Hubble Bubble

by Jane Lovering

  ‘Oh! Oh yes, I’m so silly, come through. There’s so much … so much …’ Limping ahead, she led us through to a neat, cream and white living room. There was a fire blazing in the hearth and Cash in the Attic on mute in the corner. It was tidy and clean and, I noticed, there were no photographs of family anywhere. ‘Oh. I can hardly believe it. David …’

  ‘Kai.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Of course, Kai. And the accent.’

  ‘I was born in Wales. Oh, you know that.’ He sat down and clamped his hands between his knees, and only I knew it was to stop them shaking. ‘You were there. Briefly.’

  And then he started to cry and she started to cry and it was only by excusing myself to go and make some tea in the midget kitchen which adjoined, that I managed to prevent myself from bursting into tears as well.

  Eve’s kitchen was as neat as her living room, and her tea canister contained tea, unlike mine, which held matches. There was a small packet of fancy biscuits in the cupboard, but since the cupboard contained little else, and the fridge was down to half a pint of milk and three eggs, I left them there. On one of the shelves was a brown medicine pill bottle and I read the label while the kettle boiled. Made three cups of tea and carried them through to find Kai sitting on the floor, knees under his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs, like he’d tied himself into a parcel. No one was speaking, the only sound was the crack and spit of the fire and the deep tick of an old clock on the mantelpiece.

  I handed Eve a cup and listened to it rattle as she took it. ‘You must have so much to talk about,’ I said into the uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I don’t know where to start.’ She looked at me helplessly. ‘There’s too much to say.’

  ‘Well, let me give you a starting point.’ Kai wouldn’t look up. ‘How about, who the fuck am I? Who was my father, what happened there?’ His eyes met mine for a second and I was taken aback by the desperation I saw there. ‘What happened,’ he repeated, his body starting to shake inside the leather jacket. He pushed a fisted hand into his mouth and I heard his teeth connect with the silver rings as he tried to stop himself crying by biting down.

  ‘I grew up … My parents …’ Eve’s words faltered as her throat juddered. ‘Well, no, that’s unfair on Mum, it was Dad, really. Mainly. He was a bit … narrow minded, I suppose. Strict. I was his little girl, his princess.’ She blinked hard as though her eyes couldn’t believe this man twisted around himself on her living room floor. ‘Didn’t want me to have boyfriends or wear make-up, or go out with friends, you know … protective. That was all.’

  I could think of other words to describe that kind of behaviour, but none of them mattered now.

  ‘I worked in Pickering, in a care home for the elderly. It was … nice. I used to sit and chat to the residents about the old days, they used to tell me their life stories, it was, yes, nice and a job that dad approved of. Not much chance of meeting any eligible men, you see, not when you spend the day with the over-eighties.’ She smiled at her joke but Kai was looking at the end of the world and couldn’t muster so much as a deathly stretch of the lips.

  ‘But you did.’ I felt I had to keep everything on track. My job to be the responsible one. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I … He came on a delivery, laundry, I think. Gorgeous boy, dark hair and those eyes …’ She bit her lip. ‘Da— Kai, you look so much like him’ A wobbly half-smile. ‘Do you always look like this, by the way? The leather and the earring and things? Or is it for my benefit?’

  Kai’s head came up. He’d drawn blood on his fingers and I felt my heart triple-time. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. I ask the questions.’

  ‘Kai,’ I touched his face. He took hold of my hand, and gripped like a child afraid of falling.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said, either to me or himself. ‘It’s okay. I can do this. Holly …’

  ‘It was only the once. In the potting shed in the gardens, while I was supposed to be putting up the Christmas decorations. And then, of course …’ Eve gave a tiny shrug that encompassed a world of terrible decisions. ‘I didn’t dare say anything at home. Dad would have …’ another little shrug. ‘And I didn’t have any money, or anywhere to go, no friends to take me in … please, David, please try to understand.’ She reached out and tentatively touched his shoulder, a touch he either couldn’t feel or ignored.

  Instead he looked up at me, as though this were my story.

  ‘Holly, I need to … can you give us some time?’

  He needed to fall, I could see that. To drop into this whole new relationship without a safety net. ‘Yeah. I’m going to pop out and get some milk,’ I replied to his unspoken plea. ‘Back in a sec.’

