CHAPTER_FIFTY
Kevin wasn’t sure what to do.
He had spent most of the evening pottering. Bill and Rosie remained sound asleep on the sofa, backed by the constant stream of evening news. He had considered turning the TV over, or off, but he was worried that any change may wake them. Sometimes the slightest change in the atmosphere – a window being opened, a dog entering a room, a change in the weather – was enough to wake somebody.
And so the news continued, and Kevin busied himself around the house. It wasn’t easy. As Bill and Rosie had been practically under house arrest for thirty years, there was little that needed doing. Bill had seen to all the little jobs.
The kitchen drawers were immaculate. Neat and tidy. In the cupboards under the sink, cleaning products were all in neat, straight lines. Like soldiers. Half-empty bottles at the front, full at the back.
Food cupboards: tins aligned. Soup. Peaches. Rice pudding. Corned beef. All in order. All together. Best-before dates: soonest at the front, two years into the future near the back.
In the end, Kevin washed up the few cups and plates that were in the sink and wiped down the work surfaces. He made his way into Rosie and Bill’s room and tidied the photographs into a neat pile before placing them in Bill’s bedside cabinet. He closed the little door, leaving the girls in the dark.
And then, that was it.
There was nothing else to do.
Kevin then realised that he had nowhere to sleep. He wasn’t about to wake Bill and Rosie and ask them to go to bed. He also wasn’t going to get into their bed. Victoria’s room was out of the question.
He pushed open the door to Samantha’s room. Cool air escaped the room, which he took as an indication that this wasn’t the place to be. He took the blanket from the foot of the bed and immediately closed the door.
Moments later, he was asleep in Bill’s chair. Reclined to almost horizontal. Samantha’s blanket pulled up around his chin.
CHAPTER_FIFTY-ONE
You know this bit. We’ve been here before.
The conflicting energy of excitement for my flight to Lyon tomorrow and sadness for Kenneth are colliding spectacularly inside my body.
My feet are twitching and jumping, like fish on the deck of a trawler. I hold my arms close to my chest, pulling them tightly together, in an attempt to stop the feeling of electrification that runs through them.
This is going to be some night.
The door opens and Lisa comes in. It’s dark, but I can already tell that something is wrong. Lisa sniffs as she crosses the room and I wonder if it’s for my benefit. She climbs into bed alongside me and lies flat on her back. There is a gap in the curtains which allows me to see her grey outline in the damp- looking moonlight. She is staring at the ceiling with her hands clasped across her stomach. It is clear that she is not positioned ready for sleep.
“You okay?” I say, opting to force a conversation, rather than waiting for an endless train of Lisa’s sighs, getting gradually louder as she gets more frustrated.
Silence.
Saying how she feels has never been one of her strengths. I turn in bed to face her.
“Lisa?”
I see her head move slightly toward me.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really,” she says. Her voice suggests she is angry with me, but from experience I know that she is more likely angry with the fact she’s not okay.
“What’s up?”
“I don’t know.” She does.
“I don’t know,” she continues. “I suppose I’m just sad about this week.”
“About what?”
“Well, that it’s over. And, I don’t want it to be.” “How do you mean?”
“Even though they do my head in, it’s been lovely to have Mum and Dad here. Especially with them not knowing what’s up with Dad.”
I decide not to disclose what I know.
“And the kids have loved having you here.”
She shuffles down the bed so that our faces are about a foot apart. She reaches a hand across and rests it on my hip.
“And so have I,” she says.
I smile. Then I realise that her body is blocking the moonlight and she probably can’t see my face, so I say, “It’s been good.” “And” – she sniffles slightly – “I don’t want it to end. I don’t want you to go to Lyon. I want it to be just like it has been.”
She leans in and pecks me, half-catching the side of my mouth. Then she rolls over to face the window. “Night then,” she says.
“Night,” I say.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And at that moment, I do.
I really do.
I push my face deep into my pillow, allowing its softness to rise around my head like bread in a tin.
I close my eyes as my emotions fizz and explode, like fireworks going off inside my body, and yearn for sleep.
It’s four a.m.
I’ve listened to Lisa purr and lightly snore for the last four hours. She sounds so content. Every so often, she’ll roll over a full one hundred and eighty degrees and stretch her legs wide, like a pair of opened scissors. Then she’ll lie in that position until she flips back again.
I’ve never felt so lost than in the last four hours.
A large part of my mind is telling me that I am doing the right thing. I’ve dreamed about this moment for years and years and years. This is all I’ve wanted, and I have to tell myself that it is natural to feel the way that I do when such a life-changing moment is about to happen. I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t question myself, my decision for the future.
But I hadn’t expected the beginnings of doubt to creep in at the edges. Until this moment, I felt resolute. This is what I wanted. In fact, without this dream I’m not sure what I have left. It has been there through all the difficult times, popping up and reminding me that one day it would become a reality. And that one day is tomorrow.
And now, well…
friday 21st
CHAPTER_FIFTY-TWO
Too close to see far?
