Say You Love Me

by Marion Husband

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So – you just weren’t answering your phone? Why?’

  ‘Ben, let’s not argue now, please.’

  ‘I’m not arguing with you –’

  ‘Your voice is raised.’

  Ben turned away as though he could hardly bear to look at him. ‘I’m taking Kitty home.’

  ‘Wait.’ Mark stood up, catching Ben’s arm. ‘Ben…’ Unsure if he should tell him about Danny he hesitated and Ben shook him off.

  ‘If you’ve got something to say, Mark, keep it for another time – I’m tired – it’s tiring sitting at your father’s bedside, watching him die. You know, he asked for you – the last thing he managed to say – Mark! Christ knows why! Christ alone knows!’

  ‘Ben, I think you should keep your voice down.’

  ‘And I think you should go to hell.’

  ‘I was with Danny.’ He gazed at his brother. ‘That’s where I was.’

  Ben laughed, a short, incredulous burst of noise. ‘Jesus!’ He shook his head. ‘With him, eh? That creature. Well, I think you probably deserve each other, so it makes sense.’

  He turned away and Mark followed him out into the corridor. Again he caught his arm, forcing him to stop. ‘Ben, have you forgotten who started all this? Who found Danny in the first place? It wasn’t me who decided to dig up the past! It wasn’t me who had to remind Dad where we came from!’

  ‘Oh, he didn’t need reminding by me – he only had to look at you – you’re a living, breathing reminder, Mark! Look in the mirror – no, look inside yourself. You’re the same twisted bastard Danny was.’ He stepped closer to him, backing him against the wall. Searching his face as if seeing him for the first time he said intently, ‘I know what you did to me, Mark. Susan told me – she used to laugh about you.’

  Mark placed his palms flat against the wall to steady himself. ‘She lied to you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you dare.’

  Fearfully Mark said, ‘Was it revenge? Was finding Danny revenge?’

  Ben looked away, smiling bitterly. ‘Revenge!’ He turned back to him, a sneer transforming his face into Danny’s. ‘Why should I go to so much trouble for you? All I wanted to do was uncover the lies everyone told me.’

  ‘No one lied to you –’

  ‘No – maybe not, but no one told me the whole truth either.’

  ‘You didn’t need to know the whole truth! You were just a child! ’

  ‘So were you!’ Ben breathed out heavily, some of his anger seeming to subside into weariness. ‘I don’t want to talk to you about your so-called truth, Mark. To be honest you turn my stomach. I should feel sorry for you, I know, and at the best of times I did. But even when I felt pity for you I still found it hard to look at you because I just see him.’

  After a moment Ben went on, ‘I used to think that you killed Mam – our Mam, Annette. You killed her and made Dad take the blame so they’d take him away.’ He laughed, as though he hardly believed that he’d ever thought such things, but his eyes were bright with pain. ‘I thought that Simon was your dupe.’

  ‘Ben…’

  ‘I know you were just a child – not much more than a baby, really. I know none of it was your fault. In my head, as an adult, I know. But I missed Mam, I miss her.’ He glanced away, as though such a confession was somehow shaming. ‘Kitty’s waiting in the family room. She’ll wonder where I am.’ About to go, he hesitated. Turning to him, he said, ‘Susan lied to me, lied like it was a party game. I’m still not sure about so much of what she told me – even ordinary things. Would you tell me the truth if I asked you one question?’

  Mark nodded. Hollow with grief, his fear of his brother seemed like a pitiful thing, not worthy of the fuss his heart was making.

  ‘Christ.’ Ben shook his head, as if his question hardly mattered. Exhaling he said, ‘Why? Why did you do that to me?’

  ‘I loved her.’

  Ben gazed at him. At last he said, ‘She used to come home to me and there’d be this air about her, this excitement in her eyes and voice, this prurient, childish interest in Danny. She didn’t love you, Mark. All you were to her was living, breathing pornography.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You know? Then I can’t hurt you, can I?’ He laughed painfully. ‘I can’t have my revenge.’ After a moment he said, ‘Did she break your heart?’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘Good. Then you know how it feels.’

