Shall I Show You What It's Like Out There?
Anne Goodwin
The triage nurse inspects the wound and pronounces it superficial. “Still,” he says, “you should get it stitched or it might heal skewwhiff.”
Muttering sotto voce, Lenny ushers her through ranks of injured drunks and hypochondriacs to the far corner of the room. He wipes the orange bucket seats with a paper napkin before sitting down. “Superficial, my arse! He could’ve put your eye out.”
Faith pats the wad of gauze taped to her cheek. The bleeding has waned to the occasional spot, but she’s still loyal to the pain. “Let’s be thankful he didn’t.”
From the threshold of the treatment area, a nurse calls out a name. A man in a football shirt hobbles towards the door. Above it, neon letters smooch across the display board: WAITING TIME APPROX ONE HOUR. PLEASE SWITCH OFF ALL MOBILE PHONES.
“That’s not so bad,” says Faith. “We could be home by midnight.”
Lenny pats his pockets. “I’ll go outside and give Gloria a ring.”
“Here, take mine!” Faith delves into her bag, but Lenny already has his phone in his hand.
“You’re not expecting a message from him, are you? Sorry isn’t in his repertoire.”
“I need to know he’s okay.”
“Okay? Course he’s not okay. He’s a fucking psycho.” Lenny’s jaw clenches. “If he’s any sense, he’ll keep well away. He’s lucky we didn’t call the police.”
“It was an accident.”
“No-one accidentally mistakes the dining room for a bottle bank.”
Faith seeks sanctuary in the black screen of her phone.
Lenny softens. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you how fabulous you looked tonight.” A spot of blood on the bodice of her green silk dress rekindles his irritation. “We don’t even have the satisfaction of sending him the dry-cleaning bill. He’d only tap you for a loan to pay it.”
“It was a shock him turning up like that,” Faith concedes.
“Played havoc with your place settings.”
The slightest twitch of his lips, until they’re both laughing. The movement drags on her cheek, but Faith is relieved they’re a team again. “Go and speak to Gloria. Check on the girls.”
As they kiss, Lenny swaps his phone for hers. His step seems lighter as he crosses the room to the exit.
Faith was combing mascara through her eyelashes, and Lenny still in the shower, when the doorbell chimed. She switched her gaze from the mirror to the clock on the bedside table. The dinner guests were half an hour early.
Stealing a moment to complete her make-up, and to smooth all evidence of irritation from her brow, Faith descended the stairs. The front door stood ajar, six-year-old Lily, clad in pink pyjamas, loitering before it. “Don’t be rude!” Faith hurried along the hallway. “Let’s show our guests into the lounge.”
Lily spun around. “I don’t know who it is!”
Faith patted her daughter’s curls as she strode past her. A bearded man in a donkey jacket and dirty jeans hovered on the doorstep, a battered rucksack at his feet. “What a lovely surprise,” she cooed, in a tone better suited to the school gates. “Uncle Ryan’s come to see us.”
“Can I doss with you for a few days?”
“Of course.” His beard scratched her cheek as they leant into each other in a fumbling approximation of a hug. Faith hoped her brother would want to wash away the stench of travel before her dinner guests arrived.
She doesn’t often get the chance to observe her husband from a distance. Most of the time, they’re either jammed together in the house or car, or in their separate worlds at work. Watching him wend his way between the rows of chairs, a cardboard cup in each hand, Faith feels the pleasure of possession. Despite the ache in her cheek and the tension of the evening, she’s proud that this handsome man is her spouse, the father of her children, their protector. She mustn’t let her brother detract from that.
Lenny hands over one of the coffees along with her phone. “No missed calls, I’m afraid.”
Faith shrugs; whether for her own sake or Lenny’s, she feels obliged to hide her disappointment. “How are the girls?”
“Fine. Slept right through it, thank God. Gloria’s swept up the glass. And she said to tell you your gooseberry fool was delicious.”
Faith laughs, winces as her cheek pulses. “I hope they left some for us.”
They sip their coffee. Above the door, the electronic screen shows the waiting time has increased to ninety minutes. “Shit!”
“Gloria said not to worry about the time. They’ve got an all-night pass. Helen’s mother’s staying over to look after Sam.”
“What good friends they are,” says Faith.
Lenny nods. She can guess what he’s thinking. You choose your friends … But he doesn’t say it and, for that consideration, she squeezes his hand.
