sad thinking about it. That world was dying and reality and responsibility were taking over. They all knew it and the cracks were starting to show. Dan was an exception but the majority of those guys had to settle down. Whatever they'd dreamt of being was never their destiny. Those wild, strange, and imaginative people would have to exist in the more simple forms the world would offer them.
That's when I found out there are a couple of ways people in that situation can react. They either accept it, or they fight it, even though failure is almost inevitable. And it was in these two different ways that Rebecca’s friends, Carla and Chris responded to the change.
Carla was ready. Settling down was something she'd already prepared for and everyone seemed to know it. There was only one exception and, unfortunately for her, it was her boyfriend Chris.
I always figured that Chris saw himself as a truly rebellious spirit, but I never knew what he thought he was rebelling against. I figured he had his reasons although he never shared them with me. Whatever they were though, they had nothing to do with his impending fatherhood. This I can say with complete certainty, because Carla hadn't told him she was pregnant.
Funnily enough, her not telling him always made me think she understood him a lot better than he understood himself. But then I guess no-one can know everything about another person; because it turned out that Chris was cheating on her.
He’d been seeing this dark-haired, sort of groupie girl for a couple of months. I remember seeing her out and about with our group once or twice. She wasn’t particularly memorable, just empty, pretty and graceless. I just don't get it, I suppose, but even thinking about it now, I never would've put her and Chris together. Still, these things tend to get found out and it was Dan who told me all about it.
It was in a photograph that he'd discovered the secret. By his own admission the photo itself wasn’t his best work. He explained how he'd been sitting on a park bench, thinking about the composition from the height and direction of where he was. Apparently, he wasn't happy but decided it'd do. Then all he did was wait. An old man walked by, bent over by age, and in one click the camera captured a look of intense joy on his face. His eye line in the photo showing the cause of his happiness. Running towards him was his grandson, with the same look of happiness and love on his face.
What Dan hadn't noticed when he'd taken the picture was the background. Trees had framed the central image but they'd also provided the background to another meeting. A man and a woman were engaged in a passionate kiss. One of them was unmistakably Chris; even from a distance, his imposing bulk couldn't be confused with anyone else. What was equally unmistakable was that the woman he was kissing wasn't Carla.
It has to be said the intensity of Dan’s anger about this surprised me. If anything I'd have said he was much closer to Chris than Carla. Still, his disgust at Chris’ behaviour was unmistakable. For him, there was no way to justify treating the mother of your child so terribly. And not knowing was no excuse either.
“I told him Carla was pregnant,” he said to me, “No sugar coating, just a swift kick to the head to get it back in the game… And all he says is ‘That’s the last thing I need’. The guys a fucking joke… You can’t. You shouldn’t do that… I can’t be around that. I can’t be dealing with this kind of shit, you know… I need to get out of here Scotty.”
I really didn't think he was serious. And even if he was, I figured he’d at least want Rebecca with him. I saw how important she was to him. She was the only person I ever saw him look to for approval. And yet, he left the following morning and he left on his own.
My assumption was probably stupid. For as long as I’d known him, Daniel Liman had been moving between places; coming and going for a few months at a time. Disappearing and reappearing again when it was least expected. Tying him down for any length of time had always been about as easy as nailing jelly to a wall.
Except this time, there was something different about the way he went. A month went by without a hint of when he'd be back. Letters arrived. They were cold and detached but quick to state that he was fine, without giving any address to reply to. That's why I couldn’t tell him that Chris had come to his senses. That his words had been enough to make Chris commit himself to Carla and the ultrasound picture he kept in the pocket nearest his heart.
Another month went by without any sign of Dan returning. Life went on. He owned the house so there wasn't any rent to pay but I still thought I should get a job to back up Rebecca’s wages. The job wasn’t great. A bit of bar work, four nights a week. I was just glad it kept me drinking enough to hide all my unwanted feelings.
Rebecca was much more dignified than I was. By then, I knew Dan hadn't told her the real reason why he left. Turns out, he thought it was wrong to reveal the details to anyone who would've been upset by what Chris had done. I always wondered if the idea of hiding the truth from them every day had been what made him leave. I guess it doesn't matter much now. The important thing was that, instead of truth, Dan gave Rebecca vagueness and then he'd left her with silence.
For her, things had changed and not just because he'd left. That was something she was used to. The difference was actually within her. It wasn’t totally obvious to begin with but as the third month without Dan came and went, I saw the evidence for myself.
It might sound like nothing, but on her 23rd birthday Rebecca didn’t put on her butterfly earrings. Ever since my first shining glimpse of them when I arrived, I'd not seen her without the pretty silver on each earlobe. In fact, I already knew that in the two years since Dan bought them for her, there hadn't been a day when she hadn't put them on. Even when he'd done his disappearing act in the past she'd always kept wearing them. For Rebecca, they'd always been a wonderfully constant reminder of him.
When he didn’t come back for her birthday, she packed them away so she wouldn't be reminded anymore. She didn't say a word. She just did it. Under the bed they'd shared, among the boxes of various hoarded trinkets Dan had amassed on his travels, they lay in darkness. I didn't see her take them off or hide them away. What I did see afterwards was Becky writing at the kitchen table. And I don't know why but it made me smile.
She looked up when I came into the room. She said nothing and didn’t stop her work. I didn't want to disturb her so I made myself a drink and waited. I was most of the way through my second glass of neat whisky when she approached me.
“I want to do something,” she said, “It’s my birthday so would you help me, please?”
There was no way I was ever going to turn her down.
“Okay,” I said, not knowing what I could be getting myself into. Her smile made it worthwhile.
“I fancy a few drinks first.”
I was happy to oblige with whisky and a splash of coke. She drank it down quick and offered her empty glass for another. I poured it and one for myself, followed by another couple each. By early evening the sunlight was replaced by serious gloom, and drizzle that grew more incessant as the night wore on. Walking between the bars was all it took for the cold and wet to find its way to the back of my throat and seep through my clothes, onto my skin.
Whisky couldn't protect me from that evening's after effects. When Becky called me into her bedroom, two days later, I was suffering from a sore throat, bordering on man-flu. I found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes she'd pulled out from under the bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I'm not sure really. It just seems strange that even after three years Dan never bothered to tell me about any of the stuff hidden under my bed. I was looking at it the other day and it made me wonder what he’s hiding and what else he hasn’t told me.”
“No idea.” I croaked back.
“Then this'll be fun for both of us.”
I wasn't convinced. I wanted to tell her that I didn't think it was a good idea. I didn't get the chance though. She'd already lifted the lid from the box nearest to her. There were only a few clothes inside. So, she pushe
d the box away and pulled another towards her. She found more of the same and I saw frustration on her sweet face. Even though I was pretty sure she didn’t know what she was looking for, not finding it clearly annoyed the hell out of her.
Becky pulled a third box from under the bed. It was almost empty. She put her hand inside and pulled out what looked like three small pieces of paper. I hadn't been keen on having any part in what she was doing, but I'll admit that curiosity got the better of me then. I walked over to where she was sitting. Within two steps, I could see what she held in her hands weren't pieces of paper. They were actually three photographs.
“What are they?” I asked, kneeling down next to her.
“Well, one of them is a church.”
She turned the first photo to show me and noticed something written on the back.
“Looks like it’s in some place called Crediton...”
She shrugged her shoulders and shuffled the pictures to look at the next one.
“There’s another one with some guy on. And…”
Becky paused. The third photograph drained the colour from her face and right away I knew what she was looking at. I'd known he wouldn't destroy it, and yet, Dan had decided not to take the picture with him when he left. It must have seemed safe, hidden away in the dust of an almost empty