Читать книгу The Blame Game - C.J. Cooke - Страница 12

It’s paradise here. Picture a narrow curve of white sand that arcs into the twinkling Caribbean. Six beach huts stood on stilts at a comfortable distance from one another along the strip, each with its own patch of ivory sand and acidic-blue ocean. No one around for about twenty miles, with the exception of the other two groups of people staying in the beach huts. A group of five from Mexico – I can’t tell if they’re family or just friends; their English is minimal and my Spanish is limited to ‘hello and ‘thanks’ – and at the very far end, the McAdam family from Alabama. Michael was suspicious of them at first when the husband asked a lot of questions about us, and I felt that familiar sting of panic, voices arguing in my head. ‘We’ll keep to ourselves,’ Michael announced cheerily as we made our way back to our hut, but I knew what he meant, and for one horrible afternoon I was wrenched back over two decades, into another century and another skin.

I make coffee and clear away the bowls left on the kitchen table. Saskia and Reuben are playing on the beach outside, their laughter drifting through the warm air. I pull two boxes of pills marked Cilest and Citalopram from my handbag and pop one of each out of the blister packs, knocking them back with a chug of water at the sink. Usually a glimpse of sunlight is enough to turn me into a lobster but my reflection shows I’ve caught my first actual tan in I don’t know how long, a deep bronze that knocks years off my face. Bright golden streaks have started to flash amongst my natural blonde, concealing the grey strands that have started to show. The sadness in my eyes, though – that’s always there.

We’ve been running for twenty-two years and I’m tired. I want to stop, lay down roots. It’s not in my make-up to live a peripatetic existence but we’ve had eight different addresses in Scotland, England, Wales, and even Northern Ireland. We tried to move to Australia but in the end it was too difficult to get visas. We don’t vote, don’t have social media accounts. Most of the time, we’re as normal as any other family. We’re content. Four years ago we made the huge decision not to rent any more and bought our first home, a pretty cottage in Northumberland. We have a dog and a guinea pig and Saskia and Reuben are thriving at their schools. But every now and then, I’m reminded of Luke. My first love. Especially at moments like this, when I’m happy and I remember I have no right to be.

Luke is dead because of me.

I’m putting on my sarong when Saskia comes screaming into the beach hut.

‘Mum, you have to come and see,’ she shouts, both hands splayed in front of her like a mime navigating invisible glass. When I don’t move she wraps her hands around my arm and yanks me with surprising force to my feet.

‘Starfish!’ she yells, skipping down the steps to the beach. ‘Careful,’ Michael says as we kneel on the sand to inspect them. A dozen orange starfish, bigger than Michael’s hand, studded with intricate patterns. He scoops one up, but instead of staying flat it begins to squirm.

Saskia bounces on the balls of her feet and points at something in the water. ‘Look! Right there!’ Reuben and I get to our feet and look out at the silky jade-green water. About twenty feet ahead is a pod of dolphins arcing through the waves, sunlight bouncing off their silvery backs. We all gasp. None of us have ever seen a dolphin in real life.

Saskia is weepy with excitement. ‘I have to go swim with them, Mum! Please, please, please!’

‘Here,’ Michael says, squatting in front of her. ‘Climb on.’

She jumps on his back and Michael quickly wades out to them while I hold my breath. Michael is capable, a strong swimmer. Dolphins are amazing creatures but the water is deep and there are endless dangers out there.

They’ll be fine, don’t spoil it.

I can’t watch. I busy myself by helping Reuben with his sand sculpture until Michael and Saskia emerge from the waves laughing and the dolphins have moved further down the bay.

We’ve been here two weeks, and by ‘here’ I mean the coast of Belize. Our original plan was to spend the school holidays travelling around Mexico. At Mexico City we joined a tour bus to the Yucatán via some jaw-dropping (and knee-wrecking) sights, such as the pyramids at the City of the Gods, where Reuben delighted in telling Saskia about mass human sacrifices. We saw the soaring white peak of the Popocatépetl volcano, the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, the pretty pastel-coloured streets of Campeche, and finally Cancún.

Reuben has adapted to the foreign setting more easily than I expected. The tour group was mostly older couples, so the bus was quiet and the air conditioning during long journeys helped to keep him comfortable. We had a problem at first with the lack of pizza – which is all he will eat – but we learned to improvise with tortillas laid flat and covered with salsa and cheese.

