Never Ending (8 page)

“Yes, exactly.”

“Those are
boobs
?” her brother said, helping himself to three chunks of bread. “Wow, they don’t look anything
like
the ones on the Internet.”

“Declan, please.”

“You’re the one talking about boobs, Mum.”

“So it’s my responsibility to cover up, then?” Shiv said, addressing her mother. “You think a guy is perfectly entitled to stare at a girl if she’s wearing a bikini, yeah?”

Mum ignored her. “You’re
twelve
,” she said to Declan. “You shouldn’t be looking at that stuff on the Internet.”

“Yeah, right. And make sure to warn those bears about shitting in the woods.”

Mum turned to Dad. “I thought you’d set a filter on his PC?”

“
Mum
,” Declan said, “it was
me
who showed Dad how to set it.”

“Dec, that bread is for all of us,” Dad said. “And don’t swear at your mother.”

“Am I allowed to swear at
you
, then?”

“I’d be surprised and disappointed if you didn’t.”

Shiv pulled on a T-shirt. Her brother snaffled the phrase book from Mum and began reciting random words in Greek in the solemn tones of a TV newsreader. He was still at it when the food arrived. Mum had dolmades; Dad had a plate piled with small grilled fish – complete with heads, eyes, tails – which crunched like nachos as he ate them. Shiv and Declan both had cheese-and-tomato pizza.

“You could eat that at home,” Dad pointed out.

“Ah, but we are not “at home”, Father,” Declan said, his mouth half full. “So, if we are to attain our weekly recommended pizza quotient – RPQ, as nutritionists call it – we have no option but to eat some while we are here.”

For the first time in nearly two days, Shiv smiled.

Back on the beach, Shiv and Dec knocked a ball back and forth with a pair of plastic bats. But Dec became too competitive, so Shiv decided to go for a swim then sunbathe some more.

She’d been toasting her back for a while when Declan squatted beside her sunlounger and asked if she fancied wandering along to the far end of the beach.

“To do what?”

“I dunno. Watch the jet-skis, or scramble on the rocks or something.”

Shiv half opened one eye to look at him. She was about to say no, but stopped herself. Scrambling on rocks with her kid brother (in Cornwall, in Pembrokeshire, in Brittany), collecting shells and cuttlefish bones and odd-shaped bits of driftwood – these were among Shiv’s earliest, fondest memories of family holidays.

“Yeah, OK.”

They walked along the water’s edge, the occasional bigger wave sluicing past their ankles. Shiv’s shoulders tingled with sunburn so she pulled on her T-shirt again; beside her, Declan looked more Mediterranean than ever after five days in the sun.

If Laura or Katy had been there, Shiv could have discussed Nikos with them. She ached to talk to
someone
about him. But it wasn’t going to be her brother.

“Sorry for being a bitch just lately,” Shiv said, after they’d walked for a bit.

“Define ‘just lately’.”

“Today. Yesterday.”

“Oh, right,” Declan said. “Only I thought you meant, like, since you were ten.”

She gave him a shove. “Ha, ha, you’re so
funny
.”

“I like to think so.”

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten what you said about my boobs.”

“Don’t worry, Shivoloppoulos – small is the new big, apparently.”

The next shove caught her brother off balance, landing him on his bum in the shallows. “Oh,
yessss
,” Shiv said, laughing, “the Boy Declan, beaten up by a
girl
.”

He chased her, kick-splashing her a few times before a truce declared itself. They fell back into step, reminiscing about previous holiday “skirmishes”. Declan’s favourite was the one a couple of years earlier, at a restaurant in Corsica, where he dropped a live beetle into her lap and Shiv’s leap out of her seat sent Dad’s red wine all over his brand-new chinos.

After their laughter subsided, her brother said, “I wish we’d got snorkels.”

Shiv glanced at the sea. It did look inviting. She tried not to think about Nikos adjusting her mask that time. Snorkelling wasn’t her thing really, but her brother had loved it – he was the first into the water and the last out, only returning to the boat when Nikos bellowed good-naturedly that he would set off without him. Then, as Declan was clambering back on board, Nikos had grabbed him under the armpits and swung him onto the deck in one easy movement, declaring, “Hey, I caught me a fresh turtle!” Which made everyone laugh, apart from Dec, who looked mortified.

