Los Angeles, 1970–71
IT REALLY WAS only a little lump. Lee, feeling it again and again, morning after morning, convincing herself it had grown no bigger, promised herself that next time she had to see the doctor about anything important, she would just mention it and then he could assure her it was nothing, and then she could forget about it. She couldn’t spare either the time or the money to go about something that really was absolutely unimportant. Mr Phillips was a very busy man, and he was so extremely good about her being away when she had to take Miles to the dentist or watch him play baseball, or go and see his teacher for one of the interminable chats about his outstanding abilities and his equally outstanding laziness. Just thinking about Miles and his laziness made Lee feel tired and limp herself. Not that she would call it laziness, exactly; more an absolute refusal to put his mind to anything that did not engage it. He had not been known to write an essay more than one page long, he never read anything more challenging than the sports pages in the newspapers and the Little League Newsletter, he regarded history with contempt and science with amusement; he gave the occasional nod in the direction of languages and had a gift for mimicry that made his accent in both Spanish and French virtually flawless; but when it came to maths he set himself to his books and his homework with a ferocious determination, he was always not only top of the class but top by a very long way, and had rarely been known to get a mark lower than ninety per cent, grade less than A, and for some reason he also worked very hard at geography. When pressed by his mother as to the reason he would fix her with his dancing, slightly insolent dark blue eyes and say, ‘There’s a point to it.’
‘Yes, but Miles, there’s also a point to being able to string more than three sentences together on a page,’ Lee would say.
‘Not really,’ he would say, ‘what’s the telephone for?’
‘But Miles, you have to write letters in business and things like that.’
‘Mom, I don’t intend to go into business. Not the kind that needs letters writing anyway.’
After a few more protests, Lee would give up, too tired, too busy, too weary of the battle to pursue it any longer.
She was very often – more and more frequently, in fact – very tired. She found looking after Miles, trying to bring him up on her own, and earning a living for them both and keeping the house nice, extremely demanding. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day.
They had stayed in the house purely on the strength of Hugo’s generosity. She had hated taking money from him, but there had been simply no one else to turn to. Dean’s life insurance had been useless, since he had committed suicide, and she and Miles would have been destitute. Had there been no Miles she would have slept on the beach gladly, along with the other vagrants, rather than ask Hugo for a dime, but there was Miles, and now that Dean had died she had dared to delve into her subconscious and acknowledge that not only was Miles a burden she could and should lay on Hugo, but the responsibility for Dean’s death stood at least in some part at his door as well.
She had hated telling him, hated contacting him, but she had felt, in her unutterable grief and guilt and loneliness, driven to him; it was the first time in ten years she had ever dialled the number in New York, and even then she had rung off three times as the phone was answered before asking for him.
And then he had not been there; the woman had said she would take a message, but she didn’t know when he would get it, and then when Lee said it was very very urgent, and was he in England, the woman had said grudgingly, well, she could pass on the message to another number, in New York, but she couldn’t give the number to Lee.
‘Please,’ said Lee desperately, ‘please give it to me, I am an old friend,’ (urging the words out of herself with huge, terrible difficulty) and the woman said she didn’t care if she was the President himself, she wasn’t allowed to give the number. ‘Well, give him a message then, please – please,’ said Lee.
‘OK, OK,’ said the woman, and Lee could hear her raising her eyebrows and shifting impatiently on her chair. ‘I said I would. What’ll I say?’
‘Oh,’ said Lee, ‘say just could Hugo Dashwood please call Lee Wilburn urgently.’ And she put the phone down feeling more alone than ever, sure that Hugo must be thousands of miles away in England with Alice and that even if he wasn’t he would make little effort to help her. And indeed why should he, she reflected, when she had been so persistently hostile, so harsh to him for the past ten years, refusing him any kind of friendliness, crushing his overtures to Miles, blocking his access to the heart of her family.
But she was wrong, and he did; he was with her in twenty-four hours, gentle, supportive, comforting. He booked into a hotel (to confound the gossips) and visited her daily. He helped her with the funeral arrangements, he sorted through her papers, he checked on her financial affairs.
‘You’re going to need help, Lee,’ he said on the third day, looking up from a sheaf of papers. ‘Dean has left virtually nothing. There’s a small pension. That’s all.’
‘So what shall I do?’ she said, fearful, tearstained, shredding Kleenex after Kleenex into her lap, looking at him in a kind of helpless panic.
‘No. I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. We’re not your responsibility, and besides, you don’t have any money.’
‘You are my responsibility, and I do have some money.’
‘But you told Dean –’
‘What?’
‘That things weren’t going well for you. That you were having a difficult time.’
‘I was lying.’
‘But why?’
‘Lee, use your common sense. Dean was not exactly a success, was he?’
‘He was too,’ she said, instinctively indignant, defending the Dean who was far beyond humiliation.
‘Well, all right,’ he said, ‘maybe he was. But not such a success as I am. I didn’t want to rub his nose in that. I was his friend. Friends don’t do that sort of thing. Bad form. In England anyway.’ He was smiling gently.
She looked at him scornfully. ‘They do other things that are bad form, I gather. Sleep with other men’s wives.’
‘Look, Lee,’ said Hugo, suddenly angry. ‘I know I did wrong. But so did you. And you’ve done precious little to let me help put it right. So just shut up. And let me do it now. You need me, Lee. Don’t drive me away.’
She looked at him, through the blur of fresh tears, and felt remorseful. It was true. He would have helped. He had done everything he could, everything she had allowed him to, keeping in touch, giving extravagant presents to Miles, making sure she was all right, all down the years.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re right. And it was mostly my fault. I shouldn’t have blamed you so much.’
‘Yes you should,’ he said, patting the seat beside him on the couch. ‘But you can stop now. Come here and let me hold you. It’s all right,’ he added as she stiffened in fearful wariness. ‘I’m not going to seduce you. I think we’ve both lived well past that. I just think you need some arms round you.’
And she had crawled into his arms, and lain there, crying for a long time, and he had stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, and soothed and gentled her, and in the end she did feel a little better.
‘Hugo, how will I ever get through this? Forgive myself? Live with knowing what I did to him?’
‘Oh,’ he said, and there was an odd expression in his eyes. ‘Time will do it for you. It is amazing what one does learn to live with. Come to terms with. Forget. No, not forget, but allow to fade. You will never get over it. Not in the way you mean. But a day will come when you will be able to remember Dean with a kind of happiness, and to know that you gave him a lot of happiness too. Don’t let yourself forget that, Lee. You made him very happy for eighteen years. That’s a long time, and it’s a lot to do for someone.’
‘But what an end to it. What a terrible, terrible end.’
‘Yes, but at least there was never any suspicion, any pain, before. That would have been much worse. Remember the coroner’s verdict. Temporarily deranged. It was very temporary. Hang on to that. Death isn’t so bad. Not when it’s over.’
