Downward

by White, Bethan

  She looked at him, startled. ‘But, darling, I must just …’

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t. A few crumbs on the floor will wait a while. We need to talk.’

  She sat down, gingerly, on the edge of a chair and smiled uncertainly at him. Then, she jumped up again. ‘Coffee?’ she said, brightly. That would stave it off for a minute or two.

  ‘Mum. Sit. Please. I need to talk to you. If you would rather I go back to the vicarage and wait, that’s fine. But we have to talk.’

  She subsided back into her chair and sat waiting, shoulders tense. A small smile played around her mouth. She didn’t know what was coming. She feared what was coming, but until he told her, it wasn’t real. That policy had served her well all her life and she wasn’t about to let go of it here, today, in the face of who-knew-what. She took a deep breath and broadened the smile. ‘All right, dear. What would you like to tell me?’

  There was no way to wrap this up in any conversational cotton wool. ‘Megan and I have split up.’ It sounded bald and cold but this was the best way with his mother, he knew. Dress up a statement even a little and she would hang on to the good bit and ignore the bad. Even when his father was dying, on the very day he actually died, she was talking about how well he looked, how he was planning a round of golf. So, straight from the hip was best. And even so, she made the best of it.

  ‘Oh, darling!’ she said, leaning back in her chair, her hands on the table. ‘Every couple has their ups and downs. Even your father and I …’

  ‘This is for keeps, mum,’ he said. ‘There … well, things have been said that can't be unsaid. She believes that I have been having an affair and she won't forgive me.’

  His mother’s silence was like a well, sucking in all sound and so the ticking of the thermostat under the coffee pot, the traffic outside, all became unnaturally loud. She was known in the church as a good listener but this was to give her unwarranted praise; she usually said nothing because she had no idea what to say. Before her husband died, she had had no faith except that a cup of sweet tea would heal all ills. And if it didn’t, then just ignoring it would make most things go away. After that, everyone was simply on their own; she had exhausted her repertoire. But then, when her grief over his death was still a little raw scab, to be picked at now and then when she was alone, Mike Green had come along, a white knight in shining armour. He had enclosed her in loving arms and made the lingering nasty bits go away and there was just one fly in this healing ointment; he was a vicar, and not just any old vicar. He was a vicar who lived up to his Christian tenets in literally everything he did. She often told him he was too good for her and when she said it, she meant it. He hadn’t asked her to share his faith, all he asked was that she looked as though she did. She had assured him that she had let Jesus into her life and the look of joy on his face had cut her to the quick – she wore her Christianity like a coat she could take off one day; for him, it was like his skin. But, it worked and if he knew she had doubts, he never said so and as for her, she relied on her old belief, that what you don’t know, won't hurt you.

  ‘Chris, darling, I’m sure you will work it out.’ Her words came out like a tickertape machine; response 4B subsection iv.

  ‘I don’t think so, Mum. It’s … well, it’s complicated.’

  Her eyes went wide. ‘Don’t tell me you actually are having an affair, Chris! How could you? That lovely little boy. Megan. I just don’t understand you.’

  He sighed. Why was it always his fault? Ever since he was a child, it was always his fault. If his friends came round and one of them so much as snagged a nail, it was always his fault. One time, and it had rankled for years, one of his friends – could it even have been Mark? – had eaten a cake she was saving for tea and he had been sent to bed and Mark – yes, it definitely had been Mark – had been taken out with Claire for a cream tea, because there was nothing in the house to eat. And there were loads of other …

  ‘Chris! Are you listening to me? I said, who is she?’

  ‘Who is she who?’

  ‘Who are you having an affair with?’ She lowered her voice on the word ‘affair’ as though a Christian café was not quite the place to say such a thing out loud. ‘Is it that little bit of trash in your office? She’s no better than she should be.’

  ‘Jacintha? No, she’s having it away with Dave.’

  ‘Chris! How can you be so flippant? He’s married, isn’t he? With children?’

  ‘Yes, yes, he is. But it isn’t exactly a novelty, Mum. People are having affairs left, right and centre.’ He sighed when he saw her expression. ‘But not me. It was all a misunderstanding.’

