Beneath the Skin(54)
She’s shocked to hear the news of David’s death, but she isn’t surprised. ‘Little David’ the Proctors always called him, even when he became an adult. He’d been there at the Proctors’ the first time she was introduced to her future in-laws, not long after meeting Charlie on a blind date. ‘And this is little David,’ Charlie’s mother Valerie had said, glancing indulgently at a good-looking, exceedingly tall youth. She assumed David was Charlie’s gregarious younger brother. She assumed there would be a big David too, but wasn’t put right for some considerable time.
Helen had liked the young David well enough, but there were times when he’d got in the way of her budding relationship with Charlie. It wasn’t David’s fault. Charlie insisted that he came along too, to the theatre, or the cinema, then later to the pub, like an overgrown poodle. She often wondered if the relationship was healthy and at one time it troubled her sufficiently to put her foot down and insist that they left little David out of the loop. Charlie looked hurt. ‘He’s not as strong as he looks,’ he said in a low voice, though no one else was there. ‘You know … emotionally.’ Of course when she quizzed him, Charlie clammed up immediately. An early indicator of his truculence, Helen now muses, twenty-two years later, as she thinks how best to deal with the dreadful news.
A tiny part of her mind dwells for a moment on her last conversation with David at the hospital, but only a tiny part, which she quickly dismisses. People who commit suicide are selfish, she thinks. A final act of spite. They don’t hurt themselves, but everyone else around them. They’re cowardly, that’s the reality. She knows it isn’t very politically correct, but that’s how she feels and she’s not afraid to say it.
‘What was that all about, Mum?’
Rupert’s voice makes her flinch. He’s been in the dining room all morning with his school work spread out on the table. He’s had an aura of determination about him since seeing his father in hospital. But here he is in the doorway of the conservatory with a frown on his face.
‘That was Antonia. Uncle David has killed himself,’ she replies, pushing back her glasses, her voice matter-of-fact. She nods, her mind already made up. ‘But we won’t tell Dad. Not until he’s well enough to come home.’
Rupert sucks in his breath, lowers his head and slaps his hand against his forehead. For a moment Helen wonders if he’s crying, but he lifts his head and stares, his eyes blazing from beneath his fringe. ‘What are you like? Uncle David is dead and you couldn’t give a fuck, could you?’ he roars. ‘You get things so fucking wrong, Mum. I’m calling Dad now. He needs to know. You can do whatever you want.’
He lifts the phone and they wrestle with it for a moment, before Rupert stands back with folded arms and starts to shout. Helen stares, feeling breathless. Perhaps she shouldn’t be surprised at Rupert’s rage, after all he is Charlie’s flesh and blood, but still she is shocked. Not so much at his use of a whole host of expletives (some of which are surprisingly new to her) but at his truculence. He’s usually compliant, in a taciturn way, with her directives. But Rupert argues fiercely that Charlie needs to be told about David’s death now.
She almost laughs at the stony set of his face, so very unusually like his father’s for once. ‘Not found under the gooseberry bush after all,’ she mutters as her heart slows. But Rupert brings her back to reality with a ‘Gooseberry bush? For fuck’s sake, Mum. Don’t you ever just listen?’
She sits down and pats the side of the wicker sofa. ‘I know you think I’m an old witch,’ she says, ‘but let’s give Dad another night of rest. He’ll be devastated, of course, but you know what he’s like, he’ll want to be up, sorting things out and there’s nothing he can do at a weekend anyway.’
Rupert flops down next to her. ‘What’s to sort out?’ he responds, his posture showing defeat. ‘Uncle David is dead. I just can’t believe it.’
She wants to open her arms and pull him close, but she can’t. He’s too tall, too old to be hugged. Both of those could be her excuses. But the truth is she’s not a demonstrative person. Or emotional. Even though she liked David, she doesn’t feel any urge to shed a tear for him and doubts that she will. It’s Charlie she worries about. Since their first blind date at the Science Museum cafe, Charlie’s the only one who’s ever really mattered and she has no idea how he will take this dreadful news.
Sophie’s in bed, the duvet over her head. She’s woken on and off throughout the morning, but has no intention of getting up ever again. She can smell her own breath. It’s rancid and bitter, disgusting. She was actually sick at some point. Alleluia! But of course she’ll feign memory loss about that. And the rest.
She doesn’t want to think about last night when Sami came home. The whisky glass and the cut. She lost it, really lost it. But why didn’t he telephone to tell her about David? Why didn’t he come home sooner? Other husbands would have. It’s his own fucking fault.
The modern bedroom is warm. Sophie is sweating and her head throbs. She turns on to her stomach and spreads out her arms and legs, starfish-like. She can still picture the look of horror on Sami’s face when he examined his fingertips and saw the blood. Pathetic really. The cut bled out of all proportion to the injury or to the offence. That’s all. But her heart is thrashing loudly. Sami didn’t sleep in their bed last night. She has no idea if he slept in the spare bedroom, or downstairs, or whether he came back home at all. She’s too afraid to look.