Breakdown (14 page)

“You’ve talked about this before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, with Fiona, Brian’s wife. We kept in touch. I used to visit her when I went back to Bath, her and Ian, their son. He was a real cutie. I used to take him on little outings, to the zoo, or just out for ice cream, but Brian put a stop to that.” His voice got hard at the end.

“Did you talk about it with Sophie?”

“Sure, of course. She knew all about it. She got the worst of it. I used to rant at her. I’d call him all sorts of horrible names. I couldn’t say that to Fiona, of course, so Sophie got the worst of it. I really thought I hated him, for a while.”

“But—?”

“Well, I didn’t hate him, of course. If I had, it wouldn’t have hurt so much, would it? See? I’m not a lost cause.”

“I never see anyone as a lost cause, Chris. Certainly not you,” she said. “It sounds like you had two kind, intelligent women to help you through all that.”

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“How do you feel about Brian now?”

Chris looked up at her sharply, his eyebrows together, but did not answer.

“Do you still think about him much?”

“Well, he’s in a couple of my dreams, so I suppose I do.”

“What are the dreams like?”

“He’s angry, and usually there’s something between us, like glass, so I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

“What do you think he might be saying?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want to say to him?” Pauline persisted.

Chris seemed to struggle for words. “He’s probably dead.”

“No, that’s not what I asked. If he’s not dead, what do you want to say to him?”

Chris stared at her for a long time, eyes narrowed, biting his lip, gripping handfuls of the flowered sheet. His voice came out low when he spoke.

“I want to tell him how much it hurt me.”

“Do you? Don’t you think he knows that already?”

“I want to say it,” he insisted. “I want to say it to him, so I know he knows.”

“Do you think that will make you feel better?”

“No.”

“Do you think it will hurt him? Is that what you want to do? Hurt him back like he hurt you?” Pauline paused, and when Chris remained silent, she went on. “You’ve come this far, across the ocean, struggled so long, so you could find him and hurt him back?”

Chris was holding himself still, not looking at her. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. You need to,” Pauline insisted. “Tell me.”

“He’s probably dead.”

“Do you want him to be dead?”

“No!” he snapped. “Of course not! Why would I want that?”

“So it would all be over, and you wouldn’t have to deal with it when you go to Bath,” she said, keeping a reasonable tone.

“No. God, no,” he rasped, shaking his head. “I used to wish he had died, back before, when I was still so angry. I used to think it would have been easier to lose a friend that way. Then it happened, the crash, the plague, and everyone started dying, and I found out it wasn’t easier. God, it was so much worse.” He crossed his arms tightly and shook. “Everyone thought I hated him, but I didn’t. I want to tell him—tell him that I don’t hate him. But if he’s dead, I’ll never have a chance to tell him that.” He choked, swallowed.

“You want to fix it with him,” Pauline said gently.

Chris nodded. “I tried, after a few years, after talking with Sophie and Fiona. But he ignored everything, never answered. Shit. Maybe I’m just being stupid.”

“No, absolutely not stupid,” Pauline said, and Chris managed a quick look at her, his eyes wet, his jaw clenched. “He’s your one piece of unfinished business. As much as it hurt to lose Sophie, you hadn’t left anything unsaid to her, had you?”

Chris shook his head, then let it drop into his hands.

“And your brother in London, more grief, more loss, but you were on good terms, so no regrets there, right?”

Chris wiped at his eyes. “You don’t need to go on.”

“You’ve convinced yourself that Brian will be dead, and you won’t be able to fix it.”

“When I got to London, after so long, I was so sure,
so sure
, that I’d find something at Kevin’s flat. A note, a clue, telling me he’d gone to Bath. I knew he’d be fine. He was the careful one. He always made plans. I’d imagined a pristine note tacked on the door: ‘We’re fine. Gone to Bath. See you soon. Kevin.’” Chris took a deep breath, and went on. “And instead I found the government marks—have you ever seen those? Big red
X
for the plague, then the number of bodies, and a
D
for ‘deceased.’”

Pauline gave a shake of her head as a shiver went through her.

