Innocence (22 page)

He was skinnier then than he is now, more like my build, though you could see he had broadened out and grown taller, more a man than a boy, since the first picture when he was sixteen.

“It was a festival, open mic. Anyone could go up and perform,” he replies softly, his voice very close to my ear, the warmth of his breath in my hair making me shiver.

But his tone is melancholy, and I don’t think he wants to talk about it, so I’m surprised when he carries on.

“I was seventeen, the youngest performer that day. I was also drunk and heartbroken and a complete mess, but I managed to pull it off and get through my songs, just. Afterwards, some guy came up to me and told me he was interested in giving me some studio time to record some songs. He even promised me some radio play on the local station.”

“So what happened?” I turn my head to look up at him, his eyes liquid pools in the darkness.

Malachi looked born to be on that stage. Whenever I see him with his guitar or hear him sing, I can’t understand why he’s not playing in front of crowds.

“I fucked up and wasted my chance,” he whispers, taking a deep breath. “Being drunk was the only way I could cope with getting through every day, but no one was going to put time and money behind some kid well on his way to falling apart. I got one track recorded, but I was unreliable and not always able to perform. They chucked me out of the studio after that.”

This is the most open he’s ever been with me about himself.

I stop tracing his arm and bring my hand up to his face, feeling the heat of his breath on my palm, tentatively touching his cheek, his lips.

“You don’t only get one chance,” I say, my words sounding far wiser than I feel.

His story resonates within me, and I ache to be able to comfort him as he has comforted me. To be the one with my arms around him, making him feel safe.

“No?” He looks unbearably sad. “Sometimes, you don’t get any chance at all.”

“You don’t believe that,” I whisper.

“Go to sleep, Christopher,” he whispers back, pressing his face against my hair and drawing his arms around me.

I think he might have kissed my head, but I’m not certain, though I’m more than happy to imagine it.

Eventually, I close my eyes.

I
WAKE
up to Malachi singing. He’s not singing loudly, just softly to himself in the other room. It makes me wonder if this is what he does when no one is around, if this is another glimpse into the heart of him.

Judging by the sunlight streaming in through the thin curtains, it must be around midmorning. The smell of food cooking makes my stomach protest noisily.

I pull the duvet around me before getting up, not wanting to leave its warmth behind.

“Good morning,” he says, smiling, as I squeeze past him through the narrow kitchen area.

I sink down onto one of the tall chairs at the breakfast bar, watching as he expertly flips sausages and bacon and tomatoes in the large frying pan while keeping an eye on the toast grilling on the shelf on top of the cooker.

Every little thing he does is calm and purposeful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him flap or panic. And although I’ve seen him drunk plenty of times, it only seemed to make him sweet and foolish. I can’t imagine him falling apart.

There is a light in his brown eyes as he passes me a plate piled high with a bit of everything. “Thanks,” I say, a little in awe of the amount food on my plate. “Are you trying to fatten me up?”

I mean it as a joke, but Malachi’s expression turns serious.

“You’re still growing. You need to eat and… you haven’t been.”

It’s true—the muscle I put on working for Liam is gone and my ribs show though my skin all the way down my chest, but then I have always been lean. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss the bulk I gained, though.

“I’ve always been skinny.”

“It suits you when you’re not,” he says in a low voice.

When he looks at me like this, it’s as though he’s really seeing me, as though he knows exactly how much space I take up in the world and is affected by it.

All of a sudden, I feel shy and once again out of my depth. I don’t know what to say.

“Maybe you ought to put me to work and feed me protein shakes to bulk me up, then.”

The stupid words just came out. I close my eyes, wishing I was more sophisticated, wishing I didn’t feel so much like a kid.

“Maybe I will,” he replies, raising an eyebrow, then glancing at the food still left on his plate. “Maybe I’ll work you really hard,” he adds quietly.

His words send a flush to my neck that tingles all down my spine, right through the center of me to the base of my cock. My heart bumps erratically.