Further along the beach, Shiv saw there was only one jet-ski still out on the water and all of the windsurfers had come in, their sails spread above the high-water mark like huge butterflies basking in the sun. Had the breeze dropped, or was it siesta time? The answer revealed itself with a roar of male voices from one of the tavernas, where a TV was showing a football match.

“What did you think of that guy on the boat?” Declan asked, suddenly.

Shiv shot him a look. Had he seen them talking? “Which guy?”

“You know, Nikos. The snorkelling guy.”

“Oh, right.” Shiv shrugged. “OK, I guess. Why?”

“Nothing,” her brother said.

His expression gave nothing away and, as they continued to the end of the beach, he showed no interest in pursuing the topic. Shiv was glad to let it drop too. In any case, they’d reached the clutter of rocks beneath the promontory separating that bay from the next.

The whole time they were scrambling, Shiv and Declan barely spoke, each absorbed in their own thoughts. A gap had opened between them. They were too old for this.
She
was anyway. It only struck her, now they’d got there, that she’d grown out of playing with her kid brother among the rock pools.

Back at the sunloungers, Mum gave Declan some money and sent him off to buy ice creams. Shiv sat in the shade of one of the parasols and took out her phone. Katy had sent a text since the last time she’d checked –
ate too much chocolate! am fat n sick but mostly
fat
xxx
– but there was nothing new from Laura. Shiv started a reply to Katy.

Mum worked the lotion into her shoulders and the back of her neck. “Can you do my back please, Shiv?”

“I’m texting.”

“Over to you then, love.”

Dad sat behind Mum on the lounger, spraying lotion on his palms. “When my sensual touch gets you all flustered, try to remember we’re in a public place.”

“Dad,
please
,” Shiv said. “That’s just too—”

“Hey, guys –” this was Declan – “look who I just bumped into in the shop.”

Shiv glanced up. Dec held four ice creams, leaking over his bunched fists. Beside him, in a blue-and-white basketball top and blue swimming shorts, was Nikos.

5

“Hi, everyone,” Assistant Sumner says, with the forced enthusiasm of a children’s TV presenter. “Welcome to your very first Talk.”

Room S-10, second floor.

Sumner is the one who smiled too much at Dr Pollard’s introductory briefing last night. She wore her frizzy blond hair down that time; this afternoon it’s fastened in a ponytail. The tan is as fake as ever. She can’t be much older than twenty-five.

The chairs are arranged in a circle. Clockwise around the room are Assistant Sumner, Lucy, Caron, Shiv, Helen and Docherty. No Mikey.

Shiv tries not to think about his sister. Phoebe. Feebs.

S-10 is garish, the light from the window behind Sumner accentuating the orangey-red carpet and buttercup-yellow walls. It’s like the decor of a pre-school, only without the childish pictures and scattered toys. The chairs are purple, comfortable, in a school common-room kind of way. In the centre, a low table is set out with a plastic jug of iced water and six plastic glasses.

Sumner asks about Walk and Make and earns a few non-committal responses.

She nods, as though they were words of profound wisdom. “OK, I know what you’re all thinking.” She leans forward, her gaze touring the circle. “You’re thinking –” she puts on an anxious face and makes her voice go wobbly – “‘Ooer, I don’t know what happens at Talk.’”

“Can we have three guesses?” Caron says.

Sumner continues to smile. She hasn’t stopped since they came in and it has become unnerving. “How it works,” she says, ignoring or possibly not registering the sarcasm, “is we sit in silence until someone feels moved to speak. Once they finish, others may respond. Then we wait for the next ‘Speaking’. And so on and so fifth.”

So fifth
. It’s the sort of jokey thing Dad would say.

“Speak about what?” This time it’s Lucy.

“Whatever
grabs
you.” Sumner mimes grabbing. She smiles. “So long as it’s related to your reason for being here.”

“
Group therapy
, then.” Caron doesn’t bother to hide her disdain.

Shiv knows where Caron is coming from. She was placed in a therapy group herself back in the early days. First session, the participants tossed a beanbag among themselves, the thrower saying their name, then asking
What’s your name?
to the person they threw the bag to. The first time the bag was tossed to Shiv she let it hit her chest and fall to the floor, the thrower’s question unanswered.

She lasted three sessions before she was withdrawn from group work.

