Beat the Rain Read online

  “Are you going to work today?” Tom asked. Adam worked in a local record shop on Saturdays.

  “Of course not,” Adam replied, leaning over and taking the spliff out of whatsername’s hand without looking at her. He’d never taken to any of Tom’s girlfriends if he’s honest. If you could call them girlfriends. Before Louise, they were nothing more than teen flings or conquests. But later that day, he and Tom had both gone to the newsagents to get fizzy drinks, hangover food and papers. And there she was: Louise.

  Adam often wonders what would have happened if Louise had seen him first instead of Tom. Adam had been standing by the magazine rack in the newsagents as Tom went to the counter to buy cigarettes, unloading an arm full of Lucozade and Irn Bru and crisps and chocolate onto the counter. Leaning down to pick up a paper, Adam glanced to his left and there she was, standing between the razor blades and the tampons. Her hair was tied back into a messy ponytail, her t-shirt and jumper self-consciously crumpled but somehow, it all worked. She was quite simply the most perfect thing he’d ever seen. Except she wasn’t looking at him because she’d spotted Tom, his identical twin brother. She was staring, mouth slightly open, at Tom’s back. Almost in slow motion, Adam saw Tom glance over his shoulder, as if sensing someone looking at him and their eyes met. Unlike the normal protocol, neither flinched or looked away, they held each other’s gaze, too long, long enough to confirm they were both thinking – feeling – the same thing.

  Adam wanted to cough, to knock something off the side, to do something to break the moment, to force her attention his way and away from his brother. But it was already too late, they were lost in each other. Adam had lost his brother and the girl of his dreams in one silent, unspoken moment.

  * * *

  “Maybe I’ve always loved her,” Adam says to the strange singing lady on the bus. Jackie O smiles and places her hand on Adam’s knee. The bus jolts before it starts moving again. “But she loves Tom,” he continues.

  “But he’s dead.”

  “She misses him.” Adam sits back in his wet jacket and pulls the damp scribbled note that arrived in the post this morning from his pocket. “I miss him.”

  He hands it to the Jackie. “I shouldn’t be trying to step into his shoes.”

  “Is that what you’re trying to do?” She reads the note and hands it back to Adam.

  “No. I couldn’t.”

  “So what’s your problem?”

  “She’s Tom’s girlfriend.”

  “Tom’s dead.”

  “But she belongs to him.”

  “Belongs? Are you sure?” They sit in silence for a moment.

  “Why do you sing?” Adam asks eventually, as the bus pulls in and the doors open. A couple of people get off, nobody gets on. Outside the rain slows but the sun still hides.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s a strange thing to do.”

  “So?”

  “So, people will think that you’re odd. I did.”

  “And am I?”

  “No, you seem nice.”

  “So does it matter what people think?”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “Yes you do.” She smiles.

  “But Tom only died six months ago.”

  “And do you still love him.”

  Adam doesn’t answer – they both know he doesn’t need to.

  “And would he think you were being disloyal?” she continues. He knows where she’s going with it. His heart is beating too quickly, his fear and denial giving way to something else. Hope? Adam glances at the note in his hand, reads his brother’s scrawled handwriting.

  “No,” he says.

  “So what’s your problem?”

  “What will she say? I can’t just roll up and tell her that I love her.”

  “Why not?”

  “She loves Tom.”

  “But does she love you, too?”

  Adam shakes his head and wishes that his travelling companion hadn’t put her large glasses back on. He wants to see her eyes.

  “But she’ll always love him,” he says.

  “And so will you.”

  “So I should support her, not complicate her life.”

  “But what if she cares for you?”

  “She doesn’t. And anyway, what will people think?” Adam says, turning away and looking out of the window. Jackie O shakes her head and sighs. Then she stands up and starts singing Abba songs.

