The Art of Keeping Faith (49 page)

“Busy studying, Dharling?” Mum asks as she breezes past me, wafting me in Chanel No5 which makes my stomach take a bit of a turn.

“Yes, I am actually, Mum. What are you doing here?”

I don’t want to sound rude, well okay, actually I kind of do.

“I thought I would pop by and see how my little girl is doing?”

“Really?”

“Yes really. I have not heard from you in weeks and I have been getting worried. I spoke to Bev the other day and she filled me on a few things. I have to say Lilah, I’m very disappointed you have not been able to confide in me.”

I put my hands on my hips, ready to release a full teenage tirade, but I notice her looking me up and down and decide to distract her instead.

“Gin, Mother?” Turning, I head into the kitchen before she can scrutinise me anymore.

“No, thank you, Lilah. Just a cup of tea.”

No, I don’t think I heard that correctly.

“Pardon?”

“Just a cup of tea, please,” she repeats, enunciating more clearly just in case I have not heard her properly.

I glance in confusion at the clock in the lounge just to make sure. Yep it’s definitely past eleven.

“Very funny, Lilah,” she says, although she doesn’t look amused. Actually she looks hurt.

“Sorry, Mum. I don’t mean it.”

She tuts a little.

“Yes you do. You all make fun of me, making out that I am an alcoholic,” she says bitterly.

Okay, we have never had this conversation before.

“That’s not true, Mum.”

Although it is true and I am lying again. I am lying to my own mother.

I’m sure fire going to hell.

I walk into the kitchen and flick the switch on the kettle, grabbing some tea bags out of the box on the counter.

“Decaf?” she comments as I shove some bags into two mismatched mugs.

Oh, rubbish.

“Yes it’s the new health kick I am on. This body is a temple and all that.”

“It doesn’t look like a temple. You look pudgy, Dharling.”

Oh, my God. This woman!

“This,” I wave my hand at her. “This is why I don’t talk to you about anything, you never have a single nice thing to say to me, ever.” I am shouting despite the fact she is only about five inches away.

“That’s not true.”

“Yes it is! You would rather talk wedding plans with a complete stranger than try and be civil with me.”

“Dharling, Meredith is not a stranger. She is nearly family.”

Good lord, I am going to explode.

“Not bloody Meredith, Mother! I am talking about Annabelle, or whatever her bloody name is!”

“Delilah, who exactly do you want me to talk to? Your Dad? He is always at work. Tristan? He is always off being a smug bugger somewhere. You? You, cannot even tell me you are pregnant when you are standing right in front of me blatantly so.”

This statement completely takes the wind out of my sails.

“What?”

“Lilah, seriously, I am your Mother. Do you honestly think I cannot tell?”

“Can you really?” I have switched to my Lilah child voice, but in the circumstances I think it is warranted

She steps toward me and holds her arms open. For a moment I just stare, unsure what it is that she is actually trying to do. Then she grabs me and pulls me into her arms and it dawns on me that my mother is trying to hug me.

In a flash my defences are down, and I start to snivel and snot all over her silk blouse.

She smoothes my hair and kisses the top of my head.

“Come on, Lilah. Let’s get that cup of tea and you can tell me all about what pickle you are in this time and what on earth has happened. We can try and get it sorted together.”

I start to sob even louder.

“I did such a bad thing, Mum. I shouted so much he never wants to come back home.”

“It’s okay. It can be fixed.”

“No, it can’t, I can’t even find him.”

“We will, we will most definitely find him and get this hideous mess sorted.”

She is so right. This is a hideous mess. I have created a gigantic, hideous mess of my life.

I shuffle over to the cupboard and get out a bottle of gin.

“It’s okay, Mum, I can do you a gin.”

She takes the bottle firmly out of my hand and walks to the sink pouring it down the drain. I watch in amazement.

“I don’t want it, Lilah.”

“But, why?”

“Because of you and because of that.” She points at my tummy that’s peeking from under my too small T-shirt.”

I just start to cry even harder.

Later

Mum’s convinced me to do something truly terrifying. I just don’t know if I’m brave enough.

Ring Ben’s mum.

I have no idea what to say. But if I know Ben at all, I know he would never not be in contact with his mum. Me, yes, apparently. Tristan and our friends, yes. But his mum, never.

Mum reckons she is the only chance I have of finding him and telling him the truth. I just don’t know that if after all these months of ignoring my messages whether he even wants to hear the truth.

Only one way to find out. Here it goes.

The Most Painful Conversation. Ever

Okay not as painful as the one that necessitated this one; but it was pretty damn close.

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Please don’t pick up, just let me leave a humble voicemail.

“Lilah, is that you?”

Damn it.

“Uh, yeah. Um, hi, Bev.”

“Oh, Lilah, I am so pleased to speak to you. I thought I was never going to hear from you again.”

“Really? What never, ever again, like ever?”

“Well, no.”

“Oh. Really ever?”

“Ben said it was over. He came home after Easter and told me what had happened, Lilah I am so very sorry about what you went through. He blames himself. He was a wreck, kept saying that he knew you were never going to forgive him and that he would never forgive himself either.”

Shmuck of the year award goes to me.

“Oh, yeah. Um …”

I have no idea what to say. I physically cannot lie anymore.

“Are you okay?”