It was too soon, she tells herself. She wasn’t ready to be helped.

Sumner is laying down ground rules, talking about mutual respect. Shiv sits straighter in her seat, tries to focus, to give this a fair go.

A little brass bell signals the start of Talk.

Assistant Sumner asks them to close their eyes. At first Shiv keeps hers open, embarrassed by the idea of sitting with them shut in front of relative strangers. But the others all close their eyes – even Caron – and watching everyone else when they are oblivious to it makes Shiv feel like a spy. She closes her eyes too.

Gradually, everyone settles and a hushed stillness envelops the room. Shiv has never been to a meditation class but this is what she imagines it’s like.

As in Walk, it’s Declan she’s supposed to be thinking about.

She can’t. Her mind is too buzzy with waiting for someone to speak; who will it be and what will they say? Other distractions too. Thoughts of Mikey and their conversation in the medical room.

How did Phoebe drown?
Shiv wanted to ask, before Nurse Zena appeared in the doorway, needing to tend to her patient.
Why couldn’t you save her?

“I heard a noise from the bedroom but I didn’t go to see if she was all right.”

Lucy. The first speaker. After such a long silence, Shiv was starting to wonder if anyone would break it. Lucy explains that she is talking about her niece, Milly, who died while Lucy was babysitting. It’s like she’s giving evidence about an incident she witnessed but which didn’t directly involve her. Shiv knows
that
voice. She has used it herself, recounting Declan’s death for the umpteenth time. People give you a weird look; they don’t see that it might be the only way to get the words out.

A response. Helen, the shaman, who played solo pool in the Rec Room last night before Caron and Shiv coaxed her into Buckaroo.

“Why didn’t you go to her?” she asks. More curious than accusatory.

“Because I was on Facebook.” Lucy uses the same neutral tone as before. “And when I logged off I’d forgotten about the noise in the bedroom. Forgotten all about Milly. I just sat there and ate a whole pack of biscuits in front of my sister’s TV. Then I fell asleep on the sofa.”

After a pause, she says, “When they came home I still had crumbs on my top.”

It’s all too easy to imagine the scene: the click of the key in the lock, the front door easing open, the sister’s whispered (not to wake Baby), “Hi, we’re home.” Lucy, jerking awake, a sleepy, biscuity taste in her mouth, standing up, hurriedly brushing crumbs off, the brother-in-law entering the lounge, drunk, saying something funny, the
clip-clip
of the sister’s shoes along the hall as she goes to check on their little girl.

The anxiety in her voice – from concern, to panic, to terror.

Shiv shuts the scene down. She doesn’t want to picture the sister’s face as she bends over the cot; she might see her own face instead, peering at Declan.

Helen responds again. “How did Milly die?”

“She choked,” Lucy manages to say. “She was sick and she choked. I was stuffing my fat face with biscuits while my little niece choked to death.”

No one says a word for the longest time after that. A vast chasm of silence.

Then, deadpan, Caron asks, “What type of biscuits were they?”

The timing is perfect. In the microsecond before her question registers with the group – in the shocked disbelief when Caron’s words
do
sink in – it’s as though all the air has been sucked from the room. When Lucy, of all people, lets out the first snort of laughter it sets off a chain reaction right round the circle, all the tension of the tale of her niece’s death released in one mighty blast of relief.

Shiv is doubled up in her chair, gasping for breath. Almost wetting herself. They all are, by the looks of it – even Assistant Sumner. Everyone’s eyes are open, weeping tears of mirth, the patients exchanging glances with one another to make sure it’s OK for them to find something so appalling so funny.

Then Lucy, barely able to speak for laughing, says, “Chocolate Hobnobs.” And sets them all off again.

The real tears soon follow; the collective shame. Lucy, sobbing her heart out, clasped in Caron’s hug; Caron crying every bit as hard, whispering, “
I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry”
. Shiv and the rest sit, heads bowed, not watching them.

When the bell brings Talk to a close, Sumner says they’re free to take a break before returning to S-10 at 4 p.m. for the final session of the day: Write. In ones and twos, they leave the room till Shiv and the care assistant are the only ones remaining.

“Need some head space?” Sumner asks. Smiling. She’s sorting out materials for Write, taking a storage tub from a shelf and distributing its contents around the table: a school-style exercise book and ballpoint pen placed in front of each seat.