The Making of Us (26 page)

‘So, what made you decide to go through with it?’ she asked him. ‘I mean, I know you signed up when you were drunk, but afterwards, when you had to get tested and stuff. What was your motivation?’

She saw something flash through his eyes. It looked like pain.

‘Oh, God,’ he said, smiling apologetically. ‘I don’t know where to start. It’s been … Fuck.’ She watched him struggle to find some words to use. ‘Three months ago I was living with my girlfriend and we were about to have a baby together. Then she went into labour early and started losing blood and next thing I know, she’s, well, she’s dead.’ He shrugged and smiled at her pitifully.

Lydia felt her gut twist itself into a knot. ‘What about the baby?’ she whispered.

‘Baby’s fine,’ he said. ‘Baby’s good. She was in hospital for ten weeks, you know, until her due date.’

‘And where is she now?’

‘With my girlfriend’s mum. Yeah.’ He tapped the side of his pint glass with blunt fingertips.

Lydia was speechless. ‘God,’ she said, eventually. ‘That is … I don’t even know how you must be feeling. I mean, you’re
so young
.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he said, ‘shit happens. Happens to everyone. Maybe I just got my shit out the way early. And that’s part of what this is about.’ He gestured to Lydia and then to himself. ‘Everything’s
gone
, you know? My flat. My girlfriend. My job. My future. Even my mum, a bit. She’s getting used to me not being around, doing her own thing, dating and stuff. It’s all going or gone and I think I just wanted to start something, you know? And the minute I saw those people … you, and the other girl, the young one … it, I don’t know, it felt like
the next thing
? Not to say I wasn’t totally crapping myself about this. I haven’t eaten since yesterday, you know? I just kept thinking …’ He paused. ‘I was really scared you’d be …’

‘What? A cow?’

He laughed. ‘No, not a cow. Just thought you might be a bit …
aloof
? Had this image of you. In pearls and stuff.’

Lydia laughed out loud. ‘Never worn pearls in my life!’ she said.

‘Yeah, well.’ He smiled, ‘I can see that now.’

Lydia’s phone made a twittering sound and she pulled it out of her handbag, smiling apologetically at Dean. It was a text, from Bendiks, the escape text he’d promised her.
All OK?
it read. She smiled again and typed the simple response:
Very OK
. She switched off her phone and slipped it back inside her bag. ‘So,’ she said, turning her attention back to Dean, ‘your baby, who does she look like?’

He smiled, understanding her need to ask the question. ‘She looks like me.’

‘And who do you look like?’

He paused, seemed about to say something, then stopped. He stared down at his feet and then he looked up again. He appraised her, uncertainly, and then he said: ‘I look like you.’

Lydia fed her brother that night. She bought him a pie at the bar and watched him eat it with some satisfaction as she herself fiddled with a wooden board piled with unhappy slices of salami, cracked olives, coiled anchovies and a cluster of punch-bag-shaped caper-berries. She put her card behind the bar and, when it was time to settle the bill, she did it surreptitiously, gently dismissing Dean’s objections.

It was nine o’clock when they left the hotel and it felt like they had covered only a small fraction of a percent of the things they wanted to talk to each other about; that if their relationship was a slice of cake, their time together so far had been a mere crumb.

Lydia had considered the idea of inviting Dean back to her house but lost her nerve on the cusp of saying it. He was her brother, that had been proved scientifically, anecdotally and officially. They had the same nose. But still, she reasoned with herself, he was a stranger.

So they parted with a promise on both sides that they would meet up again, very, very soon.

‘Maybe that other one will be in touch by then,’ Dean said, hopefully.

‘The girl, you mean?’ asked Lydia.

‘Yeah. The young one. Then all three of us could meet up.’

Lydia smiled. She couldn’t quite imagine it. She felt that she and Dean had formed a kind of exclusive club of two tonight. It seemed less likely than ever that there was another member, let alone another two.

‘I wonder who the fourth is?’ she asked.

‘Yeah.’ Dean touched his chin and pondered the concept. ‘The mysterious fourth. The other boy. Maybe he doesn’t know?’

‘I guess so,’ she agreed. ‘Or maybe he doesn’t want to know?’

Dean shrugged.

