Beat the Rain Read online

  “That’s because you didn’t tell me,” Louise finds herself whispering. Her skin feels tight as her mouth shapes the words, painfully aware he can’t hear her. The option he chose is all one way and she’s not sure she can forgive him for that. He didn’t allow her a voice and she’s not that woman anymore. She won’t ever be that woman again.

  On the television screen, Tom sits silently stroking the stubble on his left cheek. Louise’s eyes don’t waver from the screen and as his lips start to move, she feels something. Not love, not loss but disgust.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” bursts out of her and she jumps up and clutches each side of the TV screen before her. “Why didn’t you let me help you?” She drops back and starts sobbing. “Why didn’t you let me say goodbye?”

  Silence. Or not. He’s speaking. She’s been speaking over him. Frantically, she grabs the DVD controller and presses the rewind button. His image contorts, moves backwards.

  “…it’s like I live somewhere else,” he repeats. Pauses. “But I don’t suppose you need to know that.” He rubs his head again. “You want to know why I haven’t told you. Don’t you?”

  Louise nods, watching his lips again, always his beautiful, full lips. She imagines they’ll be the last thing she’ll forget as his memory fades and the years pass.

  * * *

  “You can’t rewind,” Tom said to her once. She’d been moaning about something or other, wishing she hadn’t gone into town because it’d been busy and she hadn’t got the shoes to go with her dress that she wanted for the dinner party they were having that evening and Tom said: “Will you stop moaning. You can’t rewind.”

  At dinner, their friends Steve and Sue wanted to play a word game. Each of them had to choose three words to sum up their partner, no more, no less.

  “Passionate, intelligent and caring,” Sue had said, beaming, proud that she’d distilled the essence of Steve into three words as requested.

  “What about you, Tom? What three words would you use to describe Louise?”

  “I wouldn’t,” he’d replied irritably. Normally, this would have been his territory, words. He and Adam both loved words. Language was their thing – Tom was a budding academic, his brother a budding writer. So normally, this would have been right up his street. But somehow, on this night, he was different. She should have seen the signs, should have known something was coming.

  “Come on, Tom.” Louise had smiled, slightly embarrassed.

  “Come on what, Louise? You want me to diminish you by paring you down to three disembodied words? They’d be sufficient, would they? They’d sum you up? It’s insulting.”

  “It’s a game, Tom, for fuck sake…”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to upset anyone,” Sue started.

  “You didn’t,” Louise said, trying to smooth things over. “Tom, what’s got into you?”

  * * *

  Now she knows. As the picture on his DVD fades back in, Tom is sitting at the kitchen table in his dressing gown. He’s smoking and staring at a pair of glasses that sit on the table.

  “We thought it was the glasses giving me the headaches.” He picks them up and twirls them. “I went to the hospital. It’s not the glasses,” he says matter of factly, looking at the cigarette in his hands thoughtfully. “I haven’t had one of these for years. Me and Adam gave up together.” He pauses, corrects himself. “Adam and I.” He puts the cigarette in the ashtray in front of him and looks directly at Louise. “I know I should tell you. But you’re so happy. After everything, your mum, your dad. You’re happy now, with me. Here and now. How can I ruin that?”

  Louise’s fingertips are cold and her nose is numb. She pulls at her hair and pushes it back away from her face, swallowing hard.

  “So I’m reading New Scientist,” Tom says. “It’s a boy thing. Apparently.” Louise produces the smallest of smiles and touches the television screen gently with her fingertips.

  * * *

  A month before he died:

  “What are you reading that for?”

  He was scratching his nipple, reading.

  “What?”

  “New Scientist.”

  “What about it?”

  “Why are you reading it?”

  “Because I want to.”

  “But it’s boring.”

  His eyes grinned, followed by his lips. “How do you know?”

  “It must be. It’s a boy thing.”

  “What? Women can’t read about science?” he said, getting up and grabbing her by the waist and tickling her. “For shame, Lou, for shame.”

