The Blame Game

by C. J. Cooke

Luckily, we did, but we were all agreed – noise and crowds weren’t for us. So Michael went online and changed our booking to a small resort in Belize, within driving distance of a Mayan site even bigger than Chichén Itzá. Reuben was elated. We hired a car, broke free of the tour group and drove to this place.

  I go back inside and pull laundry out of the washing machine, then take it out to the side garden to hang on the line. Michael comes into the garden, soaking wet from his swim. He’s in the best shape of his life, his arms broad and sculpted from deadlifts, his legs strong and muscular from cycling most nights to counter long days at the bookshop. His deep tan suits him, though I’m not sure about the beard he’s grown. He likes to say he’s ‘an auld git’ (he’s forty-one) but to me, he’s never looked better.

  ‘Where’s Saskia?’ I say, looking past him at the tide that has begun to creep up the beach, devouring Reuben’s sand sculpture.

  He slicks his dark wet hair off his face. ‘Oh, I just left her to swim on her own.’

  ‘You what?’ I take a step forward and scan the part of the beach further to the left. In a moment, Sas comes into view, wrapping a strand of seaweed around her waist to make a mermaid tutu.

  ‘Honestly, Helen,’ Michael says, grinning. ‘You think I’d leave her to swim out in open water on her own?’

  I slap his arm lightly for winding me up. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past you.’

  ‘Ouch,’ he says, flinching at my slap. ‘Oh, I found something in this shed here. Come have a look.’

  He steps towards the plastic bunker that I’d assumed was the cistern and flings open the doors to reveal a storage cupboard chock-full of beach boards, wet suits, snorkels, windsurfing sails, inflatables, rockpool nets, and surfboards. He takes out a rolled up piece of thick cotton and inspects it.

  ‘Doesn’t look very waterproof. What do you think it’s for?’

  We unravel it, each taking an end, until it’s clear that it’s a hammock. Michael nods at the palm trees behind me and suggests I tie one end to the fattest trunk while he fastens the other to a tree about eight foot in the opposite direction. Both trunks conveniently have metal hooks where other guests have secured the hammock.

  ‘Climb in,’ he says once we’ve set it up. I shake my head. I worry that I’m too heavy for it. I haven’t weighed myself in almost a year but last time I did – under protest – I was thirteen stone, an unfortunate side effect of long-term antidepressant use. I’m five foot nine so can carry it, but most of the weight has settled around my waist.

  ‘This is the life,’ Michael says, climbing into the hammock. Then, when he spots me tidying up the storage cupboard: ‘Helen. Get. In.’

  The hammock stretches as I lie beside him, almost touching the ground, but it holds.

  ‘See?’ Michael says, slipping an arm under my neck and holding me close to his wet skin. For a moment there is nothing but the rustle of palm trees and Saskia’s singing on the back of the wind. I try to resist sitting up to check she’s OK and that Reuben is still on his iPad on the deck.

  ‘That’s better,’ Michael says, kissing the top of my head. He has his hands clasped around me and I can feel his chest rise and fall with breaths that grow gradually slower and deeper. How long has it been since we lay like this? It feels nice.

  ‘Maybe we should move out here,’ he says.

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Serious. You could home-school the kids.’

  ‘Mmmm, way to sell it to me. And what would you do? Build a book shack?’

  ‘Not a bad idea. I could be our designated hunter-gatherer. I reckon I’d make a good Caribbean Bear Grylls. I’ve got the beard for it, now.’

  ‘Bear Grylls doesn’t have a beard, idiot.’

  ‘Robinson Crusoe, then.’

  I stroke the side of his foot with my toe. ‘I wish we could.’

  ‘Why can’t we?’

  ‘Blimey, if we’d the money, I’d move out here in a shot.’

  ‘Cheaper to live out here than England. We could make money by taking tourists out on boat trips.’

  ‘Stop winding me up,’ I say.

  ‘I’m not winding you up …’

  ‘Neither of us speak a word of Spanish, Michael.’

  ‘Buenos días. Adiós, per favor. See? Practically fluent.’

  ‘You wally.’

  ‘Anyway, they speak Kriol here.’

