Trust (35 page)

‘
Mum?
’ Incredulity creased Seb’s forehead. ‘Threw a
glass
?’

‘Correct.’

Seb shook his head. ‘Mum wouldn’t have
thrown
it. It must’ve been an accident.’

‘It was no accident, Sebastian. She was throwing it all right, at
me
. Your mother’s having some sort of breakdown, I’m afraid.’ Gerry felt wonderfully righteous, saying these words, but the look of utter devastation that swept over Seb’s face shook him. ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ he added quickly. ‘It’s just, you know, a reaction to everything that’s happened. I should’ve seen it coming, really. She’s been trying to soldier on but … We’ll get her to Doctor Gillian, get her on some medication.’

‘Where’s Mum now?’ Seb asked anxiously. ‘The car’s not in the drive.’

‘I, uh —’ Gerry hesitated. Would it sound uncaring to say he didn’t know? Yes, it probably would. ‘She’s gone in to the hospital.’

Seb looked around him as though at some completely unfamiliar place and then walked quickly inside.
You could offer to give me a hand
, Gerry thought, but let him go and continued clearing up the glass. A few minutes later, Seb was back.

‘Where’s Tigger?’

‘I don’t know where Tigger is,’ Gerry said, trying not to sound impatient.

‘Was he here last night?’

Gerry had no idea whether the cat had been around the night before, and said so. Seb went into the house and his father could hear him calling, ‘Tigs! Tiggsy! Come on, Tigs!’

‘I can’t find him,’ Seb said, standing at the back door again.

‘I’m sure the cat’s fine, Seb. He’s just —’

‘Maybe he got locked in the shed.’ Seb was off to the back shed, creaking the door open, and again the insistent calling. Then back again, like a yo-yo. ‘I can’t find him,’ he said again, querulously.

‘Don’t worry about the bloody cat, Seb. Did you run home from what’s-her-name’s?’

‘Rory’s.’

‘How did the arm take it?’

‘It’s okay,’ Seb said, raising and lowering his right elbow to the side like a bird trying out an injured wing.

‘Lift it straight out, in front. Now straight up.’ Gerry watched his son. ‘Huh. Have you been doing those exercises the physio gave you?’

Seb looked away. ‘No.’

‘Why the hell not? Why wouldn’t you be doing everything you can to improve that arm? You’ve got to
work
on it to fix this nerve problem.’

Seb had his bottom lip stuck out. He looked like a sulky toddler. ‘Dad, I really don’t wanna go to that physio any more. It hurts.’

‘Of course it bloody hurts!’ Gerry snapped. ‘Don’t be such a sissy!’

Seb’s head jerked back as though he’d been hit. ‘Shut up! It’s not
your
arm!’

‘Don’t tell me to shut up!’ Gerry yelled. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘
You
weren’t in a car crash! You don’t know what it’s
like
!’ Seb’s voice cracked, as it hadn’t done in a year or more. He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

Christ almighty
, thought Gerry,
they’re all going off the deep end, the whole bloody lot of them
, and all the fury and frustration he’d been feeling for weeks boiled over.

‘You’re eighteen now, you’re a man, for god’s sake,’ he snapped at Seb, his upper lip lifted scornfully. ‘What if you were in the army, would you be having hysterics like this over a dislocated shoulder? Or a bloody missing
pet
? “Oh, where’s my pussy cat?” ’ he mocked in a high mincing tone. ‘What are you? Some kind of
poofter
?’

Seb’s face just collapsed, and with a whimpering cry of outraged despair he turned away and stumbled into the house.

‘Oh,
fuck
,’ muttered Gerry in disgust, and finished clearing up the broken glass, seething. A run, that was the only way to settle himself down. He changed into his running gear, peeling and chomping down a large banana as he did so, and set off. Crossing the road, who should he see sauntering along the fence between Mrs Parthanopoulos’ and the new people’s place but Tigger, the errant ginger cat.

‘You!’ he called crossly, jogging on the spot. ‘Get home!’

Tigger stopped and looked at him with narrowed, impertinent eyes. Gerry muttered an exasperated inaudibility, and crossed the footpath to the side fence. ‘Tiggsy, Tiggsy!’ he wheedled. ‘Come on, you little bugger, you’re wanted.’ The cat looked off into the distance, considering, and then, with the haughty insouciance of a runway model, stepped the remaining few metres along the fence rail. ‘
Per-rrow?
’

‘Yeah, yeah, miaow yourself.’ Gerry plucked him from the fence and tucked him firmly against his chest. ‘Come on, pest.’

