Hubble Bubble

by Jane Lovering

  Kai turned up, accompanied by three policemen who all looked as though they topped up their salaries by playing extras in The Bill. Eve hugged him, tentatively.

  ‘Wow. Policemen aren’t just getting younger, they’re getting better looking,’ Megan whispered, tossing her hair and pouting at the nearest one. ‘Why have we never thought about committing crimes to find a boyfriend?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want one, you’re too intimidated by authority and we’d probably have got interviewed by the last remaining Gene Hunt on the police force,’ I whispered back, pretending to be immune to the glamour cast by the uniform. Kai winked at me from across the room and mouthed ‘You’re a Ladies’ Walking Group’ over everyone’s heads, which, with his height, was kind of a given.

  ‘We’re a Walking Group,’ I said to the blondest, youngest and, it had to be said, most attractive, of the policemen. ‘We were …’

  ‘Taking an early morning stroll, when those ruffians accosted us.’ Vivienne finished for me. Obviously, hearing that Richard still loved her had given her a brand-new, and paradoxically old-fashioned, vocabulary. The police wrote everything down earnestly, even when we elaborated rather more than was necessary, while Kai stood leaning against the wall and smirking, particularly when I mentioned my abduction at the hands of Big Helmet himself and managed to make it sound as though I’d escaped through my own ingenuity rather than by sending smoke signals and nearly asphyxiating myself.

  ‘So I do have to ask why you didn’t report all this at the time?’ Mid-hair-and-attractiveness-policeman asked.

  ‘Because they were threatened,’ Kai managed to involve himself without anyone telling him to shut up. ‘Holly told me, and I advised her to keep quiet, unless there was enough proof to stop the lads coming after them for revenge.’

  ‘They were going to say that we were witches, and they’d seen us doing black magic on the hill, with blood and stuff.’

  All three policemen rolled their eyes. ‘Well, I guess it’s not surprising what drug gangs will come up with to keep people off their turf,’ said the one I was presuming to be a recent import from a big city. ‘Unless you actually are witches, of course.’

  There was an inordinate amount of laughter at this, some of it rather shrill and desperate, and Kai managed to cause the interview to be terminated without seeming to do anything at all. When the door closed behind the last one, I stared at him.

  ‘You seem to know a lot about handling the police. Anything you need to tell me?’

  ‘The ability to manipulate the police is a skill learned during a very misspent childhood. Give them Occam’s razor, nicely sharpened, and the event is as good as over.’

  ‘What?’ Isobel frowned.

  ‘Basically, you give them the simplest explanation which seems to fit the facts, and it takes a very keen copper to go looking for anything more complicated.’ Kai twisted his thumb ring for a bit, so as not to look at us.

  ‘But they have the candles!’

  Kai grinned. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘You broke into Drug-Dealer Andy’s house and stole the candles? And the pictures?’

  A small shrug and the smile went secretive. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then we were fortunate that we have you on our side, Mr Rhys.’ Vivienne, still possessed by the soul of Jane Austen, patted his shoulder. As she touched him, the floor of the living room seemed to swirl momentarily, the walls flowed and there was the brief sense that the world was a notional place. A second later everything was as before.

  ‘Did anyone else feel that?’ I swallowed the giddiness and gave my head a little shake. ‘Or is it those tablets the doctor gave me – they’re absolutely enormous. I’m not one hundred per cent certain which end I’m supposed to be putting them in and I’m sure they’re made for horses.’

  ‘A discharge of energy,’ Vivienne said. ‘The spell ending.’ Several cats ran in from the kitchen, stared at us accusingly and stalked, bristle-backed from the room again. ‘You see? They sensed something.’

  Isobel sat down hard. ‘I thought it was me. I get dizzy sometimes. That, and I can’t bear the smell of Dettol.’

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ I muttered to Megan, who widened her eyes until she looked like a mad cow.

  ‘Really? But … I thought she said she was a virgin … Oh, surely not …’

  Before she could start crossing herself and kneeling, I pinched her elbow. ‘The spell wasn’t that good. She’s just not a virgin any more, which seems to have been her desired result, oh, that and the baby.’

