Neither of them spoke all the way home. Mark trudged on, his brain mush. How many hundreds of times had they walked up and down this fucking prom? How many more times would they? He couldn’t imagine. Before and after, everything now was split into before and after.
As they turned up Marlborough Street Mark slowed down. Instead of pulling at Nathan’s hand it was the other way around, Nathan taking the lead. Mark knew what he was doing. Putting it off. If they never reached the flat, never opened the front door, never went inside, then he’d never have to tell Nathan. Maybe they could just stay here in the street forever.
They reached number 12. Mark fumbled in his pockets for the keys, but Nathan just pushed at the door and it opened. Mark thought about that. Sometimes when it was windy the bottom door didn’t catch, and Mr Morrison upstairs was always leaving it open. But still.
He remembered as they climbed the stairs that he still hadn’t got the door to their flat fixed. Too much other shit, always too much other shit. The door was pulled closed, but that didn’t mean anything. He wondered.
‘Wait here.’ He ushered Nathan into the side of the stairwell.
He eased the door open and waited. Couldn’t hear anything. He pushed it further and poked his head round.
‘Daddy,’ Nathan whispered. Mark glanced back. Nathan had a look on his face that was part scared, part amused. Maybe he thought it was one of Daddy’s silly games, like shooting the bins. Maybe this was another
Star Wars
thing.
Mark put his finger to his lips and crept inside.
He went from room to room, his pulse a monstrous thud in his ears.
Nothing. No one around and no sign of a break-in, although it was impossible to tell with the door broken.
He opened the door fully and waved Nathan in.
‘What were you doing, Daddy?’
‘Just checking something.’
‘Is Mummy home?’
Mark closed his eyes. Pictured the dry skin of her lips. Jesus, he wanted a drink. Something to take the edge off this. But he couldn’t do it like that. He looked away from the boy.
‘No, she’s not home.’
‘I thought you said she was only going to be away for a couple of days?’
Mark tried to speak but nothing came out.
‘Can I play my DS?’
Mark pushed at the bridge of his nose, digging his nails in, pinching the skin, screwing his eyes up until he saw sparks flash on his eyelids.
‘Nathan, come here.’
He put an arm out and the boy came and cuddled him. He crouched down and held him right there in the hall until he felt the boy squirm and try to pull away.
‘I have to tell you something. And you have to be a big, brave boy, OK?’
Nathan looked worried.
‘Promise?’
The boy nodded, just a flick of the head, nothing more.
Mark’s eyes were already blurry.
‘The thing is, Mummy’s not coming back to us.’
Nathan angled his head. ‘Are you getting divorced, like Findlay’s mum and dad?’
Mark felt his hands shake, tasted the salt of tears on his lips.
‘No, we’re not getting divorced. She’s dead. Mummy’s dead.’
The boy’s face was blank. He didn’t get it. He frowned.
Mark had his hands on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Do you understand what that means?’
He nodded. ‘She’s not alive any more. We won’t ever see her again.’
‘That’s right, I’m afraid not.’
Mark’s legs buckled and he slumped on to the floor next to the boy. He felt a hand pat his shoulder.
‘It’s OK, Daddy, don’t be upset.’
Mark put his trembling hand on top of the boy’s.
‘I don’t think you understand,’ he said.
‘Is she in heaven?’
He should just say yes, but even now, in this hole, he couldn’t bring himself.
‘Some people think so.’
‘Do you think so?’
Mark was sobbing, his whole body shaking.
‘She’s in our hearts,’ he said.
Nathan was cuddling him now, and he felt a change in the boy as they clung to each other. Nathan’s breath caught a little, then he began sniffling, then full crying. Either he’d finally got it or he was mimicking his dad. For some reason Mark was grateful, this was easier than dealing with a blank-faced boy. But he felt guilty too, as if Nathan’s state of mind wasn’t proper grief unless it mirrored Mark’s own reaction.
All this going on underneath the surface, a sea of self-aware second-guessing.
