Something Might Happen (13 page)

In the end, I tell him, it’s this. Your life—anyone’s life—it just doesn’t belong to you, does it?

He is silent for a very long time and then he says, No. It doesn’t. But you still have to act as if it does.

Alex says that all he wants is for people to leave him alone now.

He says he’s sick of all the offers of help—sick and tired of people cooking him food and leaving toys and notes and stuff
in the porch. He doesn’t want any babysitting, or a free takeaway from Mei Yuen’s, or a bag of plums or a bacon quiche or
an unripe marrow. He doesn’t want his windows cleaned for nothing, or extra fish thrown in when he orders from the fish shop.
He especially doesn’t want the king-sized crocheted blanket, a monstrous acrylic thing in cheap scarlets and blues and pinks,
made by the ladies of the Reydon Society.

He says his GP’s given him some Prozac. And that’s it, that’s nice, that’s all he really wants for now. Just that and maybe
the chance to bury Lennie. Ideally with her heart—but if that’s not possible, then what’s left of her, laid to rest, without
it.

But none of it may be possible, not for a while anyway. Lennie’s body is still being looked at and Alex has been warned that
a second, independent autopsy may be required. It could be some time before the coroner will release the body to the family
for a funeral.

Meanwhile, Bob’s worrying about how long this is all taking. It’s impossible, apparently, for anyone to say. He’s frail, he
ought not to travel unnecessarily, but it could be
weeks and he’s wondering if he should fly back and then return when Alex has more information. And Bob has dogs at home. He’s
concerned about his dogs. Two chocolate Labs, one of whom is elderly and needs regular injections. A neighbour is taking care
of them right now.

But I can’t rely on their kindness forever, he says.

He tells me how Lennie phoned him just about every week and how he was thinking of getting e-mail so they could stay in touch
that way as well. Keeping up with the times. Except maybe not, maybe he could never have done it, because these days his hands
don’t work so well.

Look at them—he spreads his ropy, mottled fingers in front of him. See? I have the shakes nearly all the time now.

He frowns at them.

I don’t think they look too bad, I tell him.

He ignores me.

She was very popular with the boys, you know, he says. As a teenager. A good-looking girl, like her mother. Though she could
be wicked, you know, really wicked—oh my goodness—playing them off against each other—

He laughs. So do I.

I can just see it, I say.

Can you? he says, narrowing his eyes. I pitied some of those poor guys, oh my God, oh dear, I really did—

He stops and recovers himself.

And what about you? he says. Bet you had a lot of guys after you? You’re a good-looking girl as well. Now don’t mess with
me, I bet you did.

Some, I tell him, but not a lot.

He tries to look astonished.

But—a girl like you?

You’re exhausted, I tell him.

You know, he says, I can’t see you well. You do look very far away to me.

You’re just exhausted, Bob.

Yes but I can’t rest though, he says quietly. I’d like to sleep, I really would. But I won’t. Not now. That’s the tragedy.

I push a fresh cup of coffee towards him and his fingers close around it, eager as baby’s fingers. He does this, even though
we both know he’ll leave it to go cold like the last one.

I shouldn’t really have coffee, he confesses.

How about a brandy then? I say.

He begins to weep.

OK, he says and I pour him a generous one and he downs it in two swift gulps. Then he tells me he’s not allowed that either.

But what the hell, he says. You know, the way I figure it, who’s left to mind?

TWO O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON, A DARK DAY. THE KIDS
at school for at least another hour and Liv down for her nap, arms flung up beneath her blue bunny blanket.

Mick wraps his arms around me.

What? he says. What is it?

I try to wriggle out.

What’s what?

You seem far away.

I don’t think so.

Something’s getting to you.

I look at him.

I mean, something else, he says.

I’m fine, I tell him. Hearing the coldness creep into my voice.

He releases me, drops his arms down to his side.

You want me to leave you alone?

I turn and look at him.

I didn’t say that, no.

Then—what, Tess? Tell me—

I sigh.

Oh Mick, I say, I don’t know. I don’t mind—I don’t care what you do. What do you mean, leave me alone? I’m not asking for
anything. What you’re doing is fine.

