Don't Get Me Wrong

by Marianne Kavanagh

  Something was struggling to surface—anger, outrage, panic. “Tell him he needn’t worry. We’re fine.”

  “Both of you?”

  Kim took a deep breath. “We have a different life now. Things have moved on.”

  Syed looked sad. “And that’s it?”

  “Yes,” said Kim. “That’s it.”

  After Syed had gone, Kim couldn’t stop shaking. She put on an extra sweater and even wrapped herself in a blanket. But nothing worked. It was like her bones were made of ice.

  • • •

  The kitchen in Nunhead was full of steam and the smell of fried onions. Christine was out shopping. Her eldest—the IT consultant—was coming over for supper, bringing his wife and three children. Christine had already made two large chicken pies, peeled a whole bag of potatoes, and chopped up carrots, cabbage, beans, and broccoli. But she’d decided at the last minute that they didn’t have enough bread.

  Kim, sitting at the kitchen table, was so slumped in misery she looked like a pile of dirty washing. “Australia?”

  Damaris nodded.

  Kim stared at her. “Why?”

  “Because they know how to treat A&E doctors there. There are proper resources. Work-life balance. As in, you do your job, and then you have time off to recover.”

  “When are you going?”

  “In a month’s time. The first of December.”

  Everyone was leaving. There was no one left.

  “Why don’t you come too? For a holiday?”

  “How can I? I don’t have any money.”

  “I’ll lend you some.”

  I’d never be able to pay you back, thought Kim. We couldn’t even afford the train down from Newcastle. We spent seven hours on a bus.

  “Come for Christmas,” said Damaris. “It’s summer there. Think of all the sunshine.”

  Kim hung her head. They say you take yourself with you wherever you go. You’re the same person, whatever the setting. I’d spend all that money just so that Otis and I could sit in silence in Melbourne.

  Damaris leant forward across the kitchen table. “Come on, Kim. We can go sightseeing. Go the beach. You might want to stay on. It’s the right age to move Otis. Before he puts down roots.”

  I can’t imagine Otis putting down roots anywhere, thought Kim. He doesn’t seem solid enough. It’s like he’s not even there half the time.

  The front door slammed shut. Christine came into the kitchen with a bulging carrier bag and two long baguettes. “Kim!” She stopped and looked round. “But where’s Otis?”

  “Watching TV with Dad,” said Damaris.

  “That boy spends too much time indoors,” said Christine, unpacking three large round loaves and setting them down on the table next to the baguettes. “He should be outside at his age. Running about in the sunshine. Getting some fresh air in his lungs.” She stopped and looked at Kim over the top of her glasses. “You heard about the new job? In Melbourne?”

  “I’ve told her she’s got to come with me,” said Damaris.

  Oh, thought Kim. They’re ganging up on me.

  “Of course, it’s a long way,” said Christine, taking off her coat and hanging it on the back of the kitchen door. “And I don’t want my daughter on the other side of the world. I want my family all around me.” Still wearing her paisley scarf and blue felt hat, she turned round, small, fierce, ready to take on all comers. “But that’s what you’ve got to do when you’re young, Kim. Seize your chances. Grab hold of life.”

  “Make a fresh start,” said Damaris.

  “I did,” said Kim in a small voice. “I went to Newcastle.”

  Christine shook her head. “You’re hiding, Kim. That’s what you’re doing. You don’t want to face it. So you’re hiding yourself away.”

  Kim opened her mouth to protest—stop interfering! leave me alone!—but realized, quite suddenly, that she was on the verge of tears.

  “I know you think I worry too much. And I know you don’t want Harry to help you. You want to get through this on your own. That’s the way you’ve always been, ever since you were a little girl. Stubborn. Determined. Independent. You used to sit right there, five years old, with the look you’re wearing now. Like they could tear you apart, limb from limb, and nothing would make you change your mind.” Christine leant forward. “But I’m not going to let you waste your life. You hear me, Kim? You’ve taken a year out to grieve, you and Otis. But time is passing, and you’re still walking around half-asleep. Before you know it, you’ll be old and tired, and wondering where it all went. You finish your grieving now. Stand up and face the future. And if you won’t take money from Harry or Damaris, you take it from me. Go to Australia. Start your life over again.”

