Forever Blue (3 page)

Chapter Four

Lennon

I don't know why Mum agreed to us all going out for dinner that night, maybe she wanted to be near Dad, or maybe she liked putting herself through the torture of seeing her ex-husband dote over another woman and the promise of a new family, but I found myself at the table with the three of them.

The Fat Stag Tavern was a mix of country pub and Scottish hunting trophy room. The walls were covered with animal skins, mounted animal heads and tartan. Over in one corner, there was a pool table and a dartboard. A few locals leaned against the bar, cackling over an inside joke, and the barmaid was stocking the fridge with bottles of pre-mixed drinks. Faulkner, the barman, looked up and gave me a wink and a smile when we walked in. Melinda noticed and looked at me questioningly.

Dad chose a table with the best view of the TV. Rugby was on. Great. Dad would be glued to it for the rest of the night while Mum, Melinda and I struggled through awkward conversations, each too polite to do otherwise. But I didn't mind too much. My thoughts were on Judah. Only it wasn't about the way he looked. It was about the way he looked at me.

"So, Lennon," Melinda said as the waitress set down our drinks. "How's school going?"

I took a sip of my lemonade and raspberry and little pink bubbles floated to the surface and pricked my nose. It had been my favourite drink since the age of five when I loved everything pink, I just never really grew out of it. "Not bad, I guess."

"I hope you're getting good grades." Dad took his eyes off the TV screen for an instant to look at me.

Melinda scowled at him and I ignored the question.

"Have you met any cute guys yet?" Melinda sat forward and placed her elbows on the table, ready for me to spill the latest on my love life. Now it was Dad's turn to scowl, but he still turned, interested in my answer, for once.

"Of course not." I smiled innocently. "Too busy with school work to bother with boys." It was mostly true. I was invisible at school, hidden by Sienna's shadow, so it wasn't really a choice of me not bothering with people, it was more a case of people not bothering with me. Not that I cared. I enjoyed my own company.

Dad smiled, and Melinda winked as though we shared a secret.

The conversation was as awkward as everything else about the day. The chirpy waitress came over and took our orders. Dad ordered the oysters. Melinda wanted them too, but Dad wouldn't let her. Instead, she went for the crumbed, deep-fried camembert starter.

Dad shook his head. "No soft cheeses, babe, not good for the baby."

"Actually, Robert," Mum glared at him, "the cheeses are fine. All of them are pasteurised."

Dad raised his eyebrows at Mum's clear challenge of his orders. "Still better to be safe than sorry, right, babe?" He patted Melinda's hand.

Mum looked to Melinda, and I could feel the tension slice through the table. Melinda looked down, letting her hair cover her face before telling the waitress she wanted the cheese. Mum smiled triumphantly and Dad scowled.

"So, Melinda." Mum was confident in her newfound alliance with the younger woman. "Do you know if it's a boy or girl?"

Melinda smiled brilliantly, letting joy radiate out of her, and I wished she would tone it back, just a little. "A boy."

It was only for an instant, but Mum let her shield drop and I saw the pain well up again. I pressed my hand on her knee under the table. She didn't look at me. "How wonderful." Mum took a sip of her wine, keeping her eyes glued to the ring of liquid left behind.

"I thought we were going to keep that to ourselves?" Dad sounded like a whiny child.

"They're family," Melinda said firmly. "Besides, don't you think Lennon would want to know if she is going to have a little brother or sister?"

I snorted and sent a fine spray of pink lemonade over the table. This baby would be my brother or sister—half brother or sister. Strange as it was, I hadn't registered to that fact. It was Dad's baby, Melinda's baby, not my sibling.

"When are you due?" I didn't really care. I just wanted to keep the conversation going and take the attention away from the fact that I was wiping pink droplets from the table.

"November seventeenth."

"Not long then. You'll be getting excited," I replied, saying all the things I thought I were expected of me.

"And nervous!" Melinda laughed and her nose wrinkled delightfully. I found myself momentarily wishing I had her dainty nose instead of my straight and boring one, which snorted instead of wrinkling delightfully.

"Any names?" I asked.

"We've narrowed it down to one or two, but your father won't let me tell anyone." She pulled her lips into a pout before playfully grinning at Dad and reaching across to rub his knee.

"Oh, come on, Dad," I pleaded dryly. "Surely you can let us in on the choices."