  * * *

  Back in her sitting room, eyes glued to the screen:

  “I’m reading about things that I will never see. But you might, Lou.” The television flickers. “I’m getting a headache,” he says, shutting the magazine in front of him. “That’s more terminal than it used to be.” Louise reaches for the screen to touch his face again. “They want to operate.”

  A long pause.

  “It would likely give me brain damage.” He sits back. “I’d lose my language.”

  Louise can’t see anything but his face, filling the screen with her fingers pressed against it. She’s holding her breath, unable to tell how she’s feeling or what she’s thinking.

  “Will you hate me if I don’t tell you? If I let nature take its course?” He nods to himself, as if he’s answered for her. Louise’s fingers leave the television screen.

  “I’m going to let it take me,” he says simply, as if he’s talking about something tiny like which yoghurt to buy or what TV programme to watch. He’s talking as if his decision didn’t have any consequence and that it doesn’t matter that he didn’t discuss it with her.

  Louise scrambles back across the floor, to get away from the television, away from him. Leaning back against the sofa, she clutches her knees to her chest, frantic and sobbing.

  * * *

  Before Tom’s funeral, Louise had stood on his parents’ doorstep, not wanting to knock, not ready for the contact with Tom’s mother Janet. It was November and she remembers vividly the geraniums either side of the front door were still thriving: red and pink blooms exploding from green stems and furred leaves. She had no idea if this was normal or not but it didn’t seem normal. Nothing seemed normal.

  “Thanks for coming,” Janet, Tom’s mother had said as she answered the door, as if there was a reality where she wouldn’t have come. Louise and Janet had never had an easy relationship. Louise had bought her flat at 16 after her father died, courtesy of his insurance and the sale of their house. Tom had moved in with her when he started university and at 18, this was far too young for Janet’s liking. Louise and Janet’s relationship had been strained and uncomfortable at best – it certainly wasn’t something either of them wanted to continue now there was no reason to.

  Janet had been wearing a beige trouser suit, tailored to her tall, thin frame. Her hair, grey-blonde, had been sprayed rigidly into position, like a physical manifestation of her views.

  “Hi,” Louise had said eventually, lacking the will or the energy to challenge the assumption that she might not have come to her boyfriend’s funeral. Janet had smiled, but it’d been unnatural and disconcerting. For a moment, they’d both stood still, gawky, like teenagers, unsure how to move or what their limbs were supposed to do. Neither had moved to hug the other; they’d never pretended affection and saw no reason to start now. Eventually, Janet had stepped back, ending the impasse by opening the door wider so Louise could get in without coming into contact with her.

  Later, after a service where she’d been almost entirely ignored, Louise had found a quiet corner with Adam, away from the insincerity of Tom’s relations and other funeral goers.

  “You didn’t see him, Adam. On the kitchen floor, I mean, all twisted. And then your mother made me go and stare at him lying in that coffin, wearing the suit he hated and smelling of your dad’s aftershave.” Louise had trailed off, her anger turning into something else, something
more desperate. “He looked so…nothing like Tom, he looked more like…” She’d stopped herself, her hand coming up to her mouth involuntarily.

  “Me,” Adam had finished quietly.

  “I didn’t mean that.” Louise had reached out to him and touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Ad, I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay.” Adam had pulled her towards him and held her tightly. “I know what you meant.”

  And she’d felt safe again, in those arms. Listening to that voice. She could have stayed buried in Adam’s chest forever, eyes closed, listening to his heart beating.

  * * *

  Louise knows she and Adam shared ‘moments’ even before Tom died, small things at first but with an ever-increasing significance. One night, while Louise was cooking dinner, Adam had leant against the wooden sideboard in the kitchen and watched her, a small smile on his face and she’d felt content in a way she never did with Tom. She’d been battling over a wok and singing to herself as steam rose into the fake extractor fan above her. Louise had no method, she was cooking the onion after the chicken, the garlic wasn’t chopped yet and an unopened packet of lemon grass sat next to the chrome gas hob. She knew her lack of method annoyed Tom but she also knew Adam found it charming. As Louise had leant over to put a grubby plate into the dishwasher, she’d glanced at Adam and smiled.

