Page 49

‘I asked around and made some phone calls. It’s not like you’re in witness protection.

’ He laughs, but nobody else does. I feel Beth’s arm tighten around mine protectively.

Seeing him next to Charlie is unbearably stressful, and the difference between them in every way possible shows me I was right to move on.

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ I tell him.

‘Well, you have to…’ Paul continues, his expression furious .

I see Charlie’s back straighten at the change of tone.

‘I have to, do I?’ I retort.

‘Yeah, because you’re still my wife…’

Charlie

‘Oh my god, I’ve found it. It’s a group photo from about two years ago – that’s her wedding.

She’s married, Charlie. She had a wedding.

I like her dress…but this is not on. Did she really not tell you she was married?

Sometimes I tell you stuff and you forget.

’ Brooke does very angry laps around the kitchen while she’s on her phone, doing this deep dive into Suzie’s life, as we pick on chicken in our kitchen.

Paul. She’s married to a man named Paul.

She never told me this. That’s stuff you remember.

She didn’t wear a ring, she didn’t allude to it at all.

I wish I’d got Brooke in to do a proper excavation of her social media before now, but this still feels like something she should have said.

Something I would have liked to have known – especially in the wake of everything that’s happened.

‘Brooke, sometimes he forgets to buy your yoghurts,’ Sam explains. ‘That’s different.’

Brooke pulls a face and shows me her phone.

It is indeed a picture on her cousin’s profile that shows a country house wedding from about two years ago.

Suzie is at the forefront of that photo with a man who I now know to be called Paul, the bridesmaids are in sage.

I feel an ache of anger to see the photo.

I take another wing and stuff it in my mouth.

I knew something was wrong the moment Paul came into view.

I didn’t like the way he spoke to her or the panic and sadness in Suzie’s eyes to see him.

But even worse was that feeling in the pit of my stomach that this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would be.

If they’re still married, there’s obviously something there to resolve.

And it all sounds recent. So much so that instead of staying in that awkward face-off trying to work out if I had any place there, Brooke, Sam and I made our excuses and came back here and got our chicken delivered.

I barely remember the drive home. All I can see when I close my eyes is Suzie’s expression when we left.

There was regret there, and a desperate silence where it was obvious she didn’t know what to say.

If she had, I don’t think I was ready to hear it.

So I walked away, listening to Beth’s voice ringing through the air telling Paul what she thought of him.

Brooke still scrolls through her phone, desperately searching for answers.

‘I think I’ve found Paul’s profile on LinkedIn.

He wears old-man jumpers with his shirt and tie.

You’re better looking than him and I know that’s weird because you’re my brother but if you wore jumpers like this I’d burn them.

He’s a Blue Harbour wanker. I bet his mum still buys his pants for him and he only wears Nike trainers from Sports Direct that are under forty pounds. ’

Sam laughs under his breath but he’s watching me at the same time, how I don’t react.

I know it’s clear from my face my mind is elsewhere.

I told her a lot on that holiday, I unpacked the two of them so she had full disclosure.

I took her to one of my most favourite places in the world so she could share in that memory, to make space for us to start again, getting to know each other.

But she didn’t tell me she was still married.

I realise I don’t really know her at all.

‘He posted a story on his Instagram about two years ago about “love being like a mountain and that they’re only at the base of this momentous climb…”’ Seriously, I am retching. That’s the sort of man who likely has song lyrics tattooed on his arm thinking it’s poetry,’ Brooke says.

I love her loyalty. The way she will attack a man she didn’t even meet. She just glanced at him in a car park and he’s now her mortal enemy. She does it to make me feel better, I know, but I think I need a bit of calm right now, to not have the situation invade my headspace.

‘Want to play Call of Duty in a bit?’ Sam asks me. ‘We can kill stuff? Would that work?’

I beam at him, grabbing his shoulder. Sam keeps it all close.

I never quite know what’s going on in his head.

I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him, losing our parents at such a young age.

I don’t know how he processes emotion and even if he’s happy at times, but I know that when it’s all going to shit, we’ve bonded over computer games.

We’ve logged on to Fortnite in different rooms before and taken on a group of twelve-year-old noobs and shut them down.

The sense of teamwork and accomplishment, meeting in the landing to roar and high-five each other, have been peak moments of our brotherhood.

‘Maybe later, thanks, mate,’ I tell Sam.

He then comes over and does something very weird.

He hugs me. Brooke stops in her tracks to see it as the action is so unnatural.

His arms feel like tentacles around me, he rests his head on my shoulder and I stop eating my chicken to hug him back and realise I’m tearing up.

‘What the fuck is going on here then?’ Max suddenly says, coming into the room with his fiancée, Amy, both of them standing there watching Sam display affection.

I blink continuously to hide my tears as Sam moves away and I look up to greet my other brother. ‘Why are you here?’ I ask him.

‘I was told there was chicken. And big mouth there told me what happened,’ Max says, helping himself to some chips and looking over at Brooke, who sticks her tongue out at all of us.

Amy comes over to give me a hug. ‘Hiya lovely. She’s married?’ she asks sympathetically. I nod. ‘Put on the kettle, Brookie. I need a tea.’ I’ve always liked Amy, she’s a veterinary nurse which explains why she likes my brother. Empathy shines out of every pore .

‘But not married, right?’ Max says as Brooke shows him pictures on her phone. ‘As in, she’d left him, they’re separated, and I guess she had no intention of going back to him?’

