by Emily Koch
‘It’s fine, I’m just thinking the food will be getting—’
‘I’m just so looking forward to a road trip with you. A real lads’ holiday, isn’t it?’
It felt cruel to laugh at him but he was being so funny, and so sweet. I couldn’t help it. It was hardly the kind of lads’ holiday people usually meant when they used those words. I—Something touched my face.
My mind had completely wandered into another world. That trip to the Gouffre de Padirac had never happened. I doubted Dad went on his own.
Tap, tap, tap. Dad’s study faded away and I was back again in my hospital bed. Bea’s legs were still jiggling up and down, and she was rubbing a tissue against my face, wiping away a stray tear that had rolled down my cheek.
I couldn’t remember what she had been saying before I drifted off. I tried to work backwards. Travel. Plans. That was it – she was talking about Rosie wanting her to find a new boyfriend.
‘Are you going to come back to us?’ I could feel her eyes on me, looking for an answer.
The foot-tapping was somehow worsening an itch in my arm, which had been irritating me all day.
‘What if I do meet someone?’
Like that tosser at counselling?
‘I can’t believe everyone would see it the same way as Rosie, you know? People would say I was cheating on you. I’m surprised at your dad. I’m sure Mum and Dad wouldn’t like it.’ She paused. ‘I wonder where they’ve got to? I’m sure they said they’d be here by now.’
I didn’t get many visits from Rick and Megan – Brighton was a long drive and even before my accident they normally left it for Bea to go and see them. ‘She’s less likely to have accidents, with those young eyes of hers,’ Rick would say, but Bea and I suspected the real reason was that they just didn’t like leaving the cats at home, being looked after by their neighbours.
‘They’d say I should stick with you. They’ve been together through thick and thin.’
She squeezed my shoulder.
‘But.’
You’re thinking about him.
‘I’m lonely.’ She moved onto the bed, behind my turned back, and put her head against me. Her glasses dug into my flesh as she kissed my pyjamas. ‘And all this weird stuff going on. There was another one of those calls last night – I could hear someone breathing at the other end. If you were around, I’d feel safer.’
What calls?
She hugged my body to hers. ‘I would have married you, you know that? You must have known that.’
Leave me. Go.
Frustration flooded me. I wanted to push her away.
I can’t protect you. Find a man who can.
‘If we’d got married we would have said those words – “In sickness and in health”. “Till death us do part.”’
But we never did.
‘Last night, I googled “when to move on when your boyfriend is in a coma”.’ She hugged me closer and the itch in my arm intensified again.
She was hardly going to find a sensible answer on the internet. But that was typical Bea – she asked the web everything from ‘how to tell your best friend you don’t like her fringe without hurting her feelings’ to ‘will music ever be good again?’ (after listening to the top forty countdown on the radio, one Sunday afternoon in my hospital room).
‘There are forums full of this stuff,’ she said. ‘People like Rosie saying it’s all right, no one should judge you for finding someone else. And then all these angry people quoting marriage vows.’
They don’t apply to you.
‘I want someone to – well.’
She sat up, and her tone shifted into a false brightness. ‘Anyway, you should hear the other things they said.’
She got up and walked back round the bed, past my face, then disappeared from view as she bent down and rummaged in her bag. I saw her sit down in the chair next to me, and again I could see her hands moving in front of her. There was a muted rip and the air filled with the smell of an orange being peeled. Bittersweet. She talked with her mouth full.
‘One woman said, if she was in a coma, she wouldn’t want her partner to waste his life waiting for her. There was a man who said that in certain societies, someone in a coma is already dead.’
She paused to swallow and I saw her arm move up towards her face. ‘Another person said, if you really love your husband, why would you leave him? And then this woman said – this made me laugh.’
I liked hearing the smile in her voice for a change.
‘They said: “Some loveless marriages are not much different to having your husband in a permanent coma. And what do people do then? Cheat.” I shouldn’t laugh.’ But she did. A beautiful, breathless sound.
