Beshley and Simone - Part Two

Aunty Joan looked old, impossibly old. She became old overnight when her only child Julian had taken his own life aged just seventeen, that was almost twenty five years ago. She'd stayed indoors a lot since, wondering from room to room, searching for floating atoms of Julian. Now she looked moribund, cave-aged and crumbly, like an old cheese. She glanced at the two boys and a brief glint of joy flashed across her eyes.

'Joshua and er, what is it, Jack?'

'James. Hello Aunty Joan,' Beshley placed her arm on her aunt's shoulder and kissed her cool, downy cheek. 'How are you?'

'Oh - we're coping,' she pointed into the house, 'He's not good,' she whispered, 'well, come in, you'll see.'

Uncle Bob was slumped into an armchair, his face puffy, red and contorted, a large yellow stain down the front of his shirt. His eyeballs rose up slightly as the party entered the sitting room but dropped back down to fix again on the deep-pile rug which covered the floor.

'Look who's here to see us Bob, it's Beshley and Simone, and Simone-, sorry Beshley's children. You remember them don't you. Have a seat girls. Oh your little one doesn't look a happy chappy does he?'

'He's just woken up, he always falls asleep in the car and then wakes up all groggy and grumpy.'

'Shall I make us some tea?'

'Yes please, that would be lovely thanks.'

'Do you have herbal?'

Joan looked confused and distressed. 'Sorry love,' she said, wringing her aged hands.

'Anything for me,' said Beshley, smiling her warmest.

'Just a glass of water then,' said Simone, 'thanks.'

As she left the room the sisters' eyes were drawn to the photograph of their late cousin which stood on the mantle shelf, flanked by Bob's darts trophies and a photo of the family's holiday cottage in Scotland. He was dressed in shorts and a teabag style vest as he posed next to a rock on which he rested one foot, his hands were placed loosely upon his hips. There were mountains in the background, it looked like Scotland or perhaps Wales. His creamy white limbs gleamed in the sunlight and his brown eyes were deep and serious as they looked out into the future, a future which, perhaps only briefly, he'd felt somehow unable to participate in. The sisters glanced at each other. Simone had an overwhelming urge to scream out the boys name, to fill the whole house with it until the walls shook and the building caved in. She resisted, blinking away the thought.

'Do you take milk and sugar? Here's your glass of water Simone.'

Simone's glass of water was huge. She needed the toilet now but didn't want to go upstairs for she would have to pass the doorway of Julian's bedroom and she couldn't bare that. She took a small sip and placed the glass down on the floor, telling herself not to kick it over. Joan returned with the tea and a plate of assorted biscuits. She handed a child's beaker full of milky tea to her husband. 'I think he can manage this,' she said, arranging his fingers around the handle, as if they were made from plasticine.

'Thank - you,' he said.

Joshua went up and stood very still and very close to the plate of biscuits, eyeing them intently, rather like a pointer hound might stand and point out a dead foul on a shoot.

'Choose with you eyes Joshy, not your fingers!'

'How many, how many can I choose Mommy?'

'One - for now.'

James began to cry again, making his body stiff and struggling in his mother's lap.

'Can you take him Simone?' Beshley plonked the child into her sister's lap. 'I just need to get something out the bag to keep him quiet.'

Simone struggled to hold onto the stiff, squirming lump. The closest experience she'd had to this was when she'd caught a large fish on holiday in Vietnam and had tried to pick it up off the deck and place it into a plastic container. James was the same but he had arms and legs and fingers that tugged her hair and toes which pressed violently into her crotch and stomach. Instinctively she placed her hands under his armpits and began lifting him gently up and down, up and down. He went quiet and then laughed a little.

'Oh you like Aunty Simone don't you James! See I knew you two would hit it off, eventually. You've got similar personalities. James will only drink his milk if it's a certain temperature, he likes everything perfect, just like you Simone.'

'Here have him back then, he's hurting me.'

'Oh yes, Simone's the perfectionist. I remember your father telling me about, what was it now, the War of the Roses, your school project. You won an award for that didn't you?'

Simone laughed and said, 'Yes, I've moved on a bit from that now Aunty Joan.'

'Living in London now I hear?'

Joan and Bob spoke of London as if it were another country; the city was less than forty miles from where they were sitting.

'Yes, came over on the train this afternoon.'

'Oh - have a good journey did you?'

'Yes, very short actually. Besh picked me up from the station.'

'Oh - I expect your staying at hers tonight then?'

'No, going back after this.'

'Oh well - you can babysit your nephews some other time then can't you. Beshley looks as if she could do with a night out. I wish I could help her but I can't, I'm getting on and I'm so busy with-'

Suddenly the beaker of tea dropped out of Uncle Bob's hand and began to leak onto the carpet.

