Miller.
The photo album slips from his fingers and lands on the floor. He doesn’t pick it up but stares ahead, as if someone is dangling something in front of him, hundreds of memories swarming through his mind.
He and his father going to the river to play, swapping stories and pieces of information like cards in a game; helping his mother dig a vegetable patch in their garden, the sun hot on their backs, soil soft under their fingers; walking to the sweetshop every Sunday with Bess, holding hands like nothing could ever part them.
Idling away year after year in the company of his two friends, playing games, sitting by the river, sneaking a fag from his father’s stash, partying, arguing, laughing. There was so much laughter. He struggles to reconcile those glorious, sparkling days with the darkness that swamps him now. He draws a breath and picks up the album, rubbing his hand over his face.
Miller.
He hardly even notices when his hand begins to shake. He turns the page, then turns another, and again and again, the face of his old friend tumbling through his mind. Miller, Miller, Miller. He is in all of the pictures. Him. Don. Miller. Together, friends. They thought for ever.
Can it be him?
He shakes his head. It can’t be, can it? He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. He was kind and funny. He was a sweet boy. He can’t have a grudge against him. He wouldn’t want to hurt his family.
But…
He flicks through the album Don found in his wardrobe, pausing when he sees a photograph of him, Jules and Don, slumped across each other, laughing at something beyond the camera. To the side, Miller sits with his arms crossed, swiping a glance at Jules from the corner of his eye, the look of a haunted man, something morphing his features into a permanent grimace.
And then John remembers. He remembers the summer Miller changed: the way he kept his distance, kept his eyes cast to the ground, kept the bond they had built as children locked away to crumble and to rot. He’d tried to mend the rift, bring him back into their lives, but he couldn’t.
One came and one went. One to happiness and one to loneliness. The bond of their youth left to wither under the arrival of someone new.
He stands with his back to the album: out of sight, out of mind. Or so he wishes. Thoughts of the past turn around in his head.
Don paces the room, running fidgety hands through greasy hair. Jules sits at the dining table, lost, just as he is, in the years before. ‘I… I always thought he was lovely. He made us laugh. Took care of us all.’
Don comes to a halt and shakes his head. ‘No, there was another side to him neither of you saw.’
John frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I was riding my bike by the river one day when I fell in. I screamed and screamed for help. Miller came, and I thought he was going to pull me out. I thought he’d come to help me. But when he knelt down, he… he pushed me under, John.’
‘No, he couldn’t have. He wouldn’t! This is Miller, Don. Miller.’
Don sighs, lowering himself into a chair like an elderly man. ‘I thought he was joking, you know. That’s what we did. Joke. I thought he’d pull me up, pat me on the back and say something to cheer me up. I was so relieved when I saw him. But he didn’t. He kept me under the water until I thought I was going to die.’ Don covers his eyes, massaging his temples. ‘At the last minute, he pulled me out, but you should have seen the look on his face. He wasn’t joking. He was angry, John.’
John eases himself to the floor, legs buckling at the last minute, tears prickling his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Tell anyone for that matter?’
Don looks at him with an expression that breaks his heart. ‘Who would have believed me? Everyone loved him, everyone thought he was an angel.’
‘Why not after? Why didn’t you say anything?!’
‘I just told you: because no one would have believed me, John! You wouldn’t have!’
‘I would. You were my best friend.’
‘So was he! So was he, John.’
‘That doesn’t matter anymore,’ Jules shouts, throwing her hands in the air. ‘What matters now is getting Bonnie back.’
John nods, slumps back against the wall. ‘Why didn’t we think of him?’
‘Because we made ourselves forget, blocked it from our thoughts. Because when he moved away it was the easiest thing to do for a bunch of teenagers,’ Don says, meeting his gaze, a shadow passing over his face. ‘Because when the two of you got together, he felt you had betrayed him.’ He sighs, lowering his face into his hands. ‘Because he loved Jules more than anything else in the world.’
Chapter 54
Maisie
Sunday 31 January, 2016
Maisie counts the seconds, tapping her finger in time with the pulse of the room, which throbs with an intensity she hasn’t felt for a long time.
She watches the doctors perform their actions with her heart in her mouth, prepped to jump in at the slightest notice. Lailah stands sentinel by her side, flashing her looks of fear and looks of hope.
The room is heavy with whispered words and the rustle of their uniforms. Maisie holds her hands in front of her stomach, hoping with everything she has that this is what she thinks it is. Please, please, please. Please, let this be it.
She closes her eyes and sends a silent prayer into the universe. When she opens them and looks over the doctor’s shoulder, a shiver runs down her body.
‘Call Heidi!’
Chapter 55
Miller
Thursday 23 October, 1997
I sense with a feeling in my bones that this is it now. There will be no parting over loose morals, or words thrown over the course of an argument. There will be no playing away or punches given and taken. There will be nothing of what other couples take on the chin. Because you both transcend those around you and your relationship will endure. Within an instant, I’ve set the course for your joint future.
You smile and offer to carry her bag, and I want to clap you on the back and tell you, ‘Well done.’ Chivalry is losing in the race against arrogance and you, I feel, could pull it round again.