She sat in silence for a few minutes, finishing her orange, before walking across the room. I heard her pump alcohol gel out of the dispenser, and when she returned to the chair she started digging around in her bag again. Eventually, when she sat up, there was a rapid clicking sound, unmistakable as the end of a pen being pressed in and out. She was holding something large and white against the darkness of her clothes – a notebook?
‘She reckons I should keep a diary of everything,’ she said.
Bea always used to hate it when I did this to her. I had a bad habit of assuming that she knew exactly what I was talking about. She would punch me on the arm and say, ‘I’m not a mind reader!’ And now she did it all the time, although I’ll admit she had a pretty good excuse. But who said she ought to keep a diary, and why? Was it one of the women on the forums she had been looking at? I hated not being able to ask questions.
‘Okay, so I’ve got the date,’ she said. ‘And I’ve listed the previous days.’
She clicked the end of the pen a few more times.
‘It’s what the stalking advice websites say to do.’
It’s that bad? You think you’re being stalked?
‘She said I should probably keep a list of the times of the phone calls too, and how long it was before they hung up.’ She paused. ‘Tom thinks it’s a good idea too, so …’
Was it Rosie telling her to do this stuff? Good. She’d look out for her.
She leaned her notebook on the side of the bed and I heard the scratch of her pen on the paper.
‘If I put the dates here … and keep adding to this page …’
She kept scribbling, and I watched the blurry movement out of the lower corner of my eye.
‘Should I say other things? The effect it’s having on me? Not … sleeping …’ she said slowly, as she wrote the words. ‘No appetite … Weight loss …’
She sighed, put her head down on top of the pad of paper, and slipped her hand into mine, curling my fingers around hers.
It felt good to rest there with her, as she kept muttering under her breath.
‘… something about the way they breathe down the line …’
My eyelids responded to my feeling of contentedness and comfort, decided it was nap time, and closed out the light of the room.
‘… seems familiar …’
13
WE MUST HAVE dozed like that for a several minutes before a voice jolted us awake.
‘Bea?’
Her head lifted quickly off the bed and she pulled her hand away from me.
‘Huh?’ She sounded groggy, confused.
‘Sorry, love, I didn’t know you were sleeping.’ I recognised Megan’s voice, always slightly hoarse. ‘Come here, love. Come and give your mum a cuddle.’
‘Hi, Mum.’ The chair creaked as Bea stood up and walked to the other end of the room. ‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Just behind me,’ Megan said. ‘He was sorting out the parking ticket.’ There were muffled noises – embraces and greetings. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ Megan fussed. ‘And your highlights need doing.’
‘Mum.’
‘What? If I can’t tell you, who can?’
Rick blustered in, the door banging against the wall as he pushed it open. ‘Where’s my little girl?’ he ask
ed. ‘Get over here, you.’ He growled affectionately as Bea made some indistinct noises, muted by his hug.
My nostrils filled with a floral scent and I guessed that Megan had moved towards me. ‘How is he?’ she asked. Her voice sounded very close, but she didn’t touch me.
‘The same, no change,’ Bea replied. ‘Do you want to go out for some food, or stay here for a bit, or—’
‘We’ll stay here. Good to stretch my legs. It’s a long old drive, isn’t it?’
Rick always spoke loudly – he possessed no volume control. Even without seeing him I could tell he was moving around the room energetically; I knew what he would be like, looking at everything, inspecting all the furniture closely, running a hand along the walls. He was a professional artist – an oil painter – and his flamboyance on the canvas translated into a certain showiness in his behaviour. He was always slightly over the top.
‘And Graham?’ he asked. ‘How’s the old boy? I still say, don’t I, Megs, I simply cannot imagine having a child in this condition, I just can’t put myself in his boots.’
I heard a gentle click and sensed the light in the room change – then there was another click as the room brightened again on the other side of my closed eyelids.
‘Dad,’ Bea scolded. ‘Leave those alone. Chill out, would you?’
