‘There isn’t any more. After Annette died, well…that’s where I would end the story, if I were writing it.’ He thought how he would write Simon in those final few pages, how he would burden him with a ton of guilt. To him, Simon had never suffered enough for what he did.
Taking his hand Steven squeezed his fingers gently. ‘It’s late. You could stay the night, if you like, if you feel you need some company.’
Mark turned on his side so that they lay facing each other, almost touching. ‘We would ruin each other, have you thought of that?’
‘We’re already ruined. Damage done.’
Drawing away from him a little he said, ‘Do you want me to stay?’
‘I don’t think of you as my brother.’
‘Steven…’ He pressed his palm against the boy’s cheek. ‘I wish I could have saved you from him. If I’d known you existed I would have taken you away.’
‘Been my Dad?’
‘Looked after you, at least.’
‘And if you had we’d be proper family and you wouldn’t be here, on this bed. I think I’d rather have you here now.’ Moving closer to him Steven took his hand and kissed it. ‘What if we’d met on the street – in London say, near where you live, or in some club? I wouldn’t have been able to keep my eyes off you.’
‘Steven –’
Steven put his fingers to Mark’s lips. ‘Imagine it. Imagine I’m a stranger. Imagine buying me a drink and using some line on me. Imagine asking me back to your flat.’ Moving still closer he whispered in his ear, ‘Imagine me naked on your bed at home and you’re just about to fuck me, and you’re so hard because I’ve been sucking your cock…’ He took Mark’s hand and held it against his erection. ‘I’m good, you know? Really, really good.’
Mark gazed at him, saw how his dark eyes were hard and bright with lust, saw how young he was, and raw, his eagerness to please making him innocent despite himself. He unzipped Steven’s flies and held his cock. The boy groaned, closing his eyes, an expression of intense pleasure on his face so that it seemed to Mark that he was play-acting. Drawing his hand away he began to unbutton Steven’s shirt, bowing his head to his nipple and biting gently. Blindly, he reached for his hand and guided it to his own erection. The boy fumbled with Mark’s belt buckle, impatience making him clumsy, but finally Mark felt Steven’s fingers close around him, heard him make a noise like a sob. Suddenly Steven was pushing away from him and rolling onto his back. Hiding his face with his hands he said, ‘I can’t.’
Mark lifted his hands away. ‘Look at me,’ Mark said. He kissed his mouth softly. ‘Look at me.’
‘I can’t!’ He sprang away and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Fucking hell! Fucking, fucking hell!’
Mark lay on his back. His cock was still semi-erect, still hopeful, at odds with his heart, as ever. He shoved it back inside his pants and zipped his fly. He thought of Danny forcing himself inside him, groaning and grunting with the effort of it. And if he cried out Daddy would press his face into the pillow so that it felt like he was drowning, so that he learnt to keep silent and not plead and beg as he had the first time, although even then his voice had been too small and he wasn’t sure what he was asking him not to do. The first time Danny had asked him if he loved him. How scared he had been, but also hopeful because he had never asked him that before. Of course he had said yes, whispering it but emboldened, brave enough to take his hand, the bravest thing he had ever done, and Danny had said, ‘Good boy. Good boy,’ and lifted him on to the bed.
Steven turned to look at him. His face was smeary with tears, bleary and smudged so that he looked even younger. Painfully he said, ‘The first time, with Carl…I think he thought I was a right head case…’
‘Carl? Your first lover?’
‘The first man…well, you know. The first man…’ He turned away again. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean.’
‘He was lovely. Patient – he didn’t run a mile. I would have. I would have run from a nutter like me.’ Looking at him over his shoulder he said, ‘I didn’t tell him – you’re the only one who knows.’
He thought of Susan, who had said, ‘Tell me about Danny. Ben’s told me a little – you know Ben, how much words cost him.’ She’d gazed at him, smiling, curious. It had been only the second time they’d made love, the first time being too frantic, too astonishing for words, at least for him. This second time he had begun to sense her restlessness and had waited for her to make an excuse to leave. But instead of leaving she had asked about Danny. It was difficult to resist such an opportunity to keep her in his bed.
