The Boy That Never Was (20 page)

‘Robin?’ you asked softly. ‘Could you be?’

‘I … I don’t know.’

‘Fuck!’ you exclaimed, running your hands through your hair. You couldn’t chase the grin from your face.

‘Harry …’

‘How late are you?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘But you are late?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Although, in truth, I had never been this late before.

You were up off the bed, reaching for your wallet on the floor.

‘What’re you doing?’

‘Getting a test.’

‘No, wait …’

I watched you checking for cash, then stuffing the wallet in your back pocket. It was all happening way too fast. My mind was a tangle of questions; it teemed with worries, and possible explanations.

‘Best to just find out, eh?’

You leaned down and kissed me – a long, lingering kiss. I felt your lips full and hard against my mouth, your hand holding the back of my head, fingers in my hair. When you drew away, you looked deep into my eyes, and I got a glimpse of all the love and hope that lay within you. I wanted you to leave quickly, before the bitter pang of guilt came over me. I waited to hear the door slam, then sank my head into the pillow.

It was love. Pure, untainted and frighteningly powerful. I looked upon his small, triangular, catlike face, his curled fingers, the
soft silky hair of his head, and I couldn’t believe my luck. He was so utterly perfect. Throughout my pregnancy, guilt had hovered close to me, a hangover of my Catholic upbringing. I couldn’t forget what I had done. As the baby grew within me, so did my conviction that there would be something wrong with him or her. An underlying illness or some deformity. Punishment for my terrible deceit.

The moment when I might have told you came and went. You fell in love with my pregnancy so fast, fixated upon the child growing in my womb. That the child might not be yours never entered your head. I found it unbearable, at times, the naked love you felt for this unborn baby, your raw excitement at the prospect of becoming a father. For a man who had lived his whole life endeavouring to be free of the shackles of ordinary commitments, you showed no signs of panic at the impending responsibilities, but, rather, embraced them wholeheartedly. The prospect enlivened and inspired you.

I never heard from Garrick. I couldn’t understand how he could go and not say goodbye. He had disappeared like a wisp of smoke in the wind. The pain lingered, then lessened, and when I looked at my newborn son, I saw him there. It was unmistakable. His appearance only confirmed what I had already guessed. I had been careless for months before anything started with Garrick. Careless, and yet nothing had happened. All the occasions of our lovemaking – yours and mine, Harry – had never produced a child. And then the month of my affair, a month where you and I hardly seemed to touch each other, let alone make love, those precious weeks when I gave myself wholeheartedly to my lover, that was the time I conceived. It could not be a coincidence. When I looked at Dillon’s face, I knew as much. That chin dimple, those wide, staring eyes. His features were soft, but they held the promise of sharpness in
the future, when all the baby fat had fallen away. I saw it so clearly, but, to my surprise and relief, no one else identified the likeness. Least of all you.

‘He’s like his mother,’ you said proudly whenever someone peered inquisitively into the bassinet.

He had Garrick’s colouring, which was also mine. In time, people remarked that he was like me, with a trace of you about his mouth, a theory I was all too willing to go along with. Even you proclaimed to see it. Funny, how the mind plays these little tricks.

Dillon. He was my consolation. And I felt I could not have wished for anything better, or more perfect. I could not have loved anyone more. I thanked the gods and my lucky stars for the escape I had had, for letting me get away with it, and being rewarded with my beautiful child. What I didn’t know was that my punishment lay in wait for me, that it would come for me when I least expected it.

On a warm breezy afternoon in the spring of 2003, I walked on to the terrace of a beachside café and saw him there. He was sitting with Cozimo, Elena and Blanca, half-reclining, his shades pushed back off his forehead – as if he had never left. I stopped behind a chair. My heart gave out a single deadened thump, and then I recovered.

‘Hey,’ he said, rising out of his chair.

‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘Please don’t get up.’

Cozimo had leaned forwards, arms outstretched, beckoning to Dillon, who dropped my hand and tottered towards his favoured uncle, smiling as he was swept up into the old guy’s arms and plonked firmly in his lap. The others were making a fuss over him as they always did, and I was grateful for the distraction. It allowed me time to get over my shock, to pull myself together.