She looked at him and smiled shakily. ‘How do you know? Have you been there?’
‘No. But I’ve watched people who have.’
‘When?’
‘In the war.’
‘Ah.’
‘Now then,’ he said, suddenly brisk. ‘Miles can’t stay with the Wainwrights for ever. He needs to be with you. When are you going to get him back?’
‘Not for another day or two, Hugo. I can’t cope.’
‘All right. But don’t leave it too long.’
‘How – how long can you stay?’
‘Oh, another forty-eight hours. Then I have to get back. Incidentally, Lee, I know you had to tell the coroner you were having an affair, but are you going to tell anyone else?’
‘Why?’ she said, suddenly hostile again. ‘Are you afraid you’ll get landed with it?’
‘No,’ he said with a great weariness, ‘I don’t give a damn if I get landed with it. I just want to know. So that I know what to say. To Mrs Wainwright and Sue Forrest and your nice friend Amy. I’ll go and hire a poster site if you like and write in letters three feet high: . . . “Hugo Dashwood is responsible for Dean Wilburn’s death”. . . . If that will make you feel any better. But I need to know what you want me to say. And do.’ He sighed.
Lee was filled with remorse again.
‘Hugo, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I – I guess I’m not quite myself.’
‘On the contrary,’ he said, smiling down at her and wiping a fresh rivulet of tears from her face with his handkerchief, ‘I think, on the evidence of the past ten years, you are being absolutely yourself. Your awkward, stroppy self.’
‘But I’m not usually awkward and stroppy. It’s only – only –’
‘With me?’
‘Well – yes.’ For the first time that day she smiled. He smiled back.
‘Tell you what we both need. A drink. Do you want some of that disgusting beer of yours?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Do you have any wine in the house?’
‘No. Sorry. Lots of bourbon.’
‘I hate the stuff. But it’ll do.’
He fetched them both drinks. They sat outside on the patio looking at the ocean and the pier. Lee sighed.
‘In answer to your question, Hugo, I haven’t told anyone I was having an affair, but most people have put two and two together. They’ve assumed that’s why he did it. I think I’m going to be a pretty unpopular lady.’
Hugo raised his glass. ‘To the prettiest unpopular lady I know. Don’t worry, darling. People have short memories.’
He was right. She had a bad six months, and then gradually, in the light of her blameless behaviour, the absolute lack of any kind of lover appearing in her life, her patent desire to look after Miles and bring him up well on her own, in spite of her difficulties, people forgave her whatever they imagined there was to forgive. And Hugo was right, and she did begin to remember Dean more happily and to feel she had done at least a few things right. She did not, as she had feared, go mad with remorse. And life did begin to seem a little more worth living.
She managed to get a job quite easily. She took a quick brush-up course in shorthand typing (paid for by Hugo), and very swiftly found herself working for Irving Phillips, a litigation lawyer who was building himself up a practice in Beverly Hills with impressive speed. He was only five years out of law school, but ruthlessly ambitious and riding high on California’s ever-growing wave of aggressive litigation. He had interviewed Lee and a long line of glamorous twenty-two-year-olds who were far more decorative and impressive than she was, Lee had thought despairingly as she watched the one preceding her leave his office and the one following her go into it, but he had hired her without hesitation.
‘I want someone who’s got a reason to work,’ he said to her simply, ‘someone who needs the job, and isn’t just waiting for some man to come along and keep her.’
‘You do realize,’ said Lee anxiously, emboldened into honesty by his confiding manner, ‘that I’ve got a little boy. I may have to leave early sometimes, not often, but sometimes, to watch him play in a match or a school play or something. I don’t want to come into your firm under false pretences.’
‘Lee Wilburn,’ Amy Meredith had said when she heard this, ‘you’re mad. Out of your head. You’re lucky he didn’t show you the door then and there.’
‘Well, he didn’t,’ said Lee, ‘he actually said he liked the fact I’d been so honest, and it made him feel more sure than ever he wanted to hire me. I said I’d work early, late, any time, to make up any leave I took, and I said I’d take work home, and he said, well, that was just fine.’
‘Hm!’ said Amy. ‘Sounds like you’ll be exploited if you’re not careful. Or else he’s got his eye on you for extra office activities. I don’t like the sound of it at all.’
But Amy had been wrong, and it had worked out beautifully. Lee did work very hard, and very often took work home and was at her typewriter until long after Miles was asleep at night, and even worked on Saturdays sometimes, if Miles could be taken care of; but in return Irving Phillips paid her extremely generously, and never, ever carped if she had to be away. She was valuable to him, and he knew it; she was bright enough and personable enough to run the office single-handed if he and his assistant were not there, she very swiftly picked up a working knowledge of legal terms and procedures, she never forgot a client’s name, or any detail of a case, however small, and those things were worth infinitely more to Irving Phillips than a spot-on regular five-day attendance in the office that ended at five thirty on the dot, and carried no remnant of one day’s work over to the next. And there had certainly been absolutely no suspicion ever of him wanting to do anything remotely unbusinesslike, as Amy had so darkly prophesied; there was Mrs Phillips, Mrs Sarah Phillips, who was dark and pretty and devoted to her Irving, and the two little Phillips boys, and all their photographs were all over his desk, and he called home at least twice a day, and he genuinely seemed to be just about the nicest most straightforward person anyone could wish to work for.
And then Hugo had been really good to her. Lee was amazed by how good he had been. He visited them at least every three months, sometimes more often; he had insisted on paying off the outstanding mortgage on the house, so that she lived there for nothing; he made her an allowance. ‘For Miles, not you,’ he said firmly, ‘so don’t go getting proud on me,’ and he called her at least once a week to check that everything was all right. She was intrigued to find that she felt nothing remotely sexual for him, any more, nor he apparently for her; they had become (not without some difficulty, she reflected with a wry amusement) that rarest of rare things, platonic friends. They had very little in common in most ways; he was, she knew, far more cultured, educated, sophisticated than she was, but somehow they always had a great deal to talk about, they would sit and chat for hours over dinner or walking on the beach, about anything or everything that happened to catch their attentions. Hugo told her she made him feel relaxed and easy; he said that when he was with her the stresses and pressures of his other life faded away; he felt like a different person.
‘Just as well,’ she said, teasing him, ‘otherwise you might start feeling guilty or confused.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘not with you. I never feel anything bad with you. I just feel peaceful and happy.’
