Chapter Twenty
The sound of a text alert in the form of windchimes broke the incense-heavy silence.
I ignored the tuts of my fellow yogis as I fell out of an attempt to do a shoulder stand and reached for my phone.
ESME: I’m sooooo nervous about tomorrow. Did you really like the photos?
I typed as unobtrusively as I could.
LIZZY: Photos were gorgeous.
‘Please,’ the yoga teacher said, a serene smile not quite hiding her irritation. ‘I do ask everyone to digitally disconnect during these sessions.’ In the background, soft music played, the same three strings on repeat.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, putting the phone to silent and lying back down on my mat. 8am on Saturday in a south London community hall, and every time I stretched my arms out, they swept through a scattering of crumbs from a kid’s birthday party the day before.
‘Connect the core,’ intoned the teacher. ‘And breathe. One, two, three.’
The joss sticks she had lit were potent. There was smoke at the back of my throat.
‘Focus on the word I asked you to choose at the beginning of the session.’
I blinked. What was the word I’d chosen at the beginning of the session? And was it wrong to get stressed about the fact I’d forgotten the word I had promised to remember? On silent, my phone’s message light flashed. I gritted my teeth.
‘Now, let’s all gently gather ourselves into corpse pose,’ the teacher said.
The latest Esme/Ajax story about their appreciation for art (or lack of) had been easily dealt with: a few phone calls, a smoothing-over statement. The surprise element of Communications was you never knew when a mountain was actually going to be a molehill, or vice versa.
Freed from any obligation to untangle Esme and Ajax from their most recent faux pas, that afternoon I ignored catching up on work in favour of visiting Dad and Alex.
As ever, it felt quite fun catching a non-rush hour train, even if I was dressed in the clothes I usually wore to work.
‘Are you going to a funeral?’ a man on the train said, recklessly ignoring my Resting Bitch Face.
He was drinking lager with his mates and had his shirt off, thus emboldening him.
I smiled blandly, wondering if I should say ‘yes, hopefully yours.’ But I didn’t fancy my chances of coming out unscathed, so I put my sunglasses on and got a book out.
My work phone and personal phone had fallen silent, but I found myself checking them repeatedly, failing to jerk myself out of my hyper in-touch, vigilant work mindset.
Luckily, we were soon through the London suburbs and into the countryside proper, hurtling towards the village where Dad and Alex lived: Dad in a block of retirement flats, where he had a better social life than I did, and Alex in a nearby assisted-living facility.
As always, I collected Dad and we walked the short distance down a narrow, tree-lined road, to Alex’s, to drink tea in one of the communal areas with Alex and his carer, Jenna.
It could be hard to get a response from my brother sometimes, but as we walked in, his eyes met mine, and his smile flashed bright, momentarily, warming my heart like a shaft of sunshine.
I sat beside him, put out my hand, and for a moment his fingers brushed my palm.
‘Izz,’ he said.
‘Hi, Alex,’ I said.
He was gone then, focusing back on the tablet which was a permanent feature, removing his hand, turning away. He pressed to play a piece of music which he had on repeat, as we arranged the drinks and I produced a pack of jammy dodgers.
Dad, Jenna and I made small talk until Alex indicated that he wanted to get back to his painting, which our appearance had interrupted. He said an approximation of the word ‘bye’ five times in quick succession.
‘Okay, I love you,’ I said. He waved jazz hands in my face and exited at speed.
‘Thanks again for sorting the benefits, love,’ said Dad, as we wandered back to his block, his hand looped in my arm as we negotiated the slippery pavement. ‘Did I tell you about the argument Ros had with Pat over the hash browns?’
He enjoyed explaining the minutiae of his retirement complex to me, and I enjoyed seeing him engage with life.
Mum’s death had frozen him; fastened him shut like a treasure chest whose lock I could never unpick.
He’d never recovered from it, despite my every effort.
I’d lived with him long after I started working, cooking healthy meals in the evening, trying to interest him in activities and hobbies, trying to entertain him with anecdotes and funny stories about my day. I don’t think he wanted any of it.
Mum had been everything to all of us. There wasn’t a single problem she didn’t have a solution for; often the solution involved having a cup of tea and a biscuit.
When I thought of her, it was in the garden or our house, carefully tying her sweet pea plants to canes; making an apple crumble; sitting with Alex and humming to him when he couldn’t sleep.
She had been so proud of me, but in a hundred different ways I felt I hadn’t lived up to her standards.
She had an open heart, and her calmness, unlike mine, had been a real, warm, authentic thing, not cold and forced.
I had, eventually, moved out, and Dad had sold the house.
Around the time Dad had realised he was running out of money, I’d noticed he’d got quieter.
He hadn’t shared the problem with me. Then, one afternoon, he’d called me, saying he had chest pains.
He hadn’t wanted to call an ambulance. As I sat there, waiting for a doctor with him in a crowded Accident and Emergency waiting room, the pains gone for now, he’d murmured to me that he was in a ‘spot of bother’ with money.
That was the day I realised how, silently, he turned his stress inwards. How corrosive his apparent calm was.
The doctor came. As Dad described his symptoms as ‘probably nothing’ to the puzzled medic (‘it’s all gone now, maybe I just ate something’), I was gripped with the icy realisation that he was, effectively, defenceless; that I would have to be the hard, strong voice of reason.
‘He was in so much pain he could hardly speak,’ I’d said to the doctor. My voice firm, implacable. The same voice I would use to sort out his financial affairs, or to deal with the council when they queried Alex’s level of care. I could cry later, be emotional later, but not here, and not now.
With my acceptance of that role, Dad’s silence had dissolved.
He now saw himself as the helpful person who could remind me of what needed to be done, who could flag up worries before they even broke cover.
It wasn’t always easy. I accepted now that I would never fix his sadness, never mend what was broken.
But I could defend him. Do my best to keep him safe.
When I visited him, I tried to please him, to soothe him.
And every time I heard him describe ‘breakfast wars’ (apparently it wasn’t the done thing to pile eight hash browns on your plate when everyone else wanted one), or smile at something, I felt as though I’d won a kind of victory, however small.
After describing the hot breakfast tussle, he asked me how work was.
‘Busy,’ I said. ‘I have to go to Venice the week after next.’
‘Venice?’ he said, looking incredulous. ‘In winter? It’s sinking, isn’t it?’
I shrugged. Esme and Ajax were fixated on it as the epitome of romance, even in February, notorious for being extremely floodable.
Not that they cared about the potential problems this might throw up.
‘Venice is Venice,’ Esme had said, when I pointed out the timing.
I had repressed the urge to say, ‘And stupid is stupid.’
‘Pack your wellies,’ said Dad.
‘And—’ I paused. ‘Next week, there’s an Architectural Open Day at work,’ I said. ‘Part of East London Architecture Festival? There are tours of the building, it’s quite a structure. Would you like to come, Dad? I could see if it could be arranged for Alex to come, too?’
Mum wouldn’t have hesitated. And I wondered – had I been keeping my family at a distance? Had I been wrong to keep my work and my life so separate?
‘Oh.’ He thought about it, a slightly awkward expression on his face. ‘Don’t worry, love. London’s a bit fast-paced for me. And you know how Alex likes his routine. I don’t think he cares too much about seeing the sights, do you?’
‘He might like the change,’ I said, but I saw the look on his face: pained, worried. ‘It’s okay, I’m sure you’re right. And there’s always another time.’ I felt a strange cocktail of disappointment and relief.
He nodded. ‘I hope the day goes well. Did I tell you Janine has invited me to join the walking football club?’