Saving from Monkeys (22 page)

I don't know if he understood the significance of that, but he certainly seemed to give it some thought.

"So..." he said eventually."I revitalised and stimulated you?"

I couldn't help thinking that he'd completely miss
ed the point, but to humour him I held up my thumb and forefinger indicating a small amount. For a moment it looked like he was going laugh again, but instead, his face smoothed and he asked, in a tone that could only be described as serious, "And I made you rethink the world you live in?"

"The rich jerk from my past revealing that he's now a job-owning, post-sex hair stroker?" I asked, uncomfortably aware that I was basically saying he'd been right when he'd yelled at me about being a reverse snob. "Yep, consider
some things rethought."

We lapsed into silence, but I don't think for either of us there was going to be that stereotypical 'had s
ex, must now sleep' thing that films always depicted. His hands still moved through my hair, and my eyes stayed resolutely open, staring into the darkness.

It was a vigil, I realised. There wasn't going to be much sleep that night.

And there she was. Nan. The stroke-affected, novelty ring clad, quite possibly currently walking through death's door, elephant in the room.

Feeling almost scared of lying there in the quiet thinking about Nan taking her journey away from
us, I forced myself to speak, even as the effort just about ripped my taut throat in two.

"I was right."

Elliot took a while in replying and, when he did speak, his voice sounded blurry and far away.

"That seems to be your usual opinion." He'd clearly been in the same space as me and I appreciated that he was making the effort to make it seem like we were having one of our normal conversations.
"About anything in particular this time?"

"You
did
have sex with me to make Nan happy." I chewed at my swollen bottom lip, suddenly wishing I hadn't broken the silence after all, but finishing with a mumbled, "I was just off on the dates."

He stiffened, drawing away from me even as we stayed pressed so close, and I wanted, more than anything, to take back my words. They were stupid,
I
was stupid. I'd been fishing for a reaction and I deserved the one I got.

"Nan, me...you
," he said flatly. "That's economics, isn't it? Three sad birds with one stone."

I wanted to apologise, but it didn't feel like enough so, instead, I pressed a hand to his cheek, my fingers resting on the freckle up by his eye, feeling the scratch of his stubble.

"It worked with this sad bird," I told him honestly, and, when he didn't reply, I went back to chewing at my lip.

I'd just felt the first bloom of metallic blood on my tongue when Elliot reached round and gently unhooked my lip from between my teeth. The pad of his index finger rested briefly on the spot where the tiny bead of crimson pulsed and then he pulled away and let out a long sigh.

"Nan liked you straight away, you know? First thing she said to me about you was 'quick, the new housekeeper's brought something interesting into the house. Go have a look before your parents stifle it.'"

I felt one side of my mouth lift in a half attempt at a smile.
"My mum had just gone into the final interview with your parents when Nan came into the kitchen," I explained. "She didn't look like the sort of person who would normally be in a house like yours and I panicked. I thought she'd come about the job as well and I told her it was already taken and to rack off."

"That would do it."

I watched as he lifted his arm and scrubbed at his hair in frustration. I thought I knew how he felt. This whole grief thing made you feel so damn
impotent
.

"I don't remember the first thing she said to me about you," I admitted, "but I remember her snapping at me once when I'd just started working here. I'd been going on about how useless you were and she obviously got sick of it and said 'that boy is the best thing in this house, or in any house come to that. One day you'll see that and you'll want to bite your own tongue off for the things you've just said'."

I prodded where I'd bitten through my lip and considered that maybe she'd been right, but just a little off with the location.

Elliot lay still and silent for a couple of moments and then I felt his fingers disentangle themselves from my hair and he was pulling away to sit up.

"Where’re you going?" I asked as he grabbed his t-shirt and slipped it over his head before reaching for his jeans.

"
We're
going to see Nan." He scooped my clothes up and chucked then across to me where I proceeded to stare at them as if I had no idea what they were or what they were for.

"But-" I started to
protest, and he silenced me with a sharp look.

"This 'I remember when' stuff means
jack if we haven't said goodbye," he said harshly. "So get dressed and let's go."

~*~

The house was dark and silent as we made our way down to the ground floor. The moonlight shone in through the large windows in the foyer, casting everything in a pale blue light. This, coupled with the events of the past hour or so, made everything seem sort of unreal. But it was real. Painfully so.