  ‘Ben –’

  About to walk away he turned to look at him. ‘Goodbye, Mark. ‘Tell Steven I’d rather not see him again. It’s over. I have no interest any more.’

  Chapter 29

  Mark packed Simon’s clothes into charity bags. He found a wardrobe full of Joy’s clothes and packed them away, too. Sitting on his parents’ bed, he looked around the room. The familiar, dark, old-fashioned furniture was as ugly as ever but had taken on a poignancy he found difficult to bear. He wondered if he could get rid of it, if he could really make this his home. His own furniture would be lost in its rooms. It would look fey and insubstantial. Perhaps he should sell the house. Too many memories crowded round him, like ghosts.

  The eiderdown on Simon and Joy’s bed was soft and silky, the purple of damsons; his fingers worried a line of stitching that had begun to unravel. At his feet the charity bags with their bright, childish logos sagged and bulged. There were still the drawers to sort – underwear, handkerchiefs, all scented with bars of soap so that the smell would take him back, add to the memories. He remembered Joy taking soap from its wrapping and tucking the pink bars beneath his father’s socks. No one else did this, no one else had underwear that could make you sneeze. He smiled, and caught sight of himself in his mother’s dressing table mirror. He looked away quickly.

  Standing up, he went to the drawers on his mother’s side of the bed. He opened the first one. It was empty, except for the faint smell of Camay. The next drawer held a large envelope, its stamps torn off to be given to charity, its seal sliced clean open by Joy’s paper knife. The envelope was stuffed full and he lifted it out and spilled its contents on the bed.

  Birthday and Christmas cards fanned out, bright greens and reds and golds against the dark quilt. Between the cards were letters, some still in their original envelopes, but some not; these were dog-eared as though they had been read and re-read. He recognised his own handwriting on these letters, and that of Ben. Fanning the letters and cards out, his fingers hovered over an envelope with his name printed boldly across it, the date in smaller print below. He breathed in, wanting to steady the sudden quickening of his heart preparing him for flight. Inside this envelope were the letters Joy had sent to him.

  In hospital after his rescue from Danny, he had received a letter from her everyday. Each letter ended with the word Joy. When he had grown strong enough he would trace his fingers over this word, thinking it could only be a code for something. The man who brought the letters and read them to him in his bright, jolly voice never explained. He wondered who the man was but was too shy to ask, and too ashamed because this stranger seemed to know everything that made him dirty but nothing else. Slowly he began to realise that the man knew nothing else about him because there was nothing else, just this great big, black shame.

  Except the person who wrote the letters seemed to know more. The letters were about ordinary, everyday things, about his teacher and the children in his class and his brother Ben. He’d thought that Ben had been taken away. Everyone had been taken away, everyone he knew, replaced by strangers, who all the same knew all about him. The world had shrunk to the size of his hospital bed. He tried not to cry for his mother because he felt he didn’t deserve to. The man had told him she had gone to heaven, that she was safe now. The letters came with each visit and were better than the chocolate and the books the man brought: they connected him to Ben, and to their mysterious writer, the only people who knew him properly.

  Mark turned the envelope over in his hands. H
e had opened it once before, when he was sixteen and had found it when he was looking for a pen in Joy’s desk. Not wanting to, he’d read one of the letters. He’d felt then as he did now, sick with self-pity. But then he’d felt angry too, hating Simon for being so careless of his five-year-old self. It had been easy to hate Simon when he was sixteen, normal, even. Now he only felt the pity, but pity for Simon too, who had tried so hard; he supposed this feeling was a small step forward, that he must have grown up a little.

  He bundled the cards and letters together again and shoved them back in their envelope before shutting it back in the drawer.

  Someone was ringing the doorbell. Not expecting anyone, he got up and went to the window that looked out on the front garden, deciding not to answer if it was another of his father’s friends or ex-colleagues offering condolences. There had been a steady stream of them over the last few days. He was tired of small talk, of their reminiscences that made him feel he didn’t know Simon as well as he’d thought. His father had had a life other than just being his father. How strange that seemed, lately.