He smiles, but I can read the smile. Unreasonable, it says.

What you do is always fine, I tell him.

I love you, he says. Do you know that?

Thank you.

What do you mean, thank you?

Just—I’m glad.

It’s not something you say thank you for.

What, then?

He kisses my hands, both at once, then separately, finger by finger.

You’re in another world these days, he says.

Well, I say, we all are. Aren’t we?

He stops the kissing.

Maybe, he says. But I’m trying not to be. And the difference is, I feel you want to be.

I remember a time when sex was a glue, a healer—it would smooth, ease, mend, bring us closer together. As well as for pleasure—we
could rely on it for that, nearly always
anyway. Not any more. Now it’s a thing that comes between us, pushing us further away.

Upstairs, the bed is still unmade, still covered in child clutter. Livvy’s bright-coloured teething monkey and a pile of Rosa’s
navy school socks. On the carpet, Jordan’s forgotten homework sheet—signed by us but never delivered to school—a pack of Disprin,
a pair of my knickers.

Mick sweeps the stuff off and pulls the duvet back and I lie on the sheet which is cool as water. I start to undo my jeans.

No, he says, let me—

He does it slowly and carefully, laying each bit of clothing aside like someone who knows they’ll have to pick it up later.

I laugh.

What?

You don’t have to fold them, I say.

He smiles grimly, determined to be amused, yet obviously bothered that the mood’s disturbed. He senses it’s going to be tough,
that I won’t play.

But, I think, I want to do this.

He kisses my face, my neck, my hair. Then he takes his own clothes off more quickly. I put my face close to his body, dutifully
take in the familiar chill of his skin, the folds, the curves, the hair.

Come on, he says and pulls the duvet over us, pulls me onto him, gathers my hair so it doesn’t dangle in his face.

It ought to be possible, I tell myself as his fingers move over my bottom, my thighs. I try to get them into my head—those
weird and dirty thoughts, hot and shameful, to get me going. It usually works for me. But it’s impossible and my mind is pulled
up and away and I float free. Instead I see Lennie, biting her lip as she tries to back her car into a tight space on an afternoon
after school a long time ago. I see the pier, battered by wind and storms, and all those ketchup cans piled up behind Mawhinney.
And the slice of grey, choppy sea through the window behind.

And then, suddenly, I see Darren Sims. I remember his denim jacket lying on a clay-spattered stool in Lennie’s studio. I check
the memory—it feels real—and I tense up at this surprising thought.

Mick wets his fingers and puts them inside me.

He kisses my nipples, touches me, delves around. I try to feel it. I try to push the thoughts away, but they come creeping
back, unstoppable as smoke.

My conversation with Mawhinney comes into my head.

Mick pushes me over onto my back.

Hey, he says as, lazy-eyed, he licks his fingers and strokes between my legs again. What are you thinking?

Nothing, I tell him. I’m trying to concentrate.

On what?

On this. The sex.

He sits up. He’s giving up.

I push him over. His penis is standing right up. I bend my head and grasp its stem like a flower and kiss the end of it. It
smells of spit and cheese and the hotness of men before sex. He makes a little noise of encouragement. Before
he can start asking to come inside me, I make my fingers into a circle and then hold him there.

He lies back and closes his eyes. He has a lovely face when his eyes are closed—young and smoothed-out and trusting.

Oh, he says, oh, o-oh.

Moving my hand up and down, I feel like a sober person watching a drunk one.

You like this? I ask him in the low, barely-there voice I use to make him come. It pleases you?

He moans.

I stroke the length of him and then bring my hand tight around him again and move it up and down.

He groans.

I think of how many times we must have done this—and then I realise that I can’t remember any of them. I can’t remember how
love felt in the days before Lennie died.

Each time I tighten my hand, he moans. I try kissing the tip of him again, slipping it in my mouth, and it’s clear from the
sounds that he likes it but eventually it hurts my neck so I lift my head up again.

Through the window is the silvery, waving eucalyptus tree that could do with a trim, and beyond it, sky. Afternoon sun is
squeezing itself out from between grey clouds. Later it will rain.

