12
Looking rather surprised, Kyle stepped inside—staring hard at my face. “I thought you said Bane didn’t hit you?” he demanded at once.
“You asked if Bane was hitting me. He’s not hitting me. He hit me, once. One single time. Now come and sit down so we can talk properly, please?” I slipped the safety catch on and stuffed the nonLee in my pocket, then turned back to Bane. Oh dear, he wouldn’t mind me letting Kyle in, would he? He was still sitting right there on the sofa, groping for his stick, looking lost and almost…afraid? Having Kyle there to confront him was probably a bit too like having my parents there.
“I have absolutely no wish to sit down with a wife-beater!” snapped Kyle. I glanced back at him. Uh oh. His face had darkened with rare anger. “He shouldn’t even be in the same room with you!”
“He is not a wife-beater!” I snarled.
Kyle caught my shoulders, his eyes wide and voice intense. “Margo, you’re clearly completely in denial about his behavior. I suppose that’s natural, but we’ve got to get you some help, because it’s very important you understand that the way he’s been treating you is totally—”
“Wife-beater?” said Bane hoarsely, his face pale. “Is that what they’re saying about me? Is that what everyone thinks?”
“From what Antonio says—and by the look of Margo’s face—they have every reason to think that!” Kyle retorted.
Bane flinched—his face crumpled. “Oh, God. Oh God.” He slumped forward and buried his face in his knees. “I wish I was dead,” he moaned.
Terror gripped my belly like a tiger’s jaws; the world spun as though the tiger was shaking me. “Look at what you’ve done!” I pulled free of Kyle and ran to Bane. “I don’t care what you—or anyone—says!” I put my hands protectively on Bane’s shoulders and faced Kyle. “He’s my husband. We’re married. We’re one flesh! So if you’re trying to force me to choose between you and him, I’m choosing him!”
Kyle lowered his voice, looking at me. “Margo, I don’t blame you for wanting to be loyal. But you’re only nineteen, and maybe you’re just not mature enough to realize—”
“Mature enough? You’re only two years older than me!” I yelled, losing it entirely. “And if you think I’m just a starry-eyed child with a crush you obviously don’t know me at all! And you think Bane’s a wife-beater? Clearly you don’t know him either!”
“You know our parents always had reservations about you two getting married. Mum spoke to you about it before, and I raised the subject again before your wedding, but you wouldn’t listen—”
“What?” Bane was rigid with shock. “You never told me. I thought—”
“You thought they loved you like you were their own son,” I said quickly. “And they do, Bane! Kyle’s making it sound worse than it is. Somehow the minor fact that you risked your life to save me—and hundreds of others!—from certain death has slipped his mind!” How could I ever forgive Kyle for revealing this to Bane?
“Bane did rescue you,” said Kyle, letting out a long, calming breath in a clear attempt to regain his usual even temper. “And of course I’m grateful. But that doesn’t mean he’s the right husband for you. Mum and Dad never thought that.”
My heart twisted inside me, yet again. “And who would be the right husband for me, tell me that? Bane rescued me from the Facility, saved me from Dismantlement—Conscious Dismantlement, mind you!—carried me half-way across Europe, never once pushed me to go further than my faith allows, then set about rescuing thousands of…well, do I really need to go on! Just who would satisfy you? So he sacrificed his eyes to save us all, and he’s finding it difficult to adjust. Wouldn’t you? What sort of wife would I be if I abandoned him just when he needs me?”
“That’s irrelevant!” said Kyle. He took hold of my hand, anguish flicking through his eyes as he glanced at Bane. “It doesn’t change how he’s behaving now, don’t you see? In light of everything he’s done for you, I’m not demanding that you charge him if you don’t want to, Margo, but it’s quite clear that he’s a danger to you. You cannot spend another night with him until he’s had some serious psychiatric help, at the very least.”
I yanked my hand free. “You can’t be serious!”
“I’m quite serious, Margo.” Face resolute, he grabbed my wrist and started towing me towards the door. “Just come with me, now—”
I twisted free, and I’d had far too much experience in the last year with my inability to fight bigger, stronger men hand-to-hand that when he reached for me again I snatched out the nonLee at once. “Get away from me and get out.” When he hesitated, I snapped off the safety catch. “Get out of our home right now and leave us alone!”