  ‘We don’t speak that either …’

  ‘Belize is a British colony. We probably wouldn’t even need a visa.’

  ‘What about our house? And, you know, my job?’

  ‘You’re always whinging about how much you hate teaching.’

  I feel a bit hurt by this. I enjoy teaching and I care deeply about my pupils … but no, this was not my dream. I sort of fell into it, and once I realised that the hours suited family life it was a no-brainer. I could argue that Michael’s book shop is the same – not his dream, but a reasonable attempt at fulfilment that pays the bills and fits around our children’s lifestyles.

  ‘A holiday is one thing, living here is another,’ I say, and I remind him of the conversation we had with the tour operator about Central America. Got to be careful out there. Lots of dangers in the rainforest. Jaguars, snakes, pumas aplenty.

  ‘What do you think I’m here for?’ he says. ‘I’m your protector.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘I’d like to see you try and walk away from your bookshop. Even if it is burnt to a crisp.’

  The words are out before I’ve a chance to haul them back into my mouth and lock them into the box of unmentionable things. The bookshop. We’ve not spoken about it the whole time we’ve been on holiday. Not a single mention of the fire that gutted Michael’s beautiful bookshop which he has single-handedly built up from scratch to become one of the best independents in the region. A three-storey Mecca for bookworms, the jewel of our town, now in ruins: black, cooked. For one awful moment I’m wrenched back into that night when we saw the flames dancing high into the night sky.

  The phone woke us in the middle of the night. It was Mr Dickinson who owned the pet store a few shops along. He’d spotted smoke from the street, then drove down to check his own shop. He said he was about to call the fire brigade, but he wanted to let us know, too. We raced down there, both of us betting on a manageable fire, one that we could tackle ourselves with a couple of fire extinguishers that Michael had tossed into the boot of the car. When we arrived, smoke was already curling out from beneath the front door, orange flames dancing in the first-floor windows. Michael started to unlock the front door but I grabbed his arm.

  ‘Don’t go in,’ I said. He ignored me and pushed open the door, determined to damp down the flames. I watched, helpless, as he ran inside with the fire extinguishers and took to the stairs. Thick black smoke was funnelling down the stairs and beating across the ground floor, and I could hear the crackling sounds of the fire upstairs destroying the new café, chewing up the beautiful sofas and coffee tables that had only recently been installed. Sirens of fire engines screamed in the distance. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to breathe in the smoke, but with every second that went by it seemed to grow thicker, and my lungs ached for fresh air. I couldn’t call out to Michael. He was still on the first floor, and to my horror I could see flames at the top of the stairs.

  Just when I thought I would have to go up there to drag Michael out he appeared, an armful of books pressed to his chest, struggling to breathe. He stumbled down the stairs, dropping the books and falling into my arms.

  The shop was destroyed, our livelihood annihilated. Some kind stranger set up a JustGiving fund and within a few weeks we had raised eleven thousand pounds. Possibly enough money to recoup some stock, pay some creditors. But there’s the mortgage, the loss of income … The insurance company are still determining the cause of the fire.

  The mood has dipped. I try to think of something to say that will swing it back again to the blissed-out vibe we’d enjoyed here since our arrival. It strikes me
why we’ve avoided talking about the fire out here: the contrast between this heavenly place and drab, icicled Northumberland make it feel as though we’ve stepped into another realm. There are no reminders here. But silence doesn’t lie. We both know we have to go back and face it all.

  ‘I should have installed CCTV,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Everyone said to do it and I got lazy.’

  ‘There’s no guarantee that cameras would have picked up anything,’ I say, recalling how we sat in shock at the fire station, covered head to toe in black soot like two Victorian chimney sweeps. The deputy station chief educated us brusquely about the many causes of accidental blazes: sunlight bouncing off a mirror and hitting newspaper reduced a sixteenth century Scottish castle to embers. Hair straighteners left too close to a notebook on a teenager’s dressing table took out a row of houses. Our fire could have been down to a faulty storage heater or a loose wire.

  ‘They’d have caught who started the fire,’ Michael cuts in, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock to sit upright. I reach forward and stroke his back.

