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‘He’s having difficulty finding time to study and check out all the bands he needs to see?’
She laughed suddenly. ‘No, Alex. He’s not like you when you were twenty. Anyway, you never seemed to have much difficulty keeping up.’
‘Yeah. It was easy. You managed your studies, as many jobs as you could find, and about five minutes per day for recreation. So what’s Zack not managing to do?’
She shrugged, reaching for her coffee cup. That was a sure signal that she was done talking.
They’d been through a lot together over the years. Studying, dancing, working until they were too tired even to speak. He’d carried her into her bedroom once and then turned his back, walking away, because the one thing Alex had always known for sure was that he couldn’t take things any further with Marie.
He’d rejected the idea that he’d always loved her and instead he’d asked her to help him build a clinic. But he had always loved her, and when she turned her gaze on him, her eyes dark in the approaching dusk, he knew he wasn’t going to flinch from this.
‘What is Zack not managing to do?’ he repeated. He heard the quiet demand in his tone and saw surprise on Marie’s face.
For a moment he thought she would get up and leave, but then she spoke.
‘At the moment he’s not managing to do anything very much. He did well with his A levels, but decided he wanted to take a year out before university. I think it was just that he couldn’t get motivated to choose a course. I got all the prospectuses and sat down with him, but he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it.’
‘So he’s working?’
‘No. He had a few jobs, but couldn’t stick at any of them. He’s been unemployed for the last six months, and increasingly he’s staying up all night and sleeping all day. Mum doesn’t know what to do with him. A few days ago he took money from her purse and went out. He came back the following afternoon, went straight upstairs and slept for fourteen hours. She’s worried he might have been taking drugs, but I took a look at him and didn’t see any signs of it.’
‘How much money did he take?’ Alex felt a cold weight settle in his chest. This wasn’t fair...
‘Two hundred pounds. She’d just gone to the bank to get the money for her main monthly food shop. She can’t afford that; she’s already keeping him in food and clothes.’
‘So you gave her the money?’
Marie rolled her eyes. ‘What else was I supposed to do? I told Zack this was absolutely the last time, and that I wasn’t going to bale him out again.’
‘Did he listen?’
‘Yes, he listened. Listening’s not the problem with Zack. He’ll hear what you have to say, and tell you all the things he thinks you want to hear. Then he’ll ignore it all and do exactly as he likes. Mum knows he’s got to change, but she makes excuses for him. About how he’s never had a strong father figure, and how she’s not been able to give him enough time because she’s at work.’
The words came out in a rush of frustration. Then Marie reddened a little, as if she’d made a faux pas by admitting that there was something she couldn’t manage on her own. He wasn’t going to give up on her now.
‘What about your other brothers?’ He knew that both of Marie’s other brothers had been to university and had good jobs.
‘Dan’s washed his hands of him completely—he says Zack needs to pull himself together. And Pete lives up in Sunderland. He tried talking to him last time he was down on a visit, but Zack just gave him th
at lovely smile of his and told him everything will work out.’
‘And your mother?’
‘She’s...she does her best. Mum’s fragile. She had a breakdown when my dad left, and we were all put into foster homes for a while. It was awful.’
Alex nodded. Marie had told him, years ago, how all she’d wanted when she was a kid was to have her family back together and to keep it that way. At the time he’d almost envied her for having something she cared about so much.
‘It never was your fault, Marie. You didn’t have to be the one to put things right.’
A single tear rolled down her cheek. Suddenly the room was far too big and the distance between them too great. He couldn’t reach for her and comfort her, and if he moved she’d only shoo him away and tell him that she was okay.
‘In a way, it was my fault. My dad left because a wife and four children was too much for him. He couldn’t deal with it. My mum broke down over it...’
‘You were ten years old.’ The impulse to hold her and comfort her was wearing him down fast. ‘You were trying to clear up a mess that adults had made.’
‘Families, huh? Who’d have them?’ She brushed away the tears and gave him a smile.
Was he supposed to empathise with that? Alex reckoned so. And Marie was only telling him what he already knew. He couldn’t contemplate having a family of his own because he’d lived with the consequences of failure and seen what they had done to his mother. Marie had lived with the consequences of failure as well, and she needed someone who would be there for her.