  “Don’t tell Tom.” She’d winked. It had been Tom’s contention that dishwashers weren’t for washing. Dishes had to be washed before they were placed in the appliance. A dishwasher, according to Tom, was for sterilising.

  “You’d better hope I don’t,” Adam had laughed. “He’d dump you on the spot if he knew.”

  Without meaning to and without even realising it, Louise had created her own private relationship with both Tom and Adam. As twins, they were always in each other’s company, which meant Adam was always in her company. And they each gave her something different. Before she knew it, she’d come to rely on both of them.

  * * *

  “I was standing in the garden having a cigarette earlier.” Tom’s DVD carries on, oblivious to her thoughts and memories. “The moon was a perfect half. As I turned around to study it I heard a large crack. Felt the pressure in my heel.” Tom touches the back of his head. “Realised what I’d done.”

  Louise watches him motionless, poultry skin.

  “Now you might say ‘it’s only a snail’ but how do you measure that? When does something become ‘only’? Have I made an imprint? I’d killed the snail. I thought about burying it, but you don’t do that, do you. They sit exposed where you kill them.”

  You were still. Lying awkwardly, like an arm was broken, twisted under you. I knew when I put the key in the lock. Isn’t that strange. Before I’d seen you, before…

  “I’ve had some time to think,” Tom sighs.

  More than I had, Louise thinks as she pours herself a glass of the red wine from the package.

  “It’s the strangest thing. I don’t feel like I’m dying.”

  Louise sits, dry-eyed. The emptiness of shock is giving way to something else.

  “Well you did,” she says. Her voice is no longer wavering.

  “I can’t feel this thing in my head.” He isn’t looking at Louise anymore, he’s staring at the floor. She downs her drink and pours herself another glass. Red.

  “And I doubt I’ll see His face. God. And I doubt Death is gonna come swooping in on a black horse. It’s more likely that I’ll…” His voice constricts slightly. “Die. And that will be it, won’t it. No more Tom. But you’ll still be here, Lou. I know how much you’ve lost already, but you’ve got to live. You have to find a way to carry on and I think I know how.” He pauses, staring directly at her, piercing eyes, beautiful, full lips. He’s about to speak, then it seems like he’s changed his mind. Eventually, he leans back again and says:

  “Ceasing to be. That’s what we can’t handle, isn’t it. But we don’t have a choice…” he rubs the back of his head, “…not about anything.”

  “You had a choice, you could have told me. Prepared me,” Louise says calmly, her chest rising and falling slowly, rhythmically.

  “I can’t die thinking you’ll mourn me forever. I need you to promise me,” Tom says. Louise doesn’t move but her grip on her glass gets a little bit tighter. “However much I might want to share this with you, I can’t. I won’t have your pity, Lou. I don’t want it.”

  She cracks. A scream slivers out through the rupture, slowly gaining force. Louder. Louder still. She’s a whistling kettle left unattended.

  You always thought of me last didn’t you? Am I supposed to be grateful for this? A DVD goodbye that cheats me of the real thing? What do I get? I don’t get to say goodbye, I don’t get to dump my emotions on you. You died and took away my options, you selfish fuck. I don’t care if you’re dead YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME.

  My name is Louise. I never found Lou sweet. I always hated it. For six months I’ve been wondering what I could’ve done, why you couldn’t open up to me – then you send me this. I don’t want a DVD, I want you. You want me to forgive you?

  And then another thought hits her, one she should have thought of before. Who did he trust to post the package? He didn’t tell her and he didn’t tell Adam. But he must have told somebody. But who?

  For a few seconds, her body is rigid, before all her strength disappears and she collapses to the floor, statue to shredded rag doll.