They were outside London Bridge station. It was getting dark. People passed either side of them, seething like rapids, homeward bound. It was time to say goodbye. They smiled awkwardly at each other. They’d drunk enough to lose their initial reserve, so they pulled together in an embrace. Lydia tried her hardest to give her body a more yielding form. She was not designed to be hugged and she didn’t want to give her brother the sense that she was resisting him. But as they came together she felt it coming from him too, the strange stiffness of a person uncomfortable with physical affection. They came together like two coat stands, digging into each other with sharp elbows and stiff arms. But inside the gauche embrace there was real affection, and as they separated they smiled at each other warmly and with emotion.

‘I’ve really, really loved meeting you,’ said Lydia.

‘Likewise,’ said Dean.

‘Next week?’ said Lydia.

Dean shrugged again. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘any time. I’m not exactly busy, you know …’

‘Me neither,’ said Lydia.

They laughed and then touched each other’s arms and Dean turned away first. It seemed that should be his role as the youngest. And her role as the eldest was to watch him leave, cover his back, to see him safely into the maelstrom of the commuter station.

Lydia stood for a moment after he’d gone. She had one hand in the pocket of her jeans, the other holding the strap of her handbag. As the sun fell behind the horizon, leaving its lingering residue of inky blues across the city, the temperature fell and Lydia felt the late-evening breeze chill her skin. She unfurled her heavy scarf and covered her shoulders and her arms with it, then hitched her bag closer to her body and stepped out on to the street, her eyes peeled for the reassuring glow of a vacant taxi.

Lydia’s house greeted her like an old friend as she approached it thirty minutes later. After the strangeness of the evening, it looked safe and familiar. She felt her body relaxing as she walked up the front path towards the front door. She pictured herself in less than a minute, collecting a glass of water, kicking off her shoes, padding up to bed, peeling off her clothes, laying down her head, closing her eyes, pondering the evening, letting it all sink in while making new sense of her life. But as she turned the corner into the kitchen she saw that Bendiks was sitting at the table there, wearing a white t-shirt and combat shorts. He had lit a candle and was reading a paperback which was held in the crook of one knee, and when he heard her walking in he looked up slowly and smiled. ‘You’re back,’ he said, somewhat unnecessarily.

Lydia smiled at him uncertainly. ‘I am,’ she replied.

‘I stayed up,’ he said, again somewhat unnecessarily.

‘Yes,’ said Lydia, unhooking her handbag from her shoulder. ‘I can see.’

Bendiks closed his paperback and uncrossed his legs. He looked at her warmly. ‘I know it is silly,’ he began, ‘but, I don’t know, I was
worried
about you. I know you sent me that message but that was a long time ago. And I just wanted to … well, make sure you got home all right. And that you were feeling OK. Are you,’ he continued, ‘are you feeling OK?’

Lydia put down her handbag and smiled a smile of relief. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling absolutely OK.’

Bendiks’ smile also softened and he leaned across the table towards her. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how was it? How did it go? Unless you’d rather not talk about it?’

‘No.’ Lydia sat down and ran her hands across the smooth table top. ‘No. I do want to talk about it. I’m just not sure what to say.’

‘What was he like? Was he nice?’

Lydia looked at Bendiks’ expression of concern and felt a rush of pleasure soar through her.
How sweet
, she thought,
how very sweet
. ‘He was,’ she said. ‘He was really nice. Quite shy. Quite quiet.’

‘Ah,’ Bendiks laughed and leaned back again against his chair, ‘just like you then!’

‘Well, yes, I suppose,’ she said. ‘He was very like me. Very like me when I was his age. But lovely. Really lovely.’

Bendiks eyed her thoughtfully, almost dreamily. ‘Wow,’ he sighed. ‘This is amazing! You know that, don’t you? What is happening to you, it’s amazing.’

Lydia smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I know. It feels like a dream.’

‘It
is
like a dream. It is like an amazing dream. And now, you still have two more to meet. The other brother and the sister.’

Lydia rubbed her elbows and shrugged. ‘Doesn’t seem quite real,’ she said. And it didn’t. The sister seemed less real than ever in the light of her meeting with Dean.

Bendiks smiled at her and then got to his feet. ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said. ‘A cup of coffee? Maybe a herbal tea?’

‘No, thanks, I’m fine. I think I’d better get to bed actually. I’m feeling a bit tired.’