  Outside he saw a child in a pink anorak and pink jeans, a pink bow in her black hair. He gazed at her, watching as she picked the tiny horse-chestnut blossoms from the path with studied concentration. When Jade looked up he stepped back, unsure that he wanted to be seen. The doorbell rang again, polite but somehow urgent, too. It was like the boy, Mark supposed, to have an edge to his patience. He went into the hall, deliberately taking his time, trying to think only of the things he had to do for the funeral to keep his mind off his visitor.

  Steven smiled at him shyly then glanced over his shoulder towards the cemetery; he shifted from one foot to the other. Managing to look at Mark again he said, ‘Hiya.’

  ‘Hello.’ Mark turned to the little girl. ‘Hello, Jade. How are you?’

  ‘She’s shy,’ Steven said quickly when his daughter ignored him. ‘Say hello, Jade. Be a good girl.’ Lifting her up he said, ‘Say hello to Mark, Jade.’

  Mark held the door open wider. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Is that all right? I’m not disturbing you?’

  ‘No. Of course not. Come through to the kitchen – I was about to make myself some coffee.’

  In the kitchen, Steven set his daughter on her feet, immediately taking her hand as if he was afraid she’d run away. ‘We were going to the park at the end of the road here…we were just passing…you don’t mind?’

  ‘No.’ He smiled at him. ‘You don’t have to make an excuse to see me, Steven.’

  The boy avoided his gaze. ‘I just thought you might think…’

  ‘It’s nice to see you both. Listen, why don’t I make us this coffee and we can drink it in the garden? There’s plenty of space for Jade to run about out there.’

  I led Jade out to his garden, following him as he carried a tray set with a pot of proper coffee, cups and saucers, a plate of biscuits and a glass of milk for Jade. I was pleased he’d made the effort for us. I’d had this feeling that I wouldn’t be so welcome. But he’s a nice man. I keep forgetting, at the same time reminding myself, that good manners mask real feelings in people like Mark. It was confusing, all these conflicting thoughts. I didn’t know what to think, to tell the truth, only that every time I saw him I wanted things to be ordinary between us, ordinary as they could be, even though I kept making them more complicated. But I felt myself getting more and more awkward, like I do in dreams where I’ve gone to work naked, thinking it was a good idea at the time only to feel humiliated. I didn’t know where to look, except at Jade. I made her sit on my knee, although she squirmed and fretted because she wanted to be off, exploring this exciting new place she’d suddenly found herself in.

  He said, ‘I saw Danny’s death notice in the paper.’

  I nodded. ‘Short and sweet, wasn’t it? I didn’t want one of those poems they print. None of them was right.’

  ‘And the funeral’s tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I glanced at him as though it didn’t matter. ‘Will you come?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Ben?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ He held out the plate of biscuits to Jade. ‘Jade, you know there’s a little bird that lives in this garden, up there – see?’ He pointed at the big tree by the wall and she turned to look, forgetting to fidget for a second. Smiling, Mark said, ‘He’s very shy, but sometimes, when little children come here and eat biscuits on the lawn he’ll fly down and eat up all the crumbs, friendly as you like! Why don’t you take a biscuit and see if he’ll come down?’

  She scrambled off my knee straight away. Taking a digestive she ran to where Mark was pointing. He watched her, smiling still, but then he turned to me and his smiled melted away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I meant to come and see you – but when my father died…’

  That formal my father, it hurt a bit, like he was trying to distance himself from me and Danny. Sullenly I said, ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Ben’s taken it very badly.’

  ‘And you?’

  He looked to where Jade was running around the tree. After a while he said, ‘I miss him.’ He smiled as Jade tossed her biscuit into the air, calling out for the bird to come down. Turning back to me he said, ‘She’s lovely. I’m glad you brought her with you.’

  We drank our coffee. Jade ran back and took a handful of biscuits to throw on the ground beneath the tree. I told her not to be naughty, that she should sit down and drink her milk, but Mark said it was OK, she could throw all the biscuits to the birds and save him from eating them all. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. I watched him watching her and suddenly I couldn’t hold back any more.