She felt that was nice; something she could give him in return for all he did for her. She still knew amazingly little about him (mostly because she hardly ever asked, and he was not unnaturally unwilling to talk about his other life); he said he was absolutely certain that Alice suspected nothing, that she was very busy with her own life as a teacher, and bringing up the little boys, and she was used to him being away a lot, he always had been. Lee had once, driven by a mixture of desperate curiosity and something strangely akin to jealousy, asked him to tell her exactly what Alice was like, what she looked like, and the sort of person she was, and he had been angry, in a quiet, white-lipped way, and told her not to be destructive and stupid, and that Alice was no concern of hers; she had apologized at once, and later he had too, and said that he could see it must be tantalizing for her, but that it really was better that she knew as little as possible, and she had agreed and said again she was sorry, and that had been the last time they had ever talked about it, and almost the last time Lee had ever seriously thought about it. In the early days she had spent a lot of time thinking about Alice, imagining how beautiful she must be, and how efficient and how sexy, but now she filed her neatly away just as she did Irving Phillips’ letters and documents, she knew where she was and she could get her out if necessary, but her place was at the very back of a closed drawer.
Although she did not fancy Hugo any more, she occasionally was tempted to start a relationship with other men; she was not nearly as sexually aware as she had been, but she was still a sensual woman, and she missed that side of her life quite badly at times. And when she met a man – at a PTA meeting, or at the baseball games, or in Irving Phillips’ office – who looked at her in a way that made her senses stir, made her feel aware of herself and her sexuality again, it was as if a small sleeping bird, settled somewhere deep within her, had stirred and fluttered its wings, and for days after that she would be troubled and restless; she would have wild, sexual dreams, and wake up in the middle of an orgasm, or she would lie awake, tossing and turning, masturbating, coming again and again, but still empty, still hungry. Nevertheless, she never pursued any relationship with any man; she was too afraid. Afraid of involvement, afraid of distressing Miles (who had weathered Dean’s death so extremely well), afraid of upsetting Hugo, who deserved some kind of fidelity, however one-sided their arrangement might be, afraid of pregnancy, afraid of love. She had friendships, she had a modest social life, and was very active on the PTA and the Little League, and that she found was surprisingly enough, most of the time.
And so Lee’s life had assumed some kind of order and pleasantness; she felt she could look upon it if not with happiness, then certainly not with misery, and indeed rather less anxiety than had been haunting her for the last twelve years.
Her only serious anxiety these days was Miles.
Miles at twelve years old was an interesting child. Too interesting. Lee, analysing it (as she so often did) in the middle of the night, very soon after she had first felt the lump in her breast and totally failed to recapture any semblance of sleep, decided that was why she worried about him. It wasn’t that he was particularly naughty, he didn’t play hookey from school (or at least only once, at Christmas, the one after Dean died, and he had got a job delivering parcels to earn some Christmas money, and who could blame a little boy seriously for that?) He wasn’t cheeky, he didn’t hang around street corners after school, he was nearly always there when she got home, or with the Forrests or the Wainwrights, with a note pinned on the door saying exactly where, he didn’t even tell lies or knock the furniture around like most twelve-year-olds. He simply went his own sweet way, and did what he wanted; or rather, being only twelve and a trifle limited in his lifestyle, firmly refused to do anything he didn’t want. And this did not stop at his school work.
Lee had almost given up now trying to persuade him to go to church with her; every once in a while, when he really wanted to please her (and, she suspected, really wanted something to please himself) he would go along to mass on Sunday morning, swallowing Father Kennedy’s smiling admonitions about his absence with remarkably good grace, but generally he would simply give Lee his sweet, unanswerable smile and say no, he didn’t plan on coming today. Initially she had tried threatening him with the wrath of either God or the Church or both, but he had shrugged and smiled and returned to his comic or his TV programme without so much as a word of argument. She had even asked Father Kennedy if he would speak to him, and Father Kennedy had come round to the house once or twice, and Miles had listened to his small gentle lecture about the mortal sin of not going to church, and looked gravely at Father Kennedy and said, ‘Thank you for explaining that to me, Father,’ and absolutely refused to discuss the matter any further. Afterwards, when the priest had gone, Lee reproached Miles and said how could he be so rude and unresponsive and Miles said he was sorry, but there was nothing to discuss. ‘But why isn’t there?’ Lee said. ‘At the very least, God forbid, you could have argued with him. Put your view.’
‘Mom, there wouldn’t have been any point,’ said Miles, ‘he wouldn’t have seen it. Waste of breath.’
That was his attitude to most things. If he didn’t like something, or the idea of doing something, he just cut it out of his life, or did the minimum – like his school work. He didn’t argue and make a fuss, he simply didn’t do it. As he was now taller than Lee there was very little she could do about it. There was very little anyone could do about it. His teachers could punish him, and keep him in after school and give him lines, but those were punishments for bad behaviour and Miles did not behave badly. He was always polite and charming to his elders, he gave his work in on time – such as it was – he attended lessons, he sat quietly, he was not disruptive. But his grades were awful – except at maths and geography.
The other reason the teachers found it hard to get too angry with him was that he was such an asset to the school. He played games superbly. He was best pitch anyone in the school could ever remember, and although it wasn’t his game, he was a fine soccer player too. He was the star of all the athletics teams; he could run like the wind, and jump in a way that defied gravity. He had beaten every speed and high-jump record in the school’s history. In matches against other schools, if Miles Wilburn was in the team, St Clement’s won.
He was also a very talented actor. While other kids giggled and got embarrassed, or alternatively overacted, Miles simply became the person he was playing. The boy in jeans and T-shirt could become, in an instant, with an imperceptible shift of personality, a prince, a king, an old man, even a young woman. Miles’ impression of Marilyn Monroe was a joy to behold.
Lee worried about that talent in a way, because she was so afraid Miles would want to go into the film business and start hanging round the studio lots, but he showed not the slightest tendency to do anything of the sort. He enjoyed drama at school, but only in a passive way; he did not, as stagestruck kids so often did, form companies and put on productions, or want to take extra drama lessons. It was more as if he was aware of his talent and was waiting to use it when the time came: not on the stage at all, perhaps, or in front of the cameras, but in life itself. Indeed he used it in this way already: watching Miles switch from naughty small boy to thoughtful student when his grandmother visited, for instance, to avoid a time and energy-wasting confrontation with her, or as dutiful respectful Young Person in the presence of Hugo Dashwood, was enraging but amusing. Hugo was not deceived, Lee could see, by the impersonation of dutiful and respectful Young Person, mostly because he had heard too much of the other side of Miles from her, but he went along with the charade; he was obviously very fond of the boy, and enjoyed his company. She was not quite sure if the enjoyment was two-sided.
Miles was also now quite exceptionally good-looking. He was very tall for twelve, nearly five foot ten, with golden blond hair, a classically straight nose, a rather sensuously full mouth and dark, extraordinarily luminous blue eyes fringed by long, curly black lashes – ‘Like a girl’s,’ said Jamie Forrest in disgust. Jamie, like most of the other boys, liked Miles, hero worshipped him almost, for his prowess at sport, but were fiercely jealous of him for his looks, the way he got away with things, and the way that, already, the girls were falling over themselves to get near him.
