Page 29 of Before You Say Goodbye

“They adore each other, huh?” Autumn smiled. Ben nodded, continuing.

“Hopelessly. Marley, in particular, would do absolutely anything for Bowie. I suspect there were times he even pretended to be him. Bowie doesn’t see how special he is. He thinks Marley is the talented one and he’s the one who just got lucky. I suspect you’ll never get to see him commanding a stage full of performers and an orchestra the way he used to, but I’m sure we have a video of it somewhere. I’ll try to dig it out for you. He lives and breathes what he does. He really comes alive.”

“I’d like that. Thank you.”

“Any excuse to show off my boy. He has great talent. He writes love songs — that’s where he really flies. He has a romantic heart. He’s been waiting for a very long time for someone to give it to. He’ll hate that I’ve told you that.”

Autumn smiled. “Your family is very creative.” Ben chuckled.

“It ends there, actually. Maddie is a carer and she loves it. She adores her job — all she ever really wanted to do was help people. There isn’t much room for creativity in care, sadly. She used to sing, but not so much anymore. Pip is studying politics. Whenever we ask him what he wants to do, he tells us he’s going to be prime minister.”

Autumn laughed.

“Emma taught drama.”

“All noble professions.”

“And Bluebell, as you well know, makes a career of doing nothing.”

He didn’t sound bitter. More like he found it amusing.

“Why doesn’t she work?” Autumn asked. If Autumn had been given the opportunities Bluebell had, she’d have been writing full time at the earliest opportunity. Her circumstances had left her with little choice but to pursue a pay packet wherever she had been able to, while writing in her spare time.Bluebell didn’t have to. She could craft a career in whatever she wanted to and yet she chose to do nothing instead.

“She hasn’t found anything that makes her heart happy,” Ben said. Autumn smiled. Bowie had used those words once: ‘Success isn’t measured in the things you have; it’s measured by how happy your heart is.’ His father had obviously been a great influence on the man he had become.

Autumn looked over at Bluebell. She was sitting with her head on Marley’s shoulder. They were laughing heartily at something Pip had said. She always seemed so full of joy. Perhaps doing nothing was enough for her. Ben continued.

“To be honest, they’ll argue about it, but I think what’s happening to Bowie has hit her hardest of all of us. Except for Marley, of course.”

Autumn hadn’t been given the impression Bluebell and Bowie were particularly close. She wondered if Ben was making excuses for her behaviour. It had been Maddie who had been unable to sit at the table when they’d been talking about his lymphoma and it was Marley who seemed to defend Bowie no matter what.

“She was studying drama in sixth form when Bowie was first diagnosed and she was completely devastated. Bluebell always treated Bowie’s cancer as though it were a death sentence, from the very beginning, even when the doctors were reassuring us about it. It’s as if she’s always known it would take him from us. She had so many dreams and aspirations as a young woman, but she dropped everything to spend her time with him. When Marley wanted to move over here to try to break into acting, it went without saying Bowie and Bluebell would follow. Bowie can work here and Bluebell follows Bowie wherever he goes. She has for fourteen years.”

Her friend was obviously in more distress than Autumn had registered. That realisation made her feel guilty.

“How’s Marley handling it all?” she asked. Ben winced.

“He isn’t, really. Twin relationships are usually special, but those two are inseparable. I could count on one hand the number of times they’ve been apart for more than twenty-four hours. They adore each other, Autumn. They don’t know how to live without each other. Marley tells us all the time that he wishes this was happening to him instead of Bowie. He can’t stand the thought of living without his twin. Of course, Bowie would tell you he would take this disease any day over the idea that he might have to live without Marley. If they could, they would literally fight over who got to be the one to die, just so that they didn’t have to be the one left behind.”

Autumn’s eyes filled with tears. The idea Bowie might feel like the lucky one because he wouldn’t be the one left living made her heart break. Ben rested his hand affectionately on her arm and asked her if she was OK. She nodded.

“For those two,” he said, “dying feels easier than living without each other and I’m quite sure Marley won’t ever get over it.”

Autumn watched the two of them together. They were sitting side by side on the sofa. Marley had his arm around Bowie’s shoulders and was massaging his head with his fingers. He was staring, lost in thought, into his glass of rum. Bowie was asleep.

“Will Marley be OK?” Autumn asked. Ben paused for a moment and Autumn knew, somehow, it was not because he didn’t know what to say, but rather he did not know how to say it.

“No. I don’t think he will be OK, my love. And there’s only one thing more terrifying for Emma and I than the fear of losing one child, and that’s the idea that we might lose two.”

* * *

Suddenly it was late and Emma was reasoning that they should all stay in. Bluebell, Marley and Pip had been vehemently insisting since the early evening that they were going out to a bar, and Autumn, who feared she had overstayed her welcome, had been trying to leave for hours by then. Autumn suspected Emma believed Bowie would go with her if she went home and she wanted her children close at all times. She hadn’t said it outright, but she was heavily hinting Autumn should spend the night. There was no way Autumn would feel comfortable doing that if Bowie’s siblings went out, and Emma probably knew that, so she’d focused her attention on persuading them to drop their plans, and this was a woman who knew how to bribe her children. “I’ll make you breakfast in bed,” she said. Maddie rolled her eyes.

“Don’t do that, Mum. They should want to stay in of their own free will.”

“I’ll stay in if there’s more rum.” Marley knocked back his drink.

“There’s always more rum.” Ben took a bottle from the cabinet, filling his son’s tumbler and moving to refill Autumn’s empty glass. He raised his eyebrows questioningly. She looked to Bowie for guidance, but he was still sleeping on the sofa. Marley took the bottle from Ben and poured it into her glass.

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