Beat the Rain

by Nigel Jay Cooper

  “I’m disgusting,” she’d said.

  “No, you’re not. It’s my fault, it’s completely, utterly, my fault. I should have told you, I didn’t know, I swear, I was so happy we were getting on so well and then Adam and I…”

  Silence. No movement. Nothing but a broken woman, seemingly outside of her own body, a quivering husk, shoulders sinking forward, breathing laboured, eye makeup smudging. Nothing but a man opposite her, the object of putrid affection, fetid, stinking affection.

  “Did she ever ask about me?” she heard as if someone else had said the words – but they hadn’t, she had. Then she felt her own limbs around her again, felt her racing heart, her puffed, painful eyes and the agonising pounding in her chest as the horror of who she was – who he was, sank in.

  “Mum?” Jarvis said obtusely.

  “Yes,” Louise said quietly. “Did she ever ask about me?”

  More silence.

  “She abandoned me, Jarvis. Didn’t even look back, even after my dad died she never contacted me. I want to know…did she ever think about me? Talk about me. Did she regret leaving me like she did?”

  His silence answered for him. Finally, he shook his head.

  “I didn’t know about you until after she died. When I was sorting through her stuff I found some photos, some old letters from your dad. That’s how I traced you. He’d wanted her to come and see you, said you needed your mother…but I don’t think she…I mean, I don’t know if she… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He’d paused, his skin pasty, making him seem more ugly than she could ever have imagined. “But she’d kept the photos. She must have thought about you, wondered…”

  “Fuck her,” Louise had said in a whisper, dropping her head and walking past him to his front door. “And fuck you, Jarvis.”

  * * *

  To this day, the feelings that were coursing through her defy description, at once intense and overpowering yet at the same time almost background, like she wasn’t feeling anything at all, like she didn’t even exist anymore. Before that moment, she’d always felt strong. She’d dealt with so much in her life and she’d always been in control, always dealt with it head on, in her way, on her terms. She’d read about depression, she’d read about people who said if they had a button to press that would wipe out their existence, they’d press it. These people felt that everyone would be better off without them around, felt like a burden because of the way they felt all the time. She’d never understood that, she’d always thought the world was a better place with her in it. She was a wife and mother, after all. But leaving Jarvis’s apartment that night, she’d felt empty, like a vacant nothing. If she’d had a button to press right then, she’d have pressed it without a thought. Ceased to exist.

  She was damned, she’d realised, like her mother had said she was after Lucy the suicide babysitter. She could never bring anyone happiness, least of all herself. Everyone – her children, her husband, her friends – would be better off without her.

  * * *

  After leaving Jarvis’s she’d walked the streets for a while, not knowing what she was planning or where she was going. The idea of seeing Adam was unconscionable and she didn’t want to go to any of her friends, it’s not like she could have told any of them what was wrong. Ha, friends, like she had any, like anyone gave a shit. She couldn’t burden her friends with this, it was too horrific, too messy. She had nobody to talk to. She was completely alone. Alone and an orphan. Her mother – his mother. Dead. Without a second thought about her, without a mention. Had she hated her daughter that much? What had Louise ever done? She’d never know, now.

  And Jarvis. She felt disgusting, used, dirty. Like he’d sullied her and she could never get clean again. The worst part is that somewhere deep inside, locked away in place she couldn’t acknowledge, wouldn’t acknowledge, she still fancied him. You don’t switch that off, no matter how repulsive it is. She’d spied on him. Oh God, that’s what it was, spying! Leering at him through the cracks in his curtains like some sort of deviant or weirdo. How could she not have seen that, how could she have thought he’d been complicit in it, that he’d wanted it? She was a peeping Tom. Worse than that, an incestuous peeping Tom.

  Repeated action, foot after foot after foot, high heels meeting grey paving slabs. High heels. Heels designed to entice and seduce. She hated them, hated their sleek, feminine design, hated everything they stood for. Angrily she grabbed them and pulled them off her feet, flinging them into the street to beeping and moaning from the passing traffic as they drove over them, crushing and destroying them.

