Yeah. Loads of times. And it’s not a ‘very big house’—it’s a stately home! It’s got its own fucking postcode!”

  “Oh, it does not,” chided Lydia. “Honestly. It’s just a house. A big one. You’ll have to come and visit.”

  “Cool!” Robyn replied. “And will I get to meet your gay boyfriend, too?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend! I told you.”

  Robyn threw her a mischievous look and smiled. “Whatever,” she said knowingly.

  Lydia sucked in her breath as she pondered the possibility of sharing something with Dean and Robyn. She felt again the difference in age between her and her younger siblings and wondered how they would react to hearing her problems. But then she asked herself, wasn’t this what it was all about? Wasn’t this the whole point of being related to people? “What do you make of this?” she began. And then she told them about the bankruptcy and the £50 notes and the piles of designer clothes and Juliette’s suspicions. “Did you like him?” she asked, turning to Dean. “You met him—what did you make of him?”

  Dean shrugged, as she’d known he would. “Just thought he was gay really.”

  Robyn stifled a laugh.

  “No, seriously. Thought he seemed like a nice guy. A bit intense, you know, but that’s East Europeans for you. Didn’t strike me as a sponger, though.”

  Lydia sighed.

  “I’m sure there’s a rational explanation,” said Robyn reassuringly. “I mean, maybe someone else bought him all the stuff.”

  Lydia shrugged. She knew that couldn’t be the case. She knew deep inside herself that she was being taken for a fool. “Oh, well,” she said, “it was never meant to be anything serious. It was only ever just some fun, you know . . .” She trailed off, hoping that she’d sounded nonchalant and cool, but, judging by the look of pity on her sister’s face, failing miserably. “What about you?” she asked, swiftly changing the subject. “Have you got a boyfriend?”

  Robyn curled her feet up beneath her and shivered slightly. “I certainly do. And if you think thinking that your boyfriend might be gay is bad, listen to this.”

  Lydia and Dean looked at her, questioningly.

  “I thought mine was my brother.”

  Lydia looked at Robyn with squinted eyes over a cloud of smoke and said, “Continue.”

  She smiled. “It’s not actually very funny at all. But when I first started going out with my boyfriend, there was this one time when I saw him in the mirror and I thought it was me. And then a load of my friends met him and were saying all this stuff about how he might be my brother. Because, well, he might have been, mightn’t he? And I didn’t even know then that I had two brothers. And I started freaking out. And then I found out that my second brother, you know”—she gestured toward Lydia—“little Thomas, had been born the same year as my Jack, and I still had sex with him. Isn’t that totally fucked up? I mean, seriously? I was sleeping with him at the same time as thinking he might be my brother.”

  Dean looked at her and grimaced. “That’s fucked up,” he said.

  “Er, yeah,” said Robyn, raising her eyebrows. “I know it was. But I just couldn’t stop myself. It was like—it was like this uncontrollable force. But after a while I just couldn’t deal with it and I dumped him. Well, I didn’t dump him, I just sort of cooled off. Didn’t see him for a while. Which was hideous. But, of course, it turns out that it was fine. You know, that Jack is not, in fact, my brother, and that I am not, in fact, a disgusting pervert. His mum came round to see me and I asked her and she said I was nuts! So it’s all cool. But still. You know. Sick or what?”

  She cackled w
ith laughter then and it was clear to Lydia that this was the first time she had been able to laugh about such an important thing. It was clear that this was the first time she had found any humor in it whatsoever, and Lydia thought to herself that, yes, this was what it was like to have brothers and sisters: this lightness of spirits, this banter and laughter and the shaking off of unnecessary weight from serious subjects, the peeling back of clouded issues.

  “Did you ever tell him?” Lydia asked her. “Did you tell him what you’d thought?”

  Robyn shook her head emphatically. “No way,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “Because he’d have thought I was a freak. Thinking he was my brother but shagging him anyway. And he’d hate me for lying to him. Wouldn’t he?”

  There was a doubt at the end of the question and Lydia gave it some thought. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why would he hate you? It’s not your fault. It’s not. We’ve all got these weird, crazy backgrounds, and we have to make these bizarre excuses for ourselves all the time. And if he loves you and cares about you, he’ll understand that, surely?”

  Robyn nodded. “I guess so,” she said. “I know he still feels freaked out about us splitting up. I’ve never really been able to explain it to him. But maybe I should. Maybe you’re right. All this weirdness is part of who I am. He’ll have to accept that. And, you know, all this, meeting you two, seeing our donor today, all of it, it’s just made me realize what’s been wrong with my life this last year. And . . .” She stopped talking for a moment and drew in her breath. Then she smiled. “And what I need to do to fix it. Because I always thought my donor was a god and I was some kind of deity myself. But really, he’s just a man and I’m just a girl and the rest of my life is not carved out in stone and from here on in I am going to wing it.” She smiled with satisfaction at her closing words and Lydia felt her own heart fill with pride, seeing someone so young work it out all for themselves.