Faith was the elder by forty minutes but, as a child, she didn’t notice the difference those minutes made. Ryan was her touchstone, the mirror that confirmed who she was. Even after their mother banished them to separate bedrooms at the age of twelve, her brother felt integral to her material self. Like the hard-to-scratch spot on her back below her shoulder blades, out of sight and out of reach didn’t make it less real. Even when they squabbled over divvying up the last piece of chocolate cake, or when she despaired of his failure to follow playground etiquette, she knew that Ryan made her complete. So the loss of him had cut deeper than the glass that slashed her cheek.
They’d had friends – or she had – but what could outsiders offer beyond what the twins already had? Together, they dressed dolls and raced cars, fought with sticks and made daisy chains, kicked balls and jumped through twirling ropes. They shared the same toy box and the same wardrobe, defying their mother’s attempts to bequeath them distinct identities.
If that weren’t enough to prevent unwelcome intrusions, they’d created their own language. The joke was that, apart from invented terms for perhaps a hundred common nouns, it wasn’t a language at all. But tossing nonsense syllables back and forth, when executed with aplomb, kept the world at bay. It didn’t matter that Faith could interpret Ryan’s utterances with no greater accuracy than a stranger. Their twinning predated language: they’d been bound to each other in the womb.
The dinner guests were on their second gin and tonic when Ryan joined them, dressed in his least-scruffy jeans and one of Lenny’s shirts. Faith tried not to look at his crusted toenails, tried not to mind that he’d ignored the socks she’d left out for him to wear. The girls, who’d revelled in their role as custodians of the salted nuts and prawn crackers, became shy, retreating to their parents’ laps as Faith introduced her brother to the two couples. As far as Lily and Chloe were concerned, their daddy’s work colleague, Mark, seemed more like an uncle than this alien who never even sent a birthday card. Mark’s wife, Pam, and their godmothers, Gloria and Helen, closer kin to their mum.
“I must’ve met you at the wedding.” Gloria was too polite, and too faithful to a friendship formed at freshers’ week at university, to mention that, while the bride’s father had sported a top hat and tails, her twin brother wore jeans and a paint-splattered sweatshirt. “I remember you worked on campaigns for a charity. Oxfam, wasn’t it?”
“Really?” said Helen. “I must pick your brains over dinner. Oxfam do some great classroom resources on climate change.”
“Oh, yes, you showed me,” gushed Gloria. “Would those be your doing, Ryan?”
Faith hoped no-one else heard Lenny snigger.
Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, picking at the dry skin on his heels, Ryan took his time conjuring up an answer. “I doubt it.”
Gloria jiggled the ice in her glass. Faith wondered whether to summon everyone to the dining table, but the focaccia would need a few more minutes to heat through.
“Stuff for schoolkids below your pay grade?” asked Mark.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I parted company with charity work a while back.”
“I imagine the poverty overwhelms you eventually,” said Pam. “What do they call it? Compassion fatigue?”
“Burnout,” said Helen.
“I wasn’t burnt out,” said Ryan. “Far from it. But they showed me the door when I refused to tone down the message.”
“Oh?”
“People can’t take too much reality.”
“Well,” said Faith, “I’m sure you must all be starving. Girls, go on up to bed now. There’ll be a treat for you tomorrow if you’re fast asleep when I pop up to check you later.”
Faith had always known that her brother was the clever one but, at school, only she could give the teachers the answers they required. Ryan turned in on himself if he lost interest and there wasn’t much in the education system to keep him engaged. Faith found it progressively harder to be the bridge between her brother and the petty rules and timetables of the wider world, especially after the move to separate bedrooms spelt the end of their night-time conference.
When, at thirteen, Ryan won an essay competition, their parents took her aside to ask if she’d written it for him. Fortunately, she was able to persuade them otherwise. Witnessing his delight at discovering he’d got it right for once, Faith felt she’d not only got her brother back, but her full self. It was only then that she could acknowledge the strain of covering his back, as if those forty minutes’ seniority were forty years. Helping him pack for the holiday that was his prize, Faith was as excited as he was. Babbling away in their private language, there was no need for more conventional conversation. They knew what went on in each other’s minds.
The fortnight he was away in Poland, Faith awoke each morning with a bellyache. But the sting of his absence was nothing to her estrangement from the boy who returned. He’d changed, in a way she couldn’t fathom, couldn’t articulate, except that his transformation left her feeling betrayed. In leaving, her brother had become more of himself. And significantly less of her.
The waiting time has increased to two hours. Although lacking a clock to measure it, Faith reckons they’ve been sitting in this room longer than that already.
“This can’t go on,” says Lenny.
