by Sam Hayes
When things changed between us, Julia was seventeen. I went to meet her at the station, watching as her train grumbled to a halt. It was pouring down; a musty and humid rain, lightly fragranced by the wet earth. She jumped on to the platform with her coat slung over her arm. Her face was fresh and eager, seeking me out. Beads of water collected on her neck and wound beneath her collar. She carried an overnight bag and she couldn’t help the grin when she saw me waiting.
‘Hi,’ she said sweetly, coyly. She ran up to me and dumped the bag at my feet. She was squinting through the rain, allowing me to kiss her on the cheek as she wriggled into her coat. It was a pretty peach colour, like her skin, and never before had I wanted to wrap someone up so much with my love; to promise to take care of them for ever.
‘Let’s go,’ I said nervously, slinging Julia’s bag over my shoulder. These feelings were new for each of us, even though our silent passion had been there ever since we could remember in one way or another. It was only a chance telephone call that had us admitting it, our words tumbling down the line, bumping into each other. It was the end of the way I had always known Julia but the beginning of the way I wanted her.
In fact, that phone call was more about what wasn’t said; the hidden meaning in our conversation that taught us it was acceptable to feel like this; that loving, truly loving, the person you’ve grown up with, been a big brother to for seventeen years, was OK. Julia suddenly slid into a fresh compartment in my mind – girlfriend, lover, future wife. After all, it wasn’t like we were blood relations. It was allowed.
By the end of the call, we knew we had to see each other. Desperate didn’t describe how we felt. So there we were, walking along the platform at King’s Cross station, wondering what would happen next – a silent continuation of our telephone admission, only this time it wasn’t just our words that were tangling.
Already, my arm was slung around Julia’s waist, as indeed it had been in the past. But this time was different; this time we both knew it meant going back to the tiny flat I shared with three friends, setting Julia’s bag in my room, turning down the sheets of my bed, shyly undressing each other, making love without a word, without a sound, without anything except a release of everything that had built up between us over the years, while praying that my flatmates wouldn’t hear. Our feelings, however explosive, would have to remain silent.
Afterwards, we went to see a movie and ate ice cream. We held hands, only it was different now. Gone were the days of walking her back from the school bus or leading her back to Northmire with a cut knee. When we held hands now, our fingers interlocked to match the synchronised beat of our hearts. It was real. It was serious. We were both grown up, or at least thought we were.
Julia returned to Witherly that Sunday night. A small kiss on her lips – held perfectly still until the stationmaster blew the whistle – sealed our love until next time. I waved her off, back to her mother and her grandparents, who were expecting to hear all about Julia’s exciting trip to the city.
She didn’t tell them that there were no sights; that the only thing she saw was the inside of my bedroom or the sweat dripping down my back or a movie theatre packed with couples soaking up a French love story. Julia went back to her studies, but from that moment on we knew we would always be together.
When she got pregnant the next summer, we married before Alex was much more than a gentle arc on her smooth belly. When he was born, we weren’t much more than children ourselves.
I set about preparing Brenna and Gradin a meal – or rather, insist that they make the food under my strict supervision. It keeps them out of trouble and helps pass the time until Julia returns from the hospital or wherever it is she’s gone with the kids and Dr Nice. It’s that or hit the bottle.
When headlights flash a wide beam through the window and my heart unclenches a fraction, Gradin sinks his hands into a bowl of pastry. I made him scrub his fingernails, which were stuffed with a strange mix of rust-coloured paste, and now he is kneading the flour and fat in readiness to drape over the steak and kidney combination that Brenna is frying up on the range.
‘Something smells good.’ But it is not Julia’s voice that accompanies the measure of cold air when the door is opened. David Carlyle is breathing in our cooking as if he has returned home for his evening meal. Across the kitchen, we lock stares, and only when Julia pushes through the taut link do I look away.
She is exhausted, pale, fragile. Beautiful.
