Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red (3 page)

"I started knitting her a blanket but it ain't finished yet, I'll bring it round when it's done. And a little toy bunny rabbit. And hats and socks and all sorts and a little West Ham hoodie, I got all overexcited and started like twelve things at once so nothing's finished."
"You
knit
?"

"Yeeaah." He stops prodding at the baby and sits back in his chair a bit so he can see them properly. It's so weird. They don't know each other at all. It's not even that they've not seen each other in years - even when he was living at home, they felt like strangers. "It ain't girly or nothing, it's just making stuff. It's just like drawing or taking photos or whatever."

"I've still got all those lovely things you made in college, you know. I don't think it's girly."

"Oh." He kind of wants to cry at that and doesn't know why, so he says, "Can I have a hold?" to distract himself but that doesn't work at all. When he's settled there in his chair with the baby in his arms the urge is worse than ever. "You ain't picked her name yet?"

"No." His mum looks exhausted, but he can't remember ever seeing her so happy before. "I was so scared of something going wrong. I didn't want to think about names, I thought that might jinx it, I wanted to see what she looked like first."

"She's proper ugly, she looks like a little muppet. Call her Annie Sue, that's quite subtle."

That makes her laugh, and she settles back against the pillows with her eyes closed. "Your dad suggested Dorian after my mum. I thought that was quite sweet of him, but it just makes me think of Dorian Gray."

"No way, you could call her Dory for short, like Hunky Dory, like you named her after a Bowie album! I was always having Lindsay on I wanted-" He stops himself short.
Wanted babies called Ziggy and Aladdin, just to see how scared and annoyed he looked.
"I changed my mind, you're beautiful," he says to the baby instead. She's awake now, squirming gently and making tiny sleepy whimpering noises. "You are, you're gorgeous, you deserve a Bowie name, don't you? You wanna be Janine or Julie? You could be Maggie and work on a farm but that was Dylan's. Or you could be Emily but that was Pink Floyd. You can't be Ramona or Miranda, I already used them for my cars, but you could be Baby Grace or Hermione. Can't call you Angie, nobody deserves that, but that don't mean you ain't the prettiest star in the whole world."

"She's not a replacement," his mum says suddenly. She's watching the two of them with tears in her eyes when Pip looks up, but her voice is steady. "Just in case that's what you were thinking. She was an accident, a
good
one but still. She was never meant to be a replacement."

"I never thought that," he says quietly, although it's the
only
thing he's been thinking since he found out.

He goes to find his dad a bit later on, when his mum and the nameless baby are both sleeping. He's still there outside, phoning everybody he knows to pass on the news. Pip lights up a cigarette, not because he really wants one but because he wants to show he can and there's nothing anybody can say or do to make him stop. It's just gone six in the morning and it's light, but it's that strange hazy light that lets you know it's going to be a blazing hot day in a few more hours. Phil half-smiles at him and puts his phone back in his pocket.

"Everything alright?"

 

"Yeah. They're sleeping."

 

"You should go and get your head down too, you look like hell."

 

"I'm alright. You should go and be with them, can't other people wait?"

 

"Yeah. I thought you and your mum might want some time on your own, though."

 

"What for?"

 

"Dunno. Never mind, I'm going in now. We'll be home in the afternoon if you wanna come round."

"Yeah, maybe." Pip leans there against the brick wall, blowing smoke rings that won't hold their shape because there's too much of a breeze, then quickly says, "I just wanna tell you something," because doing it quickly without thinking too much means he'll actually
say
it and not just let it fester inside. "I just wanna say, I
know
was a fucking nasty monster and I wound you up and I was shit to live with and I probably would've battered me too, but if you ever touch her I'm actually genuinely gonna kill you. I ain't joking around, you don't even know what I could do if I was pushed. Even if she's worse than me, I don't care. Even if she runs out in traffic and you wanna slap her so she don't do it again cos you're scared, even then don't touch her or I swear to god you're dead." He's half-expecting a punch himself now, he's bracing himself for it, but nothing happens. He doesn't look up but he hears the automatic doors open and close and then he's alone out there in the morning sun.