Adrenaline powered them initially, neutralising the sedating effect of the wine. Now it’s receded and, despite the coffee, Faith has seen Lenny’s eyelids droop. “You go home. There’s no point us both hanging around.”
“Don’t be daft,” says Lenny. “I’m not leaving you here on your own. I was talking about Ryan. He’s got to start taking responsibility.”
“I think it’s taking too much responsibility that’s his problem.”
“Not a word in over a year, then he expects you to drop everything to accommodate him. He didn’t even bring a present for the girls.”
“That’s not how he operates.”
“You’re right there. Not a thought for anyone else. Especially you.”
“Let’s not do this now, Lenny.”
He shakes his head. Grabs his phone. “I’ll tell Gloria and Helen where we keep the sheets for the sofa bed.”
Faith finds little satisfaction in watching her husband stride towards the exit. While it’s good of him to consider their friends, it’s a pity he hasn’t opted to contact them via her phone.
“So you’re just back from abroad, Ryan?” said Pam. “By the way, Lenny, this soup is divine.”
“Absolutely delicious,” said Mark. “Work was it, Ryan, or holiday?”
Ryan shrugged. “I’m not comfortable with either of those terms.”
“So where were you exactly?” said Lenny. “You could’ve been on the moon for all your sister gets wind of your whereabouts.”
Faith had hoped they’d manage to keep the focus away from Ryan. Grateful for her guests’ steering clear of the usual topics – mortgages and home improvements and sourcing the latest cult toy for Santa to deliver to the children – she could forgive their curiosity about her enigmatic sibling. Her husband, however, might have been more diplomatic. But Ryan wasn’t exactly Lenny’s ideal dinner guest and he’d been looking forward to this get-together for weeks.
“I’ve come from Fallujah.”
“Isn’t that Iraq?” Helen frowned. “I thought we were out of there.”
“You lose track.” Pam shook her head. “I try to keep up, but there’s so much going on …”
“So,” said Gloria, “your hair’s too long for the army and I doubt there’s much activity in the commercial sector right now. Let me guess, you’re a journalist.”
“After a fashion,” said Ryan.
“Must be tough out there,” said Mark.
“What paper do you work for?” Lenny made no attempt to conceal his cynicism.
But their guests weren’t bothered about that. “What’s it like out there?” asked Pam.
“Yeah,” chorused Gloria and Helen. “What’s it like?”
When Ryan returned from his trip to Poland, he didn’t say much about what it was like. He had answers for their parents and teachers – he even had sufficient for an interview with the local paper – but Faith sensed him holding back. She tried to judge what he was thinking from his behaviour but, while he caused others less concern now he’d achieved something they could stick a label on, Faith remained confused.
No-one questioned his switch from science to languages because, as they saw it, Ryan had caught the travel bug. No-one tried to prevent him spending Saturdays marching through the town centre holding one side of a banner because Ryan wanted to change the world. Only Faith noticed he hadn’t tried to win any more prizes. That he no longer fought her for the larger slice of cake.
It wasn’t until she had children of her own that Faith realised he’d been too young, or too intense, to go to Auschwitz. He’d witnessed the worst before his mind was mature enough to process it. Yet if she’d tried to talk to him about it, he’d have fobbed her off. After all, others were saddled with burdens far heavier than his.
As Lenny served the moussaka, and the guests helped themselves to colour-coordinated salads, Faith began to relax. Perhaps it was the conviviality induced by the wine, and the cocktails that had preceded it, but her brother was a hit. Despite his rough manners, his disdain for much of what they regarded as the essentials of civilised society, her friends had warmed to him. Even Lenny confessed a grudging admiration for his willingness to penetrate the darker corners of the world so that others didn’t have to. Rwanda. Bosnia. Afghanistan. Eritrea. Tibet. To bear witness to genocide and carnage. To stand alongside the oppressed.
Glancing around the table, she felt a love for each of them as raw and fierce as her love for her girls. She hoped no-one would address her directly because, if called upon to speak, she’d probably burst into tears.
“So come on,” said Mark. “Tell us what it’s really like.”
Ryan squirmed like a small child. “I’m not much good at telling stories.”
“Of course you are,” said Pam. “You’re a journalist.”
“Not if no-one will print my stuff.”
“Won’t they? Why not?”
“They say it’s too strident.”
“Now you’re just being modest.”
“He had a piece in the Guardian a few years ago,” said Lenny.
“Can’t be that bad then.”
Faith’s abdominal muscles spasmed. Only a moment earlier, Ryan had been buoyed up by the attention. Now he looked ready to run from the room.
