by Sanjida Kay
‘Do you remember the time she had to have those injections at the hospital?’ Theo says. ‘When we came home, she got a syringe out of her pretend doctor’s kit and practised giving everyone a shot.’
‘Yeah, and when it was your turn, she banged it right into your heart.’
‘And made a bruise.’
‘But she said it would make your heart big and strong and beautiful!’
I have no idea what to say. I don’t know how Amy copes with this.
‘I miss Ruby-May,’ says Lotte. ‘When will she come back?’
‘Lotte, I’m really sorry, but she’s never coming back. That’s what happens when you die. You don’t come back. Ever.’
‘Yeah, but where did she go?’
Fuck, fuck! Why hasn’t anyone talked to them about this?
Theo closes the iPad and they both look expectantly at me. Neither of them went to the funeral, so maybe they haven’t – as my ex would say – had closure. Maddison’s from New York and she’s obsessed with Gyrotonics, green juice and emotional intelligence. Actually she’d get on really well with Joe. I must remember never to introduce them.
‘Tell you what,’ I say, and I explain the brilliant idea I’ve just had.
The gratifying thing about children is their enthusiasm. They think my idea is brilliant too. And after I’ve helped them achieve ‘closure’, everyone will realize what a damn fine uncle I am and we’ll all be one happy family again. Once we’ve assembled everything we need, we head down to the beach. I don’t tell Dad we’re going – he’s fallen asleep anyway – and there’s no sign of Chloe. I send her a text and she replies, saying she’s still up at the farmhouse taking photos, but she’ll be back soon with bread and cheese for lunch. Pictures of Carlo, I think. I assume Bethany’s in bed sulking, but as we near the sea we spot her. She’s sprinting up the road and jogging down. Over and over again. She’s wearing shorts, a sports bra and a cap. Her hair is in a ponytail and her arms and legs glisten with suntan oil and sweat. Even though it’s only mid-morning, the heat is intense. It makes me feel lethargic, and what Bee is doing looks punishing. I guess this is what it takes to be a star on regional telly.
She passes us, her eyes focused on something in the middle distance, but when she gets to whatever rock is her marker, she jogs back and kisses both children.
‘Yuk,’ says Lotte, wiping her cheek. ‘You’re all wet, Auntie Bee.’
‘This is excruciating,’ she says to me. ‘I feel like I’m waiting to have my molars pulled out.’
I don’t suppose she’s talking about running.
‘I’ve got some special presents for you,’ she tells Lotte and Theo. ‘I’ll give them to you when you get back from the beach.’
They nod solemnly, accepting presents as their right, since we’re going to have a party. Bethany is about to dart off again. I put out my hand to stop her.
‘Listen, Bee, do you remember when you took Dad for that memory test?’
She frowns. ‘Sometime last year.’
‘But when?’ I persist. ‘Was it before or after the funeral?’
‘I can’t remember. After, I think. Amy was barely speaking to anyone. I thought it might help her understand what had happened. Why?’
She does a calf stretch and knots her hands behind her back; the muscles in her shoulders pop. She’s wearing sunglasses, so I can’t see her eyes.
I shrug. ‘No reason. Just Dad couldn’t remember when he went.’ Only a small lie. I don’t want to tell her I’ve read his diary.
‘That’s no surprise, is it?’ she says.
I scuff the ground with my toe; the children, who’ve grown bored, start to drift down the hill towards the beach. That’s true. Or it might be true.
‘I was going to make a follow-up appointment. It’s been a year. He could have got worse.’
‘He probably has. I’ll do it when I get home,’ she says.
We both glance towards the kids, but they’re fine – they’ve almost reached the sandy bay.
‘I can go with him. I’ve got more time than you.’
‘To be fair,’ she says, swapping legs and stretching the other calf, ‘I know a lot more about dementia than you, so it’s best if I take him.’
‘Okay. Where?’
‘Back to the hospital, where I took him before,’ she says, like I’m an idiot.
I nod and shout, ‘Wait up!’ before jogging to catch up with the children.
Am I being an idiot? Why would my sisters lie about what my father was drinking, or about Bee taking him for a check-up at the hospital? It’s much more likely that my father really is suffering from dementia. After all, he has been forgetful since we got here.
