Say You Love Me

by Marion Husband

  Simon laughed harshly. ‘Yes. When you both first came to us Ben used to tell me that. For months the only time he could bring himself to speak to me was to boast about how wonderful Danny was.’ Shaking his head he said, ‘That bicycle! I never heard the last of it!’

  ‘But he really believed that Danny would buy him it –’

  ‘Perhaps he only wanted to believe.’

  ‘But it’s still the difference between us – what we expected from him.’ Flatly he said, ‘He loved him. He loved Danny and he hated me.’

  ‘Mark, he was just a little boy trying to make sense of what had happened to him. He was bound to be angry–ۥ

  ‘Bound to be.’

  ‘Don’t be childish, Mark. Don’t pretend you don’t understand that Ben suffered too. And he didn’t hate you. Of course not.’ Stiffly, Simon got to his feet. ‘I’m off to bed. I think you should get off, too. Get a good night’s sleep – it’s a long drive back tomorrow.’

  ‘You really want me to go?’

  ‘I think it would be best, if you won’t talk to your brother I can’t see the point of you staying.’

  ‘But I came to see you, not to talk to him.’

  ‘Well, all right. But in the circumstances perhaps now is not the best time.’ About to leave the room, he turned on him. ‘I’m still angry with you, Mark! So angry that sometimes it’s hard for me to be in the same room with you! There – I’ve said it! You will just have to bear with me.’ He sat down. ‘Dear God, I feel old! I’ve lived too long.’

  Mark stepped towards him. Cautiously he said, ‘Please forgive me, Dad.’

  Simon raised his head. ‘Why, Mark? How will my forgiveness help us?’ After a moment he said, ‘May I ask you something? Did you love Susan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It wasn’t revenge?’

  To his shame, Mark began to cry. Simon watched him impassively. At last he handed him a handkerchief. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘dry your eyes. Go to bed. It seems to me you need your sleep.’

  Susan said, ‘Hi, I’m Susan Day. You’re Mark, yes? Ben’s brother?’

  In the single bed he’d slept in as a child, Mark remembered how Susan had thrust out her hand to him, a surprisingly masculine gesture. Her handshake was firm, she smiled that amused smile of hers that always seemed on the edge of mockery. Her long, blonde hair was loose around her bare shoulders and she wore some kind of corset, tightly laced so that her breasts were pushed together and her tiny waist was emphasised. The short skirt she wore showed off her long tanned legs and in her three-inch heels she was as tall as he was. She looked him in the eye and seemed to weigh him up in a moment. Her smile became knowing. Touching his arm lightly, she said, ‘You write, Ben tells me?’

  She had made him sound like a dilettante. He’d laughed. Looking towards his brother on the other side of the room he said, ‘What else did Ben tell you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Ben began to weave his way through the press of their parents’ friends until he stood at Susan’s side. He slipped his arm around her waist and hugged her to him, kissing the side of her head before holding out his hand to Mark.

  ‘Mark. How are you? Sue’s introduced herself?’

  It was Joy and Simon’s wedding anniversary. Helium-filled balloons were tied to the dining room chairs and bobbed together as though imitating the party guests. Cards crowded the mantelpiece and sideboard and the remains of the buffet littered the table, although the cake was still to be cut. Bottles of champagne waited in the fridge. Ben jerked his head at the cake.

  ‘Do you think Dad will make a speech?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ben groaned. Laughing he said, ‘Sue, Dad adores making speeches! He used to make speeches at our birthday parties, for pity’s sake!’

  He couldn’t remember seeing Ben look so animated, so less like his usual cool self. It was as though Susan Day gave off an electrical charge that had his proud, ironic brother twitching like a gauche boy. Ben shifted from one foot to the other; he drew Susan closer and kissed her shoulder. He laughed. Mark almost put a hand on his arm to steady him. Instead he took out his cigarettes and offered him one.

  At once Ben said, ‘I’ve given up.’

  Mark lit his own cigarette. Exhaling smoke he said, ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Susan persuaded me.’

