Broken Country (Reese’s Book Club)

49. Friday Night

Friday Night

Frank and I are asleep, or at least pretending to be, when we hear a commotion downstairs. The front door is slammed, the strike of boots on the slate floor, a chair tipped over.

“What the hell?” Frank says, as the boots come thundering up the stairs and into our bedroom.

“Did you know?” Jimmy yells.

“Sod off, Jimmy, we’re asleep.” Frank leans across me to switch on the lamp. His sleeve brushes against my face. Frank, who has never worn anything in bed, not even in the coldest winters, is still half-dressed in a T-shirt and underpants.

The room snaps into light and we both take in the sight of Jimmy, red-faced from anger or beer, perhaps both.

“Tell me it isn’t true, Beth.”

I can’t find a single thing to tell him, can’t be what he wants, his big sister, his brother’s wife, defender, nurturer. Instead, we stare at each other, Jimmy and I, while the rage roars up inside him. He swivels to look at Frank, his face twisted with scorn.

“So that’s it, is it? You’re going to allow her to screw that creep and get into bed with you afterwards, as if nothing’s happened?”

“Shut up. Don’t be disgusting.” Frank is out of bed, snatching up his jeans from the floor, pushing his brother from the room. At the doorway he looks back at me. “Stay there, I’ll deal with him. You don’t have to listen to this.”

But I do have to listen. This is it, my moment of reckoning, and in some ways I long for it.

In the kitchen, the brothers face each other, inches apart. Frank’s feet are bare, the belt on his jeans still unbuckled. On the table, a half-drunk bottle of whisky glares at us.

“How can you put up with this?” Jimmy asks Frank, while I stand a foot or so away.

Frank glances at me. Then shrugs.

What I have done to him, this man who has been my soulmate, my best friend, the father of my child for almost half my lifetime.

“You cow, you selfish bloody cow,” Jimmy says, and Frank grabs him hard, by the top of his arm. So hard, Jimmy yelps.

“Don’t talk about my wife like that. I won’t have it.”

“Is she still your wife? You sure about that?”

“Yes. Not that it’s your business.”

Jimmy turns to face me. “How could you, Beth? After everything our family have been through. After Bobby—” He whispers his nephew’s name with such reverence, as if even the memory of Bobby is too pure to be in the midst of all this. “We need each other. Don’t we? And Frank loves you, more than anyone ever could.”

When Frank and I say nothing—for what is there to say—Jimmy starts to rant.

He is far far drunker than I had realized.

“So, what? This is allowed to carry on? You do know, don’t you, Beth, the whole village is onto you and your dirty little secret? It was all anyone could talk about in the pub. Did you think no one would notice you sneaking out to your love nest, while your husband worked his fingers to the bone?”

“I told you, Jimmy, leave her alone. This is for me and Beth to work out. No one else.”

Jimmy starts crying. He looks so lost and all I want is to reach out and hug him, as I would have done every single day of the years gone by. But not now.

“And what about him ? You going to let him get away with it?”

Frank shrugs. “I reckon,” he says.

“Well, bully for you. Because I’m going to smash his face in. Teach him a lesson.”

Jimmy swoops for the whisky bottle but Frank is too quick for him. He picks it up, hurls it to the floor, where the glass splinters into a hundred tiny fragments. The only outward sign of the devastation I know is eating him up.

Jimmy slumps against his brother in defeat and Frank wraps both arms around him, as if he’s holding a child. He looks at me above his head, darts his eyes to the staircase. “Go,” he mouths, wanting to spare me even now.

I have never deserved his kindness less.