You, Me and Other People

by Fionnuala Kearney

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ she whispers as she opens the door.

  ‘Yo.’ Noah looks over the rim of his book and greets us.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ Kiera’s kiss lingers on the child’s forehead.

  ‘Adam. You came back,’ he says.

  ‘Your mother tells me you want to play chess.’ I open my rucksack and pull out a board game. It’s Ben’s, actually, but when I found it in the flat, I thought it would be a good idea. ‘If you’re going to play chess with me, we have to play properly, and that means feeling the pieces, not moving them around as a two-dimensional image.’

  He already has the box open and is placing the pieces in their correct squares.

  ‘Is this yours?’ he asks. ‘Did you play with this when you were little?’

  I hesitate. ‘It’s my brother’s, but yes, I did play with it.’

  ‘You have a brother?’ The child is looking squarely at me.

  ‘Yes, his name’s Ben.’

  ‘Older or younger?’

  ‘Younger.’

  ‘By how much?’

  I catch Kiera’s smile.

  ‘Do you always ask this many questions?’ Her smile is matched with one from me.

  ‘Always,’ he says. ‘How much younger?’

  ‘Almost two years.’

  ‘You’re lucky.’ He sighs. ‘I’m an only child.’

  Kiera is now biting her lower lip. ‘Would you like a drink, love? I’m going to go and get a coffee for Adam and me.’

  ‘An OJ please,’ he says without looking up.

  ‘Latte with two?’ she asks me, and I nod my response.

  ‘So,’ Noah says after his mother has left and he is moving his first pawn. ‘How come Mum knows how you like your coffee?’

  ‘I’ve known her a while,’ I reply, carefully. ‘Your family are clients of mine, so although Tim and I go back a long way, I’ve known your mum for years too.’

  There is a constant whirring in the room, which I realize is coming from all of the machines around the bed. I look at a few of them, trying to figure out what their function is.

  ‘I could have sworn Mum acted as if she’d just met you the first time you were here.’

  I’m unsure how to react. Maybe if I pretend I didn’t hear …

  ‘Does my dad know you’ve come?’

  Another question I have to ignore. Maybe I can tell him I’m a little deaf. He has already taken a few of my pawns and a knight. This kid knows his chess.

  ‘Adam? Does Dad know you’re here?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I cough. ‘It’s awfully noisy in here, isn’t it? And hot? My mouth’s really dry.’

  Noah rests his head back on the bulk of pillows behind his neck. ‘It’s the machines,’ he says. ‘And coffee is on its way.’

  By the time Kiera returns, he has taken most of my pieces and I know I’m moments away from being beaten by a ten-year-old. She hands me a steaming coffee and I take a cautious sip from the tiny hole in the plastic lid.

  ‘I need more practice.’ I look up from the board, letting him know I can smell my defeat.

  ‘You’ll just have to come more often,’ he says.

  I don’t reply. Kiera has leapt from her chair and is walking through the door.

  Noah strains his head to try and see around the corner. ‘It’s Dad,’ he whispers. ‘And boy, does he look pissed off.’

  Though I’m quite sure Kiera will not like his choice of vocabulary, I’m too scared to turn around and see what’s going on. I gather up the chess pieces and place them in the box.

  ‘I was three moves off checkmate,’ he tells me.

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Why is it, Adam, that grown-ups aren’t just honest with each other? It’s so frustrating. What’s the big deal here? I want to play chess with a friend of Uncle Tim’s.’

  I swallow hard, my back to whatever is going on out in the hallway. ‘Sometimes, grown-ups …’ I stop myself. Shut the fuck up, Adam.

  ‘What,’ he says, ‘sometimes they what?’

  I raise my shoulders up and down.

  ‘Sometimes grown-ups are arseholes. I’m the one who’s dying here.’

  Gordon, ignoring my presence completely, just passes me by on his way in to see his son, leaving Kiera and me outside in the corridor.

  ‘You didn’t have to come out,’ Kiera says. She looks exhausted.

  ‘He’d already thrashed me.’

  ‘Gordon and I were due to meet here later but, to be honest, I think he knew I was sneaking you in.’