4.

Lindsay takes the rented car very slowly up the driveway because that's going to give him more time to decide whether or not it's a good idea before he's seen and can't turn back. The gravel is crunchy under the Mercedes' tyres. Overhead, the sun is squinting through dark green leaves and flashing off the puddles at the side of the road. It's a beautiful day. The house is beautiful too, but a bit ridiculous and unbelievable like a film or a fairytale. Even now he gets a shock from it, that first sighting as you take your car round the corner and out of the trees and find it hiding there in the hills.

It's too late to turn back now; he can see a couple of figures standing on the lawn by the entrance, so they must have seen him too. The crunching gravel sounds like thunder. He remembers thinking that on the day of the funeral, too - how
rude
and disrespectful it somehow seemed, making all that noise behind a car taking his best friend's corpse to the crematorium.

One of the figures is Ellie, he sees as he gets closer. He recognises the other man as the gardener, but he turns and walks off over the lawn and he's gone by the time Lindsay pulls the car in and turns off the engine. He sits there behind the wheel for a moment. Too late to turn back, but that doesn't make it any easier to actually get out of the car. He's not been back here since the funeral. He's not even spoken to her on the phone.

"Are you going to stay in there all day?" she says.

 

"Might."

He presses the button to roll the window back up and finally gets out the car. There's a weird moment then, hesitant false-starts because he's not sure what to do. Kiss her hello, like always? Hug her? It's awkward because she's holding something. She kind of hugs him back but with only one arm, and she kisses his cheek quickly like she's not sure how to act either. The wooden box she's holding bumps against him, and it's only after he's stepped back he realises what it is and then he wonders if she's going crazy, like a child who won't go anywhere without her teddy bear.

"Why...?" He can't think of the right way to word it so he just gestures.

"I don't know what to do. I don't want it sitting in the house, it upsets the girls. We thought we might bury him somewhere on the grounds but we can't have a headstone because it'll only get vandalised, did you see what people did to Danny's? I was going to get James to dig him into the flowerbeds so at least we'd have something nice to look at to remember him, but he hated them. God, that sounds horrible, dig him into the flowers..."

Lindsay takes the box off her and puts it on top of the car she he can hug her properly. It feels less strange now, like nothing that happened matters. She's just an old friend who needs comforting, like she did for him when his dad died halfway through their first year at university. He's never forgotten it because it's the only time he's ever ever cried in front of somebody except his mother since he was about ten
properly
cried, helpless and shameless like a child. He didn't want her there at first but she told him to stop being stupid and sat with him in his bedroom, Lindsay in his uncomfortable new black suit and Ellie in her uncomfortable new black dress, and she stroked his hair and didn't say anything for ages while he cried himself dry - then he pulled himself together and washed his face and went downstairs to help his mum accept people's useless stammering condolences as if the breakdown never happened. That's how you know a good friend is a best friend, when you can almost sense each other's thoughts and know when to keep quiet and just be there. She calms quickly and just stands there with him for a minute, resting her cheek on his shoulder and sniffling lightly, and then she's bright and smiling again, wiping her red eyes with her fingertips and straightening his collar for him where she pushed it crooked.

"Tea?"

 

"Please. Sorry I'm just barging in, I should've phoned first."

"Oh, be quiet." She takes the box off the car roof and he follows her inside, up the marble staircase and through several immense hallways to the bit of the house they actually live in, where sixteenth-century portraits are replaced by children's felt-tip drawings on paper pinned to the walls and stuck to the fridge with magnets.

"Are the girls here? I brought presents."

 

"No, they'll be sorry they missed you. Ty's grandma's having them for the weekend."

 

"How's she doing?"

 

"As well as can be expected."

 

"Yeah."

 

"What about you?"

"I'm alright," he says, awkward again because he's always hated lying to her. Mainly because she's too sharp to be fooled. She doesn't say anything, though, just gets on with finding cups and a tea strainer and half a pack of biscuits tucked into a corner of the cupboard. She only brings it back up when they're sitting there at the kitchen table drinking tea in uncomfortable silence.

