Title: Prunes and Denture Cream
Pairing: Eh, I guess the lightest hint of Carl/Ellie. DUDE its hardly fanfiction at all.
Rating: Umm…everyone?
Warning: Ugh, my erratic writing style. Slight spoiler. Not being fanfiction.
Disclaimer: I don't own Up, but I do own most of these characters.
Summary: "Unknown to me was that on that Tepui there was a little house next to the waterfall, bright colours faded by time, ageless and nameless, silent and alone." This is the story of the next weary traveller who wished to get lost in the labyrinths of the Tepuis of Venezuela, and be lost in the silence and the beauty and the everlasting peace that was Paradise Falls – the land lost in time. (not strictly fanfiction, to be honest. More a bid at creative writing inspired heavily by 'Up'. Eh, whatever.)
A/N: NOT STRICTLY FANFICTION. Tell me if I should take it down X) Oh, and the writing style is horrific. Forgive me, but I can't be bothered. Anyway, I was inspired greatly by this film because it's so horrifically romantic, and what with Gay Pride and that happiness and Raley and her romantic happiness, I'm generally feeling the romance. So, here is an 'Up' inspired fanfiction, just because that last bit when the cloud shift and you see the house on the edge of the Tepui is just so beautiful and I feel a tear of sentiment coming on. Oh, my! Oh, and I found Breakfast on Pluto today, as well as saw the preview to Christopher and his kind. I'm feeling the gayness worse than yesterday.
OH, and I took on the role of a female, because Cillian Murphy crossdressing just DOESTHAT to you. Weird.
This is probably going to be updated. Perhaps. Maybe. WHATEVER.
Benny pretended to work in a shop down the street, hiding the fact he was unemployed from his roommates not because they particularly cared, seeing as Benny was always one quick with the rent his father gave him per month, but more so that he had an excuse for the hours he spent away. Everyone knew Benny didn't go to college, and thus wouldn't end up in university either, but he was quite happy to look to all the world like an average person, whilst merely being a rich kid who'd moved out at sixteen just because he could. I wasn't anything of the like, having dropped out of college after my first year because I wasn't allowed back in due to my disastrous results, but then deciding to go back and do the first year again because I knew I could do it if I put my mind to it. Now nineteen, I was onto my third year of college and I knew I'd be able to finish it completely now. In between my studies I worked at a small café which was popular amongst older people and also the more studious or artistic type, seeing as the café was the closest to the library. There was no reason Benny came by that café, other than one day he had peered into it and decided to walk in, been satisfied by the relatively cheap prices and sat down staring into the overhead lights and counting the dead insects trapped inside the casing whilst sipping a milkshake. He told us he enjoyed that milkshake, for it was a damn fine milkshake and he'd be back for another, have no doubt about it. Benny was just about seventeen, and though I saw him every day I didn't talk to him besides take his order occasionally when the other two waitresses were bustling about doing other things and that was about it between him and me. He didn't spare me any looks which he didn't give the others, just a few cheeky comments occasionally after his order, and a phone number sprawled on a napkin which most of the time we just throw away, but after a while the cheek turns to charm, and the relentless habit of writing his mobile number waiting for you to find under the generous tip makes you want to keep it because when you think about it, he is somewhat cute.
This is definitely a teen love story, but it is not the usual of boy meet girl, girl loves boy then boy leaves girl heart broken. Well, it kind of is, but not in the manner one would expect it to be. Rather, it is a story of girl meets boy, boy makes friends with girl then boy bounces off on his happy way to Venezuela. Which I would think was unusual enough to merit a spoiler at the very beginning.
Benny wasn't a typical boy. Benny was very much an androgynous idol to people who had no place to go in life, with hair he never made the effort to change, improve or manage, a skinny hunched figure caused by malnutrition and a lack of care, and in his face showed the weight of a thousand years he hadn't lived, and another thousand adventures he'd never been on, and it was all so deep and meaningless that people who paid the kid any close attention couldn't help but get sucked in. The girls I worked with, Maureen and Leslie, always teased me about it, especially when they found that phone number stored in my mobile contacts, saying I had been infatuated with the curse of Benny Davis like quite a few of the university students who hung around and the occasional old person whom he would talk to when he was bored. I guess I had, when I started to think about it.
