My Husband the Stranger

by Rebecca Done

  But I decide not to take issue with it right now. ‘But I don’t have any disposable income, Gray. Everything’s tied up in the cottage and the renovation. I haven’t had a meal out with Molly for months. We agreed not to buy each other birthday presents this year. She’s been trekking back and forward to London for work …’ I trail off, because I know that from Graeme’s perspective, these probably seem like pretty minor problems. I only just resist the urge to remind him I haven’t told Molly about the money I’ve lent him, that I could have spent that two grand spoiling her rotten.

  And then it occurs to me. ‘That’s why you invited me down this weekend, isn’t it? You didn’t want to see me, or spend time with me. You wanted money.’ I feel so wounded, so idiotic and gullible, I could almost cry.

  Graeme doesn’t reply.

  Suddenly, I feel really furious. ‘You know, Gray, you do shitty things and I let them slide because I love you, and now I’m thinking –’

  ‘Shitty things?’ he repeats. ‘What do I ever do to you, other than let you get on with your perfect life?’

  In an instant, I snap. ‘How about sleeping with my ex-girlfriend?’

  This stops him short, and it takes him a moment or two to recall how to brazen it out, which he does with eventual ease. He even shrugs. ‘It was nothing. A fling. You don’t even like her. I don’t even like Nicola, for God’s sake! It’s over, it meant nothing.’

  ‘Right. But you and me both know that exes are off-limits.’

  Instead of looking chastened, Graeme lets slip a loose laugh and shakes his head. ‘Yeah? What about girls your brother really likes?’

  I stare up at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. You did a shitty thing to me once too, Alex, and I let it slide because I love you. So you could say we’re square.’

  I know exactly what he’s talking about. We skirted around the issue one night three years ago, when I first told him about me and Molly, but never since.

  ‘You’ve always thought you were better than me,’ he says now.

  ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘Yeah, it is. Since Mum, you believed what everyone was telling you. That you were the good twin, and I was the bad one.’

  ‘That is complete bollocks,’ I insist angrily, ‘and you know it. Nobody ever said that to me, and if they had I wouldn’t have believed it.’

  But it’s as if I haven’t even spoken. ‘Better than me, and entitled.’

  ‘Entitled to what?’

  ‘Molly, for one. You thought you deserved Molly, not me. You thought you were better than me, the one-night-stand merchant. That I wasn’t even capable of falling in love.’

  ‘Gray,’ I remind him, ‘you went outside to call Rhiannon that night. And you were sleeping around so much back then …’

  ‘So you thought you’d swoop in and save her from me? What a gent.’

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that. I told you – I bumped into her later. It was just chance.’

  ‘Do you know what I thought, when I saw Molly at the bar that night?’

  ‘No,’ I say, because I’m not sure I want to.

  ‘I thought she was incredible. And when I spoke to Rhi, I told her I’d met someone else.’

  Slightly premature, I think but don’t dare to say.

  ‘Maybe Molly could have been the love of my life.’

  ‘You thought that about every girl you met back then.’

  ‘Okay, Alex. You just keep telling yourself that.’

  I’ve stopped feeling cold now. Instead my skin is prickling with uncomfortable warmth. ‘I mean, what are you saying – that you still like her?’

  ‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous,’ he snaps.

  ‘Then why the hell are we even having this conversation? What’s the point?’

  A pause expands between us like a cat stretching out before going in for the kill.

  ‘You got everything,’ he says. ‘Dad’s love, the cottage, Molly. And what have I got?’

  I climb up to reach him then, face him in my boxers, both of us on the wide halfway landing of the staircase.

  ‘Graeme, your name’s on the cottage deeds now. We’re square. And you had money, you had it when you sold your flat. You could be on the other side of the world right now, having the time of your life! But instead you’ve ended up here and blown it all on drugs and God knows what else, and still you want to blame me! Still it’s my fault!’

  ‘Well, if the cottage is half mine … I want to sell,’ he says then.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t want it to come to this, but … I want to sell it. I’ve changed my mind. I need the money now.’