We went to Mexico for Reuben’s benefit. At least, that’s what we told everyone, including each other. Reuben did a stunning Year 9 project on the Mayans, involving a hand-crafted scale model Mayan temple and a 3D digital sketch that he projected on to black card surrounding the temple. We’d no idea he was capable of something like that and Michael said we should reward him. A trip to the real Chichén Itzá seemed the perfect way to do this, and as we’d not had a proper family holiday in a long time we figured a bit of a splurge was well overdue. But I also sensed that Michael was on edge, eager to run again. We’ve lived in Northumberland for four years now. Far longer than any other place.

When we arrived at Chichén Itzá Reuben sat in the tour bus for a long time, his face turned to the grey pyramid visible through the trees. Michael, Saskia and I all held our breaths, wondering whether he was going to start screaming or banging his head off the window.

‘Should I do the feet thing?’ Michael asked me nervously. The ‘feet thing’ is how we calm Reuben when he gets really worked up. I discovered it by accident when he was just a baby, and it grew out of the nights that I bathed him and then laid him on his mat to dry his little body. He’d lift his feet up towards my lips and I’d grab his ankles and blurt on the soles of his feet. It tickled him, made him laugh. As he got older and more sensitive to sound and chaos we tried everything to calm him. One night, when he’d worn himself out from screaming and lay down in bed on top of my legs, I ran my fingers up and down his shins. He started to calm down, then lifted his bare feet to my lips. I blurted them. He stopped crying altogether.

Ever since then, we do ‘the feet thing’ when he seems to be building up to a paroxysm – kissing a teenager’s smelly size tens and stroking his hairy shins somehow doesn’t have the same appeal as when he was a baby, but whatever works.

‘I think he’s OK,’ I told Michael, studying Reuben, reading the air around him. The trick is to approach him as you might approach a wild horse. No questions, no fuss – even when he strips naked in public places. We’d somehow convinced him to wear shorts in Mexico and he complied (we made sure to buy blue shorts), but he was still ignoring Michael at that point. I tried to tell myself that this was progress. After the thing between Michael and Josh’s dad, Reuben had gone ballistic, crying, screaming, smashing up his bedroom. I managed to get him to stop being so violent, but he withdrew and wouldn’t speak. Instead, he took to writing ‘Dad’ on his iPad and then vigorously crossing it out, signalling that Michael was dead to him.

At Chichén Itzá, though, I hoped that we could put everything behind us. Reuben looked from me to the pyramid – El Castillo – as though he couldn’t quite believe it was real; that he was here. I glanced at Michael, signalling that now was his chance to make amends. He turned around in the driver’s seat and grinned at Reuben.

‘We’re here, son. We’re actually at Chichén Itzá.’

Reuben kept his head turned away. Definitely not a sign that he wanted his feet to be stroked.

‘Do you want to climb to the top with me, Reuben?’ Michael asked gently.

He reached out to take Reuben’s hand, but Reuben sprang up from his seat and raced up the bus aisle, his long limbs moving in fast strides towards the clearing.

‘I’ll go,’ I said, and I reached down for my bag and followed after. Once I caught up with him I put my arm around his waist. We fell into step. He’s already six foot, even though he’s only fourteen. I wish he wasn’t so tall. It would make the sight of him clambering on to my knee for a cuddle or breaking down in tears when we’re out in public far less likely to draw stares.

‘You OK, sweetheart?’

He nodded but kept his head down. I handed him his iPad and followed at a comfortable distance while he raced off and began to film the site. We spent the day with the rest of the tour group exploring, giving Reuben hourly countdowns, as promised, so that he could anticipate leaving and manage his feelings of sadness a little better. Even so, when we got back into the bus at dusk I saw that his lip was trembling, and my heart broke for him.

We headed to the hotel at Cancún, and that’s where things started to go wrong. It was just too busy. Reuben’s noise-cancelling headphones usually keep him calm but the crowds and heat were overwhelming for him. Saskia and I were worn out by the searing temperatures and squabbling couples amongst our tour group too, and the guide seemed intent on traipsing around tourist-tat stalls instead of taking us to more ancient ruins. At one point Saskia lost her teddy, Jack-Jack, in a market and we had to spend an entire day trawling through souvenirs to find it. She’s had Jack-Jack since birth – a gift from my sister, Jeannie – and wouldn’t be consoled until we found him.

Luckily, we did, but we were all agreed – noise and crowds weren’t for us. So Michael went online and changed our booking to a small resort in Belize, within driving distance of a Mayan site even bigger than Chichén Itzá. Reuben was elated. We hired a car, broke free of the tour group and drove to this place.