  • • •

  Dear Kim,

  I hope you are well.

  Jia has asked me to send you the enclosed check. She tells me that you will be facing unforeseen expenses now that you are my grandson’s legal guardian.

  You may find it sensible to put this towards a deposit if you are thinking of buying property.

  However, Jia has insisted that I make it clear that the money is yours to spend in whatever way you think fit.

  Best wishes,

  Dad

  • • •

  When you see a shark from underneath it looks like a Boeing 747—white, with a round end, and two arms sticking out. Skates look like children in onesies making angel wings. Shoals of sardines flash silver when they change direction. You can see them all, standing here. Tuna, turtles, sunfish. Jellyfish. Which, of course, thought Kim, watching the frilly pulsing mushrooms shoot through the water like upside-down umbrellas, aren’t fish at all. They don’t have bones or blood or fins.

  But they sting. They have tentacles beaded with toxins. The box jellyfish is the worst. Almost transparent, it floats around off the coast of northern Australia. It can kill you in minutes.

  Otis stood very still, looking up at the wall of glass. Moon jellies. Comb jellies. Crown jellies. Dark purple blubber jellies. The flower hat jelly with its brilliant, multicolored tentacles trailing from a pinstriped bell. The flower hat jelly with its vicious sting.

  He hadn’t said a word since they arrived. Jet lag, probably.

  “He’s very quiet, your son, isn’t he?” They’d sat next to an elderly woman on the way over. She was a grandmother, off to visit her daughter. She’d been brimming with good-natured excitement. As the plane took off, she chatted away to Otis, asking where he went to school, what he liked doing, if he’d ever flown before. At first, she thought he must be shy. Then she decided he was tired. But when he met all her questions with that same empty stare, she began to get uneasy. Then puzzled. Then anxious.

  I wish people would just shut up and mind their own business, thought Kim, watching Otis as he stared up at the jellyfish. We’ll be fine if everyone just leaves us alone. Maybe we should have hung around the hotel for a day or two. Swum in the pool. Slept in the air-conditioned rooms. But I thought a bit of sightseeing might cheer him up a bit. Take away that blank look on his face.

  That blank look worries everybody. “Under the circumstances,” said Miss Carter, frowning across her chipped melamine desk, “and since we’ve nearly reached the end of term, I’m happy for you to take Otis out of school for a holiday.”

  No one could get through to him these days. It had been bad enough in Newcastle. Communication there had been pretty sparse—down to the level of peanut butter, yes/no, strawberry jam? But here, under bright blue skies, the silence seemed even worse.

  “Why California?” said Damaris. “Why not Australia?”

  I have no idea, thought Kim. But once I’d thought of it, there was no going back. We had to go to Monterey.

  It was a sunny morning. Of course it was. The sun always shines in California. After breakfast, which neither of them wanted, they wandered up and down Fisherman’s Wharf. Then Otis stood looking out over the Pacific Ocean, his face, as usual, expressionless.

  “We coul
d go whale watching,” said Kim in the cheerful voice she always used with Otis these days. Although it didn’t make any difference what voice she used.

  On Cannery Row, Kim saw the sign for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

  “Is it good?” she said to a woman with brown hair and silver hooped earrings who was just coming out, shepherding two small children in front of her.

  “It’s really great,” said the woman. “Especially the sea otters. They’re so cute.”

  But after the open sea exhibit, with the sardines and the sharks among a forest of waving kelp, Otis had somehow got stuck at the jellies tank. He stared, motionless. Kim tried to chivvy him along. But he didn’t look unhappy—just mesmerized. So after a while, in a different time zone, her body clock awry, Kim let her mind drift.

  “Don’t you love watching them?” said a voice next to her.

  It took Kim a moment to wake up to the fact that someone was talking to her. Then, foggily, she realized the woman was talking about children, not jellyfish.