Hurt flashed across Kyle’s face—swiftly buried by fury. “Margo, put that down—”
“GET OUT OF OUR HOME!” I yelled. “Get out before I shoot you and drag your body out the door and never let you in again until you start acting like a Believer! GET OUT!”
Another voice broke in suddenly, a voice shockingly calm. “Margo, it’s all right.” Bane turned his face towards my furious brother and his voice went a bit fiercer. “Would you please leave? Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?”
Upsetting me? Upsetting me? What he’d just done to Bane! Why wouldn’t he leave?
Before I could speak, Bane went on, “You really should leave, Kyle: I think you both need to calm down. There’ll be a better time to talk.”
“Better time?” I yelled. “I never want to see him ever again!”
“Margo, love, put down the gun. You know it’s for assassins, not relatives,” said Bane quietly. “If he won’t go, just pick up the phone and have the guard come and remove him.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Kyle looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“I would,” said Bane coolly. “Margo, hand me the phone, and I’ll do it.”
Kyle moved as though to launch himself at Bane, and I leveled the nonLee hastily. Kyle jerked to a halt, staring at us both, chest heaving…then he abruptly swung on his heel and strode out of the apartment. I leapt to the door and slammed it. Hard. “I mean it!” I yelled through the crack. “I never want to see you again!”
I dropped the gun and crumpled to the floor. My heart felt as though it was breaking. So much for little Miss Forgiveness. When someone really hurt me, like now, could I forgive? No. I just screamed horrible things. I was such a colossal hypocrite.
Then Bane was there, gathering me into his arms and soothing me. It was so long since he’d comforted me like this that I just cried even harder.
“How could he?” I sniffed. “How could he behave like that? I thought…I thought if we just sat down and talked, it would all be okay…like with Jon! But he just wouldn’t listen! And he tried to take me away from you. How could he do that! And now… Have I driven him away for good?”
Bane didn’t say anything, but I felt a couple of tears trickle through my hair and touch my scalp.
“Are you ok?” I asked anxiously.
“I’m fine, Margo.”
“What…what happened to you?” I asked, once my heart was beating a little slower. “One moment you were…well, down, and the next…you were there, you were…wonderful.”
He rested his forehead against mine. “I suppose…when you went for him like that…I believed that it's true. You really do want me. You do still need me. I’ve been an idiot to think otherwise.”
Bane held me close for a while, before finally drawing away slightly. “You never told me that your mum…said that to you.”
No need to ask which ‘that’ he meant. “Bane, it wasn’t that they didn’t care about you, it was just—”
“They were worried I’d hurt you,” he said flatly. “They were right, weren’t they?”
“We’ve got the rest of our lives to prove them wrong, Bane.”
“Right. And we will. Did you…say you have a list?”
I stared at him, not daring, just now when somehow miraculously everything was all right, to risk a misunderstanding. “Um…list?”
“The list of…shrinks.”
“Um. Yes, yes I do.”
“Well, d’you want to get it so we can have a…” The usual pause as he sought a sight-free alternative phrase—and failed, in this case. “Oh, so you can look and I can listen?”
“Yep. Okay.” I hurried to get the well-thumbed piece of paper from beside the phone, heart pounding. He wanted to…hear…the list! Despite my seesawing heartbreak and anger about Kyle, joy bubbled up inside.
“Are you, um, thinking about speaking to one of them?” I asked casually, as I joined him on the sofa. Please, please, please Lord?
He nodded. “You’re dead set on keeping me, so I have to make sure I’m safe to be around you. ’Cause I swear, Margo, if I did that again I’d…I’d chew through my blasted wrists, if that’s what it took.”
I clutched him suddenly. “No!”
He found my head and kissed it. “Well, anyway, we need to prove it to your parents, don’t we? And Kyle.”
“Who cares about Kyle?” I snapped. “After the way he just behaved?” I felt flayed inside.
“I still care,” said Bane softly, squeezing my hand. “If only because I know you do really. So let’s go through the list, hmm?”
1 month, 5 days
Well, at least you’re honest about it. After reading your arguments, that’s the one and only positive thing I can say.