I heard the air wheeze out of the cushions in the chair to my right and Megan’s knees click as she sat down. It was always difficult following all the sounds and movements when there were so many people: it was sensory overload, and I didn’t know where to concentrate my focus.
‘Your dad asked you about Graham, darling – how is he?’ Megan asked.
‘He’s okay,’ Bea said, hesitating. ‘The usual.’
‘Wait a minute, what’s up? Come on, you can’t hide from your dad. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong, I—’
‘I don’t believe you.’
I was hit by the smell of stale cigarette smoke – the stench that always came with Rick and his tobacco-soaked clothes. He had moved closer to me. He put a rough-skinned palm to my cheek and said, ‘What’s up with this girlfriend of yours, Alex?’
‘Dad,’ Bea said. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t make a joke out of him.’
Rick pulled his hand away. ‘I’m not. Come on, tell me what’s bothering you.’
Bea sighed. ‘It’s just that Graham and I have had a bit of a disagreement. He thinks I should be getting out more. Maybe even be looking to meet someone else.’
‘Ah.’ Rick clicked his tongue.
‘What?’ Bea asked. ‘Why did you look at Mum like that?’
‘It’s funny that Graham has been saying that, love. That’s all,’ Megan said.
‘That doesn’t answer my question. Dad?’ Bea was already getting wound up by their presence. It didn’t bode well for the rest of their stay.
‘What it is, see, we also think you should be getting out a bit more. Not necessarily to meet someone,’ Rick said, perching on the edge of my bed. The mattress sank to the right-hand side, making me feel like I was going to roll over backwards. ‘But to just get out. Then see what happens. If you do meet someone, you meet someone.’
‘Your dad’s right, love,’ Megan chipped in. ‘To be honest, we’re mostly worried about you being here all the time.’
Bea was standing by the windowsill in front of me. I heard fingers drumming on the wood. Thrr-ud, thrr-ud, thrr-ud.
‘I’m not here all the time,’ she said quietly.
Thrr-ud, thrr-ud, thrr-ud.
‘Whenever we call you, you’re either here or on your way here,’ Rick said. ‘Or you’ve just left.’ He got up, off the bed, and walked round to where she was standing. ‘When did you last go out with your friends?’
‘I see Rosie.’ Bea sounded defensive. Thrr-ud, thrr-ud, thrr-ud.
‘Other than Rosie?’ Rick asked, sitting down on the other side of my bed, making me feel as if I’d roll forward into him. ‘You used to go out with – what were their names? I can’t even remember their names, that’s how long it’s been. Polly, was it? Poppy?’
Bea laughed, sadly. ‘That’s just your memory going.’
‘Nice try, Beatriz,’ he said. ‘Okay then – what about your work? How’s that coming along?’
‘Fine.’
‘Really? How come you needed money for rent again last month?’
Thrr-ud, thrr-ud, thrr-ud.
‘I’ve been finding it hard to get my head in gear, that’s all,’ Bea said.
I didn’t know about this.
‘How is that comic book project progressing?’
‘It was a stupid idea,’ Bea said.
Thrr-ud, thrr-ud, thrr-ud.
‘It wasn’t a stupid idea, darling.’ Rick was exasperated. He was right – Bea had always dreamed of working on a graphic novel. She described to me once how, as a little girl, she would spend hours crouched on the floor of Rick’s art studio, drawing cartoons on sheets of paper stolen from his sketchbooks. ‘You were meant to be putting out feelers for someone to collaborate with. What happened? You can’t put your dreams on ho—’
‘Leave it, will you?’ Bea snapped. She slapped her hand down on the windowsill to make her point clear. ‘Couldn’t you even wait five minutes before you laid into me about everything I’m failing at?’
‘Oh, darling. You’re not failing,’ Megan said.
‘I should have known you would say all of this. Stupidly, I thought you might be on my side. I don’t want to “get out more”. I’m happy where I am.’ She spat the words out.