“Kind of, well actually yes. Sorry, I mean no.”

“Yes or no, Lilah?”

Silence.

“That would be a no.”

Oh God, the tears are building, I can feel the tide getting higher and higher, ready to flood.

“I thought so,” she says with all her mummy knowledge that I know I am never going to be able to learn.

Shit.

“So you saw Ben, then?” This is the first confirmed sighting of him I’ve had since he left home.

Shit. Home.

“Yeah he came in and picked up some stuff. I made him spend the night when I saw the state he was in. When I woke up the next day he was gone again. He left his phone on the kitchen counter. I’ve only heard from him once since. Have you?”

“No, Bev, that’s kind of why I am ringing, I am trying to find him.”

What did she say?

“Sorry what do you mean he left his phone?”

“I mean he left it. It took him two weeks to text me from a different number, and that message just said he wanted to be by himself. Why do you need to speak to him so urgently?”

Tears slide down my face. He hasn’t been ignoring my texts. Relief floods through me as if through a broken dam. This is closely followed by me registering her exact words. “He said he wanted to be by himself.” My stomach squeezes uncomfortably as I realise what this means. He does not want to hear from me after all. All the messages I have sent. He did not want to receive them.

Bev is still talking to me and I try to focus on her words, “Lilah, are you still there? Why do you need to speak to him so urgently?”

I decide to dodge the question.

“So when you say the state he was in, what do you actually mean?”

I may not want to know the answer.

“He was completely devastated. He would not tell me what had happened exactly, other than to tell me that he felt he could not put you through any more and that you had lost the baby and it was all his fault. He seemed to think everything was very ironic and that he was cursed to repeat history. That he left the States thinking that one thing was going to happen but it never did and that he was now left with nothing.”

Yep, I am not sure I needed to know that answer.

Or maybe I did.

What did he mean he was going to repeat history? I am the only one that knows that is going to happen, and it is my curse, not his. My curse to repeat endless cycles of things that have happened before.

That’s my thing.

“Oh.” That is it. All I have to say.

“What’s going on, Lilah? You did not really want to break up with him, did you? You love him, don’t you? You guys are meant for each other.”

“I didn’t mean it, Bev. I was hurt you know, everything has been so hard, harder than I thought it would be. That is saying something, considering a year ago I was pretty sure that I would not be able to stay with him. All I have done is proved that to myself.”

“I’m sorry, Lilah.”

She is sniffing a bit and the noise threatens to open up my own floodgates.

“So, you don’t know where he is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Bev, if you speak to him will you tell him that I need to talk to him, that I have something to say but I need to do it in person.”

“What is it?”

“Beverley!”

“Oh, okay, don’t tell me. Do you want his number then? Just in case you kids decide to do something crazy and try and call each other,” she sighs.

“Do you think he will mind me having it?” Hope glimmers in my heart again.

“Well it’s you, and Ben, and whilst you two have some serious communication issue. I am sure it will all end up okay. I am sure you can do it.”

“What?”

“I am sure you can fix everything. Find him. Fix it. Fix each other. Do whatever you need to do. You know once he told me a long time ago before you guys met properly that he knew you were the girl that was going to save him.”

No, I didn’t know that.

That’s it. The floodgates are open and I start to sob. “I’m sorry, I failed,” I wail.

“Lilah,” she is sobbing, too.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t fail, you did save him, he just never bloody told you, the idiot.”

I hang up the phone and lay on my bed with Kit circling my head. I can’t remember the last time I fed him but I am pretty sure Tristan is his main caregiver now.

I reach out to stroke him, while with my other hand I scroll desperately through Ben’s iPod to find “Hey There, Delilah.”

The first time I heard him sing this I thought he had saved me. Saved me from a life I hated and a future I did not want.

Now I find out that somehow I was the one to save him too. I know I have to find him so I can tell him how grateful I am that we were able to rescue each other.

Taylor Swift is singing “Innocent,” and right now I feel like my innocence is in tatters. I am hanging by a thread to what little remaining sanity I have left.

Me:

There is no text. I have nothing left to say.

15th June

“I’m going to bed, this is rubbish and I have an exam in the morning,” I announce to the room.

“Ugh.” Is all I get back, but I think they may all be pissed. We went out for a pub lunch earlier, where I demolished an entire carvery. We have been mooching about the flat the rest of the day, me with just my knickers and a too small T-shirt on because I can no longer do up my jeans and even my stretchy yoga pants are uncomfortable.

We are all watching the Isle of Wight Festival wind up but I am over it.

“You coming, Kit?” I call to the cat sitting on Tristan’s lap. Kit and I have reached a new point in our relationship, where he does seem to acknowledge that I am his owner and will sit on me from time to time. But his preference is still for Tristan—possibly because he is the only one who feeds him.

Kit just blinks at me and then settles himself back down on Tristan’s lap.

Bloody cat.

I am just snuggling down under my duvet with my battered copy of Pride and Prejudice when I hear my name being screeched from the lounge.

“Lilah, Lilah, Lilah come quick!”

I automatically think that Meredith has set fire to the kitchen again trying to make toast and dash out of bed and into the front room.

Beth is jumping up and down and Meredith is, well, Meredith looks like she is having some kind of fit.

Instead of pointing to the kitchen as I expect they are pointing at the telly.