The Lesser Bohemians (31 page)

I pick about his room while he eats more. Put that tape on, would you Eily? You don’t mind me hearing them? No, what difference does it make now? Look at each other then but blank it out for the only way we will get through this night is to forget we are apart.

This time he reads to her. Questions and chat. But why did he blow down the house? Him doing the voices. Tickling, I think, when he huffs and puffs because she screams with excitement. He just sits, fork mid-air, listening like they’re both in here. Amazing, it feels like no time’s passed. You sound different though. Your accent. Your voice. That’ll be the forty a day, he says. You shouldn’t smoke so much. Oh well, all the shagging keeps me fit. I catch his eye. Sorry Eil – like he’s just heard himself – I didn’t mean that. Oh yes you did! And then, broke as we are, we both laugh.

Later, when it’s black and I’ve drawn the curtains tight, he liberates some photos from an ancient Keats. These are some pictures for Grace. I asked John for them a while back then couldn’t face sending them on so that’s her      my mother, I mean      if you want to see. And I do.

Black and white. Tattered tan. By a low brick wall a young woman stands. Slight. Long dark hair. Serious-eyed but in such a pretty dress and      I am surprised She really looks    I know, like me and Grace. I didn’t look like my father. I never did. Look at this one. A younger. Her family. Two little girls, bows in
their hair. Looking so Irish from back then. Parents stern and the family resemblance goes their father’s way. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know what happened there, he says But I could probably guess, if I tried.

Sit together then, slowly finding the other’s hand. Silence coming in on us but right it should now. No more to tell. Nothing to explain. For the rest of the night we scarcely say a thing. Sometimes he smokes. Sometimes I make tea but, anywhere we are in this room, he keeps touch with me. Long fingers through my fingers, or his head on my knee, or letting me doze on his chest. All night I wait and watch with him. Sleep, and don’t, but we see the dawn come. And morning. By half six I’m awake, stretching and looking at him, looking better already. Just sitting, staring out at the sun. Palming my ankle. Thumbing my new burns. I’m fine now, he says I’m fine again. So I break the tie and get up. Good luck today, and kiss his cheek. You too, he says With your Juliet, then as I get my coat on. Eily? Yes? Thank you. You’re welcome, I say and keep my promise to go.

Out into the cold sun of morning. I am tired but I am still. That shake of losing him settling itself, becoming what it is. I do not rebel. I have given love its due. Put kindness where it should be. Now we may part in this good memory. I hope he will be happy, that today will not be bad. But now my own clock ticks and turns inside. Go on. Get on. Let your own Juliet in.

Walk round the College of North London to the Prince of Wales Road. Anglers Lane. The Church of Christ. Grafton Road. Under the bridge at Kentish Town West. Harmwood studios up on the right. Talacre Gardens. Dalby Street. Malden Road. Across to the Fiddler’s Elbow. Up by the Crown. In there,
St Silas. Wide blue skies as I go on up the stone steps. Earlier even than pigeons at infernal coo. Second last day of term now. Second last of this year. Touch the grey door. Tap the code in. Open. Strange in its stillness and. Some new thing in me which, if followed, who knows where will lead? When I first came here I wanted the world to look at me and now I might prefer to be the eye instead.

But fall back in. Romeo and Juliet. All other life switched off. Get her going in myself and feel that life of hers inside. Her precious heart and all things of her moving round, readying themselves, until their time. How she walks and how she speaks. What she does. The way she thinks. Making her particular. Setting her free. Just the right way. Find the right way to show her through me. All that tuning. No more today. Time to be ready. Time to turn on the light.

Afterwards, cross-legged, in the Church. The Principal drums deep into us all we’re not worth. I get one nice nod though so am reprieved. Interviews later for the less fortunate. But for the first year, that’s it. See you all in here early for the Agents’ Showing run-through, he says Watch and learn boys and girls. Off you go.

Hello? I say. But no one’s in. Try the taps in the bathroom sink. Nothing. So we’ve reached that final stage. I have reached and I accept it. Calm too in here now, though cool. All bare in the Missus’s room. In Danny’s, an empty can of Coke. Crumbs on the sideboard, I won’t bother to wipe. Pizza boxes crammed in the bin – I’ll never empty it – and white bread run to mould on the fridge. Sitting room then. Carpet all stain and nicked-sofa imprinted. On the window sill still an ashtray. I think I’ll leave it as memorial to the laughs we had. Make my way back to the
toilet. Empty a bottle into the tank. So this is how it will be, last night in our flat. Tomorrow there’ll be a party. I’ll sleep on someone’s couch. Later I’ll take the Stansted Express. Get a plane to Ireland. Waves come over as I sit on my mattress. Quiet and deserted. Summer’s come. The absent men. Desolation in this moment and where the future is, blind. But after I have cried, lie back and close my eyes. Stick my Walkman on. Batteries clinging to life. Perhaps I’ll sleep right through this night. I’m tired enough. Try. I try. And soon I am rolling on through it. Dreamless, mercifully, and whenever I almost wake, seem to persuade myself to go back down again. All the distant sounds of city though still managing to get in so Wake!