I go back inside and pull laundry out of the washing machine, then take it out to the side garden to hang on the line. Michael comes into the garden, soaking wet from his swim. He’s in the best shape of his life, his arms broad and sculpted from deadlifts, his legs strong and muscular from cycling most nights to counter long days at the bookshop. His deep tan suits him, though I’m not sure about the beard he’s grown. He likes to say he’s ‘an auld git’ (he’s forty-one) but to me, he’s never looked better.

‘Where’s Saskia?’ I say, looking past him at the tide that has begun to creep up the beach, devouring Reuben’s sand sculpture.

He slicks his dark wet hair off his face. ‘Oh, I just left her to swim on her own.’

‘You what?’ I take a step forward and scan the part of the beach further to the left. In a moment, Sas comes into view, wrapping a strand of seaweed around her waist to make a mermaid tutu.

‘Honestly, Helen,’ Michael says, grinning. ‘You think I’d leave her to swim out in open water on her own?’

I slap his arm lightly for winding me up. ‘I wouldn’t put anything past you.’

‘Ouch,’ he says, flinching at my slap. ‘Oh, I found something in this shed here. Come have a look.’

He steps towards the plastic bunker that I’d assumed was the cistern and flings open the doors to reveal a storage cupboard chock-full of beach boards, wet suits, snorkels, windsurfing sails, inflatables, rockpool nets, and surfboards. He takes out a rolled up piece of thick cotton and inspects it.

‘Doesn’t look very waterproof. What do you think it’s for?’

We unravel it, each taking an end, until it’s clear that it’s a hammock. Michael nods at the palm trees behind me and suggests I tie one end to the fattest trunk while he fastens the other to a tree about eight foot in the opposite direction. Both trunks conveniently have metal hooks where other guests have secured the hammock.

‘Climb in,’ he says once we’ve set it up. I shake my head. I worry that I’m too heavy for it. I haven’t weighed myself in almost a year but last time I did – under protest – I was thirteen stone, an unfortunate side effect of long-term antidepressant use. I’m five foot nine so can carry it, but most of the weight has settled around my waist.

‘This is the life,’ Michael says, climbing into the hammock. Then, when he spots me tidying up the storage cupboard: ‘Helen. Get. In.’

The hammock stretches as I lie beside him, almost touching the ground, but it holds.

‘See?’ Michael says, slipping an arm under my neck and holding me close to his wet skin. For a moment there is nothing but the rustle of palm trees and Saskia’s singing on the back of the wind. I try to resist sitting up to check she’s OK and that Reuben is still on his iPad on the deck.

‘That’s better,’ Michael says, kissing the top of my head. He has his hands clasped around me and I can feel his chest rise and fall with breaths that grow gradually slower and deeper. How long has it been since we lay like this? It feels nice.

‘Maybe we should move out here,’ he says.

‘Definitely.’

‘Serious. You could home-school the kids.’

‘Mmmm, way to sell it to me. And what would you do? Build a book shack?’

‘Not a bad idea. I could be our designated hunter-gatherer. I reckon I’d make a good Caribbean Bear Grylls. I’ve got the beard for it, now.’

‘Bear Grylls doesn’t have a beard, idiot.’

‘Robinson Crusoe, then.’

I stroke the side of his foot with my toe. ‘I wish we could.’

‘Why can’t we?’

‘Blimey, if we’d the money, I’d move out here in a shot.’

‘Cheaper to live out here than England. We could make money by taking tourists out on boat trips.’

‘Stop winding me up,’ I say.

‘I’m not winding you up …’

‘Neither of us speak a word of Spanish, Michael.’

‘Buenos días. Adiós, per favor. See? Practically fluent.’

‘You wally.’

‘Anyway, they speak Kriol here.’

‘We don’t speak that either …’

‘Belize is a British colony. We probably wouldn’t even need a visa.’

‘What about our house? And, you know, my job?’

‘You’re always whinging about how much you hate teaching.’

I feel a bit hurt by this. I enjoy teaching and I care deeply about my pupils … but no, this was not my dream. I sort of fell into it, and once I realised that the hours suited family life it was a no-brainer. I could argue that Michael’s book shop is the same – not his dream, but a reasonable attempt at fulfilment that pays the bills and fits around our children’s lifestyles.

‘A holiday is one thing, living here is another,’ I say, and I remind him of the conversation we had with the tour operator about Central America. Got to be careful out there. Lots of dangers in the rainforest. Jaguars, snakes, pumas aplenty.

‘What do you think I’m here for?’ he says. ‘I’m your protector.’

I roll my eyes. ‘I’d like to see you try and walk away from your bookshop. Even if it is burnt to a crisp.’