Dad shook his head. "You will just have to wait like everyone else." He took a big gulp of beer, and since the rugby match was at half time, tilted his chair back to face the table. "Your mother had some rather strange names picked out for you. She wanted ones along the lines of what the Deacons used. She actually liked the name they chose for the boy, Phoenix." He shook his head slowly. "The stupidity of some parents. Children need strong, clear names, not pathetic ones that belong in the garden. She wanted to call you Blossom or Petal, or some such rubbish before we settled on Lennon, which I must add was strange enough in itself, but, at least it's strong."

"It was Aster." Mum frowned and studied her wine glass.

"Oh, I love that!" Melinda crooned, and clasped her hands together. Dad gave her such a look of disgust I wanted to laugh. Mum caught it as well, and we shared a smile.

"I've always wanted to call a baby an exotic name like the celebrity babies, something like Kyd or Ocean," Melinda continued.

"Over my dead body," Dad muttered, then looked at Mum apologetically.

Thankfully, our meals came in record time. We had depleted our conversation topics. Mum had already asked Dad how the real estate business was going. Melinda had told a couple of funny stories from the beauty therapist business, well, at least she thought them funny. And Mum had talked about her latest art piece, much to Dad's annoyance. He didn't consider it a real job. A real job brings in money. A real job involves a workplace, a time you need to be somewhere, not simply shoving bits of rubbish on a board with some paint splattered on it.

"You know, I was thinking, Lennon—" Dad popped an oyster into his mouth while Melinda's eyes followed it all the way from his plate to his lips. He swallowed and took another gulp of beer. "You don't mind driving, do you, babe?" He turned to Melinda, who shook her head, lifted a hunk of deep-fried, gooey cheese goodness and dipped it into the plum sauce. Dad wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and turned to me. "You should come and spend some time with us before the baby arrives."

I sighed. I knew what would happen if I went to spend time with Dad, the same thing that had happened all my life. Dad would work, and I'd be left to fend for myself, or, myself and Melinda. Mum wasn't much better, but, at least she didn't have a boyfriend closer to my age than hers. And I had Grams. "It's kind of hard with school, and all that." I wasn't sure what 'all that' was, since school was the only thing I had on my calendar, but school in itself didn't seem like enough of an excuse.

"Well, I could drive up and get you on a Friday night, and drop you back off on a Sunday. What do you say?" He drained the last gulp of beer.

"Or I could drive myself?" I turned to Mum, hopeful. The thought of spending the weekend with Dad wasn't appealing, but getting to drive myself down to the city sounded fun. I was finally on my restricted license and allowed to drive alone.

"You would let her drive the car?" Dad raised his eyebrows at Mum and his glasses tilted lopsidedly.

"She's got her own now." Mum didn't look at him and loaded more chicken into her mouth so her words were mumbled. "I traded mine and got a couple of little bombs for us to run around in. Seemed more practical than keeping that gas-guzzling monster."

Dad's eyes widened. "You sold the Commodore?"

Mum nodded.

"And you got her a car without consulting me?"

"I'm sorry, did you want to buy her a car yourself?" Mum knew that would get to him. He was a tightwad, always had been. It wasn't that he didn't have money, it was that he preferred to spend it on himself.

"Well, no. I just assumed you would talk to me about things like this."

"Why?" Mum looked as though she was enjoying watching him squirm as she lifted another piece of chicken to her mouth.

"Well, just because." He picked up his glass but sat it back down again once he realised it was empty.

He looked older. His hair, once dark and thick, was greying at the temples and thinning on top. He had recently started wearing glasses that accented the pouches beneath his eyes, and his tummy showed signs of too many happy hours at the bar.

"So, you'll come?" he asked.

I played with the carrots left on my plate. I didn't like orange things, another absurdity left over from when I was five. "Well, it's just, I would love to drive my car down, but with petrol prices what they are at the moment—" I let the sentence hang.

"Bobby will give you some petrol money, won't you?" Melinda cut in. I had never heard anyone call Dad, Bobby, before, and I had to hold in my laughter. I didn't dare look at Mum.

Dad dug out his wallet and handed me sixty dollars. Melinda might be good for him, after all. "Enough?"

"Thanks, Dad, that's great." I folded the notes and stuffed them into my jeans. I was sure Dad thought I was playing him, but in reality, I really did need the cash to get down. I didn't have a part-time job, yet, but I was looking, sort of. I flicked through the situation vacant adverts in the local paper. I just hadn't done anything more than that.

