TV programme merged into TV programme and I watched them all. Every thing that came on, I watched. Some time later Mum came into the living room. Her face was drawn, dark circles etched under her eyes from where she hadn’t slept. She didn’t have a suitcase with her, didn’t have her coat on. ‘How about we have fish and chips for dinner?’ she said, sitting beside me. She delved in her purse and gave me a five pound note. She didn’t have to tell me, I knew what I had to do – say nothing. Not to Dad, not to anyone. I was good at that by then. Secrets were locked up inside me and nobody would ever get them out of me.
Dad left us eighteen months later and went to live with Mrs H in North London. I had to be a bridesmaid at their wedding. I still don’t think about that whole experience. Eleven years old and so annoyed by the whole thing. I didn’t speak for the whole day. Simply smiled when I was ordered to and stood out of the way, glowering at everyone.
Mum and Dad2 got together about two months after Dad moved out. She’d met him a couple of years before and he was duty psychiatrist in the hospital where she worked. Dad2 – his name being Leonard before he became rechristened as Dad2 – and Mum used to spend their breaks together. They drank tea in the nurses’ lounge and talked about whatever two people who didn’t realise they were eventually going to be together talked about.
That day I found her throwing clothes into her suitcase, it was him that she was going to as my brother, Eric – Leonard’s son – told me years later. She’d already guessed about my dad and Mrs H but the day she decided to leave she’d found out through mutual friends for certain about them.
Leonard, who’d fallen in love with her by this point, had said, ‘Come to me, marry me. I’ll look after you.’ Mum, who’d fallen in love with him but hadn’t realised it yet, had been tempted for once in her life to put herself first. To think of nobody and to go be happy. I came home and ruined it. Eric never said I ruined it, I just knew I did. Mum had been on the motorway of happiness and love and I was the roadblock that jolted her back to reality. She’d had to choose and decided to stay.
Leonard, whose wife had left him a year after she had Eric and then died before she’d planned to return, was living with his sister (who took care of Eric) and moved in with us a couple of months after they got together.
Mum wore the ring he bought her on her left hand, but she refused to marry him. ‘I’m only going to be married once in my life,’ she said when Eric asked her why. ‘That’s what the vows mean.’ (Eric had the kind of relationship with our parents that he could ask that sort of thing – that’s why he knew so much about their story.)
Mum was horrified when two weeks after they moved in I started calling Leonard ‘Dad2’.
‘Do not feel you have to call him that to make me happy,’ she said, one day when Leonard had taken Eric to football. She didn’t understand I was calling him Dad2 not to make her happy but because she was happy. I’d never heard my mum sing before, which she always did when she was cooking or cleaning. She played records – Queen, the Everly Brothers, Culture Club – and even danced to them with Leonard. And, best of all, I now had a full-time sibling who I could boss around. Who I could talk to when she and Leonard were talking adult talk. He had given me a brother, why wouldn’t I call him Dad? Eric eventually called my mum ‘Mum’ because she was the only mother he’d known.
And Greg wanted to meet them. Had walked out in a fit of pique because he didn’t realise it was nothing personal. Meeting the family wasn’t on the list of activities lovers or friends took part in. Jen had met them – but that was only eighteen months ago. After twelve years of knowing her, I’d only allowed her to meet them that recently – I’d even kept them apart at my graduation ceremony. My family were my family and nobody was allowed to share them. I was hyper-protective of them, didn’t want people making comments, passing judgement, deciding we weren’t a real family because a wedding ceremony hadn’t taken place.
Jen was OK with my need to keep my family separate from everyone else. She understood. She dragged me home with her at every opportunity as armour, a buffer between her and her mother, but she didn’t ever demand that I make her part of my family weekends. Nobody had ever tried to prise themselves into my life this much before; nobody seemed to be that bothered.
Greg was different, though. Despite how much he suffocated me, he let me breathe too. If that made sense. I was smothered by someone who I didn’t hold back with. All right, that was overstating the case. Who I didn’t hold back as much with. Whatever it was, no matter how oxymoronic my thoughts, he was different. I had to let him meet my family. If I didn’t, he’d leave. Would cut his losses and walk. My whole reality skipped a beat. He’d leave. I couldn’t let that happen, not if there was a way to stop it. All I had to do was let him meet my family.