  I walked up and down the main street a few times, popped into the little Co-Op and bought milk, eggs and some bacon to replenish Eve’s sparse stores. Watched the Christmas lights swinging in the chill wind, saw some children racing down towards the river, gloved and booted against the rain, hand in hand and laughing. To occupy some more time I watched them, obviously a family group, making paper boats and setting them afloat on the meltwater-swollen beck at the bottom of town, then following their progress by running down to the bridge to stand and watch to see whose boat came underneath first. Two brothers and a tolerated little sister, annoying and adorable in equal measures, hero-worshipping her older siblings, accepting their taunts when her boat floundered, and cheering when she beat them.

  This was how it was supposed to be. For the first time in the twenty years since Nicholas’s illness had manifested, I allowed myself to feel the loneliness, the wrongness of growing up with my brother the way he was. In that sleetwashed medieval street I stood watching a group of children play, and I cried. The cold rain mimicked my tears sufficiently for my unhappiness to be invisible and, as the children yelled and laughed and splashed one another I remembered my childhood and the way it had ended.

  Kai was right. We were alike, he and I, and that was what drew us together. We’d both been cheated out of a proper childhood; he by the double loss of parents and me by having to become responsible for my brother. It was why Kai saw through my capable, coping exterior to the damage that lay underneath. The pragmatic, realistic outer shell that I’d had to adopt to deal with Nicholas, because my parents couldn’t. Because he’d had to develop his own outer shell, to cope with abuse and with the lack of love. We were the same …

  Kai. Back in that little house, discovering his mother – Eve, wow, turn up for the books – confronting his own origins. I shook the tears away from my eyes. He needed me, and he needed me capable, managing, able to deal. The last thing on earth he needed was for me to break. I sniffed hard and did a couple more turns of the streets to let the redness subside from my eyes and until I could put the puffiness down to the ferocious wind. When I judged that I looked sufficiently brimming with self-control, I went back.

  Kai was alone, pacing up and down the little room like a wild animal that’s just recovered from the tranquilising dart. He was running his hands through his hair and shaking his head as though trying to escape from something that kept following him. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I don’t know. I … it wasn’t what I thought, Holly. I’ve been so bitter, for so long, and now I don’t know how to feel, what to think.’

  We heard Eve’s slow descent of the stairs long before she came back into the room. ‘Oh, Holly,’ her eyes were full again. ‘It happened. It was all real. I was beginning to doubt, and then I got the phone call and, I knew. It was all real.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The spell.’ Eve’s eyes were alive, she’d lost the stooped posture, the frail look. ‘Look at him, Holly. He is what I wished for. My David. Here.’ She held something out to Kai. ‘I kept it beside my bed. All these years.’

  It was a photograph, a blurry colour shot which slowly resolved into a picture of a tiny, smeared face. The eyes were open, mere slits in the clearly yelling face, but even so the pale colour was unmistakable. ‘Me.’

 
; ‘Yes. I carried that camera around for the whole of the last three months, just to be sure … I took a couple, but my hands were shaky and this is the only one that came out.’

  ‘But I thought you wished to meet the man of your dreams?’

  Eve’s eyes were red, not my brief moment-of-self-pity red, the kind of red you get from crying forever. ‘I used to dream of a little boy running to me with flowers in his hands. Then I dreamed of a man coming up to me and saying “I’m David”.’ She put her soft hand on mine. ‘I can stop dreaming now.’

  Kai was studying the photo, under the window where there was more light. I drew Eve into the kitchen and began unpacking the shopping. ‘Eve, he’s going to need time, you understand that.’

  ‘Of course. ‘ Eve lowered her voice. ‘Tell him it doesn’t matter if he never wants to come again. Just knowing – knowing he’s out there, with you, that’s all I ever wanted.’

  ‘I’ll come back.’ Kai’s voice from the other room made us both jump. ‘How can I not? I need to know who I am. You are the only one who can tell me.’ His voice dropped. ‘The only one.’

  ‘Do you have more family?’ I looked around as we went into the hallway. There were no photos there either, only a small oil painting of a constipated-looking cat.