"Is Pip not with you, then?" she says. She sounds far too casual. She knows. How the hell does she know? He's not even told his mother yet, and somehow he can't believe Valentine would have come round here for a nice cosy girly chat about it all.

"Evidently not."

 

"Can I ask why?"

 

"You
can
but that doesn't mean I'll answer."

 

"I know you told him." She doesn't sound accusing or angry or anything, just blank. That's even worse, somehow.

 

"Have you spoken to him?"

"He wrote the girls a letter. Hang on, it's here somewhere." She finds it in a drawer, a pale pink envelope with Valentine's messy scrawl on the front, and pulls out the single folded sheet for him to read. It's High School Musical stationery, white paper with pink lines to write on and stupid little pink hearts and that arsehole Efron's face in the top corner. Valentine's drawn a bigger heart around it in red felt tip and Lindsay feels suddenly, sickeningly violent towards them both, as if
they're
the ones who were shagging around behind people's backs.

Dear Mellissa and Katie and Alice

I dont know if you heard yet but me and Lindsay arent boyfriends no more but that dont mean I cant still be friends with you ok? I mean if you want. I'm living in London now where I grew up, London isnt that far from Cheshire. If you ever want I can come up and see you in like 5 seconds or if you want to come down here for a visit thats cool too, I would love to see you and I can take you the zoo and all sorts, Londons brilliant, we could go shopping and see the art gallery's and everything. I wrote my address at the top there, thats my mates house and I dont know if I'm staying here but he can pass things on if I move, my phone and emails there too so please please stay in touch cos I dont want to stop seeing you just cos I'm not in love with Lindsay no more. Tell your mum I said its ok for you to come down here any time you want, I mean if she's ok with that too. If she trusts me.

I hope your all ok, I know your having a horrible time now and I wish so much I could take it all away from you cos it isnt fair and nothings your fault and you shouldnt be going through all this. Look after each other and look after your mum too and I hope I can see you soon

lots of love from Pip xxx

 

"I know you told him," Ellie says quietly, "because this is the only letter he's ever written to us that wasn't addressed to me as well."

"That's not why we..."
Broke up
sounds so fucking juvenile. He just pulls a face instead. "It's nothing to do with you. It was going to happen anyway. We've got nothing in common. He's better off in London, that's where he belongs. I always knew he'd get bored." Now it sounds like he's trying to justify it, or convince himself that he's not talking crap, so he shuts up and just stares at the cooling dregs of tea in his cup until Ellie takes it out of his hand and puts it in the sink with her own, then finds glasses and a bottle of red in the wine rack instead. He's suddenly glad the girls are away - you can't get drunk at five o'clock when there are children about, and you can't spill stupid embarrassing personal details when you're sober.

"I'm glad he left," Lindsay says several hours later, having to make a huge effort not to slur his words and not to spill his drink all over the cream coloured sofa because when he's drunk he talks with his hands and that's a bad thing when you're holding a glass of red wine. "Because. I'm glad he went, I'm fucking glad! Cos I asked him to fucking
marry
me, I must be losing my mind, I only said it to make him stay I swear but he still didn't, good thing too, imagine being married to
that
, he'd only run off with fucking fucking Zac Efron and steal half my money."

"I think you're drunk," Ellie says, but she is as well. He can tell because her cheeks are flushed and she's giggling, she never
giggles
. She's sprawled on the sofa half-across his lap, resting her head on him, and he tries to cover her mouth with his hand but his aim's a bit off and he accidentally puts his thumb in her mouth instead which only makes her laugh more.

"Whoops."

 

"Stop drinking."

 

"Never."

She pulls his arm down across her chest in a crooked sort of half-hug. He drains the wine glass in his other hand and lets it fall onto the carpet so he can start stroking her hair again. It's dark blonde, exactly the same colour as Valentine's was when Lindsay first knew him. That makes him feel a bit more sober. He pulls his arm out of her grip and starts trying to stand up without making her have to move.