"So, when will you come down?" Dad took a sip of his drink that the waitress sat down in front of him, and looked over the edge of his glasses.

"Early November? Maybe just for one night, though."

Dad took out his phone and punched at it with one finger. "First weekend?"

I nodded. There was no point in checking my calendar. I already knew I was free.

"I'll cancel my open homes for that weekend. Suzie can cover them for me." He looked at his phone for a moment longer. "You'll be down for the baby shower."

"Yay." I put zero enthusiasm into my reply.

"It will be such fun!" Melinda clapped her hands together excitedly, completely ignorant, or oblivious to my tone. "You can help me set up all the games and decorate. I've got lots of baby blue balloons and little diapers we can shape into a cake."

I groaned inwardly but attempted a smile for Melinda's sake.

"Don't you think you should use neutral coloured balloons?" Dad glared at her.

"I didn't realise that colours had a gender," I said.

Melinda shook her head. "Everyone pretty much knows, anyway." She grinned. "I told you I was bad at keeping secrets."

"Obviously." Dad cleared his throat and pushed back his plate, staring at his watch. Melinda picked up the dessert menu but Dad shook his head. "We better hit the road."

Mum pushed back her chair and stood.

"I'll get this, Shelley." Dad scraped his chair against the floor and stood, arching his back and patting his belly.

"No need. I can cover my own." Mum was firm.

Melinda stood beside Dad and wrapped her arms around his waist. "But I virtually forced you into coming tonight." Melinda smiled. "Please, let us get this one."

Mum flinched when Melinda said, 'us', but then she straightened her shoulders and looked at the younger woman. "I can look after myself, but thanks for the offer."

When we got home, I holed myself up on the couch with a blanket and a block of chocolate for company while Mum retreated to her room. A music video raced across the TV screen, one with broken mirrors, swirling smoke and longing looks, and I found myself thinking of the boy at the cemetery. He had such sad eyes. I would ask Sienna about him tomorrow and see if I could find out anything more. If anyone knew the truth behind the rumours, it was Sienna.

Chapter Five

Ruben - the previous year

We were named after brothers in the Bible. Ruben and Judah. I'm not sure why our parents chose those names. Two siblings who hated their younger brother so much they plotted to kill him was hardly the most inspiring of stories. But our story, the story of Ruben and Judah, was more like another biblical tale.  In the realm of our small town, our story would come to rival that of Cain and Abel. One dead and the other left branded by the aftermath.

By the time we were fifteen, rugby was the only thing Judah and I had in common, other than being twins, that is. We were identical, but it only extended to our looks. Everyone assumed that we had a secret connection, that I had the ability to look into the mind of my brother and know what he was thinking because we looked alike. But his mind was just as much a mystery to me as it was to everyone else, our father included. In his eyes, he gave us the same opportunities. Judah just squandered his.

We returned home from the game covered in mud. Mum frowned when I walked into the kitchen, though I'm not sure why. It's not as though she did the laundry. We had a cleaning service for that. But still, she frowned and placed her hand on her hip, muttering under her breath as she sipped on a glass of wine. I couldn't wait to jump in the shower. Don't get me wrong, I loved rugby, I just didn't love being covered in mud. But as my foot touched the first step of the stairs, Mum called out, "Your father is home." She said it as though it was something to be excited about. It wasn't. Dad was often away on business. He owned a hotel chain, but I would hardly call drinking and playing golf, working, whether you referred to them as business meetings or not.

As if he had been waiting for Mum's announcement, Dad sauntered into the kitchen and clapped me on the back. He was dressed in his usual navy pinstripe suit which meant he hadn't finished for the day. If he had been, he and Mum would have been shuffling around in their matching satin dressing gowns and slippers, a sight which made me shudder.

"How was the game?" he asked, leaning over the table and grasping the newspaper. He dragged it towards him and smoothed the pages, his eyes scanning the headlines. That was the thing about Dad. He was there, he was present, but at the same time, he wasn't. Even though he acknowledged me, even though he asked about practice, he didn't really care. It was just a chance for him to relive his glory days and remind Judah and me that we would never live up to them.

I grabbed an apple from the bench and took a bite, causing my words to come out mumbled between pieces of fruit. "We won."

Dad looked up from the paper and smiled briefly. "Good to hear. Maybe you boys will take the title this year, become champions like your old man."