And the only reason – absolutely the only reason for Bethany to lie – is unthinkable: that she didn’t ask Dad to look after Ruby-May one year ago today. Literally unthinkable.
Lotte, Theo and I choose our spot carefully: at the far end of the beach, away from the Italian holidaymakers and just before the rocky outcrop. Using toy spades, the three of us dig a shallow grave.
‘Do we say anything or do we just put her in?’
‘Whatever you want.’
Lotte drops Ruby-May’s doll, Pearl, into the hole. She lands with a soft thud. The doll is naked, apart from a purple ribbon around her neck, because Lotte didn’t want to part with any of her clothes. Both children carefully arrange a collection of objects around her: a conch shell, an ice-cream wrapper, a pure white pebble, a chocolate coin, a twig of driftwood bleached to bone and an amethyst-coloured bead. I crouch on my haunches, the sun beating down on my shoulders. They’re so serious and diligent. Pearl reminds me of an Egyptian mummy being sent into the hereafter with all that she – or, rather, Ruby-May – held dear.
As if the same thought had occurred to Theo, he says, ‘When an important person died in Egypt, Anubis would cut out his heart and weigh it. If it weighed less than a feather, he would go to the afterlife. If he’d been bad, the god Ammut would eat his heart.’
‘I don’t think anyone will eat Ruby-May’s heart!’ Lotte says.
‘We should put in a feather!’ Theo says.
We find a seagull’s and Theo threads it into Pearl’s plastic fist. Some of the damp sand caves in as he leans over the doll.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell him, before he can get upset. ‘It’s time to fill it in anyway.’
We shovel sand on top of Pearl and then pat the mound until it’s smooth. Lotte places a scallop shell in the middle, and Theo lays a few stones round the edge. We picked all the geraniums from the trough at the front of the house on our way here, and the two children push the thick stems into the sand. Most of the flowers fall off in the process and our little patch of beach is bright with the blood-red petals.
‘Do you want to say anything?’ I ask. ‘You know, like a poem or something Ruby-May might have liked?’
They stare at me as if I’ve gone mad.
‘She liked Peppa Pig,’ says Lotte, ‘but I don’t know any of the words.’
They both snort like pigs and fall about laughing.
‘Bye-bye, Ruby-May,’ says Theo, and then the two of them race back along the beach.
They leave me standing next to a baby-sized grave, feeling as if I’ve been flayed, and unable to get the thought out of my head that my sister, with her diploma in Drama Studies, is lying exceptionally convincingly to me.
28
NICK
Chloe has put fresh bread and new cheese on the table, along with those weird prickly cucumbers, ugly tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a bunch of basil and some Padrón peppers. Christ, I could murder a burger.
I suddenly remember one Saturday when Amy came round unexpectedly with the kids and I had nothing in the house that a child would possibly want to eat. Ruby-May had grabbed one of the red peppers Maddison had bought to make into a chilli that evening. She held it in both hands, took a big sniff and said, ‘Hmmm, smells like money.’
It made me laugh at the time, but almost a
s soon as I start smiling at the memory, I stop. This is shit. When will it end?
‘What’s this – create your own lunch?’ asks Matt, as he slides a couple of sharp knives into the middle, so we can peel the spines from the cucumbers.
‘Looks perfect,’ says Bethany, putting her arm round Chloe’s shoulders.
‘It’s what they gave me at the farmhouse when I went up this morning,’ she says. Her cheeks are slightly pink. ‘Oh, and some eggs. They were still warm!’
‘Because they’d just come out of a hen’s bottom?’ asks Lotte, her eyes wide with delight.
‘I can make everyone omelettes,’ says Dad.
There’s a pause. No one looks at my father, until Amy says, ‘That would be nice. Thanks, Dad.’
She and Matt seem a bit more at ease with each other, but I’m no expert. If Maddison had been here, she’d probably have rolled her eyes and told me that of course they still weren’t getting on, and wasn’t it obvious Matt hadn’t apologized to her? I still haven’t had a chance to talk to Chloe on her own about those photos of her, and it doesn’t seem right to bring it up with Matt and Amy, today of all days.
‘There’s the big plan for tonight,’ says Luca. ‘I went into town with Joe before he left and saw all the stalls for the Ferragosto celebration. The speciality of the region is chilli! Lots of hot food, fairground rides, fireworks. We should go, no?’
