“You haven’t really forgiven me, have you?” Mal asks as we head for the café later.
“Not for one second,” I reply without hesitation.
CHAPTER 45
A my, this is Mal,” I say. “One of my old friends. Mal, this is Amy, my business associate.” I don’t call her an employee, because her friendliness, sunshine soul and hardworking nature are all reasons why Starstruck is such a success. And she isn’t simply an employee. She is an amazing friend who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in the past few weeks. She has opened up on time, closed on time, served customers, cleared tables, pandered to the usually ridiculous requests of the psychics, sometimes done readings herself, cashed up, locked up, visited our suppliers. All without a word of complaint. She also visits Leo whenever she can.
“Shakespeare!” Amy exclaims, her eyes running all over Mal’s face, as though she wants to use her fingers to forage into his skin, looking for something. “You’re Shakespeare!” She grins. Excitedly, she claps her hands, secures a lock of hair behind her ear and turns to me. “He’s Shakespeare! I wasn’t going crazy all those years ago. I didn’t get it wrong.” She waves her finger excitedly at him (if she were Leo, I would be telling her not to point). “He’s your connection to Shakespeare.”
Mal eyes her up suspiciously, wondering if the tall woman with the waist-length hair, pierced tongue and tattooed belly button is a little bit crazy.
“When Amy and I first met, she thought I was an actress,” I explain.
“Oh,” Mal says.
“She’s psychic,” I elaborate.
“Right,” he says, nodding sagely, as though I have just said, “She’s a bit slow.”
“No, she is, actually,” I reassure him. “One of the best I’ve ever met.”
Amy’s eyes widen, and an even broader grin splits her face. She also blushes furiously. I’ve never said that to her. Mal looks like Keith does whenever I bring up this subject—as though he’s wondering if some sort of psychiatric help will make me stop this nonsense.
“When she met me, she thought I was an actress because she could see me surrounded by stars. She didn’t know my name at this point.” I trawl through my memory to recall it accurately. “She said I had a very strong connection to Shakespeare. And when I said most people did because we learned it at school, she said that both Leo and I had a very strong connection to Shakespeare. And then she said it was something to do with twelve or the twelfth. And then she said I had a connection to the Old Vic. Or was it a person called Old Vic?”
I know that last bit will get to Mal. Most of his dad’s workmates called him Old Vic. Mal’s face pales and he looks over Amy again, now unsure of her and her abilities.
“Amy only reads for people if she gets something from them. If she doesn’t have a connection with them when they sit down in front of her, she won’t charge them or read for them,” I say. “That’s why I respect her. That’s why I only allow people that scrupulous to work here.”
“But you’re Shakespeare!” she exclaims, clapping her hands again. “I love that I’ve finally met you.” Even when Amy is sixty, I’m sure she will still delight like this in the world. “Every now and again, I’d wonder what that connection was. Especially as it’s so strong with Leo. Hey, was Old Vic your dad?”
Mal draws himself in tight, and he becomes cold and closed off, his face a hard expressionless mask. Clearly his policy of not talking about his father is still in place. His eyes, now as flinty as unwieldy diamonds, drill into Amy.
“Amy, I was wondering if you would do me the hugest favor?” I say, to deflect this conversation for now and not allow them to alienate themselves from each other before they have valid, quantifiable reasons to dislike each other.
Her head moves toward me, but her eyes are firmly fixed on Mal. Eventually she brings her brown, whirlpool-like eyes toward me, too, but I can tell they are dying to return to him. “Hmmm?” she asks.
“Mal’s just arrived and we haven’t had time to arrange a hotel or B&B for him yet. My house is not the place for him, so I was wondering if he could stay at your place for a couple of days? Just until we can find a hotel.”
I expect her to say yes; she is that kind of person, that’s why I asked her. Instead, she swings her head back to Mal and stares at him for a long, silent, tense moment before she returns her gaze to me. Her long fingers curl around my bicep. “Can we have a quick word, over there?” She indicates the door that leads to the back of the café, and before I can answer she is dragging me away.