  “It’s like they’re hypnotized? Like they can’t stop?”

  Kim nodded. Otis was now sandwiched between two blond-haired children, one small, one tall.

  “Look at your little boy. He’s glued to the glass. How old is he?”

  “Six.”

  “He must take after his dad with all that black hair.”

  “Maybe,” said Kim, struggling not to yawn. “Sorry. We’ve only just arrived. I haven’t caught up with the time difference yet.”

  “You’re English, right?” The woman was blond and blue-eyed with an open, friendly expression. She was wearing a white shirt with red buttons down the front. “On vacation?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “You’ve come to the best place. Monterey is great for kids. We come most years. You’re going to have a really great time.”

  Kim said, “We’re going to see where the festival was, too.”

  “In September, right?”

  “Not the jazz festival. The pop festival.”

  The woman shook her head.

  “A long time ago,” said Kim. “Nineteen sixty-seven.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “The Summer of Love. All the hippies heading to San Francisco. Flowers in their hair. The first international pop festival.” Despite the coolness of the aquarium, Kim was beginning to feel hot and light-headed. I’m talking too much, she thought. Trying too hard to explain. “People like Janis Joplin. Jimi Hendrix. Otis Redding.”

  Otis had turned round and was looking up at her. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking. You never could.

  “He sang here,” said Kim. “Otis Redding. His breakthrough concert.”

  He knew, the minute he started singing, that he had the audience hooked. He delivered soul. He sang “Respect,” “Satisfaction,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” his voice cracked with emotion. The crowd was on its feet—they didn’t want to let him go. Cheering, clapping, yelling. And then six months later, he was dead. A plane crash. So young. Not even twenty-seven. London loved him. Europe loved him. After Monterey, the world was at his feet. But just when he was going to make it, just when everyone wanted more, he died.

  “Are you OK?” said the woman. “You’ve gone really white.”

  Hope has gone, thought Kim, standing there, watching the jellyfish fill and float like ever-falling parachutes. When Eva died, she took hope with her. It’s disappeared forever.

  “You don’t look well. Maybe you should sit down.”

  I can’t feel anything. I’m like a jellyfish. Brainless, spineless, heartless.

  “I could get you some water.”

  And I’m not sure, thought Kim, as someone pushed her into a chair, and she felt something cool and damp on the back of her neck, and the voices around her got fainter and more distant, that I can do this anymore.

  Much later, Kim and Otis sat in a tiny restaurant on the seafront. The day was beginning to feel slightly surreal, as if bits of dream had got mixed up with Coca-Cola and pizza and fresh tomato salad. Kim ordered a black coffee to keep herself awake. I hope Otis wants to go to bed early, she thought, or I’ll never last.

  Otis said, “I want to see Harry.”

  Kim stared, eyes wide open. “What did you say?”

  “I want to see Harry.”

  For a few seconds, she just looked at him. Back in Newcastle, if he’d suddenly spoken like this, out of the blue, it might have been a cause for celebration. She might have run around the restaurant screaming, waving her arms in the air. But here in Monterey the unexpected seemed normal. She felt like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland—confused but not surprised. She frowned. “You want to see Harry.”

  He nodded.

  But we can’t, she thought. Though now, suddenly, she couldn’t remember why. It was something to do with the funeral. But while parts of the day were vivid in her mind—the red cloth on the coffin, the white lilies on the ground—she couldn’t remember what had made her so angry. And for the first time in a year, for the first time since Eva had died, she began to see that all her recent decisions—leaving London, abandoning everything to do with their old life—hadn’t been rational at all. Maybe Christine was right. It was shock. Maybe grief makes people so weird and broken and ugly that they can’t think straight. We’re like chickens, thought Kim, flapping about after the fox has been in, making a lot of noise in a mess of blood and feathers.

