Zane closed the front door quietly and went into the kitchen, finding his mother tending to the houseplants on the windowsill.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, not yet turning to face him. “I thought I’d teach you how to make that mash you like.”
He didn’t reply, unable to find the right words to start off the conversation he’d delayed so long. The long pause made her stop and look over to him.
“Zane,” she said softly after a few moments, and he broke out of his thoughts. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Zane looked down at the rug, his stomach twisted into one large knot. “Because I’m worried you’ll get all upset,” he replied quietly.
She frowned. “Well, you have to tell me now, otherwise I’ll just worry.”
He sighed and went into the living room, Miri following straight away. He flopped down onto the sofa so heavily that she went to sit next to him and gathered him into her arms. She eased his head onto her shoulder and stroked his long hair, just like when he was small and had fallen over.
He pulled away so he could see her face. “Mum,” he began tentatively. “I didn’t tell you everything about when I went to the hospital where I got Dad’s picture from.” It was clearly the last thing she expected him to say. “There was someone in there … a Giant.”
Miri blinked. “What? Start at the beginning.”
Zane told her about the first encounter, taking care not to mention Dev. He knew if he mentioned Dev, his mum would blame him for tempting him into the hospital. Whilst it was true, he didn’t want his friend to get into trouble for it. Dev’s life was hard enough. Instead, he glossed over his involvement and went on to tell her about Titus’ dream about Lyssa and their realisation that the Giant must come from the Unders. By the time he’d finished, Miri’s cheeks had drained to an awful grey green and his stomach twisted when he realised that it wasn’t all he had to tell her.
She swallowed again. “We need to tell Jay … and Luthor … if the Unders are sending people here they need to know.”
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that Jay had known for some time, and that the Red Lady had also found out about this before her. “Er, Titus is taking care of all that at the moment Mum … there’s more that I need to talk to you about.” He took a deep breath. “I need to know about Dad.”
He saw her look away, watched her eyes become distant for a moment, and then when she looked back at him it was as if she was somehow closed off from him. “I don’t think it’s very worthwhile to think too much about the past,” she said quietly and began to get up to go and busy herself.
Zane caught hold of her hand to stop her. “Mum, please. I need to know because the Giant was in his office.”
She sat back down but her eyes wouldn’t meet his.
Zane sighed and decided that he had to pursue this or she would never tell him. “I know he didn’t die when It happened.”
Her eyes flicked to him, infused with guilt. She swallowed again but didn’t say anything.
He shifted around so that he was facing her properly. “Why did you lie?”
Her hands began to shake and she looked up at the ceiling, swallowing again as if something had caught in her throat. “I just thought it was the best thing to do. I didn’t want you to think about it all.”
“Well, I am thinking about it, a lot!” Zane exclaimed. “He’s my dad, and …” He took a deep breath. “I want to know what happened to him.”
He watched the muscle in her jaw work as she struggled to deal with the conversation. “I’m just not sure if it’s something that –”
“Mum,” he said, cutting her off, and she blinked at him in surprise. “Tell me. Please.”
She looked back at the rug, but he knew she didn’t really see it. She seemed to be looking at another time. “I met your father when I came here a couple of years after … after It happened.” She paused, trying to hold back her emotions that threatened to drown out her words. “Mum and Dad, your grandparents, used to work at the homeopathic hospital across the square and we used to have picnics in the garden here when I visited. But when I came back of course it was very different. I was very scared and alone and I didn’t really know what I was doing here. You see, I’d had this silly dream that they were still alive and it was so vivid that I walked here, just in case it was true. There wasn’t any other way to find out.”
“You mean, you didn’t always live here?” Zane asked incredulously, finding it very hard to imagine a time when the square was different.
She shook her head. “I moved away from London when I was eighteen, and when It happened I stayed in the country as it was safer where I was. It was such a long way away it took me months to walk back. And I had to be careful and avoid the other people here–most of them were very dangerous.” She paused, clearly recalling something unpleasant.
Zane reached across and took her hand.
“My parents were dead, of course, and I found myself here with nowhere to go, no plan or anything. I was beginning to regret it, but then I met James.” She smiled a little. “We nearly scared each other to death.”
Zane mirrored the smile and leant forward.
“I liked him straight away. He was so handsome, and he had a slight Irish accent which I just loved. It was really …” Remembering who she was talking to, she paused and cleared her throat. “Really nice. We were just so pleased to find someone else who was still normal and not in a gang. He was camped out in this house, he let me stay, and I never left.”
“Did you love him?” Zane asked quietly.
Miri got up and lifted the kettle of water up to hook it over the fire. She nodded, keeping her back to Zane for a moment. “Yes,” she whispered. “Very much.”
She took a moment to compose herself and went back to sit on the sofa. “I cleared out the garden–it was horribly overgrown–and began to sort it out, to make a life for us. We were happy for a while. We made sure we kept out of every-one’s way. No-one else knew we were here for a long while.”
She smiled to herself.
“What was he like?”
“He used to make me laugh. He was very kind and clever too.” Miri reached across and tucked a few strands of Zane’s hair behind his ear. “You look a lot like him. You’ve got my eyes, but the rest of you is definitely James.”
Zane studied her face, saw the sadness. He felt relieved to hear so many good things about his father, but he found it difficult to see her so upset. He knew she was trying hard not to show it, but it was impossible.