Miles was not only tall and good-looking, he had a way with the girls. He would sit looking at them very intensely, listening to them chattering and giggling, and they would gradually fall silent, discomforted, suddenly self-conscious and acutely aware of his attention. Then he would smile at them, his slow, heartbreaking smile, at whichever one (or two, or even three) had taken his fancy, and wander over to them, and start talking to them.
Jamie and Freddy Wainwright and all the other boys never could imagine what he could talk to them about; everybody knew girls had nothing in their heads except clothes and make-up, and weren’t interested in soccer or baseball, which didn’t leave a lot of room for conversational manoeuvre, but Miles managed. In no time at all the girls were laughing with him, and talking nineteen to the dozen, and he was laughing and talking back. When they asked him he would shrug and say, ‘Oh, you know,’ and they didn’t like to say no they didn’t because it sounded so hopelessly crass, so it remained a mystery. What they did know was that the prettiest girls in the school, and the sexiest, like Joanna Albertson who already had size thirty-four-inch tits, and Sonia Tullio who had legs as long as a colt’s and eyes full of what the dumbest boy could see was carnal knowledge, made it very plain that the person they wanted to walk along with, and have carry their books for them, and meet on the beach on Sundays, was Miles Wilburn. And it was very irritating.
And so Lee worried. She worried that Miles’ grades were never going to get any better and that was really scary, because everyone knew that the war in Vietnam was escalating and any boy whose grades were below a C in college got sent out there, and OK, Miles was only twelve, nearly thirteen actually now, but six years could go really fast and the rate that war was going and the rate young men were getting killed they might even bring the enlistment age down; and she worried that Miles was just too clever for his own good, and too good at manipulating people and getting them to do what he wanted; and she worried that he might suddenly take it into his head to want to be an actor after all; and she worried that he was sexually precocious, and the way the girls were all running after him, he would get one of them into trouble. But most of all she worried that he seemed to her in every way to be getting more and more like Hugo.
And that was a worry she couldn’t share with anyone.
‘I think’ – and the doctor’s voice was dangerously, threateningly casual – ‘I think we’d better have a look at this little lump, Mrs Wilburn. I’m sure it’s nothing, nothing at all, just a cyst, but it’s as well to be on the safe side. We can take it out very easily, you’ll only need to be in hospital for a couple of days, and send it off to be analysed and then we won’t have to worry any more.’
‘I see,’ said Lee. The room spun threateningly, darkened with panic; she felt horribly, sickly afraid. ‘But if you’re sure it’s nothing, why do we have to bother? I mean, are you really sure?’
‘As sure as I can be without actually looking at it. I mean, it’s very small and you say it hasn’t got any bigger?’
She shook her head vigorously, pushing back the doubt.
‘And you breast fed your baby, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Yes, well that’s a good thing, a very good thing. How’s your health otherwise? Periods regular, all that sort of thing?’
‘Yes,’ said Lee, wondering briefly whether to mention an increase in pain and frequency, and rejecting it. After all she was forty-two years old, and it was probably the change beginning; doctors were notoriously unwilling to sympathize with women on that.
‘Well, let’s see, the sooner the better. I think I’d like to bring you in next week, and then we can get the whole thing over and done with before Thanksgiving. Can you get time off from work?’
‘I think so.’
‘And what about your little boy? Can he go to friends?’
‘Oh, yes. That’s no problem.’
‘Good. Well, I’ll have a word with my secretary, and let you know. I expect by this time in a fortnight, you’ll be out and about and feeling just wonderful. Now I don’t want you to worry, Mrs Wilburn. I’m just taking precautions.’
‘Oh, I won’t worry,’ said Lee. ‘Thank you very much.’
So what was it like, to lose a breast? What did it look like, before the wound healed? Was it a huge, gaping hole? How did they get the skin over it? How hideous did it look, even when it had healed? What would you do, under your clothes? Stuff out a bra with socks or something? Or would they give you something? Would people know? How could you bear to touch yourself? Look at yourself? Could you ever go on the beach again? Thank God Dean was gone. He would have hated it, loathed it, been revolted by it. What about Miles? How would he cope with the thought of a maimed mother? What would it do to his sexual development? What would the other kids say? They would be bound to hear.
How much would it hurt? Would the pain be awful? Would they give you morphine just when you asked them, or would you get it anyway? Would she be able to bear it? Would she scream? Was it that kind of pain? Like childbirth, ripping-apart pain? Only that was bearable because it was good pain. This was evil, destructive, deadly pain. Suppose it was in other places already, the cancer? In her uterus, in her stomach? How could they treat that? They could take the uterus out, but what of the stomach? Would she have to have one of those bag things like old Mrs Thackeray, that gurgled all the time? Better to die. No, not better to die.
Who would look after Miles if she died? Hugo couldn’t, that would be asking too much. Her friends couldn’t. Dean had no parents. She only had her distinctly difficult and eccentric mother, who lived in Ohio and only came to visit once a year at Thanksgiving, and anyway, she was sixty-five. He would be alone. Would he have to go to an orphanage? One of the refuge places? How would he ever grow up adjusted now, with two parents dead? Who would ever drive him to do his school work, see he didn’t get too full of himself, discipline him, love him, praise him, cuddle him?
At half past six next morning, when the sun was just beginning to break into the shadows of the Santa Monica Mountains and tinge the sea with a faint shy blush, Lee was still awake.
The lump proved to be absolutely harmless. ‘Just a tiny cyst,’ said the doctor, smiling at her in pleasure and self-justification. ‘You see how right we were to take it out.’
‘Oh,’ said Lee, tears of relief and weak joy pouring down her face, ‘oh, thank you, Doctor Forsythe, thank you very, very much. When can I go home?’
‘Tomorrow. Only you must take it easy. You’ve had a general anaesthetic. Promise me you won’t go rushing off stocking up for Thanksgiving.’
‘I promise. I promise.’ She was laughing and crying at the same time.
That night Miles came to see her with Amy. They both had armfuls of flowers.
‘It’s all right,’ said Lee, beaming at them ecstatically. ‘Everything is all right. It was nothing. Just a cyst. Isn’t that just the most glorious news ever? I don’t have cancer. I’m not going to die.’
‘Hey Mom,’ said Miles, reaching for her hand, ‘you never told me that was on the cards. You said it was just nothing.’
‘Well, it was nothing,’ said Lee, stretching forward and kissing him, ‘nothing at all. Thank you for the flowers, honey. Are you OK?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘Did you go to school?’
‘Of course I went to school, Mom. Don’t insult me!’ He was laughing at her.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I have two messages,’ said Amy, who had stayed over the night before to keep Miles company. ‘One from your English gentleman friend. He said he just called to say hallo, and how were you. I said you were fine, just having minor surgery, and you’d be home tomorrow. He said he’d call you then. He must be pretty keen on you, Lee, to keep calling you from New York.’