  When he gets off the bus, Adam lights a cigarette. He stopped smoking a couple of years ago with Tom, but after his brother’s death, he doesn’t see the point. It was a good excuse to start again, he supposes. He isn’t proud of it but he does love it. There, he’s said it, the thing ex-smokers are not supposed to say. He loves smoking. He inhales and shoves his lighter back into his pocket. He missed it so much when he didn’t smoke and it wasn’t like the feeling of loss ever went away, it was always there, in the background, day in, day out. There is only so much of that one person can take, he reasons with himself. He can’t bring Tom back but he can damn well go and buy a packet of twenty Marlborough Lights.

  Finally, he reaches the train station and buys a ticket, getting on board with about a million other people all squeezed in uncomfortably close. Adam stands and sweats, trying not to breathe in the smell of an overweight guy in a shell suit pressed up against him. Adam feels sure his moist jacket must be seeping the man’s odour in. In front of him, also pressing into him, is a woman with a personal stereo, loudly playing thrash-metal music. Adam holds his breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Another hour and he’ll be in Brighton. He’ll be with Louise.

  * * *

  A week before Tom died, he and Louise had a Halloween party. When Adam arrived, Louise was still getting ready. Tom was dressed as the Grim Reaper.

  “I’m a Munchkin,” Adam said as Tom ushered him into the sitting room.

  “So I see,” Tom replied. “How is that Halloweeny? Besides, you’re six-foot tall.”

  “Dunno. Was all they had left at the shop. And you’re the prophet of doom?”

  “Angel of Death,”

  “Happy fucker.”

  “It’s more ‘Halloween’ than a Munchkin.” Tom smiled, ushering Adam into the flat.

  “What’s Louise coming as?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Tom said, before being interrupted.

  “The Good Witch of the North,” Louise said, arriving in the doorway, ginger wig all skew whiff.

  Even without the Grim Reaper outfit, Tom would have looked brooding. Adam should have known that something was up, but Louise was dazzling him. Her ginger wig and pink white netting dress was beautiful. It shouldn’t have been and Adam suspects that on anyone else it wouldn’t have been, but somehow Louise made it work.

  Later, as other partygoers shimmered around them, not staying long enough to appear real, Adam noticed that Louise was watching him. When his eyes caught hers she didn’t turn away and didn’t blink. They recognised each other. The dark cloud breaking their gaze wore a cloak and white face paint.

  Of course, this wasn’t as romantic as it would have been in an American movie because Adam did what he always did in moments of stress and got shitfaced. He and Louise shouldn’t have been looking at each other like that, she was his brother’s girlfriend. It would be the biggest betrayal possible. So he avoided her all night and found whatever substance he could to numb any feeling he might be having, weed, whisky, wine, and a pill someone gave him. Anything not to think about Louise and the look she’d given him.

  Later that evening, Adam went out on the balcony, walking a trace, head throbbing. The air outside was cold and his shoes were squeaking, making high pitches over his breathing. He shouldn’t have had that last drink. Not after the last smoke. He was feeling the fear and his anxiety levels were through the roof. The roof terrace had dead flowers along its edge. Shouldn’t someone have kept them alive? His head was throbbing and music was playing in circles, repetition again, again, again. He shou
ldn’t have come, he shouldn’t feel the way he does, he shouldn’t…

  Somewhere in the background he could hear party noises and conversations.

  “Well, I walked into this large study room and there she was, sitting in a large leather chair wearing thigh-high PVC boots and nipple rings with chains dangling from them,” a guy trying too hard to be cool was saying loudly, so the entire flat could hear. “There was a whip over her shoulder and this massive steel dildo in her hand. Well, can you imagine? I didn’t know where to turn.”

  Repeated action, foot after foot after foot, green shoe met grey roof terrace, again, again, again. The trace he was making, his circular pace, curled like a millipede, stretching, getting thinner and thinner until, unable to take the strain, it split and Adam staggered, nearly fell. Was caught. By Louise, of course by Louise. Who else? Glinda the Good Witch of the North. She grabbed his arm, the skin of her palm clammy against his cold forearm.

  “Adam, are you listening to me?”