I think I’m going to throw up.
chapter twenty-one
natural selection
‘My naughty little sister is having sex.’ Eric’s first words as I slid into the seat beside him.
Not ‘hello’, not ‘hi ya’ as was the customary greeting. He was in Yates’s, in a booth at the back of the pub. Whenever he came to visit we always met there. He’d take a half day, come down on the train and would wait in Yates’s for me with his pacifier pint. I’d offered him keys to my place, but he liked it there – said it broke up the journey.
From a distance, Eric looked rock hard; like peanut brittle that’d been hardened over a long period of time, so you were always wary of it, unsure of what it’d do to you if you took it on. But he only looked like peanut brittle because of his Aryan looks: shaved, dark blond hair, navy blue eyes and sharp features. He had a lithe, six-foot two body, which when he hit Leeds was always clothed as it was then: immaculately cut suit, usually charcoal grey or black, white shirt, silver cufflinks his grandfather had left him, and loosened red tie. Eric was an occupational psychologist for a large company in Edinburgh but dressed like a businessman.
He had the look of peanut brittle, but when you got to know him, when you did taste my brother by talking to him, you found him completely different. He was more like white chocolate with coffee granules.
Yes, it sounded disgusting, white chocolate with coffee granules, but all you needed was one taste. One bite and you’d be pleasantly surprised. First there was the initial head rush. A taste sensation that hit you right behind the temples and left you hot and flustered because Eric would invariably say something outrageous. Something so outrageous you weren’t sure if he meant it or not. After that initial shock you felt a connection with him. You wanted to tell him everything about yourself, everything that was in your head, all at once. And he’d be more than willing to listen. Lovely as it was, though, Eric, like the coffee granules in white chocolate, had a surprising hard edge. He never suffered fools, gladly or otherwise, so if he didn’t like you, then he didn’t like you. And he wouldn’t speak to you. At all. With my brother, you expected a good-looking, overbearing wanker but you got a genuinely good-hearted person. I would say that, though, he’s my brother.
Whatever chocolate he was, he was a very cheeky man.
‘What makes you say that?’ I said, taking off my denim jacket to reveal my flower motif top teamed with black combat trousers.
‘Have you looked in the mirror lately? You’re not just having sex, you’re having good regular sex. In fact, I’d say you’re falling in love.’
‘You wash that filthy mouth of yours out with soap and water,’ I replied.
From the centre of his face a smile sparked, spreading out across his face, catching fire in his eyes. ‘It’s worse than I thought – you’re already in love.’
‘Not funny,’ I said and swished the single malt whisky Eric had bought me in the bottom of the glass. No ice, no mixer. Pure. Eric always made me drink whisky when I saw him. He never explained why, he just did. I never asked, either.
‘Down in one,’ Eric said, raising his whisky. We clinked glasses. I knocked mine back. ‘Here’s to you and
Greg.’
Having cleared my mouth and begun its descent down my throat, the pale amber liquid didn’t take kindly to my cough of surprise. It wasn’t going to be shifted, though. It went about its way, pausing to give the back of my throat a harder kick than usual. My reaction hit the air as a series of short splutters. ‘How . . .’ I began through my spluttering.
‘Did I know?’ Eric supplied. ‘Last year, when I came down, before Mum and Dad arrived, he called you. You were on the phone for, what, three minutes and you laughed the whole way through. And I thought, “Going to realise one day she’s meant to be with him.” Call it man’s intuition. The guy obviously fancied you, he wouldn’t have tried so hard to make yea laugh if he didnae. It stands to rights that you look so well because of him . . . Tell me all about it. I want all the details.’ (Eric’s voice had been bastardised from his time in Scotland. Sometimes he sounded like a Londoner, other times he sounded like an Edinburgher. Mostly he spoke with a mixture of the two.)
I told him. The best mate version. The version I didn’t think of telling Martha and Renée. The version I would’ve told Jen if I wasn’t keeping things from her.
