Solitaire, Part 2 of 3 (5 page)

I can’t do anything. It’s hard not to throw up.

“I’m sorry,” he keeps saying. “I’m so sorry.”

“Where’s Nick?” I say. “Why is he not with you?”

He goes deep red and then mumbles something inaudible.

“What?”

“We argued. He left.”

I start shaking my head. It goes from left to right to left to right in an uncontrollable act of defiance. “That bastard. That stupid bastard.”

“No, Victoria, it was my fault.”

My phone is in my hand and I’m punching in Nick’s number. He picks up after two rings.

“Hello?”

“Do you understand the severity of what you have done, you absolute prick?”

“Tori? What are you—”

“If Oliver hadn’t called me, Charlie might have …” I can’t even say it. “This is entirely your fault.”

“I’m not— Wait, what the hell’s happened?”

“What the hell do you
think
has happened? You left Charlie during a meal time. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t leave him while he’s eating, let alone
upset him
. Didn’t you learn that last year?”

“I didn’t—”

“I trusted you. You were supposed to look after him and now I’ve walked into the kitchen and he’s … I shouldn’t have gone out. I should have been here. We’re – I’m the person who is supposed to
be there
when this happens.”

“Wait, wh—”

I’m holding the phone so tight, I’m shaking. Charlie is looking at me, silent tears falling from his eyes. He is so old now. He’s not a little kid. In a couple of months, he’ll be sixteen, like me. He looks older than me, for God’s sake. He could pass for eighteen, easy.

I drop the phone, draw up a chair next to my brother and put my arms round him.

Nick gets here and with Charlie we clear up the kitchen. Charlie keeps wincing and clutching his head as I upset all of his precious piles of tins and packets, but I do it anyway because his psychiatrist told us that you have to be brutal. He used to shout at me when I moved his food around. Sometimes he’d try to physically stop me. He doesn’t do that any more.

I get rid of the lasagne. I find the first-aid kit and put plasters on Charlie’s arm. Luckily, the cuts aren’t deep enough to need stitches this time. I set the table and I make three rounds of beans on toast and the three of us sit down. It’s a difficult meal. Charlie doesn’t want to eat anything. His knees keep bobbing up and down and his fork keeps reaching his mouth and stopping, unwilling to go any further. Sometimes, in the hospital, they’d let him drink this extremely high-calorie drink instead of eating a meal. We don’t have any of that in our house. I try not to shout at Charlie because that will make everything worse.

Eventually, Nick and I escort him to bed.

“I’m sorry,” says Charlie, lying in bed with his arm across his forehead.

I’m standing at the doorway. Nick is on the floor in Charlie’s spare pyjamas, which are much too small for him, with a spare duvet and pillow. He is staring at Charlie with an expression somehow simultaneously encompassing fear and love. I haven’t forgiven him yet, but I know that he will redeem himself. I know that he cares about Charlie. A lot.

“I know,” I say. “But I’m going to have to tell Mum and Dad.”

“I know.”

“I’ll come back and check on you in a bit.”

“Okay.”

I stand there. After a while, he says, “Are … you okay?”

An odd question, in my opinion. He’s the one who just … “I’m completely fine.”

I turn out the light and go downstairs and call Dad. He stays calm. Too calm. I don’t like it. I want him to freak out and shout and panic, but he doesn’t. He tells me that they’ll come home right away. I put the phone down, pour a glass of diet lemonade and sit in the living room for a while. It’s the middle of the night. The curtains are all open.

You do not find many people like Charlie Spring in the world. I suppose I have implied this already. You especially do not find many people like Charlie Spring at all-boys’ schools. If you want my opinion, all-boys’ schools sound like hell. Maybe it’s because I don’t know many boys. Maybe it’s because I get a pretty bad impression of the guys I see coming out of the Truham gates, pouring Lucozade into each other’s hair, calling each other gay and bullying gingers. I don’t know.

I don’t know anything about Charlie’s life at that school.

I head back upstairs and peer into Charlie’s room. He and Nick are now both fast asleep in Charlie’s bed, Charlie curled into Nick’s chest. I shut the door.

I go to my room. I start shaking again and I look at myself in the mirror for a long time and begin to wonder if I really am Wednesday Addams. I remember finding Charlie in the bathroom that time. There was a lot more blood then.

