Together Apart

by Natalie K. Martin

  14.

  Adam closed the gate behind him and made his way through the neat front garden. His parents had lived in this house all his life, and it was comforting to know it was a constancy he could depend on. Once he closed the gate behind him, he would be at the front door within eight paces, and come next summer, the exterior walls would be repainted in the same creamy colour they had always been. The house was repainted every two years, whether it needed to be or not. The three-bedroom semi contained all of his childhood memories, and when he put his key in the door and flicked his wrist with just enough force for it to open, he instantly relaxed.

  ‘Adam?’ His mum, Angela, appeared by the kitchen door, holding a roasting tray in her hands. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to. Come on – everyone’s waiting.’

  Rubbing his hands together to thaw out the cold, Adam looked around, and a smile played on his lips. No matter how many times he came through this door or what mood he was in, it always made him feel better. Walking past the stairs and family photos hanging on the wall, he remembered the time when he’d slid down the banister too quickly and fallen, chipping a tooth. Every room in this house had a memory in which he or his brothers, David or Joe, had hurt themselves. They were typical boys growing up, forever scraping knees, bumping heads or splintering themselves on the rough blocks of wood their dad would bring home.

  ‘Here he is.’ His dad, John, smiled, lowering the corner of his newspaper. ‘So nice of you to join us. We’re all starving here, you know.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’

  Adam kissed his mum on the cheek, and after slapping both of his brothers on the back of the head, slid into the empty chair at the table. His stomach rumbled loudly. Now that he was sat in front of the table piled high with food, he realised just how hungry he was.

  ‘Look at you,’ John said, folding his paper in half. ‘You’re so thin, I could pick you up by those collarbones like a suitcase.’

  He looked at his dad’s hand. He was sure the tremor hadn’t been there before. It seemed like every time he came to see his parents, he noticed something new. More liver spots, more grey hairs. They’d always been fit and active, and they still were, but they moved much more slowly now. The idea of them losing their mobility and getting older . . . He didn’t like it.

  ‘Hardly,’ Adam replied, reaching into the bowl of roast potatoes and popping one in his mouth.

  ‘Now, Dad, we all know how much care and attention our Ad puts into his physique,’ David said, flicking a pea in Adam’s direction.

  David and Joe were short and stocky like their dad, whereas Adam was tall and lean, taking after their mum. It was a running joke that, next to them, he always looked underfed.

  ‘Leave him alone, John,’ Angela said as she placed the gravy boat on the table and sat down. ‘He’s fine just as he is. Now, let’s eat. It’s been sitting on the table long enough as it is. You know I like to have Sunday dinner at three o’clock on the dot, Adam.’

  Adam, David and Joe mimicked their mum in unison before tucking in and bickering about who had the most food on his plate. Adam looked at his brothers and smiled. It was nice for them to all be together. Nowadays, they only saw each other for family get-togethers and the odd Sunday dinner, and while they didn’t always get on, their family unit was tight. What was Sarah like with Claire nowadays? Since he’d never heard Sarah talking about her, they obviously weren’t close. When was the last time Sarah had seen her, or her mum?

  ‘How are Deina and Celina? Still in Rio?’ Joe asked, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. David’s wife had gone back to her native Rio for two weeks and taken their daughter with her.

  David nodded. ‘Fine, considering. They fly back tomorrow.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘It’s awful. The first time Deina goes home in ages, and it’s for a funeral.’

  ‘What can you do? People are killed every day in that shit heap.’ David shrugged.

  ‘Language, David.’ Angela frowned, and he raised a hand apologetically. ‘And you should have a little more compassion. I have to say, it looks terribly hard from what I’ve seen on the telly. All those poor people living in – oh, what were they called again, John?’

  ‘Favelas,’ John mumbled.

  ‘Yes, favelas. She’s lucky to have escaped that place. Poor girl.’ Angela pursed her lips. ‘And I’m not happy about little Celina being somewhere so hostile.’

  ‘I have plenty of compassion,’ David replied. ‘Yeah, they’re my in-laws, but it’s not like I can do much from over here, is it?’