It was nothing serious. My mind and heart didn't follow him around all day every day, thinking about what he was up to, nor was my heart hurting me when I realised I wasn't with him and likely might never be. Rather, I only tended to think about him in the mornings at work, anticipating his arrival at about nine o'clock and make small bets with the cook about what the boy would order this time. He had never ordered the same thing twice in one week, and almost always surprised us with a new order each morning which was pretty impressive when you consider the size of the menu we offered. I didn't expect anything to come of this crush, and I highly doubted he even knew my name, and I had never dared try to call him, and instead would do what a lot of girls would do in my position – gaze at a small string of numbers for a while and wish I had the courage to press the little green button.
I was quite typical in my own way, with dark hair I occasionally got highlighted with a lighter shade of brunette. I also had a certain amount of sensitivity towards popular fashion, and an adoration of summer dresses and high heels. I owned a pair of wonderful red rimmed wayfarers which weren't really Ray Bans and styled my hair carefully each morning depending on my outfit and my mood. To be honest, I wasn't much different to Maureen, who was a few years older and wore a lot more jeans than I did, and Leslie who wore her hair up most days, but to be fair we were all pretty girls, who often had people wondering out loud what we were doing here. Maureen did the job part time when she wasn't at university lectures and Leslie had a fiancé who earned a lot of money, but she needed a way to stay occupied too and she worked full time and was six years older than me.
Another regular to that little café – which was called Bouquets du Violettes – was a guy called Stanley (or Stan) whom I knew from college. Stanley was your basic guy – with a rough and tumble look, various shades of beard depending on how long he stayed out the night before, almost always unwashed t-shirt and jeans, which were occasionally switched for sweat pants and every so often he'd show up in his pajama bottoms and flipflops. His hair angled itself naturally in every direction and he wasn't usually up early enough to see Benny, but when they were in the café together Stan wouldn't really notice him other than the occasional glance I'd give the both of their hair – both boy's noggins covered in unbrushed, untamed hairs, which were generally a mess and hailing towards the heavens.
I knew Stan through him bullying me all the way through year seven, eight and nine in a way only little boys could, and then, when we both about reached fourteen we either both matured simulateously or teenage mating habits changed for we both realised he fancied me and we were dating by the end of year nine which was something which managed to last upto about half way through year eleven. That was a pretty impressive run for a first relationship (for me, what with Stan having been dating on and off with a few girls since year eight) but we ended in fire and brimstone, arguments, hate mail, bitching behind backs, spreading rumours, dating new people out of spite whether we liked them or not, before realising we were jealous and got back together. Once again, only a few months later we started to argue, and refused to look at each other. The rain of fire started again, and by the end of the year our friends and most of our teachers were sick of it and told us to leave each other alone completely – out of sight, out of mind, with none of this horrible rumor business, and certainly none of that punching Chelsea's new boyfriend in the nose, Stanley – or sit down for an hour, talk things through calmly like adults, and put the past behind you. Whilst the first option sounded quite lovely to us both, it proved trying when we were in many of the same classes (having chosen them for the very reason of staying close together) and eventually it was down to our parents to trick us and lock us in Stanley's mother's dining room to 'talk'. Obviously, it started with a shouting match but somehow it cooled down without us hurting each other and we managed to sit facing each other either side of the table and be quite for a few minutes as we collected our thoughts. He went first saying that he couldn't stand these conflicting emotions – couldn't deal with seeing other people act as my boyfriend where he always had done, but at the same time we just couldn't get along anymore and the relationship between us just wasn't working. He liked me, but he couldn't stand to be with me. Similarly, I admitted how close I'd gotten to slapping his new eyecandies for seemingly no good reason other than the fact they were standing there with him, but that didn't mean I was actually jealous, more that I was missing that past relationship we had shared but I knew I couldn't have with him anymore, and frankly I didn't want it anymore. It was just that constant reminding of what we had shared but didn't anymore that pissed me off do much.
We managed to walk out of that room about an hour later, comfortable with each other enough to hug once before I left and smile and say "See you later", though that 'later' was unspecified. We didn't talk much for the remainder of the year but we had settled somethings which were really in the way of our lives and moving on with them. Whilst I knew he still was a bit uncomfortable with me dating, and me him, we just had to get passed it.
We started talking again the year I dropped out of college and he rung me up when he realised I wasn't there that next year and asked where the hell I was, what was going on? I told him I'd failed everything, and he listened as he never had before, encouraging me when I faultered and coming straight round when I started to cry. Something had changed about him, but I couldn't tell what it was for a while. He got me a place back in college, made sure I wasn't about to go anywhere, and helped me throughout that year to control my time a lot better. He was my best friend again, and if people didn't know us they'd mostly assume we were together. Of course we weren't – that time had come and passed – but once more we were close and to be honest we really were one step short of lovers.