It’s very dark in my room, but my blog home page, open on my laptop screen, acts as a dim blue lamp. I pace around in circles; around and around until my feet hurt. I put on some Bon Iver and then some Muse and then some Noah and the Whale, you know, really dumb, angsty stuff. I cry and then I don’t. There’s a text on my phone, but I don’t read it. I listen to the dark. They’re all coming to get you. Your heartbeats are footsteps. Your brother is psychotic. You don’t have any friends. Nobody feels bad for you.
Beauty and the Beast
isn’t real. It’s funny because it’s true. Don’t be sad any more. Don’t be sad any more.

2.02pm

Michael Holden
Calling

“Hello?”

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“Michael? No.”

“Good. Sleep is important.”

“How did you get my number?”

“You called me, remember? Back in the IT room? I saved your number.”

“That’s very sneaky of you.”

“I’d call it resourceful.”

“Did you call about Charlie?”

“I called about you.”

“…”

“Is Charlie okay?”

“My parents took him to the hospital today. For tests and stuff.”

“Where are you?”

“In bed.”

“At two in the afternoon?”

“Yeah.”

“Could I …”

“What?”

“Could I come over?”

“Why?”

“I don’t like the thought of you there on your own. You remind me of an old person who lives alone, like, with cats and daytime television.”

“Oh, really?”

“And I am a friendly young chap who would like to pop over so you can reminisce about the war and share some tea and biscuits.”

“I don’t like tea.”

“But you like biscuits. Everyone likes biscuits.”

“I’m not in a biscuit mood today.”

“Well, I’m still coming over, Tori.”

“You don’t have to come over. I’m completely fine.”

“Don’t
lie
.”

He’s coming over. I don’t bother changing out of my pyjamas or brushing my hair or seeing if my face actually looks human. I don’t care. I don’t get out of bed, even though I’m hungry, accepting the fact that my unwillingness to get up will probably result in my death from starvation. Then I realise that I can’t possibly let my parents have
two
children who knowingly starve themselves. Oh God, dilemma. Even lying in bed is stressful.

The doorbell rings and makes my decision for me.

I stand in the porch with one hand on the open door. He stands on the top step looking much too preppy and much too tall with his hair side-parted and his glasses stupidly large. His bike is chained to our fence. I hadn’t noticed last night that it actually has a basket on it. It’s minus a billion degrees, but he’s just in a T-shirt and jeans again.

He looks me up and down. “Oh dear.”

I go to shut the door on him, but he holds it open with one hand. I can’t stop him after that. He just grabs me. His arms wrap round me. His chin rests on my head. My arms are trapped at my sides and my cheek is sort of squashed into his chest. The wind twirls around us, but I’m not cold.

He makes me a cup of tea. I hate tea, for God’s sake. We drink out of faded mugs at the kitchen table.

He asks me: “What do you normally do on Saturdays? Do you go out?”

“Not if I can help it,” I say. “What do you do?”

“I don’t really know.”

I take a sip of the dirty water. “You don’t know?”

He leans back. “Time passes. I do stuff. Some of it matters. Some of it doesn’t.”

“I thought you were an optimist.”

He grins. “Just because something doesn’t matter doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.” The light in our kitchen is off. It’s very dark. “So where shall we go today?”

I shake my head. “I can’t go out, Oliver’s here.”

He blinks at me. “Oliver?”

I wait for him to remember, but he doesn’t. “My seven-year-old brother. I did tell you I had two brothers.”

He blinks again. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. You did.” He’s really quite excited. “Is he like you? Can I meet him?”

“Um, sure …”

I call Oliver and he comes downstairs after a minute or so with a tractor in one hand, still with his pyjamas and dressing gown on. The dressing gown has tiger ears on the hood. He stands on the stairs, leans over the banister and stares into the kitchen.

Michael introduces himself of course, with a wave and a blinding smile. “Hello! I’m Michael!”

Oliver introduces himself too, with equal vigour.

“My name’s Oliver Jonathan Spring!” he says, waving his tractor around. “And this is Tractor Tom.” He holds Tractor Tom to his ear and listens, before continuing. “Tractor Tom doesn’t think that you’re dangerous, so you’re allowed to go into the living-room tractor if you want.”