According to the electronic screen, the waiting time has jumped to three hours. Faith has lost track of how long Lenny has been gone. The display board, the blank faces of the patients bedding down for the long wait, transports her to a station waiting room in Italy on the only trip she and Ryan took together as young adults. It was the summer after her first year at university, and his third year of unskilled short-term jobs.
They’d missed a connection, or perhaps the only way to get to their destination was to arrive at this forlorn place after midnight and leave again at dawn. Whatever the reason, Ryan insisted they’d no choice but to spend the night at the station among the down-and-outs and dossers. Her brother’s head on her shoulder afforded her no shelter from fear.
Doing Europe by train, as she’d boasted to her university friends; she’d expected an induction into the mysteries of shoestring travel, an advanced version of their childhood games. But it felt more as if he’d set off alone and forgotten to forbid her to follow. In that dimly-lit waiting room at two in the morning she’d come to suspect that, as far as Ryan was concerned, there was no system for him to share. Railway timetables and guidebooks were irrelevant and, far from an aberration, their uncomfortable night in the middle of nowhere was, for Ryan, the essence of the trip.
The mood of the party had shifted once more. Having indulged the uninvited guest, the couples felt entitled to some payback. Yet he’d avoided telling them anything that they couldn’t read online. Despite their praise for the cuisine, Faith’s friends would go home with a sour taste in their mouths.
“Come on, Ryan,” said Lenny. “Spill the beans. Tell us what it’s really like over there.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Of course we do. Why do you think we’re asking?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s patronising.”
“We’ve been to university, Ryan. We’re not thick.”
Sweat beaded his hairline. “I’m talking about people who’ve gone through hell. People who no longer believe they’re human.”
Nods around the table. “Must be dreadful.”
“A living nightmare.”
“You want to know what life’s like in their shoes?”
“Yes! Don’t we keep on asking?”
“Okay, I’ll show you.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when Ryan had sat at her side and sobbed. Told her how he’d abandoned his fledgling journalistic career when he realised his best work was the essay he wrote at thirteen on the lessons of the Holocaust. The more he saw, the more he became acquainted with the evil man could do, the harder it was to communicate. He’d never be able to replicate the confidence and clarity of the argument he’d constructed solely from his reading. His mind, he told her, had been blunted by the atrocities he’d seen, and yet, like an addict, he couldn’t resist returning for more.
Faith hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t even touched him. Instead, she’d asked him to leave. Because why, after a lifetime of looking out for him, of trying to understand and translate for him, did he choose to open his heart when she needed him? Why this outpouring of emotion when she was sitting in a hospital bed, nursing her first child?
“Folldarp,” Ryan whispered.
Faith smiled. It was their childhood word for ice cream.
“Sinkpin.” Louder.
Was that pyjamas or gloves?
“Kruskal.” Shouting now.
Next-door’s dog?
“Gushon, gushon, gushon!” He thumped the table.
Gloria raised her eyebrows. Pam giggled.
“P’jar. Drumondiac. Zilodiah.”
Faith would lay bets those weren’t words in any language. “Okay, Ryan, you’ve made your point.”
“Soylanjio!” Ryan glared at his sister.
“I’m sorry, Ryan, I don’t remember. What does it mean?”
He picked up his glass. Let it fall to the floor. “Ashtrumin!”
“That’s enough,” said Lenny.
Ryan took his plate and dropped it. “Erlangdunden!”
“Stop it, Ryan, this is crazy!”
He grabbed a bottle and hurled it across the table.
A heavy object crashed against her cheekbone. When she touched it, her skin felt tacky and damp.
WAITING TIME APPROX FOUR HOURS. PLEASE SWITCH OFF ALL MOBILE PHONES. Faith considers leaving with her face unstitched. Right now, she’d happily risk it healing cockeyed as a Picasso portrait for the chance to get to sleep before dawn. And where’s her husband? The least he could do is fetch her another coffee.
Opening her bag for something to distract her, she takes comfort from the heft of her phone. The wait would be more tolerable if she knew Ryan was safe.
Why this antipathy to patients and visitors using their mobiles? Presumably a throwback to when they thought radio waves would bugger the equipment. Hasn’t that been discredited? Like the doom-mongers warning they’d incinerate your brain. She’s amused that, if she used her phone to connect to the internet, she could check.
Her brother would have no truck with such trifling regulations. After furtively surveying the room, Faith turns on her phone and keys in the four-digit passcode. A shiver ripples through her as the message icon flashes on the screen. She’s just about to tap it, when the door below the electronic signboard opens and a nurse calls out her name.