Hours is it, I’ve been asleep? Maybe. No. Barely after six. Twelve to go. How shall I cross this? Will I be scared in the dark? Bang a loud knock. Up I sit. Bailiffs? Killers? Flashers? Oh fuck, oh fuck it. Knock again. Peer round the bedroom door. Yes? and gruffer, like I am of the world Who’s there? Eily, it’s Stephen, he says Any chance I can come in? And such a surprise I hardly know what to do. Just go and open. All tall there in his suit, shirt tails hanging out. Little dishevelled but lovely. Am I disturbing you? No, I say Come in.

My blood makes terrible noises as he follows me in. No furniture left so      let’s go to my room. Where’s everyone else? Already moved, this is my last night here. I see     isn’t that a bit creepy for you? A bit, and I lean back on the wall So      Actually, he interrupts I couldn’t have a glass of water, could I? Sorry, the water’s off. Already? Fuck that’s rough   then do you mind if I sit? No no, go ahead. He takes the end of the mattress and evening sun on his face. And he is different somehow although I can’t quite      Well look, he says – looking himself like not knowing where to start. So he lights up before trying again
– So look, I saw Marianne   well   you know that   anyway I thought I’d come over because      after all the drama it caused I thought you might want to know     but I mean, if not, just say I do, I say Of course I want to know.

Okay – his fingers making churches that press to his lips – So      I went to the restaurant for one, as agreed. I could already see her in the window from Bow Street, swirling a glass of wine. I wasn’t expecting that – I thought it’d be more of a strong coffee and sharp knives sort of thing. There she was though, looking much the same. Maybe a little older, though no signs of grey, touching by the temple for his own. But nervous as I was Eil, I could see she was worse, which helped me get over the doorstep. Anyway, she stood up when I came in. I wasn’t sure of the etiquette but she shook my hand, thanked me for coming, offered a seat and was – naturally – too well-bred to get straight to the point. So there was summoning a bottle of whatever she had and hoping I didn’t mind she’d chosen a red. Should we order first? Then during that carry-on, all the How’s your health? And Is Rafi well? and I hear you’re working on a script? In the end I just said Mari, what’s all this about? – and I was surprised I called her that but       there you go. And what did she say Stephen? She said It’s about Grace, and would I please hear her out first? She was pretty hesitant to start with but then it all came out. The general gist being that, apparently, Grace has been running riot. Skipping school, difficult at home, disappearing off without saying where’s she’s going then arriving in late reeking of drink. She got suspended from school for smoking a joint and, soon as she came back, did it again. So it was in the balance for a while about being expelled. It’s sorted now but this was all news to me and, to be honest, I didn’t know what to say. Then Marianne said, you know, I don’t
want her going down that road. I couldn’t bear to watch that happen to her too. I’m sure you’re concerned Marianne, I said But a couple of rebellious spliffs doesn’t make an addict, I had a lot of other contributing factors. She only said I know, but    I could tell there was more and, sure enough That’s the other subject we need to talk about. She wouldn’t look at me then and I got this wave of dread. Mari, I said Has something happened to Grace? She just looked at her nails so I pressed Marianne, has someone hurt her? I mean Eily, you know what was on my mind. No, I said something to her, she said Something I shouldn’t have, about you, and I very much regret. About when I was using? I asked – I couldn’t think of anything else. He gets up and. I told her about your mother, she said. I knew she couldn’t know   so I asked what she meant? She said I guessed there’d been violence from flippant comments you’d make but, later on, I discovered there was something else      something sexual, is that right? I was pretty taken aback. Fucking horrified actually. I said How could you possibly know that? Even wasted I would never have told. So it is true? It is, I said But how do you know? When you were in Intensive Care, she said I went through your things and found a letter from your mother in an old notebook. She sounded eager to hear from you so I wrote asking her to contact me. A few days later, your stepfather did – that’s when he told me she was dead. I explained who I was and why I had gotten in touch. I was diplomatic about the details but he understood and seemed concerned so I invited him to visit – I thought seeing family might help – but he refused so adamantly I was shocked. I promised his mother I’d leave that boy be, he said And, truth be told the sight of me would probably do more harm than good. He wouldn’t expand but asked me to keep in touch. After that I had a few thoughts
of my own. He, obviously, sounded quite rough on the phone and, presumably, there were valid reasons you weren’t in contact any more but he did seem sincere so once a week I called. He was always pleased to hear you were improving and I began to ask about the rift. He was evasive but gave me to understand that more than I’d previously realised had gone on. We kept it relatively formal though, until the nursing staff caught you picking your leg open. That’s when I finally broke down. Told him everything. What you’d done. That I was pregnant and couldn’t understand why you were doing this to me. There’s a lot in that boy’s past, he said And it’s not the kind of thing I like telling a girl like yourself but, perhaps, if it would help, he probably owed you that.

