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‘Nutter,’ he says.
Silence settles on us. I have no idea what I feel, other than a creeping sense of embarrassment, the urgent need to leave whatever just happened behind. I have been ridiculous. Paranoia has made me ridiculous. Neil is our best friend, for God’s sake.
A group of lads swagger noisily from the footbridge. The air fills with the smell of weed. We wait for them to pass, neither of us wanting to draw attention to ourselves.
‘Jen said you went back for Bella last night,’ I say, as if to pick up on a perfectly normal conversation we were having, soaking wet, on a public wall, at midnight.
‘We had a row,’ he replies. ‘She was pissed. She gets so bloody pissed.’
I shrug. ‘She always did like to party. It’s why we love her.’
‘I know, but it’s… she… Lately she’s… we…’ He puts his hand to his brow.
‘Neil? What?’
‘She’s drinking to cope.’
‘Cope? With what happened to Abi?’
He shakes his head. ‘We’re… we’re having IVF. No one knows. Not even Matt.’
My head pounds. I feel like I’ve been winded.
‘Oh, Neil,’ I manage. ‘I’m so… I’m so sorry. Have you… I mean, has it been long?’
‘We had our first round last year. The day Abi disappeared we’d not long lost… we’d not long… Bel… it hadn’t taken, you know? She was a mess and I couldn’t… I couldn’t do anything about it.’
‘Oh, Neil, I’m so sorry. When did you… when did you lose the…?’
He sighs. ‘It was on the Saturday. We were at yours on the Sunday.’
‘On the Saturday? Oh my… and we told you we were expecting… Oh, Neil.’ I attempt to pull him to me, but he wriggles out of my embrace. ‘That must have been so hard.’
Their reaction to our news that day clicks into place. It was nothing, nothing I was able to put my finger on, but I felt it.
‘There’s been another one since. A few months ago.’
I put my arm around him, as best I can, my mind filled with how he was last night, so beside himself – it was about Abi, yes, but he had so much more going on than that.
‘Poor Bella too,’ I say.
No wonder she’s stayed away. The sight of Fred must have been heartbreaking for her. Everything, everything about how they’ve been this last year is not what I thought at all.
‘Don’t say anything, will you?’ Neil says, standing up, teeth chattering. ‘She would’ve told you but you had enough on your plate. We didn’t want to bring that into things.’
I stand up too. I offer him his jacket but he shakes his head. ‘You could have told us,’ I say. ‘We wouldn’t have taken it like that. We’re friends. And I know that what’s happened to us is… but it doesn’t mean we don’t have space for…’
‘I know, but… you know what I mean. Anyway, I’ve told you now. Let’s go home before we freeze to death, eh?’
We head home with slow, silent steps, shivering down the deserted lamplit street. Neil throws his arm around me. He talks. He talks and talks, rolls out a narration of my recent life. I suppose he’s trying to bring me back to my life, back to wanting to live it.
‘Matt’s a good guy,’ he says. ‘He’s the best. I know what he did was wrong, but you’re everything to him, you and Fred. Abi was everything to him too.’ On it goes. He is an easy talker, a businessman, a lad. I know he’s handling me; I can hear it in the pacifying, near-hypnotic tone of his voice. ‘Don’t judge him for what he did that day, Ave. What happened happened, and everyone was panicking, yeah? Everyone. He was just trying to protect what he had. We’ve all got to protect what we have, haven’t we? We’ve got to look after our own. That’s all any of us can do. We build our castles and we have to defend them, yeah? Slings and arrows, no matter what. He’s like me, didn’t get it all handed to him on a plate, you know? He got the brains, I got the street smarts, but we’ve both worked hard to get to where we are, so what’s he going to do, throw it all away? Do me a favour and forgive him, Ave. What’s the alternative? Eh? He did what he did, we are where we are, and leaving him won’t bring Abi back.’
Even his walk is solid, I think, keeping step with him, and I wonder what it must be like to walk that walk, to be that guy. The guy who takes care of everyone, who fixes things and finds solutions. But what happens when you can’t take care of everyone? When you can’t fix it, can’t find the solution? What then? What happens then?
Twenty-Nine
Matt