“I would be absolutely delighted to visit the living-room tractor,” says Michael. I think he’s a little surprised. Oliver is nothing like me whatsoever.

Oliver studies him with judging eyes. After a moment’s contemplation, he holds a hand up to his mouth and whispers loudly to me: “Is he your
boyfriend
?”

This actually makes me laugh. Out loud. A real laugh. Michael laughs too, and then stops and looks at me while I continue smiling. I don’t think he’s seen me laugh before. Has he seen me smile properly before? He doesn’t say anything. He just looks.

And that is how the rest of my Saturday comes to be spent with Michael Holden.

I didn’t bother changing. Michael invades our kitchen cupboards and teaches me how to make chocolate cake, and then we eat chocolate cake for the rest of the day. Michael cuts the cake into cubes, not slices, and, when I query him on this, he simply replies, “I don’t like to conform to typical cake-cutting convention.”

Oliver keeps running up and downstairs showing Michael his large and varied collection of tractors, in which Michael takes a politely enthusiastic interest. I have a nap in my room between 4pm and 5pm while Michael lies on the floor and reads
Metamorphosis
. When I wake up, he tells me why the main character isn’t really the main character or something like that, and also how he didn’t like the ending because the supposed main character dies. Then he apologises for spoiling the ending for me. I remind him I don’t read.

After that, the three of us clamber inside the living-room tractor and play this old board game called ‘Game of Life’ that Michael found under my bed. You receive all this money, sort of like Monopoly, and then the object of the game appears to be to have the most successful life – the best job, the highest income, the biggest house, the most insurance. It’s a very odd game. Anyway, that takes up about two hours and, after another round of cake, we play
Sonic Heroes
on the PS2. Oliver triumphantly beats us both, and I have to give him a piggyback for the rest of the evening as a result. Once I put him to bed, I make Michael watch
The Royal Tenenbaums
with me. He cries when Luke Wilson slits his wrists. We both cry when Luke Wilson and Gwyneth Paltrow decide they have to keep their love a secret.

It is ten o’clock when Mum, Dad and Charlie get home. Charlie goes straight upstairs to bed without saying anything to me. Michael and I are on the sofa in the living room and he’s playing me some music on my laptop. He’s got it hooked up to the stereo. Piano music. Or something. It’s making us both doze off, and I’m leaning on him, but not in a romantic way or anything. Mum and Dad sort of stop in the doorway and just stay there, blinking, paralysed.

“Hello,” says Michael. He jumps up and holds out a hand to Dad. “I’m Michael Holden. I’m Tori’s new friend.”

Dad shakes it. “Michael Holden. Right. Nice to meet you, Michael.”

Michael shakes Mum’s hand as well, which I think is a bit weird. I don’t know. I’m no expert on social etiquette.

“Right,” says Mum. “Of course. Tori’s friend.”

“I hope it’s all right that I came round,” says Michael. “I met Tori a couple of weeks ago. I thought she might be a bit lonely.”

“Not at all,” says Dad, nodding. “That’s very kind of you, Michael.”

This conversation is so boring and clichéd that I’m almost tempted to fall asleep. But I don’t.

Michael turns back to Dad. “I read
Metamorphosis
while I was here. Tori told me you lent it to her. I thought it was brilliant.”

“You did?” The light of literature dawns in Dad’s eyes. “What did you make of it?”

They carry on talking about literature while I’m lying on the sofa. I see my mum stealing glances at me, as if trying to stare the truth out of me. No, I telepathically tell her. No, Michael is not my boyfriend. He cries at
Beauty and the Beast
. He taught me how to make chocolate cake. He stalked me when I went to a restaurant and pretended to forget why.

WHEN I WAKE
up, I can’t remember who I am because I’d been having some crazy dream. Soon, however, I wake up properly to find that Sunday is here. I’m still on the sofa. My phone is in my dressing-gown pocket and I look at it to check the time. 7.42am.

I immediately head upstairs and peer into Charlie’s room. He’s still asleep, obviously, and he looks so peaceful. It would be nice if he always looked like that.

Yesterday, Michael Holden told me a lot of things, and one of those things was where he lives. Therefore – and I’m still not quite sure how or why this happens – something on this desolate Sunday makes me get up off the sofa and journey to his house on the Dying Sun.