‘Oh, not really,’ said Lee airily. She was not to be drawn on the subject of Hugo, not even by Amy. She knew Amy was consumed with curiosity on the subject, but she just left her permanently consumed. She knew this hurt her friend, but she couldn’t help it. Miles and Hugo himself were more important to her than anyone in the world. And every single person who knew anything more about Hugo than that he was an old business friend of Dean’s, which was what she told everyone, made the situation a hundred per cent more dangerous.
‘Who else phoned?’
‘Your mom.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Yeah. I told her the same, and she said she would be down next week for Thanksgiving and she’d look after you then.’
‘Oh, great,’ said Lee. But she didn’t really mind. She didn’t mind anything. She was not going to die.
Forty-eight hours later she was pushing her cart through the market, getting the weekend groceries, when she suddenly felt a huge and terrible weakness, and a hot, fierce pain in her belly. She fainted and came round, in the manager’s office, a wad of towels between her legs. She was haemorrhaging.
That night she had a hysterectomy; a malignant uterine tumour had been discovered.
Lying, weak and tearful, in the bed she had left so happily three days earlier, she asked Doctor Forsythe what might lie ahead. ‘Is – is that it? Might the cancer be anywhere else?’
‘It might,’ he said, patting her hand gently. ‘But uterine cancer is the easiest to contain. We may be lucky.’
She noticed he did not meet her eye.
‘Amy,’ she said next day. ‘Could you call this number? Just leave a message to say I called.’
‘Sure.’ Amy looked at it. ‘New York, huh? Is this your beau?’
‘He’s not a beau,’ said Lee, managing to smile faintly. ‘Just call him, Amy. No, on second thoughts, don’t. I don’t want to worry him. But Amy, I do think you’d better call my mom. Get her down sooner. I won’t be home for a week or so. She’s coming anyway, so she can’t complain. Miles won’t like it, but he’ll have to put up with it for a bit. And could you tell Mr Phillips too, that I won’t be back for a week or two?’
‘Honey, you won’t be back that soon. You have to rest up for a long time after a hysterectomy. Otherwise you just won’t get well again.’
‘Well, never mind,’ said Lee. ‘We’ll just take it one day at a time. Tell him two weeks for now. OK?’
‘OK,’ said Amy.
She was home in two weeks; relieved and happy to be there, she lay obediently on the couch all day, directing operations, running her small household. Her mother, eccentrically vague but deceptively spry for her sixty-five years, needed directing, but coped physically extremely well. She kept telling Lee she couldn’t stay long, and that her hens and her goats needed her more than Lee did, but she promised not to go home until things were back under control. It was a promise she had some difficulty keeping.
Six weeks after her operation, when Lee was just beginning to feel stronger, and thinking that very soon she would be able to go back to work and let her mother return to the goats, she developed a stomach bug.
‘It’s just because I’m run down,’ she said shakily to Amy, returning to her couch after a prolonged session in the toilet. ‘I’ll be better soon.’
‘You’d better be,’ said Mrs Kelly from her corner, where she was working on a petit point picture of some hens in a barnyard, ‘I have to get back to my family real soon.’
‘Mom, we’re your family,’ said Lee mildly, sinking back on her pillows with a grimace of pain, ‘surely we matter more than a few old hens.’
‘That’s arguable,’ said Mrs Kelly, ‘and they’re not old, they’re young and at the peak of their laying capability. I dread to think what young Terence is doing with those darlings; giving them under-cooked bran mash, cutting down on their greens. Oh, it just turns my mind thinking about it.’
‘Mrs Kelly, I’m sure the hens are all right,’ said Amy, ‘but if you’re really worried why don’t you go home and I’ll stay with Lee till she’s over this. It won’t be more than a few days.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Kelly firmly, her face starched into a martyred mould. ‘I promised my daughter I’d stay till she was on her feet, and I will. I’m not a one to go back on a promise. Besides, Amy, I’ve noticed you are far too indulgent with Miles, that boy is running wild and I see it as my duty to bring some discipline into his life. He may not like it, but he will thank me when he’s older. No, my hens will just have to wait. It’s tragic, when I think how much they must be missing me, but there it is. I know my duty.’
‘OK,’ said Amy, diplomatically tactful for the sake of her friend. ‘That’s really nice of you. Lee, can I get you anything, honey? Some iced herbal tea? Some lemonade? I’ve made some fresh. I know exactly what’s the matter with you, Lee Wilburn, you’re just stuck full of additives and preservatives, you’ve been living on that stuff for far too long. You need a totally organic diet for a while and you’ll be just fine.’
‘Quite right,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘I wouldn’t give my hens chemically produced food, wouldn’t dream of it. It affects them and it affects their eggs. It’s a whole dreadful cycle. Amy’s right, Lee, your diet is just awful, no wonder you’re ill.’
‘Oh, could you both just shut up and help me back to the toilet,’ said Lee, her face twisted with pain. ‘I’m getting rid of every bit of artificially grown food in my body just as fast as it’ll go. Please, Amy, please!’
‘I think,’ said Amy later to Mrs Kelly, looking at Lee’s ashen, slightly waxy face as she dozed fitfully on the couch, ‘we should get hold of Doctor Forsythe. I think this is more than additives.’
It was. Doctor Forsythe had Lee back in hospital, ran some tests and scans, and pronounced cancer of the liver and the bowel. ‘Inoperable. I’m sorry, Lee. So very sorry.’
He held her hand. She clung to it, as if she could drag some of his own strong life into her.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said, politely, as if seeking to put him at his ease.
‘No. Nor yours.’
‘Of course not.’ She was surprised.
‘Oh, you’d be surprised. A lot of people feel guilt. Feel they could have prevented it. Feel there was something they should, and indeed could, do.’
‘Yes,’ said Lee. ‘Yes, Amy will say it’s the additives.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Yes, a favourite scapegoat right now.’
There was a silence. He looked at her tenderly.
‘You haven’t had much luck lately, have you, Lee?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I haven’t. Will – will it . . .’
‘Hurt? No, no more than you can bear. Pain control has become very good. You have only to ask.’
‘And how long?’
He looked at her very steadily. ‘Not long. Perhaps three months.’
She gasped, reeled back as if he had hit her. Then she started to cry, huge wracking, childish tears, on and on; she hit the pillow, bit her fists, screamed. ‘It’s not fair, it’s not fair, I’ve tried so hard, so hard, why should it be me, why why why? I hate it, I hate it, I hate everybody, everything. Go away, go away, I hate you, why couldn’t you have seen it, helped me, done something, you told me it was nothing, just a cyst, and now I’m dying and you can only give me three months. You’re cruel and you’re an idiot, you’re a lousy, fucking, useless doctor, and I hate you. Go away, go away.’
