The Things We Promise

by J. C. Burke

  Now Mum and Mr and Mrs C were clapping along too. ‘Gemma! Gemma!’ everyone started to chant. Aunty Penny did one of her ear-piercing whistles through her fingers.

  So up I got. Can you believe it? There I was standing in the middle of the living room, next to Billy’s bed, about to break into a dance I’d never done without Andrea. ‘I can’t do all the moves because Andrea’s not here,’ I called. Really what I meant was, Can I sit down? I don’t know if I can do this on my own and I feel like an idiot – and standing over there is the boy I like!

  ‘No excuses!’ Billy shouted. ‘Come on or the song will be finished.’

  Mum, Billy, Aunty Penny, Ralph, Louise and Mr and Mrs C started singing and bopping away. So off I went.

  Bum to hip rotation. Spin. Bum out. Bum in. Spin. Tap hand on the ground. Arms up. Arms down. Spin. Bum to hip rotation. Down on the floor. Three push-ups. Bum to hip rotation. Arms up. Arms down. Spin.

  I was laughing my head off. So was everyone else. Louise was still clapping. Aunty Penny and Mrs C were trying to copy my moves, while Mr C kept slapping his wife on the bum. Ralph was over at the radio, red in the face like he was about to keel over from laughter. And Mum and Billy were wearing the biggest smiles I’d seen in a long, long time.

  30

  8 days to formal

  SUNDAY WAS STILL CLEANING DAY. MUM was busy with my dress so I offered to do the vacuuming after the bathroom was finished. Billy was sitting on the couch. I’d noticed he’d stopped playing with the Rubik’s Cube.

  ‘I just have to vacuum in here,’ I told him.

  ‘I’ll watch.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘There’s a whole lot of cannoli flakes over there.’ Billy pointed. ‘I was scared the rats were going to pay me a visit last night.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you made me dance yesterday,’ I said. ‘And in front of Ralph!’

  ‘He told me he’d already seen you do it.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was with Andrea.’

  ‘Lately, you’ve been doing lots of things without Andrea. Probably more things than you ever could’ve imagined.’

  I shrugged, pushing that thought away, at least for now.

  The cannoli flakes weren’t disappearing. Every time I ran the vacuum back and forth over them, I looked down and they were still there. ‘Something’s wrong with this stupid thing. It’s not picking anything up.’ I turned the vacuum off.

  ‘I bet you haven’t emptied the bag,’ Billy said. ‘Try that and see if it works better.’ I mimicked his words silently when he wasn’t looking because it was all right for him sitting up on the couch giving orders. ‘Open it up and see if it’s full.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m about to. I don’t have ten hands, sergeant!’

  The bag was stuffed. Full of little strips of multicoloured material: the offcuts from our T-shirt afternoon, all those weeks ago.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said, showing Billy a handful. ‘There’s a bit of Vanessa’s Wham! top. That’s been turning up everywhere.’

  ‘Bring it over here.’

  ‘What? The bag?’

  ‘No. What you have in your hand. I’ve just had an idea.’

  I presented Billy with my palms, loaded up with every coloured fabric imaginable, in every size and shape.

  Billy began to pick pieces out of my hands. He’d give them a shake then hold them up, studying them for a second before saying either ‘yes’ and putting them on the couch next to him, or saying ‘no’ and placing them back into my hand. For a second, the thought of the cat disease made my heart skip several hundred beats.

  But then Billy said, ‘I want you to do something for me, Gem. Actually, it’s not just for me.’ Then he patted the seat next to him and told me to sit down. ‘Have you heard of The Names Project?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s this giant quilt with a whole lot of names on it. People sew these huge squares in honour of one of their friends or family members who’ve died of AIDS. And then a whole lot of panels get sewn together and it becomes a quilt and then that quilt gets sewn onto the next piece and on and on it goes. The first one that was made was displayed in Washington a few years back and it took up the size of football field.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Incredible, hey? It’s pretty much a hundred times the size of it now. That’s a lot of loved people.’

