Dog Roses - Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

I did not cry for Billy. I wanted to. I tried. Oh, how I tried! I’d think about him and tears would prick my eyes, but none fell. I’d blink them away, and with them all sense of Billy’s face, his touch, even his kisses. I learned the hard way what is meant by the expression, living on autopilot. Oh, I went through the motions of everyday life, but all the time felt remote from them, as if I were watching someone else functioning in my body.

It was nearly two weeks before Billy’s body was released for burial. I didn’t attend the funeral. How could I? I would have to pretend I was just a friend, another face in the crowd.

Keeping busy at the café did not help take my mind of Billy. How could it? He had died there. Every cup, saucer, plate, tear on the Formica here, scratch on a table there…reminded me. In spite of giving the floor a good scrub, there were still faint bloodstains where Billy’s body had lain. Bananas told me I could replace the entire floor, but somehow I never got around to it. Oh, it was good for business, that cruel patch on the vinyl. But that wasn’t why I didn’t replace it. Whenever I looked at it, I saw Billy. Not the Billy I’d known and loved, but a lifeless, waxwork Billy. Somehow, it was easier to live with that than remembering the warmth and vitality and love in him.

So, I didn’t cry. Who has tears for a waxwork dummy?

On the day of the funeral Bananas told me I could close if I wanted as a mark of respect. Instead, we stayed open all day and did a brisk trade. I was a mess, my feelings chaotic. At the café, though, I could keep a lid on them. It was at home that I felt close to breaking point, clinging by my fingertips to the edge of a Black Hole and longing (Oh, how I longed!} to let go, drop into infinity and bring an end to this parody of existence.

The hardest thing of all was that I could confide in no one. The loneliness was worse than knowing Billy was dead.  It made me angry too, and resentful, especially on the day of the funeral. People would be there grieving; his mother and surly brother, Ed; Shaun, Maggie, and all his friends. Meanwhile, I had to try and pretend it was just another day. I hated them all, especially Maggie. It was if all my pain focused on her, reinventing itself as hate. Now, hate was something I could understand; that alone made sense of sorts, lent me an inhuman strength to keep from falling into the Black Hole from whose fathomless depths I seem to hear Billy calling my name as he had on that fateful evening, “Rob!”

One evening, Nancy Devlin, Shaun’s mum, came into the café at closing time. “Sorry, I’m shutting up shop,” I explained apologetically.

“That’s okay. It’s you I came to see.”

“Me?” I became slightly alarmed. Had Billy said anything about us to Shaun, and Shaun to Nancy?

“It can’t have been easy for you lately,” she said kindly.

“No.” I couldn’t argue with that.

“I thought maybe you might like someone to talk to. Your mother...”

“My mother…?” My hackles rose.

“She’s worried about you, Rob. She thinks you’re bottling up too much and you need to talk, lighten up a bit.”

“Lighten up a bit? After everything that’s happened, my mother thinks I need to lighten up a bit?” I was angry.

“Keep you hair on. She’s worried about you. Shaun is, too. . He told me so himself only this morning.”

“So why is he ignoring me?” I demanded.Nancy shrugged, playing with her raven hair in a gesture that so reminded me of Maggie Dillon it put me on my guard. “Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say for the best. Rather than make things worse, we say nothing at all, which does make things worse, and don’t I know it! So, if you want to talk…

“I don’t.”

“So how about you walk me home and I make you an Irish whiskey like you’ve never tasted in your life?”

I wanted to refuse. But Nancy Devlin had a way of smiling that brooked no argument. So I locked up and we walked back to the house I knew so well, having played there often with Shaun when we were kids. Nancy was as good as her word. I had never tasted an Irish coffee like it nor have I since.

“Where’s Shaun?” I asked conversationally.

“Oh, out. Don’t ask me where, I’ve no idea. He doesn’t tell me, and I don’t ask. His father has gone to a reunion ‘do’ with some old drinking buddies and won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“You didn’t want to go?” I was curious.

“Believe me, wives and their husbands’ old drinking buddies don’t mix.” She gave a fruity chuckle. “Besides, reunions tend to drag on. I’m too old for all that these days.”

“You’re not old!” I protested, laughing, “You're gorgeous."

“Why, thank you kind sir.” She laughed, too, and I suddenly felt more relaxed than I had since…

But I shook my head as if that would shake bad thoughts away. It was a trick that usually worked too, one Nancy herself had taught Shaun and me years ago.

“I had better go.” I stood up. “Thanks for the coffee, it was great.”

“You’re welcome. And you don’t have to go…unless you really want to?”

