What Milo Saw

by Virginia MacGregor

  When she got to the door, Nurse Thornhill turned round.

  ‘Oh, and Tahir? After tonight we’ll need to reconsider your contract. With a raised profile I have to make sure our paperwork is in order.’

  As soon as she left the room, Tripi switched off Milo’s phone.

  Her threats could not hurt him any more.

  Half an hour later, Tripi heard a knock on the swing doors and then a hushed voice.

  ‘Hey, Tripi, got the phone?’

  Al’s eyes darted around the kitchen. Tripi still didn’t like the thought of him living in Sandy’s house.

  He handed Al the phone.

  ‘Excellent, mate, I’ll get that loaded up.’

  An undercover reporter, that’s what Milo called Al. Milo had told Tripi that when he was older, he wanted to do that job, but Tripi had seen too many undercover things in his life. He wanted to live in a world where everything was out in the open, where no one spied on their friends or made up stories.

  ‘Sandy’ll swing round with the bus in about an hour to collect you all.’

  Tripi didn’t like Lovely Sandy’s name being in Al’s mouth. He cleared his throat. ‘Do you have any news?’

  ‘What’s that, mate?’ Al was already scanning through the video footage. ‘This is cool stuff.’

  ‘I was wondering whether you had any news about my sister?’

  ‘You have a sister?’ Al looked up from the phone.

  Tripi felt a hollow thud in his chest.

  ‘Ayishah… Milo said you had seen her on the news. That you could help me find where she was.’

  Al scratched his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ He kept looking at the phone; his eyebrows shot up whenever he saw something he liked. ‘Where’s your sister, then?’

  Tripi’s throat felt small and tight. He could barely push the words through his lips. ‘In Syria.’

  Al looked up. ‘Oh, right, the girl on the photocopy.’

  ‘So you have seen her, then?’

  ‘Seen her?’

  Tripi saw Ayishah’s face a second before the explosion. What would her answer have been? That they should leave Aleppo and go on foot to the Turkish camp, or stay and wait for the driver? If he had heard her words, perhaps he would have found her.

  Al put the phone in the pocket of his leather jacket. ‘It’s a needle in a haystack, mate, there are millions of them.’

  ‘She is twelve years old. She is alone.’

  Al shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Christ. Well, I’ll take another look at the photocopy, see what I can do.’

  Tripi closed his eyes and pictured her face, smiling at him across the rubble. I’ll find you, Ayishah, he promised. I’ll find you soon.

  59

  SANDY

  Sandy watched the last blue and white pill swirl down the toilet bowl and felt the muscles in her chest relax. She wanted Milo to be proud of her. From now on, she was going to do everything right, even the little things. They were going to build a new life together. No more pills or dieting or thinking about Andy or worrying about money.

  She slipped on the dress she’d bought from the RSPCA shop that afternoon. The dress had a halter neck and it had spun as she’d turned to look at herself in the changing room mirror. And it was orange, Milo’s favourite colour – a soft, peachy orange like that special moon on the poster in his room. As she’d floated around the shop in her new dress, she’d noticed Milo’s torch in there and the woman had explained how he’d come in to exchange it for a travel kettle for his gran. Sandy had sobbed onto the orange dress and bought the torch back and promised herself that as soon as she’d saved a bit, she’d buy him a proper torch, one of those metal ones that sat heavy in your palm and shot out beams of light for miles and miles.

  She flushed the loo one last time to make sure the pills were gone for good and then went down to the kitchen and pulled out the television plug. No more holiday programmes. No more wishing her life away.

  She stood in the hall and wound a cream coloured scarf around her neck. Perhaps, when all this was over, her rash would disappear.

  ‘You look beautiful.’ Petros stood at the bottom of the stairs in a white shirt and a yellow polyester tie that Andy had left behind. Nothing frayed, except for the cap that pressed down on his ears.

  ‘And you are handsome,’ said Sandy. ‘Lou will be proud to have you on her arm.’

  Petros took off his hat, held it to his chest, and bowed. ‘I am going for a little walk, to get some air.’

  She nodded. ‘Make sure you’re back by six.’

  Then the phone rang and Petros disappeared through the front door.

  ‘Hello?’

  A clicking on the other end.

  ‘Milo? Is that you?’

  A baby’s cry.

  ‘It’s me.’

  Sandy’s hand flew up to her throat. ‘Andy?’

  ‘Just take her,’ she heard Andy say, his mouth pulled away from the receiver.

  The baby’s cry dimmed. Perhaps Habibti had turned into a demon after all.

