Say You Love Me

by Marion Husband

  Behind him Steven said, ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’

  Mark turned around, noticed how the boy stepped back from him. ‘I said I would.’

  ‘Are you going now?’

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  Steven laughed shortly. ‘Do what you want.’

  ‘It’s not far to the club is it? Perhaps you and I could walk there?’

  Steven glanced towards his mother. One of his brothers had put his arm around her shoulders and she was weeping, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Steven shook his head, his contempt meant for her now. Looking at Mark he said, ‘All right. Let’s get away from here.’

  They walked along Thorp Road, past the abattoir where their grandfather had slaughtered and butchered. Mark stopped, touching Steven’s arm so that he would stop too. He said, ‘I spent the night thinking about you.’

  The boy snorted. Looking away he said, ‘Careful – you’ll go blind.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that –’

  ‘No? Then tell me what it was like – tell me how you think about me.’

  ‘Obsessively?’ He laughed bleakly. After a moment he said, ‘I just want to do the right thing. The right, decent thing.’

  ‘And what would be the decent thing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Behaving as a father would? A proper father…’ Mark looked away. He thought of Susan and the child she had allowed him to believe was his, his seed, sown so fatally. He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes and his hands shook and Steven touched his arm.

  ‘Mark?’

  He met his gaze. He thought again how beautiful he was and the pride he would feel if he were mistaken for his son. He thought of Simon, who told him how little blood mattered, that the only true ties were those of love.

  A group of mourners caught up with them. A woman caught Steven’s arm and pulled him along. She would buy him a drink, she said, they would raise a glass to his Dad. Mark was left alone on the pavement. Over his shoulder the boy looked back at him, and he looked so much like Danny that he had to turn away. He heard the woman laugh, felt himself jostled by a group of black-suited men. No one knew him, he was a stranger, an intruder. Mumbling apologies he walked back against the on-coming crowd.

  Chapter 30

  Kitty said, ‘It will be strange to see your Dad’s house so changed.’

  Ben didn’t speak. He glanced at her. He thought how astonishing she looked: blooming. Her pregnancy showed now, a neat bump. This morning he had felt the baby kick and he had such an overwhelming feeling that he must keep her from harm that he was speechless. Words were often useless, too trite, too sentimental – or at least they were in his mouth. He hoped she understood how much he loved her. She smoothed her skirt then clutched her hands together in her lap, glancing nervously out of the window. Wanting to reassure her, he said, ‘You look lovely.’

  She laughed. ‘I look fat.’

  ‘Beautiful.’ Gently he said, ‘Steven’s nice. Easy to get along with.’

  Kitty looked at him. ‘I’m not worried about meeting Steven.’

  Turning the car into Simon’s drive he switched off the engine. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Here we are.’ He thought about the last time he had seen his brother, at Simon’s funeral. Mark had behaved as if it wasn’t their father they were burying but some distant relative so that he could easily afford the energy to charm Simon’s friends and ex-colleagues, to make sure that each mourner was properly attended to. All except him. Out of some sense of propriety Mark had kept a respectful distance from him, just as he had at Susan’s funeral. Once, Ben had caught his eye and Mark had held his gaze blankly, as he used to as a tiny child in Skinner Street Infants. Beside him, his father’s friend Iain had said gently, ‘He’s not really here, is he? Never quite with us.’

  Ben had torn his gaze from Mark’s to look at him. ‘It’s just an act,’ he’d said. Later he thought how childish he must have seemed to this urbane man. Iain had placed his hand on his shoulder as if to steady him. ‘Try and make your peace,’ he’d said. ‘For your father’s sake.’

  Ben lifted Nathan from his car seat. He kissed him. Holding him close, Ben turned to look at the house, half expecting to see Simon at the sitting room bay. He felt nervous suddenly, and a sense that if he stopped behaving with such determined reasonableness grief would overwhelm him, that brutal mugger that robbed him of his voice, his courage. He held his son more tightly. He felt Kitty’s hand on his arm. Softly she said, ‘It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.’

  ‘Kitty…’ He laughed tearfully. ‘Oh, God…’

  She took Nathan from him. ‘Why don’t you sit down out here?’ She nodded towards the bench that years ago Simon had placed in the sunniest spot in the front garden. ‘I’ll go in and let them know we’re here.’

  Ben sat. He stared out at the cemetery across the road, remembered that as a child he had been scared to live in a house so close to the dead. He remembered that Simon must have guessed at his fear because one day he helped him on with his coat, crouching in front of him to fasten its buttons. He’d smiled at him. ‘I thought we’d go for a walk, Ben. Just the two of us.’

  He hadn’t ever allowed Simon to hold his hand, and so they walked with a careful distance between them across the road to the cemetery gates where Simon stopped to smile at him. ‘Ben, would you mind very much if we took this short-cut into town?’