  She straightened up and brushed an invisible crumb from the table, pursing her mouth. ‘I don’t see how an affair can be a misunderstanding, Christopher.’

  Oh, oh – his full name. So, that was how it was going to be, was it? He squared his shoulders. He wasn’t going to tell her the gory details, but there was going to be no option. ‘Mum, I made a mistake. One mistake. I had a migraine …’

  ‘I didn’t think you still had those.’

  Ah, now the Gestapo tactics. ‘Now and again. Anyway, Mark …’

  ‘I didn’t think you still saw Mark.’

  ‘Sorry? Oh, sometimes, in the shop. Anyway, I went to Mark and he gave me something for my head and it made me … well, it clouded my judgement for a while. And I was showing …’ Suddenly, it was all too much and he stood up. ‘Look, Mum, I can't do this. I was going to ask if I could stay with you and Mike for a few days, just while I get myself sorted. But it obviously isn’t going to work …’

  She jumped up and went round the table to put her arms around him. To anyone passing, it would look like a hug, but in fact there was no warmth in it. She was using Vicar’s Wife 3A, subsection ix. ‘Of course you must come and stay with us, darling. Mike will be delighted. We just don’t see enough of you.’

  He put his arms around her loosely. Grateful Son 2A, subsection desperate. ‘Will Mike be okay with me being there?’

  ‘Of course he will.’ The pause was minimal, but in his heightened state he felt it as though it lasted hours.

  ‘As long as you’re sure …’

  There was no pause this time, because she didn’t know what to say. She had the option of a lie or having him walk out of the door. Silence was, as always, her best response. He bent his head and rested his cheek on the top of her head. How had he got to this? Where was it all going, apart from to hell in a handcart?

  Ain’t no sunshine

  *

  It wasn’t until he had put his bag down on the spare bed, that Chris cried. He wasn’t sure that he was even crying about leaving Megan, although that was clearly what they called on Criminal Minds the ‘stressor’. He was crying for his whole life, for his old bedroom in the house his mother had sold when she married Mike. He and his sister had spent their entire childhoods in that house. Their height charts were still there in pen on the kitchen door frame; his parents had only stopped measuring them when Chris got taller than his father, the joke being that no one could reach up to make the mark any more. He had remembered that day. It was the first day he had looked, properly looked at his dad and seen how old and ill he was looking, how his breaths were snatched, how the whites of his eyes were pale yellow, how he only looked plump because his stomach was distended through what turned out to be a terminal cancer.

  He couldn’t blame his mother from moving on, but he and Claire had begged her not to sell the house. She didn’t need the money and they both needed a place to rest their heads. Claire wasn’t married then, he wasn’t yet with Megan; they could have shared it, stayed in their old rooms, with the familiar. Just until they didn’t need it any more. If that day ever came.

  So now, instead of putting down his bag on his old bed, in his old room, with his childhood all around him from the teddy on the bookshelf to the Power Rangers on the wallpaper, here he was in the guest room at the vicarage. It was decorated to offend no-one, with mu
ted beige the main component of the colour scheme. There were twin beds, each with a matching muted beige duvet and one flat pillow. There was a dressing table which had been given a coat of muted beige chalk paint and been finished with a plate glass top, to save wear and tear. There was a fitted wardrobe. There was a single vase in the middle of the dressing table top, a bunch of dusty lavender sticking stiffly out of its gold-edged fluted top. The lavender was the most colourful thing in the room and the whole atmosphere screamed charity shop – there was even a hint of that musty, fusty, long-neglected smell, under the worn-out perfume of the dried flowers.

  There was a tap on the door and Mike Green put his head around it. Chris turned away and surreptitiously wiped his eyes. He heard his bag being lifted and carefully placed on the floor. His stepfather muttered, in his soft, careful voice, ‘No luggage on the bed, old chap, if that’s all right with you? We have to think of the next … person who will be sleeping here, don’t we? Is everything all right in here? Only, your mother was wondering, are you coming down to tea?’