“He told funny stories,” she continued. “Lots about him and his best friend and what they used to get up to.”
“The one I’m named after?”
She nodded. “They were like brothers. He used to go into the office they shared at the hospital every day. He said he still felt close to him there. Sometimes he would get upset, be in a bad mood for a couple of days, but mostly he’d be fine.”
She trailed off and Zane saw her try to stop the tears from forming. He took hold of her hand again, beginning to feel tearful himself, but tried to keep them at bay like Erin or Titus would if they were in his shoes.
“Did … did the Gardners kill him?” he asked in a whisper.
She shook her head and the tears spilt down her cheeks. “No, no, Zane. Nothing like that.” She fished her handkerchief from a pocket in her long skirt and wiped her cheeks. “I can remember that day perfectly. It was in the spring. I’d been feeling a bit strange for a while and that was the day I realised why. I was pregnant, with you.”
Zane held her hand tight, trying to imagine her before he was born.
“I was shocked, but pleased,” she continued. “I liked the idea of us having a little baby to look after. I thought it would make him happy. I came into the house and he was sitting in that chair.” She nodded over towards the armchair nearest the fire. “He looked at me, and I’ll never forget it. He said ‘You know, if I had a son, I’d call him Zane. I think he would’ve liked that.’ I was pleased, and I told him that maybe he’d have the chance. He didn’t quite get it, and I went over and kissed him and …”
She started to cry. Zane wrapped his arms around her, feeling guilty that he’d made her talk about it. She managed to regain control and pulled back to continue.
“I kissed him and told him that I was pregnant. I thought he’d be pleased, but he just stared at me, and he went so white. He said he had to get some air and walked out.”
Zane thought of the diary entry and frowned to himself. Those words hadn’t been written by a man that wanted to have a son.
“I thought he’d just had a shock, and that he’d come back and we’d talk about it. We’d find a way to get through and it would all be fine.” The tears ran freely down her cheeks as she stared at the rug, looking at that time again. “I waited for him the rest of the day and when he didn’t come in for supper, I was a bit concerned. But I just thought that he needed some space to think about it. I went to bed, and when he didn’t come back by the next morning I really started to get worried.”
Zane remained silent, getting up to lift the kettle off the fire as the steam began to plume out of the spout. He returned to the sofa and took her hand again.
“I looked for him everywhere I’d ever been with him. I even went into the hospitals.” She shivered. “But I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
“Did the Bloomsbury Boys help you to look?” Zane asked, imagining her worry at that time.
She shook her head. “No, Zane, there were no Blooms-bury Boys back then.”
“You were all by yourself?” Zane gasped. “What about the Red Lady?”
“I didn’t know anyone else at all,” Miri replied quietly.
Zane was horrified. He tried to imagine what that would have been like, and even though he could only guess, he knew it would have been frightening. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being so alone.
“He never came back,” Miri said flatly. “Every day I thought he’d come through that door, but he never did.”
Zane was aghast. “Never?” He watched her shake her head as she dried her eyes. “But why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose he couldn’t cope with being a father. I wondered if he’d died. But I thought I’d know if that had happened, that I would feel it somehow. I know it’s silly, but I don’t think he died. I think he just ran away.”
Zane thought of those words in the diary again. A new emotion began to bubble up in his stomach when he thought of his father. Contempt. “He just left you alone, when you were going to have a baby?” he asked, unable to conceive of how his father could do that.
She nodded. “It was very hard, especially late on in the pregnancy. And the labour … that was hard too.”
Zane saw his mother differently all of a sudden. He’d never thought of her as brave before. He’d only seen obvious acts of bravery, like the Boys facing off against men twice their size, but hadn’t appreciated how she had been courageous too, in her own quiet way.
“You were all by yourself when I was born?”
“Yes. I bit down on a stick so I wouldn’t scream … I was scared that the Gardners would hear me, or the Sweepers– they were quite close at the time.”
“Who?”
Zane watched his mother wrestle with her first instinct to brush the question aside, not wanting to fill his head with the terrible things outside of the garden. But with relief, he could see that recent weeks were forcing her to realise that she simply couldn’t do that anymore. “The Sweepers are one of the most dangerous gangs I know about. They haven’t been in London for years, but if you ever hear people singing loud songs about God or a holy fight, run away as fast as you can and hide.” She smiled sadly at Zane’s diligent nod. “Never mind about them.” Miri patted his hand. “What’s important is that you were a strong, beautiful baby.” She drew him close and they held each other tight for a few moments. “And you were a happy baby,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “I was very lucky. You didn’t cry very much at all.”
Zane had read about birth in the medical encyclopaedia that his mother kept. He imagined her having to cope with it all alone. The tears welled up in his eyes and she embraced him again.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” he croaked. “I’m sorry Dad was so rubbish. I’ll never mention him again.”
She nodded and wiped her eyes. She noticed that he’d lifted off the kettle. “I’ll make us some tea,” she said and went to get the mugs.
He saw Titus walk past the window but he didn’t knock on the door. Zane briefly wondered where he was going but then Miri came back in with the teapot and mugs. After she’d poured the water into the pot to let it brew, he went over and hugged her tight.
“I love you, Mum,” he said into her hair. “I’ll never leave you.”