The Year I Met You (14 page)

At three a.m. this morning it is not your car that disturbs me from my reading, it is your son, Fionn. The wind is so loud that I can’t make out the words, but the shouting is being whipped around in the air and occasionally tossed in my direction: random words that don’t add up to enough to reveal the subject of the argument. I look out of my bedroom window and see you and Fionn in the garden, the pair of you screaming, arms waving. I can see your face, but I can’t see Fionn’s. Neither of you is wearing a coat, which tells me you weren’t planning on this discussion under the stars. Fionn is a whippet of a thing, a tall, skinny fifteen-year-old who keeps being blown over every time there’s a gust of wind; or so it seems, until I realise it has nothing to do with the wind: he is falling-down drunk. You are solid, you are tall, you are broad, you have your trainers firmly planted on the ground; your body is wide and you look as though not long ago you were fit although you’ve become softer around the edges. I can see the hint of love handles, and your gut has swelled a bit since your wife moved out, or maybe it’s just that the wind is blowing your shirt tight against your waist and revealing a body I wouldn’t ordinarily see. You try to grab Fionn’s arms when they flail close to you, but each time you reach out to him, he swings his arms wildly, fists clenched, trying to hit you.

You manage to grab him by the waist and pull him towards the house, but he bends over and squirms out of your grasp. He punches out, fist connecting with some part of your body and you fall back as if hurt. But it isn’t that which makes me move, it is the two younger children standing at the open door, looking so petrified in their pyjamas, one squeezing a teddy bear to his chest, which has me out of bed and pulling on my tracksuit before I can give it a second thought. When I undo the lock on the front door I’m almost knocked over by the force with which it flies open, so strong is the wind. Everything in the hallway – the notepad on the phone table, hats, coats – seems to take off, scurrying to the far corners of the house like mice when the light is switched on. I have to battle to pull the door closed behind me; using two hands, I tug with all my might. The wind is icy, wild, angry. It rages, and across the road the two of you flail wildly at one another as if tapping into Mother Nature’s anger.

I see it happen, the thing you will never forgive yourself for, and though I am not your biggest fan, I know that it wasn’t intentional. You don’t mean to hit your son, but that is what you do. While trying to reach for him and protect yourself from his fists, you somehow make contact with his face. I happen to be looking at your face in that moment, and before I know what it is you’ve done, your expression tells me. Someone who had not seen your face might not have understood that it was accidental, but I did. Your eyes are suddenly haunted, scared – appalled. The revulsion is so strong, you look as if you’re going to be sick. You’re desperate to reach out to him and protect him, but he is screaming and pushing you away, holding his bloodied nose, shouting at you, accusing you, calling you names a father would never want to be called by his son. The children at the door are crying now and you are trying to keep them calm, and all the while the storm rages; the clumpy garden chairs, which had previously seemed embedded into the ground, suddenly blow over as if to join in the family drama. One chair topples backward, another is lifted and skids across the ground as if it is weightless, landing dangerously near the window. My intention is to protect the little ones, to bring them inside and distract them. I have no plan to intervene in father–son fisticuffs, I know that would not end well for me, but as I make my way towards you both, your son announces that he never wants to set foot in your house again and sets off down the road, alone, with no coat, drunk, against a one-hundred-and-something-kilometre wind, with a bloodied face – and that changes things.

And that is how your son ends up sleeping in the spare bedroom of my home on the stormiest night the country has seen. He doesn’t want to talk, and that is okay, I’m not in the mood either. I clean his face, thankful that your thump hasn’t broken his nose. I give him fresh towels, a pint of water and a headache tablet, an extra large NYPD T-shirt that somebody gave me as a gift years ago, and I leave him alone. Then I sit up all night, drinking green tea and listening to him making trips from the bedroom to the bathroom, where he throws up relentlessly.

Shortly before four a.m. I wake to the sound of a bird. This confuses me; I’m sure the bird is in some kind of distress, has been stolen from its nest in the middle of the night. But no; as I listen, I realise it is simply singing. It seems like another lifetime when I heard birdsong at four a.m. It is bright by seven, the air is still, no wind, no rain, it is pleasant, Mother Nature looking as though butter wouldn’t melt, while around the country people deal with the devastation and destruction she heaped on them during the night.