I shrug my shoulders. Who knows anymore?

I guess there is a story there and one that I should probably hear before I start casting aspersions over her character, but the truth is, I’m tired and it all feels too raw.

I’m tired from the trip, but I am also tired of relationships and this quest of finding love feeling so difficult.

I’ve been dating on and off since I was seventeen and nothing has ever quite stayed the distance.

Maybe these three reprobates got in the way, maybe I’m just meant to walk this earth alone, like the Incredible Hulk.

I look at Max and Amy now. They met when they were twenty.

They dated, they bought a flat, he proposed and now they’re going to live the rest of their lives together.

I know it’s not that simple, but it should be a lot easier than this.

‘Perhaps. I just feel a little duped.’

‘Says Carlos…’ Max reminds me.

This makes everyone snigger, and I shrug. ‘Maybe that’s the problem. All of it was all built on a lie from the start,’ I explain. ‘Maybe I should have picked up on that giant red flag.’

‘But you met again at school? How do you explain that? It’s fate! How do you explain those cute photos you sent me from Seville?’ Brooke tells me, her bottom lip out to voice what she thinks about all of this.

‘Well, maybe fate is also throwing some roadblocks in the way and trying to tell us that this is a really bad idea. Maybe fate pushes people together, but maybe you can also make the decision to step away and decide it’s not for you.’

Everyone stands around our kitchen counter, quietly swapping gazes with each other. ‘You’re doing it again,’ Max tells me.

‘Doing what?’

‘Not letting yourself be happy,’ he says.

They all look at each other and back at me. I put my hands up in the air in defence. ‘I am very happy. Possibly one of the happiest people I know,’ I say, my face maybe not communicating that emotion.

Max pushes a cup of tea in front of me. ‘Charlie, I remember when I visited you in Seville. You were so happy, the happiest I’ve probably ever seen you. You were so carefree and you had the world at your feet. And then…’

Sam looks down to the floor and I put a protective arm around him.

‘We will always be grateful for what you did for us. You took all of that on, all of it. But sometimes I see how you’re stuck in guardian mode. You forget about yourself sometimes,’ he tells me.

‘You make being here sound like a chore. It isn’t. I’ve given up things but I’m where I’m supposed to be. I wouldn’t be anywhere else. I have love.’

Brooke runs up to me and gives me the biggest of hugs at this point.

‘We loves you, Charlie. The mostest. You know that, but that’s not the kind of love you need.

You also need a life beyond us. One day we’ll be gone and you’ll be old and uncool and on your own and none of us want that.

I don’t want you to be the sad single uncle at my kids’ birthday parties. ’

I look at all of them. All that responsibility filled me with such fear. I never wanted them to feel that grief and sadness again. It felt bigger than myself and was all I wanted.

‘Sad single Uncle Charlie dancing on his own in the corner,’ Brooke repeats earnestly.

‘I remember the time I had a really lovely girl and I let her go because you know, things got a bit complicated. They weren’t quite lining up…’ Max says, imitating me.

‘Why have you made me sound like a Cockney gangster? Why has my voice dropped two octaves?’ I ask.

‘It’s because you’re so sad, you took up smoking in dark rooms,’ Brooke adds .

‘Wanking into a sock,’ Sam adds.

‘SAAAAAM!’ Brooke says, as the rest of us burst into giggles.

‘I don’t mind if you date, you know?’ Sam intervenes quietly.

‘I don’t want to hear you having sex and stuff because you’re my brother and that’s a bit grim, but find someone nice.

I don’t think it’s supposed to be easy, finding someone to love, but it did sound like this might have been a good thing.

Brooke is wrong about a lot of things but there’ve been signs… ’

‘Wrong about what?’ Brooke asks, frowning.

‘Sour cream and chive crisps?’ Max says.

She doesn’t try and defend herself. The man has a point.

‘And do you know what I think?’ Sam adds quietly. ‘I think it’s Mum and Dad up there, making it happen, just moving things around like chess pieces because they want you to be happy, Charlie.’

There’s a silence in that room that takes hold of all of us. A tear rolls down Amy’s face. Brooke holds on to Max at that point. Damn you, Sam. I go over to him and ruffle his hair, kissing the top of his head.

‘Perhaps. You lot seem convinced Suzie is the key to my happiness though,’ I say, in resigned tones.

Brooke smiles. ‘I think you can be happy with whoever you want.’

I look over at Max who’s studying Suzie’s photo on Brooke’s phone.

‘Hold up, that is Suzie?’ he asks. He has a confused look on his face, one I recognise from when he has to work out a difficult sum.

He scrolls through photos until he sees a selfie of the both of us in Seville. ‘I met her. In Mallorca?’

‘What?’ I say.

Amy raises her eyebrows. ‘Babe, do I need to hear this story?’

‘The day after we fell off the bull? When I twisted my ankle. She was in our hotel. I bumped into her. She…was nice. She gave me a doughnut. What’s that word for it…’

‘Bunyol…’ I mumble.

‘Yeah, that’s the one…’

Brooke claps her hands together. That’s another star she’s throwing up in the sky shining down on us. Another way the fabric of the universe was trying to show us a loose thread and weave us into each other’s lives. I have no idea what any of this means anymore.

‘Hold up,’ Amy says. ‘What bloody bull did you fall off?’ She glares at Max. ‘You told me you both fell down a lift shaft.’