“He’d been living with his girlfriend and her daughter for almost two years. I knew he’d do everything he could to keep them safe. I
knew
he’d get them out of London. But I was deluding myself. I’d imagined a happy homecoming, with everyone safe and well. And instead I found my brother’s death notice painted on his door by a stranger: ‘3D.’ That was it. Someone came in and dragged their bodies out to a truck and dumped them in some mass grave. Or incinerator. Who knows? I don’t know. I’ll never know.” Chris sat hunched over in the chair, breathing hard. Pauline waited. “You don’t know what that’s like.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t.”

“Another part of me, dead. More of me is dead than alive. That’s how I feel. I switch off and run on autopilot. Don’t think, don’t feel. Just coast. Until something finally kills me and I’m done.”

“I don’t believe that,” Pauline whispered.

“Oh, really,
Doctor
? Tell me how I feel.”

Pauline ignored the hostility. “You have a lot of grief, Chris. I know that, I understand that. You’ve let it fill you up until you haven’t got room for anything else. You’ve gathered all this anguish around you, and you let it control you. You hide behind it. You’ve come to think, for some reason, that it’s easier to keep it than to let it go. Well, I’m telling you now: you’re wrong. You can find a way to let it go and move on without it.”

Chris snorted and didn’t answer her or look at her.

“You just said it yourself. You said you want to fix it with Brian. You
want
to leave it behind. You just haven’t figured out how.”

Chris gripped his head with his hands.

“Have you ever tried to kill yourself?” Pauline asked him.

“When Sophie died, I had a big bag of pills. All the pills in the house. But I couldn’t take them. I should have.”

“You don’t think there could be any reason you’ve kept going this long, except that you never got around to ending your life?”

Chris lifted his head and eyed her. “Do you mean God has a purpose for me? Brother Luke tried that crap on me. It’s bullshit.”

“No. I mean the fact that you didn’t sit down and give up. You’ve kept going, overcoming huge obstacles, for years. With one goal: get to Bath. Find out. You haven’t given up, ever. Look how far you’ve come. That was
you
, not God. That wasn’t autopilot. That was determination.”

Chris put his head down into his hands again and sat shaking. Pauline waited, her own stomach in a knot.

After long minutes, Chris sniffed and wiped at his eyes again. “I’m sorry I was rude.”

“I don’t take it personally. I’d much rather you get it out, in whatever way it comes, than to keep it all locked up like you’ve been doing. I know you’ll be your usual cheerful, polite self by teatime.”

He stared at her with red-rimmed eyes. “Is this how it’s supposed to work, then? I can’t say I’m keen on it.”

“There’s no ‘supposed to.’ Whatever works. Yes, usually it’s very emotional. I told you it would be hard.”

“Like digging graves.”

Pauline caught her breath. “Yes. Now, tell me something about Sophie.”

Chris closed his eyes. “She loved cats, but she was allergic, so we never got one. We were going to get a puppy when the baby was older.” He looked over at her. “There, kittens and puppies to end with.” He put his hands up and wiggled his fingers. “Cute and fuzzy and happy.”

Pauline nodded. “Okay.” She left him sitting in the chair and went out of the garage, digging in her pocket for a handkerchief.

CHAPTER 12

A
cold November wind chilled Chris’s fingers and the tip of his nose. It was getting too cold for fishing. Wes sat huddled in a worn plaid coat with the collar pulled up around his ears.

“Shouldn’t you be in school today?”

Wes scowled. “I hate school.”

“Huh,” Chris said. No big surprise. He would have given the same answer at Wes’s age. “Why?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Yeah, I guess I thought school was stupid when I was your age. But once I grew up, I was glad they’d made me go. It’s important, even if you don’t think so now.”

“Who made you go?”

“Well, my mum, of course. Plus it was the law. All kids had to go. It’ll go back to that soon, I expect.”

Wes looked incredulous. “The law?”

“Of course. It’s very important to get an education.”

“What for? I don’t need to read stupid stories if I’m going to have a farm.”

“You do need reading, and math, if you want to run a farm. Ask George, he’ll tell you.”

Wes watched him, chewing on his lip.

“Do you think the work is too hard?” Chris asked.