  He looked at the woman who had entwined her arm around Ben’s. She looked back at him steadily. It seemed to him that she was willing him to be quiet and accept that his brother was now under her control.

  In the room he’d slept in as a child, Mark lay on his back, half undressed, unable to be bothered to finish the job and resign himself to bed. He’d folded his trousers over the back of the Lloyd Loom chair that had always stood in this bedroom. He’d washed and brushed his teeth at the sink in the corner; he’d wondered about taking one of the sleeping pills he’d bought. The pills hardly seemed to work, only left him feeling groggy the following day. He believed they stopped his dreams, though, or at least lessened their vividness and made them less disturbing. Running the cold tap until the water was freezing, he’d filled a glass and washed two tablets down his throat.He’d left the lamp on and the room was full of shadows. Opposite the bed was the wardrobe, something else that had lived in this room long before he had. When he was a child the wardrobe had been cavernous enough for him to hide in. He remembered its close smell of mothballs and varnished wood; he’d realised that it would be the first place Danny would look when he came to drag him home, but all the same he liked its quiet and darkness. Besides, wherever he hid, his discovery would be inevitable. Danny didn’t give up.

  Mark finished undressing and climbed between the cold sheets. He closed his hand around his limp cock as if to comfort it. He thought of Susan at Joy and Simon’s anniversary party, how she had circulated with a plate of the cut cake, charming his parents’ guests as Ben watched her with a rapt, admiring expression. Tearing his eyes away from her for a moment Ben had said, ‘Isn’t she fantastic?’ He laughed joyously. ‘She’s everything I ever wanted! I can’t believe I’ve found her!’

  Watching her too, Mark had said, ‘How did you find her?’

  ‘She came to work in the hospital last month – she’s a gynaecologist.’ He grinned at him. ‘What do you think?’

  Ben never asked for his opinion. He remembered feeling flattered and that he’d smiled. ‘I think she’s very attractive.’

  Quickly Ben said, ‘I haven’t told her about Mum and Dad – that they’re not our real parents. I will, tonight, probably, after the party.’ He sighed, and for the first time that evening he seemed his old, controlled self. ‘She’ll understand, I think – Christ – most women are fascinated. Besides, I don’t have to tell her the whole bloody story.’

  Susan came back, insisting they eat some cake. He had wondered if Ben would tell her the whole bloody story, or at least all that Ben knew of it. He’d imagined her listening intently as his brother confessed that the kind, gracious, happy couple whom he’d introduced as his parents really had nothing to do with him. He imagined that she would guess that Ben was ashamed he wasn’t the bona fide middle-class boy he acted so well; Susan would recognise his shame as his gift to her. Susan would recognise the gift’s worth; she would know that it was utterly priceless.

  Mark covered his face with his hands. He groaned softly, for once allowing himself the theatrics of pain. At times like this he felt Susan’s presence so strongly it seemed all he had to do was speak her name and she would step from the shadows and kneel beside him. She would take his hand and press it to her mouth; she would beg his forgiveness. She would climb into his bed and he would hold her tightly and it would be as if his heart had never broken and his life was as it should be.

  Susan had said, ‘Sign it. Sign To my dear sister-in-law, who knows the truth about me.’

  He’d looked up in surprise from signing a pile of his latest novel in a bookshop. She grinned at him, hooking a strand of her hair behind her ear as
she held out the book. ‘Where are the adoring fans?’

  He took the book from her, signed it. Handing it back he said, ‘To Susan, with best wishes. Will that do?’

  Looking down at the inscription she said, ‘I have to buy it now, don’t I?’ She took out her purse.

  ‘You pay at the till.’

  ‘So no money will change hands between us?’

  For an hour or so he had sat at his table behind his stacked books. The shop’s customers had ignored him, its staff had been indifferent. He imagined the signed books being remaindered and a familiar sense of pointlessness over took him. He had looked up at this smirking woman and it was one of the few times in his life he remembered losing his temper. ‘What are you doing here, Susan? What do you want?’