Steven lay down beside him. After a while the boy said, ‘Would you have gone on? Buggered me?’
Mark winced at the word, still fastidious. ‘I don’t know.’
Steven began to cry again but more openly, and Mark pulled him into his arms and held him as tenderly as he could, afraid of his body’s reaction. ‘I’m sorry,’ Mark said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He kissed his head. ‘Don’t now, don’t cry.’
Steven moved away from him and wiped his eyes quickly. ‘What shall we do?’
‘Do? I don’t know.’ Mark reached for his hand. Holding it against his chest he said, ‘You asked me if I would have gone on, made love to you. I think that yes, I would have, if you’d wanted me to. It’s what I came here for – I had this idea that it would help us both to banish ghosts…that if we made love and it was sweet and tender and loving…’ He exhaled sharply, not knowing if what he was trying to say was a lie or the most profound truth. Desperately he said, ‘I thought we would comfort each other. There – I suppose that’s what it comes down to. We would comfort each other, knowing what we both know.’
Steven seemed to be going over his words in his head. About to speak, he closed his mouth and bit down on his lip. Then, when Mark was about to try to explain again, Steven said, ‘We’re both fucked up, aren’t we?’
Mark laughed bleakly. ‘I am, at least.’ Squeezing his hand he said, ‘Steven, tell me what you want most in the world – if I could do anything for you, anything at all –’
The boy drew his hand away. ‘There’s nowt. What I want – well, it’s impossible to have.’
‘Tell me what’s impossible.’
‘No. Why should you help me, anyway?’ He looked at him, his lip curling in distaste. ‘All that just now, it was lies, wasn’t it? That crap about comforting each other, about banishing ghosts. That’s impossible! You’d have fucked me just because you wanted to fuck me and gone back to London and nothing would have changed – except I’d feel worse about myself because what we’d done was so wrong – not just wrong – illegal!’ He laughed harshly as though coming to a realisation. ‘We’d be criminals, like Danny! No better than him!’
Mark closed his eyes. He felt Danny’s breath on his shoulder, his tongue flashing against his ear like a dog’s. He was being smothered, snuffed out. Unable to lie still, he got up, aware of the boy watching him as he buckled his belt. He turned to look at him. ‘I’m not Danny.’
Steven gazed at him. At last he said, ‘You know what I thought when I first saw you outside that pub? What I thought for a split second? I thought that you were. I thought you were Danny. My heart turned over and I didn’t know if it was fear or what. Fear or lust.’ He snorted. ‘There. Freud would have a good time with us, wouldn’t he? A fucking field day!’
A mobile phone began to ring and Steven grabbed for it on the bedside table. About to switch it off he frowned. ‘It’s the hospital,’ he said.
Chapter 28
I used to think that when Danny died I’d go to St John’s and offer up a prayer of thanks. Then I’d pray for his soul and light a candle and that would be the end of it. Then, after Carl died, I stopped thinking of God, of hell and heaven, of souls. I just felt sick with despair and I knew that I wouldn’t give a fuck when Danny died, and I wouldn’t go through any daft, superstitious rituals in the hope of finding peace. There was no peace any more, not after C
arl died.
The hospital telephoned – Sister Allison, who’s kind and efficient and good – more than Danny deserves. She said, ‘I think you should be here, Steve. The morning will be too late.’ Too late for goodbye, good riddance. I put the phone down and looked at Mark. ‘I have to go,’ I said, and straight away he said he’d take me. I thought how handsome he looked. I thought how I couldn’t have made a bigger mess if I’d put all my heart into it.
Driving to the hospital, he kept up this silence. Once he took his eyes off the road for a second to look at me. I said, ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ and he nodded. It began to rain and he flicked on the windscreen wipers and a fan to clear the condensation, calm, concentrating. Realising I was staring at him, I looked away. I wished he would put the radio on. The wipers swished back and forth. Lights turned from red to green as we approached because it was late and there was so little traffic, but it seemed they changed just for him and I wondered how it could be that I was still in love with him, despite the fact that he’d used me, or failed to use me, failed to do whatever I wanted him to do. Whatever that was. He’d asked me what I wanted most in the world. I suppose I wanted him not to ask but just to take charge, like a Dad, a proper Dad.