Anne Goodwin
The triage nurse inspects the wound and pronounces it superficial. “Still,” he says, “you should get it stitched or it might heal skewwhiff.”
Muttering sotto voce, Lenny ushers her through ranks of injured drunks and hypochondriacs to the far corner of the room. He wipes the orange bucket seats with a paper napkin before sitting down. “Superficial, my arse! He could’ve put your eye out.”
Faith pats the wad of gauze taped to her cheek. The bleeding has waned to the occasional spot, but she’s still loyal to the pain. “Let’s be thankful he didn’t.”
From the threshold of the treatment area, a nurse calls out a name. A man in a football shirt hobbles towards the door. Above it, neon letters smooch across the display board: WAITING TIME APPROX ONE HOUR. PLEASE SWITCH OFF ALL MOBILE PHONES.
“That’s not so bad,” says Faith. “We could be home by midnight.”
Lenny pats his pockets. “I’ll go outside and give Gloria a ring.”
“Here, take mine!” Faith delves into her bag, but Lenny already has his phone in his hand.
“You’re not expecting a message from him, are you? Sorry isn’t in his repertoire.”
“I need to know he’s okay.”
“Okay? Course he’s not okay. He’s a fucking psycho.” Lenny’s jaw clenches. “If he’s any sense, he’ll keep well away. He’s lucky we didn’t call the police.”
“It was an accident.”
“No-one accidentally mistakes the dining room for a bottle bank.”
Faith seeks sanctuary in the black screen of her phone.
Lenny softens. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you how fabulous you looked tonight.” A spot of blood on the bodice of her green silk dress rekindles his irritation. “We don’t even have the satisfaction of sending him the dry-cleaning bill. He’d only tap you for a loan to pay it.”
“It was a shock him turning up like that,” Faith concedes.
“Played havoc with your place settings.”
The slightest twitch of his lips, until they’re both laughing. The movement drags on her cheek, but Faith is relieved they’re a team again. “Go and speak to Gloria. Check on the girls.”
As they kiss, Lenny swaps his phone for hers. His step seems lighter as he crosses the room to the exit.
Faith was combing mascara through her eyelashes, and Lenny still in the shower, when the doorbell chimed. She switched her gaze from the mirror to the clock on the bedside table. The dinner guests were half an hour early.
Stealing a moment to complete her make-up, and to smooth all evidence of irritation from her brow, Faith descended the stairs. The front door stood ajar, six-year-old Lily, clad in pink pyjamas, loitering before it. “Don’t be rude!” Faith hurried along the hallway. “Let’s show our guests into the lounge.”
Lily spun around. “I don’t know who it is!”
Faith patted her daughter’s curls as she strode past her. A bearded man in a donkey jacket and dirty jeans hovered on the doorstep, a battered rucksack at his feet. “What a lovely surprise,” she cooed, in a tone better suited to the school gates. “Uncle Ryan’s come to see us.”
“Can I doss with you for a few days?”
“Of course.” His beard scratched her cheek as they leant into each other in a fumbling approximation of a hug. Faith hoped her brother would want to wash away the stench of travel before her dinner guests arrived.
She doesn’t often get the chance to observe her husband from a distance. Most of the time, they’re either jammed together in the house or car, or in their separate worlds at work. Watching him wend his way between the rows of chairs, a cardboard cup in each hand, Faith feels the pleasure of possession. Despite the ache in her cheek and the tension of the evening, she’s proud that this handsome man is her spouse, the father of her children, their protector. She mustn’t let her brother detract from that.
Lenny hands over one of the coffees along with her phone. “No missed calls, I’m afraid.”
Faith shrugs; whether for her own sake or Lenny’s, she feels obliged to hide her disappointment. “How are the girls?”
“Fine. Slept right through it, thank God. Gloria’s swept up the glass. And she said to tell you your gooseberry fool was delicious.”
Faith laughs, winces as her cheek pulses. “I hope they left some for us.”
They sip their coffee. Above the door, the electronic screen shows the waiting time has increased to ninety minutes. “Shit!”
“Gloria said not to worry about the time. They’ve got an all-night pass. Helen’s mother’s staying over to look after Sam.”
“What good friends they are,” says Faith.
Lenny nods. She can guess what he’s thinking. You choose your friends … But he doesn’t say it and, for that consideration, she squeezes his hand.