Margaret Verrall—comment on ‘An Unashamedly Selfish Defense of Sorting’
“And in the end we asked Unicorn—you know, the polite British guy with the blue eyes who saved me by chucking stuff at that assassin—which counselors had the highest security clearance, and that cut the list down to just three names, so we simply put the names into a bowl, and I said a prayer, and Bane pulled one out!” I told Lucas. “I’d like to say it was proof of his faith in the power of prayer, but the alternative was to meet with more than one and then choose, which was not his idea of an easier option!
“Anyway, she’s a trained counselor, Bane spoke to her on the phone yesterday and we’re going to see her this afternoon. I’m really hoping it goes well.”
Lucas made a series of gestures I interpreted with no difficulty whatsoever to mean he was pleased for us and hoped it went well too. But…no one else would’ve got all that, would they?
“Out loud, Lucas?”
He gave me a puzzled look and signed, you understood.
“Yes, I did, but no one else would. You’ve got to use words, Lucas. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not being mean.”
Why, he signed.
“Because no one else will understand what you are saying.”
He made a gesture I’d never seen before, but which was perfectly eloquent. I don’t care.
I started to frame arguments about the long-term and his future well-being, then thought better of it. “I care,” I said simply.
His brow creased slightly. Kind of scary how important my opinion was to him. If I begged him to leap out the window he’d probably do it unhesitatingly.
“Why?” he asked. Out loud. In Latin. He was getting pretty good at the language. Half the time I forgot to speak to him in English. Fairly sure he was using the bilingual Office book as a Latin textbook.
“Because I care what happens to you. And everything will be so much easier and nicer for you if you’re prepared to speak to people.”
The idea of speaking to other people made his eyes widen. Before I could reply, there was a knock at the door.
“You should answer the door. It’s your room,” I told him, when he looked at me.
It was his room. He’d literally just today moved from the hospital to this pleasant, south-facing room, with a private bathroom and a little kitchenette. Just right for Lucas. Even more perfectly, it had wide windowsills for lots of plants, and a little balcony for even more. It was in the most secure section of the high security block in which Bane and I also lived, as befitted a recovering madman—safe from others and hopefully from himself too. Though if he wanted to get out, it would probably be next to impossible to stop him. It wasn’t more secure than the EuroBloc detention facility he’d vanished from!
Reluctantly, Lucas went to the door and opened it.
“Oh, hello Mr Everington.” It was Eduardo, with a networkAccessor in his hand, here to check the newly-fitted camera was functioning correctly. “Hello, Margaret,” Eduardo went on. “Is this room all right for you, Mr. Everington? Margaret picked it out for you.”
The room wasn’t that large, despite the private facilities, but the solid old bed had drawers built in underneath it and there was space for a little table and a couple of soft chairs.
Surprise, surprise, Lucas ignored Eduardo, skittering over to the window to inspect the new array of plants there.
“Where did all those come from?” asked Eduardo.
“Various windows between here and the hospital,” I said guiltily. Lucas had collected them as we went along, until I made him stop “D’you think I should take them back?”
Lucas flinched slightly.
“I wouldn’t worry,” said Eduardo. “We may not have quite the huge Vatican gardens of old, but there are plenty more where those came from. I take it he’s happy, anyway.”
“Lucas,” I said firmly, remembering Eduardo’s question. “Eduardo asked you if you’re happy with the room?”
He eyed me sideways, clearly remembering the whole ‘out loud’ conversation, but only managed a nod—very slightly in Eduardo’s direction, good enough.
“Okay then,” said Eduardo. “Sorry about the camera, Mr. Everington, but it’s as much for your security as anything.”
So far no one with a grudge against the EuroBloc Genetics Department had done anything more than mutter and moan and bend Pope Cornelius’s ear but some people’s grievances were very real and very raw. Tens of thousands of children had been murdered in EGD facilities, including relatives of some living here.
No response from Lucas.
“Margaret, I need to have a word,” said Eduardo.
“Okay. Lucas? This is the clothes trolley I mentioned. Pick out some things you like, then wheel it back out the door and someone will take it away, okay? And later on they’ll be bringing around a food trolley with milk and things for your kitchen. I’d better get home after speaking to Eduardo. Arranging this room has taken a bit of time, so I’ll see you tomorrow. There’s a phone there—it won’t bite you!—and my number’s on the pad beside it, so call me if you need anything, okay? I’m just one floor up.”
