Anything for You Ch. 08

It wasn't far to my parents' house from the shop, only a couple of streets in fact. Of course, its relative proximity had played an instrumental part in me working there in the first place. After the transplant—after Paul had died and I'd nearly died—my recovery had been painfully slow. The mere effort of getting up and dressed in the morning was almost too much for me, the desire to crawl back beneath the bedcovers fully-clothed overwhelming at times. To say I had zero energy barely describes the endless exhaustion that engulfed me back then. There were days when I couldn't summon the energy to eat, let alone sit upright and talk.

Not that anyone around me wanted to talk, particularly my mother. She spoke to everyone in monosyllables for months, only resorting to short sentences when elaborate hand gestures failed. Whatever Drew said, there was no question in my mind that my mother held me responsible for Paul's death, that if I hadn't been so inconsiderate as to nearly bleed to death on the operating table, he'd still be with us.

Looking back at that dark time, it was only too clear we were all in a very bad place. Of the three of us, my Dad seemed to cope the best, but maybe that was because he could go to work. He at least had that daily distraction of being somewhere else, of being surrounded by people who weren't paralysed by grief, of talking about ordinary things like the weather, newspaper headlines and football.

My mother went through the motions of caring for me, it should be said. She prepared my meals, helped me bathe, made my bed and washed my clothes. But the one thing I could have used more than anything at that time, and the one thing she couldn't seem to give me, was love. I could understand that, though. I found it pretty hard to love myself too. I was a burden and I knew it. The original plan had been for me to return to school within a couple of weeks of the operation. I'd been a good student so at first, no one had any doubt I'd be able to catch up on missed lessons. But when Easter came and went, it became clear there was no hope of me finishing my A'level studies.

"You can start again in September," my form tutor said kindly when she came to see me, not long after the beginning of the summer term. "It'll be a lot easier on you to repeat the year and really do yourself justice in the exams next time around." But I'd seen the hastily disguised look of dismay in her eyes when she first entered the immaculate living room—my mother never seemed to stop cleaning—and found me sprawled listlessly across the sofa. I guess I wasn't exactly a pretty sight. Though I avoided mirrors at all costs, even I knew my clothes hung from me and that my hair, once lustrous and shiny was now a lank and thinning mess.

Things only started to get better when Drew came home from university that June. I hadn't paid much attention at first when he arrived at our house one Saturday morning, assuming he was paying my parents a visit out of respect for Paul. As usual, dressed in a saggy sweatshirt and even baggier jogging bottoms, I was curled up in a chair and struggling to stay awake, despite it only being lunchtime.

"Sam? Fucking hell, is that really you?"

I opened my eyes to find him standing right in front of me. And as I gazed at him in bleary surprise, he took a long hard look at me.

"Right," he said at last, holding out his hands. "Put your shoes on. We're going for a walk."

I'd protested, naturally. I could barely get up the stairs without being left a weak and trembling mess, so the idea of leaving the house, of having to walk farther than the short distance between the front door and the car, filled me with horror. But Drew wouldn't be dissuaded. We made it to the end of the road that day, a mere hundred yards, Drew practically carrying me on the return journey. Undeterred, he came back the next day and the next, pushing me further each time. "The next lamp post," he'd urge, grinning when I looked at him daggers. "All right then, to that red car just there, okay?"

And little by little, I remembered, it got easier. It helped that Drew chattered away non-stop while we walked, not caring whether I responded or not. He'd managed to get himself a holiday job and was working at a local firm of solicitors, Crandy and Aldred—or as he rather irreverently called them, Crusty and Undead, on account of the advanced age of the senior partners. He did wonderful impressions of the eccentric receptionist, Mrs Warble, and regaled me with stories about her barking down the phone at prospective clients and scaring half of them away. Just as well they were the only solicitors in Stow Newton back then, I decided. They'd never have stayed in business now.

But Drew being Drew, he won all three of them over, progressing from glorified tea boy to being trusted with conveyancing work by the end of the summer—something which he swears put him off property law for good. And after work each day, he'd turn up at my house and drag me off for a walk. Actually, after the first week or so, I didn't need dragging, finding to my surprise that I rather enjoyed our daily tramps around the housing estate.

