That night I travel back to London, and Marco collects me from the train station. He pulls me into him with a long exhale of breath and briefly the grief which has been permeating everything, black and heavy like tar, lifts. He raises my hand and inspects my nails, which I have been biting in quick, birdlike pecks. The skin there is ragged painful. I like the pain. I can focus on the pain. He kisses them gently, one after the other.
‘I don’t know what we’ll do.’ Later I’m talking to Marco and Carmel around our table, drinking wine. Their faces are twin moons of concern. ‘Have you any idea how expensive funerals are? I’ve been looking all week. The cheapest we found is nearly two grand. Two grand!’
‘Didn’t he have anything at all? No secret stash of money squirrelled away? They usually do, gamblers.’ Carmel lights another cigarette.
I shake my head. ‘We’ve been through everything. Nothing but final demands and overdrafts. Aunt Jackie is beside herself. And we’ve still got to clear out the flat.’
Marco leans forward in his seat. ‘Give me her number.’
‘Aunt Jackie? Why?’
‘Just give it to me. I’ll talk to her. Neither of you should be worrying about this, not now. When my dad died I remember my mum had to deal with all this shit on her own. It’s horrible.’
Carmel is looking at him askance. I don’t think she’s drunk – not yet – but she is glassy-eyed, overly emotional. She was fond of my dad. Told him he looked like Cary Grant. It hadn’t been true, but he had puffed up with pride all the same.
‘That’s good of you, Marco,’ she tells him, and he smiles at her, pats her on the knee clumsily. She responds by placing her hand atop his and squeezing. ‘You’re a good man.’
My man. My good man. I’m thinking about him a lot, two weeks later. Of how he had called Jackie the next day and arranged to pay for the funeral my father would have wanted; a quiet and simple ceremony and an uproarious wake, a stack of money behind the bar and drunken toasts shouted over the music. Of how Marco had travelled to Cambridge and helped Jackie to clear out the flat when I hadn’t been able to face it, hiring a van to take everything to charity that couldn’t be sold. He’d even managed to find a home for the ageing cat my dad had insisted on feeding and calling Skipper even though it did not belong to him, or anyone else. Marco did all of these things because the grief had folded me double, like decompression sickness, the bends. Agony in my joints, trouble breathing. I have surfaced too far and too fast.
The night Marco returns from Cambridge he comes to my flat. He looks tired, and as I slide my arms around his middle I can smell sweat on him, and dust. He kisses the crown of my head and tells me, ‘I have something for you. I found them today. They belonged to your parents.’
I open the small box. It is their wedding rings. I stare at them for what seems like a long time, a rushing sound building in my ears. It makes it hard to hear Marco telling me how they’d found a large block of ice at the very back of my father’s freezer, how he’d chipped it out and left it to defrost in the kitchen sink. And encased inside, prehistoric: the rings. He and Aunt Jackie had dug them out with teaspoons.
‘He must have been given your mother’s ring by the coroner all those years ago. Your dad put his in the freezer with your mum’s so he couldn’t get to it, at least not quickly.’
I nod, understanding. I’ve seen Carmel do similar with her credit cards. If you can’t get to them, you can’t spend them. My dad hadn’t wanted to pawn the only thing he had left of her, of them.
‘Jackie wanted you to have these. She thought you might – I don’t know – maybe you’d want them, to remember.’
‘Thank you. Thank you, Marco.’ I press them to my chest, to the ache there. ‘You didn’t need to do that. You’ve already done so much.’
He shrugs, looking worn out. I kiss him, long and lingering, and he circles my waist with his arms. My heart throbs, engorged with something. Love, I tell myself. You love this man.
‘It’s good to see those dimples again,’ he tells me when he pulls away. ‘That famous smile.’
I smile wider, and he ducks his head and kisses me again. I let him. As he follows me into the kitchen to get a beer from the fridge he shows me the newspaper he is carrying tucked under his arm. He spreads it on the table, and I peer down at it. The article is about Bossman. It stars Joey Fraser, the boy who played my brother in Marigold! although of course he is a man now, older than me. Since Marigold! ended he has been in Hollywood action movies – always the quirky sidekick, the nerdy engineer, the third murder victim, never the starring role. The article mentions that following a sexual harassment claim Fraser has returned to England and gone into hiding. That won’t last long, I think. I’ve never met a man who craves the limelight more. There is a photo of him accompanying the piece. He has barely aged, despite being in his forties at least. The same wide, adoring eyes, the same treacle-coloured hair. He’s had work done, I am sure. There are no tell-tale frown lines, no crow’s feet around the eyes. He looks polished and buffed and tanned. I realise my hands are shaking. It’s his photograph, I think. It has been a long time since I have seen him, and I don’t like the way it makes my heart quicken, the queasy distaste in my throat.
‘Are you all right, baby?’ Marco asks me, a hand on my shoulder. ‘I thought you’d be interested, that’s all.’
‘Oh yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine,’ I tell him, smiling. But still. I’m thinking about Carmel making me stand in front of his poster to take a photo, the way it had made my insides feel like ice. By the time Marco leaves that evening, I have blacked out Joey Fraser’s picture with a pen, going over and over the same lines until the paper becomes shiny and black as tar. My jaw aches as though I have been grinding my teeth.
Chapter 3
I begin sleepwalking again. I haven’t done this since I was a kid, when my parents would find me wandering the garden or slowly descending the stairs like a little ghost. Most nights since the funeral I have been sleeping at Marco’s flat and tonight I jolt awake with a feeling of horror. I am in the lift facing the mirrored wall. I can see my fingers are tangled in my hair and it looks like I am snarling. The lift shudders. How did I get here? I don’t remember. We’d been drinking, and we’d laughed as he’d insisted on carrying me to bed like a little girl. Now the doors slide silently open, and the concierge in the lobby is looking at me with something like horror, and I am pulling the hem of the T-shirt down over my nakedness and trying to tell him to stay away from me. I bite.
‘Here.’ Marco presses something into my mouth. It is a small pill, chalky-tasting. I crush it between my teeth and ask for water. He is wiping the blood from around my mouth with a wet tissue.
‘What is it?’
‘It’ll help you sleep. What the hell were you doing?’
‘I’m sorry. I must have been sleepwalking. I didn’t mean to scare him.’
‘You didn’t scare him, but he rightly thinks you’re a fruitcake. You must have looked like a vampire. Christ, honey, this looks sore.’