  Did the man ever make a statement? Did he always talk in questions? Oh, God … oh, sorry, not God, oh, bugger … oh, sorry, not bugger … even in his head, Chris was being careful. He would have to find somewhere else, quick, or he would be as mad as a hatter. He turned, pinning on a smile. ‘Sorry about the bag, Mike. Didn’t think. I’ll be down in a minute.’

  The vicar stepped forward and leaned in to pat Chris on the shoulder. At no time did any part of his body except his hand come any nearer than two feet away. If Mike Green had a failing – and he always said, self-deprecatingly, that he had many, whilst believing he had none – it was that he was not a natural hugger. A manly pat was best in the circumstances, particularly as his stepson was clearly upset. Best not make it worse with displays of affection. ‘I’ll tell her you’re on your way down, then, shall I?’ He looked at Chris, eyebrows raised in anticipation.

  ‘I’ll be right down, yes.’ Chris nodded and the hand was removed and the vicar was on his way downstairs.

  ‘He’s on his way,’ Chris heard him carol as he turned the bend in the stairs. ‘Just washing his hands.’

  Chris snorted and almost smiled. Oh, God – he allowed himself that indulgence with the vicar a stairsworth of space away – how was he going to bear even a night in this house, with its lavender and no cases on the bed and washing your hands a euphemism for everything from breaking your heart to having a shit. His inner teenager rose up inside him and for a moment he felt like trashing the room, but he settled for putting his bag back in the centre of the left hand bed’s duvet.

  But, before he went downstairs, he washed his hands.

  Megan had stopped trying to compete with Sam about one hour after they first met. She had never believed it, no matter how often Chris had told her, but she was actually much prettier than Samantha, with a much better skin, brighter eyes, glossier, curlier hair. She saw Sam through the rose-coloured specs that Sam managed to subliminally place on every nose and so she didn’t see that the make-up was covering old acne scars, that the eyes owed more to clever shadow and a lot of work in the salon than to nature and that even Sam had now forgotten what colour her hair really was. But, old habits die hard and so she washed her face, brushed her hair and changed her top before Sam was knocking on the door.

  As soon as Sam walked in, it seemed as though things were already getting better. It was as though the sun had broken through the clouds as she enveloped Megan in her arms. Neither woman spoke as they rocked gently together; it was as though the years fell away and they were back in the girl’s changing room, with Megan weeping after another bout of bullying, Sam comforting her before going off to sort the bullies out. And now, just like then, when the hugging finally had to stop, so Sam was on the attack.

  They went into the kitchen, as always, and were soon leaning against the worktop, coffee in hand. Sam always said that their coffee said all that needed to be said about them. She took hers black and vicious, as strong as you like, no sugar. Meg liked hers with milk and sugar and if she was honest, she preferred a nice hot chocolate to coffee any day. They cradled their mugs and looked at each other, waiting for the first one to make a move. Naturally, it was Sam.

  ‘He’s a bastard, Megs. You’ve done the right thing.’

  As far as either of those statements went, Megan wasn’t sure she could totally agree with either, so she sipped her coffee and looked at Sam over the rim of her mug.

  ‘No, seriously. You should hear what that woman Louise Thingie …’

  ‘Taylor. Louise Taylor.’

  ‘Right. You should hear what she’s saying.’

  ‘I have.’ Megan said it so quietly it was a wonder Sam heard and Megan wasn’t at all sure she meant to say it out loud at all.

  ‘What? You’ve spoken to her? Directly?’

  ‘She came into the spa. Pretended she wanted to make an appointment and then proceeded to tell me everything. In very, very glorious Technicolor.’

  Sam was hard to shock, but for once Megan had managed it. ‘I can't believe she did that! What a cow!’

  ‘Yes,’ Megan said. ‘And that’s why I am beginning to wonder if I over reacted in chucking Chris out.’

  Sam slammed her coffee down. ‘Are you crazy? Of course you had to chuck him out. He’s been at it with this … this …’

  ‘Cow. Yes, exactly. Look, Sam, I know you’ve never really liked Chris …’

  ‘He’s not good enough for you, Megs, that’s all …’

  ‘Has anybody been? Have you ever liked even one of my boyfriends?’