  ‘So, so …’ My eyes were closed as I tried to work out the meaning behind Billy’s words to find the answer that I already knew. When I opened them, Billy was looking at me, copying my screwed-up nose, the way he loved to. ‘What?’ I smiled.

  ‘This is what you look like when you’re thinking,’ he teased. ‘You’re lucky your nose isn’t like this all the time because you do so bloody much of it!’

  ‘Stop trying to make me laugh,’ I told him. ‘This is serious.’

  ‘You’re right.’ And only then did he let his nose relax. ‘I’d love it if you could make a panel for me and Saul. One each. And I was thinking that maybe you’d like to do one for Zane as well? I know you hate sewing. But I thought you might make an exception because I’ve been such a fabulous brother and you love me so much!’

  Billy explained that the panel was made up of things that reminded you of that person and told other people something about who they were. He told me Aunty Mame knew all about what size they had to be and where to take them when they were finished.

  ‘What do you want on yours?’ I asked.

  ‘You could start with these.’ He held up three strips of fabric. ‘This one’s from my Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirt and this is my old favourite Hanes one,’ he said, handing me the material. Then he passed me a fluoro green piece. ‘I know this one’s Vanessa’s but I always wanted a Wham! T-shirt.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, staring at the beginnings of Billy’s panel. ‘I’ll do it. I promise.’

  ‘I knew you would.’

  ‘Oh, Billy.’ I couldn’t help it. I started crying. I curled up under my brother’s wing that was now like a scrawny old rooster’s. But still felt as safe as it ever had.

  On Thursday night, I woke up with a start. Almost like one of those people in the movies, who sit bolt upright in their bed. One second I was sound asleep and the next I was wide awake.

  I could hear the hiss of the oxygen in the living room. Apart from that, everything was quiet. Except for the occasional creak of Billy trying to get comfortable in the bed.

  It was weeks since I’d rung my father’s work. I still wondered if the message had actually reached him. If he’d tried to call. Maybe they didn’t have phones on these boats for him to call back? Or maybe he’d just decided not to?

  Ralph and I didn’t talk about it much. I think maybe Ralph was starting to understand that Dad wasn’t going to just walk in the door and save the day with some dad jokes.

  There was more noise coming from the living room. A moan of the mattress, something that sounded like Billy sighing, and then a hollow clunk, as though a cup’d been knocked over on his bedside table.

  I wandered in there, poking my head around the doorway, saying, ‘Are you okay? Do you need anything?’

  ‘Can you get me some water?’ Billy’s voice was so soft I could barely hear him.

  ‘You want some water?’ I asked, walking over to the bed.

  Billy nodded.

  I took the jug off his bedside table and went and filled it up in the kitchen.

  Mum had forgotten to turn her sewing lamp off and from the sink I could see Neuta. My formal dress was finally finished. The gold braid that had been fitted around the heart-shaped bodice sparkled against the black velvet like tiny stars in a night sky. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. Much more beautiful than the picture on the fridge.

  In four days’ time, Ralph and I would be walking into the school hall together. I was unsure how much of my hair and make-up Billy would be able to do. He’d told me his hand was still steady, but he was weaker and smaller by the second.
It was like watching someone shrink right in front of your face.

  Louise knew that too. Today at school she’d said to me, ‘Mum said she can do my make-up if it’s too much for Billy. He’s taught me a fair bit anyway.’

  ‘I know Billy will still want to try.’ Then I added, ‘That’s if you still want him to. I understand if you don’t.’ If it was hard for me, his sister, to look at him without feeling physically sick in the stomach, then I imagined it must be even harder for Louise. Let alone Andrea who hadn’t seen him since he’d been back home. She wouldn’t even know he was the same person.

  I took the jug back to the living room and poured Billy a cup. As I passed it to him, he shook his head and whispered, ‘Can you hold it for me?’

  I held the glass to his lips while he thirstily slurped at the water. It made him cough. He had to keep stopping, catching his breath before he could go back for more.

  ‘My dress is finished,’ I told him. ‘Mum has really outdone herself this time.’

