Remember Why You Fear Me (35 page)

“Hello?” Anthony said.

“Hello, Anthony,” I said, feeling strangely formal. “It’s Connie.” And added, unnecessarily, I hope, “Your sister.”

“Oh, hello, Connie,” said Anthony.

Anthony was my elder brother. I spoke to him even less frequently than I did my younger. The last time would have been the previous Christmas. First we’d stopped doing presents, then we’d stopped the visits and the cards. The phone calls were the only thing we had left, a few awkward minutes grabbed some time between the Queen’s Speech and the turkey.

“I just heard from Kevin,” I said, quickly, as if eager to explain why I was breaking protocol and phoning him when there were no decorations up. “He said Mum’s dead.”

“Yes, I know,” said Anthony. “He called.”

“Oh,” I said. “When was that?”

“Let me think,” he said, and did. “Thursday.”

I felt put out by that, and couldn’t help but give a disappointed “Oh.” And then a “he’s only just phoned me,” which sounded a bit pathetic and needy.

“We’re brothers,” he said. “Brothers are closer, aren’t they?” And I thought, no, not really. You’ve never much liked Kevin, he was eight years younger than you and when we were kids that was too much of a gap, at best he’d been an irrelevance, at worst something you could be cruel to. I was quite certain Anthony didn’t like Kevin. And I’d been pretty sure Kevin didn’t like Anthony either.

“How did he sound to you?” I asked.

“How did he sound to
you
?”

“Well,” I said, “he was pretty upset.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Anthony, “he was unbearable with me. Crying down the phone. He just has to get a grip. Did he cry for you?”

I slipped right back into the role I’d played when we were children, lying for Kevin, trying to protect him. “Not very much.”

“I bet he did,” said Anthony. “I bet he cried during the whole call. He has to get a grip. I mean, what is he now, twenty-eight? He has to get himself some sort of job, some sort of life, he can’t be the baby forever. I said to him he should pull himself together, find a job, stop being so irresponsible.”

“You didn’t say all that to him on Thursday, did you?” I asked. “I mean, Mum had just died and everything . . .”

“Yeah, maybe I went a bit too far. But I’m right, Connie, you know I am. He was always Mum’s favourite, right from the start she spoiled him. I think he’ll be better off without her, stand on his own two feet. And no, I didn’t say
that
to him on Thursday,” as I began to interrupt, “I’m not totally insensitive.” He thought for a bit. “All this grief,” he said, “it’s so ridiculous. All this wailing and gnashing of teeth. I shan’t be that way when Mum goes, I tell you. I’ll show a little more dignity.”

I asked him what he meant.

“I’ve been through so much worse already,” he reminded me. “It’s nothing to lose a parent, you
expect
that. But my wife died, and she was so young, and
that’s
difficult.”

I’d bumped into Anthony’s wife by accident out shopping only a few months ago. We’d had a coffee and a chat. She’d told me that getting away from Anthony was the best thing she’d ever done. “He means well,” she’d said, “but, God, he’s bitter.” Of course, I hadn’t told Anthony I’d seen her. It wouldn’t be right.

“How’s work?” I asked, changing the subject.

“It’s all right,” he said shortly, meaning it probably wasn’t. Anthony worked as a beautician and hair stylist—and, in fact, wasn’t gay, and resented the idea people thought he must be. He carried that resentment into work every day, his wife had told me, which is why all the women’s faces he worked on always came out the other end looking so grumpy. As I say, bitter.

The change of conversation, the attempt at ordinary pleasantries, was a signal to both of us that this phone call had outlived its usefulness. Before I hung up, I told him what Kevin had said about it not being fair. “Well,” said Anthony. “It isn’t, is it?”

The next day after work I drove over to my parents’ house. I’d been the only one of their children not to have moved far away, but I still didn’t visit as often as I should have. I rang the bell, and Dad answered the door.

“Hi, Dad,” I said. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” he said, and gave me a kiss. He let me in, took my coat, asked me how work was going.

“I heard about Mum,” I said. “Kevin phoned me.”

“Oh dear. Was he very upset?”

“He was a bit.”

“Did he cry a lot?”

“Yes.”

“Oh dear.” Dad bit his lip. He’d never really known what to do about Kevin—he’d been Mum’s favourite, not his. “Well, I suppose that’s to be expected.”

“Is Mum around?”