With a cup of coffee in hand I survey my front garden, glad that I had laid most of the turf when I did. The remaining rolls of grass lie destroyed, broken and ripped apart, caught under the wheel of my car.

The moment you see me, your door opens and you cross the road, as though you’ve been waiting for me to open the door all night.

‘Is he okay?’ you ask, concern etched across your face. I genuinely feel sorry for you.

‘He’s still asleep. He was up all night being sick.’

You nod as you digest that, a faraway look on your face. ‘Good. Good.’

‘Good?’

‘Means he’ll be less eager to do it again.’

I survey the broken grass scattered around the ground.

‘All your hard work,’ you say.

I shrug, as if it’s no big deal, embarrassed still that you witnessed my hard work, which could also have been described as a complete meltdown. My garden is flat but slopes to a lower level, which runs to the side and back of my house. The second level is paved in the same stone as the driveway, but the slope is an ugly mess, devoid of grass. I hadn’t managed to do that part. Another job not finished. I think of Larry and I get hot and angry inside.

‘You could make a rockery with those,’ you say, indicating the broken stones in the skip. ‘My grandparents had a hill in their garden. They turned the entire thing into a rockery. Planted in between it. I could get Fionn to help. They’re probably heavy.’

My head runs through a dozen sarcastic, ungrateful things to say to that, frankly, ludicrous idea, but I bite my tongue.

You are looking past me into the house, hoping for an invitation.

‘You should let him sleep it off,’ I say.

‘I know. I would, but his mum is coming soon.’

‘Oh. When?’

You look at your watch. ‘Fifteen minutes. He’s got a rugby match.’

‘Not a great day for a hangover.’ That’s one more thing Belvedere won’t be too happy about. ‘What happened?’ I don’t want to know, but at the same time I do.

‘I was supposed to pick him up from rugby yesterday. He wasn’t there when I arrived. Went out with his friends. Came home last night, high as a kite. Well, not high, drunk. I think.’ You frown again then, looking into my house. ‘Started having a go at me.’

‘Look, we’ve all been there,’ I say, remembering the times I’d overdone it as a teenager. Why I offer you solace is beyond me. You, the man who’s rolled home having had too much to drink more times than he’s had a cooked breakfast, but you seem to appreciate the gesture. ‘Look,’ I clear my throat, ‘I still have that letter—’

Suddenly Amy’s car pulls up in front of your house. You stiffen.

‘He’s in the spare bedroom, upstairs on the left.’

‘Thanks.’ You head into the house.

I watch her go into your house and the door closes and all is silent. Moments later, you come down the stairs, closely followed by Fionn, who looks shocking. A brown-black bruise on his nose, dried blood caked around it. Despite my best efforts to clean him up, it must have bled again during the night. He looks white and drawn, exhausted and hungover. As soon as the light from the open door hits him, he winces. His clothes are crumpled and I’m sure I’ll find the NYPD T-shirt hasn’t been slept in. He shuffles along behind you and your wife appears at the front door of your house with her hands on her hips.

I don’t want to see any more. I don’t want to be drawn in to give my side of the story, I want to stay out of your life, but somehow I keep being pulled in. Once indoors, I listen nervously for the doorbell, afraid you’ll call over to continue the battle here, but then I see an image on the television which makes me freeze.

It’s the little girl. From the hotel yesterday. The four-year-old wispy blonde with her pixie face, blue eyes, button nose, who wanted to make a toast. The television is muted so I could listen out for Fionn, so I don’t know what they’re saying, but it can’t be good. Her photo is followed by an image of her mother. Big smiles from both of them, the little girl – Lily, I recall – is sitting on her mother’s knee, her mother’s arms wrapped around her daughter; they look at the camera as though somebody has said something funny. Behind them is a Christmas tree from a few weeks ago. And then there is an image of a car and a truck on the motorway, the car crushed, the truck overturned, and I have to sit down. I turn up the volume and listen to the facts – both dead, the driver of the truck critical – and I am wracked with grief.

