by Alison Bond
She didn’t tell Leanne the real reason she was heading back to England. ‘Just for a few days,’ she said, avoiding any further questions.
Leanne did not press her for details of her trip. Good. Leanne had been working with her for years. It was far too late in their relationship to say, by the way I’ve a brother I never mentioned. He’s in prison – didn’t I tell you?
She was waiting for him outside when, at a few minutes past seven on a Monday morning, he stepped through the gates of the prison and into the real world. They embraced each other, as close as lovers, and she thought she heard a sob catch in his throat but she couldn’t be sure. He climbed inside her car and asked if he could smoke. She hadn’t the heart to say no.
‘Here,’ she said, pushing over a small cardboard box. ‘I got you a present.’
He pretended he wasn’t excited, but the way he ripped the box open made her remember Christmases gone by. ‘A mobile phone?’ he said. ‘Excellent.’
‘It’s just my old one,’ she said. ‘But it’s ready to go. I put some credit on, charged the battery.’ She grinned. ‘You have anyone you want to call?’
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘You’re already here.’
He tucked it in his pocket. A phone represented freedom. It felt good.
They spent the first couple of days treading carefully around each other. Liam seemed to want to do little more than eat, sleep and shower, alternating between these three activities in a continual loop. She didn’t push him. They had the rest of their lives.
London was much as she had left it. Her house was safe and clean, and she fell back into the familiar space gratefully, working in her study and taking an enormous amount of contentment from the occasional sound of her brother padding around above.
On the third day she decided it was time for his surprise. She couldn’t wait any longer.
Announcing that she was taking him out for lunch she jollied him into the car and they set off for the short drive to his future. They headed for Kentish Town. He was confused, of course, when they pulled up in front of the small Victorian terrace, identical to its neighbours, but if he was uncomfortable she was too excited to notice. She tipped a set of keys into his hand.
‘It’s yours,’ she said. ‘I bought it for you.’
‘What?’
‘Years ago,’ she said. ‘Before it was expensive. You’ve done well out of the property boom. Congratulations.’
He turned the keys over in his hands, as if he didn’t know what to do with them. ‘Sammy,’ he said, ‘you can’t buy me a house.’
‘I did,’ she said. ‘It’s yours.’
He didn’t look as happy as she hoped he would. It wasn’t as flash as hers – she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm him and, besides, he had always had more modest taste. She had thought it was perfect. But something was wrong. He looked ill at ease.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s really okay. The paperwork is all in your name. You can do what you like with it. If you don’t want to live here you can rent it or sell it or whatever, I won’t be offended.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’d hate to offend you.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You bought me a house?’
She nodded. ‘Don’t worry, I can afford it. Come on, don’t you want to see?’ She was practically skipping up the path and so didn’t see the look of horror on his face.
Inside she was oblivious as she showed him everything. The furniture she had bought, the bed in the master bedroom made up with fresh white linen. A few clothes in the wardrobe, a good pair of shoes and two pairs of trainers. A comfortable sofa in the spacious front room and a decent television and stereo system. In the kitchen the cupboards were full of plates and dishes, there were cleaning materials under the sink and the fridge was full of food. There were towels in the bathroom and soap on the side of the sink. She had thought of everything.
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Why don’t you try your new kettle and make us both a cup of coffee?’
‘What? No cappuccino machine?’
Her face fell.
‘It was a joke,’ he said. ‘This is all too much, Sammy.’
‘It was a pleasure,’ she said. ‘It makes me happy.’
‘I’m serious. I can’t accept any of this.’
‘Don’t be silly, of course you can.’
His face soured. ‘Don’t you get it? How am I supposed to find my place in the real world when you’ve so painstakingly made my place for me? You think you can just buy me a house, fill it up with crap, buy me a life? It doesn’t work like that.’
‘But …’
‘I have to find my own way, Sam. And it won’t help to constantly be reminded of how fabulous you are.’
‘I’m not … I was trying to make things easy for you.’
‘Why? Because I’m useless? Compared to you, Sam, everyone is useless, but maybe I’d like to try to be my own man. Or do you think it’s too late? Is that it? I’m thirty-eight years old – you think I missed my chance of a life?’
She clenched her hands into little fists. This was not how she’d imagined it. Not at all. This perfect house that she had laboured over, cleaning it from top to bottom, filling the fridge with his favourite things so that he might have a place that he could call home. She had imagined his smile, his happiness and, yes, his gratitude, but not this. Not this look of total disgust, the rejection of everything she was trying to do. He looked as if he hated her.
‘You have no idea,’ he said. ‘What do you think it’s been like for me seeing you climb higher and higher, and all the while I was stuck in there, with nobody to remember me but you, a constant reminder of what a mess I’d made. You loved it, didn’t you? You must have. You loved having a brother who was a failure so that you could feel even better about yourself. Well, when you looked down on me like that and thought “there but for the grace of God”, just try to imagine what I was thinking.’