“Yes, of course,” said Dad. “She’s in the kitchen. I think she’s making gingerbread men.”

When I went into the kitchen, Mum looked happy enough. She was covered in flour, and wearing her favourite apron, one that Kevin had given her for Christmas a few years back. “Hello, sweetie,” she said. “I’m making gingerbread men!”

“Yes, Dad told me.”

“I think this lot are going to come out rather well.” Mum only made gingerbread men when she was trying to avoid thinking about other things. The times we were going through our school exams, the time when Anthony was in hospital to have his tonsils out, that horrible month when she found out Dad was having an affair and for a while we all thought the marriage might be over . . . we’d all been drowning in gingerbread men back then.

“I heard about you and Kevin,” I said.

She stopped dead in mid-bustle. Smoothed down her apron. “Yes,” she said quietly, “I thought you must have.”

“Leukaemia.”

She nodded. “Very unpleasant. Is he all right? No, don’t tell me. I’m better off not knowing.”

There was quiet for a while. She managed a smile, but it was a little guilty, I think. Then clucked her tongue, said to herself, “Well, that’s that over,” and got back to her baking. I watched her for a bit.

“It must be hard for you,” I said eventually. “Kevin was always your favourite, wasn’t he?” It was meant to be sympathetic, not be an accusation of anything, but it all came out wrong.

“Your father and I didn’t have favourites.”

“Not Dad, maybe. But you did.” I remembered the little story she’d once told us. How she’d always wanted a boy, more than anything in the world. But she’d got it a bit wrong with Anthony, he was her first child, she was awkward, maybe tried too hard. She knew she’d do better with her next one, but that had been a girl, me. So she’d given it another go, and out had popped another boy, her perfect boy, this time he was just right. And as we watched she’d lifted him in the air, because Kevin was still very young, and given him a kiss.

“God, did I tell you that? God, that’s awful. I was joking, Connie. Sweetie, it was a joke.” But it wasn’t. And Anthony had known it, and I had known it, and by God, Kevin had certainly known it. “Poor Kevin,” she said.

“He’ll be all right.”

She nodded briefly, went back to the oven.

“It just seems so cruel,” I said suddenly, and my voice may have been a bit too loud. “The whole lot of it.”

“Is there anyone special in your life yet?” she asked me. “Some man? You’d be so pretty if you tidied yourself up more. Put on a face, did something with your hair.” But I didn’t want to talk about that.

She gave me a gingerbread man, still warm from the oven. I bit off its head. It was too sweet, she’d put too much sugar in, she always put in too much sugar. “Nice?” she asked, and I nodded. “I wish you could take some of these to Kevin,” she said with a sigh. “I know how much he loves them. They’re his favourites.”

I said nothing. Ate the rest of its body, torso and feet, just to be polite.

“Will you be going to my funeral?” she asked me. “Will you see Kevin there?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “I doubt he’ll even invite me. Why should he?”

But, in fact, Kevin did invite me. I was quite taken aback. But I checked at work, found out if I did some early shifts I could take the day off without eating up my holiday time, I was happy with that. When I got to the church I looked around for Anthony, but couldn’t see him anywhere. With a little buzz of pride I realized that Kevin had invited me and not his elder brother, that I was favoured after all. It put me in a good mood for the whole service.

Mum had never been a religious person, and nor, I thought, had Kevin. But he stood up at the lectern and read some very nice verses surprisingly well. They were all about death and life and eternal love. I doubt he got the proper meaning across, but they certainly sounded very sad and moving. I told him so afterwards, and he thanked me for coming.

“It’s a pretty good turn-out,” he said. I looked around, but didn’t recognize anybody. Friends of his, I supposed, or a part of my mother’s life she’d shared with him not me.

“How are you holding up?” I asked. He nodded solemnly, as if this were an answer. He looked weak and vulnerable, but then he always looked weak and vulnerable. Right from the start he was the sort of person who invited you to protect him or to persecute him. Mum and I had protected—just about everybody else had gone the other way.

I remembered the way he was bullied at school; he’d always be coming home with a grazed knee, or his lunch money stolen, always crying. I’d decided to do something about it. One day I’d waited for the most regular of the bullies, laid into him with my fists, secured from him not only the money returned with interest but the promise he’d never bother my brother again. Kevin had been furious. From now on, he’d told me, crying, always crying, his life would be a living hell, the kid who needed his
sister
to protect him. “It’ll be humiliating,” he’d said. “I hate you.”

