Chapter 49
Violet
It took some time for the facts to sink in.
Having said his piece, unburdened himself of the worry he’d been carrying, and provided us, his parents, with some titbits of undeniable truth on which to chew, Luke went back inside to get ready for the wake, leaving me and Henry standing dumbfounded in the same spot beneath the lemon tree.
‘Blimey,’ he said.
‘I know. What just happened?’
‘I think the cool kids refer to it as “getting owned”,’ mused Henry. ‘He was better at it than me, that’s for sure.’
‘Better at what?’
‘At figuring out exactly what was going on with you. Why you’ve been so insistent about selling this whole time. I guessed you were struggling financially, but I had no clue how badly – and all this stuff with bloody McCabe. If you’d told me, I promise I would’ve helped. As it is, I’m tempted to get a flight back to the UK tomorrow just to thump the rotten bastard.’
‘I’m not sure you getting arrested for assault would help the situation,’ I mused, although I was touched by his instinct to defend me.
‘Regardless,’ he said darkly. ‘He’s nothing more than a bully, and this time he’s chosen the wrong family to mess with.’
I squinted up at him. ‘Can we get out of the sun?’
Henry picked both our wine glasses up off the step, but I had no intention of drinking any more than the single sip I’d had. The beginnings of a tension headache were pressing against my temples; my lips felt parched and tongue sticky.
‘I want you to know that I didn’t spend all that money on myself,’ I said, wincing at the sound the metal chair made as I scraped it across the patio tiles.
Henry lifted the seat opposite and placed it carefully next to mine. Close, but not too close. My hair had dried to a frizz after its shower soaking, and I tried in vain to flatten it down with my hand.
‘I didn’t think you had.’
‘A lot of it went on things Luke needed for uni. I know you sorted out the house for him, but it didn’t come with bedding, or kitchen utensils, or a television.’
‘You bought him a new TV?’
‘I wanted him to feel at home.’
‘What about the rest of it? Twenty-five grand is a lot of money.’
I took a moment, closing my eyes briefly as I breathed in for three, then out again.
‘You don’t know what it was like for me, Henry, having no income of my own, contributing zero, relying on the funds that your job provided. I felt as if I had to account for every penny.’
‘We didn’t have a choice,’ he said. ‘One of us had to work, and you wanted to be at home with Luke. I never resented the fact that it was my earnings going into our account, I saw everything as ours, money for our family.’
‘Oh my god, how many times? I never wanted to be at home, Henry. I had to be. What I wanted was for Luke to be in school, or at friends’ houses, not stuck in his bedroom with his miserable mother nagging him about online learning. It was all so stressful and tedious. I was trapped, and watching you go off to do what you loved, all day every day, that was hard. It was really bloody hard. I was jealous of that freedom you had.’
‘You were jealous?’ He blinked at me in astonishment.
‘Horribly. It was why I was so awful to you all the time, so utterly bloody and snappy. And before you say anything, I know that makes me sound completely irrational. I’m well aware it wasn’t your fault Luke struggled so much, but he was right in what he said before. I couldn’t blame him, and so I blamed you instead.’
‘I was jealous, too,’ Henry confessed. ‘You two were so close. I felt like a bystander a lot of the time, a stranger in my own... well, it wasn’t even our home to begin with, was it? After the –’ he stuttered, shaking his head before continuing – ‘accident on the boat that day, it felt as if I stopped being his dad, and that Judas Juan was only too happy to swoop on in and claim that role for himself.’
‘I’m not sure that’s quite true.’ I was havering and he knew it.
Henry appeared stricken, regret spreading like a stain across his features. ‘I let Luke down that day,’ he said lamentably. ‘I let both of you down. I let myself down. I often wonder if this –’ he raised a hand to his scars – ‘isn’t karma for what I didn’t do that day.’