  He had shaken his head, determined not to be a baby in front of this man, and so they had set out along the wide path that cut through the cemetery’s heart, past the stone crosses and marble obelisks, past the occasional weeping angel or mourner carrying flowers. Horse-chestnut trees shaded the path, their heavy, candle-like blossom subtly scenting the air. From time to time Simon smiled at him encouragingly. Then, at a vacant bench, he stopped and sat down.

  ‘It’s very peaceful here,’ Simon said. He glanced around, smiling at a little bird that hopped out from behind a grave. ‘Last week I saw a squirrel – running straight up that tree there.’ He turned to him. ‘Maybe we’ll see one today, eh? If we’re lucky.’ After a while he said, ‘The little creatures, the squirrels and the birds, they know that it’s quiet and peaceful here and that there’s nothing to be afraid of because there’s nothing here but the trees and the stones and the certainty that we’re all safe, in the end.’ He laughed a little. ‘I think of my daddy when I come here. He used to watch the birds that live in these trees.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Simon had gazed at him. Perhaps he realised that this was the first time he had spoken to him directly. Reaching out, Simon had brushed a strand of his hair from his eyes, the first time he had touched him so intimately. ‘He died,’ he said. ‘A few years ago, now. I think about him every day – just ordinary thoughts, ordinary memories, wondering what he’d think of this or that. I don’t feel so sad any more, only sometimes. Most of the time I have only happy memories of him, like now, when I see the birds he loved so much.’

  Ben remembered getting down from the bench. ‘Birds are stupid.’ He’d glared at him defiantly. Simon had only nodded. Getting up too, he’d said, ‘Well, there are birds and birds. I know where there’s a nest of a particularly clever bird.’

  And he had shown him a nest with a clutch of speckled blue eggs, holding him firmly as he lifted him up to look. He had tried not to be impressed but the eggs were too astonishing. For a while his anger with this man couldn’t be sustained. Only when they returned to the house, when he saw Mark watching anxiously for him at the window, had his anger returned.

  Ben closed his eyes. He thought of the speech Mark had made at Simon’s funeral, how he had talked about their father’s extraordinarily generous love for them. He had listened, his head bowed because he couldn’t bear to look at him, thinking only what a good actor his brother was, what an exceptional liar. Simon had never loved Mark generously; there was something that stopped their father’s heart when it came to Mark. But Simon had loved him, and as a child this had felt righ
t: he was the victor in a just war.

  As an adult he had tried to like Mark and put aside all the confused feelings of pity and shame and raw, protective love, and just like him, as it seemed other brothers simply liked each other, tolerating their peculiar ways. There were times when he had even admired him, but he realised you could admire a man and still know that whatever it was you admired them for it was not something you had any wish to emulate. Mark’s bravery, for instance, seemed particularly useless to him.

  Simon phoned him. He said, ‘Mark’s been wounded.’ Ben wondered now if he had imagined the exasperation in his father’s voice. Such a little war that Mark had got himself involved in, that had him fighting for his life on a hospital ship. Simon had said, ‘Ben – I’m afraid it’s quite serious.’ And he remembered thinking that he had talked like this before, when he was six years old and Mark had mysteriously disappeared from his life. It was as if Simon believed that Mark was too frail to survive. He had known better: Mark was strong, invincible, even; he knew his brother much better than this man who found it so impossible to hide his pitying distaste, as though Mark was a particularly horribly injured animal spilling its guts in the road.

  Susan said, ‘Your brother’s very…odd.’

  She’d only just met Mark at some party or other. He remembered laughing at her barely concealed curiosity. Most women were curious about Mark, he seemed so unreachable, a challenge. He should have been more on guard, he supposed, but he’d believed that Susan was different from most women. And she was, of course, only different in a way that he hadn’t allowed for.

  And he had asked her, ‘What is it with you and him?’ That was in the early days, when he could bring himself to ask, when her difference – her oddness – made her the sexiest woman he’d ever met. He was like a thirteen-year-old discovering pornography. He couldn’t be sure what was normal any more.

  Ben became aware of someone watching him and he looked up. Mark took a step forward, smiling awkwardly. He said, ‘Sorry – I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

  ‘Mark. How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’ He laughed a little. ‘Well – OK, I suppose. May I?’ He sat down beside him, at once looking up at the sun breaking through the clouds. ‘Dad used to say this was the sunniest spot in the whole garden. He would sit here for hours, remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mark glanced at him only to look away again. ‘Kitty and Steven are introducing Nathan to Jade. They’re all getting on so well I felt something of a spare part so I thought I’d come and find you. Say if you’d prefer to be alone for a while longer.’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’ He made to get up but Mark touched his arm. ‘Ben, let’s give them a few minutes.’

  As he sat down again Mark took an envelope from his pocket and held it out to him. ‘This is for you. Photographs. I found them in a drawer when I was sorting Dad’s study.’

  ‘Photographs of…?’

  ‘Annette. Danny. Wedding pictures. Snaps of you as a baby – you and Annette and Danny. Before I was born.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t want them.’

  Gently Mark placed the envelope between them. ‘No, OK. I’ll keep them, anyway.’