  ‘What? We can’t, we can’t sell it!’

  ‘Yes, we can. We call an estate agent, and we sell it.’

  ‘And Molly and I … we do what? Live where?’

  But we both know this isn’t about the practicalities of where any of us live. Outside, the rain hammers relentlessly as a ball of thunder rumbles back and forth somewhere high in the sky.

  ‘Do what everyone else does and find somewhere to rent. Or use your half of the money and buy a flat!’

  ‘Graeme, I’m not going to sell the cottage just so you can squander it all. I’m absolutely not going to destroy everything Molly and I have just so you can blow tens of thousands of –’

  He interrupts me before I can finish. ‘Well, you might not have a choice now, since I own half.’

  ‘You’d do this to me?’ I am quite literally stunned. ‘I put your name on the deeds last week in good faith, and now you’re quite happy to see Molly and me lose our home …’

  Graeme’s voice is dark and cold. ‘So you’d put Molly before me?’

  I regret the impulsive words that follow before they’ve even left my mouth. ‘In a heartbeat.’

  The flat fills with a silence so bitter I can almost taste it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I gasp, my eyes filling with tears. ‘You know I didn’t mean that, Gray. You’re my brother, I love you …’

  I take a step forward then, try to put my arms round him, but in reaction he gives me a sharp, bitter shove.

  It sends me toppling backwards like a stone kicked from a cliff edge.

  In the seconds before I pass out – as I crash-land on the floor below, my head splitting neatly open on the corner of the cast-iron coffee table – I feel two things. First, the sensation of fluid lurching violently inside my brain. I feel it, swirling somewhere around the back of my head. And then comes the pain – intense and unrelenting, unfurling like a flower being brutally awoken, dazzled into action by a blast of bright light.

  I can’t move, so I stay just where I am, helpless as the blood leaves my head, a merciless red river breaking its dam across Graeme’s floorboards.

  I think, if I was looking down on myself, it might look almost beautiful.

  From somewhere high above me, I can hear the rain pounding, pounding against the untouchable roof of this vast apartment.

  I hope Graeme helps me. I hope he forgets we’ve had a fight, because after all, family is family, and that’s what matters.

  He starts to scream my name, and I can vaguely make out the shape of him squatting down next to me. Which is good, because knowing he’s got this means I can finally shut my eyes.

  Molly’s name is the last thing I say as the blackness swallows me whole.

  Then again, I might not have said it at all. The mind can play tricks on you like a true motherfucker.

  Epilogue

  Molly – eighteen months later

  ‘Sold three,’ Alex tells me when I ask, slinging his bag down on the counter.

  ‘Three? That’s fantastic!’ Mum exclaims. ‘Which ones?’

  Alex tries to recall. ‘Er … dunno.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say quickly, from where I am washing up. ‘You did incredibly well.’

  ‘He did,’ Dad says, coming in behind Alex. ‘Chatting away, weren’t you? Oh, and what was the best bit?’

&nbs
p; Alex looks blank, then shrugs.

  ‘He got another commission!’

  ‘Alex, that’s fantastic!’ I rush over to him, and even though my hands are soaked and sudsy, throw my arms round him. He stiffens for a moment before reciprocating, after which I hold him for just a little longer before letting him squirm away.

  When we first got to London, Alex took to ambling around the local streets and parks with my dad. It was great for both of them – Dad for his overall health and fitness, Alex for clearing his mind. Occasionally he’d take his sketchbook with him, and with Dad’s encouragement began to sketch buildings and landscapes, people he saw, street scenes. The two of them head out together pretty much every day around the same time as I leave for work, and it warms my heart to see them setting off side by side, rarely talking but enjoying their quiet companionship. Alex isn’t under pressure to speak to anyone or particularly concentrate on anything, but if there’s something on his mind, Dad’s there. Plus, he likes the routine.