I didn't bother telling him that it was just a friendly game between our high school and the one from the next town over. There was no title involved.  Dad wore the black jersey once, and only once. But by the way he spoke, he was one of the greatest rugby players to grace the earth.

His eyes slid over to where Judah leaned against the kitchen counter, downing a bottle of water.  "How about you, Judah? Ready to become the next Mitchell to storm the rugby world, or are you going to leave that up to your brother, too?"

Judah grunted and took another gulp of water. His face was smeared with dirt and he hid beneath the dark hair that hung over his eyes, trying not to show the bruising that was under it, something Dad would see as either a badge of honour, or weakness. But because it was Judah, the latter was the more likely.

Dad sighed and turned back to me. "Friday night," he said, as though his announcement made it so. "You boys got anything planned?"

I swallowed the last bite of apple. "There's a party at the old hall that I might check out."

"And what about you, Judah? Do you think you'll actually leave your room tonight and interact with the world?" Dad asked coldly.

Judah shrugged and grabbed another bottle of water from the fridge. The light from the open door illuminated his face, and Mum's features wrinkled with concern.

"What happened?" She walked over and traced the faint bruising already starting to blush under his left eye.

"Nothing," he muttered, pulling away from her touch and trying not to wince at the sudden movement.

"It doesn't look like nothing," she said, replacing her look of concern with a frown and crossing her arms.

Dad rolled his eyes. "Shouldn't have let them get that close to you, boy. Back in my day—"

Mum smiled and walked over to pat Dad's cheek. "But it's not your day, is it?"

Dad chuckled. "Not anymore, my love. Those days are long gone. But not for these boys. They have their whole lives ahead of them, to make something of themselves, just like their old man, not to sit around and cry over a little scuff."

Dad didn't see the tackle. He didn't see the way Judah was slammed into the ground, or the deliberate head butt that occurred just before it. But Judah didn't bother answering. He didn't bother pointing out that he hadn't shed a single tear. He simply twisted the cap off the bottle and emptied the contents in one gulp before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.

"What's his problem this time?" Dad asked.

He couldn't, or wouldn't, see the way he treated Judah, the way he assumed the worst of him. Admittedly, Judah did very little to help himself. He spent most of his time tinkering with his car in the garage, or locked away in his room playing video games. He wasn't like me. He didn't care what other people thought of him, Dad included. He would rather talk to people halfway around the world about which clan to raid next, than talk to his own family, his own brother. As I said, rugby was the only thing we had in common, and even then, he barely spoke to me. We played on opposite sides of the field. We rarely had the need to communicate, just the way Judah preferred it.

Dad picked up the paper and jostled it firmly. "Take him to that party with you tonight," he ordered, turning his attention back to the headlines.

Judah hated parties, or as he called them 'group alcohol consumption gatherings.' I laughed. "Unless there's going to be a car show or some sort of gaming exhibition, I don't see that happening."

"Well, find some way to convince him," Dad said gruffly. He looked over the top of the paper. "I'm not having a son of mine waste his life away playing pretend games and fiddling with cars."

Mum walked out of the room, refilled wine glass in hand. She hated the way Dad talked about Judah, but she never did anything to stop it. Neither did I.

Whenever Dad was home, his input into our lives was in the form of lectures and comparisons to what he was doing at our age. In Dad's eyes, I stacked up not badly. Judah didn't. Judah wasn't enough. He would never be enough.

"No worse than drowning it in wine." I meant to say it quietly, mutter the words under my breath, but Dad caught every one of them and sent me a sharp look. He didn't address them, though. He merely turned his attention back to the subject of my socially backwards brother. "It's not a good look. I want him out of the house tonight. You hear me? I've got a meeting."

And with that comment, the truth came out. Best to hide him away rather than face the embarrassment of a son not living up to his potential.

"I'll do my best," I said as I walked out.

I bounded up the stairs and stopped at Judah's door. Machine gun fire blasted through the open crack. Our rooms were either side of the staircase and took up the entire level. Left for mine, right for Judah's. They were exact replicas. Same layout, same wallpaper, same furniture, same everything. But, unlike Judah's, in my room everything had a place. I had a few of my most treasured sketches pinned over the gold and black wallpaper, but other than those, it was clean and clear. My books were arranged neatly on my desk, my TV flickered with music videos, but the volume was down, and the big mirror above my duchess was clear from dust. It was only my guitar that sat out of place, leaning against the wall. It was there to impress people who might happen to come in, but I could only play one song.

