Lullaby (11 page)

I began to cry. A bad story, about to get worse. Maggie leaned forward and squeezed
my shoulder.

‘I got him running again. That was my first success. There was a part of him that
wanted my help, and another part too proud to admit it. Getting fit for the army
became the excuse we'd both been looking for. Every evening we headed into the hills.
I ran longer and harder than I'd ever run, matching him stride for stride, pushing
each other on as a way of inflicting pain, and of making sure there was no breath
left for talking. It helped.

‘The drug use wound back and he stopped sleeping through the day. Slowly it got so
we could
talk again, the careful talk of almost-strangers. No mentioning acting,
or school, or the future, or Mum and Dad, girls. Just films, sport, music: wallpaper.
He was bitter, and I deserved it. He told me it was a tragedy, that I'd given up
so young. He said there was no such thing as love at seventeen. That seventeen was
for fucking. Then one day I let him get to me.

You don't know what you're missing, I said.

Oh, but I do, he replied. That was the first time either of us had acknowledged it.

‘Inch by inch, we crept back to normal. Eventually I told him I was sorry for auditioning.
I'm so grateful I made it to sorry. That was Wednesday, so two days ago. We were
sitting in the lounge, shirts off after a run, sweat seeping into the chairs. I saw
Mrs Struthers hesitate at the doorway, perhaps thinking about telling us to get off
to the shower, but she read the mood and walked away.

‘You can tell when Theo's about to say something important. He has this half-amused
smile, setting up an exit strategy should things get too uncomfortable.

Thanks, man, he said. Two words, but our whole world was contained within them.

What for?

Coming back.

I should have been here more. I got a little, you know, distracted, disappeared up
my own arse.

Nah, that's me, Theo smiled. You disappeared somewhere else entirely.

You'll be okay.

‘Neither of us made any effort to hide our tears.

Yeah.

‘He nodded, and his expression then was of a man on a tightrope, three steps from
the end, wobbling, freezing up, praying someone is going to reach out a hand. So
I did.'

I looked at Maggie, and wondered how to explain. I hoped she might just guess, but
that was asking too much, even of her.

‘I wanted so badly to help him. At the funeral, he was the one who held me, and told
me it would be okay. Since Mum and Dad died, we hadn't swapped places. It was as
if that was a thing from another time, from a world of magic and parents. But I knew
how lucky I was. I understood what it meant, to have Emily look up into my eyes,
and never see the smallest hint of doubt, a flicker of
uncertainty. To be captured,
just for a moment, in a bubble of gratitude was to be alive in a way I'd never imagined.
The idea I had—the idea that perhaps could only ever make sense inside my head—was
that if Theo could experience the same thing, just once, if he could see what it
was like to be loved, it would give him something to cling to.'

It sounded every bit as bad as I'd feared. I couldn't look at Maggie, I couldn't
bear the disapproval. I heard a change in her breathing.

‘When? When did you do this?'

I wanted to say I didn't. I wanted to be able to tell her Theo laughed me out of
the room, that it never happened. So many things I wanted, and couldn't have.

‘Last night. I told him last night. We agreed today we'd swap. I don't know why he
said he'd do it. I think, if I'm honest, he might have thought it would give him
some way of getting back at me. Or just the craziness of it, the danger, might have
been enough…'

‘So you're saying that when Theo…'

The colour drained from Maggie's face. Her skin must have turned suddenly cold, like
mine had when the hospital first called. Her hand moved to
her earpiece, and her
eyes half closed as if she was trying to decipher another language. She swung to
her desk, flicked pages. Her movements were loose, chaotic. This was a different
Maggie entirely. One that might cry, or laugh, or look confused. She scared me.

‘Fuck!' she said.

I didn't get it, but I could see she was panicking, and panic's contagious.

‘They didn't,' I said, trying to bring Maggie's eyes back up from the screen.

Her lips were moving: a silent, urgent conversation.