  I recall with a shudder the police calling both of us in for separate interviews. They asked whether someone had a grudge against us. If we had upset a customer or laid off an employee. Just weeks before I’d persuaded Michael to sack one of our part-timers, Matilda. She doesn’t do anything, I protested. You’re barely paying yourself a salary as it is. The bookshop isn’t a charity for lazy eighteen-year-olds who sit around all day reading Tolkien.

  Michael pointed out that she was Arnold’s daughter, and Arnold had been the first to help him out when he set up the shop, but I won in the end. Matilda was sketchy about her whereabouts at the time of the fire – her parents confirmed she’d been out of the house, and it turned out she’d been with a boy. But for a horrible few days it seemed that perhaps Matilda could have been responsible for the blaze.

  ‘We never ruled out arson,’ Michael says when I remind him that Matilda was found to be innocent. ‘Until the investigation closes, every possibility is on the table.’

  ‘Maybe it was a group of kids messing around,’ I say to his back. I desperately want him to lie back down with me, to recapture the idyllic mood.

  ‘We both know kids didn’t start that fire, Helen,’ Michael snaps, getting out of the hammock.

  ‘Michael?’

  I’m taken aback by the sharpness of his tone. As I watch him head back into the hut I sense he’s exhausted, worn thin by worry. But I wish we could discuss this. Every time we start to talk about something that cuts deep he just walks away.

  3

  Michael

  28th August 2017

  We’ve got a mutiny on our hands right now.

  ‘Pleeease can we stay here, Dad?’ Saskia howls in the kitchen as I make breakfast. This morning our butler (yes, an actual butler – I feel like a Kardashian) dropped off our food parcel, containing waffles (round, so we can tell Reuben they’re pizzas), maple syrup, coconuts, dragon fruit, freshly baked bread, eggs, salad, blueberry pancakes, pineapple, the most mouth-watering bacon I’ve ever tasted in my entire life, and a bottle of wine.

  ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ I say, hugging Sas to my side as I heat the waffles on the hob. She smells of sunlight and the ocean. ‘I’m afraid we can’t change our flight. We’ve got today and tomorrow and then we have to head off to Mexico City to fly home.’

  ‘But Daa-aad, I don’t want to go home. Jack-Jack doesn’t want to go, either.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I say, tipping waffles on to a plate. ‘So, nobody wants to go home? What do you suggest we do then?’

  She does the same thing as Helen when she thinks. Screws up her nose like there’s a bad smell. Face just her like mother’s, too. Same twinkling blue eyes that show every emotion and absorb every last detail. Same dimple in her left cheek and buttery curls to her shoulders.

  ‘Can’t we just buy a house here?’

  ‘You’d miss everyone, I think. So would Jack-Jack.’

  She gives a dramatic sigh, seven going on seventeen. ‘Like who, exactly?’

  ‘Well, Amber and Holly would miss you. And I bet Oreo can’t wait to see you …’

  ‘But they could come here …’

  ‘What about your ballet recital?’ I ask. She has no answer to that and I know she’s excited for it. I set her plate of waffles on the coffee table and squat down to face as her as she begins to do a couple of ballet moves.

  ‘To tell you the truth, my love, I don’t want to go home either.’

  She widens her eyes. ‘You don’t?’

  I press my lips together, shake my head. ‘But don’t tell Mummy.’

  ‘Is it because you don’t like flying?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Is it because you love this house and the sea and you’d like to live here?’

  ‘Exactly. I like spending my days on the beach instead of having to go to work. I’d like to do it for ever. Wouldn’t you?’

  She nods eagerly, her face all lit up with hope. I wish I could give her everything. I wish I could make the world as perfect as she deserves it to be.

  ‘Here, come and help me put all this food away.’

  She does a little ballet twirl across the floor, arms crooked like she’s holding an invisible beach ball between them, and looks into the box of food that I’m unloading.

  ‘Bacon?’ she says, holding up the packet like it’s a dead rat.

  ‘Not for you, love. Reuben and I will enjoy that.’

  ‘Bacon isn’t even nice, Daddy,’ Saskia says. She’s decided to become vegetarian, like Helen, so all I’ve heard about for the last three months is how meat is Satan. ‘I tried some once and it tasted not very nice. Plus, it’s from pigs and they’re more smarter than dogs and you wouldn’t eat our dog, would you?’