  Her eyes widened in mock surprise. ‘To see you, of course, to support you. Families should be supportive, shouldn’t they?’ All at once her expression softened, she glanced away, seemingly embarrassed, as though her teasing had gone a little too far. Her fingers drummed on the cover of his book and he noticed that her nails were short and blunt, as they should be for probing inside other women’s bodies. She stood by as a man approached and asked him to sign a copy for his wife. Scrawling his name, Mark watched from the corner of his eye as Susan opened his novel and closed it again, turning it over and over as though books were as alien to her as a surgeon’s instruments would be to him.

  When the man had gone she stepped towards him. ‘You’re angry with me,’ she said.

  Disconcerted, he said too sharply, ‘No, surprised to see you, that’s all. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘Was that you being rude?’ She’d smiled, still soft, still unlike the woman he’d thought she was – the woman who teased and mocked him with such sharp perceptiveness. It was as though he had never truly seen her before. Here she was, smiling at him as though he had the power to break her heart, as though he might guess that she was in love with him. It was an epiphany, an extraordinary moment to be re-visited and re-lived over and over: Susan was a sweet girl, vulnerable; she wanted him. He forgot about Ben and thought only of himself, his sudden, mindless desire. He found himself getting to his feet, saying, ‘Why don’t I buy you lunch?’

  They went to a wine bar, a dimly lit, crowded place where she led him to a corner table, where she sat close to him, her thigh against his. She drank most of the bottle of wine she had ordered, for courage, she said. She said, ‘I think you think I’m a bitch.’

  ‘No – no, of course not –’

  ‘I am, sometimes. To you, especially.’

  He attempted smiling, but it was a foolish, besotted smile. ‘Why? Why to me especially?’

  She’d gazed at him. ‘I don’t really know the truth about you.’

  ‘No?’ He’d smiled his idiotic smile, unable to take his eyes off her, not understanding a word. There had been no other time in his life when his guard had been so completely down. Impulsively he said, ‘The truth about me is I think you’re the loveliest woman I’ve ever met.’

  Such ordinary words – such a predictable line so that it felt as though she was a stranger he was trying to pick up. Immediately he thought that he should try to say something that was profound, that would have her falling at his feet in awe, but words were useless, failing him as they often did. There was only his desire for her, his prick governing his head and his heart, and his conscience of course. Ah – his conscience! His conscience was nothing, as useless as an appendix, so easily over-ruled! He was weak and he was disgusting and he told her so, there and then as she sipped her wine, as she placed her glass down and turned to him, giving him a look that made him feel she’d reached a hand inside his guts.

  ‘Disgusting?’ She’d frowned. ‘No. I shall cure you.’

  Lying in bed, Mark tossed the covers aside and got up. He went to the wardrobe and opened its mirrored doors, desperately pushing aside coats and jackets, remembering how Susan had once told him that as a child she too would hide. She liked the power she had over the adults as they searched for her, their worry palpable even in her hiding place. The coats and jackets swung on their hangers and he stared into the wardrobe’s dark interior, at a loss. He thought of Joy, cautiously extending her hand to him, patiently coaxing him to come out; how she sounded like a frightened girl forcing herself to be brave.

  The first night he’d spent at Simon’s house, Joy had left a light on by his bed – a lamp in the shape of a gingerbread house, the bulb’s yellow glow shining through the little windows with their sugar cane sills. She stood with him at the threshold of his new room, the gingerbread house casting its dim glow, and suddenly she seemed shy of him. Too brightly, she said, ‘We’re not sure what little boys like – you can change whatever you care to.’ He had looked up at her, saw that her sharp features were softened by anxiety, and all at once she was crouching in front of him, her hands grasping his arms firmly. ‘Mark, this is your home now and you’re safe as can be. You understand, don’t you? No one will hurt you ever again.’ Glancing over her shoulder to the bed she turned back to him and said, ‘That’s Tubs on your pillow. He used to be mine, when I was just your age. I thought how nice it would be if you were to take care of each other.’ Carefully she asked, ‘Would you like me to help you undress for bed?’