‘He went around, and they went straight to the park. The flat's being painted, and
we'd been planning a picnic.'

Nothing, from Maggie.

I tried again. ‘They didn't have sex!'

‘Rene.' Her face was grave, her eyes unwavering. ‘Jesus, Rene.'

‘That's me.' I tried to smile.

‘There's been a mistake.'

‘I know. I should never have—'

I still didn't see it.

‘When your brother came in'—Maggie talked
over the top of me—‘Emily was the person
who filled in the admission details. She was the person who was with him. And she
thought—'

‘She thought he was me.'

‘Yes.'

I already knew that, it was one of the things that had registered vaguely, part of
a long line of details that would have to be attended to later. Phone friends, apologise
to Emily, choose songs for the funeral.

‘How did she react, when she found out?'

When you've looked at a puzzle long enough, without seeing the solution, you become
blind to it.

‘This has happened very, very quickly.' Maggie's bottom lip trembled. ‘The hospital
has…There's never been a case like this, and all our energy has gone into making
sure this window doesn't close before we've thoroughly—'

‘I don't know what you're—'

‘She doesn't know.'

Three simple words, yet somehow I couldn't make a shape from them. Maggie locked
her eyes on mine. I saw her fear.

She spoke slowly. ‘She thinks it's you. Emily's
in the waiting room, and she thinks
Theo is in here, talking to me.'

‘I'm not Theo.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘But you know I'm not Theo!' I shouted at her. ‘Why didn't you tell her?'

Now I saw it, the thing that had undone her. Not my mistake, but hers. Maggie had
made a mistake.

‘The files came through so quickly. Somehow, I read the names, without registering
the mismatch, between the admission forms and…'

Her hand went to her forehead. Long fingers worked the flesh.

‘You introduced yourself, in the room, and I was, I was trying to watch you, watch
you with your brother, observe you. I'm meant to notice the details. It's my job
to notice the details. But I missed the names.'

‘Our names? You missed our names?' That seemed impossible. ‘But I've been using our
names the whole way through.'

‘Yes, yes, I know you are Rene, and I know he is Theo. I just didn't register that
Rene was the name they used when they admitted him. I
assumed Emily knew who she
was with. I assumed she could be trusted to identify her lover.'

‘Well you assumed fucking wrong then, didn't you?' My head was turning fuzzy.

‘Yes, yes, I did.' Maggie held up her hand, hoping, I suppose, to stop me.

‘So, how do you get to be so stupid? Didn't it seem strange to you, when I told you
about the two of us, that…?'

‘We have been working under extreme pressure.'

‘You're under pressure? Try sitting here with your brother dying, and some bitch
who doesn't even know your name deciding the shape of your future.'

‘It's called confirmation bias.'

For the first time Maggie didn't meet my eye. Her hands had balled into little fists
on her knees.

‘What you told me, fitted what I thought I'd read, I…'

‘It's called being fucking useless.'

Maggie's tears were magnified by her glasses. She stood up, and turned away. I noticed
she wasn't as tall as I'd thought. I watched her shoulders rise as she breathed deep.
She held it in for four slow
beats, and exhaled as she turned. Her mask was firmly
back in place.

‘Rene, you are not the victim. Emily is the one who has been deceived.'

‘You can't turn this back on me,' I said.

‘I fully acknowledge my part in this.'

Her part. The smaller part. That was what she meant. She put her glasses back on,
but she didn't sit.

‘The bigger picture is unaffected. The time constraints are the same. The options
are the same. My assessment of you will be based upon the same evidence. There is
good cause to unpack this, for recrimination and reparation, but not good time. The
thing that has changed is Emily. You need to talk to Emily. I can come with you,
if you like.'

‘You bet you're fucking coming with me.'