Nathan was wailing now, a keening noise that wasn’t human. Mark gripped him tighter, feeling the sharp edges through his clothes, the brittle delicacy of his bones. He was consumed with guilt and shame at having to do this. Anger too at Lauren for putting him in this position, for somehow not caring enough about life to keep on living it.
They sat like that in the hall for a long time, just holding on to each other.
Eventually the crying began to subside and Mark felt an emptiness sweep over him, a numbing lack of life.
He reached into his pocket and took out a tissue. Pulled back from Nathan a little and began wiping his nose and eyes. The boy’s face was a mess, crumpled and red, blood close to the skin. His lower jaw was shaking, like he’d just come out of a freezing bath.
Mark used the same tissue on his own tears and snot, his breath still tripping in irregular hiccups. He swallowed and shook his head.
Nathan’s breath was almost back to normal. He looked at Mark.
‘How did she die?’ His voice was higher than usual, and it snagged on the last word.
Mark should’ve looked this up on the fucking internet. What was the correct way of doing this? What was the correct response to expect from a kid? Nothing he could think of seemed to fit or make sense any more.
‘Never mind about that just now.’
‘Daddy, how did she die?’ There was a steeliness in the boy’s voice.
Mark stared at his son. ‘She drowned in the sea.’
‘Was it sore?’
Mark rubbed at his eyes, took big gulps of air. ‘No, it wasn’t sore.’
‘Why didn’t she swim?’
‘What?’
‘If she was in the sea, why didn’t she just swim back to shore?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘Why not? Mummy’s a good swimmer.’
‘Yes, I know she is, but . . .’
‘Why was she in the sea anyway? It’s freezing.’
‘They don’t know why she was in the sea.’
‘Who are they?’
‘The police.’
‘Why are the police interested?’
‘It’s their job to find out how people die.’
‘Is that what they’re doing now? Trying to find out?’
Mark thought about that. Pictured a post-mortem. Easy enough, he’d seen hundreds of fake ones on television. He felt his stomach lurch as he saw someone cutting down the middle of her chest.
‘Yes, they’re trying to find out.’
‘Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she slipped and fell in.’
Jesus.
‘Maybe.’
‘Or maybe someone pushed her in.’
‘Don’t think about it just now, Nathan.’
The boy’s face hardened and his eyes went wide.
‘Maybe you pushed her in, Daddy.’
‘What?’
‘Maybe she tried to leave us again, like last time, when I was born, and you stopped her by pushing her in the sea.’
Mark had his hands on Nathan’s shoulders. The boy was crying again.
‘Why would she want to leave us?’ Nathan was full-on sobbing.
‘She didn’t want to leave us, OK?’
‘She did,’ Nathan said. ‘She already left us before. That first time. When I was a baby.’
‘That was years ago.’
‘Was it because of me?’
‘What?’
‘Was it because she didn’t want to have me?’
Mark pulled Nathan into a bear hug. ‘Christ, it’s nothing like that. It’s complicated, grown-up stuff. She loved you so much, though, you have to understand that.’
Nathan could hardly speak through the crying. ‘Then why is she dead? Why isn’t she still here?’
And there it was, the end point.
Why wasn’t she still here.
The giant lump of stone in his gut.
Why.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
They were back to sobbing again, the pair of them in the hall, holding on as if the floor might give way underneath.
Mark stroked the boy’s hair until eventually the crying had reduced to a sniffle. Wiped Nathan’s face again, then his own, the tissue now a torn, damp rag.
He tried to think of something normal to say or do, but nothing seemed normal. He couldn’t stand any more of this raw emotion, couldn’t bear to look in Nathan’s eyes and see the understanding, the desolation, or whatever was in there.
‘Why don’t we put on
Star Wars
,’ he said, shocked at the words as he spoke them. ‘You can watch a bit while I make something to eat.’
Was it even time for a meal? Mark had no ability to tell if he was hungry or not, the link from his body to his brain seemed to be severed.
Nathan gave a slight nod of the head as he wiped at his eyes with his sleeves.
‘Which film do you want to watch?’ Mark said.
This was really happening, then. Life was apparently going on without her.
Nathan shook his head. It was the first time ever he hadn’t had a preference.