‘I didn’t think that,’ she said.
But wasn’t that a lie?
Hadn’t Liam’s awful predicament pushed her to succeed? Without him there to remind her of the moment that their lives had split in two, where might she be?
He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t.
She had been warned to expect irrational moods. His confidence was shattered; he would need patience and love if he was to regain a sense of self-esteem. She shouldn’t, she mustn’t, take it personally. It was just a house.
She started to cry.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Liam. He walked out of the front door, leaving her there wondering how this day, which she had been looking forward to for so long, had gone so terribly wrong.
When she got back to her house in Belsize Park she hoped that she would find him there. She hoped that he would be waiting for her and telling her sorry, that he didn’t mean it, that he loved the house and had just been overwhelmed. But he was nowhere to be found. She had no idea where he might have gone. All she could do was wait.
Eventually at around three o’clock in the morning she stopped trying to sleep, got out of bed, dressed and walked out into the streets to look for him.
Going to Camden in the middle of the night was like visiting the past, but with a fresh coat of paint. She saw dusty old bars the two of them used to frequent, but many of them had been transformed into wine bars or gastro-pubs. She walked into those that were still open, hoping to see him propped up on a bar stool, slagging off his sister to a sympathetic barmaid. She paid to go into a handful of clubs where nothing had changed, where the clientele still dressed exclusively in black from the tips of their Doc Marten boots to the wings of their black eyeliner. In her biker jacket and grey skinny jeans she fitted right in. But she couldn’t find Liam. She walked past the tattoo parlour where she had branded herself and the patch of flesh on her shoulder itched in recognition. Liam wasn’t there. Nor was he in the all-night cafés that catered to the post-club crowd.
Then she r
emembered. And with a deep sense of certainty she started to walk towards Primrose Hill.
He sat on the same cold wooden bench that had accommodated them many years ago when they had been little more than lost children, searching for a fix, any kind of fix, to mend them. She had found her way, his sister, and he had stayed rooted in the past.
Prison was like limbo. The first few years were unbelievably hard, but gradually something changed and as your memories of the person you once were began to subside you forgot you had ever been anything other than this. The life outside no longer exists. He had heard of people becoming institutionalized, and would have sworn that it would never happen to him. He relished the thought of freedom. Except when his freedom finally came he found that his heart was in his throat the moment he walked out of the gates and it had stayed there ever since. The life he once had had gone, and he had no idea what was supposed to take its place. He had too many years of being told what to do and when to do it, something he had not expected to miss. But he did miss it. And he knew that if he let Samantha take over his life, tell him what to do, then things would be easier. But the fighter in him that had longed to be free was struggling to make his own choices.
He was conflicted, and so he had lashed out at the only constant in his life. And that made him feel worse than ever.
She was only trying to help, he knew that, but he felt pushed into a corner. Sure, it was a spacious two-bedroom corner in a nice part of town, but it was more than he could cope with. And so he had run.
Because running away works.
His feet had taken him here and now his head was bombarding him with memories. At first he’d thought they were happy ones, his sister and him, enjoying all that the city had to offer, but with so many years of perspective he could see how miserable she had been. He was her big brother, he was supposed to look after her, but there could be no denying that Samantha’s life had improved exponentially as soon as he was out of her existence.
He looked down on the view. It was an enormous slice of night sky and cityscape. He had forgotten how wide a sky could be. And this more than any decision he could make told him he was finally free.
‘Liam?’
She had found him. Perhaps he had known that she would. Why else would he have come back to this place?
She sat down next to him and said nothing. She was scared of saying the wrong thing.
‘Just like old times,’ he said.
‘I don’t miss them, those times,’ said Samantha. ‘I’m glad they’re gone.’
‘They were the only times I’ve ever had.’
‘I suppose.’
There was a cold breeze up here and she wrapped her jacket tighter around her. Were there too many years between them now? Had she lost the last family that she had? She still wasn’t sure what she had done wrong and she was mad at him. She could stay calm and quiet on the outside but inside she was raging. The house was the biggest gesture she had ever made. Getting it thrown back in her face like that, it was impossible not to take it personally. But she stifled her disappointment.
‘If you don’t want the house,’ she said, ‘you don’t have to have it. I was trying to help.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ve been waiting almost ten years to give it to you. Maybe I got carried away.’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ he said.
‘But you don’t want it?’
‘Of course I do, it’s just …’
‘What?’ she said. ‘Tell me. I’m trying really hard to understand.’
He couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘Me too. If you figure it out you’ll have to let me know.’
She looked out at the city, trying to imagine what it must be like for him to be here, but it was futile. How could she possibly know?
‘I’ve always been jealous of you,’ he said.
‘Except when we were young,’ she added.
‘No, especially then. You always had drive. Sometimes I felt like I was just taking a free ride in your slipstream.’
‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘Everything changed for me when you went into prison. You made me, Liam.’