My heart beat faster in trepidation and it was only by fiercely reminding
myself how much worse Elliot, stiff and silent beside me, must’ve been feeling, that stopped me from chickening out altogether.

There was a certain feeling of déjà vu attached to the moment we stopped outside Nan's door, standing still and staring at the wooden facade for a moment. Whereas
on that first day it’d been me taking the lead, it was Elliot who took the plunge this time, pushing the door open, and me through it, in quick succession.

A dim lamp was on next to Nan's bed, sparing us the cold blue of the moonlight and doing its best to make the tableau in front of us a little cosier and less horrifying. Its best wasn't all that great, if truth be told.

I wasn't a doctor, I'd never been around someone in a palliative care situation before, and there was nothing that I could specifically say was different about Nan that night, so maybe it was some innate, human instinct that told me that she was already half gone.

I was so transfixed by this moment of understanding I was having, that when Elliot suddenly croaked,
"Mum?" I started and looked at Mrs Sinclair like she'd just blinked into existence. She hadn't, of course, she'd been sitting in one of the chairs by the bed ever since we came in, her back straight, her eyes dry.

For a moment I felt guilty for having disobeyed her order to leave Nan alone, but then I realised so had she.

"It won't be long now." Chase was there too, his voice calm, his presence reassuring. "If you want to say goodbye, now's a good time."

I looked between the two Sinclairs, but neither of them made any move so I supposed I was going first.

Taking the other spare seat, I grabbed up Nan's hand, as I'd done many times over the past few days, and then held it up to my face, using our clasped hands as a shield behind which to talk.

"Hi Nan," I whispered, the pain in my throat and chest almost unbearable. "I really hope you can hear me or, if you can't, that you already know what I'm going to say. You've made my life so much better..." my voice cracked and I had to stop for a moment and swallow a few times before the words found a way to force themselves out. "I was scared of so much stuff when I met you, and then you were there, laughing in the face of everything, and it all got so much easier. Thank you for...for figuring me out before I did and letting me know that I was
OK, that I'd do OK. You've always had my back and...I'm going to miss you so much."

I couldn't talk after that, even though I had so much more to say, so I had to make do with pressing trembling lips against her sagged cheek and thinking fiercely about how much I loved her. I hoped that some of my thoughts would
pass to her somehow.

Eventually, I pulled back, my knees buckling slightly as my head swam with the enormity of what I'd just done.
Elliot was by my side in an instant, his hand gripping my shoulder tightly, holding me up when I just wanted to wimp out. For one blinding hot second I hated him for forcing me down here to say goodbye. I felt like he'd given up on Nan or, like that horrible cat in a box experiment, if we'd just stayed up in his room and not known she'd passed away it could’ve stopped it from being true.

This was too stupid for even the grief-stricken me to believe,
however, and the moment passed. It left its aftertaste, though, and I knew I couldn't stay in that room any longer. I'd said my goodbye, the idea of having to stand there and watch Elliot and Mrs Sinclair do theirs made me sick to my stomach.

I felt like a coward, especially since there was Elliot trying to comfort me and I knew I couldn't return the favour, but I'd reached the highest level of pain I could take. I wouldn't do any good if I stayed.

I reached up and clutched at Elliot's hand for a moment and then brought it down off my shoulder and let go. "I'll be outside," I said miserably, gesturing towards the door. "Right there if you need me."
But please don't need me
.

To my eternal gratitude, Elliot didn't look disappointed, or even surprised. He just nodded and I slipped away, leaving him and his mum to say the final goodbye.

----------

Hours later, as the first sign of dawn started to turn the black sky grey, Elliot opened the door and found Rox hunched up on the floor against the wall. Her head rested on her knees, her eyes slitted with tiredness, but open.

She lifted her head as she saw him, her cheek red from where it had been pressed against her knee, but otherwise her face sheet white.

He didn't know what he was thinking, or what he was supposed to be feeling. Sad, he thought, but that did
n't seem to cut it. He should’ve been screaming and wailing and bashing his head against the wall, but he wasn't. He felt nothing except completely

ing
useless.