Faith was the elder by forty minutes but, as a child, she didn’t notice the difference those minutes made. Ryan was her touchstone, the mirror that confirmed who she was. Even after their mother banished them to separate bedrooms at the age of twelve, her brother felt integral to her material self. Like the hard-to-scratch spot on her back below her shoulder blades, out of sight and out of reach didn’t make it less real. Even when they squabbled over divvying up the last piece of chocolate cake, or when she despaired of his failure to follow playground etiquette, she knew that Ryan made her complete. So the loss of him had cut deeper than the glass that slashed her cheek.
They’d had friends – or she had – but what could outsiders offer beyond what the twins already had? Together, they dressed dolls and raced cars, fought with sticks and made daisy chains, kicked balls and jumped through twirling ropes. They shared the same toy box and the same wardrobe, defying their mother’s attempts to bequeath them distinct identities.
If that weren’t enough to prevent unwelcome intrusions, they’d created their own language. The joke was that, apart from invented terms for perhaps a hundred common nouns, it wasn’t a language at all. But tossing nonsense syllables back and forth, when executed with aplomb, kept the world at bay. It didn’t matter that Faith could interpret Ryan’s utterances with no greater accuracy than a stranger. Their twinning predated language: they’d been bound to each other in the womb.
The dinner guests were on their second gin and tonic when Ryan joined them, dressed in his least-scruffy jeans and one of Lenny’s shirts. Faith tried not to look at his crusted toenails, tried not to mind that he’d ignored the socks she’d left out for him to wear. The girls, who’d revelled in their role as custodians of the salted nuts and prawn crackers, became shy, retreating to their parents’ laps as Faith introduced her brother to the two couples. As far as Lily and Chloe were concerned, their daddy’s work colleague, Mark, seemed more like an uncle than this alien who never even sent a birthday card. Mark’s wife, Pam, and their godmothers, Gloria and Helen, closer kin to their mum.
“I must’ve met you at the wedding.” Gloria was too polite, and too faithful to a friendship formed at freshers’ week at university, to mention that, while the bride’s father had sported a top hat and tails, her twin brother wore jeans and a paint-splattered sweatshirt. “I remember you worked on campaigns for a charity. Oxfam, wasn’t it?”
“Really?” said Helen. “I must pick your brains over dinner. Oxfam do some great classroom resources on climate change.”
“Oh, yes, you showed me,” gushed Gloria. “Would those be your doing, Ryan?”
Faith hoped no-one else heard Lenny snigger.
Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, picking at the dry skin on his heels, Ryan took his time conjuring up an answer. “I doubt it.”
Gloria jiggled the ice in her glass. Faith wondered whether to summon everyone to the dining table, but the focaccia would need a few more minutes to heat through.
“Stuff for schoolkids below your pay grade?” asked Mark.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I parted company with charity work a while back.”
“I imagine the poverty overwhelms you eventually,” said Pam. “What do they call it? Compassion fatigue?”
“Burnout,” said Helen.
“I wasn’t burnt out,” said Ryan. “Far from it. But they showed me the door when I refused to tone down the message.”
“Oh?”
“People can’t take too much reality.”
“Well,” said Faith, “I’m sure you must all be starving. Girls, go on up to bed now. There’ll be a treat for you tomorrow if you’re fast asleep when I pop up to check you later.”
Faith had always known that her brother was the clever one but, at school, only she could give the teachers the answers they required. Ryan turned in on himself if he lost interest and there wasn’t much in the education system to keep him engaged. Faith found it progressively harder to be the bridge between her brother and the petty rules and timetables of the wider world, especially after the move to separate bedrooms spelt the end of their night-time conference.
When, at thirteen, Ryan won an essay competition, their parents took her aside to ask if she’d written it for him. Fortunately, she was able to persuade them otherwise. Witnessing his delight at discovering he’d got it right for once, Faith felt she’d not only got her brother back, but her full self. It was only then that she could acknowledge the strain of covering his back, as if those forty minutes’ seniority were forty years. Helping him pack for the holiday that was his prize, Faith was as excited as he was. Babbling away in their private language, there was no need for more conventional conversation. They knew what went on in each other’s minds.
The fortnight he was away in Poland, Faith awoke each morning with a bellyache. But the sting of his absence was nothing to her estrangement from the boy who returned. He’d changed, in a way she couldn’t fathom, couldn’t articulate, except that his transformation left her feeling betrayed. In leaving, her brother had become more of himself. And significantly less of her.
The waiting time has increased to two hours. Although lacking a clock to measure it, Faith reckons they’ve been sitting in this room longer than that already.
“This can’t go on,” says Lenny.
Adrenaline powered them initially, neutralising the sedating effect of the wine. Now it’s receded and, despite the coffee, Faith has seen Lenny’s eyelids droop. “You go home. There’s no point us both hanging around.”
