A migraine pulls at the back of my head, drawing my vision into my skull. I crave sleep, but I know it will evade me. Still, I drag myself upstairs, sit on the bed heavily, but instead of lying down I slide open the bedside drawer, retrieve Denz’s number for the millionth time. It takes me forever to type the text into my phone, but in the end it is brief.
Let’s talk.
Denz replies straight away, knows it’s me even though I didn’t sign off with either of my names. By the time he arrives, the rain has begun, pounding against the pavements in hard, wet sheets. We sit inside the caff with the blinds closed, the telly off for a change. I put the kettle on, make a pot of tea and he watches me with a strange look in his eye.
It’s good to hear from you, Neef, he says as I stand at the counter with my back to him. I weren’t sure if I would. First few days I were checkin me phone every two minutes, it were sendin me mental. I nearly came here again, to t’caff, but…well, I promised I’d leave you alone until I heard otherwise. I weren’t gonna go back on that.
Denz’s voice, the shape of his words, hasn’t changed, and the warmth of it chills me. For years I’ve tried to shake off my accent, the certain melodies and intonations. But listening to him, I can hear it rising up in me again. That familiarity, that terrifying comfort. He has been talking fast, too fast, but now he pauses, hesitates.
I’ve been away in fact. Had to get out of here, only got back last night. I been up north.
I turn to look at him and our eyes meet.
To see me daughter.
At the mention of her, my breath catches in my throat. Nia? I hear myself say, although my voice doesn’t sound quite right.
He nods. Yeah.
Slowly I walk over to the table, pull out the chair across from him. Do you have a picture of her?
Denz looks at me warily, his lips moving ever so slightly as though he is about to say something. But then he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket, scrolls his thumb across the screen and passes it to me. I rest my chin in my hands, the nerve in my temple pulsing against the pads of my fingers as I look down at the young girl staring back at me, her arms wrapped around Denz’s neck, her cheek resting on his shoulder. How well I once knew the set of that jaw, the curve of those cheekbones, the clear, dark depth of those eyes.
She’s not a baby anymore, I say, pushing the phone back toward Denz.
He nods. Sixteen this summer. All grown-up.
She live in Leeds?
Denz keeps his eyes on the screen. Yeah. Yeah, she does.
I want to know more, but I don’t know if I’m ready. The silence between us feels loaded, the sound of the clock ticking on the wall like a grenade. What’s she like? I ask at last.
The corners of his mouth turn up as he thinks over my question. She’s tall, he says. Plays basketball for the school. Mad on sport. That and not much else. Never got into ballet, like a lot of the girls in her class. Her mum took her once when Nia were about three. She wouldn’t even go in t’door. Insisted we took her to karate instead.
Denz picks up the phone, puts it in his pocket. Her and Danny look so alike, man, it’s mad, he says, his eyes clouding. But they’re different. With Nia, what you see is what you get—you can take one look at her face and know everythin she’s thinkin. But with Danny, everythin runs so deep.
There is a piece of loose skin around my bitten-down thumbnail and I pick at it with my fingers, before bringing it up to my mouth, pulling at it with my teeth. Denz watches me.
He never changed, y’know. Danny. All he ever wanted to do were learn. When he were small he’d sit and listen to me teach him about all sorts, and he’d remember it too. Head like a bloody encyclopedia, that kid. But in the end, there were nowt I could tell him that he didn’t already know. Plants, history, geography—
What about her mam? I say, cutting Denz off. Nia’s mam? You still with her?
Denz makes a face, half smile, half grimace, shakes his head. Didn’t work out. I’ve given up on women. I can never make it work.
Because of Kim.
Kim?
Because you never got over Kim. That’s why you couldn’t make it work with anyone else.
For a moment Denz is still, then he leans back, rubbing his hands over his face. Kim were years ago, Jen. I were a kid—we were kids.
Doesn’t mean you didn’t love her, just because you were kids.
No. No, it don’t. But it don’t mean I never moved on, either. I ain’t hung me whole life up on a relationship I had when I were sixteen years old. Life int like that. You get over it, you move on. That’s what I never understood with you and Danny, see, he says, the tone of his voice harder now. Why the fuck couldn’t you move on?