He didn’t go away, he stayed and listened to her, and when she would let him, held her, held her hand, held her in his arms, like a lover, like a father; gradually she calmed.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know. Can I do anything?’
‘Yes. Could you ask Father Kennedy to come and see me? And could you ring this number, this man, and ask him to come? Explain why. Soon. Please.’
Father Kennedy came first. Lee was frightened, as only a sinning Catholic can be frightened.
‘Father, I have to confess.’
‘Very well.’
‘No, not in church, here now. Will you listen?’
‘I will.’
She told him. She told him everything, about Hugo, about Miles, about Dean. He listened.
‘May God forgive you.’
‘Do you think he will?’
‘Christ came to the world to save sinners.’
‘I know. But sinners like me?’
‘Exactly like you. And me. We are all sinners.’
She looked at him and smiled. ‘Father, I don’t think you rank as a sinner.’
‘In the eyes of God I do.’
‘Well, he must have pretty sharp eyes.’
‘Merciful eyes also.’
‘Father, will you come?’
‘He understood at once.’
‘Of course. Whenever you feel it is time.’
‘Suppose I don’t know?’
‘You will.’
‘Will you tell Doctor Forsythe to call you? Just in case?’
‘Of course. He always does.’
She was comforted.
‘Father, what can I do about Miles? I only have my mother, and she is so – well, so unsuitable.’
‘She is his grandmother, though. And she is willing to take care of him.’
‘How do you know?’
‘She told me.’
‘Heavens above,’ said Lee, shocked out of her submissiveness. ‘When?’
‘She came to see me. She said she thought it was her duty. Lee, I wouldn’t call her unsuitable. She’s a good woman. She’s strong, for her age. And she loves Miles. She might even be good for him. A little old-fashioned discipline.’
Lee frowned. ‘I know everyone thinks I spoil Miles. But it’s almost impossible not to.’
‘I know.’ He patted her hand. ‘He is a beautiful and charming boy.’
‘But he’s so young. Such a baby. So little to be left alone. I can’t bear leaving him, Father, I just can’t. Never to see him grow up, how will he manage without me?’
He watched her, weeping silently, struggling to control herself.
‘He won’t be alone, Lee.’
‘Oh,’ she said, angry suddenly. ‘Oh, I forgot. Of course, God will be there. He’ll see to his packed lunch, and comfort him when he skins his knees and cheer him on when he plays baseball and watch he isn’t out after dark, and listen to him when he’s worried, and have fun with him on Sundays, and ask his friends round and cuddle him and tell him he’s a great guy when things go wrong and be on his side when the teachers pick on him, and try to make sure he gets to college so he doesn’t have to go to Vietnam. Oh, good, I don’t need to worry at all.’
‘God will do some of those things, Lee. Your mother will do others. Some he will have to manage on his own. You must have faith, Lee, to save your own happiness during these weeks. They’re too precious to waste in misery and doubt.’
‘I just don’t know how you can talk like that. Think like that.’
‘Talking is easy. Thinking, believing is more difficult.’ He smiled at her. ‘Tell me, is your English friend coming to see you?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow he arrives. I suppose you think that’s terribly wicked.’ She looked at him, half tearful, half hostile.
‘No. I don’t think love and comfort are ever wicked. Given in the right way at the right time. I’m glad he’s coming. Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I am.’
‘Thank you, Father.’ She smiled at him, easier, happier again. ‘Thank you. Please come again. Before – before you have to.’
‘I will. Often. I shall enjoy it. The company of a pretty young woman is always pleasant.’
She looked in the mirror at her pallid face, already tinged with yellow, her distended stomach, and grimaced. ‘Pretty!’
He bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Very pretty. Now rest. And enjoy your visitor.’
Hugo was shocked at the sight of her. She could see it in his eyes. He hadn’t seen her since she had had the cyst out – well, it had only been six weeks altogether – and he winced as he looked at her. It hurt her.
‘Hi, Hugo. Here I am then, your golden California girl, turned a little tarnished. I’m sorry I look so hideous. I can’t help it, I’m afraid.’
‘You don’t look hideous. You couldn’t. Not exactly glowing, but not hideous.’
She was sullen, hostile.
‘Don’t lie to me. I look hideous.’
‘OK,’ he said agreeably, ‘you look hideous.’
‘You didn’t have to come,’ she said, and started, once again, to cry. Every fresh visitor, fresh intruder into her safe, sick world, made her cry, forcing her as they did to confront her sickness, her imminent death.
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘But I did come. I wanted to come.’
‘Good for you.’
She was silent. Then: ‘Have you come from England or New York?’
‘England.’
‘Ah. How’s Alice?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘How very nice for her,’ she said bitterly. ‘How very nice.’
‘Lee, don’t.’
‘Don’t what? Don’t care?’
‘Don’t be angry.’
‘But I am angry,’ she cried, ‘you would be angry too. Losing half your life, losing your child, being in pain, being afraid, of course I’m angry, fuck you, I’m furious.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, I expect you are. I expect you thought you’d find some peaceful, madonna-like figure lying back on her pillows, smiling serenely, telling her rosary. Well, death isn’t like that, Hugo, I’ve learnt. It’s hard and it’s painful and it’s elusive and it’s ugly. And it makes you angry. So angry.’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You don’t.’
‘Yes, I do. I told you once, don’t you remember?’
‘What?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘oh, yes, yes, I do. Tell me about it, Hugo, tell me about the people you have seen die.’
‘Mostly men,’ he said. ‘A few women. In the war. People are nearly always brave. Almost welcoming. Usually very calm.’
‘And afterwards?’
‘Great, great peace. A peace you can feel. A stillness.’
She reached out for his hand and gripped it.
‘I’m so frightened.’
‘I know. So am I.’
‘What of?’
‘Of losing you.’
She was amazed. ‘Losing me?’
‘Yes. Losing you. I can’t imagine life without you now. You are the only truly happy thing I have. I love you. I love you so much.’
She lay on her pillows, her eyes fixed in genuine, awestruck astonishment on his face. ‘I never knew.’
‘I know you didn’t. God knows why you didn’t. Didn’t I behave as if I did?’
She thought, looking back over the lost, happy years. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose you did. I never saw it, but yes you did.’
He smoothed her thin hair back from her forehead. ‘And you don’t look hideous. Truly. You look lovely.’
She looked at him and smiled, took his hand.
‘I wish I’d known.’
‘Why?’
‘Well – I would have been nicer to you for a start.’
‘You’ve been very nice to me recently.’
‘I know, but I was so horrid all those years.’
‘True.’
‘I was just so afraid – well, it doesn’t matter.’
‘I know. That I would come and claim Miles.’
‘Yes.’
‘As if I would have done. Loving you. Loving him.’
She looked at him. ‘Do you love him?’