But it’s all pointless because I don’t know how to flirt, how to do this dance with him, if that’s even what this is. Everything I know is unsubtle and obvious, like pinning him to the pillar at the club.

Frustrated with myself, I get on with the rest of my breakfast.

W
E
LEAVE
half an hour later, Malachi instructing Maisie to sit quietly on the backseat of the Mini. I convince him to drive me back to the hotel so I can get changed, but really I just want to go and get the guitar he brought last night.

After I’ve picked it up, shoved on a change of clothes, and locked up the room, I check I’ve got enough change and phone the hospital from the phone booth down in the lobby. It’s too early for me to visit Jay, but I need to know how he is. I hate myself for not checking on him every day for the past few weeks, for not being with him hour upon hour, waiting by his side like Dad has been. I lean my arm on the plastic shelf inside the booth to stop it from shaking as I wait for the nurse to come back on the line with some news.

Minutes pass.

Malachi tries to make eye contact with me, but I look away to stare at the shiny gray and white tiles covering the lobby floor.

“No change,” the nurse says, finally coming back.

I should be relieved, but my heart is heavy as I put the handset down, resting my head on the cold metal body of the phone.

“Are you ready?” Malachi asks softy.

I’ve been so determined not to think about this—about where we’re going.

Am I ready to see my mother? Will I ever be ready? I don’t know.

Thinking about it is like swallowing a thousand tiny bits of glass.

“I suppose after today I’ll know, though, won’t I?” I look at him, emptiness filling my heart. “I’ll know for certain how much she hates us.”

Malachi shakes his head. “I don’t think she hates you, Christopher.”

But how can he know that? And why would he think it? Because he still loves her? Because if you really love someone truly, that will never, ever die. And maybe that’s why he’s doing this, just to see her again. But then why would he bother to take me?

I meet his eyes, feeling the tug of something deep in my gut, something that wipes away all my irrational fears as though they are just smears on glass. His gaze is open and unwavering. He would hug me, here in the lobby—the knowledge hits me like an instinct—he would do it because I need it.

He will be there to catch me if I fall.

But I can’t keep letting him take the weight of everything. I’ve got to do this myself.

Before we leave, Malachi leaves a message on Liam’s answerphone telling him he’ll be gone for a day, maybe two. He leaves no reason, no excuse.

“Won’t that piss him off, you just taking off?” I ask, as we get back in the car.

Liam likes to know what’s going on, where everyone is, and Malachi’s skills are pretty crucial to that with the selection of old bangers he keeps for his laborers to drive round in.

Malachi gives me a wonky smile. “Probably. But there’s nothing like living dangerously, eh?”

T
HE
GUITAR
is warm, catching the light of the sun coming through the passenger window as Malachi drives. I hold it awkwardly on my lap, the neck pointed up at the ceiling, refusing to put it in the back with Maisie—even though she is apparently well trained and won’t piss on it or anything—occasionally strumming my thumb across the strings and staring at the intricate patterns someone must have taken such time over painting.

“You like it, then?” he asks.

“What?” Dragging my eyes away, I look over at him.

“The guitar. I wasn’t sure.”

I frown, unsure of myself. “Is it to borrow?”

Glancing at me, Malachi rolls his eyes as if he can’t quite believe I’ve asked that.

“It was a gift.”

“Oh.” I swallow, feeling awkward now, because he has no idea how much it means to me and I’ve not even thanked him properly. “No one has ever given me anything… anything like this before. Thank you.”

It sounds really lame and inadequate when I say it, and I stare out the window for a while after that, blankly watching the countryside roll by as we avoid the motorways and take the old Roman roads down the country.

“Where are we going?” I ask eventually.

From the signs we pass periodically, we seem to be headed towards London.

“A few miles north of Oxford.”

“I’ve never been to Oxford,” I say pensively.

Truth is, I’ve never been farther south than Birmingham.