I pull at the loose skin, peeling away a thin white strip that curls down the length of my nailbed, a bead of blood springing up from the rawness underneath.
What d’you think I’ve been trying to do all these years, Denz?
He looks at me then as though realizing something, shakes his head, angry with himself. Sorry. Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Me temper gets the better of me, Danny used to tell me that all the time.
He pauses, takes a breath before speaking again.
And that’s why I’m here, why I wanted to talk to you, Neef. Jen. See, no one ever understood Danny like you did. I know it were a long time ago, I know you’ve built a different life for yourself…Denz trails off, looks at me questioningly.
What?
Well, have you? Built a life? I dunno. Do you have…friends? A partner?
That’s none of your business.
No, I didn’t mean—sorry, I just…He is embarrassed, tries again. Your woman that runs this place seems nice. Her and the Indian fella.
He’s Iranian.
Right. Yeah. He nods awkwardly. And they look after you? They see that you’re okay?
I’m a grown woman, Denz.
I know, yeah. I know.
But it would make you feel better, wouldn’t it? If you knew I had someone looking out for me. Am I right?
Well…yeah, I mean—
Because it wasn’t only Danny you took from me, was it?
Denz holds my gaze but he doesn’t speak, and I see the guilt there in his eyes, know I am in control.
You want me to talk to you. But why should I tell you anything when there’s still so much you’ve kept from me?
What you gettin at, Neef?
The air stills as I stare at him, the question I’ve been wanting him to answer for all these years burning the tip of my tongue. Tell me what happened to my mam.
He shifts in his seat, his eyes sliding from mine. When he looks back at me, he is the old Denz again. Guarded, disdainful. A cut above me and everyone else. What is it you want to know?
Were you in love with her?
Silence.
Well? I push.
Well, what?
You were sleeping with Chrissy, weren’t you? I say slowly, trying to keep my anger in check.
Denz glances at the door as though readying himself to leave. I’m not here to talk about Chrissy.
I shake my head in disbelief. It’s all one and the same, Denz, can you not see that? Kim. Chrissy. Danny. How can we talk, how can I talk to you if—
Fine, he says, shrugging. Yeah. Me and Chrissy had…a thing.
A “thing”?
Yeah. For a bit. She were a good-lookin girl, you know that.
Heat courses through me and I press my nails into the flesh of my palms beneath the table. Chrissy was a drug addict, I say quietly.
Denz frowns. Yeah?
You know she was. And you always said you hated drugs.
I did. I do.
So why her?
For the briefest of moments, it feels as though at last Denz will help me to understand. But just as quickly, it passes.
Like I said. He shrugs. It were nowt more than a thing.
I know what he is doing. He is trying to make me believe Chrissy never mattered, that we were all so much better off without her. I want to bring my fist down on the table, slam it hard. But I will not give him the satisfaction and instead I take a breath. Fine, I say. If you won’t tell me about my mam, tell me about Danny’s. Tell me about Kim. The party you took her to. How she died.
A look comes across him then that is sad and regretful and angry, all at once, and I know I have got him now. I know he feels things too. Denz wipes his palms down the length of his face as if to rid himself of his thoughts. I aren’t gonna talk about that, Neef. Let it go.
He scrapes his chair back, pauses for a moment before walking to the door. The bell overhead jangles as it closes behind him, and I have the urge to throw something at it. Our every interaction is futile, a never-ending circle, and I am sick of it, the back and forth, the tug-of-war over history’s secrets, the invasion of my life. Only Denz could expect so much from someone and give so little in return.
I walk toward the cupboard under the stairs where Fionnoula keeps the old vacuum cleaner, drag the heavy contraption from its depths with a clatter and shove the plug into the socket. My hand shakes as the machine whirs to life, but still there is not enough noise and so I switch on the radio, the telly too. Turn the volume up, up, up. Sink down with my back against the wall, drowning in the noise, the din, the roar. Too loud to hear myself think.