  ‘How are you, Sandy?’

  She wanted to laugh. How am I? Was he serious?

  ‘I’m busy, Andy, I don’t have time to talk now.’ She scratched at the raw skin under her scarf.

  ‘I’m coming home.’

  For a moment, the world froze. The clock on the microwave stopped blinking, the hum from the refrigerator rattled to a halt, the drip from the tap stood suspended in mid-air.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Things aren’t working out here.’

  Sandy gripped the back of one of the high stools at the kitchen counter.

  ‘Sandy? Are you still there?’

  How long had she waited for these words? To hear Andy say that he’d made a mistake, that he was coming back to her, that he was a stupid fool who’d taken her for granted? That he missed her and he missed Milo and wanted them to be a family again. And she’d be cross a while and give him a hard time and then she’d give in and laugh and say that she was sorry too, that she’d try harder and she’d tell him she loved him and that of course he could come home. That she and Milo were waiting for him.

  ‘Angela is struggling with the language.’ He paused. ‘And the culture. It’s all too much for her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She misses her friends.’

  The world started spinning again. The drop from the tap splashed into the sink. The microwave blinked.

  ‘And we want to raise Arabella in England.’

  Sandy sat down on the stool and laughed. Andy, Angela and Arabella.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We’ll be selling the house, Sandy. We need the money.’

  The red rash, creeping up again. Blood under her fingernails. ‘You haven’t paid a thing since you left.’

  ‘I paid the mortgage on the house you’re living in for ten years.’

  It’s slipping. That’s how Lou described what her mind did on days when she felt she was losing her grip on the world.

  The front door clicked open and shut again.

  Milo came into the kitchen and put down his school bag.

  ‘So why are you so busy?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Oh, we’re just closing down Lou’s nursing home.’ She glanced over at Milo and gave him a wink.

  And then she realised what she’d said.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Sandy? Why’s Gran in a nursing home?’

  Shit.

  Milo looked up, his hearing so sharp that he’d have got all of that.

  ‘Sandy?’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Andy, what did you expect? Waltzing off to the other side of the world on a mid-life crisis. We couldn’t cope with her any more.’

  ‘Milo knew how to —’

  ‘Milo’s a fucking child.’

  Milo stood in the middle of the kitchen and stared at her. Sandy stretched out her hand towards him. ‘Darling…’

  He stepped back.
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  ‘She’s my grandmother, I get to decide where she goes,’ Andy roared down the phone.

  ‘You’re not here and you’re not paying the bills, and Milo’s too young to look after her. She’s ill, Andy. Her mind’s slipping.’

  Milo picked up his school bag.

  ‘Andy, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘We need to talk about this. And about me coming back.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a fuck about you coming back. Just piss off, Andy.’ She slammed down the phone.

  Milo was already at the back door.

  ‘Milo, come back.’

  He walked straight to the shed.

  Sandy ran after him. ‘Milo!’

  This wasn’t how it was meant to happen. She’d made a plan:

  She’d be waiting for him when he got back from school. He’d see her in her new orange dress with her make-up, her hair twisted up in a bun to show off her long neck, just as he liked it. And she’d tell him all about how the preparations had been going.

  That Al was at his girlfriend’s putting the finishing touches on the film.

  That Sandy had got permission from Mrs Harris to borrow the school minibus.

  That everyone was ready to head to London.

  That they’d organised a party for afterwards.

  And she’d tell him that she liked Tripi, that she was glad he was in their life.

  Above all, she’d squeeze him tight and tell him how exciting it was, that her little Milo was going to save the day.

  Milo closed the door of the shed.

  Sandy stood outside, the wet grass seeping through her tights. She knelt down and held her hand to the shed door. ‘Milo, please listen. You weren’t meant to hear that.’

  ‘You lied,’ he said, his voice small and wobbly. ‘I trusted you when you came and spoke to me last night, but you’re always lying.’

  ‘I try to protect you, my darling.’

  ‘You lied about telling Dad that Gran’s in the nursing home, you lied about Gran and the fire —’

  ‘The fire?’

  ‘I saw the letter on your desk. It makes sense, what you said about her knowing it was right to leave. She wanted to go. She did it on purpose.’

  Sandy took in a sharp breath and held it for a second.

  ‘Gran knew it was time to go, Milo.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s like I said last night. She didn’t want to be a burden on us any more. On you, Milo.’

  Milo didn’t answer.

  ‘Please let me in now, please. We can talk, like we did last night. I can explain.’