Seb’s door was closed. ‘Someone to see you, Sebastiano,’ Gerry called, opening it with one hand. He scooted Tigger in there and was about to close the door again, but on an impulse so rare he hardly knew what it was – the impulse to make amends – he went in instead.

‘Seb, I just wanted to say —’

His son, sitting hunched on the bed, faced the door for just an instant, and the look of hunted anguish Gerry saw there shocked him to the core. Seb’s face, wet with tears and glazed with snot, was that of someone on the edge of the pit. Gerry had seen this look, just last night, in Susanna’s drawings. The faces of those people, staring at death, were at the same pitch of despair as his son’s.

‘Seb!’

Seb held up his arms, sobbing like a child, and Gerry saw the pill bottle he was holding. Aghast, he forged across the room as though to pull him from a raging torrent and wrapped his arms around the boy, holding him tight. There was another bottle of pills lying on the bed: he recognised Seb’s own powerful analgesics, and a foil of Susanna’s sleeping tablets. But the tops were still on the bottles, Gerry saw with a gut-loosening sensation of relief, and only a couple of tablets had been popped from the foil.

‘Dad,’ Seb wailed. He sounded like something inside him had broken. ‘Dad … Dad.’

‘Oh, Sebbie.’ Gerry rocked him in his arms. ‘I’m sorry, mate, I’m sorry,’ he crooned, and for once in his life he meant it, with all his heart. ‘You’re right, you’re right: I wasn’t in the crash, it’s not my arm. I
don’t
know what it’s like.’

‘No,
you’re
right,’ Seb sobbed. ‘I
am
a poofter. I’m gay, Dad, you know I am. You hate me!’

‘No, no, I could never hate you. Never. Don’t ever think that. You’re my son, you’re my life.’ Gerry held his boy away from him so that he had to look at him. ‘Do you get that? You’re my bit of the future. I
love you
.’

Seb started crying again but in a different way, in release, acknowledging his father’s words, and Gerry pulled him to his chest.

‘Sebbie, you have to tell me: did you take any pills? Any at all?’

Seb shook his head against his chest; the storm of weeping abating a little. ‘I was just going to. I thought you’d gone out.’

Thank you, Tigger, thank you
, thought Gerry fervently. His big handsome son, his baby. He’d been trying to do his best for Seb, for all of them, but it had gone wrong. He’d missed something terribly important. Maybe lots of things. ‘Is this about the girlfriend?’ he asked tenderly. ‘Rory?’

‘No! No, it’s not about her. It’s about
me
.’ Seb sat up a little straighter, chest and shoulders heaving. ‘I really like her but I don’t wanna … I can’t
do
it, it’s just – I
can’t
. And I know why: I’m gay. I can’t lie any more, it’s true, I am.’

Gay?
Only now did Gerry register what Seb had already said.
How do I handle this?
The immediate crisis: that, he saw in a flash, was what he needed to get Seb through. ‘Every teenager goes through a stage of thinking they’re gay,’ he said with absolute conviction, even though he had no idea if this was true or not. Seb was leaning against him now, and Gerry had his arm around him. ‘It’s perfectly normal.’

Seb pulled away slightly and looked at him, not sure whether to believe his father or not. ‘
You
didn’t, did you?’ he said, then grabbed a handful of tissues and wiped his glazed face and blew his nose, hard, several times.

Gerry frowned. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But … most teenagers do. It’s just … a stage.’

‘Dad, it’s not a stage,’ Seb said. ‘Not for me.’

Teenage hyperbole.
Gerry didn’t see how Seb could possibly be gay; he was his
son
, for god’s sake! But this was not, tactically, the way to go, not right now. ‘And what if you
are
gay?’ he said. ‘So what? Big deal!’

‘Big deal?’ said Seb. He sounded outraged. ‘It
is
a big deal! You said it yourself, you called me a poofter!’

‘I’m sorry, mate. I did say that, and I’m sorry. But listen: have you forgotten who my best friend is? Best friend and business partner?’ Gerry could see that, oddly, this had not occurred to Seb. ‘Do I have a problem with Marcus being gay? Does anybody?’

‘I guess …’ Seb murmured. He shook his head slowly.