‘What does Jen say about all this?’ Eric asked after hearing my tale.
I stared shamefaced into my glass as I muttered, ‘I haven’t told her.’
‘Good.’
Eric didn’t like Jen. It was unnecessary to admit this to myself. Eric was himself when he met her because he’d heard so much about her over the years. But, by the time he left for Scotland he wouldn’t even look at her unless she spoke directly to him. Then, he’d tear his concentration away from that paint he was watching dry and look at her. He’d rarely, very rarely, speak to her. He’d watch her until she finished talking, then shrug, nod or shake his head. Jen never asked me why Eric didn’t like her – she probably didn’t notice. It was like the night of her birthday when she didn’t guess I’d had sex with Greg. She didn’t notice some things even if they were running up and down in front of her waving a flag. I never asked Eric why he didn’t like her. I did notice. I simply didn’t want an honest answer, which Eric would undoubtedly give me. Sometimes, you’d rather someone lied.
‘What I don’t understand is why you, Martha and even Renée can see Greg and I are having a thing, but Jen and Matt, our closest friends, haven’t twigged.’
Eric supped his pint. ‘Remember that episode of the New Adventures of Superman that had that villain Tempus, who knew Superman’s identity, and had H. G. Wells in it? And remember how Tempus told Lois, “What everyone can’t work out is how anyone could be so galactically stupid?” because she didn’t know for years that Clark was Superman?’
Strangely enough, I did. ‘You think Matt and Jen are galactically stupid?’
‘No. As H. G. Wells pointed out to Lois, something along the lines of, “You didn’t want to see it.” People are very good at not seeing things that are staring them in the face. It’s a defence mechanism against things upsetting their lives. Same with Matt and Jen. Well, Jen. Matt probably doesn’t notice because he’s a bloke. But Jen . . . if she wanted to know that you and Greg are in love, she’d know it.’
‘Nah, if Jen knew she’d tell me, she’s like that.’
‘Consciously she might not know, unconsciously, that’s another matter.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ I replied. ‘Us psychologists are always putting things down to unconscious thought because nobody can prove otherwise.’
Eric did The Thing With His Eyes. His head would still be dipped because, say, he was looking into his pint, and you’d utter something he didn’t agree with and, without moving his head at all, he’d blink, then be staring at you. In that moment of blinking he’d have redirected his gaze and would suddenly be staring at you. It was cool but unnerving. It always made me jump, as if he’d rounded on me physically. ‘Has Jen fixed any more blind dates for you?’
‘Not since the day Matt moved in.’
‘Weren’t her attempts to fix you up at one point averaging one or two a week?’
‘Yes.’
‘And they’ve stopped?’
‘Yes.’
‘In three months, nothing?’
‘Yes.’
‘I bet she’s been off with you of late, too, leaving you out of things. Ignoring you. Not calling as much. Basically treating you like she did when you were going out with that other bloke?’ (Even Eric, who had spoken to Sean and remembered most of my boyfriends from first year at uni, couldn’t remember Sean’s name.)
‘You mean Sean?’ I said.
‘Yeah, him. Is she treating you like that?’
‘I suppose.’
‘She knows. Subconsciously, she knows. And, subconsciously, she’s waiting for you to tell her, so she can . . .’ Eric stopped. ‘Anyway, we’ve spent way too much time talking about you, hen, let’s talk about me.’
If The Thing With His Eyes was unnerving, Eric’s ability to start a sentence, leave it half-finished but still get his point across was downright scary. And irritating. There was no point questioning him either, to try to find out if you’d understood what he’d almost said because he’d plead, ‘I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.’
‘Don’t think I didn’t notice you slipping that “you and Greg are in love” nonsense into the conversation. I love Greg as a friend. Nothing else.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Do I get to meet him this weekend?’