  As the eldest, David had asserted his authority over Adam and Joe when they were younger. It was always a case of what David said went. He could be bossy, selfish and cocky, but he was also funny and loyal, and he stood up for what he believed in. It was to him that Adam and Joe would go for advice growing up, and he was far more approachable than their dad, who preferred knocking things up in the shed to dealing with the raging hormones of teenage boys.

  ‘What about you? Still shackled to your kitchen sink?’ Adam asked Joe, swiftly changing the subject. David was always defensive, and Adam could feel his frustration emanating across the table. He had always hated being told what to do.

  ‘Ha, funny,’ Joe replied, deadpan.

  Joe was the wild one, or at least he used to be. If there was a party going on, he would be there, and if there was some coke or pills doing the rounds, that was even better. Adam would go out with him sometimes and was always amazed at the sheer amount of narcotics Joe could get through. He’d take cocktails of uppers, downers and all-rounders like it was nothing. If their parents ever found out, they’d have matching coronaries. Adam had always been sure Joe would be dead before he reached thirty, convinced he’d be found overdosed in a pool of his own vomit in a crack den somewhere. Until marriage tamed him.

  Once again, Adam felt a weight in the pit of his stomach, and it wasn’t the food that he’d so hastily eaten. Sarah had slotted in so easily with his family. His dad had liked her in his quiet, reserved way, and his mum had welcomed her with open arms. As the only unmarried son, it was no secret that his parents wanted him to follow in his brothers’ footsteps. Then, the Thompson set would be complete – all married off and settled down, leaving his mum and dad to enjoy their retirement without worrying about their wayward bachelor son. They’d probably thought it was a dead cert with Sarah.

  He thought about Joe, stuck with a woman who practically held him hostage and demanded all of his attention, all the time, and David, married to a woman so out of his league it was like watching a five-a-side team taking on Manchester United. Sarah had always let him do his own thing, and he’d never felt any pressure to keep her living in a superficial, materialistic bubble.

  He hadn’t told them that he’d proposed because he couldn’t imagine telling them how she’d turned him down. It just wasn’t working out, he’d told them. They weren’t stupid. He knew they could all see how much he loved Sarah, but he refused to budge, and when they saw that he wouldn’t offer up a legitimate reason, they let him be.

  Feeling eyes on him, Adam looked to his right. His dad was smiling at him. He wasn’t big with words, but he always seemed to know when something was up with one of his boys. The smile was as if to say, ‘I know you’re not doing so great, but everything will be okay.’ His dad had a way of making him feel better without saying anything at all. Adam returned the smile and tuned back into the conversation that was now centred on Mrs Betts, the lady who’d lived next door since the dawn of time and was now moving into a nursing home after having a nasty fall.

  ‘Can you believe it?’ Angela asked as she gathered the plates from the table. ‘She has two children, both earning disgusting amounts of money in the City, and she has to go and live in a poxy nursing home. I’m telling you right now, I’ll never forgive any of you if you do that to me or your father.’

  ‘Mum, s
he’s almost ninety years old,’ David said. ‘She can barely walk. She can’t be rattling around in that house forever.’

  ‘That is not the point, David,’ she said, standing by the archway between the kitchen and the dining room. ‘Young ones today just don’t want the responsibility of looking after their parents. When I get to the stage where I need someone to wipe my bottom for me, I’d rather it be flesh and blood than a faceless, temporary nurse who couldn’t give two hoots.’

  ‘Mum! Would you stop it?’ Joe said, and Adam laughed at the horror etched into his brother’s face.

  ‘Come on now, Ange. We’re hardly decrepit, and my bottom is fine, thank you very much.’ His dad rose from the table. ‘I’m going to the shed.’