By and by, the circuit grew bigger and began to incorporate a stroll around the top end of the High Street. The second time we took that route, my Aunt Sarah spotted us and invited us into her maternity wear shop for a cup of tea while she and Alice cashed up for the day. It became part of the routine and I began to look forward to seeing Aunt Sarah and Alice just as much as I looked forward to seeing Drew. As I grew stronger, I helped them clear up, hiding my misgivings about some of the larger and frankly rather hideous garments I ferried from the changing rooms back to the rails and attempting to make subtle suggestions about which items they should display in the window.

Things snowballed from there. When Aunt Sarah needed to take an afternoon off to attend a hospital appointment, I volunteered to help Alice in the shop. Soon I was there most days, grateful for both the distraction and the opportunity to be out of the house. It wasn't long before Sarah insisted on paying for my assistance. Minimum wage, true, but enough to make me feel useful. Though when she finally showed me the books, meticulously updated each day in her copperplate handwriting, I realised the business could barely spare me that.

"Aunt Sarah," I'd said, half-afraid to ask the question that had started burning in my mind, given all of the tolerable bits of my life now revolved around my stints in the shop, "don't you think that maybe this place could do with...?" I'd hesitated and almost chickened out. "A bit of updating?" I finished in a rush.

She'd gazed at me then over the top of the gold half-moon glasses she wore, her grey eyes, so much like my father's, narrowing in consternation. "As in, a lick of paint? Well, I suppose—"

"No," I'd interrupted, deciding it was now or never. "Well, yes—that too, maybe. But what I really meant was, maybe we could get some trendier things to sell?"

Laugh if you will, but I'd taken to buying all the mother and baby magazines I could lay my hands on. Goodness knew what the bloke in the newspaper shop made of it, I wondered, feel myself smile again at the memory, because although I'd started to regain weight by then, I was still stick thin. But I scoured every glossy page, writing down the suppliers of the most flattering garments the pregnant models wore in an attempt to gauge what sort of clothes In Full Bloom should stock.

To my eternal relief, Aunt Sarah was neither shocked nor outraged, instead encouraging me to evaluate all the maternity clothing available in the market at that time and to see if I could source new suppliers. So I did. Some, of course, wouldn't speak to me, preferring to deal with the giant chain stores and far larger outlets than ours. But others did, the smaller ones in particular happy to send us sample garments sale or return.

By the time Drew went back to university in October, things were picking up nicely. In an attempt to get our existing stock converted into cash, I got Aunt Sarah to show me how to use her sewing machine and started playing with designs of my own. It was at that point we began offering a bespoke fitting service. I found it fascinating to see how inserting a dart here or a tuck there could change a shapeless sack into a flattering tunic, and how different a dress could look on a petite woman if shortened to knee length, or how simply changing the buttons could alter the appearance of a blouse.

And as my relationship with our new suppliers improved, I found myself invited to trade fairs and exhibitions in the UK and then, rather excitingly for someone who'd never been abroad, Paris. Which was where, of course, I later met Marco.

I sighed as I turned into Maple Drive, my pace slowing as I passed the first of the semi-detached houses. Back in the seventies, each pair must have been identical, sharing a rectangular lawn, the driveways to the left and right leading to their respective garages and each garage in turn linked to the garage of the next pair of houses. Now that uniformity had mostly vanished. Some had extended front porches and had installed double-glazing, others had bedrooms over the garage, still others had divided that front expanse of lawn with a fence or hedge, presumably to avoid that most ancient of neighbourly conflict over whose turn it was to cut the grass.

Having owned it for more than twenty years, my parents' house was one of the neatest in the row and still shared its lawn, owing to the fact that my father rigorously mowed the whole thing every Saturday, or Sunday if it rained—even in December if the weather was mild—regardless of whose turn it was. Their house remained practically unmodified, aside from the double-glazing they'd had put in a few years ago. A slice of almost perfectly preserved history, I realised as I reached the bottom of the sixth driveway and drew to a halt behind Dad's Volvo. Apt, really.

Drawing a deep breath, I walked to the front door and rang the bell. As I expected, my father answered—for some reason, my mother never came to the door when he was home—and greeted me with a smile of genuine pleasure. "Sam!" he exclaimed, leaning forward to kiss me as I wrestled with the umbrella. "Lovely to see you. Wasn't expecting we'd see you here until tomorrow."