“Did you see her?” The question scares me, but still I ask it.

“No. I just did a bit of research at the library down here and asked around. I didn’t want to see her without bringing you.”

I wish I could tell if he is lying. And I don’t want to talk about it, but it eats away at me, the thought of
her
and Malachi. I can’t get them out of my head.

“So if I hadn’t wanted to find her, you wouldn’t have come back on your own, you would have just forgotten about it?”

I know I’m being stupidly, stupidly jealous.

Slowing down, he takes his eyes off the road to look at me.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

I shrug. I don’t know. My hand grips the neck of the guitar so hard, the strings burn against my palm.

He sighs. “If I’d have wanted to find her, I would have done it years ago.”

Swallowing, I look away. “So what’s the library got to do with anything?”

“Books, mainly.”

He smiles, trying to lighten me up. But there is no way I’m going to be lightened up. I’m gripped by a viselike dread, and I just want the day to be done and over.

He slows the car, pulls into a layby at the side of the road, and switches off the ignition. Cars speed past us along the road, and Malachi’s little car shudders in their wake. It’s midafternoon and the sun is still high, the sky achingly blue with tiny wisps of cloud.

Confused, I look around. Is this it? Maybe there is some caravan in a field behind the hedge.

“It’s not far now,” he says, understanding me far better than I want him to right now—knowing I might need a minute to collect myself.

If he asks me if I’m okay, the answer is going to be no.

“I don’t think this is going to make any difference to you, but your mother’s name is Isabella St. Clare.”

He’s right. It makes no difference to me. My surname is Grey, a name my father’s family adopted to be accepted in this country. St. Clare means nothing to me.

“The St. Clares are rich, Christopher. They own land round here—farms, fields, forests. Isabella’s father, your grandfather, is Lord St. Clare. He had a seat in parliament until a few years ago when he retired from politics. I didn’t know all this until the other day. I just knew they had money and Isabella’s father was in parliament. It was easy to trace her from that in the library.”

“What?” I’m stunned. “But… she was a traveler…. Dad called her his Irish gypsy girl…. She left her family because they had nothing….” And with her long hippy skirts and waist-length blonde hair, she always looked the part of a free, traveling spirit.

The solid ground of my childhood crumbles away.

“She lied,” he says quietly.

“Turn the car round.”

“Christopher.” His hand is on my arm, thumb rubbing gentle pressure over the bones of my wrist.

“If you don’t turn it round, I’ll fucking walk!” I sit up, my hand on the car door.

Yet Malachi just watches me wryly as if he knows I won’t.

“Why does this make a difference?” he asks softly.

“Because everything I know about her is
wrong
!” I cry, collapsing back into my seat.

“But you came here for Jay, because she should know, and because you want her to take responsibility. How does her having money change any of that?”

He’s right. It doesn’t. Not really.

“Why did she have to lie about everything?”

“I don’t know,” he says grimly, shaking his head and starting the car again. “Let’s get this over with.”

W
HEN
WE
pull off the road and stop in front of two enormous, ornate black gates blocking a pristine winding gravel drive, I can see why he wanted to warn me about the money. This is not just a little bit of money—this is another world. But all these little things just make me apprehensive that there is more I don’t know about, more surprises to come.

The gates are locked, and behind them the drive disappears into the trees so that the house it leads to is hidden from view completely.

There is an intercom system on a post next to the gates. Malachi gets out, glancing at me as he presses the call button.

A whirring noise startles me, and up in the trees I see a video camera. We’re being watched.

An abrupt voice crackles out of the intercom speaker. “Please state your business.”

“We’re here to see Isabella,” Malachi says.

I get out of the car, unable to bear just sitting there any longer. I want them to see me.

“Who is this, please?”

“Her son,” I say loudly, standing close enough to Malachi that I can lean against him slightly.

I expect the gates to open and us to be waved through, but all that happens is the line goes dead.

We stare at the gates. Nothing.