Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel (41 page)

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.

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.

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 linked 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.

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.”

Carole stares at me. She is on the other side of my wooden kitchen table, a cigarette in one hand, her cup of tea in the other, staring. She has no real idea what I am talking about. But I need her. In a moment of clarity after I had smashed the tea set and repeated the same drinking ritual with the baby clothes, I realized this was a sign and I needed to talk to someone before things got out of control. She is it. From our group, she is the person I am closest to, I suppose. In the first few weeks of college, we’d shared a room in halls until a few of our fellow students realized that university life wasn’t for them and left, so freeing up rooms. Carole slept on the top bunk, and was the one who moved when the girl next door decided that she’d rather go home and start a family with her boyfriend than spend three years away from him, studying. It should be awkward and weird between Carole and me, given that I went out with Vince for two years and then she went on to marry him, but it isn’t. Vince and I were a car crash from the start, it only took us two years of tears, tantrums, visits to the emergency room and threats of
being thrown out of college for us to see that. Carole is steady, sweet, suitable. Everything I’m not.

Carole lifts the cup to her lips, and I realize my mistake. I’ve made tea in the coffee cups. I really haven’t been thinking straight, and hopefully in a few minutes she’ll understand and won’t bring up this tiny transgression in front of the others. We’re a pack of bitches, yes, but it’s been known for us to “discuss” these sorts of mistakes we each make behind each other’s backs.

My eyes run over the white crockery with a thin, candy-stripe pink line around its base
. How did I miss that it is a different shade of pink than the one surrounding the base of the saucers and the teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl? How?

I lured Carole over saying I wanted us to go jogging; instead I had a cup of tea, cake and packet of cigarettes waiting for her. I’d been too cautious, too shy, to ask her to come over to talk. She might have told one of the others before I’d impressed upon her the need for secrecy, the need to not share with anyone what I am about to tell her. Carole is nice. She likes Mal and she likes us being together. Smoke obscures Carole’s face as she blows out a plume of it. Under normal circumstances, we’d never smoke in here, but these are not normal circumstances.

“Carole, I’m going to tell you a secret about a lie I once told. The one that needs love and attention and companionship,” I continue, drawing my eyes away from the crockery. Maybe she won’t have noticed. Maybe she won’t tell everyone how I’ve messed up. “I’d—Please keep it to yourself. I—
Please.
”

She takes a draw on her cigarette, frowns a little as she nods, and wraps her arm around her stomach as though steeling herself for what I am about to say. “Of course.”

“I lied to my husband. To Mal. I lied to him. Once. A long
time ago. It was only the once, but that lie needed a companion to keep it alive. It needed lots of companions. And as a result of that lie, and its companions, Mal’s son is going to die.”

Carole’s frown deepens and her eyes flicker for a moment as her mind goes back to her son and daughter. Safe with their father, she hopes. I’m sure all parents do that: whenever they hear about a sick, missing or hurt child they flash to their child and hope they are OK. OK and where they should be.

“It’s all my fault that the boy is going to die,” I tell her. Suddenly, gorgeously, the weight of guilt lifts a little. That part of the confession has eased my guilt. The rest will hopefully ease me more and more.