‘You’re wrong. Maybe that’s the way you remember it, but you’re wrong. You were pulling away from me long before the accident.’
Was that right? And what difference did it make? They were brother and sister, family. But she knew that didn’t count for much. Their mother certainly hadn’t thought so. Nor their father before her.
‘And then you pulled so far away,’ he said, ‘that I could hardly see you any more. Your name in the papers, millions in the bank, one success after another. In prison, you were the most interesting thing about me. And I hated that. I hate it. I know that makes me a total bastard – you don’t have to tell me. I try to be happy for you, Sammy, but, God, sometimes I just wish that you would fail occasionally, you know?’
Tears stabbed at her eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand, telling herself to be patient. He didn’t know what he was saying. If he needed to hurt her, well then she would let him. In the dark he wouldn’t be able to see her cry.
‘And then even when you fail,’ he said, ‘– big scandal, national news – you just start over and it’s all sunshine again. How is it possible that whole thing didn’t knock you down?’
He said it like he had wanted it to.
‘I didn’t let it,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
‘You make it look too easy, and life’s not like that. Not for everyone, not for me.’
‘It could be,’ she whispered.
‘Why? Because you buy me a house, an easy fix? Here you go, Liam. Everything is going to be okay. You think that will fix me, having somewhere to live?’
‘It would be a start.’
‘Whatever I do, it’s a start. But you can’t do it for me.’
They sat in silence for a while, both feeling wretched, each wondering why he couldn’t just accept her gift of a new life graciously with the gratitude it deserved.
‘I think I’d better leave,’ he said eventually.
‘And go where?’
‘Away for a bit. I have a friend, sort of, he offered me a couch.’
‘You have my couch,’ she blurted. ‘You have a spare room with me. Liam, you have a house.’
‘I just can’t, Sammy. You’re my little sister. You’re not responsible for me. I don’t want you to be. I have to be more than that.’
‘We take care of each other,’ she said.
‘Maybe I need to start taking care of myself.’
She looked down on this city that she had once loved, that she still loved, but it had disappointed her, and here she was again, being disillusioned by another subject of her misplaced adoration.
‘You know what, Liam? I’m not going to apologize for being the most interesting thing about you. We both made our choices. And if you think I got here all on my own then you’re just wrong. People helped me – people are still helping me – and I’m glad of that, I’m thankful. If I turned down help I might be where you are now. Is that really what you want for me?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Is it? Is it what you want for yourself?’
She stood up. He didn’t even look at her. She walked away down the hill, hoping with every footfall that he would chase her and say the words that would make everything all right between them again. But she didn’t know if the right words existed.
She turned just once and saw him sitting there on the wooden bench as cold and immovable as a bronze statue. If that’s where he wanted to be then she couldn’t drag him away into a new and more hopeful life. She finally had her brother back, but she had lost him all over again.
27
Joe overslept on the day that the England Under-21 football squad was announced for their final World Cup qualifying match. He couldn’t believe it. He awoke in the spare room in West Sussex and looked at his football alarm clock, the same clock he’d had for as long as he’d b
een able to tell the time, and thought he was reading it wrong. He stuck his head out from under his Arsenal 1998 Champions duvet and picked up the clock, his brain refusing to process what his eyes could see.
Huh?
‘Nan?’ It was light outside, so it wasn’t the middle of the night. But how could he have overslept on today of all days, the day that had been red-ringed in his head for the last four weeks? The day that would change his life. ‘Nan?’
His bedroom door opened and there was Nan with a cup of tea making tut-tut noises about how late he’d slept and pulling the curtains open as if today was any other Saturday.
‘What time is it?’ he said.
She looked at him oddly and then at his clock. ‘If the little hand’s on the eleven and the big hand’s on the two …’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Do you want a cooked breakfast?’
‘Please,’ he said. ‘But … crikey, Nan, have you been listening?’
‘Listening?’
‘To the news? Have they announced the squad? The Under-21s?’
‘Oh, is that today?’ she said. ‘I’m surprised you slept in so late. I thought you’d be up at the crack at dawn with one ear glued to the radio.’
He was already up out of bed and pulling on his jeans.
Layla knocked on the back door as he was mopping up the last of his fried egg. She walked into the kitchen without being invited. She always did that. On the one hand he loved it, but on the other it felt a bit familiar, sisterly. Sometimes he wished that she was a little bit nervous around him, at least then he might be able to convince himself that she had feelings for him.
‘Have you heard?’ she said.
He shook his head, no.
‘What time do they usually announce it?’
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Usually I don’t care this much. I mean I care, it’s interesting and that, but I’m not, like, waiting for it. Not like now.’
‘It’s exciting,’ she said, gripping his knee.
He gulped down the last of his egg and hoped that her hand on his leg didn’t give him an erection. Of course, as soon as he thought about it he could feel the familiar stirring and so he was relieved when his nan came into the kitchen.