Still his chest rises and falls rapidly. ‘I haven’t taken any drugs, Bea, I promise.’ My stomach drops. This has happened to him before. This is what the press jumped on. This is what started all of those rumours. And all along, it was a scared little boy having a panic attack and no one stopped to help him.
The great Edward Cavendish, who prides himself on immersing himself in his roles, going method to really draw out the nuance of his characters, didn’t oncestop to question how his son might be feeling. Helena Cavendish, the idol of working mothers across the globe, the glamourous figure who devotes herself to her art and her philanthropy, allowed the world to run the story that has damaged her boy to a point that he now stands before me, a shell of the person I know. His parents, the people I have idolised for as long as I can remember, abandoned him. How alone he must have felt.
I won’t let him feel like that again.
‘I know.’ I speak softly. ‘It’s okay. I just want you to breathe with me, okay?’ I place his hands on the top of my chest and inhale deeply; he tries his best to copy but he gets halfway and shakes his head.
‘I’m so sorry.’ His eyes search all across my face and they swell with tears. ‘It’s all my fault. I failed. And what about Jimmy and Lizzie? What about you?’ The tear finally escapes with the climax of his sentence and I sweep it away before it encourages any more.
‘Hey, hey.’ I press his hands harder to my chest and maintain my grip on his fingers so he has no choice but to feel its rhythm. ‘You haven’t failed Jimmy, Lizzie, or me. Artie, we’re all fine. It’s one rejection. Just one. I’m still here. You’re still here. And I’m so proud of us. Two weeks ago, this was just a single conversation, and now look at us: in London with a brilliant story. We don’t need them, okay?’ He nods but the tears still come. ‘I’m still here. And I’m staying. I’m okay, you’re okay. I’m proud of you.’
We stand in silence, just the murmuring city surrounding us as he watches me, holds me, and finally finds the strength to breathe. He watches me and I watchhim. He is my only object, and I am his, until he can unravel the knots of his mind and straighten them out again. When the tension lifts from his body, he pulls his hands from mine and wraps his arms around me, burying his face in the crease of my neck and pulling me as close as he can, and he relaxes into my arms. I just hold him, as he holds me, until London disappears from around us and we are two kids who know everything is going to be okay.
My fingers plough through his hair gently as I speak quietly against him, though I hardly know what I’m saying anymore.
When he finds the courage, Arthur lifts his head once more to face me, his bloodshot eyes heavy with fatigue. ‘Can we go home?’
Chapter 24
Arthur
Home is neither my grandmother’s house, nor Beatrice’s, nor even the Big Apple. Home is anywhere within the boundaries of New York. It doesn’t matter on the exact geography because no matter where you are, it feels like returning to a place that has cared for you for life.
So when Beatrice drives us back to New York without asking for another word from me, the sense of calm that comes with home hits me almost as soon as we get onto the road. I’m grateful that for the entire journey, she sings tenderly in the driver’s seat, whilst only removing her delicate touch on my thigh to change gears. I haven’t got the energy to speak or even to blush, so I savour the warmth of her fingertips until it’s my turn to fall asleep beside her as my grandmother’s car hums down the motorway.
When I wake again, the night is almost over and the street lights of the village are a dim beacon in the distance.Beatrice’s hand still rests on my thigh as she sings herself awake. ‘Thank you.’ My voice is hoarse from my sleep, and shy in my quiet shame.
Beatrice’s smile is the only reply at first and I question whether she heard me at all. But after a second of thought, she pinches my knee tenderly between her fingers. ‘You have nothing to thank me for.’
‘No one has ever done anything like that for me before.’ I clear my throat and sit up straighter in my seat, trying to find some way to express my gratitude. ‘I’m so sorry about the film, Beatrice, I really am.’
‘That’s not important right now. We’re in no rush. We can talk about it until we’re blue in the face some other time. But don’t worry about it now.’ She manoeuvres the car down the country lanes until we reach the familiar track to my grandmother’s farm. I have one more month before I leave New York. That meeting was my one chance to make sure I left some good behind. I don’t know how I’ll tell her.
‘It feels strange.’
‘What does?’ she replies, pulling up to the house and switching off the ignition.
‘You haven’t been mean to me all day.’
‘Don’t get used to it.’ She shakes her head with a lazy eyeroll. ‘Normal service will resume in the morning.’
‘You promise?’ I ask, the car windows beginning to grow cloudy with condensation as our hot breath meets the cold twilight.
‘I promise.’ She thrusts her little finger towards me and I hook it in my own. With her pinkie still clinging to mine, she speaks again. ‘I need to thank you too.’
Thank me? I fucked up her second chance at her dream and then cried like a baby all over her shirt for twenty minutes. What could she possibly have to thank me for?
I think my face replies for me, as she continues without me needing to voice those thoughts out loud. ‘That’s the first time I’ve had the guts to go back to London since my friend Tommy died. So even though you feel like we didn’t achieve anything, you helped me to accomplish something I’ve been too scared to do for a very long time. So thank you.’
Words fail me but my heart throbs in my chest. Before I can reply, she has opened the door and climbed out of the car into the cool of the a.m. I follow her and watch her from across the roof as she collects her things from the back seat and continues with her tasks as though she hasn’t just opened up to me, as though she hasn’t just shown me a little glimpse of her soul and her secrets. She trusts me.
‘Where are you going?’ I call to her as she begins to saunter back down the driveway and into the darkness where the streetlamps can’t reach.
‘Home.’
‘You’re walking?’
‘I’m hardly going to go on horseback at this time, am I?’