‘Something stronger?’ he suggested playfully. ‘A schnapps, maybe? Come on, we could take them out on to the terrace, it’s not too cold out.’

Lydia considered the offer and then Bendiks’ motivation. He was staring at her not quite beseechingly, but certainly with some depth of intent. She wondered why he wanted to drink schnapps with her on the terrace and almost asked him, almost said: But why? Why would you? She cast her gaze around pathetically, looking for a suitable response. Part of her wanted nothing more than to sit on the terrace with the object of her desire and for them to get slightly drunk together. Another part wanted to grab her handbag and scamper upstairs to her room, closing the door firmly behind her.

‘Er, OK then,’ she said, somewhat involuntarily. ‘Yes, why not?’

He beamed at her and clapped his hands together. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘great. I will be back in a minute.’ She watched him through the kitchen door, taking the stairs to his room two at a time. She watched the muscles in his thighs straighten and harden with each flex and felt a lurch in her stomach at the possibility that lay ahead of her; that she might one day get to feel those thigh muscles straining against hers. She gulped and turned away from the door, staring through the blackness of the kitchen window and trying to talk herself down from a state of heightened nerves. When she heard him returning she breathed in deeply and greeted him with a fulsome smile. He was clutching a tall, thin bottle of clear liquid. She fetched two shot glasses and followed him out on to the terrace.

Lydia sat down first, and Bendiks chose not the seat opposite but the one right next to her so that his body was only a few inches apart from hers. He poured the schnapps into the shot glasses and told her something about its provenance but Lydia was not listening. She was instead running a scenario through her mind, in which she would open her mouth and say, ‘Bendiks, are you gay?’ And he would look at her askance and say, ‘No! Of course I’m not!’ And then he would prove it by bending her backwards over the arm of the sofa and kissing her neck urgently whilst simultaneously running his hand up and down her bare thigh. She shook it from her head as she sensed that he was waiting for her to answer a question, and said, ‘Sorry? What?’

He raised his eyebrows at her and laughed. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘nothing. I can see you are miles away. And it is perfectly understandable, given the evening you’ve just had.’

She smiled at him wanly. ‘Well, yes,’ she said, grateful for his misinterpretation of her silence. ‘It has been quite a night.’

‘Well,’ he said, handing her her glass and picking up his own. ‘I propose a toast. To your brothers. To your sister. And of course to you: the amazing Lydia.’

‘Ha!’ she snorted. ‘Right!’ She hadn’t meant it to sound so disingenuous. She genuinely did not know why anyone would refer to her as amazing. But he swooped on her self-deprecation anyway and quickly shooed it away. ‘You
are
amazing. You may not think so, but I can assure you, from my perspective, as an objective onlooker, you are quite remarkable. Seriously, it is rare to meet a woman like you, so independent and clever and sexy and young.’

Sexy
. Lydia stared at him. ‘Oh, stop it,’ she said.

‘Why?’ replied Bendiks. ‘It is just the truth.’

Lydia felt almost nauseous with the density of his compliment. It was as though she had eaten six donuts in a row after years of living on cabbage. Delicious and remarkable, but too much. She smiled at him awkwardly and his expression changed. ‘I am really sorry,’ he said. ‘Have I offended you?’ And as he said this his hand moved towards her and caressed the skin of her arm. It was an innocuous gesture, no more than you might make to a stranger you’d brushed past in the street, by way of apology. But as his skin touched hers it was as if every light in the dark house of her body had suddenly been switched on. It was as though electrodes had been wired up to every nerve ending and activated. It was as though she’d been asleep and now she was awake. Wonderfully, terrifyingly awake. She brought in her breath so deeply and so quickly that it was audible. Bendiks looked at her in alarm. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked, once again bringing his hand down against her skin, this time leaving his hand there, this time caressing her lightly.

‘Yes,’ she said, quietly, ‘I’m fine.’

His hand remained. And so did his gaze.

‘You can see it,’ he said, ‘in your eyes. You can see something …
foreign
.’

She blinked at him and laughed.

‘Seriously,’ he continued, ‘in most ways you are so very British. But when I look at you, like this, in there,’ he pointed out both of her eyes, ‘I can see something different. Something exciting.’

She flinched slightly at the word. She did not want anyone to think she was exciting, because she was not exciting. And anyone thinking that she was would be horribly disappointed.