It took a keen eye and years of being bullied by, dating and then being enemies to Stanley to notice what had changed about him in that year. It took intricate knowledge of the boy to notice a more open nature about him, the calmer demeanor (though that didn't mean he wasn't anything but a gruff, tough young man as usual) and the stare that lingered slightly too long on handsome University boys about our age who would wonder in occasionally. I was shocked when I first realised, almost yelling it out to the entire café in my surprise and mild horror for reasons that weren't really those typically accosiated with figuring out your best friend and ex-boyfriend is very, very gay, but he was quicker and just as good as reading me as I was of him, grabbed me by the mouth and then wrist and hissing "Shh!" at me as quietly as he dared. A few seconds passed before he let me go, trusting me enough to be calm, and I was, but I couldn't help but gape at him like a fish.
"What?" I managed to gasp out, and he rolled his eyes, declaring to my boss – the 30-year-old Miss Costello who owned the restaurant and was happily making milkshakes at the time, humming and swaying to the soft music playing overhead – that I was taking my break now, and he sat me down in at an empty table with the salt, pepper and menu sitting between us. "What?" I managed again, utterly speechless. I wasn't homophobic in the general meaning of the word – as long as they don't bother me about it I'm not bothered who they take home at night – but that didn't mean I wasn't allowed to be positively stunned at this new revelation about the guy who was supposed to be my best friend. Oh, and did I mention, ex-boyfriend? That same guy who got jealous of the guys who even looked at me funny, even after we split up? Did I look like a guy to him or something? Did I actually look like a guy? Seriously? It took me a while, what with my internal struggle with horrible new questions and realisations about myself, that Stan was smirking at me like he'd done nothing wrong and was still a completely normal, completely straight, completely not-previously-and-blatently-staring-at-that-rather-wonderful-looking-young-man-who-studies-shakespearean-literature-and-gazed-romantically-out-of-that-corner-window-over-there. "What?" I repeated for a final time.
"Gay." He said. I couldn't even reply to that one.
"Well, maybe not completely. I still appreciate the finely sculptured body of a most beautiful woman." He smiled. I raised my eyebrows at him, saying with my disbelieving body language that there was honestly no way anything but gayness and newly found gay and educated friends could teach him vocabulary like that and then convince him he shoud use it in every day conversation. Especially not when he used to speak like he was talking out of the back of a dog's rear end. He grinned a little bit back at me sheepishly. "Well, maybe completely."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I finally said, and he shrugged.
"Dunno." He said, coughing a little into his napkin. "Why didn't you tell me about that Benny guy?" I had blushed.
Most of the other regulars were people who didn't speak and a few elderly people, but there was one other noticable who was in the same year as me and so quite I never even noticed him until he started appearing in Bouquets du Violettes quite regularly. A smartly dressed lad called Stephen, skinny and a little bit sickly looking, who was studying maths, physics and strangely enough, art, and wanted to be a professional physicist. All this information of which I did not get from him himself, but rather a few more of the talkative guys down in the science labs. Apparently, he was amazing – a genius, who had a gift with numbers, and they practically bent to his will. Another thing he liked was two sugars and only the smallest amount of skimmed milk in his early morning breakfast tea. He came to the café every other morning, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, then on both Saturday and Sunday. Despite him looking as ill as a piece of blackened straw and about as straight edged as a razor with his neatly combed back brown hair and his perfectly done up attire which definitely did not scream out 'college student' (more like 'boy genius with two first full-honours degrees and a paying professional job you won't ever know the name of'), he owned the fullest pair of pale, pink lips, the highest cheekbones known to man and the deepest, bluest, most fathomless cerulean blue eyes God could have ever had handed out to a human being.
Yet no one besides me and the girls seemed to notice him. Even then, it took Miss Costello to dreamily point out the boy who was almost always there. I didn't like him like that, but there was no denying his slightly unusual beauty. I thought he seemed lonely so spoke to him as much as I could as I was taking his order, saying every single time that if he ever needed anything he just needed to holler for me, I was Chelsea by the way, and he usually just nodded and smiled lightly at me, which was also a rather stunning little piece what with that lovely mouth, those gorgeous cheekbones and the slight crinkle in the side of those azure eyes when he did.
