Chapter 7
SEVEN
Bren missed the last train, is walking home when Nora calls him.
He’d spent half an hour on a platform bench while he waited for a cab, who wouldn’t take him as far as the middle-of-nowhere village, but would take him to the town where he went to school where, from there, he could either call another, or walk the two hours home.
He’d decided on the latter. Felt restless anyway, eager to move. It is two in the morning now, but he still feels wired. Draws his hands into his coat sleeves for warmth as he follows the river back home.
There is something sinister about the water in the dark, he thinks, tar-like, slow-moving. Stars and snowdrops aglow, everything else dark and still. Even the fizzing he had felt, over dinner, has petered out, at last. Whatever that was about.
But then his phone is vibrating in his pocket as he ducks under a willow, and he pulls it out and it’s her and he’s fizzing all over again, sliding to answer, saying, hello?
Did you mean it, she asks, as Bren keeps walking along the canal. Boots on the hard mud path, vision adjusted to the dark.
Sorry, Nora, he says. Could you be more specific?
Kind of snarky, but, he reasons, also fair.
The path converges into a strip of long grass, wet against his boots; they’re supposed to be waterproof, but already his socks feel damp.
He should probably re-proof them, was planning to do so in New Zealand, and yet here he is in England, walking home via the river he used to swim in with his best friend who is calling him, after midnight, making him feel things he was sure he wasn’t going to.
Will you stay for the wedding, she asks, and he doesn’t answer just yet. Imagines the flush up her neck. Wonders where she is. In bed, maybe, beside that guy. Beside Robin.
I don’t want you to be there if you don’t want to be, Nora says.
I could say the same to you, he says, and she says what?
He keeps walking through the dark, thinking. The stars keep being stars.
You never wanted to get married, Nora, he says. Last time I checked.
And when was the last time you checked?
She does not sound angry, or even amused.
It’s a neutral question, and a good one, at that.
It’s not like they’ve swapped notes on that stuff, in recent years.
In all fairness, he’d never intended to stay abroad for this long, either.
But look what happened. Look where time took him.
He left. She stayed. Life went on, anyway.
We were kids, she says, as if reading his thoughts, and he senses, now, that she must be alone. I didn’t know what I wanted. I didn’t know that I’d meet. That I’d feel.
Like marriage material?
Marriage is such an awful word, Nora says. It even sounds stale.
I agree, Bren says, which is why I’m confused you’ve gone for it.
She falls quiet again, but things feel easier this time, not so tense.
It’s the dark, Bren thinks, as he passes a canal lock, two sleeping swans on the grass.
It’s the phone, rather than being in-person.
It’s the beer and the wine and too much dinner, it’s the shared musings on stale words, strange lives.
Have you been talking to Freya? she asks.
Just the once, Bren says. But I do have my own thoughts on these things.
Turns out, Nora says, so do I.
The grass thins into a more packed-down path. Dirt, haphazard stones. He passes an old mill, then a concrete bridge that he does not cross. A small gravel-flecked road that he does, before he rejoins the towpath.
So why are you calling, exactly? Bren says. Just to check I’m cool with you getting married, after all?
To ask if you’ll really be there, Nora says. Like you said you would be.
Bren moves the phone from one ear to the other, his hands so cold it almost hurts.
Thinking that, while his knowledge of psychology is based on The Sopranos, and a few friendly chats with a half-girlfriend that was never really a girlfriend – just a fellow redhead taking a break in Bali, ahead of her psychotherapy training – he knows deflection when he hears it. Is quite the master of it, himself.
When I was in New Zealand, he tells her, the first time round? I worked at the bungee centre for a while, on the Kawarau River.
I remember, Nora says.
There’d always be people that would sign up to jump and just stand there, he says, looking over the edge. Psyching themselves up. Counting down, overthinking it. I saw it time and again, Nora; none of them ever jumped. It was the ones who walked straight to the edge who actually bungeed.
Silence, between them, as she listens.
It’s what I did, when I left, Bren says; pushing this thing around, between them, as if it’s a leftover bite of something they’ve shared, but not finished.
And I didn’t regret it, he tells her, I still don’t.
I don’t regret not hanging around, wearing a black suit and tie, shaking people’s hands who I’d never met and would never meet again, eating fucking cheese and pineapple on a stick.
It is the first time he has referenced his dad’s funeral, aloud.