Now we stood together, and I didn’t know what to say to him, and he didn’t know what to say to me. And I smiled kindly and took his hand and squeezed it, and he nodded solemnly once more, doing the whole orphan thing. Being so brave. And I felt a flash of Anthony’s impatience, for God’s sake, you’re twenty-eight years old, and watched with disgust as he began to cry. “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” I said.

Mum’s body was in an open coffin. She’d been made up and looked pretty, if a little exhausted. I suppose that’s what the leukaemia does to you, it must really wear you out. She certainly looked older and feebler than the Mum I knew. I said you could see it had been a struggle for her, she was at peace now. And Kevin said he knew it was best for her, it was selfish to wish she was still alive, but he couldn’t help it, he was selfish.

The body was cremated, and Kevin was told he’d be given an urn of her ashes. “Would you like some of them?” he asked me kindly. I thanked him, of course, but told him the ashes should be his.

“Have you seen her recently?” Kevin asked me in a hush. “I mean, is she all right?”

He shouldn’t have asked, and he knew it. What could I say? “Mum’s dead, Kevin,” I told him. “They’re putting her in an urn.”

It was maybe a year and a half after that that Mum died for Anthony. There’d been a cyst, apparently, and everyone had assumed it had just been a trivial thing. But the cyst had grown and ripened and spread and felled Mum dead in her tracks. Thank God it had all been a lot quicker than the leukaemia. I sent Anthony a letter of condolence, and his thank you reply was very stiff and cool—but since everything Anthony ever wrote to me was stiff and cool, I read nothing untoward in that. And then, a few months later, he phoned me up and said he was unexpectedly in the area—could he buy me lunch?

There was a little Spanish place he said was his favourite, we could have tapas. And it struck me that only Anthony could have favourite restaurants for a part of the country he never visited. I made an effort before going to see him, washed my hair, put on make-up. I knew he wouldn’t mean to, but he’d sit there critically and judge me, it was his job. I arrived and he was already there, drinking a glass of wine. He was immaculate, of course; he looked sleek and groomed and shiny, and I thought he’d probably plucked his eyebrows.

We automatically shook hands, then realized we were related to each other, and kissed cheeks.

“You look well,” I said.

“So do you,” he replied smoothly. And frowned. “But if I could give just a little advice . . . ?”

“If you want.”

“Clear and simple is a good choice, keep it natural. But you can overdo simplicity, you know. You could stand to wear a little more make-up.”

“I am wearing a little make-up. Look.”

“I’m just saying. There’s a pretty face under there, it just needs bringing out.”

“Look. I’ve got lipstick on, and some mascara too. Look.”

“All right. I’m just saying. It’s just that the boyish look suits some, and not others. And you could stand to look a little more feminine.”

We ordered some tapas. He spoke to the waiter as if he knew him.

“I’m sorry about Mum,” I said. “How are you holding up?”

He thought about this, finished chewing, then plucked an olive stone from his mouth. “It’s been very odd,” he said. “I actually cried. Do you know, I actually cried.” He shook his head, in some amusement. “It’s true. I’d wake up, tears would be coming out of my eyes. Streaming. Most peculiar.” He popped another olive into his mouth.

“Only to be expected,” I said. “Mum being dead and everything.”

“Why is it expected, do you think?” And he bored those eyes on to me. Yes, the eyebrows were plucked, I’m sure of it.

“I don’t know,” I floundered. “You’ll never see her again.”

“Oh, no, that’s not it,” he replied, and I felt put in my place. “I’m always prepared for that. Every time I’d see Mum or Dad, I’d always say goodbye to them as if for the last time.”

“Right,” I said.

“Because you just don’t know, do you? What’s around the corner. That comes of having a wife who’s died so tragically. Even the two of us, when we say goodbye after lunch, I’ll say it as if it’s for the last time. Just to be sure.”

“Right,” I said.

“No, all the crying was something more
psychological
than that. More profound, from within me. You know, when I reached my eighteenth birthday, I thought, that’s it, I’m an adult now. Things will change, I’ll feel different. I’ll
be
different. But I wasn’t different at all. And then, when I got married. Now it’ll happen, I said to myself, walking up the aisle. I took Nicola to the Algarve, and for the whole honeymoon I waited in vain for adulthood to kick in. With Mum’s death, I think maybe I’m finally there. I feel, at last, that I’m a man.”