When my wife was dying I wanted to contact Stephen, he said They hadn’t seen each other for a few years by then. I thought he’d want to know and have a chance to put things right. He’d always been a gentle sort of lad and what son wouldn’t want to do that before his mother died? But when I brought it up, she was completely against it, wouldn’t have me even mention his name. I thought it was because he’d run off and she couldn’t forgive him, which seemed hard but then she was a strong-willed woman. So that’s how it stayed, right up until it was clear to everyone, including herself, that the end wasn’t far off. That’s when she started to talk about him. Just a little at first but, soon enough, all the time. And not rambling, it was clear she was in her own mind. They were things I’d never really heard her say. About his father leaving her high and dry. Her family expecting her to give the baby up because that was the way. But, when she first held him, she said she knew she never could. I met her a few months later, on a bus. She said she was a widow, that her husband had been killed in a car
accident. If I’m honest, I didn’t believe her even then and over the years that story changed many times but she was so young and pretty I didn’t really mind, or about the boy.

She seemed to remember him most fondly as a little boy, running round the yard, picking dandelions for her. How he’d spend hours on his stomach playing with his car. Or when he couldn’t stop kicking his ball against the back door – I remembered that myself, three times I changed that glass. And once she’d started all these memories came flowing out. The holiday when she was pregnant with our first and Stephen was just above her knee. The two of them in the rock pools, eating ice creams. She said While I was watching him I realised I didn’t love his father any more and that he was a fool for not caring about his son. But I understood how lucky I was, she said And that Stephen would always be who I loved most. She repeated that story frequently, like it was her last good memory. A few months later our son arrived and she had a very bad collapse. She was never really well again. But we all found it hard to hear her remember Stephen because of how long it had been.

So one night You’ve been talking a lot about Stephen, I said Let me contact that school of his, maybe they have an address. She refused and when I asked why she said Because I made life hard for him. I said It wasn’t that bad. No, she said You don’t understand. Something was broken, then once I got sick, it just opened up and I stopped being able to keep it inside. But I know now and I have to leave Stephen be. He’s a good boy, despite what I did. I knew she’d always been rough on him so I said He won’t hold the odd thrashing against you now. No, she said It wasn’t that. It was worse than I could think and she wished she’d cut her own throat before she’d done it. I was shocked to hear her talk that way. But she went on and what she told me
then I’ll never get over for as long as I live.

From the start she knew she could never be without him and the fear of him being taken never left. People told her once she’d had more that would die down but our sons came and made no difference, didn’t even feel like her own. All the feeling she had was for him and they understood each other in ways no one else ever did. Even when she had to beat him he knew it was for his own sake. As he got older though, the worse the fear of losing him became. It grew out of proportion. It went over the edge. It ran everywhere. He was a young man by then and starting, she knew, to think of things that might take him away. She dreamt it first, only that. And it shocked her, the idea, but      held onto her too. Then climbed into her and followed her, laid itself on the fear. Showed her how to find itself in the ways he looked at her. Like whispering and screaming it was with her all the time, convincing that, although unnatural, it would be natural for them. So one night, as a kindness, she took the step and afterwards knew he had also wanted it. She said I was careful to not hurt him that way, that was the difference, I thought. But sometimes she could see he wasn’t happy, as though he didn’t understand, then she’d have to beat him for tempting her. She’d swear it was the last time, they’d go back to a life without it in but she could never contain anything around Stephen so it always began again. Building up until she didn’t know how to not. Then she’d let herself and tell herself it was alright because he was just a part of her really, another part of her own body. He belonged to her, after all.