Candelo (27 page)

Are you ready?
he asks, barely looking at me as he stands, awkwardly, on my doorstep.

I tell him I will be a moment.
Come in
, I say, and he does, although it is clear that he would rather stay where he was.

How is she?
I ask him, referring to Vi, who has had a bad night, and he shrugs his shoulders as he tells me she is just the same.

When I first learnt that my mother was ill, I found it difficult to believe. I could not remember her ever having been sick.

It was Mari who told me, some months ago.

Vi
, she said,
has emphysema
.

It was her hesitancy, rather than the words themselves, that alarmed me.

I'm telling you because your mother is acting like it's nothing. But I thought you should know
.

I sat on my bed. I looked out my window. And I asked her how it had happened.

The cigarettes, I guess
, and there was a slight break in her voice.

I did not know what to think. I had always equated
emphysema with old men, asbestos, mines; an illness closely linked to a cause that Vi would fight, not something that would actually affect her.

I'll come over now
. It was all I could think of to say.

Mari told me it was okay.
She just needs to stop smoking, and to rest
.

She spoke calmly, but I could hear the distress in her voice.

I told her I would move home. If she wanted.
Tomorrow
, I offered.

She laughed.
Truly
, she said.
It's all right. But thank you
.

And although the illness has dramatically altered Vi's life, it has not meant the immediate death that I had originally thought. It is a state that we are all learning to live with, a little more each day, sometimes even allowing ourselves to believe what the doctors have assured us is true: that she will be around for a lot longer, that she is not going to die just yet.

Bernard recently asked me if I had discussed all that had happened with Vi, and I shook my head.
How can I?
I asked.

I wanted to know if he thought she knew. If he thought she had always known.

I'm not sure
, he said, and when I looked at him, silent, questioning, he became angry.
Honestly
, he said.

He wants me to just let it go. He believes that bringing it up now will not achieve anything.

And in the nights I have sat with my mother, watching bad Hollywood movies, or talking about Evie, I have done as he advises. I have not said a word.

But then Simon comes home.

And when I see him, standing at the door as we talk, or
waiting as he waits now in my flat, I do not know if my silence should continue.

I am trying to find my shoes when I tell him that Mari has been concerned about him, that she has noticed he has been taking time off work. I ask him whether he is all right, but I am not looking at him as I speak.

I'm okay
, he tells me.

He is leaning against the doorframe, staring out across the garden. I cannot see his face, but I can see his hand and it is shaking as he brings his cigarette to his mouth, the ash long and slender, trembling on the tip.

Are you sure?
I ask as I come towards him, pulling the door closed behind me.

He is wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, and in the awkwardness of the moment, I do not know what to do. I reach for him and he pulls back, losing his balance, one foot in the garden, as he slides slowly down the wall until he is sitting on my front step, his weight straining against his best jeans, his face red and hot.

Oh, Simon
, I say, and it is all I can say, over and over again.

I'm okay
, he tells me, trying to pull himself up.

But he can't. He stays where he is, knees to chest, head in his hands.

I am about to speak, I am about to say something, but then I see them all, Evie, Mitchell, Simon, and once again, the words just seem to disappear, and I am taking my hand off his shoulder before I know what it is that I am doing, and I am telling him that I do not know what I am supposed to do, my voice louder than I had intended, sharp and harsh.

I can't deal with this
, I say.
I can't
.

And I can see his shoulders shaking, as I keep talking, telling him that I wish he had never told me, telling him that it isn't fair to expect me to carry this too, telling him that it is too much; all the wrong words coming out as he pulls himself up again, and without looking at me, turns, heading away from the path, and through the morning glory, through the lantana, trying to get away, stumbling as I run after him, chasing him.

Wait
, I am shouting.
Wait
.

But he doesn't. It is his ankle, caught in the knotted vines, that slows him down, that gives me a chance to catch up.

And we both stand there. At the bottom of the garden, where the stairs lead down the cliff to the sea, smooth and flat under the morning light.

This shouldn't have happened, I think to myself. Not today.

I'm sorry
, I say.

He is trying to free his foot, unknotting the twisted leaves and purple flowers that wind their way around his ankle, and I know I have only a few moments to put this right.

Please
, I say.
We can't be like this. Not today
.

He does not look up.

I shouldn't have said what I said
. And I reach forward, slowly, carefully, to try to help him.

The breeze from off the ocean is cool, and as our fingers brush, I can feel him calm. Just slightly. Together we untwist each of the strands that hold him still, stuck in this spot, piece by piece, until his foot is freed, and we both stand upright and face each other. With his back to the morning light, it is difficult to see his expression, it is difficult to make out the
hurt in his eyes, the uncertainty in his mouth, but I know they are there.

I am, however, in full view. My face before him and I want him to see, I want him to know, that the anger has gone, that it is all right. But as I try to keep my eyes on his, I find I can't. I find I am looking at the ground, unable to give the complete reassurance I had wanted to show.

They're waiting for us
, I say.

And as he follows me back through the garden and up to the road, I think to myself: I am failing you.

No matter how hard I try, I am failing you.

I do not know what really happened. Not all the details.

Sitting by the side of the road after the funeral, Simon told me he had been driving. That much I do know. That much I can hold to be truth.