Lisa’s alarm wakes us both.
I jump slightly, realising that I must have fallen asleep at some stage, but the shock of waking tells me that however much sleep I’ve had, it isn’t enough.
I feel the covers loosen as Lisa rolls over and puts her arm around me. She fits her body behind me like the piece of a jigsaw and kisses my shoulder. A feeling of nausea rises up inside me.
The promise I made. Keeping it.
Breaking it.
I rest my hand on the back of her thigh and pull her closer to me. A part of me wants to tell her about Kenneth. To warn her there’s not long left. To make the best of what she has. And another part of me can’t tell her, because I made a promise to Kenneth. And because I won’t be here to help her through the time that is left. The time she probably needs me most. I lie for a few minutes, trying to process my thoughts. I feel her skin touching mine and our bodies as close as they could be and at this moment in time there’s no place I’d rather be.
“Well,” says Lisa, “I suppose you’d better start packing.” She wriggles away from me and turns on her bedside light. I see my suitcase, open but empty, against the bedroom wall.
“Yep,” I say, and pull myself into a sitting position. I rub my eyes. “What time is it?”
“It’s half eight,” Lisa says.
On that, we both freeze and stare straight ahead, listening intently. For a moment all is quiet, and then we hear Oscar’s infectious giggle coming from downstairs. Dina laughs too before we hear Hannah shushing them both.
Lisa reaches across the bed and smooths the back of my t-shirt with her hand. “Can’t you get out of it?”
I suppose I could , I think.
And then I wonder why I’m thinking this way.
I stand up, make my way across the room and switch on the light. Lisa pulls the covers over her head as if the brightness is hurting her eyes. I begin to take
boxer shorts and socks from the chest of drawers and sling them into the empty suitcase. Lisa reappears a moment later from beneath the covers and smiles.
“It’s only a few days,” she says. “I know,” I reply.
I go over to the wardrobe and remove three white shirts, one sky blue and one dark blue, and a maroon tie. I throw them on top of the other items in the case. Lisa notices my lack of effort and says that she’ll pack for me if I just tell her what I want to take. I swallow.
As she climbs from our bed, we are distracted by the sound of several doors opening and some of them closing again. The noises came from outside. We both pull confused faces, and
Lisa goes over to the curtains as she is the closest.
I watch her as she peels back a curtain and the greyness of the day outside enters the room. Her head moves slightly as she cranes her neck to get a view of what is happening. Then she turns to me and simply says, “Rich.”
I go over to the window and stand behind her, resting my chin lightly on the back of her head. Lisa has a certain unique smell. It’s hard to describe: slightly nutty, slightly woody with a vague hint of vanilla. It’s perfect. I could smell it all day.
Across the street, there are four vehicles parked outside the bungalow. The snow hasn’t fully melted, and so each vehicle is parked behind the last, as if they are on train tracks. At the front, there is a police car. Next, a paramedic. And behind that, slightly obscured by a large tree, are two dark-coloured vans. It takes me a moment to work out the wording on the side. It says: ‘PRIVATE AMBULANCE’.
I am momentarily confused, until I see people come out of door down the side of the bungalow. They are wearing green uniforms with bright-coloured tunics. They both turn back toward the door and wait. A second later, a silver frame comes out and they take it in their hands. They gingerly take small steps backwards as what I now recognise as a stretcher is fed outside to them. On top of the stretcher is a red blanket, the shape of a body beneath.
Lisa squeezes my hand.
I wait until the other end of the stretcher becomes visible.
Two men help it through the door. As it crosses the doorframe wheels are lowered from beneath it, and the foursome help it gently down the drive. I try to make out who is on the stretcher, but it is hard to see between the people and trees. It is only when it reaches the road, and the doors of the ambulance are opened, that I can see properly for the first time that something is missing.
I scan up and down the blanket and realise that what I am looking for isn’t there. The red blanket is the same at each end. There is no head. The body on the stretcher is covered entirely. The body on the stretcher is dead.
“Jesus,” I say.
Lisa turns and hugs me. She rests her head against my chest and I stroke her hair as the door to the ambulance is slammed shut.
She sniffs.
“Poor thing,” she says. “I wonder who it was?”
I shake my head. I suspect it was Bill who lay beneath the red blanket. And then I realise that I was almost definitely right, because in front of me a carbon copy of the situation we’ve just witnessed unfolds.
“Lisa, look,” I say quietly.
She turns just in time to see the second stretcher appear from the door of the bungalow. As the wheels drop from beneath it I can already see that the blanket covers both ends.
And then I see Kevin step from the door and lock it behind him. He is being comforted by a small policewoman who is doing her best to keep him upright. He follows the stretcher down the drive, using the heel of his hand to wipe his tears away. As he reaches the road he glances towards us and manages a brief smile before he climbs into the police car.
The sound of our bedroom door almost leaving its hinges and slamming against the wall makes Lisa and me jump.
The excited screams of “Daddy!” and “Mummy!” smash through the silence, and that’s when I fall.