  ‘So she set fire to the kitchen to make you get rid of her?’

  There was a long pause. ‘It was Gran’s way of showing us that she needed more help than either of us could give her. It was her choice, Milo.’

  And Sandy had messed that up too.

  ‘And you keep moving people in without asking me,’ said Milo.

  ‘I had to, Milo. I’m sorry.’ Sandy couldn’t think of anything to say to make things better.

  ‘And Gran – you didn’t tell me she was ill. I mean really ill.’

  ‘But Milo, you must have seen.’

  ‘If you’d let her stay with us, she’d have been okay, I would have looked after her.’

  Sandy paused. She couldn’t tell Milo that he was only a little boy, that with the best will in the world he couldn’t look after Lou.

  ‘Please come out, Milo.’ She wanted more than anything to hold him, to make him feel that everything was going to be okay, that they’d work it out, the two of them. ‘Please, Milo. This is what you wanted – for everyone to see Forget Me Not for what it really is. I’m going help Nurse Heidi get the ladies ready, I’ll come back to collect you in an hour. I’ve put out your clothes upstairs – your favourite orange sweatshirt. It matches my dress…’

  ‘I’m not coming.’

  ‘But Milo —’

  ‘There’s no point any more.’

  She heard a thud against the door and pictured Milo’s legs hitched up into his chest, his eyes pressed down onto his knee caps.

  Sandy took a breath. ‘Please come out.’

  But there was no answer.

  60

  LOU

  She heard his footsteps coming down the corridor, the weight of him walking across the room, the creak of his knees as he bent down in front of her.

  ‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said. ‘To make sure my Louisa was okay.’ He reached up and stroked the side of her fallen face. ‘And to give you this.’

  He held out a rolled-up piece of card.

  Lou did not have the strength to unroll it, or to speak, so he opened it for her.

  She looked at the lines of pencil that made up her face, her hair, an urgency in their strokes as though he wanted to get it done before she sailed away like his wife.

  ‘I will paint you,’ he promised. ‘But this is for now.’

  She reached out her hand and touched his arm. A new white shirt, no frays at the cuff.

  Levering her thumb under her third finger she eased off her engagement ring and dropped it into Petros’s hand.

  ‘Marry me,’ she whispered. ‘Marry me now.’

  He took the ring and kissed it and slid it onto her other hand.

  ‘The left hand is for David, the right one for me.’

  Petros got up off his knees. ‘I must go and find someone before the awards ceremony. I will see you there, Louisa.’

  Lou nodded and watched Petros walk back across the room, heard his steps down the corridor, through the front door, and watched the top of his head shining under the street lamps as he headed to the park.

  61

  TRIPI

  An hour later Tripi stood outside the shed with Sandy.

  ‘Milo, it is Tripi. We have to leave now, we have the film, it is very good and it is all your work. You must be proud and come with us.’

  Silence.

  ‘And Al has gone to his office so he can release it on the internet when the award is announced.’

  More silence.

  Tripi forced himself not to blame Milo for lying about Al having found Ayishah. He was trying to save Old Mrs Moon and to help the old people at Forget Me Not. Tripi only wished that he had not been so quick to believe him because it made him feel foolish. It is easy to pull the wool over your eyes, Tripi, Ayishah had said.

  He should have learnt by now that good news did not come so easily.

  ‘Everything is ready, Milo, you will be pleased.’

  Still nothing.

  Sandy placed her hand on Tripi’s arm. ‘It’s no good.’

  Strands of blond hair had come loose at her neck, curled by the damp night. Standing there in her orange dress, she reminded him of the sunsets in Syria. A wave of homesickness swept over him.

  Tripi pulled away from her. After tonight, he would go straight back to London. He had no right to form attachments he could not keep.

  The light in Sandy’s eyes flickered off.

  Tripi held out his hands. ‘If Milo wants to stay here, there is nothing we can do, but we must find Petros or Old Mrs Moon will be upset.’

  After the excitement of recovering her voice, Old Mrs Moon had remained silent all afternoon. Twice, he had found her asleep in her armchair in the lounge. He was not sure that she was up to this awards ceremony.

  ‘You don’t think I know that?’ Lovely Sandy’s voice broke.

  He had upset her, he had been unkind to draw away from her touch.

  ‘I am sorry, Sandy.’

  She stepped away from him and tears spilled out of her eyes. ‘He went for a walk,’ she gulped. ‘I reminded him to be back by six. And then Andy…’ She choked on her words. ‘And then Milo…’