I swallowed hard. Nancy’s expression left me in no doubt that my friend’s mother was propositioning me. But I was past caring. If it was good enough for Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate movie, it was good enough for me. Besides, I had never slept with a woman, only Billy. Conveniently, I chose to overlook the fact that I had no interest in women. Maybe that was because Nancy Devlin was unlike any woman I had ever met.

Nancy was gentle, kind, and acted as if the clumsiness of my lovemaking was par for the course. Deftly, without a trace of embarrassment, she showed me how to fit a condom and guided me into her as a Good Samaritan might a blind man. My orgasm when it came was sheer relief. Into it, I poured all my intangible, inarticulate grief and loneliness. Exhausted, I lay my head against the silky smoothness of her breasts and promptly fell asleep.

“Come on, Rob. Wake up sleepy head. We both have to get to work, and I don’t do breakfast in bed.” Nancy Devlin’s mischievous chuckle washed over me, a sensuous sound that recalled the night before and made me sit bolt upright, blushing furiously. “Now don’t go spoiling things by doing something stupid like apologising. I enjoyed last night, didn’t you?” I could only nod. “Good. Sometimes we need to be close to someone, anyone. It worked for me and it worked for you so there’s no harm done. It will be our little secret, okay?” I nodded again. “I’ll say cheerio then. Help yourself to a shower and whatever you fancy for breakfast. Oh, and thanks for the memory,” with which she gave a girlish giggle and was gone.

I lay in that warm, sumptuous double bed until I heard the front door slam. Later, I showered and briefly considered my feelings for Nancy Devlin. To my astonishment, there were none, except a warm, pulsating gratitude that had nothing to do with sex.

Life at home, never easy, grew progressively worse. Typically, it was my brother who made me aware of my shortcomings although not, it has to be said, out of any compassion for me.

Mum was out. I was sprawled on my bed listening to my dad’s Elvis cassettes. Paul entered without knocking and kicked the door shut by way of, ineffectually, making his presence felt. “Can we talk?”

“Not now,” I said irritably, “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Oh, sure, busy doing damn all!”

“It’s called relaxing,” I muttered, “You’d want to relax too if you’d had the kind of day I have.”

“I’ve got exams coming up,” he protested.

“So run along and revise for them,” I retorted, “just stay away from me. Mum’s out so you think you’ll cadge a few quid off me, is that it? Well, you’re out of luck.  I’m flat broke,” I lied.

“Mum is still seeing Peter Short,” Paul persisted.

My patience, such as it was, snapped. “She can see Dracula for all I care. Now, push off!”

Paul’s eyes narrowed. He bit hard on his lip with a prominent front tooth. I was reminded of Brer Rabbit in childhood tales I’d read time and again. Laughter rose in my throat but stuck there, threatening to choke me. “Get lost Paul,” I hissed between clenched teeth as one of Billy’s favourite Presley numbers sucked the breath out of me.

“You make me sick!” yelled Paul. “You’re not the only one having a hard time you know. Okay, so some idiot gets himself stabbed in your precious café, so what? Is that my fault or Mum’s?  Don’t we deserve some consideration? You treat this place like a hotel and us like we’re your employees, for crying out loud! You may be bringing in good money, but that doesn’t give you the right to play God Almighty. We’re a family. We’re supposed to matter, right? You, me and Mum, not some yob like Billy Mack.”

“Billy was no yob,” I said quietly.

Paul winced, seemed to sense that he was treading on thin ice and reached for the door handle without turning round. His voice shook…with rage, hurt? I didn’t even care enough to hazard a guess, so wrapped up was I in a curiously painless, formless nothingness, rather like the mummy buried alive in that old Boris Karlof movie I must have watched on late night TV half a dozen times. It was scary, yes, but even my fear had yet to take shape.

“It’s not as if you’ve got anything to complain about,” Paul sneered, “Let’s face it. Mack’s death has been damn good for business. You’ve done a roaring trade since it happened. Who do you think you’re kidding, prancing around as moody as hell like some stupid drama queen? Get real, Rob, and then maybe we can all get back to normal.”

I sneered, “Whatever ‘normal’ is…”

“You are such a prick!”  He turned and would have flounced out of the room, but I was having none of it. His appalling insensitivity had scored a direct hit. I catapulted myself at his back, caught him completely off balance and managed to twist my body as we fell heavily to the floor, landing astride his panting chest. Then I laid into him like a man possessed, oblivious to his yelling or mine.

For a few seconds, Paul lay inert. Suddenly, he found the strength to fight like a tiger. Tapes and furniture went flying. I didn’t give a damn, even when we crashed into my dad’s old record-cassette player and it, too, crashed to the floor.  The intensity of loathing between us was evenly matched by the ferocity of blows exchanged.  He grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked my head backwards, driving one knee into the small of my back and seizing my arm in an excruciating half nelson.