Ha! I’d be lucky to see him again, let alone you. We hadn’t spoken and hadn’t seen each other since Wednesday night when he walked out. Usually we’d speak at least twice a day, but we hadn’t and I hadn’t got as anxious as usual. I didn’t know why. Maybe because he’d done it before and he’d come back. Or maybe because I pushed it to the back of my mind with cleaning. Or maybe because this was my chance to call Mr Chocolate Sniffer. I hadn’t, but it was my chance to. ‘I thought we were going to talk about you,’ I said.
‘What’s to talk about? Wife, fine. Work, could be better. Cottage, falling down.’
Eric’s relationship with his wife, Arrianne, was the antithesis of my real parents’ relationship. Every time I saw them, I’d meet Eric at work, we’d go back to his cottage which was an hour’s drive from the centre of Edinburgh and she got a better reception than me. As though they hadn’t seen each other in months, they’d practically leap into each other’s arms, snog each other’s faces off, talk excitedly, giggle. Giggle. I’d once asked Eric if they were always like that. And he’d shrugged and said: ‘Yeah, course,’ like it was the most natural thing on earth.
Freaks, I’d thought and asked about the rows.
‘So, have you and Arrianne managed to have an argument yet?’ I asked jokingly. Whenever I asked he told me they didn’t argue. Ever: ‘We agree about everything.’
Eric gave me a long hard look, as though sizing me up. Seeing if I could handle what he was about to tell me.
‘Do you think I’d make a good father?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, course. What’s that got to do with . . .’ Oh no. That’s why he’d looked at me like that, he was trying to work out if I could handle this information. Eric was very sensitive with me when it came to arguments or splitting up. When he and Arrianne split up years and years ago, he’d rung me to tell me and to reassure me that they were still friends, that she definitely wouldn’t vanish from my life. He might as well have saved himself the trouble if they were going to split up now. Sickness speared my stomach. I didn’t want Eric and Arrianne to split up. Or argue. It was freakish not to argue, but I could put up with that; I could deal with no arguing as averse to screaming rows.
Eric gulped his pint. ‘All we do now is argue. First time in twelve years. Y’know, even when we split up, we didnae argue. It was decision we made because we both wanted to see other people. And now . . . now . . . oh, fuck it. Just fuck it.’
My heart rate increased at Eric’s frustrated, despairing tone. Please no. I didn’t want them to tear each other apart. I loved Arrianne. She was like t
he sister I’d never had. Jen and I were close, but we’d chosen each other. Arrianne had been brought into my life by a relative, like a real sibling, and I loved her. Her and Eric had met on the first day of college, in Edinburgh, and they’d been friends for years. When they finished college, they’d got together and settled just outside Edinburgh, where Arrianne’s from. They’d split up once, six years ago, started seeing other people, but got back together after a year. In that year Arrianne still called me and wrote to me like she’d always done. When they got back together they’d married less than six months later.
I didn’t want to see two people I loved go through the ritual my parents went through. That ‘anything to hurt the other one’ battle that only ended when one of the fighters was so wounded they didn’t have enough left to fight with. ‘But you said everything was fine,’ I whined.
‘It is. It will be.’
‘What’s the problem, Ez? Why don’t you want to have kids?’
Eric slid down in his bit of the booth, raised his pint glass to hide his face. ‘Dunno.’
‘Like hell you don’t. Tell me.’
Eric ignored me, started looking around the pub.
‘If you don’t tell me I’ll mention in front of Mum that you don’t want to make her a grandmother. Heaven knows she’s given up on me ever getting married, let alone having children, so . . .’
‘ All right, I’ll tell you. But you mustn’t tell anyone, not Mum, not Dad, not Arri. No one.’
‘I swear,’ I replied.
He drank more of his light-coloured pint until all that was left was a hint of pale liquid and islands of white froth all around the glass. For a man who liked neat whisky, he surprisingly liked lager too. ‘All right.’ Deep breath from big brother. ‘It’s going to sound awful, but I don’t want to be married to someone’s mother. I don’t want to end up superfluous to our life. I talk to men every day who find it almost impossible to go home because they feel shut out of the life their wives have with the new baby. They’re knackered and get depressed and have nobody to talk to. I don’t want to lose Arri to that. She’s my best friend. A baby will wreck that.’
The Chocolate Run Page 21