‘You want me to call Marco?’ Gerry offered. ‘Maybe that’d be good, maybe you could talk to him …’

‘Maybe.’ Seb tried to think about it. ‘Not right now.’ He yawned, hugely. The luxuriant, irresistible tiredness that follows an emotional cyclone was seeping in. ‘Dad, I think right now I just want to sleep.’ Hadn’t he said this to Rory a few hours ago? But this time it was true. ‘I hardly slept at all last night.’

Gerry looked at him closely. The boy was indeed clearly exhausted; sleep would be the best thing for him. ‘Fair enough. But I’m putting these pills under lock and key, okay? And I’m going to be sticking my head in here and checking on you, just to make sure you’re okay.’

‘You don’t have to do that. I won’t …’

‘Good. But I’m going to, anyway,’ Gerry said, picking up the bottles and the foil of tablets in one hand. ‘Promise me you’re not going to try – anything like that, again.’

‘Promise,’ said Seb, yawning mightily again. He lay down on his side, head on pillow, and Tigger, who seemed to have been waiting for this signal, sprang from the desk to the bed. ‘Tiggsy,’ Seb said, and pulled the cat to nestle in against him.

Gerry leaned over, hugged his son, kissed his cheek. ‘I’m not going for a run, or anywhere else,’ he told him. ‘I’ll be right here. If you want anything, or if you start to get the heebie-jeebies, just sing out.’

‘Okay. Dad? Thanks.’

‘I love you, Sebbie.’

‘Love you too, Dad.’

The boy let go, Gerry could see it. Probably asleep before he even got to the door. He left it open a crack, went straight to the bedroom where he’d slept alone the night before, and was astonished to see from the clock beside the bed that not even two hours had passed since he’d woken up. He picked up the phone from its base and popped the number for Susanna’s mobile.

She didn’t answer; he hadn’t expected that she would. After her recorded voice invited the caller to leave a message, he spoke in a rush, before he could reconsider. ‘Susanna, what I said last night about not having a girlfriend is true, but a lot of the other stuff isn’t. You were right. Those
were
sex toys in that bag you found. I have been having – adventures, with other women. Nothing that threatens
us
, believe me. But – yeah. We do need to see a counsellor.’

He paused. What else should he say? ‘I love you.’

THIRTY-ONE

Angie stood stock-still in the kitchen, make-up on, all ready to go to work in her saleswoman’s demure black dress, staring glassy-eyed at the phone sitting on the bench near the window. Willing it to ring. For years she had daydreamed about how one day the phone would ring, and she would pick it up:

Hello?

Angie?
her mother’s voice would say.
Oh Angie, I’ve been such a fool. You’re a wonderful girl, and I love you so much.

Now her mother was gone, and that call would never happen.

Strange, the great surge of relief she’d felt at first. Soaring, like she’d lifted off at last: that’s how she’d felt at the funeral. When Gabriel sang ‘Amazing Grace’, those were tears of joyful release Angie had been weeping. Once lost, but now found. Once bound, but now free – for the first time in her life,
free
from that wretched sense of her mother’s eye upon her, watching, judging, criticising.
You’re not good enough.
For forty years that had weighed her down, but she was free now.

So why, why do I still feel so empty?

Surely the Lord saw that she was worthy of love? Of Gabriel’s love? Wasn’t Gabriel God’s angel, sent to deliver the message of his love? That’s what he did for Christ’s mother Mary.

That fluttering that she felt, somewhere deep inside her, a fluttering in the emptiness – Angie placed a hand on her stomach, just below the waist, gazing down at her own palely freckled hand on the black fabric – maybe
that
was the angel? Or a baby? God had sent Gabriel to give her a new baby, and that baby would be the messenger.
Not just for me, for the whole world.

But the angel spoke to Mary.
Why doesn’t Gabriel speak to me?
Why did he come to her at night, join their bodies together, but never say any of those words she longed to hear? So much so that she whispered them to herself sometimes:
I love you, Angie
. In the dark, alone, whispering:
Angie, will you be my wife?

Or that fluttering in the emptiness could be the enemy. A tumour growing inside her, come to kill her and rid the world of her deep-down wickedness.
That’s what Mum wanted.

No. No, Susu would tell her that was crazy. Maybe she was going crazy, and that was how God was testing her?

‘Mum. Mum.’ Someone – Finn was shaking her arm.

Find that bright smiling face, Angie. Put it on
. ‘Finnie! I’ve — you’re all set up, aren’t you, honey? For the day? All your – your drawing things?’

‘Mum, take me to school,
please
,’ said Finn urgently.