‘Nice work,’ I say to Gradin as he hammers the pastry with the wooden pin. I’m waiting for Julia’s voice to channel through the tension; questioning what on earth I am doing. ‘But try it like this.’ I show him how to press and roll, back and forth, but when I leave him to try again, he takes to bashing through the lump of pastry as if it’s a rat running across the table. When I tell him to stop, he doesn’t. He just carries on pounding and pounding until the table wobbles and Julia intervenes with a firm demand for him to stop.
‘Murray, what’s going on?’ She looks at me as if I am answerable for Gradin’s outburst. The boy is obviously troubled. Mary shuffles past him and takes her seat beside the range. Julia shakes her head wearily. Then, ‘Why are you here?’ Her tone is accusing, impatient, frazzled.
‘I came to see . . .’ I pause, trying not to sound hurt. ‘I came to visit the kids. Perhaps take them out for a walk.’
Julia glances out of the window. She shakes her head and her eyebrows peel into thin, incredulous curves. ‘It’s dark, Murray. And Flora has the sniffles.’
I glance at my little girl to see that she has already curled up on her grandmother’s lap; each of them silent and content in their own way. I hate explaining my presence in front of Dr Nice. ‘When I got here, these two were alone and bored and in need of company. We’ve been cooking.’
I go up to Julia and lower my voice, not wanting Carlyle to hear our discussion. Julia glances around the messy kitchen, probably searching for a secret glass of wine. ‘But I’ll go now that you’re back.’ I sign a private few words to Flora and indulge Alex by having a quick go on his Nintendo. I drop him back six levels.
‘Oh thanks, Dad,’ he moans and snatches it from me.
‘How’s Mary?’ I ask, shrugging on my coat. ‘Any news?’ Looking at her, Mary seems to have less of a grasp on life than ever.
David steps in when Julia folds into a wooden chair. She drops her head into her hands.
‘Julia has had some disturbing news about her mother,’ he announces. He stands behind my wife and places his hands on her shoulders as if it’s her that’s ill. ‘Mary’s MRI scan showed that she has vascular dementia.’ He keeps it short, technically inaccessible to the non-medical so that I have to ask what he means. ‘The principal findings were lacunar infarcts. This means that Mary has had a series of strokes deep inside her brain. There were also abnormal findings in the cerebral white matter, where axons – the wires, if you like, that connect one nerve to the next – travel.’ He bends to kiss Julia’s head. ‘This would explain Mary’s mutism and sudden inability to cope.’
‘Dementia?’ I say slowly. He’s packaged this very neatly. A tidy diagnosis explaining everything away. ‘Surely not, Julia? She’s too young for dementia.’ I look at my mother-in-law. ‘She wasn’t showing any other symptoms before the loss of speech, was she, Jules?’ I sit down opposite Julia, my coat half on. Between us, we know Mary best in the world. God, she practically brought me up. ‘Can it just come from nowhere?’ I’m not sure who I am asking.
‘If I’m honest, there have been signs.’ Julia’s head is heavy, her eyes ringed. ‘I guess I just didn’t want to admit it.’
I understand what she means. Mary has always been there, the immovable wedge that held the Marshall family together. Julia is realising she must step up to the mark. I am not sure that she can face it.
‘What does all this mean?’ I grudgingly ask David.
He sighs heavily. ‘I want to admit Mary to hospital.’
Julia su
ddenly looks up. This is news to her, too. ‘Hospital?’ She is on her feet, standing beside Mary like an impenetrable barrier.
‘It’s a necessary precaution to allow further testing. Mary can’t continue to live in this state. She must be professionally assessed in a suitable institution. She needs a treatment plan.’ David hesitates for less than a second. Julia misses the swallow that sinks down Dr Nice’s throat. ‘It’s impractical and exhausting for her to travel back and forth to the hospital in Cambridge for all the tests she will need over the following weeks.’ He pauses again. ‘Besides, someone like Mary needs . . .’ Each word is measured and spaced, painfully laden with a hasty diagnosis. What does he mean, someone like Mary?
I am about to disagree, but Julia speaks, already resigned to her mother’s fate. ‘Well, where else can she go apart from Cambridge?’ I know she is considering logistics, the children, her work, trying to make life as normal as possible even though it has never been so askew. She is also hoping that David will ease her burden; whisk her mother away, make her better, and send her home again.