  ‘No.’ Eve said sadly. ‘I never married. I trained as a nurse once Dad died, took early retirement and bought this little place. I’ve always lived around here and this is where my friends are.’

  I nearly dragged Kai out into the rain, which had turned to hail in our absence. He was rigid and had that frozen kind of expression you usually see on trauma victims. ‘That was my mother,’ he whispered. Then he turned to me and wrapped me in his arms. ‘Fucking, fucking crazy.’ For a while we hugged, his body warm against mine, a defence against the weather.

  ‘Kai,’ I began carefully, ‘why don’t we invite Eve over for Christmas?’

  He even stopped breathing. Stood still in my embrace with his shoulders set. ‘What?’

  ‘You saw the place. She’s on her own, she’s not got much.’ And I wouldn’t tell him about the heart pills in the cupboard, her breathlessness, her swollen ankles. He’d just found her, if he thought he might lose her again soon, God knew what he’d do. ‘We could give her a great Christmas.’

  ‘Ah. Now you’re acting like I owe her something.’

  ‘Well, you do, sort of. She found you. Or, at least, she put the mechanism in place to find you, and now you know that she loves you. You weren’t just thrown away, Kai. Eve did what she thought was best for you. The only thing she could do. And, in that kitchen … the cupboard was nearly empty. And we’ve got each other. And besides,’ I swallowed. Wanting something for myself was harder than I’d thought. ‘I don’t want to spend Christmas on my own.’

  ‘Oh. Oh. Shit, sorry Holl! I didn’t even … oh shit.’ He dragged his fingers through his hair again, which made him look like a mad Rock God. ‘Stupid. I’m sorry.’ He pushed me away so that he could look in my face. ‘Told you I’m crap at this relationship thing. Never had to plan, see, no one’s ever wanted to be around long enough. And no one has ever wanted to spend Christmas with me, so I’ve always worked, gone somewhere where Christmas is meaningless. It helps,’ he added.

  ‘Hey, no going for the sympathy vote.’

  A grin. ‘Sorry. Again. So, what, the whole nine yards? Tree, pudding, presents? Can you cook?’ A hot look. ‘And will you dress up as Santa?’

  ‘Only if you promise not to ravage me. Well, not while anyone is looking.’

  ‘Making no promises, Holl.’ We started to walk back to the car, not feeling the sleet or the cold wind any more. ‘Christ. Can’t believe it …’ He stopped, pulled me across and kissed me hard. ‘And my mother. Fuck. Starting to feel like a real person here. Talking of which …’ he stood back so that he could look me in the eye, ‘you’ve been doing some thinking of your own, haven’t you?’

  Those yellow eyes were almost hypnotic when he did that straight stare. No wonder he was such a good journalist – with his empty silences and his stage-magician’s magnetic gaze. ‘I … sort of … when I was walking. How did you know?’ I gave him a suspicious frown. ‘You don’t read my mind as well, do you?’

  He moved and pulled me tightly against him. I could feel his heartbeat, even and steady. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say “I don’t want” about something. First time you’ve ever dared really say what you feel?’

  And my mind was suddenly full of Nicholas, frightened of the world, scared of its inconsistency and unpredictability. The need to keep him calm, to be the one stable thing in his terrifyingly unstable existence. ‘I …’

  ‘You need to let go, Holly.’ Kai’s words were coming from deep inside him, I could feel them, feel his heart speed up as he realised what he’d said. ‘Sometimes …’ he sighed, ‘sometimes shit just happens. No one’s fault, it just does. And the only way to truly get over stuff is to let go.’

  ‘Can you?’ My voice was a bit muffled by his jacket. ‘Let go?’

  Another sigh. ‘She did what she thought was best. She didn’t know … Shit.’ One hand came away from my shoulder and raised, from the quick motion I guessed he was wiping his eyes. ‘I can try. I have to.’

  I took a deep breath and shuffled myself a step back. Change position, change the subject. Change. ‘Having a real Christmas does mean you have to buy presents though. And a turkey. Not something that you’d have to do much in Afghanistan, I shouldn’t have thought.’

  ‘Ah. Didn’t think of that.’ He fussed with his jacket, raising his collar against the sleet, adjusting to the new topic, gladly, it seemed.

