Innocence (27 page)

At first I think we’re going to walk on past the woman in the chair—I’ve assumed she’s Honey’s mother but maybe she’s not related to me at all—but Honey pulls me up right in front of her wheelchair and takes a deep breath before saying, “Christopher, this is Isabella.”

It couldn’t be a more brutal introduction. I cover my mouth so I don’t cry out, and step back, moving out of Honey’s grasp and nearly falling down the steps, unable to disguise my shock.

She can’t be.

“Isabella!” Honey says a little louder. The woman doesn’t even flinch, though her knuckles whiten as she grips the blanket tighter.

“Isabella, this is your son,” she repeats sharply.

The woman still doesn’t look up.

I’m shaking my head, this is all wrong, Malachi has brought me here, but it’s the wrong place, this isn’t my family. This woman in the chair is just a bag of bones, her skin so thin you can almost see through it, her hair patchy and lank. I don’t know how she can be so barely there and still be alive. She looks so
old
.

I look for him, walking backwards down the steps, and see he’s staring at Isabella with a mixture of bewilderment and disbelief.

“Isabella, look at your son, your beautiful boy…. Do you remember?” Honey seems to be trying a different tack, crouching down, balancing on her tiptoes, taking Isabella’s hand. But it makes no difference.

“I don’t have a son,” Isabella snaps suddenly, looking up, looking right at me. Looking through me. Galvanizing me. Her eyes strip away all the skin, the muscle, the bone, and I am left with nothing. There is just me and her in some great numbing emptiness.

“No. You have two.” My voice is gone, near soundless.

But her gaze flicks away, uninterested until she sees Malachi.

“Kai,” she says, her voice whispery and paper thin, but her eyes are brighter now. And I can see it—faint echoes of the woman in the photographs, faint echoes of myself.

Honey is still talking to her, frustration filling her voice as Isabella continues to ignore her.

As though caught under a spell, Malachi doesn’t seem to know what to do. He looks so young and… vulnerable somehow.

I can’t watch. I start to back away from him.

A warm hand shoots out and fastens round my wrist. “
Christopher
,” he whispers.

Without looking him in the eyes, I gently prize his hand off, ignoring the plea in his voice, how unsteady he sounds.

“I just need a minute on my own,” I say shakily, before turning and walking quickly away.

T
HERE
IS
a wide, curving lawn along the side of the house, a stone path across it leading to what looks like stables. I head towards them. As I get closer I can see a dark brown horse rubbing its neck along the top of a stable door. It pauses, watching me expectantly, weighing up the chance of me having food. I bend down and tear up a handful of grass. I always used to feed the horses we saw as we traveled along the rivers.

I didn’t mean what I said to Malachi. I don’t need a minute on my own, and when I hear the quiet footsteps racing along the soft grass behind me, for a moment my heart lifts in sweeping relief.

“Christopher, I’m so sorry about that,” Honey pants, smoothing down her dress with one hand, clutching the heels she’s taken off in the other.

“I wasn’t expecting anything,” I say, swallowing my disappointment that’s she’s not who I hoped, that Malachi is still back there with Isabella. “At least now I know.”

I don’t know why I’m lying.

“I didn’t want to build up you meeting her, I just thought,
hoped
, she would see you and… realize. She’s not well, Christopher. I know it hurts, but her denial is not malicious.”

All at once Honey is visibly upset. She drags a trembling hand across her eyes. “Come on inside with me, and I will introduce you to Mum and Dad…. Maybe get you a glass of brandy? I know I need something,” she carries on, desperately smiling through it.

“I never want her to do that to Jay,” I say, fixing my eyes on hers. I’ve never felt so serious, so resolute. “Even if he never remembers, she was everything to him. He needed her, and I never want her to look at him like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, hugging me. She’s so tiny I could pick her up off the ground, spin her through the air, so light she might float away. Not solid enough to anchor me like Malachi, not solid enough to stop the storm from washing me out to sea.

“I’ve always wanted to ride a horse,” I say quietly, staring across her shoulder at the stables, frantically trying to get my mind away from the way Isabella said his name as if she was expecting him.