  ‘If Gordon doesn’t want me here, I won’t come. Please, the last thing I want to do is to cause more trouble.’

  ‘Adam, Noah wanted to see you again and that’s all I’m concerned about.’ She sips her coffee, makes a face, and tosses it in a nearby bin. ‘I’ve just spoken to the consultant. We’re waiting on Meg’s results. If she’s not a match, we can start the programme immediately. If she is, he’ll get the stem cells instead, as that’s more likely to be successful.’

  I nod, but am already lost. Though Kiera has explained the new treatment from America that Noah would be a UK pioneer for, I’m not sure I understand it. It involves many different comprehensive treatments of the blood. What I do understand is that it’s last-chance-saloon stuff, and I find myself praying that Meg is a match. Apart from Noah’s plight, all of the turmoil in my fractured family will have been for nothing …

  ‘Will they do the donation here if …’ I don’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Probably not. I think he should go back to Great Ormond Street. I don’t want to move him again but, with a donation, I’d prefer him to be back under his original oncologists.’

  ‘I’m going to take off,’ I tell her.

  ‘Leave Gordon to me, Adam. If you want to see Noah and he wants to see you, Gordon’s going to have to find a way to man-up.’

  I’m surprised at the anger in her voice but say nothing. Instead I hug her, briefly. She feels tiny in my arms, birdlike. ‘Go and get yourself a cheese bloomer, you’re fading away.’

  She laughs, ‘Look who’s talking. How’s the training going, by the way?’

  ‘Good. I’m running every night now.’ I don’t tell her that it’s the only way I can ever get any sleep. She looks as though she has problems of her own in that department. ‘Sponsor me. I have a page on “Just Giving”.’

  ‘I will.’ She kisses my cheek and pushes the swing door. ‘See you next time.’

  I head out of the hospital. The day is bitterly cold, with the remnants of last night’s frost still crunching underfoot. I glance at my watch. Unsure of what time she’s flying, I head quickly to the car, turn the heat up high and Google flights to LA from Heathrow today on my iPhone. Sunday 30 November 2014, there are two flights – both later this afternoon. I head straight to Weybridge.

  Her car is in the driveway. So is Karen’s. I steel myself and ring the doorbell.

  Karen answers. Without speaking, she simply glares at me.

  ‘Is Beth here?’ I pull my coat tightly around me.

  ‘I’m just about to drive her to the airport.’

  ‘Can I see her?’

  ‘Doubtful …’

  ‘Karen, it’s freezing out here. If you’re going to yell at me, or just scowl at me, can we please do it in the hall?’

  ‘No. You can freeze your fucking rocks off out there. Maybe if they fall off, it’ll stop you using them.’

  ‘I need to see Beth before she goes.’

  ‘She does not want to see you.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Beth?’ Karen yells into the house at the top of her voice. ‘Do you want to see Adam?’

  There is silence.

  I tilt my head, raise my eyebrows.

  ‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Let me in my own bloody house.’ I push past her into the hallway.

  ‘That’s assault,’ she hisses. ‘You stay the fuck here!’ She wiggles a ta
lon-tipped finger at me and heads inside, presumably upstairs to where Beth is.

  Within minutes, she is back. ‘She does not want to see you. She wants you to leave now.’

  ‘I’m not leaving.’ I make a point of staring at Beth’s words on the wall.

  ‘I’ll call the police.’

  ‘This is still half my house, Karen. Call whoever the fuck you like. You want to get snotty? Beth had no right at all to change the locks on a house we both own. Now, go and tell her I want two minutes of her time. Please. Just two minutes.’

  ‘Leave it, Karen.’

  I hear Beth’s voice from the living room.

  ‘Come inside,’ she tells her. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Karen gives me a withering look and vanishes. Beth appears in front of me, half in, half out of the hallway.

  ‘What do you want?’ she says.

  I can’t help scanning her up and down. She’s stunning, in a black polo neck and jeans and heeled ankle boots. Her hair, now long enough to wear up, is pinned up by a diamanté barrette. I’m momentarily speechless.