“Don’t be daft,” says Lenny. “I’m not leaving you here on your own. I was talking about Ryan. He’s got to start taking responsibility.”
“I think it’s taking too much responsibility that’s his problem.”
“Not a word in over a year, then he expects you to drop everything to accommodate him. He didn’t even bring a present for the girls.”
“That’s not how he operates.”
“You’re right there. Not a thought for anyone else. Especially you.”
“Let’s not do this now, Lenny.”
He shakes his head. Grabs his phone. “I’ll tell Gloria and Helen where we keep the sheets for the sofa bed.”
Faith finds little satisfaction in watching her husband stride towards the exit. While it’s good of him to consider their friends, it’s a pity he hasn’t opted to contact them via her phone.
“So you’re just back from abroad, Ryan?” said Pam. “By the way, Lenny, this soup is divine.”
“Absolutely delicious,” said Mark. “Work was it, Ryan, or holiday?”
Ryan shrugged. “I’m not comfortable with either of those terms.”
“So where were you exactly?” said Lenny. “You could’ve been on the moon for all your sister gets wind of your whereabouts.”
Faith had hoped they’d manage to keep the focus away from Ryan. Grateful for her guests’ steering clear of the usual topics – mortgages and home improvements and sourcing the latest cult toy for Santa to deliver to the children – she could forgive their curiosity about her enigmatic sibling. Her husband, however, might have been more diplomatic. But Ryan wasn’t exactly Lenny’s ideal dinner guest and he’d been looking forward to this get-together for weeks.
“I’ve come from Fallujah.”
“Isn’t that Iraq?” Helen frowned. “I thought we were out of there.”
“You lose track.” Pam shook her head. “I try to keep up, but there’s so much going on …”
“So,” said Gloria, “your hair’s too long for the army and I doubt there’s much activity in the commercial sector right now. Let me guess, you’re a journalist.”
“After a fashion,” said Ryan.
“Must be tough out there,” said Mark.
“What paper do you work for?” Lenny made no attempt to conceal his cynicism.
But their guests weren’t bothered about that. “What’s it like out there?” asked Pam.
“Yeah,” chorused Gloria and Helen. “What’s it like?”
When Ryan returned from his trip to Poland, he didn’t say much about what it was like. He had answers for their parents and teachers – he even had sufficient for an interview with the local paper – but Faith sensed him holding back. She tried to judge what he was thinking from his behaviour but, while he caused others less concern now he’d achieved something they could stick a label on, Faith remained confused.
No-one questioned his switch from science to languages because, as they saw it, Ryan had caught the travel bug. No-one tried to prevent him spending Saturdays marching through the town centre holding one side of a banner because Ryan wanted to change the world. Only Faith noticed he hadn’t tried to win any more prizes. That he no longer fought her for the larger slice of cake.
It wasn’t until she had children of her own that Faith realised he’d been too young, or too intense, to go to Auschwitz. He’d witnessed the worst before his mind was mature enough to process it. Yet if she’d tried to talk to him about it, he’d have fobbed her off. After all, others were saddled with burdens far heavier than his.
As Lenny served the moussaka, and the guests helped themselves to colour-coordinated salads, Faith began to relax. Perhaps it was the conviviality induced by the wine, and the cocktails that had preceded it, but her brother was a hit. Despite his rough manners, his disdain for much of what they regarded as the essentials of civilised society, her friends had warmed to him. Even Lenny confessed a grudging admiration for his willingness to penetrate the darker corners of the world so that others didn’t have to. Rwanda. Bosnia. Afghanistan. Eritrea. Tibet. To bear witness to genocide and carnage. To stand alongside the oppressed.
Glancing around the table, she felt a love for each of them as raw and fierce as her love for her girls. She hoped no-one would address her directly because, if called upon to speak, she’d probably burst into tears.
“So come on,” said Mark. “Tell us what it’s really like.”
Ryan squirmed like a small child. “I’m not much good at telling stories.”
“Of course you are,” said Pam. “You’re a journalist.”
“Not if no-one will print my stuff.”
“Won’t they? Why not?”
“They say it’s too strident.”
“Now you’re just being modest.”
“He had a piece in the Guardian a few years ago,” said Lenny.
“Can’t be that bad then.”
Faith’s abdominal muscles spasmed. Only a moment earlier, Ryan had been buoyed up by the attention. Now he looked ready to run from the room.