  ‘Hmmm. You know, if he tasted like bacon, I’d consider it.’

  ‘Daddy!’

  I lean over and give her a kiss. She still kisses me on the lips, a quick peck with a big ‘mwah’ at the end, just as she did as a baby. When the day comes that she tells me she’s too old to kiss me anymore I think my heart will break.

  ‘Do the thing,’ she says when I plop one of the blueberry pancakes into a pan on the stove. ‘Do the flip, Dad. Do it!’

  I wait until the pan is nice and hot before planting my feet wide, gripping the pan handle tightly and tossing the pancake as high as I can. It flips into the air, smacks the ceiling, then lands splat in the pan.

  ‘You did it, Dad!’ she squeals, high-fiving me. ‘Five points for Gryffindor!’

  Reuben comes in through the front door, his dark hair and shorts dripping wet. I’m careful to be calm around him. No eye contact. I’m still in his bad books. He dumps a plastic bucket on the floor.

  ‘We can’t go home,’ he announces flatly.

  ‘Daddy pancaked the ceiling,’ Saskia says.

  ‘Five points for Gryffindor,’ Reuben says, deadpan. ‘Look what I found.’

  Saskia peers into his bucket and squeals. I tell her to shush, she’ll upset Reuben, but his focus is on the baby turtle, its head no bigger than the tip of my thumb, its shell covered in zigzag patterns. It sweeps its flippers back and forth as though it wants to swim.

  ‘We should take it back to the water,’ I say as Saskia plucks it out of the bucket and cuddles it to her chest. ‘His mum must be looking for him.’

  ‘Like Finding Nemo?’ Saskia says.

  ‘That was a clown fish,’ Reuben replies.

  ‘Dude,’ I say, imitating the turtles in Finding Nemo. ‘What up, squirt?’

  Reuben falls silent, and I freeze, expecting one of two reactions: he’ll either storm out of the room or he’ll slug me across the face. Reuben isn’t often violent but when he is it’s ugly, given that he has the strength and height of an adult. He looks like he’s thinking really hard about something. Maybe he’s trying to control his anger.

  ‘Righteous!’ he says suddenly, a big grin lighting up his face.

  ‘Curl awa
y, my son,’ I say, suddenly glad that I watched Finding Nemo ten million times.

  I raise my eyebrows at Helen who is standing there with her eyes like saucers and her jaw on the ground, stunned that Reuben has actually spoken to me. He’s deeply forgiving, full of love, but I could hardly expect him to react any other way after what happened at Josh’s birthday party.

  I was only trying to protect him. That’s my job. My whole reason for existing.

  I wake to find Helen sitting at the end of the bed wrapped in a yellow towel. She’s on the other side of the mosquito curtain but I can make out her gold hair, braided down her back, the web of the Celtic tattoo on her shoulder just visible in the dim light. I sit up quickly, amazed that I actually slept, and she tells me to relax, it’s OK, but I’m covered in sweat and my heart is racing. I was dreaming. Bright images pitch and mulch in my head like a soup. When Helen comes into focus I see her face is filled with worry.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she says. ‘Bad dreams again?’

  I push my fingertips into my eyes, trying to blot out the disturbing images in my head. For years, the same dream. A door made of fire. I’m standing in front of it with the knowledge that I have to open it, because on the other side is paradise, a land of pure, endless happiness. Sometimes I’m alone. Sometimes I’m with Helen and the kids, and I have to take them through the door, but I worry about them getting hurt. I always wake in a sweat. Sleeping pills washed it away and now it’s back, as vivid as ever.

  ‘I went for a swim,’ she whispers. I take her hand, wondering what’s wrong. She looks shaken.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I saw something weird. It was probably nothing. I don’t know.’

  ‘You saw something weird where? Out in the water?’

  She nods and holds a finger to her lips, urging me to keep my voice down. ‘In the beach hut next to ours. They had a telescope just like the one we have in the living room.’

  A telescope? Ah yes, I remember. The scope on the tripod we moved into a corner so the kids wouldn’t knock it over. We presumed it was for spotting sharks and rays in the water outside.