"Is she...?" Rox asked, and, as he nodded, he saw that she, at least, was behaving like she was supposed to. As tears started to slip out from under her lids, he crouched down and pulled her against him, indescribably thankful to her for giving him this purpose.

'Comfort Rox' his brain chanted, sending the clear message to his arms which obediently held her firmly.

"Chase said she wouldn't have felt anything," he said, wanting to make that very clear. He was hoping that what Chase had meant was that she was too far gone to be aware of
anything
, because he knew that his last words to Nan had been pathetic. He'd mumbled something about her being the best person he knew, but that didn't even come close to being what he'd wanted her to know.

Then he'd just sat there; sat there and watched his mum watching her mum in one big dysfunctional family chain.

Finally the moment had come when Nan had pushed one last rattly breath out, and there'd been a pummelling silence as the next inward drag of oxygen just hadn't happened.

After everything she'd done in her life, the outrageous, crazy things she'd seen and been a part of, this seemed cruelly anti-climatic. Where was the mystique in her just stopping breathing? Where
was the firing cannon? The clamouring hordes? The Goddamn Papua New Guinean slingshot? It was just no more breathing and that was it?

Nan deserved better and he suddenly hated himself for not giving it to her.

He tried to recapture the moment when all that had mattered was comforting Rox, but try as he might to soothingly rub her back, he found that all he could do now was clutch her tight.

Well, that would have to be enough for now, because he was empty and tired, and Nan was gone.

Chapter 13 – The Weeping Eyeliner and the Silent Scream

There were many difficult things about the day of a funeral, but an hour or so before Nan's, I was struggling with something I'd never even considered before. How the hell did you put on eyeliner when you weren't able to stop crying?

I had another stab at sweeping a line of black under my eye, only to again remember that it was Nan who had told me that eyeliner had been invented by women unafraid to kill themselves by means of adder and should, therefore, command the utmost respect. In frustration, I watched as another slick of tears washed the makeup down into the hollows beneath my eyes.

"Monkeys," I muttered, reaching for another tissue.

"Leave it," I stopped, the tissue halfway to my face, as Elliot suddenly spoke from behind me,
"goth looks good on you."

And there he
was, the post-Nan Elliot. The one who seemed to have had a sensor installed so he knew whenever I started to cry. The one who I knew had sat outside my room for the past two nights without making any attempt to come in and be with me. The one I wished would go away so the other Elliot could come back.

I turned, hoping some witty retort would have occurred to me by the time I was facing him, but swiftly finding that the sight of him robbed me of any words, let alone witty ones.

The thing that needed to be made very clear here was that Elliot was wearing braces. Not the ones he'd worn as a teenager to make his teeth straight, but brilliant red ones that were holding up baggy yellow pants that stopped a few centimetres below his knees. As if that wasn't enough, he wore a spotted bowtie and, yes, squishing his floppy hair was a cap with a propeller on top.

After a few seconds of gaping soundlessly at him, I finally managed to choke out,

"Hey there, Tweedledum.”

He looked at me for a long moment, as solemn as anyone could be in that outfit. "Come again?"

For a second I felt the beginnings of a smile, but it didn't quite make it. Walking over to him, I stood up on my tiptoes and flicked the propeller on his head. As it whirred around, I sank back onto my heels and said, "Nothing, you just look like..." he looked at me, completely stone-faced and I let it go, once again mumbling, "Nothing."

Something had happened to Elliot the night Nan had died, something really not good. It wasn't that he'd stopped talking to me, or hadn't been there to put an arm around me when I found myself stopping dead and just crying, he had, every time. The thing was...who was this guy who was so unerringly sweet and kind? He unnerved me.

The irritating Elliot I knew had gone behind a polite wall, not so much shutting me out, but more pretending that he was letting me in when he quite clearly wasn't.

It was his choice, his right, his grief, but still, the past few days had provided me with an entirely new urge to punch something every time he looked right at me and said something pleasant.

"I went into the shop and asked for the stupidest costume they had," he shrugged, appearing completely disinterested in what he was saying. "Considering my hat has a part that spins, I figured I got what I asked for."

"Well," I said, with a huge effort to match his neutral tone, "Nan would think it was awesome."