  Good. They deserved to be destroyed. She turned the corner into her street, passing a woman silently humming to herself, leaning on the street sign, wearing a pair of enormous black sunglasses despite the fact it was night-time. As she arrived back at her house – her family home – she glanced across the road at the fake owl nestling on the roof opposite. It always seems so real from a distance. When the kids were tiny they used to stare from the window, waiting for it to move and fly away, sure that it was alive and breathing. But it wasn’t. It was a silent sentinel. Nonintrusive, comforting somehow, like nature watching over the street, keeping everyone safe from harm. Nothing like her own vigils, she can now see. Louise was never Jarvis’s sentinel, she was an intruder, a thief, devouring his privacy like a narcotic, taking more and more until she couldn’t think of anything else. How could she not have seen what she was doing? What kind of madness could have gripped her to make her so far removed from the reality she now sees so clearly? She bristled in the winter chill that only hours ago she’d enjoyed. On her way to Jarvis’s house, she’d savoured the breeze as it had tickled her skin, creating light goose pimples that somehow made every nerve in her body tingle.

  Opening her front door, she braced herself against Adam’s presence, planning her route upstairs and away from him as soon as possible, she couldn’t cope, couldn’t manage to have a conversation with him. But the house was silent, he was out. Thank God. Without even thinking about where she was going, she found herself in the bathroom, catching a whiff of her Oil of Olay, reminding her of her mother. How funny, that smell had never been a trigger but her mother was dead and all of a sudden it had reminded her instantly. Her mum had always used Oil of Ulay, as it was called back then. It had been her go-to gift. She would ask Louise’s dad to buy it for her on birthdays and Christmas. It was always the same, every year.

  “Oh, don’t get me anything much, love. Just some Oil of Ulay. I like that.”

  What had she come into the bathroom for? Oh, that was it, the medicine cabinet. She knew better than to wash them down with wine or spirits, that would make her sick and she didn’t want to be sick, she didn’t want them coming back up again, she wanted them to stay inside her, to do their job properly. She wanted to sleep forever, unaware and unthinking. At peace. She’d never understood that phrase before but now, staring at her blotchy, puffy disgusting brother-fucking face in the mirror, she understood. She wanted to be at peace. She wanted everything to stop. This wasn’t a cry for help. She was beyond help, beyond redemption. She wanted it all to stop, she wanted peace from the endless struggle of her life.

  Louise had never felt like this before, she’d never hit this low. She’d felt depressed and angry but never hopeless, never…disgusting. That was the thing that was killing the last emotion that could have kept her going, she knew. The self-loathing that was filling her stopped her seeing anything else at all and she couldn’t imagine any emotion ever overpowering it and making her feel normal again. Because she didn’t feel normal anymore, not one little bit.

  She couldn’t muster the will to keep fighting. Because what was the point in fighting when the battle was already lost? It had been lost before she’d started. Maybe if she’d recognised it sooner, understood what was happening before it reached the untouchable land of ‘no return’, things would have been different. But she’d been blind and ridiculous and…criminal, actually. Some might even have classed her as som
e kind of sex offender, someone who should be on the register, all that watching…

  She’d never believed people reaped what they sowed, she never believed there was a universal moral compass but she knew right from wrong, at least she used to know right from wrong. What had happened to her? How could she have spent all the time watching him? Stalking him, because she had to be honest with herself that’s exactly what she’d been doing. Stalking, watching and touching herself over her own brother.

  She’d known then that it would never leave her, the guilt, the hurt, the pain. The lust, the sexual excitement she had felt when she thought about her brother. How could she purge that from her mind? It was now woven into the fabric of her being, an inevitable consequence of the fact she was still breathing. The more she tried to mute the feelings, the more it was like her body was an amplifier for them, vibrating with the strain of her thoughts and feelings. It was part of her. She was disgusting, pure and simple.