David settles his hands on her shoulders. I fight the urge to push them off. ‘There’s a place that will be ideal for your mother. It specialises in . . .’ Another break as Dr Nice thinks of the most appropriate words. He doesn’t want to upset Julia, I can see that. ‘It specialises in this kind of illness. Best of all, it’s not far from here and set out in the countryside. She’ll be well looked after by the medical team there. It’s more like a home away from home than a hospital.’
‘A home?’ Julia is quick to catch on. She slips from beneath David’s palms. ‘An old people’s home, you mean?’ Her frown has doubled in size and crumples her entire forehead.
‘Not at all.’ David smiles in just the right place. ‘It’s a hospital for patients with conditions similar to Mary’s. Sadly, brain diseases can strike at any age and this place is filled with all sorts of patients, from the young to the old. And the therapies . . .’ He’s thinking again, measuring every word against the tiniest of muscle twitches on Julia’s face. ‘The therapies on offer are second to none. Your mother will receive first-class care.’
Julia is torn, I can see, and it dawns on her about the same time as I realise it. ‘It’s a private hospital, isn’t it?’The hopelessness in her voice is obvious. Mary doesn’t have private medical insurance and there’s no way, on a teacher’s salary, that Julia can afford it.
‘Yes, it is, Julia, and I know what you’re going to say—’
Julia interrupts with an unintelligible noise but stops with her mouth open. Her protest hangs there. She realises that Mary will have to take her place in the queue for an NHS bed. We are thinking the same.
‘It’s already taken care of,’ David says. And then, as if I’m not there, he imprints a kiss on Julia’s stunned lips. Afterwards, she touches a finger to the spot, as if he’s just told her a thousand things I’ll never be able to say.
Back on Alcatraz, the bilge is working, after a fashion. The man at the boatyard handed me back my keys and suggested that I have her lifted from the water for a major hull overhaul. He also suggested I get a large bucket in case the pump packs up again.
I light the stove and fill the kettle. It’s as I’m fishing about in the engine chamber searching for a spanner that I stumble across the emergency bottle of Scotch, hidden deep in the heart of the boat.
I take several slugs direct from the bottle, sitting on the rear deck and squinting out across the still river. No amount of whisky is going to erase the look that settled in Julia’s eyes when Dr Nice took control. That’s something I have to take care of myself.
JULIA
Just for this evening, I am going to forget the sick feeling that pervades me from the minute I wake up to the moment I pass into brief sleep. Perhaps selfishly, I have left my problems behind, and for a few hours I will pretend that I am Julia Marshall, desirable woman without a care in the world; Julia Marshall, out to explore new possibilities. Julia Marshall – an exciting prospect.
My hand hangs heavily on the knocker and slides down the wood with the weight of my life.
The door opens and David is standing there.
Never before has anything, anyone, so timely happened to me. Never before have I needed someone as much as I need David now, however briefly we’ve known each other. It’s his confidence, his experience, his wisdom, and I’m pretty sure, his concern for me that tightens the thread of hope inside. I won’t let go; not for anyone.
David is clutching a tea towel and wearing an apron. He looks good enough to eat.
I can’t help the landslide of laughter. ‘Oh my God, I promise not to tell anyone.’ Truth is, I like it. I like the ridiculousness of it; the normality of it and everything else it suggests. I also like the freshly chopped herbs that I can smell layered upon searing meat, and the log fire in the lounge as David shows me round his house. To begin with, neither of us mentions Mum.
‘Your home is beautiful,’ I say when we’re in the kitchen. It’s obviously very old but has been renovated to a high standard. I hadn’t envisaged David in such a place. It’s a family home – albeit without the family – but that sets me thinking, only for the briefest of guilty moments, about how it would feel to have Flora and Alex tumbling through the many rooms. Their laughter and footsteps would echo through the tiled halls and beamed corridors. Their toys would leave a childhood trail between the large rooms. Thinking all of this makes me feel even more apprehensive, yet excited that something, possibly something good, could be happening in my life. It’s a bittersweet turn that I have to make. It already feels as if I’ve known David for ever.
