The Name I Call Myself (29 page)

“That's not my point. You need to sort things out with him. He should be the one you go to when you need help, or a shoulder to lean on. He should be the one crying about your terrible past. You're in a potentially really dangerous situation and he deserves to know. If he did know, he probably wouldn't be in Germany. You aren't being fair to him. And when you confide in me about this stuff I have no right to get involved with, you aren't being fair to
me
.” He was nearly yelling now. I'd never seen Dylan like this before.

“My relationship with Perry has nothing to do with you! With us being friends.” I choked on my words, on the humiliation and the hurt. “Do you think because I'm getting married I shouldn't have any male friends? That's hogwash.”

He looked down at the grass I had kicked again. “No. I think because you're getting married you shouldn't be friends with me.” He grimaced. “I'll see you around, Faith.”

He strode round to the driver's side of the truck, yanked open the door, and screeched into the night. I walked over to where Marilyn waited in her car.

“Everything okay?”

I nodded, afraid to speak.

“Want to talk about it?”

I shook my head.

“Well, you know I'm here if you change your mind.” She started the ignition.

“No, it's fine. We were just talking about driving lessons. Nothing serious.”

Nothing serious. So why did I feel as though my guts had been ripped out with a blunt camping knife?

Initially I put the headache down to another night twisting myself up in my tangled thoughts and tangled duvet, along with the alcohol, something I rarely touched. I got up around dawn, tried to shower off any last traces of stink, and forced down a cup of coffee.

Ten minutes later I threw the coffee back up again. Then the chills kicked in. My throat felt as though someone held a lighter to it. I made it halfway down the street, determined to get to church, where I could show Dylan I'd brushed off last night's conversation as the petty nothing it was compared to the important things in my life, like my wedding, and my brother. Rasping, quaking, my head spinning, I stumbled back home and hauled myself back up to bed.

Fever, virus, bacterial infection. My greatest fear after long-lost killers, having a bin for a bed again, and something happening to Sam. Or rather, something even worse happening to him.

If I couldn't get out of bed, couldn't stay on my feet for a five-hour stretch, couldn't carry four loaded plates without my hands trembling, I couldn't work. If I didn't work, I ran out of money. Running out of money spelled big trouble.

I could survive on pennies, eat six-pence tins of beans, wrap up in an extra duvet when the gas got cut off. But what I wouldn't be able to do was pay the massive debt I still owed from when, in desperation, I had booked Sam into a private treatment centre for the first time.

Three years ago, the overstretched, overstressed community
nurses told me Sam must prove to be a danger to himself or others before being admitted to the kind of NHS facility that would help prevent him becoming either of those things. Distraught at watching him slowly tumble into his own personal hell, certain a rope or a bottle of pills or a bridge lay at the bottom of that abyss, I took matters into my own hands, and a monstrous bill along with them. The private facility saved his life. I had been paying for it ever since.

Two years after that, I had fallen ill with tonsillitis, but kept working. Having missed too many days already due to “compassionate leave”, I faced a final warning if I took any more time off. Sam was on the downward slope of his constant cycle, and the signs all told me he was slipping fast. Garbled phone calls in the middle of the night. Empty bottles no longer hidden but strewn in plain sight. The pinprick eyes and sweating hands betraying a man who had handed control back to the chemicals.

The mornings and evenings were unusually bitter that spring, even for April. I ploughed on through my illness, tramping the two miles to HCC and back, and the combination of the cold, the walk, and the ten-hour shifts tipped tonsillitis into the worst sort of flu.

I knew I couldn't keep working, that the only way to fight required giving in. But my brain was addled, full of virus and fever and fear. Sam, sensing my exhaustion, my weakened attention, slipped even further into the darkness.

For six days I battled on. Hitching a lift with a colleague where I could, half-crawling home when I couldn't, crashing asleep at my desk, ignoring emails, and avoiding customers. Vomiting repeatedly, chills shaking my body so hard my teeth rattled one minute, my clothes getting drenched with sweat the next. My boss, having run out of patience at my continual insistence I had a bog-standard cold, issued me with a final warning – pull it together or find another job.