Not just to Nora. To anyone.
I didn’t overthink it, he says. I just jumped.
Nora stays quiet, aware, it seems, of how raw this is. How new for him, despite the time that has passed.
Is that what you’re angry about? Bren asks her, remembering her hushed voice in the living room, only hours before. So furious with you, Bren.
One of the things, she says. He has to swap hands, because of the cold; put the other in his pocket. The moon is out, too, amid the stars. A silver-white eyelash in the sky.
Well, for the record, Bren tells her, in case she doesn’t remember: I left because I had to. Because if I thought about it, I never would.
He keeps walking, moon-shadows across the path.
But I did miss you, too, he says. So much, that it was easier to pretend that I didn’t.
A small sound, down the phone, but it’s just her breath. Relief, or confirmation; something thawing between them, as she says yeah. Like a question, or like she knew. She doesn’t embellish, or go into her other reasons for being angry, so Bren doesn’t go into his.
Nora? he says, and she says yes?
How is it that you’re calling me, at this time of night?
With Robin, presumably, close by.
He hears a rustling then, it is loud, disruptive, like she’s flipping a mattress on the other end of the bloody line, but she’s probably just drawing a blanket around herself, shifting deeper into an armchair.
Because I really would like you at my wedding, she says, her voice soft.
But before I get attached to the idea, I need to know that you won’t get on a plane, Bren, just before the ceremony, or something.
Because I want to let all this – weirdness, between us – go, now that you’re home, but I don’t think I can take you bungee-ing out of my life again.
I won’t, he says.
You promise?
I’ll let you track my location, if you like, he says. As long as I can track you back. Kind of weird, otherwise.
I don’t need to track you, Bren.
You sure? It’ll be a hoot, I reckon. Watch me go from my mum’s garden to the corner shop to my bedroom and back. Wild.
He hears her breathe out again. Feels a lightness in himself, as she does; as she says fine, and they both tap their phones in silence, locations accepted on their screens.
So now we’ve cleared that up, she says, my next question is a big one.
You’re not going to ask for my karaoke song, are you?
Laughing, she says no. She’s asking if he’ll be her best man.
The canal ends. He’s on a country road, now. No cars, or buses. Just them.
Robin suggested it but I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, she says, and the words spill out, like she wants to say them before she can change her mind.
And it’s also my way of saying I’m so happy, Bren, that you came home.
That you’re here for this. Which I’ve not been all that clear about, I don’t think. So far.
And when he says nothing, she ploughs on.
Robin’s got his brother, Goose, as his best man. And I’m not doing the whole bridesmaid thing, or the maid of honour thing, because the word maid is even worse than marriage.
Bren can no longer feel his hands; his toes, too, are numb with cold. The countryside looks the same, the grass and hedgerows and pylons dull shadows in the night, the signpost saying he’s only half a mile now, from home, and yet the night feels unfamiliar, somehow, surreal.
He is staying for Nora’s wedding.
She wants him to be her best man.
She is marrying someone, soon. Someone with a brother named –
Goose? he asks.
Yeah, she says, and Bren hears her smile down the phone. It’s a family nickname, obviously. Something about his long neck when he was little. Plus his real name is Ryan.
When Bren doesn’t respond, she says like the actor, Ryan Gosling? A baby goose?
That’s pretty tenuous.
In-jokes always are though, aren’t they, Nora says. You’ll like him. He’s like Robin, but a bit more … blunt. And really funny.
I’m sure, Bren says, and Nora exhales, as if satisfied.
I’m so happy, she repeats, and for the first time since the party, she sounds it. That fizzing, inside him, crystallising into something small and hard, like a seed, as he wonders – no, knows – that he’s the one who’s made her so. By coming home. Agreeing to stay.
What about you, then, Nora asks, as he follows the road past the church, the graveyard creepy as hell. Flicker of saying no, we can’t bury him, he’d hate that, all that earth, down in the dark, he liked the dawn, the trees, Mum, please.
What about me?
Past the church, now. Nora’s voice has changed octave with interest, and it is nearly three in the morning and she is still wanting to talk and the graveyard is behind him and that seed grows a tiny shoot inside him.
Are you happy? she asks. You said you don’t regret … the past. And you seem happy enough, whenever we talk. But I just wanted to … check.
I’m good, Bren says.
So was there anyone for you, out there?
Anyone …?
You know. Special.