“Really?” she asks, holding me squarely by the shoulders and studying me.

I nod.

“Okay.”

Honey leads me into the stable yard. I walk over to the horse in the stable and hold out the grass in my hand.

“That’s Ghost. He’s a bit of a challenge, so we’ll get you on someone a bit calmer first. Wait here,” she says, disappearing into a tiny tack room and emerging half a minute later, holding her dress under her chin and dragging a pair of jodhpurs up over her hips. I can see the dark shapes of her nipples through her bra, the flat expanse of her stomach. She’s unembarrassed, and I’m curious and… staring.

“We’re related, and you’re gay,” she says, catching the look on my face.

It perplexes me that she knows that. It doesn’t bother me, but I don’t want to stand out. I don’t want to be so obvious.

“And I wouldn’t know, except for how you are with Malachi and how he is with you,” she continues as if she can read my mind.

Letting her dress fall back down, she pulls on a pair of riding boots. “Grab a halter.” She points to the brightly colored stack of harnesses hung around the gatepost and opens the gate that leads out to the rolling fields.

I follow her, determinedly not thinking about why Malachi has remained behind with Isabella, telling myself I don’t want to drop everything and run.

We catch the first two horses that come towards us, both white with large brown markings, like cows. Erica and Cinzano.

“Are they all yours?” I look around the field as Honey fastens the halter onto the larger horse, Erica. There must be thirty horses here at least.

Honey regards me for a moment. “Yes,” she says. I can’t work out why the word seems so weighted. “Stand here, and I’ll help you on.”

She loops the halter round the horse’s neck, motions that I stand to the left, and helps me climb on. It’s stranger than I thought being up so high, feeling the horse’s beating heart beneath me, hair so smooth and soft it would be so easy just to slide off.

“Greet her, pat her neck, introduce yourself.”

I reach forward, run my hand through Erica’s thick brown and white mane as Honey gracefully mounts Cinzano.

“Don’t I need a saddle or something?”

“You get a feel for the way a horse moves like this. Grip with your thighs, not too hard, and tell her to walk on.”

I do as she asks, lurching forwards, the urge to fling my arms around Erica’s neck and hold on for dear life almost overwhelming.

“It’s a little like driving a car,” she says. “Just relax. You’ll get used to the movement in a minute, and it won’t seem so fast.”

She’s right, I remember the first time driving in the car with Malachi, going ten miles an hour down that dirt track thinking I was out of control. It seemed we were going far too fast, and now that’s nothing.

“We’ll walk round the field.”

Slowly I begin to relax, my horse following Honey’s, leaving me to get used to the feel of her.

“I can’t have children, Christopher,” Honey says out of the blue, turning her head to look at me. In front of us, the trees are becoming black in the falling light. “I always wanted a big family, ten children at least, and when they told me I’d never be able to have any, I was devastated.”

“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. I wonder if she hates Isabella for what she did or if it just hurts.

We walk round the field and back to the stable. A gold dusk is gathering on the distant horizon by the time we reach the gate, and I slide off. I pat Erica’s flank, and we let the horses go.

Few lights illuminate the big house as night falls, and its walls become sheer gray cliffs, its windows shadowy patches, eerie and watchful. Honey leads me in the back door and through the dark kitchen.

“I asked Malachi to take Isabella back inside, where a nurse was waiting to take her back to her quarters. You don’t have to worry about seeing her again tonight.”

I nod, wondering where Malachi is now. Now my shock has passed, it occurs to me he was far more upset than I was. Worry begins to gnaw at me.

Following Honey down a wood-paneled hallway, I look round for him. The house is how I imagine a posh hotel to be, everything expensive-looking, but impersonal somehow, as if all the objects and pictures were chosen for their overall effect rather than whether or not somebody liked them.

“Mum and Dad are just through here,” Honey stops in front of an ornate wooden door. “They’ll probably ask you a lot of questions, but don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” She smiles kindly.

“I need to find Malachi.”

“Well, he’s probably waiting round the front, he’ll still be there in half an hour, I’m sure.”