According to the electronic screen, the waiting time has jumped to three hours. Faith has lost track of how long Lenny has been gone. The display board, the blank faces of the patients bedding down for the long wait, transports her to a station waiting room in Italy on the only trip she and Ryan took together as young adults. It was the summer after her first year at university, and his third year of unskilled short-term jobs.
They’d missed a connection, or perhaps the only way to get to their destination was to arrive at this forlorn place after midnight and leave again at dawn. Whatever the reason, Ryan insisted they’d no choice but to spend the night at the station among the down-and-outs and dossers. Her brother’s head on her shoulder afforded her no shelter from fear.
Doing Europe by train, as she’d boasted to her university friends; she’d expected an induction into the mysteries of shoestring travel, an advanced version of their childhood games. But it felt more as if he’d set off alone and forgotten to forbid her to follow. In that dimly-lit waiting room at two in the morning she’d come to suspect that, as far as Ryan was concerned, there was no system for him to share. Railway timetables and guidebooks were irrelevant and, far from an aberration, their uncomfortable night in the middle of nowhere was, for Ryan, the essence of the trip.
The mood of the party had shifted once more. Having indulged the uninvited guest, the couples felt entitled to some payback. Yet he’d avoided telling them anything that they couldn’t read online. Despite their praise for the cuisine, Faith’s friends would go home with a sour taste in their mouths.
“Come on, Ryan,” said Lenny. “Spill the beans. Tell us what it’s really like over there.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Of course we do. Why do you think we’re asking?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“That’s patronising.”
“We’ve been to university, Ryan. We’re not thick.”
Sweat beaded his hairline. “I’m talking about people who’ve gone through hell. People who no longer believe they’re human.”
Nods around the table. “Must be dreadful.”
“A living nightmare.”
“You want to know what life’s like in their shoes?”
“Yes! Don’t we keep on asking?”
“Okay, I’ll show you.”
There was a time, not so long ago, when Ryan had sat at her side and sobbed. Told her how he’d abandoned his fledgling journalistic career when he realised his best work was the essay he wrote at thirteen on the lessons of the Holocaust. The more he saw, the more he became acquainted with the evil man could do, the harder it was to communicate. He’d never be able to replicate the confidence and clarity of the argument he’d constructed solely from his reading. His mind, he told her, had been blunted by the atrocities he’d seen, and yet, like an addict, he couldn’t resist returning for more.
Faith hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t even touched him. Instead, she’d asked him to leave. Because why, after a lifetime of looking out for him, of trying to understand and translate for him, did he choose to open his heart when she needed him? Why this outpouring of emotion when she was sitting in a hospital bed, nursing her first child?
“Folldarp,” Ryan whispered.
Faith smiled. It was their childhood word for ice cream.
“Sinkpin.” Louder.
Was that pyjamas or gloves?
“Kruskal.” Shouting now.
Next-door’s dog?
“Gushon, gushon, gushon!” He thumped the table.
Gloria raised her eyebrows. Pam giggled.
“P’jar. Drumondiac. Zilodiah.”
Faith would lay bets those weren’t words in any language. “Okay, Ryan, you’ve made your point.”
“Soylanjio!” Ryan glared at his sister.
“I’m sorry, Ryan, I don’t remember. What does it mean?”
He picked up his glass. Let it fall to the floor. “Ashtrumin!”
“That’s enough,” said Lenny.
Ryan took his plate and dropped it. “Erlangdunden!”
“Stop it, Ryan, this is crazy!”
He grabbed a bottle and hurled it across the table.
A heavy object crashed against her cheekbone. When she touched it, her skin felt tacky and damp.
WAITING TIME APPROX FOUR HOURS. PLEASE SWITCH OFF ALL MOBILE PHONES. Faith considers leaving with her face unstitched. Right now, she’d happily risk it healing cockeyed as a Picasso portrait for the chance to get to sleep before dawn. And where’s her husband? The least he could do is fetch her another coffee.
Opening her bag for something to distract her, she takes comfort from the heft of her phone. The wait would be more tolerable if she knew Ryan was safe.
Why this antipathy to patients and visitors using their mobiles? Presumably a throwback to when they thought radio waves would bugger the equipment. Hasn’t that been discredited? Like the doom-mongers warning they’d incinerate your brain. She’s amused that, if she used her phone to connect to the internet, she could check.
Her brother would have no truck with such trifling regulations. After furtively surveying the room, Faith turns on her phone and keys in the four-digit passcode. A shiver ripples through her as the message icon flashes on the screen. She’s just about to tap it, when the door below the electronic signboard opens and a nurse calls out her name.