That was how our mother found us. We sensed her presence in the room rather than saw or heard her enter. Springing apart with shame-faced alacrity, we met her stern, injured expression.

The silence was devastating. “You make me sick, the pair of you.” she said at last, and surveyed the wrecked room with a mixture of anger and distress. She took in Paul’s tearstained face and a bloody mouth already starting to swell. To my bleak expression and busy Adam’s apple, she appeared indifferent. The look she flung me was murderous.

A growing dismay took hold of me. I hardly recognized the woman in the doorway. My mother and I were strangers. I glanced at Paul who glared back with such bulldog ferocity that I burst out laughing. Everything was too much and too appalling to contemplate. I became hysterical.

“Shut up, damn you, just shut up.” said my mother coldly without raising her voice. But it was her sharp, stinging slap on my cheek that silenced me. I hugged my chest and rocked to and fro on the edge of my bed as if, somehow, it might ease my incredulity, my shame, and a fresh resurgence of what I only vaguely recognized as guilt. I wasn’t seeing clearly in those days and it would be a while yet before the fog began to clear.

“He started it,” Paul sobbed, instantly smothering any vestige of repentance in me.

“Sort yourselves out, and tidy this room,” Mum said in a choked voice before retreating to her bedroom and closing the door quietly behind her. It crossed my mind that she must have realized how much better Paul and I would have felt if only she had ranted and raved at us, and slammed that door.

Paul left without saying another word. I heard him go into the bathroom and the sound of taps running as I crossed to the dressing table to examine my face in the mirror.  I grimaced, but couldn’t resist a chuckle. He may have ended up getting the better of me on this occasion, but the damage I had inflicted on my brother was far worse.

Later, I went for a walk. It was a little after midnight, the air hushed and clear. A post-rain freshness cooled my simmering temper and I began to experience a renewed sense of freedom and release. While it could hardly be compared to having sex with Nancy Devlin, it was a good feeling all the same. For a while I had felt guilty, even ashamed of being in Nancy’s bed. But if she doesn’t, why should I? Moreover, I was beginning to understand what she meant by needing to be close to someone. If it hadn’t felt right, it hadn’t felt wrong either. I began to think of it as a kind of mutual therapy. Whatever, it had helped me and I could only hope it had helped her too, whatever her motives. I found myself wondering about those as I wandered along, hands in the pockets of my jeans. What could make a woman like Nancy Devlin feel so bad that she had to drag her son’s mate off the street and take him to bed? I grinned inwardly. I could not in all honesty say I’d been dragged. Even so, I reflected morosely, I’d rather have been in bed with Billy. I cheered up. At least I’d got something right. I was no hot-blooded heterosexual.

I stopped, sat on a low wall and remained there for some time, taking perverse solace from its damp, uneven surface clawing at my backside. I saw and heard, but failed to register an approaching motorcycle.  It seemed to veer and stop in the weirdest slow motion. The rider’s familiar voice performed an adroit somersault in mid-air then dropped to hover at my right ear.

“Hi Rob.”

I regarded Shaun without seeing him at first. It was as if my thoughts concerning his mother had thrown a veil over my eyes. As the veil lifted, mixed feelings began to accommodate the crop of braided hair and ever-friendly if pensive expression. I tried in vain to think of something to say, but couldn’t even manage to say, “Hi Shaun”. I could only watch as he clambered from the machine and came and sat beside me on the wall, stretching his long legs almost to the kerb. I listened to him sucking in deep breaths of air and exhaling with a tantalizing slowness for what seemed ages. “I couldn’t sleep,” I said at last, and felt his scrutiny under the intrusive glow of a nearby street lamp.

“So I see,” he responded dryly after a long pause, “Not another run-in with a reporter, I hope?”

“Worse,” I mumbled between bruised lips.

“There’s worse?” He raised his hands in mock horror. I laughed, felt marginally better (although my ribs did not appreciate the effort it required) and related the bare facts of my fight with Paul. I also found myself talking about my mother, and how confused I felt about her apparent relationship with Peter Short. “There may be nothing in it of course. In which case, why be so secretive?”

“Maybe she thinks you and Paul won’t approve,” Shaun commented wryly.

“I suppose so,” I could only mutter, feeling suitably abashed.  Having started, I couldn’t stop, and kept talking…about nothing and everything, except Billy. Shaun had always been a good listener. Although he said little, merely prompting me now and then, I became very aware of his physical presence. Once, he laid a hand on my knee and squeezed gently. It was nothing more than a reassuring gesture, but the sweat gathered on my brow.

For the first time since his death, I resurrected Billy in my mind’s eye; twinkling eyes, broad grin, sensual mouth, everything about him.