  He remembered shaking his head. When she’d gone he’d turned the teddy bear face down; no one would see him naked again, not even a baby’s toy. When the woman came back she pretended not to notice that her bear was sitting on the chest of drawers, its gaze pointed away from the bed. He’d dressed in the pyjamas that had been left folded on the pillow, he could smell their newness, the stiff feel of them next to his skin; he had buttoned the striped jacket up to his chin, pulled the white cord tightly around his waist. He was afraid he would wet the bed and its soft, pastel sheets and blue blankets that also smelt new. He had an idea that he might sleep on the floor but the woman said, ‘Well now! Look at you – what a good boy to get dressed for bed so quickly! Hop into bed now, let’s tuck you up snug as a bug, eh? Then we can read a story.’

  She sat beside him on the bed, she smiled and said, ‘Comfy?’ She still looked shy and sad and he was afraid he’d hurt her feelings over the bear, Tubs. Screwing up his courage he whispered, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? Whatever for? You have done absolutely nothing wrong! Nothing at all.’

  He knew better, though. It was just that she didn’t know him, just as Susan didn’t know him, even when he had told her the story of how Joy would seek him out, and the story of Tubs, and the story of how the gingerbread house cast its shadows so peculiarly on the ceiling. He told Susan everything and she asked for more so that perhaps she felt that he was making up stories to please her, as if he believed that when the stories ran out he would be killed, like the princess telling her tall tales over her thousand and one nights. But he only ever told her the truth. He told her the truth about Danny and it seemed that she held her breath and the power shifted between them for a moment. But in the end the power was all hers and he knew he had made a mistake in that bookshop when the dead scent of books was all around. He had a conscience, but he had discovered it too late so that all he could do was go on and try to square it with himself. Didn’t she love him, after all? Didn’t she have to, after all he had revealed?

  Mark closed the wardrobe doors and went back to bed. Leaving the lamp on he waited for the sleeping pills to work.

  Chapter 6

  Annette said, ‘Do you have a Hoover?’

  Doctor Walker frowned as if the answer might come to him if he thought hard enough. ‘A Hoover? Now, I don’t know. Perhaps. Perhaps there’s something like that under the stairs.’

  They were in the kitchen and she followed him into the hall where he opened a door. A smell of damp and old, muddy shoes wafted out and he smiled at her apologetically before rummaging about amongst the accumulated rubbish. He came out again, a cobweb caught in his hair. ‘No Hoover, I’m afraid.’

  ‘A
Ewbank?’

  ‘I’m sorry – I don’t know what a Ewbank is.’

  ‘A sweeper kind of thing.’

  He laughed. ‘No. I’m afraid my mother wasn’t much into sweeping things. Only under the carpet, eh?’

  He probably expected her to laugh but she didn’t feel like it. That morning Mark’s teacher had waylaid her and asked her if she knew what might be troubling him. ‘He’s very withdrawn, Mrs Carter. Is everything all right at home?’

  She’d felt herself blush. ‘Everything’s fine.’

  ‘I noticed during PE that Mark has a nasty bruise on his back.’

  ‘He slipped in the bath.’

  The woman held her gaze as though giving her time to think of more lies to trip herself up. Annette had felt her blush darken, a trickle of sweat ran down her back. Picturing the welfare officer on the doorstep she felt her guts turn to water.

  Doctor Walker said, ‘Annette?’

  She jerked her head up and tried to look as if she’d been listening.

  ‘I said would you like a cup of tea before you start?’

  ‘Oh – no. No thank you. Best get on.’

  ‘As you like. Right – well. If you start on the bathroom and then the main bedroom, I think that should be more than enough for today.’

  The toilet had a mahogany seat and roses painted inside its bowl. From the cistern high on the wall a piece of string dangled, tied to what was left of the chain. In the bath a brown stain spread beneath the cold tap that dripped even when she tightened it. She shook Vim on the stain, a thick, caking layer, and its smell caught at the back of her throat. She wished she had a pair of rubber gloves but there wasn’t enough money for such niceties. Perhaps the doctor had some in that black hole of a kitchen. Not that she would go down and ask – she couldn’t be bothered with his friendliness, his talk. She would just have to put up with chapped hands. If Danny noticed he would call them scrubber’s hands and laugh or not, depending on his mood.