Ouch. Stab of guilt number one. "Ah well, I was wondering whether you might be able to do me a favour," I said, surprising myself a little with the words, but deciding to go with the flow.

"Oh?" He ushered me straight into the kitchen where my mother stood at the sink, elbow deep in suds, washing up the breakfast things. "Sam's come to ask a favour," he repeated for her benefit, helpfully holding out a tea towel when she slowly turned around. She took it and dried her hands while appraising me up and down in the way she always did, as though she half-expected I might have grown another head or something since she last saw me.

"What's that then?" she asked. No lovely to see you from her, I couldn't help noticing. But then she never did say such things, did she?

"I'm going..." I stopped abruptly and reordered my thoughts. "I mean, Marco's asked me to go to Italy. I was wondering whether you could pop around to my place every now and again while I'm gone. Pick up the post and so on."

"Well, of course," I heard my father say behind me. "That's no trouble at all, is it June? Especially seeing as you looked after this place for us so well—and old Bluey, of course—" he paused to smile and reached down to stroke the Persian cat stretched across one of the kitchen chairs "—while we were cruising the high seas a few weeks ago. When are you going?"

Bluey opened one eye then put his head back down on his paws, feigning sleep. In that moment, I rather wished I could pull off the same trick.

"Tomorrow," I admitted.

There was a flinty silence. "You mean Monday?" my mother suggested.

"No." My voice was small. "I mean tomorrow. My flight's at eleven-forty."

"In the morning?"

No, of course not, I felt like saying sarcastically. Marco thought it would be a good idea for me to arrive in Italy in the middle of the night. But I didn't and simply nodded instead.

"But tomorrow is..." She left the sentence hanging, her startled expression conveying her dismay far more eloquently than words. Stab number two.

"I know, Mum." My mouth was dry. "I'm sorry. But Marco paid for my ticket and—"

"Well, tell him to unpay for it," she threw back, her voice rising more than an octave."

"June," my father interjected. But although he at least spoke in a reasonable tone, he made no further attempt at mollification.

I swallowed hard. "I'm going," I said quietly. "I know the timing's not great, but I need to go—I want to go," I amended, realising I was actually trembling now. "And the other thing you should know is that I'm going to be away a while. Until February, probably. But—"

"You're not going to be here for Christmas either?"

I shook my head, looking to my father for help, only to discover his face was an unreadable mask. "This was bound to happen eventually," I tried. "Things do change over time. Like if—if..." I rummaged around in my panicked mind for an example. "If I had a boyfriend, or hey, got married even, he might want me to spend Christmas day with his parents."

"You?" Her face crumpled into an unpleasant sneer. "Have a boyfriend? Get married? Like that's ever going to happen, Little Miss Picky!

And there it was. Stab number three.

"Right," I said weakly, even as a part of me marvelled at my ability to get straight back up again and volunteer for another assault. "Maybe not. But I'm not going to be here for Christmas anyway. And I'm not going to be here tomorrow, either. I'm sorry, but—"

"You're sorry?" she shrieked, the sudden increase in volume startling Bluey enough for him to leap from the chair and scuttle away. "Sorry? After all this time, you still think saying sorry makes everything all right? You think that—?"

"June!" my father broke in at last, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Let's calm down, shall we? Sam..." He bent his head to meet my gaze, his grey eyes beseeching. "Go into the living room and sit down, eh? Just give your mother a second to—you know?"

Oh God, did I really have to? But what were my options? I could just leave, of course. Take to my heels and run, just as Bluey had.

I didn't, of course. No, I did exactly as I was told, turning away and moving off down the hall.

When I was a child, the living room had been an uncluttered and comfortably furnished space. And in many ways it still was, I thought as I looked around, trying not to listen to the muted but obviously heated discussion in the kitchen. The room was pristinely tidy, with everything in its proper place. It was just that every available surface was covered with mounted photographs. The walls, the mantelpiece, the top of the wall unit, the coffee tables positioned beside the chairs and the settee. Each decorative frame displayed a different picture of Paul, charting his development from gummy-smiling baby to gurning young adult.

And yes, just as I'd suspected, there above the hearth was a new wooden frame, decorated with hibiscus flowers, identical to the one my mother had presented to me on my birthday. Though something inside my chest clenched tight as I moved forwards to take a closer look. Because for once, Paul wasn't the only person in the photo.