The rest I can only guess. Filling in the gaps, imagining how it happened, imagining the chain of events leading up to the car tumbling, turning upside down, toy-like, there at the bottom of the hill, there in the creek, wheels rocking back and forth, back and forth, body crushed like tin, and somewhere inside, Evie, dead on impact.

I was in the bath when Mitchell suggested that they
go for a spin
.

Come on
, he urged,
she'll never know
.

Simon, no doubt, would have been hesitant. But wanting to please, wanting it to be just him and Mitchell again, he would have eventually agreed.

He hadn't counted on Evie. Running after them, running across the garden, shouting that she wanted to come too,
refusing to take no for an answer, perhaps even saying that she would tell if they left her behind.

And so he let her in. Opening the car door and telling her that she had to be good. She mustn't say a word. Cross your heart. Hope to die.

I guess he thought they'd just go up and down the dirt road a couple of times.

Nothing too risky in that.

Nothing too dangerous.

But that was not how it was.

That was not how it happened.

Mitchell wanted to go further. He wanted to go all the way into town, to buy beer at the pub, to head out along the back roads towards the coast, pulling over to stop and drink; and then he wanted to keep going, to where the surf crashed on the beach, white and salty in the last of the afternoon light.

When Mitchell asked Simon if he wanted to have a go,
to get behind the wheel
, Simon didn't say no. Light-headed and bleary-eyed from the sun and the alcohol, he turned the key in the ignition.

The road was empty. Twisting between the hills, he took each bend slowly at first, but as his confidence built, he began to pick up speed. They had the tape player up loud, the windows open, and the wind was fresh and sweet as they rounded each corner, faster, faster, foot down, screaming with the exhilaration, screaming as they hit each bend, screaming as they neared the next and the next.

And screaming as they tumbled.

As they rolled.

As they hit. The rocks.

There at the bottom.

Wheels still spinning.

And everything silent.

I look at Simon now, sitting next to me in the back seat of Mari's car, and that is what I keep seeing. That afternoon with him as he was then, behind the wheel. All those years ago.

And what is worse is that all I have imagined, the chain of events I have made up for myself, may not even be correct. It may, in fact, have been Simon who suggested they take the car, it may have been Simon who wanted to stop at the pub, it may even have been Simon who insisted that he drive for a while.

I don't know.

And I look away again, staring out the window, trying to stop myself from seeing, eyes fixed on the road, as Mari talks. She knows there is something wrong, and she is angry with us. But she is not going to snap. She is not going to lose her temper. She is not going to let the entire day be ruined. Instead she directs her conversation at Vi, who taps her fingers intermittently on the dashboard, trying to find a use for her right hand now that it can no longer hold a cigarette, her left resting on a pile of clippings, advertisements for houses in the mountains. And as Mari describes each of them, I know the day will be as I had expected it would be. An attempt to make our mother believe that a move would be good for her. Despite the fact that it is clear Vi will not be easy to convince.

For God's sake
, she says as Mari asks her to smell the air for
the fifth time.
You know how much I hate fresh air
, and she pats Mari's leg to let her know that it is a joke. Just.

Whether you like it or not, it's what you need
, and it is evident from the tone in her voice that Mari is offended.

Vi laughs, the throaty laugh she has developed in the last few months, and tells Mari that at sixty-five, she believes she is old enough to now know what she needs and what she doesn't.

Like cigarettes?
Mari's mouth closes tight on the word and she glances angrily across at Vi, who refuses to be silenced.

It's certainly what I'd like right now
, she says with her usual argumentative defiance.

And as Mari glares at her once more, I find myself looking at Simon, wishing I could roll my eyes in some kind of conspiratorial understanding, but he only looks away.

The first two houses that we stop at are so ugly, Vi refuses to get out of the car.

By the third, Mari has no patience left.
I don't know why
, she says,
I don't know why I bother
, and she pulls over and leans forward, resting her head on the steering wheel.

It is then that Simon decides he has had enough. Opening the door without a word, he gets out, and before any of us really knows what is happening, he starts walking off.

Vi is comforting Mari, telling her to calm down, and as I lean forward to say that Simon has gone,
Hadn't we better go after him?
I realise there is no point.

It's okay
, Vi says as Mari cries, heavy tears from months of trying to fight back the fear she feels, the stress and strain of my mother's illness, and I leave them, the pair of them, there in the car by the side of the road.

Simon does not walk fast.

Under the coolness of the autumn sky, he crosses the park slowly, walking without purpose towards the soft blue-grey of the mountains beyond.

I do not call out to him. I do not rush to catch up with him.

In the stillness of the park, I walk just a little faster than him, the bright leaves crisp underfoot, the air fresh and sweet, and I make my way towards him, there, by the war memorial, just ahead of me.

There is a bench underneath an oak tree, half in the sun, half in the shade, and Simon sits, heavy, on one side; I sit on the other.

Are you okay?
I ask him.

He looks across at me, and then turns his eyes to the ground.

He does not speak straightaway. Together we listen to the gentle sigh of the wind from the valley below, slowly growing accustomed to the quiet of this place.

I am looking at my feet, scratching a hole in the gravel.
I am sorry
, I tell him,
about this morning
, and as I try to meet his gaze, the sun catches my eye, so that I am forced to squint, and he looks, for just a moment, like the brother I used to know.