Not even with Nancy had I let my body speak for me. Oh, we’d had sex, but that was almost an afterthought. My body had functioned and even derived some satisfaction from that. But it hadn’t cried out and begged for more, not as it always had when Billy and I made love. Nor had it acknowledged a passion to be kissed and caressed. Nancy and I had comforted each other in much the same way as her son was trying to comfort me now. The same, yet nowhere near the same.

 I felt myself blushing for speculating about Shaun’s reaction if he ever found out I’d slept with his mother.

As I’d lain in Nancy’s bed, my body had strained only to be rid of the various wrappings of outward appearance in which it had been bound for so long. I’d shed them like a second skin; lies, deceit, the raw pain of a grief I could share with no one.

Under the gentle pressure of Shaun’s unknowing hand on my knee, my body wept for Billy the only way it knew how, in secret.

I talked for dear life. After a time, I began to hear the words in my head. Eventually, I could make out the sound of my own voice again. My dissembled senses regrouped. My body’s hunger felt assuaged, in part at least, for having heard its confession.

My orgasm came as a blessed relief. At the same time, the reality of it hit me. Wriggling with embarrassment, I felt a sticky wetness against my thigh. 

“Fancy a ride?” Shaun had to repeat the question several times.

I glanced at my watch. It was already past 1.00 am. “Where did you have in mind?”  I wasn’t yet ready to go home.

Shaun merely shrugged. “Somewhere, anywhere, nowhere…Who cares?”

We ended up in Forty Acres Wood. By accident or design, I never knew. Well over the speed limit, we tore through a deserted town centre, regimented suburbs, and leafy outskirts. Token chestnut trees between cheerless, fluorescent street lamps gave way to sprawling patches of green gradually assuming a finer density and character. Road and street surrendered to lane and dirt track as we kept company with oak and birch, larch and sycamore, all asleep. Finally, we slithered to a halt beside Caitlin’s Pond.

My favourite among many tales told about Caitlin was that she had been the daughter of a travelling gypsy family who fell in love with the landowner’s only son. Their affair blossomed, in spite of fierce opposition on all sides. It’s said they spent many happy times sitting by the pond. Then the youth fell ill with a fever. No one believed he could survive. His distraught father blamed Caitlin and, led by a mob of townsfolk, had her burnt at the stake for a witch. The young man recovered, eventually married well and was revered for leading an exemplary life. No one heard him speak Caitlin’s name again. Nor was he ever seen to visit the pond. Even so, it was there they found him on the day he died after a heart attack at a ripe old age.

Shaun and I sat on a gnarled tree trunk so old that Caitlin and her lover may well have done the same long ago.

It was just like the old days. When Shaun and I were kids, we would often sneak out on summer nights to go stargazing from the roof of a shed in my grandfather’s allotment, armed with a pocket book on the constellation and sustained by liquorice all-sorts and lemonade. My parents and Paul never knew about these outings nor had Nancy as far as I knew. It had been our secret and remained something of an in-joke between us. I hadn’t even mentioned it to Billy. It struck me now, in that leafy moonlight beside Caitlin’s Pond, how much I had missed Shaun’s friendship as he proceeded to confide plans to marry Lou Simmons.

“I love Louise,” he said simply. I never heard him call her Lou.

“Good luck to you both,” I said and meant it.

“Will you be my best man? Billy said he would, but…”

In spite of a dark shadow that had fallen across his face, I could see he was in earnest. I was simultaneously gobsmacked and flattered. Yet, filling Billy’s shoes…How could I do that?  Even so, I had the feeling Billy would have approved. Whatever my misgivings, and in spite of butterflies in my tummy, an almost forgotten light-heartedness washed over me. “You bet!” I grinned if a trifle sheepishly and we shook hands on it.

An owl swooped low and hooted. We both nearly jumped out of our skins, laughing to cover our embarassment. We watched the bird glide low and gracefully across the pond after briefly casting a giant shadow across the moon. Idly, I sought out Cassiopeia and then, nearby, the star I had chosen for mine and Billy’s own.  At the same time, I was amazed to realize that I’d done so spontaneously, without having to prepare myself for after-shock.  “I miss Billy,” I said aloud.

“Me too,” Shaun sighed. He didn’t seem surprised and asked no questions.

I began to hurt again. For a fleeting moment, I was tempted to tell Shaun about Billy and me. It had crossed my mind that he knew already, although I doubted it.

It was my turn to sigh; so many lies, half-truths, uncertainties, hovering in the wind like the owl’s cry.

Along with that bird of prey, the moment passed. Could it be, I wondered, that it was homing in on its next meal, talons poised to strike even as we sat there?

I shivered.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Shaun, already on his feet.