‘I saw you as more of an apartment-in-the-city kind of guy.’ I lean on the worktop, watching him. David smiles and passes over a glass of mineral water. ‘Have you heard anything about Mum? Any news?’
‘Be patient, Julia. She’s only been there a few hours.’ He smiles again, and the way it makes me feel, he may as well have taken me in his arms and pressed me close. It’s a brief moment but one that spans decades. We have a link, something in common on a deep level. I wouldn’t fall for just anyone.
‘You’re right. I’m being silly. I’m just worried about her, that’s all.’ I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. David notices. It makes my stomach tingle.
‘I understand,’ he tells me, and I can see quite clearly that he does.
‘I can’t be too late home,’ I say out of the blue, which suggests that I was thinking I might be. The children are at Nadine’s for the night, and with Mum admitted safely to The Lawns, the evening ahead looms like a heavy moon. I glance at the floor and immediately feel fourteen years old. ‘It’s because of Brenna and Gradin,’ I add quickly. ‘I can’t leave them overnight.’ It was just me thinking out loud, but now I have pretty much declared that I was contemplating staying the night. ‘I did already tell you this, didn’t I?’ My voice is fragile, shattered in fact.
David laughs and I like that. The broad smile on his face tells me that he thinks I am both funny and attractive as I dig my hole. ‘They’ll have to be re-homed soon,’ I continue, hoping he doesn’t see my mind skipping way ahead to the future. Our future.
I heave myself out of the hole. ‘The Lawns seemed perfect for Mum. Whatever strings you pulled to get her in there, I can’t thank you enough.’ I harvest an olive from the bowl sitting on the work surface. ‘I thought I even saw an improvement in her before we left. She seemed at ease, as if it’s where she should have been years ago. As if she was grateful. And I swear I saw her sign at Flora.’
‘Julia . . . don’t get carried away.’ David’s medical training warns him off promising a full recovery. ‘Your mother is a long way from being cured.’ With this sobering thought, he turns his back on me. He’s becoming personally involved, allowing the weight of whatever is wrong with Mum to sit squarely between us. He briefly turns back to me, and when he faces me again, there is a glaze in his eyes.
‘It’s highly unlikely th
at she signed with Flora. For now, anyway.’ Suddenly he is being professional, speaking as if I am just any patient’s daughter. ‘The scan . . . it showed recent infarctions. Recovery, if ever, may be long and slow.’ He’s not telling me everything. ‘I personally know the head of the team that will be caring for Mary, and he’s promised me the best care for her. I’ve discussed the case in great detail.’
‘I’m very grateful,’ I whisper. ‘You seem to know a lot of people.’
‘Well, that’s not unusual in the medical profession. You have friends in teaching, I presume?’ For a second, I detect a defence; that perhaps in the past he has been accused of pulling strings, bending favours and twisting arms to get what he wants. In this instance, I have no objection. He’s going to great lengths for Mum, for me. It would be rude to question his motive.
‘Let’s eat,’ he says and leads me to the table.
It’s not until we are relaxing on the biggest sofa I have ever seen – David enjoying the last of a bottle of Bordeaux and me content with a coffee – that I have to pretend it’s Murray sitting beside me. Until a couple of weeks ago, the very thought of anyone wrapping their arm behind my back or edging closer so that the inevitable brush of lips happened as naturally as breathing, would have scared the life out of me. But here it is, imminent, natural, beautiful, although for now I am sitting stiffly at one end of the sofa, while David watches me intently from the other. Does he see the panic in my eyes, or the hidden excitement?
‘That was a wonderful meal. Thank you.’ My vision of him cuts in and out of focus. I am so new to this, it terrifies me. One minute it’s David’s face staring back at me – talking about things I don’t hear – and the next it transforms into Murray.
There he is, reclined on the sofa as easily as if we were in our own living room. Just Murray. And that’s how it’s been as far back as I can remember. Only Murray. Together, properly, for the last twelve years, and friends for ever, there’s never been room for anyone else; never any need. Part of me, only a tiny part now, begs him not to leave, while the rest of me yells at him to get out of my life, to make way for someone I can count on, someone who doesn’t let me down time after time.