‘We are on your bloody side!’ Rick stood up and slammed a fist down onto the mattress. ‘The fact of the matter is that you are our priority. Alex is not. You need to look after yourself better and stop putting your life on hold for him. You know I’m right.’
‘No, Dad, actually – all I know is that you never liked him,’ she said, her voice rising.
This was news to me.
‘When you asked me, “Is he for the long term?” what you really meant was, you didn’t think he should be.’ She was nearly shouting now.
‘Of course I liked him,’ Rick shouted back. ‘We more than liked him. We loved him. But I didn’t always think he was good enough for you.’
Bea laughed bitterly. ‘You’re glad this has happened. You think I’ve got a chance to find someone better.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Megan said from her spot on my right-hand side.
Bea laughed again. ‘Interesting you should choose those words, Mum. You don’t say it’s not true, do you?’
They don’t like me? Why didn’t you tell me?
‘I thought he shouldn’t leave you alone so much, yes,’ Rick said, his voice returning to a more normal level. Still loud, but not shouting. ‘Did you really see yourself being with him for the rest of your life? He neglected you. The number of times I spoke to you on a Saturday afternoon and he was out climbing in some—’
‘You know what? I don’t need this.’ Bea sounded close to tears.
‘And what about that other stuff you used to say, about—’
‘Excuse me. I think it’s time for a cigarette.’ I heard the door slam shut.
What other stuff did she use to say?
A sudden draught from the corridor fluttered over my face.
‘That went well,’ Megan said, with a sniff. ‘Well done.’
‘Don’t start.’ Rick sat down on my bed again. ‘She’s my little girl.’
They both sat in silence for a moment.
‘You’d better go after her, darling.’ Megan spoke more softly now.
He stood up and patted my hand a few times. ‘No hard feelings, old boy,’ he said, and I listened as he walked out of the room.
No hard feelings?
I waited for Megan to speak, but when it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything, I began to process this new shift in my world. I had always thought I’d been a pretty good – and welcome – addition to the Romero famil
y. I thought Rick had liked me. I’d taken him out for a pint or two on the odd occasion when they visited us. He’d enjoyed the Exhibition cider at the Corrie Tap, even though I’d had to pretty much carry him back to his bed and breakfast. I’d endured a round of golf with him at Ashton Court, taken him to a Rovers home game, been to all of his exhibitions and even written a story for the paper about a show he was involved with in Bristol.
What could I do about it? I was unlikely to ever get the chance to defend myself. I would probably never get the opportunity to change his mind.
Every memory I had of time with them needed reassessment; when I replayed each one I started to see the hints of dissatisfaction, the barbed comments, the way Bea would put a hand on Rick’s arm – to stop him laying into me, I now realised, not just to stop him hogging the conversation, as I’d always assumed.
That first time I met them, when we drove up to Brighton for a weekend – Rick had made his mind up about me even then, hadn’t he?
We’d left ‘the girls’ catching up in the house and walked down through the garden to his studio. As I chatted nervously about my work – I’d covered my first major court case that week – Rick ripped a piece of thick A2 paper out of a huge sketchbook and used bulldog clips to attach it to a board on his easel.
‘It’s so interesting watching the jury,’ I said, looking around the messy room at the bold sketches of seascapes and lighthouses, the piles of art catalogues, the radio covered in paint and grubby scraps of masking tape. ‘Watching their faces, working out which way they might go.’
Rick nodded, but seemed unimpressed. ‘Done much painting?’ he asked, smoothing the paper down. He picked up a palette and started squeezing some paint onto it from the pile of tubes on the floor.
‘Painting?’ What was the right answer? ‘I did some at school.’
‘School painting is different to real art,’ he said, giving me the palette. He wiped his hands down the front of his crumpled denim shirt. ‘You’ll need a brush,’ he said.
‘I mean, I—’
‘This one will do.’ He pulled a long-handled brush out of a jar, thrust it at me, then left me standing by the easel as he walked away, dragging a paint-spattered stepladder across the floor with him.