I shake my head. He was upset, and I couldn’t deal with my own feelings, never mind his. I just left him, and I know that if our roles were reversed, he would never have left me. “I need to find him now.”

Honey sighs but leads the way back through the house.

The front hall is empty, the big door closed.

“I need to check his car.”

“He’s a grown man, Christopher. He’ll be alright.”

She doesn’t understand.

No one has ever been there for him. When things have got rough, he’s never had anyone.

But he has me now.

“I’ll be back in a while,” I say as I step out into the cooling evening.

But I’m not sure I will. I’m not going anywhere without Malachi. There are so few people in this world I care deeply about, and only two that I would do anything for—give my life for.

Before I can get away, Honey pulls me into another hug. We both smell of horses and fields and evening sky.

“Thanks for taking me riding,” I murmur into her hair.

“Anytime.” She squeezes me tight.

M
ALACHI
ISN
’
T
in his car.

He didn’t get that far.

I find him leaning on the stone wall, staring at the shadowy shapes of horses as they graze on the dark grass.

I don’t say anything as I press my side against his, cover his hand with my own, but my body speaks my relief for me.

When the stars are visible above us, I stare at the billions of lights, unable to really conceive the hugeness all around us.

“Do you want to go somewhere?” I ask gently. But where is there apart from home?

“I need a drink,” he says tiredly, pulling away and disappearing into the dark far too easily.

“Wait.” I hesitate. “Is that a good idea?”

He doesn’t answer, and I don’t know what to say. Do I even have any right to try and stop him?

I follow him back to the car. Without saying a word, I get in beside him, and he drives out of the open front gates.

We stop at the first pub we see, about five minutes along the country lane towards Oxford. It’s a quiet local pub and the tables outside in the tiny overgrown garden are empty.

I don’t have any money.

As Malachi strides into the pub, I’m not sure he even notices my reluctance to follow him. I sit in the garden, running my hands across the strongly scented lavender that touches my knees, watching him through the pub window as he knocks back one shot of amber liquid at the bar, then orders another.

It’s painful to see him do this to himself.

The barman eyes him warily as if he’s seen this all too often, as if he knows what Malachi is. The way he looks at him, the thin line of his lips, the way other people around the bar are watching the man I love with a mixture of disgust and satisfaction as if they are watching him fall, as if they can taste his demise. And they don’t care. No one cares enough to stop him.

By Malachi’s third drink, I cannot stand it.

Sure he’s going to hate me for what I’m about to do, but unable to stop myself, I march into the pub. I place my hand over his as he holds the glass on the bar about to ask for a refill.

“This has been a pretty fucked-up day,” I say, my lips to his ear. “But I know you don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t know anything,” he hisses.

“I know this isn’t really you. I know you’re strong and you stopped doing this for a reason,” I say, trying to remain calm even though his words hurt.

“I stopped doing it for you! But what’s the fucking point in any of it? You think I’m the one that’s blind, but you’ve no fucking idea, have you?”

People are staring at us, but I really don’t care.

“No fucking idea about what?” I say, even though all I can focus on is the beginning of that sentence.

For me.
He stopped drinking for me.

But he just stares at me, looking just about ready to implode. I’ve never seen him this way. It scares me a little bit.

“Outside,” I murmur, pulling his hand into mine, expecting him to resist, but finding him willing to follow.

I pull him into the overgrown mess of garden, into the dark, where the curious lights of the pub can’t reach us.

There is a tree in the corner, a cherry, its fruit spilled across the ground. I push him against the narrow trunk, my hand on his shoulder, still looking for resistance and finding none. It makes me wonder how far I can take this. “What have I got no fucking idea about?”

I squeeze his shoulder through his shirt, my other hand braced against the tree. My body giving him less and less space. I want him to answer me. “It drives me fucking crazy when you ignore me,” I whisper.

“I know,” he says, barely making a sound.

There is no light, but I can see his eyes picking up the reflection of the pub behind us. I wonder if he can see me at all or just the dark space that I take up in front of him. I don’t even breathe as I lean in to kiss him.