  He didn’t think so. His jeans were blue, worn and pacing. His t-shirt felt tighter than it should have done, like it was too small for him. What was she saying?

  “Adam.” Her voice from somewhere. He glanced up, stopped his pacing to see Louise, Tom’s Louise, the light from the room behind her carrying partygoers, dancing and shimmering around her. Someone was being sick in the corner. Adam’s saliva seemed to have turned to paste in his mouth.

  “I want to go,” he said. He felt sick, he couldn’t focus on her properly.

  “Have you smoked too much again?” Louise said.

  Silence.

  “You haven’t taken anything else, have you?”

  He couldn’t remember.

  “Come on, I’ll get Tom to take you home.”

  * * *

  That all feels like a lifetime ago, now, but in reality it’s less than a year. Adam’s train pulls into Brighton and, still lost in his thoughts he begins to walk up the hill to Louise’s flat. As he rounds the corner he stumbles into a woman selling lucky heather.

  “Sorry,” Adam mutters as memories continue to overwhelm him. His left fingers play with the note from his brother in his pocket. He’s now less than five minutes away from her and he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do or how he’s going to say what his brother wants him to say.

  Chapter Five

  “I keep imagining the blood travelling around my head,” Tom says. “Like it’s a river that’s slowly becoming blocked. It won’t be long.

  “I’m noticing things, seeing how temporary everything is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that? How can I share this with you? This is mine.” He taps his head with his index finger. “I don’t want to share it.”

  Tom looks at the table in front of him and picks up various books. Louise, a crumpled figure on the floor, lifts her head and stares once more at the television.

  I came home from work and you were dead in the kitchen. Have you got any idea how that felt? You were dead in our kitchen. On the floor and cold. You didn’t have the decency to warn me. Left me lying on the floor with you.

  “He asked questions,” Tom carries on regardless, holding up one of the books. Louise squints: The Last Days of Socrates. “But alone, that didn’t help. So he made people question themselves. Problem is, people fight you if you make them do that.” He pauses for too long. “Death is the only thing that makes you question yourself. Reflect on your life. There’s nowhere else, is there?” He leans forward in his chair and addresses Louise intimately. “Do you remember that room we had in that little Italian village? What was it called? Amalfi, wasn’t it?” He sits back in his chair. “We had fun there, didn’t we?”

  * * *

  Her fingers reach out and stroke the glass of the television set to touch his face. She’s been dreaming of that holiday in Amalfi, their first together. But she never expected that Tom would remember it. It was small Italian village on the coast with a gargantuan church in its town square. She and Tom had happily wandered through a maze of narrow lanes and markets each day, the sun burning their pale skin. The room they were staying in had large windows that allowed the fresh, salty scent of the sea in, along with the smell of leather goods sold on the market, of chilli and freshly brewed coffee.

  “Let’s go to the church,” she’d said one day, making a grab for Tom’s arm to drag him up the ever-long staircase. As she stepped inside, she lost all sense of whether Tom was even with her or not. The intense heat from outside was sucked out of her as she stepped into shadow. Goose pimples argued for space on her flesh, the dominant ones finding the back of her neck and arms. Her eyes searched the vast space before her – the stone floor, the wooden pews, the impossibly high painted ceiling. She heard echoes, of nothing, of something? As she took one step further into the church the light changed and she blinked. The atmosphere, the air quality, got heavier. Her footsteps rippled, her breathing was alien and for the smallest of moments, she was immersed. She stood in the corridor between wooden pews and stained-glass windows, larger than even this church should have allowed. Tricks of multi-coloured light sparkled and moved as if governed by free will, searching for somewhere to rest. In the distance, there was a bang as the heavy wooden door slammed open. The echo rebounded off the walls and Louise had flinched, feeling the tension rising. The peace was about to be broken as Tom shouted to her across the church.

  “Jesus, how many steps were there, I’m knackered.”