  ‘And a tree, and lights, and cards, and …’

  ‘All right, I’ll go to bloody Afghanistan, if that’s what you want!’ We looked at each other and grinned. ‘Are relationships always like this?’

  ‘Dunno. I’m not exactly Ask the Expert, am I? Going out with the kind of wanker who thought he was God’s gift to women because he stuck his arse out of the bed to fart does not make me fit to answer questions like that. And anyway, I’m still boggle-eyed by the fact that Eve is your mother. Talk about a dark horse. We all thought she’d got some grizzled old solicitor-chappie tucked away and that was what was making her all dewy-eyed. Turns out it was getting the news from the PI that you wanted her address.’

  The Jeep was sitting alone in the car park. Everyone else had gone home, it was getting dark and the sleet was beginning to freeze. Kai started the engine and then sat, holding the wheel but making no attempt to drive away.

  ‘She – Eve, told her family she’d got a temporary job in Wales, came to Anglesey and stayed in a B&B so that no one would know. She gave birth sitting in a ditch and then wrapped me in some newspaper and left me where she knew someone would come along.’

  ‘It wasn’t because she didn’t love you,’ I said softly. ‘It was never that.’

  ‘I know. She had no one to help her, no one to support her and she didn’t dare tell her father … She kept my picture,’ his voice was wondering, ‘all these years, she kept my picture.’

  ‘And now her wish has come true.’ I smiled to myself. ‘Obliquely.’

  ‘What, like pillars?’

  ‘That would be funny if I didn’t know you had a bigger vocabulary than an entire set of Encyclopedia Brittanicas.’

  ‘Let’s go home and I’ll show you what else I’ve got that’s bigger …’

  ‘You’re sex mad.’

  ‘It was you that brought up sex. I was going to show you my greenhouse.’

  ‘Just drive, Rhys.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘I want to stop the spell.’

  I stared at Vivienne. ‘But I thought you said it couldn’t be stopped. In fact, I distinctly remember you told me …’

  Vivienne wasn’t listening. Her fingers wove a complicated pattern through the fur of the cat which sat smugly on her lap. ‘It’s gone too far. I never meant—’ A deep sniff.
‘I suppose you think I’m vindictive, don’t you?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, a bit. Your wish did seem a touch drastic.’

  ‘Twenty-five years Richard and I were married.’ She stared over my head at a patch on the wall where brighter paper showed that a picture had hung until recently. ‘I suppose we took one another for granted really, what with his job and the children and everything.’ Her scarlet head nodded solemnly. ‘And then he was gone.’

  ‘So,’ I took a deep breath, wanting to get this straight in my head. ‘You wanted him to suffer and now you’re having second thoughts?’

  ‘I’m wondering if I wasn’t a little bit hasty. No, not hasty. Mmmm.’ A thoughtful pause, until the cat butted at her hand. ‘No. He was wrong to abandon me, of course he was. But since he left I’ve discovered a whole new lease of life, what with our little group, and Isobel is getting me a part-time job in the hospital. Oh, nothing grand, pushing a trolley round the wards but it’s better than sitting at home all day. And Eve, she’s become such a good friend, we speak on the phone most days. All of this is something I never had before, when my life was so regulated by Richard and his comings and goings. Maybe his leaving did me a favour. Plus, I have this place …’ Her eyes briefly unfocussed, wandering to the gap on the wall again, as though this was habit. ‘He put everything into my name just before he went.’ A quick shake of the head against possible softening, adding, ‘Probably to stop Miss Busty getting her hands on it.’

  ‘So Eve told you about Kai.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Right. Just wanted to sort that one out. And you know that Kai and I are …?’ I waved one hand. It wasn’t really indicative of ‘banging like a barn door on a windy day’ but it was the best I could do.

  ‘Lovers, yes.’

  I opened my mouth to correct her, but didn’t.

  Vivienne pushed the cat off her lap and it stalked off, doing its best to look as though leaving had been its own idea. ‘I wanted him to suffer, Holly. He’d hurt me so deeply, shrugging me off as though I meant nothing to him, that I wanted him to know how it felt to be at rock bottom.’ She touched my arm lightly. ‘I’m nearly fifty, you know.’