‘Thanks,’ she says, smiling.
‘No problem.’
You’ve been walking her to school every day now for the past few weeks, asking her how she is, being the gentleman, something that puts you in stark contrast to the bad boys and cool dudes. She sees it. So do other girls. I told you this would happen. I told you people would swarm to you, some vying for attention, others wanting to hurt you. You didn’t realise, but just the other day, I stopped Nick Kingsley from taking you round the back of the school and beating you within an inch of your life. I won’t tell you how because I know it will make you screw up your face and clutch your stomach.
‘Some friends and I are going for a picnic later at the park. Would you like to come? I think you’ll like them – they’re really funny.’
She nods. ‘OK. Thanks.’
She doesn’t speak much. Instead she likes to listen to you talk about your parents, Chubby and I, writing, music, school, even the weather. You worry you’re talking too much, but don’t. She thinks you are perfect.
She always will.
Thursday 30 October, 1997
I know you think I like her. Fancy her. I saw the way you kept glancing at me yesterday, sadness and concern in your eyes. Don’t worry, I wanted to say, I’m not going to try and claim her for my own like all the other boys do. I’m not interested. When I look at her I’m thinking of you, how I have made a good choice allowing her into your life. You’ll learn from her and she you, you’ll support one another through the hard times that await in the years to come, you’ll comfort and love and make each other happy. I want this for you, John; you’re my little angel, my beautiful baby boy. I watched you grow up, I built your confidence when it tumbled, I fed you when I worried you were thin, I put a cold cloth on your forehead when you were ill. You and she will never have what we have. But I want you to live life to the full. These times
with her aren’t our end, they are our beginning.
Chapter 56
John
Wednesday 30 December, 2015
The man stands with his back to John, left hand digging deep into his trouser pocket, right hand spooning sugar into a milky cup of tea. A swift ping alerts them to a message on his phone. The man turns and pokes at the screen and John takes the time to study his old friend. Wrinkles edge down his forehead and across his cheeks like lines in a piece of paper. His shirt, so crisp and neat, bulges up at the back where he has forgotten to tuck it into the waistband of his trousers. A silver wedding band glistens on his finger and catches John’s eye, then disappears from view as he stirs milk into their tea. His still-thick hair is slicked back across his head, and in another life John might have poked at his luck in keeping a full head of hair. But how can he? The bond that bridged their lives together as children is so deeply settled in the past, he can’t find a way to bring it back. How does he behave? What does he say? His question can wait for later; first he wants to get to know the man his old friend has become.
Before knocking on Miller’s door, he’d sat in his car, staring up at the grand house, wondering how their friendship had come to this: John Googling him on the internet and arranging to meet after so many years apart and now sitting outside his house. It hadn’t taken much effort to find his work details online and, after eventually getting past his secretary, their conversation went from a few stilted words to a blast of conversation booming down the phone.
‘You look different, Mill. You look good.’
He smiles and turns, raising an eyebrow at John. ‘I suppose I do. You look the same.’
‘How have you been all these years?’ John takes the steaming cup from his hand and follows him into the sitting room, running his eyes across the photo frames that paint a happy life. Three cream sofas sit at right angles round an old oak coffee table. Knick-knacks, balled-up notes, jewellery, crumbs, and the latest state-of-the-art tablets are sprinkled across the sideboard to his right. A sixty-inch flatscreen TV sticks to the wall like one big eye reflecting their own small silhouettes back at them. John’s surprise at his friend’s obvious wealth makes the words stick in his throat.
Miller catches him looking and shakes his head, gesturing across the room. ‘It wasn’t always like this, John.’
‘What do you mean?’ John takes a seat and feels himself sink down into the sofa cushion.
Miller runs a hand across his face, the wrinkles burrowing deeper into his skin as he frowns. ‘You don’t really want to know, Johnny. You have a perfect life. Why would you care about anyone else’s?’
The words come as a blow to John despite the years. ‘Mill, you were my best friend. Of course I care.’
Miller taps the floor with his foot. Quick, sharp movements that set John’s teeth on edge. ‘You were mine.’ It comes out as a whisper.
‘Why did you leave? Why did you shut yourself down? It’s because of Jules, isn’t it? You loved her.’
His foot stops tapping. ‘What? No, I didn’t. I didn’t leave because of that.’
‘Then why did you?’
‘Because something… something happened that changed things. I had to leave. I was scared. I was only young, John. I didn’t know what to do. It was easier just to run. I lied to my parents, told them I was being bullied, and they moved us away. I didn’t want to leave you, though. You were my best pal.’
John nods. ‘What happened?’
‘It doesn’t matter now.’ His foot resumes tapping out a rhythm in the floor and his finger digs and digs deeper into a cut on his hand. Tap. Dig. Tap. Dig. John looks away when his hand starts to bleed. Even then he keeps digging, as if the answers to life are buried beneath his skin.
‘Of course it matters. What happened, Mill?’
‘Our lives went separate ways, Johnny. I read about you in the papers. Famous writer. You always wanted to be. Well done. You got everything you wanted. You have Jules, you have a daughter, a career, a home, a life. For a long time, mine wasn’t like that.’