  Chapter Four

  Adam has always lived slightly in his brother’s shadow. He simply doesn’t shine quite as brightly as Tom… Didn’t shine quite as brightly. God, when will he stop thinking in the present tense? When will the past tense slip easily to mind, accepting what’s happened?

  Despite being identical, their parents had done a good job of fostering their individuality. Once, when he and Tom were little, his mum ordered him a book from Readers’ Digest. Tom had gone to a party and Adam had feigned a bad tummy to get out of it, so he’d been in the back garden alone, holding a stick aloft.

  “Playing Arthur again?” his mum had said softly, touching his arm to get his attention. “I’ve got something much better than that, little man. I’ve got a present for you.”

  In the hallway, between the cowboy swing doors of the kitchen and the glass door of the porch, his mum gave Adam his present: a small red leather book with gold trimming: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. These were the moments that made Adam’s childhood breathable. His mum didn’t say another word; she simply left him staring at the book in his palms. He never asked her why she bought him it. He only knew that it was his special gift, something his brother didn’t have. He read it that night, finishing it by torchlight well in to the early hours of the morning while Tom slept soundly on the bunk above him.

  Adam had kept the book secret from Tom, hidden from him. This was his, something his brother wouldn’t take over or take away. Adam had been enchanted by Mary Lennox’s world and the space in the secret garden that she created, all of her own. After Tom died, this once-cherished memory, so beautiful and important, felt selfish. He wanted his brother back, he wanted to tell him about the book and what it had meant to him. He wishes he hadn’t kept The Secret Garden secret at all. Adam could never have shone there alone. He now knows the world is too dark and lonely without Tom’s reflected light.

  * * *

  On his way to Louise’s, Adam has decided to take the bus to Victoria. He’s now waiting in a long line, trailing out from the protection of the bus shelter and down the street. The sky is throwing water bombs, but everyone is trapped. Getting wet. They can’t move under the shelter because nobody thinks of snaking the queue. Everyone has the same collective fear: losing their place. The clever ones have come prepared, with rain macs or umbrellas. Adam squeezes his jacket around him as the rain soaks through the woollen material. He blinks water and feels jealous of the lucky few underneath the shelter.

  “Nasty day, isn’t it, love?” the woman in front says, snuggling under her
umbrella. “Young guy like you should be walking not taking the bus,” she adds.

  “All the way to Victoria? In this weather?”

  “Aye. Young lad like you.”

  Adam mutters under his breath and turns away. The woman behind him looks like Jackie Onassis and is wearing a tight blue raincoat and enormous black sunglasses. Face fillers.

  She starts singing “Waterloo” loudly. Adam can’t help smiling and catching her eye as she grins back and they continue to crouch in the rain together, wondering when the bus will arrive. When it finally gets there, Adam goes upstairs and sits down, thinking again of Louise, wondering how he’s going to open the conversation, how he’s going to broach the subject with her. The woman dressed as Jackie O, the weird singing lady, sits down next to him and stares uncomfortably.

  “Can I help you?” he says, turning to stare out of the window. It’s a comment meant to shame her but seems to have the opposite effect.

  “I doubt it,” she replies.

  Adam glances at her sunglasses-filled face for a moment and frowns.

  “Why do you wear those? It’s raining.”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t, I don’t even know you.” Silence. Gentle rocking as the bus travels slowly. Eventually: “My brother died,” Adam says. He has no idea why. Jackie studies him for a moment and gently touches his hand. Adam surprises himself by not flinching from it.

  “But that’s not it,” she says quietly, taking her glasses off. Her brown eyes find his and hold them to her.

  “No, it’s not,” he mutters. “I’m in love with his girlfriend.”

  * * *

  Before they met Louise, Adam and Tom had moved to Brighton to go to university. The morning after one party or another, the twins stood in their boxer shorts in their kitchen preparing a breakfast of black coffee. Tom’s girlfriend of the moment was silently smoking a joint and exhaling it in his direction, a subtle way of telling him to fuck off, Adam assumed. Other bodies littered the floor, along with empty cans and bottles.