His eyes were on me, and I looked up to meet them in a challenging way. I was deeply unsettled, my anger at his leaving flaring up suddenly, bringing a dull pain from the past. His eyes flickered briefly towards the boy, then to me.

‘So, you’re back, then?’ I said brightly, casually.

‘For a little while.’

I nodded sagely. I couldn’t think of what to say. For business or pleasure? Are you travelling alone or in company? Any question I might ask, no matter how innocent, could betray a neediness on my part, an old desire. So I said nothing to him. Instead, I took a seat next to Elena. She was only too happy to share with me the latest crisis in her love life. We became absorbed in this half-whispered conversation. I couldn’t look at him, and yet I was aware of him all the time, aware of that lean, angular frame slouching in his chair, aware of those deep-set, light-coloured eyes fixed on the ocean. Occasionally, he made a remark or offered an opinion, always in that slow drawl of his. Calmness emanated from him, or was it boredom? I envied his coolness, his nonchalance, his customary reserve, while inside I churned with emotion.

More than two years had passed since last I had seen him, since we had sat in such close proximity to each other, and when I thought of the intimacy that had once existed between us, replaced now by this cold and awkward distance, I felt overwhelmed.

Dillon was restless. He had abandoned Cozimo and was looking for some way to escape. He whined when corralled back to the group, and I took this opportunity to leave.

‘He needs some exercise,’ I explained.

‘Do you want me to take him?’ Elena asked.

‘No, no. That’s okay. I’ll bring him down to the beach.’

We went, the two of us, hand in hand. He jabbered away in his own language. I could barely answer him, could barely listen, so consumed was I by what had just happened.

It was cooler by the sea. We kicked off our shoes and felt the sand warm between our toes. The wind whipped our hair about our faces, and I pulled a strand of it from my mouth. His hair was long, too long for a boy, but I couldn’t bear to cut it yet, the springy golden locks that curled about his neck. He played at gathering shells, putting them in his shoes and mine, then spilling them out and starting afresh. I sat in the sand and watched him. He chattered as he played, a curious babble with intonations he mimicked from my own speech, peppered with the occasional word I recognized: Mama, Dada, Didi – the name he’d given himself.

A shadow fell across us. I knew who it was before I looked up. I had known all along that he would follow us down here, that he would seek me out.

‘Is it okay if I sit here?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’

He sat next to me but not too close, as if sensing my wariness.

‘He’s cute,’ he said, nodding towards Dillon.

I didn’t answer. I stayed within the walls of injured silence.

Dillon regarded him strangely, giving him that guarded look he treated all strangers to. And then he decided to trust this man, for he came forwards and offered him Ted, his best buddy, the toy he had had since birth.

‘Wow, thanks, little guy. And who’s this?’

Dillon’s eyes stared back at him from beneath a frown.

‘That’s Ted,’ I said.

‘Well, hello, Ted,’ he said, turning the toy to face him. ‘Aren’t you a fine fellow?’

He handed the toy back, and Dillon, satisfied or bored with this exchange, turned his back on us and resumed his shell hunting.

We watched him in silence. I wanted to say something but didn’t want it to be casual or trite. And yet I was afraid of blurting out anything revealing, anything that might let him see how broken up I’d been at his departure, how painful it had been for me. As it happened, he was the first to speak.

‘I feel I owe you an explanation,’ he said.

‘Yes, you do,’ I said drily. ‘At the very least, an apology.’

‘Sure. You’re right.’

I sensed him nodding slowly. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

‘It was crazy, what we were doing,’ he told me. ‘I’d never done anything like that. I’d never felt anything like it.’ He said this softly, and I felt the words coming at me like arrows. ‘Things got serious between us, quicker than I ever intended. You were married, and I …’

I turned and saw him staring at the sand between his shoes.

‘You were married, too,’ I said, finishing the sentence for him.

I saw it clearly, what I had been blind to before.

He nodded, his eyes averted, almost shamefaced.

A puff of laughter escaped from me, laughter at my own foolishness. It made him turn and look at me.

‘What?’