  Billy lay back into the pillows and smiled. Then I realised he wasn’t just smiling, his lips were moving – he was trying to say something.

  I leaned in, close to his face, and I thought I heard him say, ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘My dress?’ I asked him. ‘You want to see it now?’

  Billy nodded.

  ‘Okay. I’ll carry Neuta in here. Hang on.’

  He shook his head. Then swept his hands down his body and pointed at me.

  ‘You want me to put it on?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay. Bit weird in the middle of the night. But hey, why not?’

  Then Billy pinched his earlobes and pointed to me again.

  ‘You want me to put the earrings on too?’

  He gave me the thumbs-up sign.

  ‘You are a weirdo!’

  I unzipped the dress off Neuta and took it to my room. Putting on the lace stockings was a bit of overkill at 2 a.m. But I would do the rest.

  Out of my cupboard I took my black patent leather stilettos with the tiny black bow on the toes from the shoebox that I kept them in. I took off my pyjamas, stepped into the dress, slipped my feet into the shoes and, with a bit of puffing and panting, managed to do the zip up behind me. Then I carefully lifted Saul’s earrings out of their Christian Lacroix box and fixed them to my earlobes.

  I finished with a quick brush of my hair then tottered off to Mum’s workroom to check myself out. From the waist up I was pretty happy with what I could see.

  I didn’t want to wake Mum up so I slipped my stilettos off and tiptoed to the living room before I put them on again. Then I leaned into the doorway, running my hands up the walls, trying to do my best movie star pose. ‘What do you think?’

  Billy silently applauded. Then he beckoned me over, spinning his finger, telling me to turn around. He gave another thumbs up.

  ‘Can’t you talk?’ I asked, sitting by his bed where the heater was because I was beginning to freeze. ‘Is the thrush making your throat hurt again?’

  He shook his head. ‘Too tired,’ he murmured. Then he held out his hand and I felt the cool of his fingertips against my skin.

  I swallowed, the spit almost catching in my throat. I remembered this feeling.

  Billy smiled at me and mouthed, ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered.

  It was cosy next to the bed with the heater warming my legs. That plus the slow, even snore of Billy’s breath, lured me away. Gradually I nodded off into one of those deep sleeps that feels like it’s lasted for hours even though it’s probably only been minutes.

  When I opened my eyes, Billy was watching me.

  ‘I can’t stay awake,’ I whispered. He smiled.

  I fell asleep again. I don’t know for how long, but it must’ve been a while because Mum was standing over the chair, shaking my shoulders and saying my name, over and over. ‘Gem? Gemma? Gemma!’

  It took me a second to register where I was and then what I was wearing. And why were my stilettos on the floor next to me?

  But then I became aware of the sound that must’ve woken Mum. The long, deep Darth Vader breathing, that Anna had told me was called the ‘death rattle’.

  Mum and I didn’t speak. We simply nodded at one another and then she went and took her spot over on the other side of the bed.

  I wrapped my fingers back around Billy’s hand. It was cold. Cold like Zane’s had been. Now I understood. This is what my mother had meant when she said, ‘No one should have to do this twice.’ Zane had been my dress rehearsal. That’s why my mother had been so furious.

  But part of me was glad that I had been given a chance to rehearse because now I understood how the scene would play out. I understood that there was nothing to be frightened of – except the silence.

  Mum and I sat there quietly while the traffic up the highway began its hum. Then the sun rose, spilling its golden shards of light into the living room, warming us enough that we could have turned the heater off. Except that we couldn’t bring ourselves to, because Billy’s skin was so cold.

  The tears were streaming down my face. Some of them I was swallowing. Others just kept running until they were soaked up by the black velvet of my dress.

  Billy’s breaths had become louder and longer. I found myself starting to breathe with him. Holding each breath so that it’d blow out at the same time as his. The break between one breath and the next kept growing. I’d keep the air in my mouth, waiting and waiting for his to let go, so I could let mine go too and at last feel my chest collapse with relief.

  Finally, when my brother stopped breathing, I did too. That’s when I knew. And that’s when the silence came.