We took the lift to Danny’s ward. I kept saying that it was bound to be a long night – this had happened before, a false alarm a couple of weeks earlier when they were sure he wouldn’t last until morning. Then I’d stayed until four, holding his hand, willing him to die, not just for my sake. As Mark and I got out of the lift I repeated, ‘It might be hours. Don’t feel you have to stay.’
‘I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay as long as you want me to.’
I smiled. As lightly as I could I said, ‘A long night, then.’
‘Maybe.’
As soon as I walked into his room, I knew that this wasn’t a false alarm. I even thought we were too late, that he was already dead, and suddenly I felt sick that I’d missed it, that he’d been alone. Sitting beside the bed I took his hand, it was still warm. His eyes moved towards me, he seemed to make this massive effort to smile but just couldn’t manage it. Beneath the oxygen mask his face looked as though it was collapsing in on itself, like the face on one of those poor sods mummified in a bog for a thousand years.
Mark went to the window and stared out at the rain. It was falling in sheets now – we’d got soaked walking from the car. He hadn’t even looked at Danny, and he stood there, his hand clasped behind his back. After a bit he turned to me. ‘Would you like a drink? I noticed a vending machine along the corridor.’
‘Coke,’ I said. Truth was, I just wanted him out of the room. I wanted to be alone with Danny for a while.
When Mark had gone I moved the chair closer to the bed. ‘We’re both here,’ I said, ‘Mark and me.’
I thought I saw some recognition of my voice flit across his face, but maybe not. When Carl was dying he just seemed absent, and even though he was still breathing he was far away, somewhere I couldn’t reach him. Danny had gone there, too, that place between life and death, a nowhere. I bowed my head, and thought that to someone passing the door it must look like I was praying. So I prayed, and I asked God to forgive him.
I was five when he started on me. Five when he started calling me Mark, saying I was his angel and thanking Christ that I’d come back to him, how he’d never let me go again. He would come into my bed in the night and his hands would be all over me, his hands and his mouth and his breath, his prison stink, a stink he never washed off. I’d lie dead still, because I’d learnt that was best, still and quiet so that he said how good I was. I remember his weight, like it would crush the life out of me, his weight and his stink of despair. I remember being Mark, and putting Steven away.
Prison must have softened Danny. I think it must have, after what Mark told me. I was never beaten, never bound or gagged, never burnt with cigarettes, starved or left naked to freeze on a bare mattress. When Mark was telling me all this I wanted him to stop. I wanted to call him a liar, to say that wasn’t how it happened. But that wasn’t how it happened to me, I had to keep telling myself he wasn’t talking about me. All the same, I couldn’t help thinking that he was lying – making up a story – it’s what he does, after all. That would make Mark mad, I suppose.
Mark came back with a can of Coke for me and a bottle of water for himself. He sat down on the plastic chair in the corner of the room as though he wanted to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. I smiled at him to make him feel more comfortable and he said, ‘Are your brothers coming? Your mother?’
‘They won’t be bothered.’
He looked relieved. He took a swig of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He smiled awkwardly. ‘I can taste the hospital. Horrible.’ After a minute he said, ‘My mother was on this floor. Joy, my mother. Just along the corridor here, before they moved her to the hospice. I’ve only just realised.’ He looked as though he wanted to run.
Sister Allison put her head round the door. Quietly she said, ‘Hiya, Steve,’ and gave me this sad, I-know-what-you’re-going-through smile. She came in and did the things nurses do to those they know are dying – nowt, very much. I was grateful for the diversion, though. Mark watched her intently, and she looked up and caught his eye; he obviously impressed her, given the way she smiled at him. They exchanged these soft hellos, as though Danny could be wakened. When she’d gone I said, ‘You’re on there.’
He laughed, this quiet, sexy laugh that made me jealous of her, of him – of everyone in the world.
