Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
River was pretty sure Newt didn’t really want him there when he went to see his brother.
The only reason Newt was taking him was because he didn’t want to leave him on his own, but River wasn’t letting him go by himself.
He’d been completely stunned by what Newt had told him, then angry at the injustice of it and now he was feeling protective and vindictive, which was crazy because he couldn’t even get the words out to speak on Newt’s behalf.
And lashing out at a guy who was dying seemed wrong even if what he’d done was fucking appalling.
He remembered all too well what he’d thought about Newt when he’d first met him. About his fucking perfect body and fucking perfect speech, that Newt had no fucking idea what River’s life was like. Oh God. What a twat I was. Nobody’s life was perfect.
River didn’t know how Newt had survived all that time locked up for something he didn’t do.
He couldn’t think of anything about Newt that suggested he’d been in jail.
No freak outs about locking doors or the dark or nightmares.
Although he did eat fast. Maybe that was something.
And he got up early. Then again, maybe time spent in a comfortable house in the countryside with a guy who could barely talk had given him chance to breathe. Newt seemed remarkably well adjusted.
They went in the Aston. Newt had called ahead to tell the hospice he was visiting.
No music on this journey, no language games.
River didn’t know what to say to him—to try and say.
He did wonder whether to tell him about his family, but the moment didn’t feel right, not when Newt was struggling.
In any case, long explanations for anything were still beyond River.
He sort of wanted Newt to talk to him about prison, but he wouldn’t push.
It was just after eleven when they reached Mountford Hospice.
River put on his mask before they got out of the car.
As they headed towards the entrance, he took hold of Newt’s hand and Newt squeezed his fingers, then let him go.
River suspected Phelan was going to ask Newt to forgive him.
He wondered if Newt would. River had his own struggles with the concept of forgiveness.
He knew it wasn’t healthy to let yourself be overrun by past hurt.
He’d wallowed in negative feelings for a long time before he’d been able to move on, but forgiveness wasn’t part of his recovery.
“Can I help you?” asked the lady behind the desk.
“We’re here to see my brother, Phelan Walsh.”
“If you’d like to sign in, I’ll find someone to take you to him.”
They followed a nurse to Phelan’s room. At the door, Newt stopped and pressed his back to the wall. He was breathing heavily.
“Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “He’s not in pain. Just a little short of breath. Talk to him about happy things that you remember.”
And not those memories that Newt had acquired after spending almost a third of his life in prison for something that Phelan had done? River sighed. But then she had no idea.
“In you go. I’ll leave you to it.” She walked away.
A pale, dark-haired guy with dark shadows under his eyes and sunken cheeks lay on the bed. He wore grey jogging trousers, a blue sweatshirt and thick pink socks. Something about the pink socks made River gulp. Phelan took one look at Newt and started to cry.
Newt went over to hug his brother.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Phelan repeated over and over, then had a coughing fit.
When Phelan let him go, Newt edged away from the bed. “This is my friend. Leo knows the truth about what happened. He’s the first person I’ve ever told. He won’t tell anyone.”
“What does it matter now? Oh God…Newt. I can’t believe…you’re here.” Even through his tears, Phelan smiled. “You always said smoking would kill me.”
“Have you stopped now?” Newt asked.
Phelan chuckled. “Twenty years too late. I wrote to you… You wouldn’t let me visit you. Everything I sent to you, you sent back.” His breathing and speech were laboured.
More tears fell as he stared at Newt. “You’re really here. All grown up.”
“I am.”
“I wish I’d never gone along with it. I’ve spent a long time wishing that.”
“Why did you?” Newt asked.
“Lily was pregnant. I just thought—one job and I could…give her the money for a cot…pushchair…car seat. Help with rent. I did the job with Jimmy Morgan… Did you guess?”
“I wondered. He was your best friend.”
“You babysat his kids a couple of times. I shouldn’t have involved him… He was an idiot…” Phelan coughed. “He called out Walsh to warn me we needed to get out… because the guy was coming home, and…yeah, well, the Walsh family has a reputation.”
“But a gun?”
“It was Jimmy’s… I didn’t know he’d taken it…
Didn’t trust him… I took it off him.” He paused to get his breath back.
“He freaked out when the guy went for the alarm…grabbed the gun from my pocket…fired it. Thank God he didn’t hit anyone.
I grabbed it back… Wish to fuck I hadn’t… But he wasn’t safe with it.”