Mark found himself racing through the films in his head. Luke’s aunt and uncle killed and burned in the original film, all that dark shit in
The Empire Strikes Back
, Padmé dying in childbirth at the end of
Revenge of the Sith
. Shit. Anakin leaving his mum for ever in
The Phantom Menace
. Fuck fuck fuck.
He pushed himself up against the wall and took Nathan’s hand.
‘Come on, I’ll choose.’
And they walked through to the living room as if they were a normal father and son.
The stomach cramps started around half seven, just as Nathan was getting ready for bed.
Mark was trying to keep things as normal as possible, sticking to the routine. Nathan had already asked if he could sleep in Mummy and Daddy’s bed, and Mark agreed straight away, thinking maybe they’d each draw some comfort from it. Either that or it would just remind them of what had happened.
He was churning it all over in his mind, trying to organise his thoughts. A death is either an accident, suicide or murder. So what about Lauren? If it was an accident, how the hell did it happen? You don’t just accidentally fall into the sea, not around here, that didn’t make any sense. If it was murder, the big questions were who and why? Why would anyone want to murder Lauren? Unless it was just a random mugging or something that went wrong. But then how did her body end up in the sea? Mark tried to remember her body lying on the beach, but his mind skipped past it. Had there been any signs of murder? He couldn’t think of any, but that didn’t mean anything.
So that left suicide. Had she killed herself? And the unborn child? That was the most unbearable thing of all. He knew about depression from the time before, how it was an illness, and the person suffering from it wasn’t themselves and all that excusing bullshit. But at the end of all that, suicide was cowardly, it was desertion. He could understand how she could leave him behind, he was just her husband, just a man she maybe loved. But Nathan? And the second kid? How could she just give up on them like that? It was unthinkable.
Nathan came through from putting his jammies on with a sour look on his face.
‘I’ve got a sore tummy, Daddy.’
It was a familiar whine, not a real complaint, a little whimper for attention.
Mark held out his hand and Nathan came over and sat on his lap. Too big for that but what the hell.
‘Show me where.’
Nathan pointed to the side of his stomach and Mark rubbed gently at his abdomen. It felt tight.
‘When did you last go for a poo?’
Nathan shrugged. They’d been through this once before, constipation. They’d bought some sickly-sweet medicine over the counter which had eventually done the trick, a torrent of shit pouring out behind a hard plug twelve hours later. He didn’t want to go through that again.
‘I’ll give you some of that tummy medicine, OK?’
He felt the boy’s muscles tense under his hand.
‘Ow, it really hurts.’
It seemed like more than just a moan now, maybe some real pain.
‘And some Calpol too.’
Mark went to the bathroom and came back with the two bottles.
Nathan was watching some crap on the telly, a bloopers show. He winced and reached for his side.
Mark gave him the maximum amount of each medicine. If nothing else, the Calpol might help him sleep.
‘Hopefully that’ll stop it hurting.’
Nathan kept his eyes on the screen.
‘Daddy, is Mummy going to be buried or burned?’
Shit, Mark hadn’t even got that far yet. Lauren had wanted cremation, better for the environment. He was going to have to sort all that out. More weight pressing down on him.
He sat down next to the boy.
‘She wanted to be cremated, that means burned.’
‘At a funeral?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Do I have to be there?’
Mark looked at his son and felt like screaming.
‘You don’t have to, but you can if you want. It’s up to you.’
‘I’d like to come,’ Nathan said. ‘When is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mark thought about the post-mortem, Lauren cold in the morgue. ‘Soon, I suppose.’
‘OK.’
At least it had taken his mind off the stomach cramps.
‘Time for bed,’ Mark said, getting up.
Nathan reached for the remote and switched the television off. No moaning, no playing for extra time. Mark watched every one of his son’s movements as if he was an exotic animal at the zoo, a panther pacing in its cage.
He got the boy into bed. Read
Too Many Daves
, something light and stupid, no moral stuff tonight, just silly wordplay. Then Mark lay there on the bed next to Nathan, stroking the boy’s head until his breathing slowed and steadied, and his body slackened into sleep.