Mal’s thoughts are unreadable as he pulls out a chair and sits down.
“That’s Leo’s dad, right?” she asks.
I nod.
“And he broke your heart, right?”
I nod again.
“So what’s he doing here? Why does he need somewhere to stay?”
I haven’t told her. In all that’s been happening, I haven’t told her what the doctor said. Everyone else was there and she was here, as always, holding the fort for me, saving me from financial ruin, and she still doesn’t know.
Amy has seen Leo nearly every day for all of his life. The only person he has seen more frequently than her is me. The pair of them are great friends and he loves it when she talks to him in Japanese and attempts to play PlayStation with him. This isn’t the sort of news she should hear from me. Someone more detached, more objective, should tell her. Even though I hated him for what he said, the doctor telling everyone in my family at the same time what he thought saved me from having to do it. Saved me from having to go through the worst-case scenario with a person who loves Leo.
“You’d better sit down,” I say to her.
“Just tell me,” she says, aware that if Mal is here it isn’t going to be good news.
In halting, jumbled, mumbled words, I tell her what the doctor said. I try to repeat it without saying what I said in between. As I speak, I watch her, waiting for the moment when she will do what Mum and Cordy did and burst into tears. Or what Dad did and move to another part of the room. Or what Keith did and reach for me. Or even what Aunt Mer and I did and become incredibly still.
Amy surprises me: she nods slowly when I stop speaking, then she faints clean away.
I lock up the café without bothering to cash up—I just put the takings from the early-morning rush in the safe. I have more pressing matters. Mal is taking care of Amy so that I can go to the hospital. I haven’t seen Leo since I dropped in on my way back from London last night. That’s a long time away from him. Mal said he’d drive her home, even though she lives very close—just the other side of Poets Corner—make sure she is safely in bed and will stay with her until Trudy gets back.
She was virtually catatonic and I envied her. I have—at various points in the last few weeks—wanted to do that. To simply check out of reality and sit quietly, safe and removed by a protective force field my mind has erected. Sadly, I did not, do not, have that luxury.
My current life is like a machine: it has many parts, all of which need tending or it will break down. The area in most dire need of service, of love and attention, at the moment is my marriage. Keith is not talking to me. He has stopped speaking to me unless absolutely necessary since Aunt Mer revealed to everyone everything about the surrogacy. But I cannot focus on him—tending to Amy, getting Mal to come here, actually getting to the hospital are the parts of the machine that get cleaned and oiled first.
I pull into the hospital car park—there is a special one for parents and carers of long-term sick children—and a sense of relief is wending its way through my body. I don’t have to worry about Amy and the café for the rest of the day. The relief of that is so deep and syrupy and delectable, I decide, as I walk toward the looming gray-brick building, to keep Starstruck closed for a few more days. There it is, that delicious relief. I want to dive into it, drink it in, swim in it, stay there for a lifetime. I want to drown in something I do not have to worry about.
There’s an odd scene in
Leo’s room: Mum is crocheting, sitting in my chair, facing Leo with Randle asleep on her lap, his head resting on the shelf of her impressive bosom; Aunt Mer is in Keith’s chair, reading to Leo; Dad is in another chair, a new one to the room; Cordy has laid out a tartan picnic blanket on the floor and the children have an array of toys on it, although Ria is rapt, listening to Aunt Mer. Cordy is sitting cross-legged, reading a magazine.
This is why the hospital rules stipulate that only two people are allowed to visit at one time. If there was an emergency now, they’d be tripping over people to get to Leo, but I love that my family are here. That they’ve made their lives around him as they do when he’s in a school play, a soccer match, or when it’s his birthday. Everyone descends upon Hove, ready to watch him, to be with him, to praise him.
“Hey, Leo,” I say to him. “It’s me.” I sweep my eyes around everyone else as I say “Hi” to them. They all smile at me in their different ways: Mum’s is bright, Dad’s is hidden, Cordy’s is brighter than Mum’s, Aunt Mer’s is like she knows a secret, and Ria’s is curious.