And she would. Cool, suave Elliot dressed as an idiot would have amused her no end.

"I went for a different approach." There was a lump in my throat as I gestured down at the incredibly tight dress I was wearing. It was bright red and the label had called it a
'bandage dress'. Bandage was right, I was half expecting an archaeologist to burst in and claim he'd discovered me. It sat high on my chest, but was so short I was going to be spending all day with my knees firmly pressed together. It was a bad investment in so many ways; the dress hadn't been cheap (even though it made me look it) and I knew I'd never wear it again, but there wasn't an economic principle in the world that could convince me it was wrong.

While trying not to remember how I'd thought
pretty much the same thing whilst having sex with Elliot, I blurted out, "What do you think?" And gave a little turn, fairly easily accomplished as I wore flats on my feet. The dress deserved heels, but if I was going to spend the day working on basic accomplishments like breathing without sobbing, having to concentrate on how to walk as well was going to be one step too far.

The new, fake Elliot didn't miss a beat. "You look nice."

Only three nights ago the guy in front of me had stripped me of my scummy cleaning clothes and made me laugh and squirm...how dare he now say I look
nice
?

His grief, I reminded myself repressively, his choice.

"Damn, I was going for slutty." I tugged at the hem and remembered the horrified expression on the shop assistant's face when I'd accidentally let slip that the purchase was for a funeral. Her disgust had reassured me that I was spot on with my choice of dress, but I knew I was in for some fairly filthy looks throughout the day.

Well, fine
, I thought recklessly.
Bring it on
.

I looked back up at Elliot and saw for the first time that he loosely held two bright yellow flowers in his hand. Seeing the direction of my gaze, he lifted them up and then tucked one under his right brace so it stuck out cheerfully from his chest.

"Here," He gestured for me to tip my head down and, when I obliged, leant forward to thread the stem of the second flower through the messy bun I'd shoved my hair into earlier. I held myself still as he worked, conscious that all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around his waist and tell him that I understood what he was going through and, whatever he was feeling, it was OK. I was equally conscious, however, that this would go against Elliot's recent, unspoken rule; he could comfort me, but I had to stay well away. And anyway, to be honest, I'm not sure I
did
understand what he was going through...I'm not sure even he did.

"They're pretty," I said instead, allowing a finger to reach up to gently trace the petals on his flower.

"They're gerberas," he replied shortly.

Having secured the flower to his liking, he stepped back, and, as he did so, I heard a crackle of paper. Following the sound, I looked down and saw the corner of an envelope poking out of one of the droopy pockets of his voluminous pants.

"What's that?" I asked, more out of nosey habit than any particular desire to know what he was carting round with him. That was until he slapped his hand down onto his pocket, crushing the envelope down and out of view, then I was very interested.

"Nothing."
AKA
something
.

I was so used to saying whatever I wanted to Elliot, it almost physically hurt to hold my tongue this time, but I was determined to persevere. He hadn't called me out over dissolving into a mush of tears every few seconds, so I was going to do my hardest to give him the space he seemed to want in return.

It was incredibly perverse, but I wished in that moment that Nan was back with us and could tell me what to do. She would have known how to get through to Elliot.

After a good 10 seconds or so of giving myself a thorough talking to, I felt confident that I wasn't about to grab Elliot by his braces and shake him until he said something real. With this confidence, I opened my mouth to ask him whether it was time to head off to the
funeral, but was interrupted by a familiar voice suddenly bellowing his name out in the corridor.

"In here." Finally, I saw a flicker of the old Elliot as he shouted the reply, swinging round to face the door just as Jonah burst through it.

There was no momentary pause to take in the situation, or words of greeting. Jonah just grabbed his friend by the scruff of his neck and, in the next moment, Elliot's forehead was pressed against his shoulder.

I turned away to check my bag had everything I wanted in it. This simple task dragged out for several minutes as the boys had their moment, until I was just standing there with my back to them, my bag hanging listlessly from my fingers.

Eventually, there was a muted sort of cough and a shuffling of feet and I turned to see that they'd broken apart, although Jonah still rested one, giant hand on Elliot's shoulder.

"Crap," he said, looking between Elliot and me, "I didn't realise it was fancy dress."