11

The corridor refused to make sense. The walls wobbled, the floor swayed. Strangers
smiled at me, their heads too big for their bodies. All I could think of was Emily,
sitting in a room, surrounded by strangers, certain I was as good as dead. Going
over and over her last moments with me. The picnic, the jokes, the last time we kissed.
Not knowing it wasn't the last time at all, that the last time sat off in some other
place, maybe in the future, maybe in the past. And I was going to have to tell her.
It didn't leave much room for getting walls straight.

I stood in the doorway of the waiting room, with Maggie at my shoulder, as if she
was using me for shelter. Emily's father walked over, shook my hand, and looked at
me with sorrowful eyes.

‘Theo, we're all so very sorry.'

I flinched at the name.

Emily remained sitting, her face wet and puffy. She gave me the sort of watery smile
she would have given her lover's brother in a time like this, trying to offer
your
grief is greater than mine
, but unable to believe it. My heart turned small and frightened.

‘Mr Watts, this is Maggie. She's a psychologist. She's been helping me.'

He shook her hand. His face couldn't settle on an expression.

‘Mr Watts, pleased to meet you. We need to speak to Emily for a moment please, if
we could have the room?'

‘Of course.'

‘There's coffee, down the—'

‘Yes, I know. Thank you.'

And then it was the three of us, sitting like cardboard cut outs in a room made of
other people's grief and donated furniture. On the far wall hung a painting of an
icy landscape, beneath it old children's toys spilled from a cardboard box. A one-eyed
rabbit smiled goofily at me, as if anticipating the show ahead. The only window
looked back onto the corridor. The couch, which Emily
had been lying on, was upholstered
in a gaudy floral fabric. The chairs were tidy, but unmatched. The overall effect
was of a room thrown together, an afterthought. We're busy saving lives, it said.
You can help us by sitting here quietly and not getting in the way.

Emily was bent forward, as if her stomach was cramping. Maggie and I sat opposite
her. She looked through us, through the wall, into the past.

‘Emily, this is Maggie.'

‘I heard.'

She wasn't trying to be cold, or selfish. She was trying to survive.

‘Sorry if I smell,' I said. ‘I threw up.'

‘Me too.' Her expression dissolved like a cheap digital effect.

She leapt at me, and buried her wet face into the base of my neck. Her fingers dug
into my back. Her torso convulsed. She must have wondered how it was I remained so
calm. Or maybe that was exactly what she expected, from Theo. I thought of Maggie,
sitting beside me, aware of the clock sweeping time. I waited for Emily's sobbing
to subside. Eventually she straightened and wiped her eyes. She even managed half
a smile.

‘I don't how I've still got tears in me. Surely you run out of water eventually.'

I raised an eyebrow in agreement. I thought, there are words that can get this started.
There must be words. But I couldn't think of a single one of them.

‘Have they told you, how it happened?' she asked.

‘Not really, I mean, probably. I haven't taken everything in.'

I would have been more careful, earlier, not to admit that in front of Maggie. But
just then what Maggie thought no longer mattered. There was another thing, a more
difficult thing, to get through. Emily could talk, I would sit and listen. That would
do. Eventually we'd get there.

‘We went to the gardens. Did he tell you? It was our anniversary. Well, six-month
anniversary, what do you call that?'

I saw the way she'd dressed for me, that morning. She knew I loved her in those shorts.

‘We were having a picnic, and then later, we were going to…'

Her lip began to tremble. I reached out without
thinking and brushed a tear from
her cheek.

‘We were watching a little boy flying a kite. He was with his father.' Emily's face
screwed up, as if she'd just remembered something she didn't understand. ‘It got
caught. The kite, it got tangled, up in a tree, and Rene went over to help get it
down. The father just stood there, like he didn't know what to do. I remember thinking,
maybe it would be better to leave them. Maybe if you climb up there, the father will
feel bad that he didn't. Maybe it will affect their relationship. But you know Rene,
he has to help.'

She couldn't look at me. All I wanted was to hold her.

‘I didn't think, what are those wires? Watch out for those wires.'

She was crying again, bent over, her hair falling wet and tangled over her face.