‘Very much. I think he’s interesting and clever and charming. Like me.’
‘No, seriously.’
‘Seriously I think he’s all those things. Seriously I love him. And I’ll do everything I can to take care of him.’
‘No. Never. Don’t worry.’
‘He’ll need taking care of. My mother is going to move down. She’ll see he does his school work and doesn’t go on the streets, but she won’t truly understand him and what he needs. She can’t.’
‘I’m sure Amy will do a lot. And his other friends and their families.’
‘At first. But they have their own families. And they’ll slowly stop thinking about Miles. In that kind of way.’
‘Well, I will do my best.’
‘What will you do? What can you do?’
‘Oh, lots of things. I even thought about adopting him. Don’t look at me like that, I’m a good liar and I would have thought of something.’
‘Are you a good liar?’
‘Excellent.’
‘I’m not. Sometimes I wish I was.’ She sighed and looked at him with a rueful smile. ‘Miles is a wonderful liar. I can’t even tell when he’s doing it.’
‘Well, it can be useful. Anyway, I thought I would make a settlement on Miles, a lump sum, to be held in trust for him. The income will be useful to your mother now. At least they won’t have any material worries.’
‘Hugo, how can you afford that sort of thing? Are you very rich?’
‘No. Not what I would call very rich. But I do have some money and I think I owe it to him.’
‘And who will look after this settlement? See he gets it?’
‘My lawyer in New York.’
‘Could my mother have his name?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And then later, I will see he goes to a good college. That will postpone his draft as long as possible. I know that worries you. And then, I will also see he gets a job. A good job. Maybe he could work for me. I don’t know. But I won’t let him hang around the town, sharing peace and love with the flower children. Or taking drugs. I promise you. And I will come and see him very often, and talk to him, and make sure there aren’t any serious problems, and that he isn’t seriously unhappy. That your mother is meeting all the needs she can. That he isn’t too lonely. Too lost.’
Lee was crying again. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t bear the thought of leaving him. It’s the worst, the only thing I really care about.’
‘I know.’
She was silent for a while. Then: ‘Why do you love me? I mean what is it about me? I don’t really understand. I thought it was just sex.’
‘It was at first. I thought you were the most beautiful, desirable, sexy woman I had ever seen. You were certainly the sexiest woman I’d ever been to bed with.’
‘Really?’ she said in genuine astonishment.
‘Yes, really.’
‘But how? I mean in what way?’
‘Hard to define. I suppose because you didn’t think about it. Didn’t analyse it. Just wanted it terribly badly and did it.’
‘And could you tell I wanted it? I mean early on?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, kissing her hand, fixing her eyes with his own. ‘From that very first day, that very first lunch. I thought, now there is a lady who would be a terrific, gloriously outrageously wonderful lay. And I was right.’
‘OK. So that was the sex. But the love?’
‘Oh, the love. That’s quite different.’
‘How?’
‘I had to love you without ever getting near you again. So I had to find other things to love. It wasn’t hard.’
‘What were they?’
‘Your courage. Your honesty. Your straightforward, sock it to me, let’s get on with life attitude. And then later, more recently, still your courage, which has been phenomenal, but also your capacity for happiness. For pleasure. The talent you have for caring for people. I think,’ he said slowly, stroking her hand very gently, ‘I am very lucky to have known you. And to have fathered your – our child. I count it as a great privilege. And it is the source of great happiness in my life.’
‘Oh, Hugo,’ said Lee, a great sob breaking into her voice, lying back on her pillows, closing her eyes, ‘leave me alone now. Come back tomorrow. I can’t bear it.’
‘All right,’ he said standing up. ‘I’ll go. And I will be back tomorrow.’
‘How – how long can you stay?’
‘A while. As long as you need me.’
‘All right.’
‘Now Mom, are you absolutely perfectly sure about all this?’
‘I’m as perfectly sure as I can be,’ said Mrs Kelly with a martyred sigh. ‘The way I look at it, I don’t have much choice.’
‘Well you are sixty-five. That’s quite an age to be caring for a little boy.’
‘And what a little boy. If you’d raised him a little more strictly it might be an easier task. I always told you you spoilt him. Now I have to pick up the pieces.’
‘Oh, Mom, don’t. And he’s a good boy. Please remember that. Please. And he needs love.’
‘I know.’ Her face softened. ‘It’s all right, Honey, I will love him. I do love him. You don’t have to fret.’
‘I can’t help fretting.’
‘Yes, well, it don’t help anyone. Least of all you.’
‘No, I suppose. Now Mom, I want to talk to you about money. There really isn’t a problem there.’
‘Why not? Dean never made any money.’
‘No, but – well, he had a good life policy. Hugo – Mr Dashwood, you know – he helped me invest it and it is worth quite a lot now. He suggests we put it in trust for Miles, for when he’s twenty-one, and the income will be very useful to you in the meantime.’
‘It must be a very good life policy. How come you got it when Dean killed himself?’
‘Oh, it was a special one,’ said Lee quickly. ‘And also, Mom, if you have any problems, money or legal ones, you can contact Mr Dashwood. He lives in England, but he has a small office in New York. They can take messages. You can always contact him, if it’s urgent. Only don’t do it all the time.’
‘I certainly won’t,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘I wouldn’t want to. I don’t like the English. Stiff, unfriendly lot. Living in the dark ages most of the time.’ She looked at Lee sharply. ‘Mr Dashwood seems to be a very good friend to you, Lee.’
‘He is,’ said Lee firmly, ‘and he was a real good friend to Dean too. Dean – helped him once, when he was starting out. He’s always said he’d like to repay that.’
‘And you really really don’t mind coming to live over here?’
‘I mind like hell,’ said Mrs Kelly. ‘Like hell. And how I can face saying goodbye to those hens I don’t know. But I know my duty. I always have. I would never forgive myself if I failed in it now. And this is where Miles should be. I can see that. So what must be must be. But it isn’t easy.’
‘No,’ said Lee. She closed her eyes.
Her mother looked at her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Just about. It’s nearly time for the morphine. That’s a bad bit of the day.’
‘Poor kid,’ said her mother. It was the first and indeed the only time she had ever evinced any sympathy for Lee whatsoever. Lee knew what it meant. She smiled at her mother and took her hand.
‘I really am very grateful to you.’
‘Hmm. Well, I just hope I last the course.’ There was a pause. ‘Lee, that affair you were having – before Dean died, the one that caused it – is that right over now? I never asked you, never wanted to know. But now I need to, I guess.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lee. ‘Absolutely over.’
‘Amy, you will keep an eye on Miles, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will. You know I will.’
‘No, but you’ll keep keeping an eye on him. You won’t forget.’
‘For God’s sake, Lee. We go back a long way. I won’t forget.’
‘He’ll need you so badly.’
‘I know.’
‘Just – just hug him sometimes. And have some fun with him.’