John takes a sip of his tea, if only to calm himself. ‘Tell me.’
Miller stares at the floor and sighs. ‘When I moved away, things went from bad to worse. My parents died, I lost the money I had saved. I was forced into a job I hated, into a flat where I had to push the bed against the door every night. Told myself it would get better, that I’d get myself out of this hole. That maybe, if I was brave, I’d find you. The only reason I didn’t was because I got ill. Leukaemia. Those were some of the worst days of my life.’ He rubs his eyes. ‘At one point, I hoped I would die. I know that’s selfish but I did. I couldn’t help it. I’d had enough of the neighbour’s boys coming every night and trying to get in, I was sick of not having enough money to eat, I was sick of being alone, staring at the wall, wishing I was a boy again, running about with you and Don.’ He smiles, wiping away a tear like it is burning his skin, like a child would, palm flat against his cheek. ‘Bad times hurt, John. They cut you so deep it’s only when you’re on your knees you realise this type of cut can’t be healed. You don’t know what this is like, I can tell by the look of you. You’ve had a good life.’
John swallows the lump in his throat. ‘I’m sorry, mate. I’m so sorry.’ And he means it. He means it more than he has meant anything in his life.
Miller nods. ‘It’s OK.’
‘Then what happened? After?’
‘I survived, kept this picture of us, looked at it, sort of told myself I could have that again.’ He pulls a crumpled photograph from his pocket and passes it to him with a shaking hand. ‘That picture got me through.’
John holds it in his hand and smiles. It is the same picture Don has in the album. ‘I hated that red jumper.’
‘I know. Didn’t want to hurt your mum’s feelings, though, did you?’
He chuckles. ‘No. I used to lie awake at night imagining sticking it on the fire.’
‘Do you remember those times by the river, throwing rocks and talking about rubbish?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I missed them.’
‘I’ve missed them too.’
A nod.
‘Later the leukaemia came back to bite me on the bum. Worse than before. Lot worse. I was sitting on my bed one night, listening to the neighbour’s boys shout at me, and I thought, “Why don’t I just stop this?” I kept ten packets of painkillers and a bottle of vodka in my drawer. The leukaemia was getting the better of me so I thought I’d get it over with. I sat on the bed and held that picture in my hand, thought I could go thinking of you and Don. With every pill I swallowed, I felt a little bit more relieved. It would be over soon. I wouldn’t have to live that life anymore. I’d find those days with you and Don and I’d stay there for ever.’
John rubs his finger across the picture, not daring to look up because, if he does, he knows he won’t be able to stop himself from crying.
‘You didn’t come and look for me, John. You forgot about me, didn’t you?’
He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t forget. I blocked you from my mind, threw away my photos of you, stopped myself thinking about you until it became natural. I was hurt, Mill. You just left. If I’d have known what happened to you, I would have come and found you. I would have helped you.’
‘I know. I know.’ Miller begins tapping the floor with the other foot. ‘And I know you mean it. You always were honest. Some things don’t change.’
‘What happened after you…’
‘Tried to top myself?’ He smiles. ‘It almost worked but those boys broke down the door, got scared when they saw me, ran, left the door open. A woman on her way to see her sister looked in and rang for help. She saved my life. And although I thanked her, I wasn’t grateful. I hated her. It should have been someone else she saved, not me.’
‘Mill, don’t.’
‘It’s true. Anyway, that was that. Got myself out of that flat, exchanged it for one that was a whole lot worse, but I didn’t have a
nyone trying to get in at night. I got some help from a counsellor, survived the leukaemia. Life slowly improved. Sorted myself out. Studied. Worked hard. Got a job I love. Met my wife. Things are a lot better now than they were then.’
John nods, reaching across and taking Miller’s hand. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, mate.’
He smiles and squeezes his hand. ‘You didn’t know. Anyway, enough about me. That was all in the past. Tell me about you. I know you’re an author, quite a good one if that last book was anything to go by. How is Jules? Are you still with Jules?’
‘She’s… she’s OK.’ John braces himself and slowly begins to tell Miller about Bonnie, each word feeling like it’s sticking in his mouth. He starts with how they first thought she’d gone for a walk and got lost, and finishes with the last photograph they received. Miller is silent through all of it, his eyes pinned to the floor, his fingers steepled together. John notes his reactions and waits for him to say something. When Miller eventually meets his gaze, John knows with a certainty in his gut that he is not the person they are looking for.
‘Jesus. Johnny, I’m sorry. I… I can’t even imagine what…’ He pauses and leans back, eyebrows rising high into his wrinkled forehead. ‘You… you came here because you thought I might have taken her, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. I had to be sure.’
Miller nods, biting his bottom lip. ‘I understand. I wish you had just said it first off, though. So. Tell me. What do you think? Do I have your daughter? Is it me?’
‘I’m sorry, mate. I am. But if you were in my position, you’d do the same.’
Miller leans back into the sofa, a deep sigh scraping past his lips. ‘Yeah. I know I would. Is there anything I can do to help you find her?’
‘I don’t think so. Do you remember anyone from back then? Did you see anyone?’
Lies Between Us Page 21