The words are out before I’ve a chance to haul them back into my mouth and lock them into the box of unmentionable things. The bookshop. We’ve not spoken about it the whole time we’ve been on holiday. Not a single mention of the fire that gutted Michael’s beautiful bookshop which he has single-handedly built up from scratch to become one of the best independents in the region. A three-storey Mecca for bookworms, the jewel of our town, now in ruins: black, cooked. For one awful moment I’m wrenched back into that night when we saw the flames dancing high into the night sky.

The phone woke us in the middle of the night. It was Mr Dickinson who owned the pet store a few shops along. He’d spotted smoke from the street, then drove down to check his own shop. He said he was about to call the fire brigade, but he wanted to let us know, too. We raced down there, both of us betting on a manageable fire, one that we could tackle ourselves with a couple of fire extinguishers that Michael had tossed into the boot of the car. When we arrived, smoke was already curling out from beneath the front door, orange flames dancing in the first-floor windows. Michael started to unlock the front door but I grabbed his arm.

‘Don’t go in,’ I said. He ignored me and pushed open the door, determined to damp down the flames. I watched, helpless, as he ran inside with the fire extinguishers and took to the stairs. Thick black smoke was funnelling down the stairs and beating across the ground floor, and I could hear the crackling sounds of the fire upstairs destroying the new café, chewing up the beautiful sofas and coffee tables that had only recently been installed. Sirens of fire engines screamed in the distance. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to breathe in the smoke, but with every second that went by it seemed to grow thicker, and my lungs ached for fresh air. I couldn’t call out to Michael. He was still on the first floor, and to my horror I could see flames at the top of the stairs.

Just when I thought I would have to go up there to drag Michael out he appeared, an armful of books pressed to his chest, struggling to breathe. He stumbled down the stairs, dropping the books and falling into my arms.

The shop was destroyed, our livelihood annihilated. Some kind stranger set up a JustGiving fund and within a few weeks we had raised eleven thousand pounds. Possibly enough money to recoup some stock, pay some creditors. But there’s the mortgage, the loss of income … The insurance company are still determining the cause of the fire.

The mood has dipped. I try to think of something to say that will swing it back again to the blissed-out vibe we’d enjoyed here since our arrival. It strikes me why we’ve avoided talking about the fire out here: the contrast between this heavenly place and drab, icicled Northumberland make it feel as though we’ve stepped into another realm. There are no reminders here. But silence doesn’t lie. We both know we have to go back and face it all.

‘I should have installed CCTV,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Everyone said to do it and I got lazy.’

‘There’s no guarantee that cameras would have picked up anything,’ I say, recalling how we sat in shock at the fire station, covered head to toe in black soot like two Victorian chimney sweeps. The deputy station chief educated us brusquely about the many causes of accidental blazes: sunlight bouncing off a mirror and hitting newspaper reduced a sixteenth century Scottish castle to embers. Hair straighteners left too close to a notebook on a teenager’s dressing table took out a row of houses. Our fire could have been down to a faulty storage heater or a loose wire.

‘They’d have caught who started the fire,’ Michael cuts in, swinging his legs over the side of the hammock to sit upright. I reach forward and stroke his back.

I recall with a shudder the police calling both of us in for separate interviews. They asked whether someone had a grudge against us. If we had upset a customer or laid off an employee. Just weeks before I’d persuaded Michael to sack one of our part-timers, Matilda. She doesn’t do anything, I protested. You’re barely paying yourself a salary as it is. The bookshop isn’t a charity for lazy eighteen-year-olds who sit around all day reading Tolkien.

Michael pointed out that she was Arnold’s daughter, and Arnold had been the first to help him out when he set up the shop, but I won in the end. Matilda was sketchy about her whereabouts at the time of the fire – her parents confirmed she’d been out of the house, and it turned out she’d been with a boy. But for a horrible few days it seemed that perhaps Matilda could have been responsible for the blaze.

‘We never ruled out arson,’ Michael says when I remind him that Matilda was found to be innocent. ‘Until the investigation closes, every possibility is on the table.’

‘Maybe it was a group of kids messing around,’ I say to his back. I desperately want him to lie back down with me, to recapture the idyllic mood.

‘We both know kids didn’t start that fire, Helen,’ Michael snaps, getting out of the hammock.

‘Michael?’

I’m taken aback by the sharpness of his tone. As I watch him head back into the hut I sense he’s exhausted, worn thin by worry. But I wish we could discuss this. Every time we start to talk about something that cuts deep he just walks away.