Cordy has worked her magic. She’s told them whatever is necessary so that they’ve all stopped looking at me as though they are not sure how to talk to me, and that I have been wronged and that I should have told them years ago so they could have carved the offender out of their lives. She’s soothed them, possibly by saying he’s here now and I’ve forgiven him and he wants to make amends. Maybe she’s even told them that Randle had all but kneecapped him and that has sated their thirst for blood. Whatever, Cordy—PR woman extraordinaire that she is—has calmed my family. Mal might get a stern talking-to, but he won’t be skinned alive and they won’t make this about him. I love my sister for that.
“There’s no change,” Mum says quietly, as she holds out her intricate crochet web to Dad. Without having to be prompted, he puts aside his crossword and picks up her cloth bag and stows the crochet and the hooked plastic needle into the bag’s depths. Cordy is packing the toys away into one of her large bags, with Ria’s help, and then folds up the picnic blanket. Mum weighs Randle in her arms, then works out how to stand without waking him.
“Where’s Malvolio?” Aunt Mer asks as she stands, shutting the book.
“He’s taking care of Amy,” I say. “She fainted when … Earlier on. Mal took her home and is staying with her until Trudy gets back.”
“Poor Amy,” Cordy says. Mal has gone up a notch or two in everyone’s estimation because he doesn’t even know her.
“But call him,” I say to Aunt Mer. “He’s looking for a hotel to stay in.”
“OK, we’re off then,” Mum says.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
“You aren’t going to go home tonight and see us on the way?” Dad asks.
“No, I’m staying here. I want to keep Keith company.”
After a round of see-you-laters and hugs, they leave. Cordy and the twins are going back to Crawley; Mum, Dad and Aunt Mer make noises about going to look around Brighton.
And then I’m alone. With Leo.
How I like it.
When I’m not here, I like him to be surrounded by our family, but at times like this, I want it to be just me and him. Like it always has been.
CHAPTER 46
L ast night, the first glass of wine made things feel less empty, especially because I put on the radio in the kitchen, the CD player in the dining room and the TV in the living room.
The first bottle of wine made me decide to sleep on the sofa because the bed was too far upstairs and too vacant of my husband.
The second bottle of wine must have convinced me that the attic was a wise place to visit: I woke up to find all the baby clothes I’d bought all those years ago laid out flat on the floor around me, like cutouts from a model-free, three-dimensional children’s clothing catalogue.
I don’t remember doing it, but I must have. My thick, gummy eyes told me I’d been crying as well.
Sobriety, shame and a shower (long, hot, lots of soap) have brought me here. To the back garden, a cigarette clamped between my lips, as I smash every single piece of the tea service Meredith gave us on the concrete path that leads from the house to the wooden shed at the other end.
All this started when I broke that cup, didn’t it? I need to finish what I started that day by accident. It’s clear to me now: the tea service, wherever it came from, has a hex on it.
I need to remove every cursed item of it from my house and my life.
CHAPTER 47
T he knock on the door startles me.
I’ve been dozing, not sleeping—no dreaming, which is a blessing.
I automatically check on Leo: no change, then stumble to the door.
My heart forgets to beat for a few seconds, and my lungs stop: Mal.
Oh, yeah, I invited him here. He’s all out of context—over the past few years I haven’t seen him as someone you deal with close up, it’s always at a distance.
“Hi,” he says; he’s clearly seen the shock register on my face.
“Hi,” I say. He’s had a shower and combed his hair so it now sits pushed back from his face in tamed curls. I’d forgotten how angular but strangely soft his features are. For so many years, I’d wanted to kiss his plump lips and to have his eyes, a shade darker than the brown of fox’s fur, stare down at me as they are now: gently, carefully, probing me, as though trying to peel back my outer layers and see inside me.