'Bump matter!' said Joshua, then he continued to look at the biscuits on the plate.

Joan fetched a dry tea towel from the kitchen and began to rub the carpet harshly with it. 'Go on take a biscuit Joshua! You can't tell what they taste like by looking.'

'Is he okay?' said Beshley, staring at Uncle Bob's face. 'He looks a bit red in the cheeks.'

Joan removed a folded duvet from her husband's lap. The sisters observed that it was printed with an image of Freddy Mercury in a white leotard, it must have belonged to Julian.

'It's getting hot in here now, what with all these people. I left him out in the garden yesterday,' said Joan, 'he was in the shade, but the shadows move across the patio. I was cleaning the bathroom, doing the chores, you know. I forgot how quickly he burns, he's fair like your dad was.'

Bob lifted his head with great effort and mumbled something.

'I'm taking him back to the hospital tomorrow. He's got to have loads of physio to get him moving again. We have good days and bad days, don't we Bob? But it's been like that for us - for a very long time. Oh - while I remember-,' Joan got up suddenly and headed upstairs.

Simone checked her watch. 'It's ten past four,' she said, 'we should leave soon, before the traffic gets worse.'

Joan returned clutching a large Doctor Who money box, shaped like a tardis, and also something shiny which resembled a small knife. 'We've been having a bit of a clear-out. I thought young Joshua here might like this,' she said.

'Oh - thank you,' said Beshley, blushes flanking her distressed smile.

Joshua broke away from the biscuit plate and held out his hand to touch it. Don't touch that, thought Beshley and she shoved it into her bag before he could get his hands on it. She hated the thought of her little boy touching the belongings of her dead nephew. 'Say thank you Joshua,' she said sternly.

'And for you Simone, I thought you might be able to make use of this.' She handed Simone the knife thing.

'What is it?'

'It's a letter opener, an antique I believe. It's set with a Cairngorm, matches your eyes, you've got your father's eyes you know. I thought you might open a lot of letters, you know, at your office in London.'

Simone laughed. 'I don't as it happens,' she said. Beshley cut her a cautioning glance. 'But thanks anyway, it's pretty,' she continued.

'We'd better go,' said Beshley, turning to Simone for back-up.

'Yes, it's getting late and I've got to pop into the office again this evening. No rest for the wicked!'

'Is it alright if I change James before we leave Aunty Joan, where should I do it?'

'Well er, go up to the toilet I think dear, that's the best place - for such a thing.'

Beshley looked up the stairs, they seemed foreboding. 'Erm,' she said, considering whether to wait until they got home but there was a whiff of something. 'Okay thanks, we'll just go up.'

She grabbed the bag, put James on her hip and up they went, one by one up the stairs, carpeted with thick, brown pile. Julian would have known these stairs, as a young boy his eyes would have been very close to them, then as he grew, some distance would have formed between the carpet and his head until he reached his teenage years; until he made his final journey up those stairs, only to come back down a corpse, to the music of his mother's wailing. Beshley pressed her lips into James's firm, round cheek.

Tentatively she pushed open the bathroom door, the room didn't smell good, there were urine stains on the carpets around the pedestal of the toilet; Bob had a bad aim and it wasn't a recent development. There was no way she was changing James in there. She turned back onto the landing, put James down and delved into the changing bag. She had to remove the tardis money box first in order to get the mat out, it rattled as she put it onto the floor, there was a coin inside it. Oh God, there's a bloody coin inside, she thought. That coin seemed somehow loaded with meaning and mystery. What would Julian have spent it on? Christ! She was indebted to him now. As she changed James's nappy she noticed that Julian's bedroom door was slightly ajar, she took pains not to look at it or draw its energy.

'It's a shame you have to leave, Simone was just telling me about her important meeting at work, otherwise you could've stayed for some supper,' said Joan as Beshley came back down the stairs, clutching James, all light and fresh smelling.

'Oh you're far too busy for that. We wouldn't want to trouble you. But we'll visit again Aunty Joan, soon.'

Joan looked deflated and perhaps frightened too of being alone with her husband. 'They're off now Bob!' she shouted. He wobbled in his chair and lifted his hand to wave.

'Bump matter!' said Joshua, laughing now and clutching two jammy dodgers.

Back in the safety of the vehicle Beshley turned on Peppa Pig and the boys went quiet. The sisters felt closer now, slightly traumatised by their ordeal they were able to be open with each other in a way which was impossible on the earlier car journey.

'Boy am I glad to be out of that house!'

'Me too Besh. Can't believe she gave you that awful money box!'

'I know. Josh has never watched Doctor Who, he's too young, it's way too scary, and he never will now either, not now that I know Julian watched it.'