We sat in silence, listening to the wind lashing the rain against the window, straining to hear Danny breathe – or at least I was straining. I realised I was sitting on the edge of the seat, still holding his hand. Self-consciously, I drew my hand away.
Mark said, ‘Would you prefer it if I left you alone with him, Steven?’
‘No. But if you want to go –’
‘I’ll do whatever you want me to.’
‘Will you come and sit closer, next to me?’
He stood up and carried the chair over, setting it down within an inch or two of mine so that I had an urge to lean close to him, breathe in his clean, subtle scent. He showered twice a day, he told me, an aside as he talked about what Dad had done to him. He remembered Danny’s stink too, the way it seemed to cling to your hair and skin.
After a while he said, ‘I’ll pay for the funeral.’
‘Hush!’ I frowned at him. ‘Don’t talk like that, not yet.’
‘He can’t hear us, Steven.’ Sitting forward a little he smoothed a crease from the bedcover. Without looking at me he said, ‘I’ll pay – I want to help you, Steven. I’ve been wondering about the best way of helping you and besides, I have more money than I could ever spend, it should be put to good use.’ He smoothed another crease, his fingers almost brushing against Danny’s. ‘I have money – I’ve worked hard for it, I suppose – for the proof of success. I did everything I could to make Simon and Joy proud of me, to be their son, not Mark Carter any more.’ Very quietly he said, ‘Not yours any more.’
His hands became still; at last he looked at me. ‘I think I should leave you to say goodbye alone now.’
‘Say goodbye to him.’
Getting to his feet he stood over the bed and I watched him, hoping that he would do or say something that would make me feel that everything would be all right now. He just stood. After a bit he turned and walked out.
Simon carried Mark to the ambulance. Such a small child, and so silent. He murmured that he was safe now and hoped that he could hear him in that place that he’d escaped to. The ambulance man had given him a blanket to wrap him in and he had been careful to make sure he was wrapped snugly, decently, all of his nakedness covered. Only his beautiful face showed, framed by the rough blue wool. He kissed his forehead, and realised he had never kissed a child before, had never known anything about children until this moment. He felt his heart change, his soul. He held him closer. ‘You’re mine,’ he wh
ispered. There was awe in his voice. He knew that it was true.
And Joy held the boys, her arms around their shoulders, the three of them bunching up for the camera he held. He was proud of her, loved her more than he had believed possible; their marriage a wonderful, surprising gift he didn’t deserve. ‘Stand closer,’ he said, ‘smile!’ He took the Polaroid picture, held it in his hands. His family, his wife and his sons, developed from blackness into bright, glorious colour.
* * *
Ben said, ‘Where the hell have you been? Where?’
Kitty said quickly, ‘Ben, it’s all right, he’s here now –’
Ben turned on her. ‘Now is too late! What’s the point in him being here now?’ He began to cry. There was a line of chairs in the corridor outside Simon’s room and Kitty led her husband to it and made him sit down. She crouched at his side. Looking up at Mark she said, ‘Come and sit down.’ More gently she repeated, ‘Come and sit down, Mark.’
Mark stood beside the bed. Someone had combed Simon’s hair and closed his eyes; they had arranged his hands so that they lay folded together on his chest. Death seemed somehow to have diminished him, as if only the force of Simon’s personality had sustained the illusion that he was a powerful man. But Mark remembered how strong he had been, how he would carry him on his shoulders, his hands grasping his ankles. He had steadied him when he set him down on the ground with a firm hand on his back. When he rode on Simon’s shoulders he must have been no more than six, still small, still frail, still believing that Simon, this man he had to remember to call Daddy, was not quite human but something fantastical. He was still afraid of him, ashamed of this fear that bobbed in his belly whenever Simon took his hand.
Mark sat down on the chair next to the bed. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Dad.’
‘Where were you?’
Mark turned to see Ben in the doorway. Stepping towards him Ben said, ‘I phoned. I phoned you at Dad’s, I phoned your mobile – I left messages…’
Say You Love Me Page 29