Lucas dragged his attention away from one of his new plants long enough to shoot me a look. “Yes,” he said after a moment.
“Good. Okay, bye, then.”
I followed Eduardo out into the passage—a little nervously.
“Is everything all right now, Margaret?” he asked.
“Yes, it is. And I’m not just saying that.”
“But not with Kyle,” he said.
“No, not with him,” I admitted. Every time I thought about Kyle, I wanted to cry or throw things.
On the plus side, clearly Jon and Unicorn had been quick to update Eduardo about the misunderstanding. Thank goodness. And it was beginning to look like Antonio had only told Kyle—genuinely concerned, rather than gossiping?—and Kyle had passed on the edited version to Jon and his flatmates—but only to them.
“A nasty business,” went on Eduardo. “I wish I had known. But I hear Bane’s doing better?”
“Much better. And we’re going to see Karen North this afternoon.”
Eduardo’s eyes widened the tiniest fraction. I wasn’t exactly planning on spreading it around that Bane was seeing someone, but Eduardo—well, it was worth telling him. He looked more relaxed already. “That is good news. My respect for that young man has just risen several more notches. I hope it goes well.”
“Thank you. I’m very proud of him too.”
“Hello, I’m Karen, you must be Bane.” The slim, neat lady shook Bane’s hand and turned to me. “And you’re Margaret, of course!”
“I am.” I shook her hand. Nice that she spoke to Bane first. So many people treated him as an appendage of me now he was blind. “Come in, and please sit down.” She gestured inside the office so I led Bane in. From the look of the room, she was here in the State as an administrator of some kind, not as a counselor, but she still did counseling on the side, as a ministry.
She made instant coffee using a kettle in the corner—she was definitely from the British department of the EuroBloc—then brought her own chair out from behind the desk, no doubt trying to avoid the interview/interrogation feeling. She made polite conversation for a few minutes as we sipped our mugfuls—my blog, the Liberations, the vote… Bane was soon shifting restively. Wanting to get it over with.
“So,” she said at last. “If I understood correctly, Bane, you’re looking for some general counseling for stress and more specifically for anger management, and for a touch of bereavement-related guilt, yes?”
“Yes,” muttered Bane.
“Well, you’ll be glad to hear that pretty much the most important step in just about any problem of this kind is to admit the problem is there and to seek help. It’s also the most difficult step and very many people don’t have the courage to take it. So you’ll be glad to hear, in a sense the worst is over!”
“Yes, thank you for the pep talk,” said Bane, rather cuttingly. “Moving on?”
Karen just smiled slightly. “Moving on. There’s no magic cure for problems like this; that’s the next thing I have to make sure you understand. You have to be honest with me, you have to work at any exercises I set you, but above all, you have to carry on wanting to change with all your heart.”
“Wasn’t expecting you to snap your fingers.”
“That’s all right, then. Well, let’s start with some general questions. You and Margaret grew up together, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been in love a long time?”
“Haven’t you read Margo’s book?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
Getting him used to answering her questions, wasn’t she?
“Fine, yes, a long time.”
“And how would you describe your relationship with your wife?”
“Relationship?” Bane looked appalled, as though afraid a wrong answer might get me taken away from him. His arm slipped around me convulsively, and his other hand clutched mine, so I squeezed back. “I love her!”
“Yes, I’d gathered that. Could you enlarge at all? Do you…trust each other?”
“Yes. Well…I trust her.”
“And I trust you,” I told him. And I want so much to tell you about our baby. Kept waiting for the right time.
“No jealousy?” put in Karen.
“No!” After a long hesitation, Bane muttered, “Yes. But not the kind that has anything to do with my head thinking she’d ever….just the stupid feelings that have more to do with…with my blinking insecurity!”
Karen raised her eyebrows. “Well, I can’t fault your self-awareness on that one.”
Bane said nothing, face turned down. I wrapped my arm more securely around him.
“So,” went on Karen, “tell me about your relationship with your parents.”
“We don’t need to talk about that!”
“Looks like we do.”