  We all looked at one another, feeling the weight of statistical likelihood pressing on us. ‘And we all got what we wanted,’ Megan voiced what we were all thinking. ‘All of us. That’s pretty incredible when you think about it.’

  ‘One dog, one returned husband, one adopted son, one baby and …’ I hesitated. Kai was looking at me out of those yellow eyes with an expression that was impossible to guess the meaning of, ‘and one journalist,’ I finished, going for the safest option. ‘But was it really magic?’

  A long arm slipped around my waist. ‘Maybe belief is all there really needs to be.’ Kai smelled of fresh air and his skin was cold as diamond. ‘Belief and love. Because that’s what this spell did, if it did anything, it showed that love doesn’t have a simple definition. Except in our case, of course. Which is where my carefully crafted theory falls down.’ The arm gave me a squeeze.

  ‘I said I loved you because I thought you were dead.’ I leaned away slightly.

  ‘So? I’m twice as easy to love alive.’ He closed the gap and whispered in my ear, ‘I move about more, for a start.’

  ‘You are so smug.’ But I couldn’t even manage to sound really annoyed; my breath had thickened in my throat and maybe there was some residue of self-imposed magic in the air because I suddenly wanted to kiss him, with the implied possibility of throwing him across a sofa and ripping his clothes off with anything capable of exerting sufficient grip.

  But not in front of his mother, of course.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hey, mum. This is just for you. A kind of PS, if you like. The rest of the stuff I showed you, yeah, that’s making the book – being a journo has some advantages and one of them is knowing a load of guys who’re all fighting over the rights. Even Holl isn’t going to get to see this. She’s read the rest. Made her cry. But this one – this is ‘your eyes only’.

  It’s not always going to be easy, what we’ve got. I know you want to rush straight into ‘mother and grandmother’ mode … all that shopping you did for Cerys and the twins? Christ, never seen so many M&S bags in my life, but, yeah, I understand. You might not be around forever, want to make up for not being there up till now … yeah. Understood. But. You can’t buy love, guess you know that. You have to earn it. Just be there, mum. That’s all I ask. Just be there. For them, for me, for Holly.

  This time last year … wow, when I look back it’s like everything’s changed. Then I’d just fucked up my life with Imogen in ways that made Christmas in a war zone look peaceful. Now I’ve got a family, a real love, I’ve even got a bloody Christmas tree and a turkey – what the fuck is that all about? And you. You were always like this bogeyman in my head, you know, this creature who left me as soon as she could get away, and now I know you were just a scared kid – it’s like I’m reappraising everything.

  And it’s going to take time. But I think we can do it. I never thought I’d love a woman, but I love Holly. So, just maybe I can learn to love you too.

  Like Holly says, maybe there is something in this ‘magic’ after all. Or maybe it’s just us, offloading responsibility onto some ‘spell’ shit. Either way, we’re doing okay. Dealing with life, working things out.

  Which is another kind of magic really, isn’t it?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Christmas day brought a surprise visit by Cerys and Nicholas and the twins.

  ‘We thought we’d come over and eat all your chocolate, and then
go back to Mum and Dad’s and eat all theirs,’ Cerys stripped the outer layer of clothing off the twins, like a very experienced ape peeling bananas.

  Nick hugged me. ‘Thanks for the books, Holl. Not sure when I’m going to get time to read them, though.’ He waved a hand at the twins.

  ‘That’s why I gave you books. They don’t go off.’ I found my arms suddenly full of Freya, touchingly dressed in a stretch-suit that I had given her. ‘So, how are you both?’

  ‘I’m ninety per cent tits, and he has his moments,’ Cerys carried Zac through into the living room, pausing only to grab a handful of dates from a bowl on the side. ‘Other than that, we’re good.’

  Nick rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’ve had a couple of not such good days, but we’re pretty busy, you know? Not a lot of time to be anything other than running from place to place and mopping.’ He smiled at me, relaxed and happy. ‘Honest, Holl, there is a lot of mopping.’

  ‘I can tell.’ Freya had dribbled down my arm. ‘She’s worse than Rufus. But prettier, obviously,’ I added quickly. ‘Not so, you know, sticky.’

  ‘Nicky! Can you get me the changing bag?’ Cerys called through. ‘And find out where he’s hidden the chocolate!’