‘I will. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I can’t help it.’
‘I know.’
‘Hugo will be down from time to time. Keeping an eye on things. He’s – he’s very fond of Miles.’
Amy looked at her deadpan. ‘I can see that.’
‘Yes, well.’
‘He’s very fond of you too, I guess.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘You’re not going to tell me, are you, Lee?’
‘No,’ said Lee simply.
‘Yeah, well, I have eyes in my head. And a brain. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Lee. I won’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I don’t know anything to say.’
‘No,’ said Lee. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘Is – is everything all right with your mom? Money and so on.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lee. ‘No worries about money. There’s the insurance and everything. The house is mine. No mortgage.’
‘Some insurance policy,’ said Amy.
‘Yes.’
‘How do you feel?’ said Amy, looking at her tenderly.
‘Lousy.’
‘You look lousy.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Does it hurt a lot?’
‘Sometimes. The drugs are very good. Mostly it’s just terrible discomfort. And weakness. Weariness. And I can’t sleep.’ She gripped her friend’s hand. ‘Oh, Amy, I’m not even scared any more. I just want it to be over.’
‘It will be, Honey. Soon.’
‘Miles, look at me. No, on second thoughts, don’t. I’m not a pretty sight.’
‘You look OK.’
‘Thanks Hon.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘Now listen to me, Miles. We have to have a talk.’
‘OK.’
‘Now you do know, don’t you, that I won’t be here much longer.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Now we have to be grown up and sensible about this, Miles. No point crying or making a fuss, like I used to tell you about your school work. It has to be done.’
‘That’s different from my school work. I manage to duck out of that. I can’t duck out of you dying.’
‘No,’ said Lee, thinking she would stifle under the weight of the huge tearing pain in her heart as she looked at him, so much worse than any physical pain she had endured over the past three months. ‘No, you can’t. And I can’t duck out of it either.’
‘Are you scared Mom?’
‘A bit. Not really any more.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘What of?’
‘Of being without you.’
‘Oh, Miles.’ She closed her eyes, swallowed, fought to hold on to herself. ‘Miles, don’t be scared. You’re allowed to be sad, but not to be scared. You’ll manage. You’re so brave. And so tough.’
‘Like you. You’re the bravest person I ever even heard of.’
‘I try to be,’ said Lee.
‘Was Dad brave? I don’t really remember.’
‘Very brave.’
‘Why did he die, Mom? I never understood. I think you should tell me. I know he killed himself. Billy Fields told me he heard his mom tell his dad that Dad killed himself. And I saw a newspaper cutting that somebody else found in their attic. And I just can’t think why. All I can remember is us being a really happy family.’
‘Well, we were,’ said Lee staunchly. ‘And don’t let anyone ever tell you any different. We were very very happy. Your dad was happy. Until – until that last day. Then he did something silly. Something foolish. And it went rather badly wrong.’
‘What?’
‘Well, you see’ – God help me, thought Lee – ‘you see, although your dad was very clever and very good, he didn’t make that much money. He was quite successful but not terribly terribly successful. And he minded about that very much. And he heard that an old friend had done terribly terribly well, and he got very depressed, and he felt he was a failure. And he also got very drunk. And then he went up to bed and took some sleeping pills. Only, mixed with the drink and his bad heart, it killed him.’
‘I see. How sad.’
‘Yes, it was terribly sad. Dreadful. But I have learnt to think about when we were happy. As you do. Just keep thinking about that, Miles. Don’t let anyone take it away from you.’
‘I won’t. Anyway, I feel better now. I wish I’d asked you before. I’m glad you told me.’ He looked at her, his frightened, loving heart in his dark blue eyes. ‘Oh, Mom, what am I going to do without you to make me feel better?’
Lee couldn’t speak. She held out her arms, and Miles, big boy that he was, crawled into them. She smoothed back his hair, kissed his head, stroked his face.
‘I’m sorry I don’t work at school much, Mom,’ he said after a while. ‘Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?’
‘Partly,’ said Lee, grateful to get the conversation on a less emotional level. ‘Not because I’m cross with you. But because I have such hopes, such high hopes for you. You’re so clever, Miles. Cleverer than me or Dad’ (Oh, God, she thought, I shouldn’t have said that) ‘and you can do so well. So terribly well. Don’t throw it away, Miles. You must work hard. Don’t let me down.’
‘You won’t be there,’ he said with simple logic. ‘You won’t know if I’ve let you down.’
‘Now look,’ said Lee, half laughing, half crying, ‘is that going to make me feel any better right now, Miles Wilburn? Worrying about you, all day and all night? I want to – to go away feeling proud and confident and happy about you. That’s the very last thing you can give me, and it will be such a lot.’
‘OK,’ said Miles. ‘I promise. I’ll work hard. Do you want me to be President? I’ll try if you want.’
‘It might do for starters.’
‘OK.’
‘And I want you to be real nice to Granny Kelly. It won’t be easy for her. She won’t have her friends or her hens or anything.’
‘I wouldn’t mind her hens. I like hens.’
‘Yes, well there’s no space for hens in our back yard.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Miles, brightening up, ‘there might be.’
‘Well,’ said Lee, with the first thankful sigh she had heaved for weeks, ‘that is nothing to do with me, that is entirely between you and Granny Kelly.’
‘OK.’
‘Now, Mr Dashwood –’
‘Mom, I wish you’d call him Hugo to me. He calls himself Hugo.’
‘All right, Hugo. He has very kindly said he will keep an eye on you and Granny Kelly, so if you have any big problems, at school, or about money, or if you think Granny isn’t coping, you can talk to him. I’ll give you his number in New York – he won’t answer it, it’s not his home, but a secretary will take a message.’
‘OK. Where is his home exactly?’
‘In England.’
‘I know, but where?’
‘I’m not sure. In London, somewhere.’
‘He seems real fond of you, Mom.’ His eyes were probing on her.
‘Yes,’ said Lee, ‘well, he’s been a good friend for a long time.’
‘But he’s not the friend who was more successful than Dad?’
‘What? Oh, good gracious no.’
‘I just wondered.’
‘And day to day problems, you just go to Amy.’
‘But,’ he said, and tears filled his eyes and spilled down his cheeks, ‘it’s the day to day problems I’ll need you for.’
And then Lee started to cry too, and he climbed right up on the bed beside her, and lay clinging to her, sobbing, sounding as if he was three years old.
They stayed there for a long time. And then she said, finally, exhausted, drained of strength and emotion, trying desperately, helplessly to comfort him, to give him something he could take away with him, ‘Miles, my darling, stop, stop crying, this isn’t going to do anything, anything at all for either of us.’
‘Oh, but it is,’ he said, nestling his blond head further on to her pillow, ‘I can remember it for always.’
She died early next morning, her sheets still crumpled from where he had lain.