When the doorbell rings I ignore it, still listening to the news. It rings again. And again. Still crying, and angry about the intrusion, I charge to the door and pull it open. I am confronted with three startled faces.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amy, your wife, says. ‘I’ve called at a bad time.’ The anger I sense from her immediately dissipates.

‘No … I just … I just saw some bad news.’

They look over my shoulder. I’ve left the door to the living room open and the television is still switched to the news. ‘Oh, I know. Isn’t it awful? They only live around the corner – Steven Warren’s wife.’ She looks at you. ‘Did you hear? Rebecca died. And the little girl …’

‘Lily,’ I say, her name catching in my throat.

‘I hadn’t heard,’ you say.

We’re all lost in our silent thoughts for a moment. Fionn, thinking this is his cue to speak, blurts out in a croaky voice, ‘Eh, thanks for last night.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I tell him, unsure what exactly Amy believes went down.

Relieved to be out of the firing line, Fionn wanders back across the road to the house, dragging his feet, his crumpled trousers dropping low beneath his boxers. You and your wife are still looking past me at the television. Amy is actually watching it, you are trying to figure something else out entirely.

‘I saw them yesterday afternoon – Rebecca and Lily,’ I say their names as if I know them, which feels like a lie, but it’s the truth.

‘It happened yesterday afternoon. You must have been one of the last to see them,’ Amy says, and that statement does something to me. It’s not an accusation, I know that, it’s not really anything, she is merely thinking aloud, but it gives me a sense of responsibility. I’m not sure what to do with that. It’s as if I have some form of ownership over them, over the last moment of their lives. Should I share it with people, so that the right people have the moment with them that I had? Put it back to the way it should have been. I am over-analysing this, I know, while you are standing there, looking at me, but I suppose that is what shock does. And I am tired, having not slept very much for fear Fionn would collapse, hit his head, choke on his own vomit, or up and leave in the middle of the night and then I’d be in trouble for losing a minor.

‘Matt, you know them too.’ Amy turns to you.

‘I don’t really—’

‘You do, you used to play badminton with him.’

Of all the things I could have heard, this makes me raise an eyebrow at you.

‘A long time ago.’

‘He always asks for you.’ She turns to me. ‘Matt will go round there with you,’ she offers.

‘Pardon?’

‘He’ll go with you. To pay his respects. Won’t you? Do you some good,’ she says, and not in a nice way. ‘Anyway, sorry to disturb you, I only wanted to say thank you, for taking care of Fionn.’

She backs away. You remain at the door, looking to me for your next instruction, doing as you’ve been told by the wife who just left you, as if hoping that obeying her will put you in her good books. Or maybe I’m wrong. Then it occurs to me that you’re trying to tell me something. You’re messaging something to me. I look deeper into your eyes. Try to figure it out. You want me to defend you. To tell her what I saw. I call out to her.

‘Amy – about last night. The knock was an accident. Matt didn’t mean to—’

I stop because I can tell from the way she glares at you, the way her face looks at you with such hate and disgust, that I’ve put my foot in it. She had no idea that you’d hit him.

Amy starts bundling the children into the car and you run over to say your goodbyes. The engine has started up, she is ready to go, seat belts are on, doors are closed. You have to pull at the handle, forcing her to unlock the door so you can open it and stick your head in the car to kiss the two children in the back. You give Fionn an awkward pat on the shoulder but he doesn’t look at you. You close the door, give the roof two taps and you wave them off. Nobody is waving back at you; in fact nobody even turns to see you. I feel for you and I don’t know why I do because I witnessed everything that your wife experienced, from the outside at least: the late nights, the drunken behaviour … I don’t understand why she didn’t leave you sooner, and yet I watch you standing alone outside your house, hands shoved into your jeans pockets, watching your family driving away, leaving you alone in the big house that surely they should be staying in and not you, and my heart goes out to you.

‘Come on,’ I call.

You look up.

‘Let’s go to Steven’s house.’

I suspect it’s the last thing you want to do, but you need distraction. I know it’s the last thing I want to do, but I could use some distraction too.

You grab your coat, I grab mine, and we meet in the middle.

‘Sorry about what I said there,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t have. I was only trying to—’