Sure, he was front and centre, aged around eighteen at a guess and holding his battle-scarred guitar, the familiar deep gouge down one side testimony to the day he'd got a little too carried away and launched himself, rock-god-like, from the school stage into an adolescent audience unfamiliar with the concept of crowd surfing. But there beside him was Drew, his head huddled close to Paul's behind a single microphone, both of them grinning like lunatics.

I didn't want to look but somehow couldn't tear my gaze away, the unexpected sight of Drew—years younger but still so very familiar—causing such a flare of pain it was suddenly hard to breathe. Oh God... God help me, I loved him! Which was so stupid. So pointless. So fucking, bloody, hopeless...

"Right then. Here's what you're going to do."

I jumped at the sound of my mother's voice, acutely aware of how blurred my vision had become, of just how very near I was to blubbing.

"You're going to call Marco." Her voice was brittle. "You're going to tell him you're very sorry, but you won't be coming tomorrow because of family commitments."

"Mum!" Shocked, I swung around to find her standing right behind me, hands planted on her hips, her face pinched and pale. "I can't do that!"

"Oh yes you can, young lady—and you will. We'll pay for you to go to Italy on Monday instead, so it won't cost him any more than it would've done anyway. Your father and I have agreed."

I could see him hovering awkwardly in the doorway now but he wouldn't meet my gaze. All at once, he seemed smaller than I remembered, as though he'd somehow lost the ability to draw himself up to his full height. "Dad," I pleaded, bewildered by this turn of events. "You know I can't do that. Please, help me out here, will you? You know I can't just let Marco down like that!"

"Let Marco down?" My mother's eyebrows disappeared into her fringe. "What about your brother, Samantha? It's his birthday tomorrow, for crying out loud! His twenty-seventh birthday!"

I gazed at her in disbelief. "I know that, Mum, okay? Do you think I don't know that? Do you honestly think I could forget that?"

"Then what were you thinking, Sam? What possessed you to say that you'd go?"

"Oh, for God's sake!" I yelped. "I wasn't thinking, okay? I didn't even think about the date. Marco just said 'Sunday' and that was it." Blinking furiously, I thrust my hands into my hair and tilted my face to the ceiling. "I didn't realise, okay? I've had so much on lately, I just didn't make the connection, that's all!"

"That's all?" she echoed, her tone icy. "You didn't forget, you just didn't make the connection—that's all?"

"Yes!" I brought my hands down with a wail, my eyes stinging as I met her steely gaze head on. "Is it such a crime, Mum? That I didn't immediately think, 'Ooh, can't go then. It's my dead brother's birthday, I'll miss his birthday party'? Is that really such a crime?" I swallowed, my mouth horribly dry. "That for the first time in seven years, I didn't work out exactly what day of the week his birthday was? And that when I did, that for the first time in seven years, I wondered whether it might be okay for me not to be here?"

"Of course it's not okay!" she cried, leaning forward now, her eyes more white than brown. "It's Paul's birthday, Sam! How do you think he'd feel about you not being here?"

"Feel?" I gave a choke of incredulous laughter. "He's dead, Mum! I'm pretty sure he's not going to feel anything!"

"Sam."

"And you know what?" I stormed on, ignoring my father's quietly desperate plea. "I'm pretty sure if Paul were here, he wouldn't give a fuck whether I was here or not! I'm damned sure he wouldn't want this whole fucked-up charade of celebrating his birthday every year. What the hell, Mum? Why the hell do you make us do it?"

I could see her flinching now, visibly growing smaller with every barbed challenge, every expletive—and yet a part of me didn't seem to care. A part of me had clearly been waiting for an opportunity like this for a very long time.

"Every bloody year," I heard myself say wildly, "the same, fucking farce. Celebrating his birthday. Making us all sit at a dining table set for four people, even though the guest of honour can't be there. Can't ever be there, 'cos he's dead. You making us all eat fish pie 'cos it was Paul's favourite—do you have any idea how much I hate fish these days?" I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment and shuddered. "Baking him a cake that he'll never see and never eat. Lighting all the candles on it, making us sing 'Happy Birthday'. Putting presents on his chair. Presents he can't bloody open because he's not fucking here, Mum! He's gone. He's dead, don't you get that? Dead! Never coming back."