‘Oh yes!’ says Chloe. ‘I’m so bored. I would kill to do that. Carlo says some of his friends are going and I could hang out with them?’
Amy’s mouth tightens into a thin line. She picks up a cucumber and starts skinning it.
‘Yeah, fireworks!’ Lotte jumps around and pretends to explode.
‘Can we go, Dad? There’s a really cool ride. It even says, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here” on the front,’ says Theo.
‘Do any of you even know what day it is?’
‘Amy,’ says Matt.
There’s a crack as Dad drops an egg. The white oozes across the floor.
Amy takes a breath and says, ‘We’re going to have a little party for Ruby-May, who would have been four.’
‘But the festa is in the evening! We could go afterwards,’ says Chloe.
‘Show some respect,’ Matt says. ‘And no, you’re not hanging out with Carlo’s friends. We have no idea who they are.’
‘Why can’t we see the fireworks? Ruby-May loves fireworks.’
‘We’ll be able to see them from here,’ Amy says.
‘But what about the rides?’
Dad breaks another egg. It slides into the bowl, along with some sharp shards of shell.
‘Mum would let me go. I’m going to ask her.’
‘My house, my rules,’ Matt says.
‘It’s Carlo’s house,’ Chloe says. ‘He invited me! It would be rude not to go.’
Amy starts chopping the cucumbers, faster and faster.
‘It wouldn’t kill you to go to the festival afterwards. Or I can take the children and Chloe, if you’re not up for it,’ Bethany says.
‘No! I said no!’
‘You’re such a control freak.’ Bethany grabs the bread knife and starts sawing chunks off the loaf. ‘Dad, you’re butchering that omelette.’
There’s egg on the floor, yolk is smeared in shiny streaks across the work surface, and Dad’s attempting to whisk the egg, including the bits of shell that have fallen in. Some of the beaten egg slops out of the top and spills across his shirt. He’s also turned the pan on already and the kitchen is rapidly filling with black smoke. Amy spins round, the knife still in her hand, and I half-expect her to stab it into his back. She turns the heat off and opens the back door. No smoke alarms have gone off, which isn’t a good sign.
Matt takes the bowl from their father.
‘Oh dear, I haven’t done a particularly good job of this. I used to make omelettes all the time. They were rather delicious, even if I say so myself. You enjoyed them, didn’t you, Nick?’
‘I don’t remember you ever making me an omelette in my life,’ I say.
‘I wish Joe hadn’t left,’ says Bethany, sighing and tossing a piece of bread onto each of the children’s plates.
I’d been thinking the same thing. Who’d have thought it: I’d give anything for a cheery person whizzing up a green smoothie right now. On second thoughts, I’d rather be back in Bristol, eating a bacon bap from Yummy’s van by the army surplus. Why did I insist we all went on holiday together?
‘My memory mightn’t be what it once was, but I know I spent years caring for you after your mother left.’
‘I want to go on the rides!’ Theo says.
‘Caring isn’t how I’d have worded it,’ I say.
‘Anyway, we already buried Ruby-May this morning, so we don’t need to have a party,’ Lotte says.
Amy bangs the frying pan into the sink and turns the cold tap on. A cloud of steam rises into the air.
‘Sweetheart, the funeral was a year ago, and you and Theo weren’t there. Remember? Mummy and Daddy went on their own. Today is the anniversary. Dad, please sit down.’ She picks up the knife again, wipes it on a cloth and starts hacking chunks off the cheese.
‘No, we buried her this morning. Well, we buried Pearl, because Ruby-May has gone away, but we put all the things she likes in the grave.’
‘Who has been buried?’ asks Dad.
‘What are you talking about?’ Amy says, and I have a sinking feeling.
‘It was Uncle Nick’s idea,’ says Theo. ‘You know, so Ammut won’t eat Ruby-May’s heart?’
Shit, shit, shit!
‘Er, that version is a little out of context,’ I say, as Amy, her face drained of colour, stabs the knife at me.
‘Are you telling me you buried Ruby-May’s doll? You buried Pearl? And you got the children to help you?’