‘No, Henry.’ Without consideration, I reached for his hand. ‘Don’t say that – don’t even think it. It was an accident, that’s all, and Luke is fine. He’s better than he’s ever been. I know there have been a few setbacks since we’ve been here, but generally, he is calmer, more in control, more compassionate than I ever dared hope he’d be.’
‘I used to think it was me,’ he went on morosely, as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘That I’d made him the way he is by wishing he was more like me. I was so adamant that I had to love him better and more freely than my father ever loved me, that I’m afraid I went about it all wrong, tried too hard. I’d watch you with him and wonder how you did it, how you’d managed to figure him out when I just drifted further and further away.’
‘I didn’t figure him out, Henry. I studied him. Neither of us could go into his head – he’d never let us, couldn’t then and wouldn’t now, and that’s OK. Eliza said something to me the night I arrived, after we’d had that godawful dinner together. I got back to the house, and she was in the lounge and so, of course, I assumed the worst, that they’d fallen out and he’d said or done something to hurt her feelings. But do you know what she said? That she was giving him space to assimilate. Just like that, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I’d never done that, never understood his need for headspace, that he was downcast and therefore entitled to wallow for a while. I thought making him talk would bring him out of it quicker when all it did was make him angry and frustrated. He didn’t know how to tell me to stop, and I hadn’t realised I needed to.’
My hand was still in his, and he turned his palm over, wrapping his fingers through mine. We held on to each other so tightly that it was hard to imagine I’d ever let go.
‘We have to stop looking at Luke and seeing the little boy he once was,’ I said. ‘It’s not fair on any of us. We need to do our best to see the man he is now, get to know him instead of doubting him. I know I’m the worst culprit, but I’m learning – or trying to.’
Henry tried for a smile. ‘You’re doing it again,’ he said. ‘Making all the decisions about Luke, telling me what to do, how to treat him, what I should feel towards him.’
Stung, I went to take back my hand, but Henry tightened his grip.
‘Ever since he was born, it’s been this competition of who can love him most, who is the better parent, who means the most to him out of the two of us. What happened to us being a team, Vee? We promised each other we’d stick together.’
‘And I did,’ I burst out. ‘You were the one who switched things up. I heard you, Henry, so many times I’ve heard you say it. “Check with Mum.” “Let’s see what Mum says.” “Only if it’s OK with Mum.” At some point you decided that I was the bad cop, the sole parent, the one in charge of every tiny decision – especially those Luke didn’t like. In trying to become our son’s best friend, you pitted the two of you against me. And I’m sorry, but if I became competitive, it’s because you pushed me into it.’
Henry went to argue, then stopped, his complexion devoid of all but the mildest colour. My words had struck a chord, and though I was sad I’d made him confront some distressing memories, I also knew it was necessary. If he and I were ever to stand a chance of, as Luke had so aptly put it, ‘making up and stuff’, we had to cease playing this exhausting game of Mum versus Dad.
I could hear the soft thump of Luke and Eliza’s feet as they paced around the house, the sound only just discernible behind the insistent clacking of the cicadas. A plane was passing overhead, its jet trails casting flour-white streaks across the dome of the sky. Henry’s hand had gone limp in mine, and I looked round to find him staring at me.
‘I wished we’d talked more,’ he said. ‘Been more honest.’
Leaning closer, I rested my forehead gently against his shoulder.
‘I wish we hadn’t lost sight of who we were before. Luke recognised it as soon as he saw that photo of us. I think he painted it to remind us of what we stand to lose if—’ I sat up, looked at him, willing him to know, to understand.
‘If I can’t forgive you,’ he intoned.
‘Henry—’
‘No, Vee – don’t you get it? Even if we take all the Luke stuff out of the equation, it still doesn’t solve the other problems – the parts of us we broke beyond repair. I can’t be the man I was before, and every time I look at you, it all comes back. What you did and what I saw, how that became this.’ He motioned angrily towards his face. ‘The two of you, that night – it ripped away everything from me.’