Mark must’ve fallen asleep himself, because he was jolted out of it by crying and moaning.
Nathan next to him, clutching at his side and his stomach, tears already on his cheeks.
‘It hurts, Daddy.’
‘Shhh, it’s OK.’ Mark rubbed the boy’s belly. It felt hard, distended maybe. Jesus.
Mark checked the time. Back of eight. They’d only been asleep for a few minutes.
Nathan was ramping it up. Wails and cries of pain now, writhing under the covers, grabbing at his own body as if possessed, consumed by something.
Mark tried to talk over the noise, tried to keep his voice steady.
‘Show me where it hurts.’
Nathan pointed to the left-hand side of his stomach. Was that where the appendix was? Nathan was screaming now, floods of tears. Unbearable.
Mark held him, the boy’s body in spasms as he tried to wriggle free from the pain.
After a few minutes it seemed to ebb away, then moments later it came back. Waves of crying and squirming and clutching. Mark had never seen him like this before.
‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to Sick Kids.’
Being forced into action seemed to calm Nathan down. Focusing on something other than the cramps. Mark got their shoes and jackets on, Nathan still in his jammies underneath. He grabbed the car key and Nathan’s DS, anything to distract him on the way and in the A&E waiting room.
They shuffled out the door, downstairs and into the car. Mark tried to put the boy’s seatbelt on but he screamed in pain, another wave of agony.
‘OK,’ Mark said. ‘Take it easy.’
He drove across town, the city bathed in evening light, diffuse springtime. The wind had died. Around Cameron Toll, one lane was closed because of a fallen tree, council workmen standing around with a chainsaw scratching their heads.
Nathan went from screams to crying snuffles as the pain came and went.
They got to Sick Kids A&E, an anonymous door down a side road round from the red-brick front of the main hospital. Mark carried the boy inside. At the reception, Nathan was hit by another stab of pain, shouting and crying and doubling up in Mark’s arms.
They jumped the queue as a result, straight into a treatment room where a mid-twenties female doctor in a tight Hello Kitty T-shirt began prodding at Nathan’s belly.
Nathan whimpered as she moved her hands, but the pain seemed to have receded. Mark wanted to explain that he’d been screaming and writhing in agony minutes before, but he couldn’t think of a way of saying it that didn’t sound pathetic. So he just sat there, useless, as the woman pushed her fingers into Nathan’s abdomen.
A television was on in the corner of the room playing a DVD. Some
Ben 10
thing. Nathan would’ve been mesmerised eighteen months ago. Strange how quickly these obsessions came and went.
The doctor asked Nathan a few questions and he answered dutifully. She gave Mark a look which he couldn’t decipher. What the fuck are you doing wasting my time, maybe. Or, have you been abusing this poor wee kid?
She turned to Nathan.
‘I’m just going to have a word with your dad outside, OK, Nathan?’
The boy nodded. The pain seemed to have gone now. Mark felt ridiculous.
Outside, the woman gave him a smile suitable for toddlers. She was pretty and young, firm-skinned and confident.
‘It’s most likely constipation or something similar,’ she said.
‘Sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘Not at all, we get some extremely distressing cases of constipation in here. In all honesty, I don’t know what’s causing it.’
‘He was in a lot of pain before.’ Mark hated the sound of his own voice.
‘I’m sure he was. The truth is we never find out the root cause in half of all stomach complaints in children. There’s an outside chance it’s his appendix. The pain is on the opposite side, but sometimes appendicitis does present on the left.’
Mark stood looking at the doctor’s T-shirt. Maybe their second child, their daughter, would’ve been into Hello Kitty as much as Nathan was into
Star Wars
.
‘His mum just died,’ Mark said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Mark rubbed his forehead. ‘My wife, Nathan’s mum. She was found dead today on Portobello beach.’
‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’ There was genuine concern in her voice, whatever that was worth.
‘I just told him this evening. Could that have something to do with this?’
The look on the girl’s face made Mark turn away from her.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Pain is a very complex thing, especially in children. They quite often don’t differentiate between physical and mental pain.’
