She frowns, but too late; he saw the break, the crack in her eyes. ‘No, it’s not.’ She pulls her hand away.
‘You haven’t forgiven me for Singapore – that’s what this is really about.’
‘Oh God, Ed!’ she shouts now, slaps her palm down hard on the table. ‘You always have to make everything about you, don’t you?’
She’s angry and that’s fine. Eddy just feels tired and sad. His swollen heart stunned that he is at last listening to its frantic beats.
‘I can’t go on like this.’
‘You mean, you’re tired of being wrong the whole time.’ Anna tries to scoff, sound dismissive, but it’s unconvincing.
‘Yes, I think you’re right,’ he agrees. ‘I am tired of feeling wrong the whole time.’
‘It’s hardly my fault we haven’t moved on!’
‘No, you’re right. It’s not your fault and I really, wholeheartedly believe that. But I don’t want either of us to wake up one day, eighty years old and still angry, still full of bitterness.’
‘What are you saying?’
Eddy feels like he’s pushing a pin into the airbag of his heart as he says, ‘I want to move out.’
Anna looks horrified. ‘That’s not fucking funny, Ed,’ she growls and Eddy, his cheeks suddenly wet, shakes his head and says, ‘Anna, darling, I’m really not joking.’
She lifts her hand and for a moment he thinks she might slap him – she has before – but instead she says, ‘You’re crying. Why are you crying? You never cry.’
She takes a step away from him, like she’s frightened of his tears, and he shakes his head because he really can’t believe it either.
‘Blakey!’ Anna says, too loudly, moving swiftly towards her son, play-acting normality, as Blake walks in his slow, languid way through the back door. Blake puts his hand out to stop her getting any closer; she freezes, surprised. ‘Have you been out trick-or-treating?’
He doesn’t move and ignores her question. ‘I just met up with Lily, Mum.’
Her arms droop slightly.
‘Who, Lily Matthews?’ She’s pretending she doesn’t know about the two of them, trying so hard to act normal.
Blake nods.
‘Why on earth did you go to see her?’
‘Because I like her, Mum, because I really like her, and I wanted her to be my girlfriend but you’ve fucked it up. Totally fucked it.’
Anna looks briefly to Eddy, perhaps wanting him to say something about Blake’s swearing, but he won’t. Anna shakes her head and says, ‘No, Blake, you don’t understand.’
Blake’s fingers become claws by his side. ‘She told me just now, Mum! She doesn’t want to go out with me any more and I know it’s because of the bullshit you said on the radio. She’s acting calm but I can tell she’s really upset. She doesn’t want to get mixed up with the whole thing.’
Anna looks again towards Eddy who’s standing now, next to the table. She’s frantic for support but he shakes his head. He won’t do it. He can’t defend her in this.
‘I didn’t know you liked her …’ she lies weakly.
‘No? That’s because you were too busy trying to ruin everyone else’s lives instead of listening and looking after us.’
‘That’s enough!’ Anna is shouting now. ‘You don’t get to talk to me like that, Blake! I’m doing all this – ending friendships, putting myself on the line – why? To keep you and your brother and every other kid in this town safe.’
Blake is shaking his head; he’s got fire in his eyes. ‘Mum, Uncle Seb messed up! He admitted it! Have you never asked to be forgiven for a mistake? Is your life so pathetic that you can’t move on?’
‘He used school property, Blake, he …’
‘You buy all kinds of crap on your work laptop! You’re such a fucking hypocrite!’ He shoves past Anna, ignoring her ranting behind him, and is heading towards the stairs when he glances at Eddy, and Eddy catches the moment his boy sees the tears that are still streaming down his face, settling and glistening like dew in his beard.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks Eddy, suspicious suddenly. ‘Why are you crying, Dad?’
Eddy tries to smother the tears with his hand but it’s too late.
‘You guys have been arguing, haven’t you?’
‘Blake, this is a really crazy time, there’s so much going on …’ Eddy mumbles but Blake won’t have it, won’t have any more bullshit.
‘Are you moving out again, Dad? Is that why you’re crying?’
Eddy can’t answer, all he can do is cry and say his son’s name. Anna tries to take Blake’s arm but he shakes her off again and, keeping his focus on Eddy, he says seriously, ‘If you leave, I’m coming with you.’
‘Blake, no, that’s not …’
‘Fine. Well, then Mum should go; and you, me and Albie stay.’
Then their son looks at Anna with an expression Eddy has never seen from him before, lips curled, eyes narrow as he says, ‘She’s the one who’s ruined everything for us and for Uncle Seb and Rosie. She’s the one who’s publicly lying about me, her own son! She isn’t safe to be around any more. You hear that, Mum? I don’t trust you and I don’t want to be around you.’
Then, before they can see his sorrow crest through his anger, Blake walks through the kitchen and back out, into the night, and Eddy has to hold Anna back as she cries out his name again and again.
They sit silently in the wreckage of their marriage, Eddy untethered by the simultaneously shocking and grounding revelation that Blake has chosen his side. The doorbell ricochets around the stillness and despite everything Eddy still puts on a show – wolf mask on, snarling and growling – for the trick-or-treaters. Just as Eddy closes the door and goes back to Anna, he hears it. The noise of a plane about to crash. A high-pitched whine of something unnatural, something that is about to explode and cannot be contained, something that shouldn’t be so close, something that is about to change everything.
Chapter 21
Seb hears the first scream from the fireworks as the front door clicks closed behind him, Rosie’s crumble tucked into the crook of his arm.
It doesn’t sound real at first. It’s a TV turned up too loud, the neighbours’ Halloween projection going wrong, maybe a teenager trying to freak out their friends. But then it comes again – the long howl followed by staccato bangs that Seb feels deep in his heart is unmistakable. It’s a sound that belongs in soggy fields, up in the night sky, with the satellites and weather and other things Seb doesn’t really understand. It’s a sound no one should ever hear so close.
But the idiot setting off the fireworks is doing it in town.
From the top of the steps in front of his house Seb can see a pop of colour lighting up the sky just above the houses a few roads away, a tail of smoke lifting lazily into the air.
A bolt – painful and sudden – cracks down Seb’s spine.
What the fuck is happening? Why is the sky right by his mum’s so bright?
He jumps down the steps. The movement shakes him awake and he starts running down the rain-slicked pavement, the crumble shattering where he drops it on the tarmac.
As he runs, he passes a group of people in the middle of the road, Halloween masks lifted from their faces, their eyes wincing as they ask each other the same muffled questions.
‘Was that …?’
‘No!’
‘Fireworks? What the hell!’
Seb takes the same route he took just a few short minutes earlier, but this time he doesn’t care who sees him, who might shove a camera in his face and call him a pervert.
And as he runs he tries to ignore the images his brain keeps insisting he must see. Eva flicking lights on in the sitting room before walking into her kitchen to heat the stew. Rosie kicking her boots off in the hall, the kids following, limp with exhaustion behind her.
Back at Eva’s, her message said. Are you coming?