  She found herself back in her living room, bland and stark like the property programmes on Channel 4 always told her it should be. She was undressed now, out of the tight dress, too young for her anyway. She found her frumpy dressing gown, the type of thing a woman of her age should be in. She should at least be found in something appropriate, not some wannabe younger dress donned for brother-fucking.

  She crunched and chewed, making sure the pills entered her system as quickly as possible. She didn’t want her stomach acid to have to do all the work, didn’t want there to be a window of opportunity for vomiting or rescue. She stared at her mobile on the side across the room as it started to ring. She exhaled. As she fell back into the armchair, her dressing gown dropped open to uncover sagging breasts. As the darkness descended, she licked chalky residue from her lips and closed her eyes. All better now.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Adam hadn’t moved after he’d heard Louise leave that night. He’d sat on the floor beside the wardrobe in Jarvis’s bedroom, reeling. He’d never known people could actually reel before that moment, never known the lightheaded confusion and horror the term ‘reeling’ truly implied. It was almost like his world was vibrating, so nothing was still, nothing remained in focus.

  He’d felt Jarvis’s presence in the bedroom doorway before he looked up and saw him there, silhouetted and somehow other, no longer connected to Adam, an outsider, a stranger. A liar.

  “Adam, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you, I…” Jarvis stuttered into silence. What words could he have said? How could he have made things better? Adam continued to sit staring at the carpet, leaning against the dark wooden wardrobe, heart punching, again, again, again.

  “I never meant to fall for you,” Jarvis continued desperately, a disembodied voice in Adam’s ears, merging with the drumming, the incessant beating, beating, beating of his heart, the rush of blood in his head, hissing, bursting its banks; every sense alive in a way he’d never known before, more heightened, more powerful. More painful.

  “I should have told Louise right away,” Jarvis had carried on, almost whining, “but the longer things went on, the harder it got and…”

  “And what?” Adam’s voice had been calm as he looked up, calmer than the churning waves buffeting the rocks inside him should have allowed it to be.

  “I hadn’t expected to meet you, to fall for you,” Jarvis said, sounding close to tears, as if somehow he was the one who was aggrieved, as if he was the victim in need of support. Fuck him.

  Adam pulled himself to his feet, swallowing down every feeling that swirled inside, crushing each one, burying them, hammering them down, down, down.

  “I’ve got to go after Louise,” he said simply, pushing past Jarvis and starting to walk down the corridor back to the living room. Jarvis grabbed his arm to stop him walking away, pulled him around and forced Adam to face him.

  “Adam, don’t,” he started, “please don’t leave like this.”

  “Like what?” Adam’s voice was angrier now, the rage bubbling out a little.

  “Angry. Upset. Talk to me,” Jarvis pleaded.

  “What’s the point, Jarvis? Everything you say is a lie.” Adam erupted, yanking his arm away, no longer happy with the physical contact.

  “No, not everything. Not how I feel about you,” Jarvis whimpered. “I fucked up, I know I fucked up, but please, give me a chance to explain things, you owe me that much.”

  Adam doesn’t know why he didn’t go straight after Louise, he’s not sure how he let Jarvis talk him into staying but somehow he’d ended up sitting back on the sofa listening to Jarvis talk. It wasn’t even a conversation, it was more of a monologue, a man trying to justify the unjustifiable.

  “Thing is, my mum was a bitch. I know I shouldn’t speak like that about her, especially now she’s gone, but it’s true. There was something cold about her, something missing, you know.” He was nodding, leaning forward in his seat and pouring himself another glass of wine, offering Adam one. Adam had simply shook his head silently, watching the man he had thought he knew explain things he didn’t want to know.

  “I didn’t even know about Louise until I was going through Mum’s things after she died.” Jarvis leans back, holding his wine glass below his stained red lips. The lips Adam had been kissing less than an hour ago. “How can someone be that good at lying, that duplicitous?”

  “You inherited something from her,” Adam found himself saying. Not angry, not anything. Monotone.