‘It’s not like it—’
‘That is sick!’ says Chloe. ‘You really dug a grave and—’
‘What were you thinking, Nick?’ When I don’t reply, Amy starts screaming, ‘We asked you to do one thing. One thing! Is it too much for Matt and me to go out on the anniversary of our child’s death, without you screwing up our other kids in the time it takes to have a cappuccino? What is wrong with you?’
‘Don’t be mean to Nick. He was only trying to help,’ Bethany says, through a mouthful of lettuce leaves. ‘I did tell you to take the kids to the funeral. You can’t shield them from everything. They’ve got really strange ideas about death. And letting a trainee child psychologist practically raise them clearly isn’t helping.’
‘Stay the fuck out of this!’
I can’t remember the last time I heard my eldest sister swear, but it was probably when she was a teenager. I glance at Luca, wondering if he’ll back me up. Surely play-acting a funeral must be a good idea, according to some learned psychiatrist? Luca is staring at his plate, looking thoroughly despondent. I guess he’s not going to stand up to Bethany. Matt folds his arms and glares at me. So far, no one has eaten any lunch, apart from my middle sister; Lotte and Theo are nibbling on dry bread. I wonder if Dad is angry with me too, since I reminded him what a dreadful father he was. He hasn’t obeyed Amy’s orders and he’s now ambling towards the table, carrying something, and I close my eyes for a brief moment, because I know this day is going to get much worse.
‘Dad,’ I say, jumping to my feet, hoping to head him off.
It’s too late.
‘This is delicious,’ he says, his mouth full, sputtering out crumbs.
Our father puts a large chocolate gateau in the middle of the table. It’s covered in a thick layer of buttercream and decorated with Smarties; a piece has been chopped out.
There’s a beat of silence, thick as treacle, and then Lotte says, ‘Wow, look at that cake! Can I have some too?’
Amy drops onto a chair and covers her eyes with her hands.
Something inside me that’s been coiled tightly all week snaps.
‘What the hell is the matte
r with you, Dad? It’s bad enough that you never cared about your own children, but do you have to fuck up Ruby-May’s anniversary?’
The lines across Dad’s forehead deepen and, as he stares at the cake, shame and guilt suffuse his features.
‘Oh, darling,’ he says to Amy, who is crying silently, ‘I’m so sorry. It’s Ruby-May’s cake, isn’t it?’
Chloe leans forward and says, ‘Did you even remember that she died? It’s not her birthday cake, you know.’
I’m stunned at Chloe’s hurtfulness. Where the hell did she learn to speak to her grandfather like that?
‘Shut up,’ I shout. I bang on the table with my fist. ‘Shut up, shut up!’
Amy looks as if she’s about to faint. Luca takes Lotte and Theo’s hands and leads them outside. Matt crouches by his wife and cradles her in his arms. Does Dad really not remember? Has his memory got that bad?
‘Don’t you understand?’ I yell. ‘She’s dead. You killed her! You fucking killed her!’
And I watch as his face caves in on itself. For a moment I’m victorious. I’ve stood up to my father for the first time in my life. I’m glad he’s suffering. Bethany strides over and slaps me across the face. My teeth clatter together and my head cracks back.
‘How dare you speak to him like that! It was not his fault.’
Dad buckles at the knees and sinks into an armchair. If I let it, the pain that is waiting will cripple me. Of course it’s not my father’s fault. I know that. I’m mad with grief about Ruby-May, angry with my father for driving my mother away, furious with my sister for almost killing me and then, later, leaving me on my own with my emotionally absent, adulterous and semi-alcoholic father. I remember the hospital appointment she’s fabricated.
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘It’s not his fault, is it? You asked him to look after Ruby-May. A two-year-old child. You left her in his care. It’s your fault.’
‘Nick,’ she says quietly, ‘none of us realized he was suffering from dementia.’
She’s standing so close to me I can smell the pina colada of her suntan oil. I open my mouth to speak. I’m about to retort, Is he really? Or did you lie from start to finish? But before I can say anything, Bethany says, ‘If you’d actually been on time for once in your life, you could have looked after Ruby-May. But no, as usual, you were late. Spectacularly late. Because,’ and she pokes me in the chest with her finger, in time with her words, ‘everything is always about you. You’ve never cared about us – about Amy and me.’