It was only when I flinched at the volume of his voice that I realised that people had been speaking in sort of hushed tones all week. Apart from when Elliot had yelled at me, obviously. To have someone who sat a little bit apart from all the pain and drama, who just genuinely wanted what was best for Elliot and who I knew would be the best possible ally in the hours to come made me almost wilt in relief.

It
was a symptom of this relief that made me drop my bag down on the floor, run across to Jonah and throw my arms around his big, barrel chest.

"Er, right, hey Cinders." He awkwardly patted my back a couple of times and I
knew he was exchanging a perturbed look with Elliot.

I suppose it
was
a bit full on considering the last time he'd seen me I'd been ignoring him in order to concentrate more fully on freaking out about kissing Elliot. God, that seemed so long ago.

Still, I refused to be embarrassed and when I pulled back I found I was smiling genuinely for what felt like the first time in ages.
"It's good to see you," I said honestly, adding silently 'Help me help Elliot'.

There was a pause as Jonah, with a hand on both of us, created a connection I felt I hadn't had with Elliot since the night Nan died. Then Elliot took a step back and said, in his new, forced voice,
"How was the trip up? Alright?"

Jonah's pale, ginger eyebrows rose and then he nodded slowly.
"Yeah, mate, it was fine."

"Good," Elliot nodded
as well, his ridiculous cap sliding forward and back with the movement. "Sometimes the highway can get a bit clogged round this time."

OK
, that was one step too far! We had the wonders and pain of the universe to talk about; sex and death and everything in-between, and he wanted to talk about
traffic
?

Before I could stop myself, I'd squeaked, "
Seriously
?"

He cut his eyes across to me and, in my freaked out state, I could've sworn they were even darker than usual. He held my gaze for a good few seconds, much longer than anything he'd been able to muster over the past few days, but then he looked away.

I had no idea how long the three of us would have been stuck in this endless rigmarole of Elliot being polite and Jonah and I being freaked out, if there hadn't been a little tap on the door and then my mum's voice saying, "Elliot, the car's ready for you."

Leaning to one side so I could see past Jonah, I saw her tuck her head round the door. Her eyes widened and I realised that we must have been quite a sight. Elliot dressed like the village idiot, me looking like an adult actor on her way to the porno Oscars, and good old Jonah, a boulder stuffed into a suit.

I still stood closer to Jonah than was customary, not having moved away after our hug, and, for a split second, I wondered what mum would make of that. Maybe she would think I was rich boy bait, I thought bitterly. I hadn't had the opportunity to call her out further on the things she'd said to me the first night I'd arrived. We'd hardly seen each other and, anyway, it'd really not been the biggest problem on my list.

"I have to go to the-" Elliot faltered and I realised the word 'funeral' was beyond him. He reworded, and tried again, "I have to go in the family car." The twist to his face told us exactly what he thought of the travel arrangements. "Mate," he focused briefly on Jonah, "can you take Rox?"

"Got her," Jonah nodded and I busied myself having another go wiping away the failed eye make-up attempt, so they didn't see how that simple, automatic consideration of me made me feel like I was liquefying.

"Oh, and Rox?"
I looked up to see that Elliot had switched his attention to me, the propeller on his head spinning lazily in a mockery of the serious moment.

"Yeah?"
I asked.

"You look exactly how Nan would have wanted you to."

For the briefest moment his eyes flicked to my mum and then he looked back at me and I nodded curtly. He'd known, just as clearly as I had, that my mum had been planning to pull me aside and berate me on my outfit choice, and his words had almost certainly saved me from that. Rather than be thankful, however, I just wanted to screech 'stop thinking about me, what about
you
?'

"You too," I said miserably, repeating my earlier sentiment, but all out of new things to say to this alternate universe Elliot.

Even, or maybe
especially
, in his weird state, I hated that he was being separated from us, but I couldn't begrudge Mrs Sinclair her son today. With this in mind, I just gave a stupid little wave to farewell him, and then he was squeezing past my mum and disappearing out into the corridor.

There was a ringing silence once
he'd gone. I looked across at Mum, still expecting a bit of a lecture, after all, I was dressed as a slut for the funeral of her boss's mother, but was instead horrified to see her eyes filling with tears as mine were so wont to do at the moment.