  ‘I never meant—’

  She puts a palm in the air. ‘Adam, if you’ve come to say sorry. If you’ve come to say you never meant any of it to happen. If you’ve come to tell me that – somehow – your lying to me for ten years about another child can be made right, stop now. It can’t. It can never be made right.’

  ‘I know that.’ Christ, I can feel a lump in my throat. ‘But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t try. Don’t bother.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Please leave. I’ve a plane to catch.’

  From inside the living room, music begins to play. Karen is trying to drown me out and I’m getting pissed off.

  She pokes her head around the corner. ‘Did you hear her? She has a plane to catch.’

  I can feel a red mist descend. I just want to talk to Beth for two minutes. Two minutes of uninterrupted explanation before she goes.

  ‘Karen, please just fuck off. This has got nothing to do with you. I need to talk to my wife.’

  ‘Your wife does not need to talk to you.’ She has come back into the hall now, is squaring up to me, and that mist is becoming a deeper shade of scarlet.

  ‘Move out of the way, Karen.’

  ‘Make me.’

  ‘Are you jealous, is that it?’ I push my face towards hers. ‘Would it just kill you if Beth actually talked to me? And who the fuck are you? What’s your advice? You telling her to dump me? Like all the men in your life who dumped you … When they realize what a bitter, toxic bitch you are.’

  ‘Stop it, Adam. Stop it, both of you.’ I hear Beth’s voice, but the bull has been released.

  ‘Remind me to talk to Ben, tell him what you’re really like. That you’ve never been able to have a proper relationship.’ I go for the jugular.

  Karen backs away like she’s been scalded.

  ‘Leave now, Adam.’ Beth approaches me.

  ‘I’ve only just started.’

  ‘You’ve said enough,’ Beth screams; she points at the door and orders me out of the house.

  I oblige, slamming the door behind me in a manner that nearly takes it off the hinges. In the car, I try and steady myself. Shit. I don’t even mean that crap about Karen, she just got in my face.

  I lower my head, tap it rhythmically on the steering wheel. There is nothing I can do. No sorry, no text, no letter, no flowers, nothing – nothing will fix this. Rather than give Beth food for thought in LA, all I’ve done is make her hate me more. Well done, mate, I tell myself. Just keep pushing the self-destruct button. One day, it’ll be sure to work.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I really want to scream at Karen. Since this is not a familiar emotion, I try and work my way through my annoyance without raising my voice. On my bed is a pile of clothes – several piles of clothes, in fact – equalling one big mess. There are forty minutes left before we have to leave for the airport.

  ‘Why don’t you just pack it for me?’ I suggest. She has, after all, unpacked my beautifully tidy, well-organized case, where I knew exactly what I had and exactly where it was. She has no understanding that any inkling of OCD that I have only kicks in while cleaning toilets, making my bed and packing a suitcase. Proving this, she separates my original choices into a ‘TAKE’ pile and a ‘LEAVE’ pile, and a third pile of her suggestions – a ‘TAKE AS WELL’ pile. I’m trying hard not to retire to the corner of the bedroom and put my thumb in my mouth.

  ‘You don’t want to look like a frigging nun.’ She is referring to my two pairs of black Capri pants and white tops.

  ‘Nuns do not wear Capri pants,’ I tell her, replacing them and the piles in the suitcase. ‘Nor do they wear them with Converse trainers.’ I push my white pair with a red stripe back, into the top-right corner of the case.

  ‘Please take this.’ Her voice is almost pleading as she holds up a long silky dress.

  ‘Where am I going to wear that?’ I’m beginning to lose it and start pointing frantically to my watch.

  ‘To a nice dinner in LA. With a nice movie producer or record producer or some sort of producer guy.’

  She places it neatly on top of the folded clothes. ‘It’ll need an iron when you get there.’

  ‘Fine, fine. Have I got everything? You’ve confused me now. Did the make-up and toiletries go back in?’

  She closes the lid. ‘Everything’s in there, Beth. Now go and get a coat and scarf. It’s brass monkeys outside.’

