Page 44 of And A Partridge on Pear Street

“Can we talk?” he says to me. I nod and take my coat from him; over my shoulder he looks at his wife. “You okay, babe?”

“I’m absolutely fine. Go talk to you sister and come back to snuggle with me on the sofa.”

I catch his sweet smile for her before I pass him and put my coat on. I expect Harry to lead me out the front as he did with Jake, but he steers me to the patio doors at the back of the house where my boots are already waiting for me. He says nothing as he slides the door shut behind us, nor when he trots down the steps of the patio to the grass. I follow him, feeling nervous, not unusual since I often get a little thrum of nerves when I talk to my brother, waiting for the berating I’m sure to get.

We walk all the way to the end of the garden, where it’s nearly pitch black and the grass gives way to another small patio area. Harry flops down on the large, wood framed bench swing and I follow suit. The wood creaks as we gently sway back and forth, and Harry looks dead ahead to the back of the house aglow from the lights inside. The nervous little sister inside me wants to say something to kill this buzzing silence. But I wait.

And wait.

“When Oscar was a baby, he had a fever.” I jerk back, completely thrown off by his choice of subject, but I let him continue. “He was screaming in the middle of the night; his temperature was seriously high and he was arching his back. We were really worried so I took him to A&E while Lis stayed home with Lucas. We were put in a bay where they took some blood for tests and I was waiting on my own and trying to stay calm for Oscar but I was freaking out.” His voice hitches, the memory clearly still upsetting. “I called Mum, thinking she probably wouldn’t be up, but she answered on the second ring. She had been up binge-watching the first season of Game of Thrones and hadn’t realised the time.”

I laugh at that. “What, just seven years behind everyone else?”

Harry chuckles. “Yeah, she loved what everyone else loved, just after they’d stopped loving it.” We each smile at our own memories for a few moments before he continues. “I called her to chat, to get my mind off the situation, but I was so tired and worried that I just broke down. She told me everything would be alright and all the usual things. Then she told me about when you were two and cracked your head open at the pool. Do you remember that?”

I thought about it for a second. “I remember people telling me about it, but I don’t think I remember it.”

“We were at the lido and I was chasing you around, you slipped and hit your head on the side of the pool. Dad wasn’t there, it was just Mum and she freaked out, it looked like so much blood. Retrospectively, it was probably because there was water on the ground that made it look worse than it was but still, Mum bundled us up and went to the hospital. You were in a state, screaming and crying, probably feeding off Mum’s panic. You only stopped crying when I got into the hospital bed with you and held you.”

I don’t remember being told about that; I don’t remember ever being that close with Harry.

“Mum reminded me of this,” Harry continues and wipes at his cheeks. He’s crying and it tears at my heart. Shuffling closer to him, I instinctively wrap my arm around his back. “Then she told me that while we were lying together, she sang The Ugly Bug Ball.”

“The what now?” I ask, scrunching my face up.

Harry lets out a little laugh. “It’s from some old movie she loved and apparently at the time, it was the only thing she could think of, so she sang it to us.” He swallows audibly and takes a moment before continuing, his voice cracking over the words. “So, while I was sat with Oscar in a hospital bay at two o’clock in the morning, I put the phone on speaker and she sang the stupid ugly bug song. Oscar fell asleep and I felt calm in the midst of the madness.” He sniffs and wipes his face again. “Sometimes I get a random memory of that night and I can even hear Mum singing to the point that I can hum along, and it always makes me smile.” He finally turns to look at me and the soft light from the house catches on the wetness of his cheek. “Nel, I’m really scared that one day I won’t be able to hear her singing anymore.” He breaks, his head hanging and his shoulders shaking as he cries. He cries more than I ever saw him cry and my heart breaks for him.

“Oh, Harry,” I wrap my arms around his neck and he rests his head on my shoulder, hugging me back. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” His words come out muffled against my coat.

“I’m sorry I didn’t realise you were struggling.”

We pull apart and he wipes the tears on my cheeks, both of us laughing. “Of course, I’m struggling, Nel. We lost both our parents in twelve months. I think anyone would struggle with that.”

I take a deep breath and expel it, hoping to steady my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He turns to look back at the house, composing himself and seeming to think about how to answer that. “You were struggling, too, and I didn’t want to add to that. I wanted to be strong for you. For my family.”

I think back to the time after losing Mum. The funeral where I hid in the wardrobe, the probate meeting where I said nothing then ran home to cry by myself, leaving Harry to be by himself. “I’m really sorry I made you feel like that was something you had to do, Harry.”

He shrugs like it’s no big deal. But it is a big deal. I resent Harry for treating me like a child but when he needed me to step up and be an adult, I let him down. “I miss you, Nel. I miss seeing you, I miss talking to you. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong but I have a feeling it’s my fault.”

I shake my head. “It’s not your fault, Harry. It’s just…”

“You think I’m ashamed of you and it makes me hard to be around,” he finishes for me, defeatedly.

I go to disagree but stop myself. “I feel like I’m being judged a lot when I’m around you. You don’t like my job, you think I’m immature for living with housemates, you think I’m a loner, you use me as the butt of your jokes that usually revolve around me being fat. It’s just a lot to take and I need a lot of mental preparation to be here. Mum and Dad used to be my buffers and now I feel like I’m facing it all on my own.”

He sighs, deeply. “Shit. That’s hard to hear.”

I nod.

“I’m sorry Nelly-Belly.”

“Harry. Nelly-Belly has got to go.”

“What’s wrong with Nelly-Belly?” He sits up straight, genuinely clueless.