  “Okay, I deserved that,” Jarvis continued. “But please, let me explain. She wasn’t warm, you see, our mum. She wasn’t loving. Louise was better off without her, I swear. When I told her I was gay, do you know what she said to me? She said ‘If only I’d known when I was pregnant…’”

  Adam was watching Jarvis’s face. An hour ago, this story would have elicited an entirely different emotion from him, he’d have wanted to hold Jarvis, to tell him it was okay, that his mother had been wrong, deeply wrong. But Adam remained unmoved, waiting unsuccessfully for an emotion that wasn’t anger to surface.

  “She didn’t finish the sentence,” Jarvis continued, “she didn’t actually say she’d have aborted me…but we both knew what she meant. It hung in the air between us, an invisible wall we could never break down again. I mean, what kind of mother could say something like that to her child?”

  He paused and Adam felt uncomfortable with his gaze, like something was expected of him he couldn’t give. Did Jarvis think he was going to crack, to rush over and comfort him?

  “Seriously, Louise was better off without her, she was like a poison. I knew if I told Louise who I was she’d want to know more about our mother but how could I tell her that? How could I tell her Mum was a bitch? And the more Louise talked about her past, about losing her dad, about losing Tom, I realised I could never tell her. How would she cope knowing her mum hadn’t ever looked back, that she hadn’t even wanted her – or that she was dead?” Jarvis had sounded more and more desperate as he explained, his words falling from his mouth faster and faster, as if they were on a treadmill, the speed increasing with every word that escaped.

  “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, Jarvis?” Finally Adam found his voice again, but it didn’t feel like him speaking, he didn’t even feel like any of this was real, it was like a nightmare from someone else’s life. “You came into our lives and now it’s like a fucking train wreck. You wrapped us both around your little finger and now look at us. It could have been different, we could have been a family, Jarvis. You could have had everything you wanted. But how the fuck am I supposed to feel now? In fact, sod me.” Adam stands up, his anger resurfacing, spitting its way out of him. “How is Louise supposed to feel now? She fell for you and you’re her brother. How could you not know how she felt?’

  “Well, did you know?” Jarvis says, raising his voice in return. “I knew what was happening between us, I could see you were interested too, but Louise? I thought we were friends. I’m gay for God’s sake.”

  “You’re gay, you’re not b
lind!” Adam shouts. “Lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me – of course you could see. Anyone could.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say something, she’s your wife.”

  “Because I knew it didn’t matter!” Adam shouted. “I knew I’d won. You wanted me, not her…” With that realisation, Adam deflated slightly, punctured by his own selfishness.

  “We can still make a go of this, it doesn’t change anything,” Jarvis said, grabbing Adam’s arm again. “Leave, just leave.”

  “Fuck off, Jarvis,” Adam said, shaking Jarvis off and bolting out of the flat into the night without looking back. Jarvis wasn’t in the least bit important, Adam realised. He needed to find Louise and make sure she was okay. All of a sudden, life was back in perspective and all he wanted to do was look after his wife. Louise had fallen for Jarvis and she’d fallen hard – but so had he, so he couldn’t blame her for it or feel angry with her. He couldn’t imagine how it felt for her to learn Jarvis had been lying all this time, when she’d been fantasising about him, her brother. It was making Adam feel sick, God knows how it was making her feel.

  He’d called her, leaving a voicemail asking how Alice was. Asking her to call him back as he needed to talk. No answer. He’d known she wasn’t with Alice of course, but he had to keep up the pretence – they’d both been manufacturing so many lies, it was important to keep hold of them. He needed to find a way of helping her, of making her open up to him without exposing his own lies. But he had to find her first. He didn’t have Alice’s number, but he figured if he at least called her to ‘learn’ Louise wasn’t there, he’d have a reason for being worried about her, for forcing her to reply to a text message or phone call or voicemail. So he headed home to get her number, burying any guilt or personal betrayals deep down inside his gut. Louise needed him now, perhaps more than ever before. He didn’t want to fail her any more than he already had.