'The whole thing's scary. That duvet cover! Did you see it?'

Beshley nodded. 'I wonder if he was gay?'

'Who -Freddie Mercury? Are you having a laugh Besh?'

'No!' Beshley tutted. 'Julian, I wonder if HE was gay.'

Simone shrugged and said, 'Dunno, can't really remember much about him to be honest. He's better looking in the photo than I remember him though.'

'Uncle Bob was a real man's man, he wouldn't have taken that well at all. I remember Mom saying that Julian wouldn't go along and see the biscuit boys with Uncle Bob, broke his heart apparently.'

'Who the hell are the biscuit boys?'

'Reading football team. Julian wasn't interested in football, he liked to stay at home and help his mom.'

'Forget it Besh, don't want to think about it. Anyway, what do you mean "was" Uncle Bob isn't dead yet!'

'Well that part of him is, the manly, football loving part, you won't see that again. Can't believe she left him out in the sun like that. Did you see how red he was?'

Simone turned to her sister and said thoughtfully, 'She effectively cooked him. I wonder if she blames him for-'

'God Simone I don't know. What some people have to go through eh! I don't care what my boys turn out like, they can be raging drag queens for all I care, as long as they're happy. It guess it was different a generation ago. The only thing I remember about Julian was that he didn't like you touching his stuff. He used to sort of guard it, his pens and games and puzzles and that. I don't think he liked it when we came around. Do you remember Simone?'

'Like I said, I don't remember much about him, except that he had very white hands, you could see all the green veins running across them. I can picture them when we were playing Connect Four, holding those little yellow and red disks and posting them into the big blue grid. I guess growing up, knowing you're gay, if he was, with a dad like Uncle Bob, in a town like bloody Reading. The whole plot seems doomed now.'

Beshley exhaled loudly. 'Some people have such sadness in their lives,' she said.

'All the more reason to go out and enjoy life, do things!'

There was a brief silence, then Beshley said, 'Can I tell you something Simone?'

Simone jumped a little inside, feeling pressure now that somehow if Beshley confessed something to her she would feel obliged to talk about what she considered her dirty secret. 'What?'

'I haven't been out in four years.'

Simone raised her hand to her mouth and began to laugh. 'Haven't been out in how long! God you're so weird Besh.'

'No - not because I don't want to, because there's nobody to babysit. Think about it, Mom's not with us any more, my mother-in-law, well you know what she's like. I wouldn't leave them with just anyone.'

'What about your yummy mummy friends. There must be loads of people who'd babysit for you.'

'I don't have "yummy mummy friends" there's no such thing Simone! Anyway they've all got relatives on tap or Spanish live-in nannies. So I was wondering Simone, if you would consider coming over and babysitting for us one night. It's our wedding anniversary next month and-'

'Mmmmm not sure Besh.'

'Come on, at least consider it. How hard can it be?'

Simone turned and looked at the boys in the back. 'I'm really busy at the moment.'

'Well you can at least think about it, sleep on it and phone me.'

'Anyway when are YOU going back to work?'

'Me? Not for a good while yet. The PR industry can manage perfectly well without me.'

'Don't you get bored, you must miss it!'

'Not really, and I'm too busy to get bored.'

'What at home, really?'

'Really.'

'But they must miss you, at work I mean?'

'God I doubt it! They forgot who I was when I phoned up to chase my P45. I think the value you feel you have at work is a con, when I'm with my boys then I feel really valuable. Honestly Simone, there's nothing else like it.'

Simone felt angry again now, angry with her sister, angry with herself. They pulled into the station car park. 'Well, I'd better go,' she said, 'I'm needed.'

'Let me know about babysitting then!'

'Er yeah, we'll see Besh, got to go, bye.'

'Bye Aunty Smone!'

Simone looked at Joshua who had the palms of his hands pressed up against the window and was grinning at her, perhaps because he was happy she was leaving, perhaps because he loved her. Almost tearful now she turned away from the vehicle toward the lifts and travelled up to the station.

Desperate to relieve herself she headed straight for the toilets. Once within the privacy of the cubicle she hovered above the lavatory, being careful not to touch any of it with her bare skin. Once relieved she removed the letter opener from her bag and looked at it. It was quite beautiful. She ran her finger along the thin, shiny blade then inhaled, looked up towards the ceiling and pressed the sharp point into her abdomen until she gasped in pain. A rush of hormones flooded her brain, effectively resetting her mood, like a default switch. The lid on the pan, the pan of her emotions ceased to rattle.

She put the object away, did up her coat and rushed towards the platform, keen to board the train, to leave all her dark matter in the black hole of Reading, to pass through Slough without incident and be delivered to the safety of her corporate cocoon in London.