  David and Joe looked over at Adam and nodded upstairs. Even now, they couldn’t resist heading up to David’s old bedroom and smoking out of the window. It was stupid. As if his parents didn’t know that they smoked. They knew everything. All the times they’d sneaked into the house drunk after a party and thought they’d got away with it, his mum and dad would pull them up on it the following morning, when they were in the grip of cider hangovers. When Adam used to steal a glance at the porn magazines he had stashed in the bottom of his drawer, his mum would come knocking on the door. His parents had a radar for everything that went on under their roof. Adam signalled that he would be up in a minute and picked up the rest of the clutter from the table.

  His mum smiled as he put the plates and cutlery on the worktop next to the sink. ‘Thanks, love.’

  ‘How’s things, Mum?’

  ‘Oh, fine,’ she replied, rinsing a plate before putting it in the dishwasher. Adam frowned as she held the small of her back when she straightened up.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it.’

  ‘I’m not past it yet, you know.’

  ‘I never said you were.’ He held his hands up in mock defence. ‘How’s Dad?’

  His mum wiped her hands dry on a tea towel. ‘He’s fine. Happy in that shed of his. You don’t need to worry about us – we’re fine.’

  Adam nodded. ‘I’m not. It’s just . . . well, you know.’

  ‘We’re getting old?’

  Adam looked at his mum, seeing past the ageing woman she had become to recall the fresh face from his childhood. He shrugged.

  ‘We’re only going to get older, God willing.’ Angela smiled. ‘Go on. Your brothers are waiting for you.’

  Adam laughed and kissed her on the cheek. She’d never say it, but he knew he was her favourite. She’d always let him get away with more than David or Joe.

  How had Sarah coped being estranged from her family? Sure, his parents nagged and got on his nerves at times, but he knew how lucky he was to have them. It was a shame that Sarah didn’t have the same, and he intended to find out why.

  15.

  Mr Madsen, I’ve already called the plumber, and he’ll be dropping round today,’ Adam said, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear.

  It had been one of those days when everything went belly up. He’d already had to deal with a flooded basement, and between bollocking a cleaner for smashing a bottle of a tenant’s perfume and having to deal with the disappearance of the wayward handyman, an angry tenant was another problem he didn’t need.

  ‘It’s just not good enough.’ The voice on the other end of the phone was jarring, making Adam grit his teeth. ‘I’m paying nine hundred pounds a week. I shouldn’t have to come home to a leaking shower. I don’t think you appreciate how difficult it is trying to sleep with a constant dripping noise coming from the next room.’

  Adam pressed two fingers against his left temple. ‘I will personally see to it that the shower is fixed today, and I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.’

  ‘I don’t know what it is you think I do all day, but I don’t have time to sit around and wait for you to call me. I expect it to be done by the time I return this evening, and if it isn’t, then I’ll be forced to break the lease.’

  The phone disconnected, and Adam slammed the handset down, puffing out his cheeks. His shower dripped by itself too sometimes, but he wasn’t screaming down the phone at his landlord to fix it. He just ignored it. Which was just as well since his landlord had officially become the most difficult person in London to get hold of.

  What was it with these tenants? If turning into a spoiled, over-demanding prick was what came with high-ranking status and having people pander to your every whim, then he’d rather stay where he was. He loved his job – he really did – but on days like this, he wanted to walk out of the office and never come back. With a sigh, he picked up the phone and punched in the handyman’s number. All this and it was barely even lunchtime. It was going to be a long day.

  25 October

  I’m meeting Claire for dinner tomorrow. She’s on downtime for ten days, so we’ll be able to catch up properly. Nervous isn’t the word. It’s been ages since I last saw her. I love her to bits – she’s my sister. It’s just that I always feel so inadequate next to her. She was always so perfect growing up. She was the thinner one, the taller one, the smarter one. Watching her swan around the house made me feel like the ugly duckling – the ugly duckling who messed things up and became the evil twin. But even though I want to hate her sometimes, I can’t, because she was there for me. Claire, who could annoy me to the point where I wanted to smash my own head in, was my rock back then. She never judged me, not once. We used to be so close when we were young, and then Dad died, and it all fell apart. But she still supported me when I needed it the most. And now I’m in a mess again, like a moronic idiot who can’t learn a single lesson in life.