Judah's room was the opposite. I squeezed through the door, as it wouldn't open properly due to the clothing scattered across the floor, and waved my way through the haze of smoke until I was standing in front of Judah, blocking his vision of the screen. The game was loud. Gunfire and explosions sounded in my ears, but Judah barely registered I was there. He simply tilted his head so he could still see the screen and continued forcefully tapping his thumbs on the controller.

"Judah!" I yelled at him. He looked up but didn't answer. He didn't even take off his headphones. "Judah!" I yelled again.

He paused the game and removed the headphones, placing them carefully on the coffee table. "What?" he asked impatiently. Only it wasn't really a word. It was a grunt. He picked up a cigarette packet from the ground and tapped the bottom so one popped out. I flopped down on the beanbag beside him and kicked away an empty chip packet. "You're coming to the party with me tonight."

Judah rolled his eyes, placed the cigarette in his mouth and put the headphones back over his head. I wasn't sure whether he was using them to communicate with the other gamers across the world, or whether they were just a way to block me out. I got up and ripped them from his head. Anger flared in his expression, but he merely snatched them back and placed them over his ears again, making a deliberate effort to look around me at the screen. The unlit cigarette clung to his bottom lip, stuck by some magical force, or spit, probably spit. Although he had wiped the mud from his face, he hadn't bothered to get out of his rugby clothes.

"Hurt much?" I nodded to the marks across his nose and under his eye.

Judah moved his eyes towards me and wiped his wrist under his nose. His hand came away with a line of dry blood. "Right as rain." The cigarette bobbed up and down as he spoke.

"You're coming to the party with me. We leave in fifteen minutes," I said. But Judah was already fixed back on the game, the sound of gunfire filling the room with deafening clarity. Absently, he brought a lighter to the tip of the cigarette, flicking his eyes between it and the screen, and inhaled deeply, the end of the cigarette burning red.

I walked across the hall, into my room, and breathed deeply. I liked clean, clear spaces. Clean, clear air, too. It helped keep my thoughts ordered and my mind focussed. My room was so tidy that if I knew anyone would be entering, I messed it up a little in order not to show how much of a neat freak I was. Well, anyone apart from Judah. Even though we barely spoke, we never felt the need to hide from each other like we did others. It was because of this that sometimes I wished we were closer, that we connected in ways they say twins do. The way we used to. It wasn't always this way. We used to do everything together. But that was before Cara Armistead moved in next door. A few years after that, he hated me. At first, I thought it was because of Dad's attention. Being the favoured son came with its own brand of torture. Only, Judah couldn't see that. All he saw was the attention I received, the gifts I was adorned with, and the praise that fell so easily from our father's lips. But he didn't realise the pressure that came with those expectations. He didn't realise that every time I came home with a high grade only compounded the pressure to achieve a better result next time. He didn't know that Dad's praise meant a completely different thing to my ears than it did to his. But I don't think that's why he hated me. He hated me because Cara didn't.

It didn't take long to jump through the shower, pull on a clean shirt and jeans, and slick my hair back, but it was obviously not long enough for Judah. When I went back into his room, he was sitting in the same place as before, eyes glued to the screen, gunfire blasting through the air. I walked over, grabbed a beer out of his mini fridge and flicked off the power switch to the gaming consul, silencing the bloodshed and explosions.

"It's one party." I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig. Judah just stared. He had this way of looking at me that made me feel guilty, even when I hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't answer, just stared at me with eyes that were a replica of my own, unblinking, unwavering and cold, as if he were holding all his emotions inside until I left. So I said the one thing that I knew would work. "Cara's coming."

Sure enough, Judah's eyes widened, despite his best effort to appear uninterested. "She's home?"

"Last week."

"And you know this, how?" His eyes narrowed.

"She called. She wanted a ride to the party tonight. She asked if you were coming." She hadn't, but he didn't need to know that. Judah had been in love with Cara Armistead since they met. They became inseparable and stayed that way until Cara left for boarding school at the beginning of the year. But Cara had been called home when her mum started to get sick.

Judah jerked off his headphones and stubbed out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.

"Did you hear me?" I said. "Cara's coming."

He stared without blinking, until he reached up and grabbed the bottle out of my hands, downing it in one gulp. "Well, I'm hardly going to attend the freak show sober, am I?"

"I guess that means I'm driving." I grabbed his keys off the bedside cabinet and jangled them in front of him. "We're taking your car."