‘You mean it could be psychosomatic.’
‘That’s not really how we put it.’
‘How would you put it?’
Mark felt a touch on his sleeve.
‘The important thing is that he seems OK now,’ the doctor said. ‘The best thing you can do is be there for him.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Mr Douglas, I’m not a counsellor, I’m a doctor.’
Mark just stood there like a dead tree in a storm.
‘Look, in cases like this, we sometimes keep the child in hospital overnight, just to keep an eye on them. It almost never turns out to be appendicitis. But I think in this instance, Nathan and you would prefer to be at home, wouldn’t you? In more familiar surroundings. Given what’s happened.’
Mark nodded. It felt like a completely involuntary movement.
‘We can give him some more laxative, pain relief and perhaps a small sedative,’ the doctor said. ‘If there’s any reoccurrence of the symptoms, don’t hesitate to come back in.’
Mark couldn’t speak, as if his brain had given up and shut down. He could hear
Ben 10
playing inside the room. No noise coming from Nathan.
He opened the door. The boy was half-asleep, head lolled over to the side.
‘I’ll get that medication for you,’ the doctor said.
Mark climbed up on to the treatment table, not really enough room for him but he squeezed in.
‘How’s the tummy now, Big Guy?’
‘Fine.’
On screen, Ben as Upchuck was vomiting some kind of toxic bile all over his enemies and saving the day. Then he changed into XLR8 and sped away from all the baddies.
The doctor came back with medicine bottles Mark had to sign for, then they trudged through reception, past a worried mum holding a bloody tea towel to her three-year-old daughter’s eye.
Mark unlocked the car and Nathan clambered in.
‘Daddy?’
‘What?’
Nathan was holding something in his hand. In the darkness of the car, Mark couldn’t make it out.
‘What is it?’
‘My other tooth.’
Mark put his hand out and Nathan dropped it in. Another tiny gem, a little part of Nathan that he was never going to get back. Mark wondered if he had another two-pound coin.
‘How did that happen?’
Nathan shrugged. ‘It just came out, that’s all.’
‘Do you want me to look after it on the way home?’
Nathan shook his head. ‘I’ll hold it, Daddy. That way it will be safe.’
Mark handed the tooth back and strapped the boy in. He thought about when the first tooth came out, how Nathan was so keen to tell Mummy about it.
On the drive home Nathan fell asleep with the motion of the car, still clutching the baby tooth tightly in his fist.
Mark remembered the first ever drive with him, back home from the hospital the day after he was born, Lauren in the passenger seat, both of them exhausted, but also ecstatic, fretful, overawed by the whole thing. They were allowed to take this tiny human home with them. They were being entrusted with his care. Feeding him and keeping him clean and changing his nappies and burping him and trying to work out what the hell was the matter at three in the morning when he was crying and crying and they had no clue.
From there, he had another flash of memory. In a hire car, him and Lauren parked on a shoreline somewhere north of Ullapool, looking at a stupendous sunset, the sun taking forever to drop below the horizon, leaving smudges of purple and orange streaking across the sky. They sat waiting to see the northern lights – the old lady at their cheap B&B had said atmospheric conditions were just right at the moment. But they never came, those magical lights in the sky, that would’ve been too perfect.
They didn’t mind, sitting there joking, listening to Teenage Fanclub, their lives spread out in the sky ahead of them, talking about all that clichéd crap that couples do in the mess of love. They kissed then clambered into the back seat, moving quickly, pulling at each other’s clothes, Lauren climbing on top of him and pushing down, Mark clutching her hips to push himself in deeper. They both came quickly and laughed, looking around nervously to see if anyone had seen them.
They didn’t know for sure if that was when Nathan was conceived, but the dates were close. They were at it like rabbits that holiday, having decided to try for a baby, so it could’ve been any one of a dozen times. In a perfect world they would’ve seen the northern lights fizzle across the expanse of sky. Instead, they just fumbled their clothes back on and wiped down the back seat of the hire car before climbing out and going for a walk along the beach, arm in arm, content with their simple lives.