  Louise had glanced around, searching the far of recesses of shaded enclaves, looking for somewhere to escape to and reclaim the calm of moments before.

  “It’s beautiful,” Tom continued.

  The church was lost. Louise ran back through the pew corridor and stumbled past Tom through the overlarge doorway into the heat, staring down the steps into the village.

  * * *

  “We should have known in Amalfi, Louise.” Tom’s smile disappears and she presses her fingers tightly to his cold, solid cheek. He swallows, glancing away from the camera. When his eyes find hers again they’re darker.

  “I’m dead,” he says, “but you, you’ve got to start living again. See, I know you, Louise. I love you. But just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean we were Romeo and Juliet. We weren’t. You know that. But Adam,” he pauses. “He loves you, Lou. He’d never shut you out like I have.”

  I can never say goodbye. My comfort died cold on cold tiles. You let me carry on getting bogged down in the little thing and I barely noticed you as you were dying. You should have given me the chance to mourn with you.

  “Do you know what I dream of? Creating a world with only the two of us in. A replica of this world, a retreat, a world within our own that we can visit. A place where this,” he rubs the back of his head, “doesn’t matter. A world where my body can repair itself without killing me.” He raises his glass.

  “But do you know why we can’t go to that world, Lou?” Tom pauses long enough for her to formulate her own answer. She can see their world, this place that Tom has created. She can see Tom smiling and she stands next to him and clutches his arm, warm breeze brushing through their hair. She stares through the market and to the steps of the enormous church. There’s a man sitting at the bottom, turning towards her. It’s not Tom, but she can’t make out his features, doesn’t want to make out his features, she’s been trying to ignore him.

  “Adam. You’d always be looking for Adam.” Tom leans forward in his chair. Louise swallows and stares into his eyes in a way she never could when he lived.

  “You see, the truth of the matter is this. You don’t love me anymore, not like you used to.” He leans forward in his seat. “How can I tell you I’m dying knowing that?” He pauses again before sitting back. Louise is shivering as she pushes herself fully onto the sofa and tucks her knees to her chin, like she used to do as a little girl listening to her parents argue.

  “I’ve seen you and Adam together. I’m not stupid. Oh, my death will confuse you, it will make you pretend that yo
u were still in love with me. You’ll play the bereaved girlfriend.” His tone softens. “I appreciate it, I do. But you can stop now. It’s been six months if Mr. Carmichael delivers this DVD on time. It’s time to get on with your life.

  “I probably haven’t got long left, Lou. And I do love you. Whatever we have or haven’t got, you used to love me. But move on. We weren’t the greatest love affair of all time. You needed someone after your dad, I get that, but don’t build us up in to something we’re not.” He smiles slightly. “For the record I don’t think you and Adam will go the distance either. But at least give it a go. For me?”

  Rain punches the windows. Louise’s heart punches her chest as she exhales chalk.

  “Pour yourself some wine.”

  She glances at the near-empty bottle and smiles in spite of herself.

  “A toast. To life. Your life, Lou. You and Adam.” He raises his glass. “Good health.”

  * * *

  She can feel the heat of the mosaic floor in the Amalfi square through her sandals as the small fountain with leaking cherubs sprays water towards a mother holding her son up to drink.

  “For good health,” the mother says. The son gurgles. Tom, sitting outside a café with Louise, sips his coffee and wears his happy face.

  “Let’s drink from the fountain,” he says joyfully. Louise scowls at him, staring past him to the small shop with large bunches of red chillies hanging outside like fiery grapes. Grandmothers and granddaughters sit in shop doorways stringing these strange attractions together on cotton.

  “Lou. Did you hear me? It’s supposed to give eternal health. Let’s drink.” Tom’s voice irritates her. The future her would love to grab him and run to the fountain laughing. But she isn’t her future self, so she refocuses on him and snaps.

  “Oh shut up, Tom. It’s tourist drivel.”

  “Don’t be so miserable.”

  “Don’t be such a tourist.”

  “We are tourists. What’s up with you?”