  I brush my teeth first. Gripping the sink, I’m trying to pull myself together, but my nerves are shredded. The last thing I needed today was Adam pitching up at the door. I spit and practise my smile in the mirror. Count, Beth, count. Just stop thinking about the shit in your life and start thinking songs. Songs. Songs … I grab my coat and scarf and head down to the car where Karen has already put my case in the boot.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Relax.’ She slams the boot shut. ‘Everything’s in there that should be. I’ve locked it. Here’s the key. Here’s your wallet with your documents. Check them and put them in your handbag. Let’s go.’

  I check everything as instructed.

  ‘You nervous?’

  I nod. ‘I just can’t help feeling I shouldn’t leave Meg, not right now. Not when she’s going through what she is. Maybe I shouldn’t go.’

  ‘Get in the car, Beth. I swear if I have to hit you over the head to get you in the car, I will. This is your moment. Meg will be fine, what the hell else could you do if you were here? Wait by her side to see if she’s a match or not?’ Her voice is rising. ‘It’s for a few days. I promise I’ll keep an eye out for Meg. Get in the bloody car.’

  I do as I’m told and slide into the passenger seat.

  Karen tuts loudly. ‘You had better get on that plane, Beth Hall. I mean it. If you don’t, I’ll never speak to you again. And I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do to Adam.’

  We haven’t spoken at all about Adam’s appearance at the house. About what he said. Not a word. We both just turned the music off, went upstairs and continued with the unpacking and repacking.

  ‘Enjoy your moment. You’ll be great.’ She taps my arm reassuringly. ‘And don’t think about him. He’s so not worth it.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what he said to you.’

  ‘Forget it. He was fired up. I goaded him.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean it.’

  ‘Don’t stick up for him, Beth. He has to be responsible for the things he says and does.’ She blows out a deep sigh through O-shaped lips.

  ‘I know, but he never loses his temper and what he said—’

  ‘Fuck him. Did you notice how thin he’s got? I was a bit shocked.’

  I know then that the subject is closed, so I reply. ‘All that running …’

  ‘Around after women,’ she adds.

  I don’t smile. He’s an absolute bastard of the first order, but something in me fee
ls bereft. It’s like a part of me has died.

  ‘He cried,’ I tell her. ‘I could see he was crying as I threw him out.’

  ‘Boo, bloody, hoo.’

  I try and concentrate on where I’m going to, rather than what just happened at the house. ‘It is, I guess, time to move on.’ I smooth out imaginary wrinkles in my black jeans.

  ‘Have you shaved?’ Karen asks, her eyes not moving from the road.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you shaved?’ she repeats.

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘Your bits. Down below.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Jesus Christ, Karen. No, I frigging well have not shaved my bits.’

  ‘You’ll have to. And when you do, you’ll know it’s really time to move on.’

  I try not to laugh. She’s right. My lady garden right now looks like something wild – unpruned and unloved.

  ‘LA will have waxing salons. Treat yourself, go and have it all off.’

  I shake my head. ‘Can we talk about something else other than my dishevelled pubes?’

  ‘I’m just saying. It’s a long time since you’ve been on the market. You’ll need to go bare, or nearly bare. It’s what men expect nowadays.’

  I’m almost insulted. Does she really think I don’t know what’s current? I may not have been with another man for two decades, but I read magazines, watch television, know all about those vajazzle things.

  ‘Adam liked it almost nude,’ I tell her. ‘But I just might get it all off and have a vajazzle in LA.’

  ‘Attagirl,’ she grins as she pulls onto the motorway.

  I am, finally, settled in my seat. It’s a window one, where obviously I will be able to see if the engine’s on fire, or if the pilot ejects. There is only one empty seat beside me and I hope it stays that way. I’m really not in the mood to make small talk to a total stranger over the Atlantic.

  No sooner is the thought formed than a man appears, throws a large holdall in the overhead locker and places another smaller bag on the seat. I try not to look up. If I don’t engage him, then I won’t have to tell him that I have never flown without my husband before. I can’t actually believe it myself, but it’s true – I have never flown without Adam … The knots in my stomach have multiplied like gremlins since boarding. At this moment in time, I’m afraid if I speak it would come out like a squeak.