Christmas comes and goes in the same strange way as the evening at The Mansion. The whole thing is like a game. We haven’t got used to being this new Family-Without-Sam yet, and even though Christmases with him in them were never good, now he’s gone it’s worse, but we manage. We sit together on the sofa, with Mum leaning back against Dad, who keeps turning his head to look at me and draw me in. His glance is like a break of sunlight when spring is coming and the patches of ice begin to melt and flow whether they want to or not. After a time they can’t help themselves and run freely – down through the earth and onward to the sea.
I see Joe and Raven a couple of times. One night we sit freezing on a bench by the sea and drink cider until we all feel pukey. Tonight we’ve gone to a pub that’s so full of people I can lift both feet off the floor and still stay upright. Often, when I look up, Joe’s eyes are distant, staring far away, somewhere in his own head. Raven squeezes my hand and smiles, and we leave him alone, glad he’s at least there physically. I concentrate on our warmth and closeness and try not to think where Banks might be. I hope he’s in the warm somewhere like he promised, sitting with the other alkies and dossers over dinner, getting a present to take away afterwards. I have an image of him sitting with a lot of broken old men in paper hats, mumbling over carols and the afternoon film. Then I stop thinking altogether. After all, he’s not really like them – he’s only young; he won’t be like this for ever. I turn into a bear, hibernating in my room until spring; waiting for time to turn things green again.
At last, the holidays end; Dad goes back to work and Mum opens the shop door to pick up any passing trade while she cleans the place out. Cold air floods in through the French windows and she hauls bits of furniture and glass lamps out onto the terrace. I could help her clean them but I don’t. Instead I go out, flipping up the hood of my coat and texting Joe to see if he’s free. When he doesn’t answer, I ring him.
‘Hey, Coo … how’s it been?’
‘Oh, you know. How’s it been with your dad and that?’
‘Not good. Being trapped in the house with him and all… look, I can’t really talk.’
‘Oh? Okay then. I was just wondering if—’
‘Actually I’m with someone – gotta go.’ And just like that he’s gone. I snap the phone shut, feeling angry. That’s what people are like. As long as they have nothing better to do, they’re all over you. As soon as something better comes along, they don’t want to know.
I walk quickly past houses full of people, then make my way through the crush of shoppers and buy a pasty. I carry it against me like a pot of warm coals, walking as fast as I can along the dingy rails of the Volks Railway. By the time I get down to the bottom, the pasty’s stopped steaming but is still warm inside. I’m so glad to see Banks up ahead that I’d run if I didn’t think I’d look too keen.
He turns and sees me, and I can tell he’s pleased. He slows his step and lets me catch up, and when I show him the pasty he doesn’t even pretend he’s not hungry. He takes it like a kid – tearing open the paper; the hot smell lifting into the air and making my mouth water. It’s a chill day, with a sky as white as the inside of an egg. I look behind and see no one, but I stopped being worried a long time ago. Nothing will happen to me with Banks around. He wouldn’t let it.
He looks up from the food, still chewing. ‘I need to sit down,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to come.’
I wonder if he’s trying to tell me to go, but if so he’s out of luck. I follow him into the old building and don’t even blink when I see the old man. He’s standing in the open entryway, scratching his beard. His face is a network of red veins. He scowls at us as we come in and shuffles into the side room, where we hear him rattling about and muttering. Banks stares into the doorway, head cocked on one side, his eyes wide in their frame of long lashes. We sit down on two broken car seat cushions and he gives a big sigh.
‘He’s not well,’ he says, cocking his head towards the sounds.
‘I’m not surprised,’ I say.
‘I’m going to be like that, if I live that long.’
‘Banks! You won’t. You’re going to stop drinking. You’ll get better.’
‘Why will I?’
I don’t know what to say and we sit in silence. All I can see are his hands resting on his knees, and a tear in his jeans where the top of his leg shows through. I imagine him for a second standing in a shower getting ready for work, his wife nearby with the baby. Maybe they even shower together, perhaps they— Banks coughs and I jerk back to the present, glad he can’t tell what I’m thinking.