‘It’s just so … I dunno. So prosaic.’

He took that in, nodding slowly.

‘That’s one way of looking at it, I guess.’

‘You could have told me then that you were married.’

‘Would it have made a difference?’

‘At least it would have given me a reason, instead of that awful blankness, not knowing what to think. Feeling abandoned and not understanding why.’

I bit my lip, silently berating myself for revealing too much.

‘You’re right,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have told you. It was just …’

He paused, and I waited. Then he said, ‘It was just so fucking hard to leave you.’

Those words pierced deep inside me. They swept away all the hatred and resentment I had built up towards him. In one fell swoop, those words sent it all crashing down.

‘I loved you. I never told you that.’

‘Stop,’ I told him. ‘Please don’t.’

‘Okay,’ he said, watching me carefully, backing off.

He thought about it for a moment, then added, ‘I don’t know why I thought it would help for you to know that now.’

My face was turned from him. I wiped the corners of my eyes with the back of my hand.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, trying to sound like I meant it. ‘It’s all in the past.’

Still, he stared at me.

‘What about your wife?’ I asked, trying to summon some dignity after the tears. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s in the States. Although she’s Irish by birth. I guess I have a type, huh?’

I let that go.

Then, after a moment, I asked, ‘Does she know?’

He nodded.

‘Yeah. We were separated, you see. And then she wanted a reconciliation. I thought it was the right thing to do. Things were so crazy here. I just wanted to make something in my life right. And in the spirit of starting over …’

‘You told her.’

‘I told her. You never told Harry?’

I shook my head.

Then I asked him, ‘You and your wife, are you still together?’

He nodded. ‘We have a son. Felix. He’s not much younger than Dillon.’

He sat and stared ahead of him. His eyes fixed on Dillon, who had moved a little bit away from us, closer to the water’s edge. I called to him to step back a bit, and he did what I asked. There was tiredness in the slump of his little shoulders. I saw him rubbing at one eye. Soon, we would have to leave.

‘He’s mine. Isn’t he?’

The words were shocking. I couldn’t answer. I pulled my legs in close to my chest and hugged them to myself. I felt him looking at me, reading the reply in my silent refusal to utter the words.

‘Harry doesn’t know about that either, does he?’

I shook my head. In a voice that came out low and whispery and broken with emotion, I said, ‘He must never know.’

He drew in his breath.

The sun was low in the sky, and there was a chill on the breeze. I knew you would be home by now and wondering where we were. I gathered up our shoes and got to my feet. He caught hold of my wrist.

‘Can I see you again? Before I leave?’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head with a firm resolve.

It hurt to refuse him. His hand around my wrist. The first touch since we’d parted.

He held me there for a moment, then let go.

We walked in silence up the beach. I carried Dillon, drawing strength from the warmth and weight of his little body in my arms.

Before we parted again, he reached into his pocket and drew out a business card.

‘It’s got my e-mail and cell phone on it,’ he said.

I looked at the card he offered me, needing to get away from him, now, before my emotions surfaced again.

‘I’d like to stay in touch,’ he said, the card still in his outstretched hand. He was gazing intently at me, his face in shadow now that the sun was going down.

‘I don’t know. It’s not a good idea.’

‘I understand. But if there was any way you could. Just the odd e-mail. So I could know how you and Dillon are doing. So I could know that you are both okay. I won’t get in touch with you – not if you don’t want me to.’

When I took the card, my movements were rushed, fuelled by nerves and indecision, so that I snatched it from him, turning away as I did, feeling him looking after us as I walked away from him, the only sound in the street the hush of the ocean and the soles of my shoes slapping against the dusty pavement.

I pulled the car into a narrow driveway and felt the gravel beneath the tyres. The garden lay in a deep silence under a quilt of snow. Drawing up outside the house, I saw that the front door was open, and braked hard. There was no sign of life, no evidence of activity, and in the stillness of the car after the engine had died, I listened to the eerie silence. Something about it made me grow cold. A kind of dread came over me then at what awaited me once I passed through that open door. But it lasted for only an instant. And then I was out of the car and racing up those steps, impatient now to know, to see what turn our story was about to take.