On the sixth day, I used eighteen pounds' worth of my precious tips on a taxi home following a particularly horrendous late shift. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since I had spoken to Sam, which at that point gave me a mild sense of disquiet, but I felt too
weak to feel anything more. I ran myself a scalding hot bath, falling asleep in it until the tepid water startled me awake, shuddering. I toppled into bed, weeping with relief that tomorrow I had a day off.

I slept for fifteen straight hours, waking to find myself the teeniest, tiniest bit cooler, the pounding in my head a fraction less insistent, the ache in my bones marginally less agonizing. So, taking my time, I heated half a tin of thin soup and carefully spooned in every mouthful, pleasantly surprised to find it settled in my stomach. I had another bath, dressed, and took the five-minute walk round to Sam's, feeling a faint ray of optimism that maybe I had weathered the worst of it. Another crisis averted. I would still have a job on Monday.

The flat was quiet when I let myself in. Nothing unusual about that – I expected to find Sam in bed.

I called out to him a couple of times, again unsurprised by his lack of answer. Kicking my way through the mess that had piled up since I had last found the energy to clear up, I opened his bedroom door.

Weakened legs collapsed underneath me. I sank to the floor, pulled out my phone, and dialled for an ambulance.

Later that evening, crushed, beaten, cornered, I made another call. To Perry. Whereby I formally accepted his offer of a proposal of marriage.

Did he make the link between my acceptance and my hour of need?

Perhaps. On the other hand, he lived in a world so carefree regarding money, so removed from the need to make choices based on the financial implications, that perhaps he didn't. Either way, he never mentioned it, and once Sam was home again, six weeks later, offering his hearty thanks with all the charm and charisma that befitted a future Upperton brother-in-law, from Perry's point of view it seemed as though the issue was done and dusted. His point of view, however, couldn't see addictions, or the murky past that went with them. Let alone the murky present.

The week after my hen do, I cancelled my three shifts, my babysitting for the twins, and my meeting with Larissa and the florist, and spent three days straight on the sofa, under a duvet, eating the chicken soup Marilyn had brought round, and watching drivel on television in between naps.

Tuesday evening, the doorbell rang. I shuffled down the corridor, expecting to see Marilyn with another tub of food, but unable to ignore the surge of hope that it might be Dylan, despite my unwashed hair, pallid complexion, and saggy pyjamas.

Perry stood on the doorstep, carrying a fruit basket, a bunch of flowers, and a stack of romantic comedies.

“I'm so sorry I couldn't get here earlier. The traffic back from Heathrow was a nightmare.” He dumped the goodies on the kitchen table and turned to enfold me in a hug. “Darling, look at you. You must be feeling awful.”

I tried to pull away. “I must be smelling awful, too.”

“I don't care.”

He scooped me up and carried me into the living room, gently laying me on the sofa before kneeling down on the floor beside me. “I'm going to take care of you. No arguments.”

He started by running me a bath, then made cheese on toast, served with scalding hot tea, with a spoonful of honey and lemon stirred in. He stuck on a DVD and rubbed my now-clean feet while we laughed and groaned through to the happy ending. At some point during the second film I must have fallen asleep, waking in the early hours to find a flask of tea on the coffee table beside my favourite cup, a packet of flu medication, and a plate of cookies.

I sipped my tea in the glow of the street light, squinting to read the get well note he'd tucked underneath the cup. It tasted of horrible guilt, stung pride, and foolishness. I loved Perry. But I so wanted to be
in love
with him. Not with my whole heart. Not so much I needed him. But enough to make him – and me – happy.
Enough to be the kind of wife he deserved. I was sick of pretending. Of hiding. Of feeling ashamed of who I was and what I felt. I thought about Marilyn's advice at my hen do, about being honest, and letting him know me. I had started to realize marrying Perry would be all or nothing. If I couldn't give it my all, commit myself fully from the start, I owed him the courage to walk away.