“Nar,” Wes said, with a disgusted look. “It’s easy, mostly.”

“What about your teacher?”

“Ms. Barnes? She doesn’t like me.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She’s always telling me I’m not doing things right. She doesn’t let me get out of my seat
at all
, she won’t let me eat except at lunchtime, and sometimes she makes me sit with the little kids and read stupid stories. She doesn’t like me. She’s mean.”

“How is she mean?”

“I just told you.”

“Well, teachers have to have rules that are the same for everyone.”

“I’d rather go fishing.”

“Well, sure, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do.”

Wes hunched his shoulders and stared at the water.

Chris tried another tack. “What about the other kids? Don’t you have friends at school?”

Wes’s face darkened. “None of them like me either.”

“What makes you think they don’t like you?”

“They make fun of me.”

Chris thought back to his own school days. No matter what went on in the world, school would always be the same.

“Have you tried to make friends with them?”

Wes reeled in his line and stood, ignoring Chris’s question. He picked his way downstream to find a new spot to cast.

They caught no fish.

“I guess it’s too late now,” Wes said as they trudged across the field toward the house. “No more fishing ’til spring.”

“Back in the States, in New York, people used to go ice fishing on the lakes in the middle of winter.”

“The States? I thought you were from Portsmouth.”

Chris explained, and Wes’s mouth opened, and Chris figured his status with Wes had just gone up a notch. “I never went myself. And I’m pretty sure it has to be a deep lake, and not a shallow river, like we have here.”

Wes nodded thoughtfully. Chris pictured the boy falling through thin ice with no one around to rescue him.

“You have to be really sure the ice is strong enough. I mean, it has to be really cold for a long time. I’m not sure it gets cold enough here for the ice to get strong enough.”

“Probably not,” Wes agreed.

“And no one ever goes ice fishing alone.”

Wes quirked an eyebrow at him.

Later, Chris found Pauline in the kitchen, kneading bread dough.

“Do you think you might have some books that Wes would like? Adventure stories or something like that?” he asked.

“Did he ask you for books? That doesn’t sound like the Wes I know.”

“No, but he said something about ‘stupid stories’ twice. I thought maybe something different than he gets at school would get him interested.”

Pauline folded the dough over and over. “Hmm, no, I can’t think of anything we might have. Most of Dad’s books are textbooks or history or heavy literature. Mum and Marie have collected a fair number of novels, but I hardly think they’d interest Wes.”

“Is there a library in town?”

“No. We always had to go to Petersfield for a library, and I doubt it’s still open. You might find some books in the market, though. The school should have a library of sorts.”

Chris nodded, leaning against the sink. Pauline lifted the dough into a bowl and covered it with a cloth.

“Is he showing some interest in school?” she asked. “He’s a bright little chap. I should think he’d like school, but it’s impossible to get him to go every day.”

“No. He says it’s stupid. He also said most of the work was easy.”

“He gets all grumbly whenever I try to push it. He admires you, though. You might be able to get him to go.”

“He said the other kids make fun of him.”

Pauline frowned. “It might be his clothes. He wears the oddest assortment, sometimes. And he’s always ready to scrap with the other kids. I’ve seen him in action. He brings it on himself.”

“Well, I don’t want him to get grumbly with me,” Chris said. “I’m not going to push him just yet. What about his teacher? He says she doesn’t like him.”

“Ms. Barnes? She’s a dear.” The corner of Pauline’s mouth turned up. “All the kids love her.”

“All but one,” Chris said. He pushed away from the sink and went back outside.

* * *

Pauline was clearing the supper dishes when the kitchen door opened and George came in.

“Sorry I’m late. I had a pint with the blokes from McGovern’s.”

“Really? The old man?”

“No, his son is taking over. The old man didn’t even come this year. It was his son and a partner. Nice chaps. Seem to know what they’re doing. Fair.” He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a hook. “Feed me, please,” he said, kissing Marie as she stood up from the table. He stopped to warm his hands by the stove.

“So, how did it go?” Grace asked.

“I got an excellent price for the hogs,” he said.

“That’s wonderful,” Grace said.

George pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Chris as he sat down at his place.