  She stirred her black, unsweetened coffee. When she looked up, Otis was still staring at her, waiting for her answer. For a moment, looking at his serious face, Kim felt that Harry was sitting with them, in Monterey, overlooking the bay. She saw Harry’s smile. She heard his voice. It wasn’t unpleasant. In a strange kind of way, it was almost comforting. If Otis wants to see Harry, would that be so bad? Maybe I could do it, if that’s what he really wants. Maybe it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And she was hit by a wave of such overwhelming tiredness that she nearly lay her head down on the white tablecloth, closed her eyes, and slept.

  Kim put out her hand and touched Otis’s smooth brown arm. It was hard to stay upright. So hard to keep her eyes open. She said, very slowly, the words almost too heavy to speak, “We’re going to have our holiday. We’re going to go on boat rides and eat ice cream and look at all the things that your mummy wanted to see. All the things she dreamed of before she died. And then we’ll go home. And when we get back I’ll ring Harry and ask if we can see him. OK?”

  There was still a look of doubt in his eyes.

  “I promise,” said Kim. “Do you hear me? I promise.”

  And then, finally, Otis smiled.

  2014

  He was tall and black, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with that air of calm that athletes have. All the stress worked out. Happy in his skin. He had a sports bag slung over one shoulder. When he nodded at her, Kim smiled, but she was puzzled. Who was he? Did she know him?

  “He’s doing all right, you know,” he said. “Otis. I watch out for him.”

  “Oh,” she said, glancing at the door of Tommy’s Gym across the street. “You mean the boxing.”

  “It took him a while. It was like he needed permission. But he’s OK now.”

  “He enjoys it,” said Kim.

  “Harry said you weren’t sure. To begin with.”

  It gave her a shock to hear Harry’s name spoken so casually. She still expected a rush of hellfire whenever he was mentioned. “I thought he’d end up with a broken nose.”

  He laughed.

  Kim said, “Are you Leon?”

  He looked astonished. “Me? No.”

  “Sorry,” said Kim. “I just heard Harry talk about someone called Leon.”

  “He’s fifty. Sixty. I don’t know. I’m Ethan.”

  “I’m Kim.”

  “I know.”

  Kim felt as if she’d drifted onto a film set where everyone except her knew what was going on.

  Ethan smiled. “You’re his aunt, right?”

  Kim nodd
ed.

  “Work in a paint shop.”

  She stared.

  “Otis talks a lot. Tells me stuff all the time.” He grinned. “You’d better watch out. I know all your secrets.”

  Kim, who had become completely unused to the kind of everyday conversations that other people have all the time, cringed with embarrassment. “I’d better go in. The kids’ class must be over by now.”

  “Where’s Harry?”

  “Working.”

  “You know he saved my life,” said Ethan, shifting his bag higher onto his shoulder.

  Kim waited, expecting some kind of offhand quip.

  “Seriously,” said Ethan. “When I was a kid. He looked out for me.” He nodded. “That’s why I’m looking out for Otis. I’ll make sure he’s OK. It’s like karma, you know? What goes around comes around.”

  Kim frowned. Harry saved his life? How? But Ethan had raised his hand in farewell and was walking away from her down the street.

  • • •

  It hadn’t been easy seeing Harry again. The first meeting, soon after they got back from Monterey, was excruciating. But Otis didn’t seem to notice the tension. The minute he saw Harry, his whole body came alive. His eyes shone. He fizzed, all smiles, for the next hour while Kim and Harry limped through polite conversation, gratefully stopping whenever Otis interrupted.

  “How’s Damaris?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Enjoying Melbourne?”

  She has a new boyfriend, thought Kim. Called Michael—another A & E doctor, from Sydney.

  “Yes.”

  “Harry, can we go to the park?” Otis looked up at him, beaming.

  “Maybe,” said Harry. “If Kim says we can.”

  They were back in Izzie’s flat in Sydenham. (She still refused to let Kim pay rent. “I’m not paying any to Hannah,” she said. “So why should you pay any to me?” Which, of course, made no sense at all.) It seemed, in some strange kind of way, as if they’d never been away, as if the year in Newcastle had never happened.

  “If you want to,” said Kim.

  Otis leapt to his feet.