  Once he’d built up a modest portfolio of sketches, Dad encouraged him to exhibit at the church. There was a small amount of interest in his work, and a few commissions started trickling in, at first from Dad’s friends and acquaintances but eventually from people we’d never met before. Then the pair of them began visiting the occasional craft fair, Alex got some business cards made up, Charlie helped him set up a website, and slowly, incrementally, he began to achieve some small successes. It doesn’t bring in much, and it was never about the money, but the difference it has made to his self-esteem, skill development and wellbeing has been immeasurable.

  Having Dad by his side for so many of his trips out has negated my fears about him coping in London too. Yes, he finds the traffic and the volume of people challenging, but that’s offset by the fact that he has so much to occupy his mind. He and Dad have even joined a gym together, and they potter off there a couple of times a week to go swimming and use the treadmills. As Mum pointed out the other day, they’re like an old married couple. It’s just so sweet. My dad seems to emit the right kind of energy not to rile Alex up; it happens occasionally, of course, but Dad’s a master at dealing with it – primarily because very little fazes him. Every day I feel grateful for the fact he’s so mellow.

  And if I was worried about Alex being isolated after moving here, I needn’t have been. Charlie and Darren visit all the time – any excuse for a trip to the big smoke – and a fortnight ago Eve, Tom, Isla, George and baby Bea came to stay. Only last night Sarah, Phoebe and Craig (now newly engaged) joined us for a big family feast; Alex cooked fajitas (under Mum’s expert guidance), which were a huge – if somewhat messy – success. Most weekends, Mum and Dad pop into the annexe for breakfast with us – pancakes, cooked by Alex, drowned in maple syrup and butter. We’re all in agreement that they taste even better than they used to. Next on Alex’s list of culinary challenges is home-made croissants, just for Dad.

  According to Eve, Nicola packed up and left Norfolk for good a few weeks after we did. Rumour has it she’s moved to America to try and make it big in celebrity personal training; there was even talk of a contract on a big-budget film set. I can’t say I was sorry to hear she’d gone, or even that I wished her well – some things my goodwill just can’t stretch to.

  Alex and I are still doing up the cottage bit by bit, and we’ve finally completed enough rooms to enable us to get Kevin’s stuff out of storage and back into the house, which has freed up a surprising amount of extra cash for me each month.

  Mum and Dad started work on the annexe before we moved back, so in the end we only had to spend a couple of months living on the top floor of the main house while the work was finished. We helped with the decorating, and Alex even suggested a picture he drew of the two of us should take pride of place on the living-room wall.

  It’s small – just a bedroom, kitchen, living room and bathroom – and it took a while for Alex to get used to it, but we also have a curious sensation of space, since Mum and Dad’s garden is so large and well-maintained, and the door to their house is always open. It’s somewhere for him (or me) to run to if things get heated, which was one of my main concerns before we moved.

  Today, for example, didn’t start out too well. We fought fiercely over a glass in the kitchen that Alex smashed last night then neglected to clear up; my feet are still stinging, oozing blood from where I stepped on stray shards. And only last week he grabbed me too hard by the arm, making a purple bruise bloom under the skin. His volatility still scares me, so I have finally, after many months of cajoling, persuaded him to return to a neuropsychologist once a week. His unpredictability remains and always will, but with the psychologist’s help I am far more able to roll with it. I’m even managing to pay for it myself, thanks to the money coming in from my new (old) job. And with the help of my new GP, I was able to find my own counsellor, as well as a weekly local carers’ group – both a huge support.

  Working back at the agency has felt like a dream. I look forward to going, I enjoy being there, and I love the work, people and environment even more than I did before, if that’s possible. Our disposable income has rocketed, and I even get to enjoy free lattes while I work. I make the most of every lunch hour, idly trawling the shops, rediscovering London, making small thoughtful purchases for Alex that I know he’ll like – a new polo shirt (still an obsession), a new paintbrush, a sketchpad when his is getting full.