  Nicholas gave me the grin again. His hair was growing out of the self-trimmed-fringe-and-mullet style he’d always had, and with his blue eyes not pulled into their customary wary squint, he looked less like a careworn elf and more like a pin-up.

  ‘Nicky, eh? Looking good, bro.’ I patted his shoulder.

  ‘Yeah. I know,’ he said, enigmatically, gave me another, rather secretive, grin and went out to the car to fetch another mule-load of child-paraphernalia.

  Kai and Eve returned from their tour of the house and greeted Cerys with delight. Eve was still getting her head around the whole having a family thing, but she had embraced the idea with considerable enthusiasm and already carried pictures of the twins in her purse. Kai was … well, he was working on finally being someone’s son. I couldn’t exactly say that he’d welcomed Eve with open arms, but he was doing his best, and getting better at it with each meeting. Cerys was so fuddled with new-motherhood that Kai’s somewhat edited revelations about the existence of her grandmother had been taken on board with barely a murmur.

  ‘Hey Kai, if you are any kind of decent human being you will have chocolate somewhere. Holly, tell me he’s got chocolate somewhere, before my life becomes not worth living.’ Cerys poured Zac into the unresisting arms of his great-grandmother and necked the dates. ‘I am permanently starving, but I’m losing weight like a Slimming World champion, I guess that’s the advantage of breastfeeding, please don’t hate me.’

  ‘I know where all the food is, I bought it. Kai still hasn’t quite got a handle on Christmas,’ I said, pulling a tin of biscuits out of a cupboard. ‘He’s a bit out of practice on it.’

  ‘But he’s getting plenty of practice with you.’ Cerys levered the lid off the tin. ‘And it’s not just the sex either, is it? Oh, come on, Holl, I’ve seen his face, the way he looks at you, he almost seems normal when you’re around.’

  ‘Oy, don’t take all the shortbread,’ Kai himself appeared, helping Nicholas to lug two changing bags and a rolled up changing mat into the room. ‘And, for your information, madam, I’m as normal as they come.’

  Cerys opened her mouth. I could almost see the single entendre hovering, then she noticed Eve and pursed her lips tightly.

  ‘Holly and I are working on it,’ he said conversationally, ‘but I think she’s still got issues.’

  ‘Well of course she has.’ The words came from Nick, on his knees on the rug, unfurling the twins’ activity playmat under the Christmas tree. ‘She’s spent all her time looking after me and going out with twats.’

  ‘Nicholas!’ I covered Freya’s ears. ‘Children present.’

  ‘Stop trying to change the subject, Holl.’ He straightened up and flipped his lengthening hair from his eyes. ‘You know it’s true. You only went out with disposable gits. You’ve never had a proper boyfriend, a nice one.’

  ‘I never wanted one,’ I stared at this new, assertive version of my brother.

  ‘I think you did. Deep down. You just hid what you really wanted behind the sex, so you never had to deal with them rejecting you. Because you always put me first, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, I …’

  Kai’s eyes were like two cinders against my skin. Burning. I couldn’t meet them.

  ‘Holly. I think you need to talk to Nicholas.’

  Eve cleared her throat. ‘I think the pudding is boiling over,’ she said. ‘In the kitchen.’

  ‘Yes.’ Cerys slid Freya from my arms. ‘In the kitchen. Pudding. Boiling over. Yes.’ She nudged Kai.

  ‘What? What pudding … oh. In the kitchen. Yes.’ And the three of them managed the most unsubtle ‘leaving them alone together’ manoeuvre in the history of sibling relationships, with Freya’s rather traumatised wails being cut off by the slam of the heavy oak door as they sealed themselves in, away from any fallout.

  ‘As a matter of interest, and before this goes any further, is there a pudding?’ Nick asked, folding his arms across his chest.

  ‘There is. In the microwave.’

  ‘God. I hope Cerys doesn’t find it.’ He ran both hands through his hair, leaving it exotically tousled. ‘Look at me, Holly.’ Reluctantly I forced my eyes onto his face.

  ‘It’s okay. Whatever you want to say, I can take it. Honestly. Whether it’s the meds or just having a new life … I’m doing all right. Just, you know, don’t shout or anything.’

