Page 68 of Beyond Repair
Katie winced.
‘Well, we agreed to host it, so –’
‘You agreed, baby. Just like you do every year because you’re a pushover.’
‘I am not a –’
‘Yes you are,’ he told her, then kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Now sit down and stop rushing around like a blue-arsed fly for a moment.’
But Katie’s attention had been diverted by the loud music, which had just started up on the far side of the garden.
‘Oh crikey, Russell,’ Katie moaned as she started to waddle over to the commotion. ‘Mrs Jones has only just had that hip replaced.’
Sam sighed in defeat and sank down into the empty chair next to Bryn. From their vantage point at the top of the garden they could see the entire set-up. Trestle tables were laden with food under a large canopy that he and Rob had erected that morning. Round tables and chairs were arranged on the lawn. A cricket pitch was on the go to the side, and next to that Russell had some wholly inappropriate music blasting from a set of speakers and was attempting to teach a dance to a mishmash of old ladies, children, various members of the congregation, including the vicar. To his horror, Sam’s mother and sister were joining in too.
He could make out a few lines of the song ‘Bang Bang’ being the most frequent: ‘You need a good girl to blow your mind’, and, ‘She got a booty like a Cadillac’ coming a close second. He sighed and watched as Katie attempted to extract one of the more frail old ladies from the group but was met with fierce resistance. Sam smiled and sat back in his chair. Practically the whole village was there. Was it something he would have chosen? – to have this many people invade his home? Probably not. Did it make his wife happy? Definitely, yes.
When Katie was pregnant with Anya, he’d told her they needed more space. She had looked uncomfortable and said she was happy where she was. He’d tried to talk her round many times in the weeks that followed but she always managed to change the subject. Eventually he’d realised the problem.
‘The cottage is fine, cariad,’ Katie had said soothingly. ‘I don’t think we should take on a bigger mortgage at the moment.’ Sam had wanted to slap himself for being so bloody secretive. She had no idea of his situation and he’d never made any attempt to tell her or merge their finances. He hadn’t even known the cottagehadsuch a big mortgage.
‘Let me show you something,’ he said, and had sat her down in front of his laptop. After opening up all his various accounts and watching her eyes grow round and her mouth drop open, he closed the lid and turned her to face him.
‘Right, now choose a house. Anywhere you want. Any kind you want. I don’t give a shit; I just want more space.
‘Wh… How … ?’
‘I told you ages ago. Money is not a problem for me. The jobs I used to do, they paid very well. Who do you think put up the capital for the business with Rob? Why do you think he was happy that I was a silent partner for so long?’
Since he’d married Katie, those jobs were a thing of the past. He stayed closer to home and he took a bigger role in the running of the business. He thought he would miss it: the adrenaline, the action. But he’d found that in life there were different ways to get your rushes. Being loved by a woman like Katie was one of them. Having your own family was another. The danger he’d sought, just like the women he’d been with, had been a distraction, and in the end it had delayed his grieving and his healing.
‘Come on, shrimpy,’ Benji said as he grabbed onto Annie’s grubby little hand. ‘Mum’s put me on clean-up duty.’
Annie scowled at him but wriggled off Sam’s lap to allow herself to be led into the house.
‘I not shwimpy!’ she shouted at Benji, and Sam smiled when he heard Benji yelp; she could be a vicious little thing when she was riled.
‘Managed what?’ Sam asked, turning to Bryn.
‘Managed to fight those demons you were carrying,’ Bryn said.
‘Sometimes I think I have,’ Sam told him, his eyes clouding over. He still had the nightmares, not as frequent now but they still came.
‘Never be totally free of it, boy. Never. Took Muriel five years to help me beat mine back. No fancy counselling in my day. All the therapy I had was with her. Reckon in the end that counted for more. Still, it never goes away. In the dead of night when everything’s still and it’s just me and the dark – sometimes I’m back there, like it was yesterday. I can smell the death, hear the screaming again.’
Sam nodded in acknowledgement and Bryn put his wrinkled, papery hand over Sam’s forearm. ‘Worth it though,’ he said softly. ‘If this is what we were fighting for, it was worth it.’ Sam looked into Bryn’s faded blue eyes and felt the constriction in his chest ease a little more.
He would get there.
Eventually.
And yes.
It was worth it.
*****
Katie gave up her fight with Mrs Jones and retreated from the mass of people Russell was corralling into a dance fit only for late night MTV. As she moved over to the trestle tables to rearrange some of the cakes and start ladling out the homemade lemonade, she felt a hand on her arm.