  ‘Mark?’ He tore his gaze away from Jade to look at me. On a rush of breath I said, ‘Mark, I’m sorry – sorry I cried, and everything…’

  I looked down at my coffee, too embarrassed to look at him. I thought of the way we’d held each other on my bed and the shame I’d felt then was as strong as ever. From the corner of my eye I saw him put his cup down. He took out a packet of cigarettes and held it out to me, forgetting I don’t smoke.

  He lit his cigarette. He said, ‘You have nothing to be sorry about. It was my fault – my responsibility.’

  ‘And mine –’

  He frowned at me. ‘Steven, listen to me, now. All my life I have behaved badly and made excuses for myself. I don’t want to behave badly with you. And yet…’ He laughed despairingly. ‘The way you look at me…I have to hold myself back.’

  ‘I can look at you differently –’

  He watched Jade, his eyes narrowed against the sun. At last he turned to me. ‘What do you want from me, Steven? I would like you to be honest with me.’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Sex?’

  I squirmed. ‘No…I don’t know…no. I don’t want to be that person.’

  ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Neither do I.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I want to be above board. Above board, everything ship-shape and Bristol fashion.’ Looking down at the cigarette wasting its smoke between his fingers, he said, ‘This house,’ he glanced back. ‘When I was first brought here I knew they’d made a mistake, that this couldn’t be my home. Well, it wasn’t, not really. No matter how hard Simon and Joy tried I felt like an impostor, that I was Danny’s and had no right to anything decent. I was not a decent human being.’ Quickly he said, ‘I still think that. It’s best that we don’t see each other.’

  ‘Please don’t say that –’

  ‘Steven…Don’t cry –’

  I wiped my eyes impatiently. ‘We could be different, now Danny’s dead. We could start again like the other night hadn’t happened.’ I forced myself to look at him. ‘Prove that Danny can be defeated.’

  Jade ran towards me. She pulled at my hand. ‘Find the birdie, Daddy.’

  ‘In a minute. Mark and me are talking.’

  Mark stood up. ‘How about if I help you find him, Jade?’ She stared at him, but he held out his hand to her. ‘Let Daddy finish his cof
fee, eh? You and I will find the bird.’

  He stood beneath the tree, holding my daughter’s hand, the two of them so still, and all at once he swept her into his arms. There, a few steps from them, a robin had flown down to peck at the crumbs Jade had thrown. She turned to him in amazement like she believed he had made the bird himself, just for her.

  The robin flew away. Setting Jade down, he took her hand and led her back to me.

  He said, ‘I think you should take Jade home now, Steven. I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow.’

  I stood up. ‘You’ll definitely be there?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘And it will be the last time we see each other?’

  It was as though he couldn’t bear to look at me. Turning away he walked quickly back to the house.

  Danny said, ‘Say you love me.’

  ‘I love you.’

  He untied him and pulled him into his arms, pressing his face against his chest so that he could hear his heart hammering, its noise filling his head, his scent filling his nose and mouth; he was part of Danny, a slick of his sweat, his blood, his semen. He was melting into him, becoming nothing but a stain on his skin. Soon he would be washed down the drain. But first Danny was kissing him and his hands were all over him and nothing was private or secret, no matter how dirty or shaming. ‘Say you love me,’ Danny said. And he tied his wrists and gagged his mouth so his last words were I love you, Daddy.

  Outside the crematorium, Mark walked away from the other mourners to where Danny’s wreaths were laid out. There were two, a cross of white chrysanthemums and a circle of yellow roses, soft, plump cushions of flowers. He read the cards. He glanced back at the men and women who stood around in small groups, obviously wanting to be away to the social club where the wake was to be held, not wanting to seem in too much of a hurry. His half-brothers, Colin and Graham, stood either side of their mother. Strangers, he thought. He wouldn’t recognise them if he bumped into them on the street.

  Steven stood a little way away from his family. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt, the knot of his black tie neat at his throat, whereas his brothers had loosened theirs, unused to restriction, no doubt. Steven looked up and caught his eye. His face was pale, fragile-looking. Mark thought how beautiful he was and, as if the boy read his thoughts, he looked away, an expression of contempt transforming him. Mark turned back to the wreaths. The roses were from Steven. The card read, At peace at last.