River felt angry that he’d tried to protect his idiot pal, then thrown his brother to the wolves.
“We split what we’d taken. Dad was with Sean and he…
He was furious when he saw me with Jimmy’s gun.
Said he’d sort it… He took the…stuff and put it in your room…
I swear I didn’t want to do it but he made Sean strip me and then…
” He started to cough and took a drink of water.
“Sean gave mum the ketamine to inject you… Dad threatened me, said I owed him. Then Lily lost the baby. And just after you were sentenced, we broke up. So it was all for nothing. I’m so fucking sorry, Newt.
You’ll never know how sorry…” He coughed again, wiping his mouth with a tissue that came away stained.
River gritted his teeth. All that and for nothing?
“So you’re not a father.”
“No.”
“You’d have been a good dad,” Newt told him.
Phelan looked up at him, raw pain in his expression.
“We didn’t have much of a role model but you were kind to me,” Newt said.
“Because Dad wasn’t.”
“I wasn’t the sort of son he wanted.” Newt shrugged.
“He should have wanted you. You’re the best of all of us… How the fuck did you turn out so well?”
“Because of you, Phelan. You didn’t let me fall, didn’t let me do the wrong thing, didn’t want me to be like you or Sean. Remember when you taught me to drive?”
“Scared me to death. Sat with my hand over the brake.”
Newt chuckled.
“You were so good. On the forecourt anyway. Parking and manoeuvring… It was a pleasure to watch you.”
“I hated cars.”
“I know.”
River gulped when he registered that Newt hadn’t driven for seven years. That explained why he’d started off so cautiously. And clearly parallel parking was in his DNA.
“Sean brought photo albums… Over there.”
Newt carried them over so he and Phelan could look at them together.
River moved so he could see too. They’d had a very different upbringing to him.
Newt’s family weren’t poor but they were compared to River’s, except that had ended up as a lie.
He sat and watched Newt and Phelan look through the pictures and was glad Newt felt able to smile at some of the memories.
“Yum…After Eight mints,” Newt said.
“A present for me…but you ate half of them. When I took one, you took four… Didn’t realise until I picked up empty wrappers from the box.” Phelan coughed again.
There was a sweet photo of a determined, gangly-legged Newt running in sports day when he was ten.
Another of him playing cricket in the street with Phelan.
Christmas pictures. BBQ pictures. Rathnait, their sister, was beautiful.
The little doll of the family who’d looked older than she was even as a kid.
Eight going on eighteen. Interesting though, because River could see Newt was on the outside of things, on the edge of photos, always a beat away from the rest, a serious-looking boy who was never the centre of attention.
“I haven’t forgotten what you did for me,” Newt said. “All those things you showed me how to do. How to whistle through a blade of grass. Fastening my tie. How to make fire. How to snap my fingers. You gave me money when Dad wouldn’t. You were always kind.”
“And I undid it all that night. If I could take it back…I would.” Phelan was sobbing again now, his face wet with tears. “Were you…all right inside? Oh fuck, of course you weren’t. I’m sorry.”
“I coped. Nothing bad happened.”
“I paid guys to help keep you safe.”
Newt looked shocked by that.
“Are you sure nothing bad happened?”
“No. I was okay. I wondered sometimes when I’d been shuffled away from potential problems. I thought it was luck and me being careful. But…hmm. Thank you for that.”
Phelan coughed. “Now I’m paying for what I did.”
Newt sat on the bed. “Only for being stupid and smoking. Not for anything else. That’s not the way life works.”
“Not a day passed without me thinking about you. A couple of times I almost went to the police and told the truth, but I was a coward. I’m so sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry. And I know you were pushed into it by Sean and our parents. Mum would have pushed hardest. You were always her favourite son.”
“I’m not going to blame them. They were part of it, yes, but I let it happen.
I could have spoken out… Stopped it. I thought…
I’ll not see my child until they’re a teenager.
Lily’s father was as much of a bastard as ours.
I just couldn’t let him be a grandad without me there…
but I had no right to let you take the blame.
” He had a short coughing fit. “I can never make it up to you. I can’t ask you to forgive me.
I don’t deserve it. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was. ”
“But I do forgive you,” Newt said quietly and took hold of Phelan’s hand.
River held his breath.
“Don’t. I don’t deserve forgiveness. What I did was unforgiveable.”