  I looked at his newly squared shoulders, his cool pale eyes that still moved too much to be normal but held a new expression of responsibility. ‘I’m sorry, Nick.’ I whispered the words. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  His lip curled. ‘Oh yuks, sister dear. Is this Christmas bringing out some horrible sentimental streak?’

  ‘No. I just needed to say it. For myself, more than you, you daft bugger. I held it against you, you know, your illness. All these years, looking after you …’

  ‘I’m sorry too, Holl. For what it’s worth.’ A shiver of his upper body as energy struck, but he held it down. ‘We both crapped up each other’s lives a bit, didn’t we?’

  I stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Look at me.’ He held his arms wide and turned a slow circle, like a circus pony. ‘Look. Yeah, I’m a weirdo, up and down like a vicar’s nightie … hold on … sod it, doesn’t matter … but I’m doing it. Capable of a real life out there in the big world. Looking after twins, looking after Cerys, when she’ll let me, the daft cowbag; who’d have thought? Thirty-two years old and I’m finally getting to see what a real life is. And, yeah, okay, there’s a lot of other stuff going on, better meds, being older, all that cognitive behavioural shit but … who knows what I could have done, could have been, if I’d just broken away sooner.’ He stopped turning. Angled his body towards me. ‘You made life easy for me, Holl. So I stuck with it. Never had to face it, never had to be absolutely definitely positive that I’d taken my meds, because, if I didn’t? Well, you’d pick up the pieces, sort me out, prop me back up again until I could get on top of it all. No imperative to take care of myself. Whereas now,’ another slow whirl, ‘now I’m my own responsibility. And I have things to take care of.’

  It was like looking at a stranger. This marble-skinned man with eyes like a faded sky was no longer my brother. Why had I never asked how it felt to be him? To have his life micromanaged by his younger sister, unasked, unwanted? We’d resented each other equally but we’d carried on with our lives amid our resentments, hating yet loving, struggling to make the best of everything. ‘If only I’d known …’ I whispered.

  Nicholas put his arms around me. It was the first time I could ever remember my brother hugging me. It had usually been me hugging him, and even that had had an element of restraint about it. ‘Hey, we all just do the best we can with what we’re given,’ he said. ‘And you got given me. And, let’
s face it, you made a pretty good job of me, really, Holl, but now it’s time to get out there, yell at a few people. Kai can take it if you lose your temper with him or chuck a few plates, and it might be nice for you for a change, not to have to be reasonable all the time.’

  All I could do was nod. My one good eye had flooded with tears, and the squinty, bruise-stained one was watering in sympathy. Nicholas let me go, walked to the kitchen door and opened it. Freya’s wails billowed out. ‘Your turn, Kai,’ he said. ‘It’s like relationship tag here today.’

  Kai came towards me. ‘Okay?’

  I nodded and the tears pattered down onto my neck. ‘Yes. You were right, we needed to sort things out between us.’

  ‘And now you have?’ At arms’ length he stopped. ‘Have you forgiven each other too?’

  I sighed a deep breath out and moved into his arms. ‘Yes, I think we have.’ And, as though the spell was giving a last gasp, the earth shook. Like a horse ridding itself of an irritating fly, like a leaf flicking off a raindrop, the floor beneath my feet twitched. And I realised how things went from here.

  ‘I think the turkey might be done,’ I stretched myself up on tiptoe against his body. Reached up and tangled my fingers through his hair. ‘And we don’t want dinner to burn, do we?’

  ‘Is that some kind of metaphor for “I love you and I want to live with you”?’ Kai took half a step forward, so that I was pressed hard against him, feeling his heart beat against my skin through our clothes.

  ‘No, it’s practicality. This is I love you.’ And I dragged his head down so that our mouths met in a kiss that singed the needles off the tree. ‘And yes, I do want to live with you, even in this gothic woodcarver’s nightmare of a house, and even with your job, which is a thousand interesting deaths waiting to happen. It’s you, Kai. I want you, whatever else comes with you.’

  And as we fell into a stomach-rolling, heart-stopping kiss, I heard Cerys’s voice echo from the kitchen. ‘Thank God, she mentioned dinner.’