Whenever we’d been apart for extended periods—like when I returned to London from Oxford, when he came home from Australia, when I went on holiday with Keith—he’d do this, would want to reacquaint himself with me physically, mentally and emotionally. He’d stare at me, reach out to touch me to confirm I was real. Now, after all these years, his need is even worse.
I have an urge to slap him. Just like that. Slap him to snap him out of it, remind him why he is here. Someone already has, I see: a florid red streak sits proudly on his left cheek from where someone has repeatedly hit him. “What happened?” I ask, pointing to the mark.
“Huh?” he asks, touching his cheek. “Oh, Mum.”
Aunt Mer did that?
“She slapped me the first time because of what I’d done. Then she slapped me a second time because I hadn’t told her the truth all these years and let her think what she did. Then she slapped me again because she said no matter how much anyone else wanted to slap me, they never would. Then she slapped me because she said if I’d seen the look on everyone’s faces as she told them the truth, I’d slap myself. After that, I stopped counting.”
Aunt Mer?
“Then she started crying and said she’d never thought the first time she’d have to smack one of her children would be when he was in his thirties. And then she said in all her life she’d never been ashamed of anyone and this was the first time, and I wouldn’t believe how painful shame was. To be honest, I preferred it when she was hitting me.”
“I didn’t tell them, you know,” I say. “I didn’t tell them any of it.” It must have cut him deep that Aunt Mer was ashamed of him.
“Steph told Mum. I don’t know why, but she did,” he says. “Amy’s fine. Trudy came back and put her to bed. She’s still not talking. I found a hotel, too. It’s near where Mum and your parents are staying.”
I nod at him.
“I was hoping to see Leo now?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Really?” He is surprised.
“Did you think I’d get you all the way down here to not let you see him?”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Mal, this isn’t about you, it’s about Leo.”
He crosses the threshold and becomes frozen. Everyone does the first time they come in here. The machines that surround the bed are daunting, they bleep and make drip-drip noises, while lights flash and lines move across monitors. A white hose leads from one machine to the bed, to Leo’s mouth. Sometimes they take the hose out because he can, mostly, breathe on his own. A drip is link
ed to his arm. When you enter the room for the first time, the machines dwarf Leo, make him seem small and fragile and easily breakable. This scene reminds you how amazing the human body is because it can do all these things and more on its own. And reminds you how weak you are, because the smallest thing can put you here.
Mal is terrified, his eyes wide, his body rigid as he looks at me. I gently take his bicep and lead him to my chair.
“It’s all right, just sit down,” I say to him, “tell him who you are, and talk to him.” Gently I push him into my chair.
“Look who’s here,” I say to Leo. “It’s my old friend, Mal. He’s Nana Mer’s son. Just like you’re my son, he’s Nana Mer’s son. And he’s your other dad. Remember? You wrote down that time that you have two dads. He’s the other one.”
I rub my hand reassuringly up and down Mal’s arm, then leave him to it by retreating to the other side of the room, standing by the door.
“Erm, hi, Leo. I’m Mal. I saw you when you were a few days old. I thought you were so small. I wanted to pick you up because I was sure you’d fit in the palm of my hand. I’ve also seen you at your Aunt Cordy’s wedding. Your Nana Mer shows me pictures of you all the time.
“Actually, do you know who I am? I’m the boy in the picture you showed to your Nana Mer and asked her why I looked like you. That’s me.
“Your mum told me that you love PlayStation and soccer. Well, I love those two things, too. So we’ll have to play one day, see who out of us will win. I’m pretty good as well, you know. Very few people can beat me, but I’m sure you’ll try.”
I love Mal’s voice. The way he speaks, the intonation of his words. I love it all the more because he’s having a long-overdue conversation with Leo.
CHAPTER 48
W e should be careful when we tell lies,” I say to Carole. “They’re alive. Lies are alive. Once you’ve told them, they need looking after, feeding, nurturing, attention, companionship … love and affection, I suppose, like any other living thing we’re responsible for.”