Hey. Not too hard, Mick whispers, eyes still closed but reaching out with his hand to mine. Get some oil.

Under the bed is a small brown glass bottle of oil. I
reach down and unscrew the cap and tip some into my hand and slide my fingers over him. He sighs. I slip my hand up and down,
up and down, until he begins to pant and lift his pelvis up off the bed and then I know it’s about to be over, and then it
is.

When he comes, there is such a big, arcing spray of gunk that some of it goes on his face.

I should make you lick it off, he says and I try to look as if, on another day, I might’ve.

I wait till Mick has gone to fetch the kids from school and I’m alone in the house. And then I dial the number of The Angel
where Lacey’s staying.

OK, I tell him when they put me through. Maybe it’s this. I don’t want to lie to you about Al. He’s my friend—he’s always
been my friend—but it’s more complicated than that as well—

Yes, says Lacey. He waits. I can hear his attention, his concentration. I go on.

He loves me, I say. And—well—I love him too. I told you. But he’s let it get—bigger—

Yes, Lacey says again. I’ve no idea what he’s thinking.

Look, I tell him, I’m trying to be honest here.

He waits.

And, I say, it’s not just that. He’s sometimes told me things. Stuff I wished he wouldn’t—about him and Lennie.

What sort of things? Lacey says.

Just stuff.

What stuff?

About their relationship. I mean, I asked him not to, but he still did—

Did what?

Go on about it—how they weren’t always happy together.

Really? Lacey says, though he doesn’t sound especially surprised.

Lennie never said that, I tell him, never. Only Al.

And you didn’t think he should have told you?

No, I say. But—

But what?

Well, I still spent time with him, didn’t I?

Lacey’s quiet.

You think you let him? Lacey asks.

My heart thumps.

I wasn’t a good friend to Lennie, I tell him then.

But Tess, he says slowly, you mean, you and Alex—you’ve—

No! I tell him, horrified. No, never. I would never do that. Not to Lennie, not to Mick. But I’ve sometimes been lonely. And
he’s been there for me. He knows me. And I find his attention and his company—

Lacey waits.

Tempting, I say. Flattering. Satisfying.

I can understand that, Lacey says.

Can you?

Everyone gets lonely, he says.

I glance at my watch. Mick will be back soon.

I’m not sure I should have told you any of this, I say.

I’m glad you did.

Well—it’s not all—

Oh?

No, there’s something else. It’s to do with that night—when she died. I was there, you see.

Now Lacey’s voice changes.

What? he says. What do you mean?

I have a place I go to, I tell him, a beach hut—one of the huts on the front, the other end, towards Gun Hill. It’s mine.
I go there at night sometimes. I was there that night, the night it happened—

Really? he says, and it sounds like I have finally surprised him. On your own? So late at night?

Yes. No.

I feel tears coming and take a breath to stop them.

Not on my own. Not this time. Usually I do—go there alone. It’s always felt so safe. I get up in the night and I just go there—the
whole point is to be alone. Otherwise, in the life I have, I never get to be in peace or in silence, not ever. You can’t understand
that, can you?

Lacey is silent.

But that night?

Alex came. He insisted. He knows I go there and he came. Mick doesn’t know.

He doesn’t?

No. Al’s done it before. Come there. To talk about her—about
their problems. Anyway we drank some wine. They’d had a terrible fight that evening, a really big one, and he was thinking
of moving out.

Lacey says, You didn’t tell Mawhinney any of this?

No, I say.

Why not?

I didn’t think—

Didn’t think what?

I suppose I just didn’t think.

And that’s all?

Well, I tell him, only that we were talking about all of this and suddenly I had this feeling—such a strong feeling—that he
should go home to her. I was very frightened. I knew something was going to happen—

What do you mean, something? Lacey asks me quickly. How could you know?

Sometimes I just—feel things.

There’s a silence at the other end of the phone.

You could never have known, Lacey says finally. Don’t punish yourself, Tess.

But—

You’re rationalising after the event. It’s a common enough thing to do.