As much as I hated to admit it, as the dawn light began to peek through my curtains, I accepted Dylan had been right. I would tell Perry. Everything. Well, something. Okay – I would at least get started, and take it from there.

I tried to reinforce my decision with a marathon run of Hollywood Happy Endings. Faith's Final Fling had killed off my brief, ridiculous mental fling with Dylan. There had been no sign of Kane for weeks now, backing up Gwynne's belief that my subconscious had been playing tricks on me. Sam was on the mend again, April seemed to want to stick it out, and I was managing to control my need for control. I had stood up to Larissa, and got at least something of the wedding I wanted.

If I cried a few times, that was understandable. These types of films were supposed to be tear-jerkers. Add in illness, tiredness, and anxiety about missing work and it was basically inevitable. For the first time in forever, someone had taken care of me, and done it with unexpected tenderness. If I got through a couple of boxes of tissues, no biggie.

Once recovered, I spent the next couple of weeks sticking to my new resolve. I avoided Dylan, which didn't prove difficult as he appeared to be avoiding me, signed up with a professional driving instructor (a woman), and started to get properly involved with my own wedding plans, rather than focusing all my spare time and energy on the Grand Grace Gala, due to be held at the end of the month. Perry was away again, but we spoke every couple of days on
the phone. I spent a long time thinking about what I needed to tell him, and how I would do it once he returned.

I took April to see Sam. My heart leaped when I saw him. Clear eyes, glowing skin, glossy hair swinging below his chin. If my heart leaped, April's must have taken off and done a lap of the visitor's room. I felt tempted to push her jaw back up.

We chatted for a while about what he'd been up to, the people he'd met, the food, his painting. April mentioned the wedding first. I carefully monitored his reaction, before bringing up the main reason for my visit, and for bringing reinforcements along.

“Is it all going okay, then? Not too stressful?” Sam asked.

“No. It's fine. Rosa's making the most incredible dresses for the bridesmaids. They're genuine works of art. You'd love them.”

“You know I'm going to be there, don't you?”

I nodded. “It would mean the world to me if you were there. But if it doesn't work out, you know I understand.”

He shook his head. “I'll be there. I promise. August fifteenth. It's on my wall calendar. I know a promise from an addict means squat, but this is different.”

No, it wasn't different. But if he could stay in treatment a while longer, I could begin to allow myself to feel optimistic.

“Well, I hope so. I have a job for you to do.”

His mouth flicked up in a tight smile. “I'm not making a speech.”

“No! We can do without a brother of the bride speech. I want you to give me away.”

Silence settled on the table between us. We both knew the significance of the request. After a moment had passed, I glanced at April beside me. She took hold of his hand.

“You want me to give you away?”

We both knew what he really meant.

You want me to give you up.

“Yes.” A tear plopped onto the vinyl tablecloth. “A new start, for all of us.”

His eyes met mine, the conflict of emotions swirling in the soft brown.

“I'm not asking you to stop being my brother. You know how much I love you. I'm asking if we can try to find a better balance. I'll be here when you need me, but April and Perry are here now too.”

He took in a deep breath, his knuckles turning white where they held on to April.

“Are you sure about him?” Sam asked.

I let out a choked laugh. “Why do people keep asking me that? We're engaged, aren't we?”

Sam shook his head sharply. “I'm not people.”

“Yes. I'm sure. And I'm going to tell him. About Mum and, well, everything else. If that's okay with you.”

“You haven't told him yet?” Sam frowned, looking over at April.

“I know, I've got issues.”

“Haven't we all?” He smiled suddenly, and the sight of it banished the shadows. “It would be an honour to give you away, little sister. Perry can take his share of your issues. April and I'll come round for fancy dinner parties, where I will charm all your new hoity-toity friends with my brooding artistic personality, and April will stun them with her dazzling wit.”