  A sunny morning in November, when I was wearing my black velvet formal dress and my gold Christian Lacroix earrings, my brother, Billy, died.

  31

  BILLY’S FUNERAL WAS THE DAY OF THE formal. It was small. Maybe only about thirty people, but that was how Billy wanted it to be. Mum said Vanessa and Ralph could come. They stayed quietly in the background. But every time I looked up, Ralph was watching me.

  Billy’s coffin was covered with white roses from Jonathon’s garden in the country. The photo on the back cover of the funeral booklet was the one of Uncle Roddy and Billy.

  Aunty Mame, in a wide-brimmed black hat with a veil, sang ‘Ave Maria’. I swear every tissue box was empty after that.

  Aunty Penny did a short reading. Jonathon spoke about Billy’s career. Then Mum finished Billy’s farewell exactly the way he would’ve wanted. My mother was like a brave warrior woman. I watched her in total awe because there was no way I could have got up and spoken.

  Mum started with stories about Billy growing up and then went on to his swimming career. But she left the best story for the end. She told us all how much Billy and Saul loved one another. Quietly she wept between words, taking a break when she needed it.

  ‘When Billy told me he was going to stay in New York and move into Saul’s apartment, I was worried, like any mother would be,’ she said. ‘Your child, thousands of miles away, changing their life for someone – what if they’re not the one and then your child gets their heart broken?

  ‘So one morning I woke up and just picked up the phone and rang Billy. I couldn’t even wait for the cheaper night rate because I had this burning question for him.

  ‘I said, “Billy, can you imagine your life without Saul?” I still remember Billy’s answer, word for word.

  ‘For those of you who knew him well, you’ll know why, because my son wasn’t a flowery talker. I also remember his words because it was my son who taught me that morning what real love should and could be.

  ‘This is what Billy said. “Mum, it’d feel like half my limbs had disappeared or that I was suddenly just a shadow and not a whole person. That’s how much I love Saul. I can’t even bear to think of my life without him because it wouldn’t be worth a thing.” ’

  Mum hadn’t finished. But she needed a long pause before
she could start again.

  ‘The next words Billy said to me’ – Mum started weeping – ‘were, “Sorry, Mum.” I couldn’t work out why he said sorry to me because there was nothing more wonderful than to hear that your child had found such love.

  ‘It’s only in these past few months that I have begun to understand what that sorry meant.’ Mum stopped again. Her eyes were closed and she pressed a tissue against her mouth.

  I stood up and walked over to my mother. I had to be there next to her, not just so I could put my arm around her. But also because together, Mum and I were Billy’s family.

  Mum took a moment then kept going. ‘When Saul died’ – she swallowed – ‘I knew that Billy wouldn’t want to hang around for long. And as much as that hurts his sister and me, and as much as we’ll never stop missing him, I, as his mother, understand that that’s how it was always going to be.’

  We had tea and chicken sandwiches in the hall next to the crematorium. Vanessa and Ralph had also brought a plate of cupcakes with the pink and chocolate icing.

  Billy’s friends came up and kissed us and told us what a good guy he was. Aunty Penny handed around a book, asking everyone to sign it. Mr and Mrs C were busy collecting the flowers that people had brought and arranging them into the back seat of the Fiat.

  I had that zombie feeling back again. Watching everyone as though I was a stranger loitering on the outskirts of a person’s funeral who I didn’t know too well.

  I couldn’t feel my lips moving, yet I could hear myself saying things like, ‘Yes, thank you. He was a great guy. Yes, I’ll miss him so much.’

  Aunty Mame snapped me out of my zombie trance, kissing me on both cheeks the way she always did, French style.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ I asked.

  ‘I have to run, darling,’ she told me. ‘There’s a young boy who’s just arrived from the country last night. He’s as sick as a dog, so I’ll have to go and sort him out.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘The show must go on, Gemma,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that you’re missing out on your formal tonight. Bill was so excited about doing his baby sister’s hair and make-up. Only a few weeks ago he was driving Jonathon crazy trying to hunt down the right lipstick for you.’