  Argh! I can’t be thinking about this right now. The office is starting to fill up, and I’ve got tons of work to do, which is just as well. At least being busy is saving me from the embarrassment about Friday night. Nobody said anything mean, but somehow I don’t think I’ll be on the invite list for the next trip to the pub. Oh well.

  Later that evening, after a long, hot shower, Adam flopped onto his bed. It had been a trying day, but everything had been sorted. The leaky shower was fixed, and the elusive handyman had been located. Best of all, the lease on the penthouse had finally been signed, lifting from his shoulders the burden of having their star apartment sitting empty. He was looking forward to the hefty commission coming in his next pay packet.

  The sound of the TV echoed from Sarah’s bedroom. She must have come home while he was in the shower. For a fleeting second, he wondered if he should go and say hello, but he knew she’d be passive. Sometimes, when they did cross paths in the flat, she had such a pained look on her face that it almost physically hurt him. After the day he’d had, he couldn’t deal with feeling dejected too. Instead, he reached under the bed and slid the box of diaries towards him. At first, he’d been paranoid that she had some secret way of arranging them, so she would know if anyone ever read them. He still felt guilty. He was invading her privacy, and she was only a few feet away. Reading them was wrong, plain and simple, and if she ever found out, she would never forgive him, but he just wanted to know what had happened to her.

  It had become so much more than uncovering a secret. After the dinner with his family, he’d thought constantly about David and Joe. Their wives were nice enough, but he didn’t want to end up like his brothers. Sarah had never made him feel trapped. He was smart enough to recognise a good thing, and despite there being a whole list of things about her that he’d been ignorant about, what they’d had together was good. It was better than good.

  19 October 1998

  I’m finally seeing Richard tonight. He’s taking me out for my birthday. I haven’t seen him since last week, so we’ve been mostly speaking on the phone. We’re going to watch a film and then go back to his. He’s so lucky to have such laid-back parents. There’s no way I would ever be able to bring him back here. Peter would go berserk, and I’d never hear the end of
it. He goes on at Claire all the time because of the way she dresses and the friends she hangs around with. He keeps saying they’re a bad influence, hanging around on the corner of the street even though they don’t really do anything other than talk. Mum doesn’t say anything. She just lets him preach at us.

  I honestly don’t know what she sees in him. For a start, he’s butt ugly, and all he ever goes on about is Jesus this and Jesus that. He’s actually talking about going to Jerusalem next year for a holiday. I mean, really?! My friends get to go to Spain and Cyprus for their holidays. I’ve never been abroad before, and I don’t want my first holiday to be some kind of pilgrimage. So not cool!

  Anyway, I need to get this maths homework done. I want to be able to totally focus on my first real date with Richard, not worry about bloody Pythagoras theory. I don’t see the point in learning this stuff. As if I’m going to need to know about the calculations of a triangle after school! So lame!

  20 October 1998

  Argh!! Can I not get any bloody privacy in this place? I’m going to go mad, I swear!

  Peter read my diary! Of all the lowlife, nosy parker things he could have done. I forgot to hide it before I left yesterday. Who the bloody hell does he think he is? And what was he doing in my bloody room anyway?

  I’d had such a great night, and then I came home to see him and Mum sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. He called me a harlot. Can you believe it? What kind of an insult is that? He’s so ancient! He must be from the Dark Ages. Nobody says ‘harlot’ anymore.

  I told him he had no right to go through my things, and he said he could do whatever he wants because this is ‘his house’. Apparently, he went into my room to take my clean laundry in and saw my diary on the bed – like that’s any excuse. I told him I didn’t want him touching my clothes, and he called me ungrateful. And then he grounded me for lying about last Friday and ‘taking drugs’. It’s not like I’ve been shooting up heroin – it was only a bloody spliff ! God, he makes me so bloody angry! And Mum just sat there, letting him speak to me like that. I don’t know what’s happened to her. It’s like she’s become a total sap. She just lets him do what he wants while she gets quietly drunk. Well, he can just do one and fuck right off.