  Ben picked the envelope up. All at once he was tearing at its seal, spilling the pictures out. Annette smiled up at him, her back to a brick wall, a bundled baby in her arms, its shawl spilling down past her short skirt, white and frothy and clean looking – pure, incongruously so. He shuffled through the rest of the pictures, saw Danny smart in a suit, a carnation in his lapel. He put this picture to the back, shoved the whole lot in the envelope again.

  Mark said, ‘The children will be here soon. All Jade’s friends from her play group, and their mothers.’ He smiled at him and for a moment Ben thought how much he looked like the child he once was, shy, unsure of himself. ‘Steven seems to have everything under control – he even made cakes.’ After a moment he said, ‘He’s pleased you’re here.’

  ‘Nathan likes parties.’

  ‘So does Steven – he’s more excited than Jade.’

  Ben looked out towards the cemetery. He thought of Simon, who ran their birthday and Christmas parties with the kind of good-humoured firmness that made him believe that everything in his life could be so well ordered and nothing could ever again be out of control. He smiled, remembering how Simon had taught himself to twist balloons into animal shapes, how the balloons would sometimes leap from his hands to jet around the room, control lost only for theatrical effect. And afterwards, when all the guests had gone, Simon would collapse into a chair and say, ‘Well now – I think that went well – don’t you think so, boys?’ He must have been eight, nine, ten, and at some point he had accepted Simon as his father, which seemed to him unremarkable, only a gradual getting used to his new life, the periods of not remembering becoming longer and longer. There were times when he even imagined he had dreamed his old life: a bad dream his father – Simon – had woken him from. Then he would look at Mark and know the truth of it.

  Simon said to him, ‘You mustn’t blame Mark, Ben. Try to understand –’

  But he couldn’t understand, only that there were lies and secrets considered too big and dirty for him, and so he had raged and shouted and kicked at Simon’s shins as he tried to reason him out of one of the many tantrums he threw in those early days. How much he had hated Simon then, and Joy, these adults who allowed him his hate and his rage, who held him so tightly as he screamed and shouted. Even during the worst of his rages, the strength of Simon’s embrace made him feel that he was understood. Only his hatred of Mark wasn’t understood and had the power to hurt Simon and Joy. Only this hatred made him feel ashamed when all of his other excesses were forgiven.

  Ben turned to his brother. He said, ‘So, Steven’s living with you now.’

  ‘Yes, while he’s at university.’

  ‘You’ve taken him on.’

  Mark laughed. ‘I think he’s taken me on. But I’ll support him though his degree.’

  A little girl ran from the house. She scrambled onto Mark’s knee, resting her head against his chest and contentedly sucking her thumb. Mark kissed her head, drawing her closer, settling more comfortably. Looking at him, Mark said quietly, ‘She doesn’t know what to make of me – uncle, grandfather – who?’ He smiled, kissing her head again. ‘We are friends, at least. That’s important.’

  A couple of cars pulled up. Young women lifted toddlers from back seats, calling out to each other. Mark set Jade down and stood up, taking the child’s hand. ‘Well, sweetheart, we must welcome your guests.’

  Ben stood up too. He touched Mark’s arm so that he turned to him. ‘I’ll take the photos, Mark,’ he said, ‘I’ll take them from you.’

  Mark nodded. After a moment he smiled. ‘Come on. Let’s see if we can live up to Simon’s birthday parties.’

  You want to know what happened to Kitty. She became a gardener. She modelled her first design on the physic garden at Kew, and it was admired, and people asked her to come and transform their gardens, and a newspaper asked her to write a column on gardening and her life began to seem like a seedling rushing towards the sun. After a while she was writing books about medieval gardens, about gardens and plants that were lost and rediscovered. She became famous – you’ve most likely bought a trowel or a garden fork or seeds and herbs branded with her name. She travelled the world, a garden odyssey. Sometimes, on a plane, or waiting in a foreign station or port, she had a feeling of being outside herself, watching, because she could hardly believe that this was her life, that she had grown all this from barely anything, just a thought about gardens, a nurtured seed.

  In her own garden, hers and Ben’s, she grew such plants that centuries ago would have been used in evidence against her, had she been on trial as a witch. She served Ben teas brewed from her physic garden plants, their leaves and seeds, experimenting. She watched his reactions. He didn’t change, not very much, although he became calmer, she thought, and more in tune
with her. He remained the man she had married, and she realised this was enough.

  I sit with her in her garden sometimes and we have tea. I ask her for love potions; she just laughs.

  THE END

  About the author…

  Winner of the first Andrea Badenoch Prize for Fiction in 2005 for Paper Moon, Marion graduated with distinction and won the Blackwell Prize for Best Performance for the MA in Creative Writing at NorthumbriaUniversity in 2003. She currently teaches creative writing through the OpenCollege of the Arts and has had poems and short stories published, most recently a pamphlet of poetry about her father and childhood entitled Service. Her first novel, The Boy I Love, was published in July 2005 to much critical acclaim.

  Marion is 43, married with two children and lives in the TeesValley

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