‘I could help you get better,’ I insist. ‘My parents would help. Once, they wanted to pay for Sam to go into one of those places, you know – a drying out place. Would you do that?’
He says nothing, and when I look round his head is down and he’s laughing silently into his lap. His scorn burns me like a scald.
‘What do you want, Coo?’ he says. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’ve tried too many times.’
‘No, Banks, you haven’t. I know how you feel. Like, some days I feel I can’t do anything, but people are nice and they help me. Why not you?’
He lifts his head and his eyes flash with anger, but then he looks down again, biting it back. ‘Coo,’ he says, very gently, ‘you’re a sweet girl, but you don’ know what you’re talking about. You make it sound as simple as turning up at school, and you can’t even do that.’
I don’t know what to say.
‘Worry about yourself,’ he’s saying. ‘What’s going to happen to you? What are you going to do with yourself in some bum job ’cos you got no exams? You’re too smart for that; you’ll be sorry. I know you will.’ He flips his hand at me as if he’s fed up.
‘I just want…’ I start to say, and then stop.
‘You just want what?’ says Banks, and I look at him – at his nice face and his eyes, which are narrowed at me – and I’m scared.
‘I want you… not to die.’
He stares at me, and then his shoulders slump and he lets out a breath. Taking my fingers, he holds them a second, then tips his head back and seems to go to sleep. ‘I’m not Sam,’ he whispers, ‘and I’m no good for you. You need to get home now. I got things to do.’
When I reach home I feel shaky. The door to the shop is closed, the lights out, and though I can smell something nice from the oven, Mum’s not there. There’s that strange sense of silence in a house when you know there’s someone in it. I creep up the stairs in my socks, watching my hand slide slowly up the banister, tracking the flight of dust motes circling in a beam of unexpected sunlight from the window. As I rise I see the tap in the bathroom dripping into the sink and a pound coin lodged between the carpet and the wall. Then, up ahead, there’s a sound. The door to Sam’s room is ajar and soft noises come from inside. At first I stand there like a ghost, my breath loud, and then I push the door wide and there is Mum, looking at me as if it’s no surprise I’m there.
She’s sitting on Sam’s bed – eyes red, hands clutching a tissue. She says nothing but just stares at me, too far gone to pretend there’s nothing wrong. I look at her and feel only anger: the childish, enraged anger of a little girl screaming because someone else got the big balloon. The anger that means I can’t be kind; the anger that’s there because nobody knows what happened to me and nobody seems to care. It’s all over and Sam is slowly being turned into the saint he never was and I refuse to worship at the shrine. It rails at me, reminding me of all the hurts and slights, the disappointments and resentments. It whispers in a creaky, urgent little voice, desperate to make me stop and turn away, or run to my room and slam the door.
Instead, I hear my own voice saying ‘Hey. Hey Mum…’ and then I’m next to her. Her face crumples with relief and she flings her arms round me and pulls me onto the bed. We cling together while her body shakes with sobs. Big, heavy tears roll down her face and my hands twist into fists behind her back, screwing the anger out like water. I wonder what she would do if she knew that I was there that night, but I say nothing. We sit until the room darkens, and only when we can no longer see clearly do we get up and go, closing the door behind us.
For the rest of the evening, Mum and I tiptoe round each other without talking. I feel tremendously tired, and about nine o’clock I go to bed. This time, when Mum puts her hand out to me I take it – just for a second. I wait for the familiar feeling to come, but it doesn’t. Instead of anger there’s nothing at all, like I left it on a bus or down by the sea. I get a glass of water and go upstairs, wondering if it will come back and what I might do if it doesn’t.
The door to Sam’s room is shut again, but I feel no need to go inside. It’s only a room, empty of everything but what I might bring into it. Instead I lie in bed and listen to the rain that peppers the window like flung gravel, wondering where Banks is, and whether he’s warm.