  Sam looked stunned. Had it always been that obvious? ‘I just want you to be happy,’ she said, not answering the question.

  ‘That’s no answer. Just tell me one of my boyfriends you liked. One where you encouraged me to go out with him. Just one. That’s all I want to hear.’

  ‘I liked that Whatsisface … you know the one, the accountant.’

  ‘Oh.’ Megan drew out the syllable, cynically. ‘I know the one you mean. The one with halitosis and the row of pens in his top pocket. The one who took me out for a Chinese and used a calculator to work out my share of the bill. As I recall, he didn’t forget to allow for the fact that I had eaten four of the prawn toasts to his two. So, he was perfect for me, was he?’

  ‘I didn’t say he was perfect …’

  ‘Good. Because as I recall we got pissed the next night and laughed about him until you were sick.’ Megan put down her coffee mug on the draining board and moved round to stand next to Samantha. Sam was taller than Megan, just the right height for her shoulder to be handy for crying on and she leaned against her now. ‘I know you want the best for me. I still think Chris is that best. The more I think about this woman …’

  ‘Who he shagged silly on a bedroom floor and all points west,’ Sam pointed out.

  ‘Yes, as the story goes.’

  ‘Story! Come on, Megs. It’s no story. He clearly did it.’

  Megan straightened up. ‘You say that as if she just lay there like a log. She was part of this too, Sam. What if she … I don’t know. What if she made all the running? What if she was in cahoots with Mark, got him to give Chris something that would, I don’t know, make him lose his inhibitions or something?’

  ‘God, Megs? A conspiracy? How did we get here?’

  Megan shrugged and moved away again, picking up her mug and taking another sip. ‘You’re probably right,’ she said, in a voice flat with pain. ‘Let’s change the subject for a minute, shall we?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Yes. I know you want to pick at it till it bleeds. But I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’ve got Kyle to pick up soon. In fact, I should have done it earlier; Mum is getting a bit arsey.’

  ‘She loves him,’ Sam said, in a knee jerk reaction. Grannies love grandchildren. It was probably written down somewhere, with all the other rules like mothers being immortal and chocolate being good for you as long as it’s the expensive so
rt.

  ‘Mmm.’ Megan couldn’t bring herself to deny it, but she wasn’t sure enough of it being true to agree. ‘She finds him a bit … difficult.’

  ‘Of course he’s difficult,’ Sam said. ‘He’s three. And a boy. According to those at work who’ve got kids, that just goes with the territory.’

  Megan had to speak as she found. She adored Kyle with every fibre of her being, but she couldn’t help noticing he wasn’t quite like all the other kids at playgroup. ‘He is tricky, Sam,’ she said. ‘He hates change. He hates …’ Suddenly, the facts hit her like a wall. ‘How is he going to cope with Chris not here?’

  Sam was in a cleft stick. No, she didn’t like Chris. No, she didn’t really like Kyle much either, he struck her as a whingeing little shit, all snot and trauma at the slightest provocation. But she disliked Megan’s mother more than either of them; she was the cause of all Megan’s insecurity from the cradle, if she were to make an educated guess. Sam’s own mother was chaotic, often three sheets in the wind, had had more men in her life than most women owned shoes and yet here was Sam, as normal as could be expected, allowing for life’s other little ups and downs. Whereas Megan, from a steady, neat home which would make any social worker applaud, was as damaged as a woman could be and still walk upright. Life was a bitch, you could say that for it. She settled for a smile and a non-committal ‘mmm’.

  Before Sam was pinned down to a more complete answer, which would have had to be based on the fact that Chris barely seemed to know who he was most of the time, let alone be close to the kid, she was saved by the bell.

  Megan raced to the door as though she had wings on her heels and Sam’s heart broke for her. If it was Chris, back with his tail between his legs and with the nous not to use his key, it was bad news. If it wasn’t Chris, it was bad news. In fact, it was even worse news. It was Margaret Harris and Kyle.

  Megan’s mother swept into the house, shepherding Kyle ahead of her as if he were some kind of pushalong toy on wheels. She nodded to Sam. ‘Sam.’