  One of the best things about working back at the agency is that, against all odds, I still get to work with Dave. Sarah recruited again soon after I joined, and since Dave was dating someone new by this point who fortuitously enough hailed from London, I was able to recommend him. So we now work together once more. He visits Alex and me often, and has taken to trawling garden centres with my mum on Sunday afternoons to stock up on pot plants for his balcony garden, which Alex inexplicably finds to be hilarious.

  So for most of the working week I get to pretend that my life is no different to anyone else’s, and although evenings and weekends can still be a struggle, I am far better equipped to deal with them now. I have options, room to breathe, hope for the future.

  We’re even going on holiday in a couple of weeks, the four of us. After an unexpectedly successful long weekend in France earlier this year, Alex read about a place in the Maldives called the Sea of Stars that he’s now fixated on visiting. On moonless nights, plankton in the ocean reacts to oxygen, causing bioluminescence, which makes the water glow. Mum and Dad have holidayed a little closer to home in the years since their retirement, so our long-haul trip is big news among their friends and the church community. It seems like half of Clapham might be turning up at the airport to see us off.

  So maybe that long-held dream to start a new life abroad isn’t completely dead. We’ve relocated to London, after all, which may as well have been a foreign country to Alex when we first made the move.

  I’ll always miss my old Alex, the husband I never got the chance to say goodbye to, but I was wrong to assume I knew what was best for him. Because the point is that I never even really asked, and I’m so glad I finally did. The thing about Alex is, no matter what happens, he always has the capacity to surprise. And whether that’s in a good way or a bad, I never really know what’s round the corner. Yes, our marriage has been put under the most unbelievable strain since his accident – but it’s also been something of an adventure, and that’s what I’m determined to look forward to in all the years we have ahead of us.

  And Graeme? We’ve heard hardly anything. Three postcards, and the occasional email to Alex. He steers clear of social media, which is wise, given Alex would probably never be off it if he knew his brother was only a click away. He didn’t adapt as well as I’d initially hoped to Graeme taking off, but ultimately, I knew it was best for all of us.

  On occasion, when things have been stressful with Alex, I have wavered over emailing Graeme and asking him to jump on the first plane out of wherever he is, but I have always managed to resist, and now I’
m glad I have. I was right about needing space: I’m not sure what would have happened to us all, had we not had the opportunity to breathe.

  I never told Mum or Dad what Graeme had told me. I never told anyone other than Eve. I knew that if I did, we’d never have the fresh start we all so urgently needed.

  ‘Graeme’s back,’ Mum says to me one evening about a week before our holiday, when I get home from work.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s out there, with Alex.’ She nods towards the garden. ‘Brilliant, isn’t it? He’s back.’

  I dart across to the patio door, and there he is, just like that – sitting at the end of the lawn, head thrown back and eyes shut, drinking in the last of the daylight while Alex chatters away next to him.

  On seeing Alex I smile, because he’s wearing his jacket again – the one he lent me on the very first night we met. I unearthed it from its hiding place when we moved in, and he’s barely had it off his back since.

  He remembered, you see. He remembered lending it to me, that I took it home with me in a black cab.

  When I handed it back, it was like I was presenting him with a tiny part of his old self.

  I leave them to it for the next couple of hours until I see Alex head back inside the annexe, presumably to go to bed. So I make my way cautiously down the length of Mum’s lawn to the bottom of the garden.

  It is dark now, and all the stars are out. I think about Kevin, about the constellations that he loved, and Alex’s theory that he is up there somewhere hand in hand with Julia, looking down on us both.

  Graeme only raises his head at the last moment, and when he does, he makes a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Alex told me,’ he says. ‘Congratulations.’

  I am six months pregnant. So his timing is, in many ways, ideal.

  ‘How are you?’ I ask him, smiling.

  ‘I’m … I’m pretty great, Moll.’ He nods. ‘Yeah – pretty great.’

  And he looks it too – bronzed, slimmer, healthier. And, crucially, happier.

  ‘Tell me everything,’ I say, sitting down next to him on Alex’s empty chair.