Page 27 of Maybe
“Not all of it. Some of it’s okay. The parts with you in it aren’t too bad.”
“Maybe we should both just try and remember those bits, then.”
“Yeah.” After a second of silence, he added, “And from now on you should tell me when work is too much, okay? No one should bottle that sort of horrific experience up. You’ll make yourself ill.”
“Thank you. I… I will.”
“You’re welcome. Now, turn the light off, switch your phone off, and go the fuck to sleep.”
I snorted. I was still chuckling as I followed my big brother’s orders. And, for the first time in weeks, I slept like the dead.
CHAPTER 11
EZRA
Unable to drift off after Isaac’s call, I checked on Jonty, stealing a kiss. Turning away was hard; watching him sleep, marvelling he was somehow mine, was my favourite hobby. Spreadeagled on his tummy, his mouth slack and open, he was wheezing, but only very slightly. Not enough to disturb him.
Three times I’d contacted the landlord, complaining about the damp in the corners of all the rooms. My son had suffered mild asthma before we’d moved to this place, but, along with the heavy traffic trundling along our road day and night, it certainly didn’t help. And now, every time it rained, water dripped through the skylight in the bathroom. At the weekend, I’d scraped off something suspiciously fungus-like growing in the plasterwork. Carly’s mum, who knew about these things, suggested I contact the council or Citizen’s Advice. Or move away, but I didn’t have the funds, and Jonty’s school was close enough to walk.
Back in bed, I stared at the yellowed ceiling, listening to the tuneful gurgles of the plumbing. The whole flat sounded like it was pissing. I should have shared that observation with Isaac,made him laugh. And then told him he was a stupid dick for going along with a dead man’s plans. Isaac would give me the money to move, if I asked; he wouldn’t even demand to know what I wanted it for. But I wasn’t ready to accept his tainted cash. Not yet. Maybe never. I wasn’t prepared for the feelings it would arouse. Of being in debt to our bastard father. Nothing was ever free. Every penny I spent would be a subtle reminder of his sneering tone saying, ‘I gave that to you.’
I was ready to have Isaac more in my life, though. Even if he was a knackered and stressed-out hot mess.Becausehe was a knackered and stressed-out hot mess. He needed me. He needed his big brother. Perhaps before I sorted me and Jonty out, I needed to straighten him out first.
Isaac appeared at the café a week later, alone. Being me, I hadn’t called him again, nor sent any more pictures of Jonty. I’d thought about him, though. A lot. A small part of me wanted to quiz him about the things I’d missed out on over the last decade while a much larger part of me didn’t want to know. Most of me was still fucking livid that Henry Fitz-fucking-Henry had died before I’d a chance to encounter him again as an adult, not as a messed-up teenager. To ask him why he did what he did, whether he regretted it. For him to see how brilliant I was, and Jonty was, without any of his help.
And then maybe to break his nose.
Regardless, his legacy carried on without him just fine. My brother, bone-tired, strained, and holding his shit together by the slimmest of threads, had a textbook open as he waited for me. And was doing that oh-so-British manners thing by apologising for catching the eye of the waitress to order a drink, like it wasn’t her bleeding job.
“Another one, cheers, Deb,” I signalled to her as I made my way towards him. “I’m at the table with the walking dead over there.”
“Not your usual type, Ez,” she commented, giving Isaac a once over.
“He’s my brother.” Suddenly, I felt inordinately proud, despite him looking one percent human and 99 percent exhausted. Not to mention dressed like he was preparing to sift through a waiting room full of patients. “He’s a junior doctor.”He’s just run a team managing a fucking cot death and debriefed everyone afterward without breaking down.“He’s very good.”
Isaac's weary mouth smiled at me, briefly transforming his face into something beautiful. His eyes crinkled too. They were a soft blue and, objectively, nothing exceptional. Like the rest of him. His hair, for instance, was neither sleekly dark nor strikingly blond. Merely an ordinary neat brown, exactly like Isaac was of a neat and ordinary height and weight. He had something, though. I bet he had plenty of admirers if he only looked up from his textbooks from time to time.
“Sleeping better?” I asked.
“Some. Apart from, you know, the recurring nightmare of huge bloody emperor moths crawling inside my ears when I’m asleep and chewing on my brain.” He grinned. “I’ve been on another exam revision course for the last couple of days, so I had a break from work. I… I needed it. Thanks for listening the other night, and sorry for being so pathetic.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I mean, getting upset over stuff like that issopathetic, Isaac. Pull yourself together. You should be ashamed.”
As we drank in peaceful silence, a warm glow suffused me. Perhaps this was what drew me to him, this comfortable feeling.I felt it a bit around Carly. Being with someone who knew me, really knew me.
“I haven’t been here for the last couple of days either,” I said. “Jonty was off school.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Just an asthma flare up. He had a cold, and it tends to exacerbate it, and he… well, you know. I’m teaching you to suck eggs.”
“It’s different when it’s your own.” He frowned as I withdrew a cigarette. “You probably should stop those if you want to help his chest.”
“Yeah.” I lit it, blowing the smoke away from him. “It’s the damp that does for him, mostly. I never smoke in the flat, though I’m thinking of stopping the fags anyway. I need to get myself some of those patches.”
“Good. Smoking won’t be doing your own lungs any favours either.”
Check us out having another civilised, ordinary conversation. “What was the course about?”