I feel a vacuum, a suction of air through my ears, which makes me instantly dizzy.
My vision becomes blurred.
And like turning off an old television, where the picture disappears into one small spot in the centre of the screen, my brain powers off and I collapse to the floor.
CHAPTER_FIFTY-THREE
Everything all at once.
I am in the bath.
I can hear Lisa pottering about on the landing outside, and every few minutes she calls to make sure I am alright. That I haven’t silently slipped beneath the surface of the water. I’ve told her she needn’t worry. That there is nothing wrong with me.
After I unceremoniously hit the bedroom floor, Lisa rushed downstairs to get her parents and they all made a great fuss of me. They got me up off the floor and settled me on the bed, and Dina brought me a cup of tea. For the next hour or so, the whole family sat alongside me on the bed, watching me, making sure that I was okay.
There was some discussion about whether an ambulance should be called, but I insisted it wasn’t necessary. I knew that there was nothing wrong with me. I promised them that I would tell them if it happened again, and that I would definitely seek medical help. While I was making the promise I already knew that it would never happen again.
I turn the tap on with my big toe and my eyes follow the bathroom tiles which were pathways through Nevada or Utah or Ohio or Nebraska just a few hours before.
Of course, I had to agree with my family that I wouldn’t take the trip to Lyon after all. It would be too much of a worry for them. “What if you collapse when you’re there?” they asked me. I nodded in agreement. I knew that I wouldn’t, of course.
I sit forwards and turn the tap off again. Then I take the plastic cup from the side of the bath. I slowly capsize it beneath the surface, and enjoy the moment when the water floods over the lip of the cup, filling it almost instantly.
It reminds me of the feeling I had in the bedroom. Everything all at once.
Kenneth.
My plans.
My children.
My wife.
Bill.
His wife.
His children.
And, the years I have wasted standing at my window yearning to be looking out of someone else’s window. The not knowing what I am even wishing for. Finding out that the people I want to change places with have not lived at any time since their own time stopped thirty years before. That now their daughter has at last been found and the mystery is over, they can finally close their eyes and rest.
Permanently.
I consider that permanent rest is something that Bill and Rosie have likely waited for almost since the day that Samantha died.
And over the years their bodies have become older and harder to live inside, yet they’ve been driven on by the tiniest glimmer of hope which shone as brightly as a fairy light in the desert.
And I realise that for all the years that Bill has stood watching me and my family live, he has been yearning for our life. Grieving the life he never had. The grandchildren that were never born. The absent ones that made his house deathly quiet, day in, day out. Year after year.
And yet I have stood for hours on end wishing to be Bill and Rosie. Wishing for what they had based only on what I could see. My simple, misguided perception of their life. I eagerly agreed to swap my house, my family, my life without having the first idea what I would get in return.
It is no wonder that the impact of that realisation sent me crashing to the floor.
CHAPTER_FIFTY-FOUR
Close.
We are all sitting in the lounge.
The lights on the Christmas tree fade in and out slowly, reminding me of the afternoon I have just spent in bed. Asleep. Awake. Asleep. Awake.
Hannah and Oscar have just finished performing what can only very loosely be described as a ‘talent’ show. It involved Hannah singing Disney songs at an excruciating pitch, while Oscar backed the performance with a selection of burps and noises which he made using his right hand beneath his left armpit.
When they finis
hed we all clapped and Lisa raised her eyebrows at me. I smiled as the children leapt around the coffee table, punching the sky with jubilation. Dina stood and danced with them, high-fiving and whooping.
After a few minutes they rest on one another in an impromptu group huddle, exhausted. “That was awesome,” I say.
Hannah turns to me, panting. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Do you mean it?” she says, looking pleased with herself. “Uh-huh,” I nod.
“Really?” Oscar adds, puffing out his chest. “Yep, awesome.”
Dina puts her arms around their shoulders and tells them she will take them upstairs to “read as many stories as they like”.
They both cheer and Lisa offers to help get them into bed.
Kenneth receives a cuddle from them first, then they race across the room and throw themselves on top of me. I pull them both to my chest and kiss them on top of their heads. Their hair smells of marshmallow. As quickly as they landed on me, they both scramble back down my body and out of the door. The pull of unlimited stories is obviously far too great.
And then it is just the two of us. Me and Kenneth.
Before there is time to speak, the door opens slightly and Cliff wearily makes his way into the lounge. He looks up at me, then away, and then quickly back at me again. His eyes brighten and his oversized pink tongue falls from his mouth. He pulls the length of his body across my shins, then he turns and repeats the movement in the opposite direction. I reach down and stroke him, watching his tail wag frantically. When he finally settles down, his body completely covers both my feet.
“Someone’s pleased you’re still here, son,” Kenneth says.
I smile. I understand completely.
“In fact, I’m sure that everyone’s pleased you’re still here.” “So am I,” I say.
Kenneth closes his eyes and smiles. Then he nods slowly, the very slightest of movements. A confirmation that he can now rest.
Drift Stumble Fall Page 21