not healthy, you know, to keep it all caged in. You can make a monster of your emotions by ignoring them. You need to open the doors every now and then. You need to let some air in.’
I sat down on the wooden stool, while Cynthia remained seated in the chair. ‘Perhaps,’ I said. And it was a faint but sincere perhaps. A soft echo of the old Terence, the Terence who knew what good advice was and how to take it.
‘He was such a kind boy,’ she said, the breadth of her smile increasing in line with the sadness in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He could be.’
She chuckled at something. ‘I remember when he was at the bungalow and he said, “Grandma, why do you have all these twigs in vases?” And I gave him that book to look at. Andy Goldsworthy. Do you remember? He liked the ice sculptures. “Wow, that’s well cool. How did he do that?” It’s so strange, isn’t it? It must have only been about two months ago. A Sunday. He still wanted a toffee after his meal though, didn’t he? Oh no, he was never too old for a piece of Harrogate toffee!’
‘No,’ I said, struggling to remember that same Sunday. ‘No, he wasn’t.’
Cynthia filled the afternoon with anecdotes and stories from that finished and irretrievable world. I smiled and nodded and mumbled but had little to contribute. In truth, I was too busy thinking about you, and praying you would stay safe.
The prayer was rewarded. You returned at five to five, alone and intact, hating me no more and no less than when you had left.
‘Your father and I have had a good chat, haven’t we, Terence?’ Cynthia told you, as you stood in the hallway.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We have.’
Cynthia’s widened eyes and nodding head gave my words an unwarranted endorsement.
You smiled, for your grandmother’s benefit. ‘Oh,’ you said. ‘Right. Good.’ No more than that, I think.
And you trod softly upstairs, away from us, while Cynthia’s whisper tried its futile best. ‘See, there’s nothing to worry about. She’ll be all right. She’ll find her own way home. Now, come on, be a good boy, Terence. Why don’t you make us a lovely pot of tea?’
If you had always been a dream of a child, then Reuben was the dark sleep I could never comprehend. I struggled to compete with Cynthia’s anecdotes, partly because even while he was alive Reuben never let me in. I had to pick up whatever clues I could, fragments of evidence that never gave me the complete picture: the vague comments of teachers; the half-formed monosyllables that rumbled at the back of his throat; the sound of his feet walking across his bedroom; the friends he used to visit but never talked about. Yet there were occasions when I would gain a sharp glimpse into his state of mind. One incident, in particular, I remember very well. Now when was it?
You were practising for a school concert, so you still weren’t home. That would make it a Wednesday, wouldn’t it? Yes. And I’m reckoning it was about a week before you both turned fourteen. Yes, I’m sure it was. Anyway, the other details are much clearer.
I was in the shop, aware of Reuben’s presence only as a series of sounds. The turn of his key, the slow clump of the back door as it closed behind him. I’m sure it was at this point I said, ‘How was your day?’ or something of equivalent non-significance. He didn’t answer. Hardly unusual. He was probably lost in his own world. He might simply have been ignoring me. Whatever the reason, I thought nothing of it, as I was having a bit of a nightmare with the bureau I was trying to restore.
After however long, I heard feet leave his room and head for the bathroom, then the sound of running water from upstairs. He had the tap on at full blast.
I left the bureau and went upstairs. Pausing on the landing I heard something else, above the water.
Now, to describe it. The noise.
A kind of panting, I suppose. What sounded like fast and heavy breathing but accompanied by an occasional whimpering. In retrospect, I realise I should have opened the door sooner. But I didn’t. This inaction, I hasten to add, was not due to any kind of parental lethargy but was rather a father’s intuition. When a man happens to hear his adolescent son panting heavily in the bathroom it makes certain sense to hold back from intervention. So, I held back, and tried my very hardest not to think too much about it. You see, at that time I still believed there were some things that a parent shouldn’t enquire about. I imagined I was protecting my son from his own shame.
It was only when his whimper became more pronounced that I decided to intervene. ‘Reuben? What are you doing in there?’
He didn’t hear me. Or, at any rate, he didn’t answer. The water kept on, so I spoke a little louder. ‘Reuben? Do you really need that much water?’
Now I was closer to the sound I realised it was one of pain and not pleasure.
He switched the tap off, and I heard his heavy breath.
‘Dad,’ he said. ‘I’m just . . . I . . . I won’t . . .’
Panic and pain competed in his voice. I tried the door. He hadn’t locked it. Maybe he’d forgotten. Or maybe, subconsciously, he’d wanted this to happen. Maybe he wanted me to swing the door open and see what I saw, what I still see as vividly as if it was a second ago.
Your brother, in front of the mirror, turned towards me with wide-eyed dread. There was something in the basin, but I didn’t notice that at first. What I noticed was the blood. It began in a deep shining scar by his left cheek.
‘My God, Reuben, what have you done?’
He didn’t answer. I think he was too ashamed, but the information I needed was in the basin. His toothbrush, cradled there, its bristles pink with diluted blood.
‘You did this to yourself?’
I looked at the scar again and realised its purpose. He had been trying to rub off his birthmark. He had been standing there, all that time, brushing away at his own skin.
‘Reuben,’ I was speaking softer now. ‘Reuben, why would you –’
The smack of shame, the pain, the leaking blood, were all working to weaken him. He turned pale and wilted sideways in a kind of half-faint. I moved fast, and held his body.
I saw to his wound. I pressed a plaster onto his face. I gave him a paracetamol.
‘I don’t want Bryony to know,’ he said.
‘I won’t tell her,’ I said. ‘We’ll just say you had an accident playing rugby.’
‘I don’t play rugby.’
‘Football, then.’
(You never believed that, did you? At least now you know the lie wasn’t Reuben’s.)
I asked him, obviously, why he did it, but never heard an answer.
The standard parental condolences were offered and, in my arrogance, I believed they might have had some effect. In truth he probably just wanted to leave the bathroom, and the eyes of his prying father, as soon as he could.
I stayed there, and washed the last remnants of blood from the brush.
Even after it had all gone I kept the tap running, not caring a fig about the wasted water, and found a strange therapy in the sound of it blasting through the white bristles and down the drain.
Come on, Terence! Drag yourself out of the quicksand before you sink any deeper.
Right, the next incident: Cynthia’s grand meal out.
Yes. You didn’t go, do you remember?
‘Bryony,’ I called. ‘Bryony, your grandmother’s here. Are you ready?’
Cynthia was standing in front of the mirror, combing her hands through her freshly dyed black hair, and running through various thespian poses. ‘Liz Taylor, eat your heart out,’ she said.
I