The plan I started to form when I was sitting with Stan one Thursday at about seven (God knows why Stan was up at seven. He said he hadn't been to sleep yet and was still buzzing, and to be honest I could believe it. He'd recently discovered a new club which was open until six in the morning and was free entry. Of course the drinks cost a fortune, and come morning you'd be so broke you wouldn't even have bus fare home, but that's the risk and probably half the fun of it) and he was in the middle of this tirade about this girl who'd been stalking him all night which he obviously had no interest in but she refused to believe his absolute gayness until her poor, forgotten and somewhat abused boyfriend marched up to him finally, trying to be a hard guy, and Stan had grabbed his collar and kissed him instead ("Though you should have seen his face when I grabbed him. Chelsea, I tell ya, the guy was titchy, like half way down my chest, and he just went pale when he got close and realised just how fucking tall I was. Girl, it was hilarious. Then I kissed him, and their expressions of absolute horror matched. A beautiful sight. I think Doug took pictures. It'll be my fucking facebook photo."). Whilst he continued on, I happened to catch movement out of the corner of my eye and over my shoulders I saw Mr. Blue Eyes sit in his usual seat just away from the window and Maureen come up to him and take his order, stumbling a bit over her words which proved I wasn't the only one with a crush on a regular. At least I could look Benny Davis straight in the eye when I spoke to him, though admittedly his weren't quite as beautiful as Stephen. I thought quickly about how the boy had never reportedly had a girlfriend, never responded to any of Maureen's advances and was almost nineteen for heaven's sake. I started to wonder as my eyes skipped back to the still ranting Stanley and then back to the profile of the young scientist and I wondered what would happen if they were to meet. Yes, Stephen was a little quiet, but Stan was more than enough to talk to both of them and wouldn't notice much if he didn't get a reply, like right then with me completely tuning out of his raging speech. Then, of course, he did, and spun round to see what I was looking at. My breath caught a little, wondering what his reaction may be to Stephen, but there was none, as if Stan hadn't seen the other male at all. There was a few other times where their timings crossed in which I tried to make Stan look at Stephen properly or vice versa, but my attempts honestly dulled to nothing when neither seemed to care or realise that each other even existed. It was similar with Benny, who never really seemed bothered about making friends with the other regulars in the café who weren't over the age of seventy-nine (slight over exaggeration, perhaps, but it was true enough that Benny never approached young people who didn't approach him first, whereas he seemed to gravitate towards older people and get on with them better).
It was about a month after my initial coming together of the idea, on a Wednesday at about ten o'clock, which was a time where we certainly wouldn't expect Stephen to show up ever, when Stan realised the boy was real. It had been raining pretty much all morning, and Stan had ducked into the café at about half-nine saying he came a bit earlier because he woke up earlier for no good reason and he was so tired and he wanted a coffee full of cream and sugar and other such not manly in any way but still rather delicious and eye-opening substances to wake him up. He said off-hand that the rain was gonna get worse, 'cause there was like practically a whole storm coming over towards us. He laughed at my slightly terrified face, rolling his eyes and telling me it was nothing to worry about. Pretty soon, like he'd perfected his timing, the rain was beating down so hard the customers in the shop weren't intending to go anywhere any time soon, Benny having promptly ordered another full English breakfast and kicked some older art students away from the window seat to stare at the sky and lightning, and the thunder had made me jump and squeal slightly, along with the girls who were clinging to each other behind the counter and another few female customers who were giggling soon after. I was gripping onto Stan's forearm tightly, nails almost digging in, and he was laughing at me in between counting the time between thunder and lightning and telling me jokingly that it was getting closer. The streets seemed to be completely deserted with shoppers who were ducking into the nearest shop and huddling away until it passed. We hadn't gained anyone from outside, until a trembling mass of dripping flesh fell through the door and made us scream again. Benny was the first up, prodding the body with a spoon, but I was the next and was the first helping the poor person up. It was Stephen, his hair unruly and dripping down his face, his eyes drooping and his body shaking and I told Benny who was closest to help me. We hoisted Stephen into a seat together and Benny passed him the remainder of his hot breakfast and tea (of which there was most of it, seeing as Benny had already eaten one this morning and even then he hadn't managed it all). Miss Costello had brought him two towels over for him and his hair, and Maureen a blanket, with someone else offering a coat, scarf and gloves. He accepted them all and wiped at his hair before tugging off his jacket and tie and huddling into the offered items of choice. Leslie had immediately turned up the heating and brought him his regular tea because he was glaring in obvious distain at Benny's horrifically sugared but black mix of Earl Grey and Darjeeling. I couldn't say I felt different towards the boy's tastes. He said thank you to everyone when he felt warmer, and Benny asked him why he wasn't wearing a coat in the first place, you ninny, it's been raining. Stephen said it was only spitting when he left. He hadn't anticipated being asked to run a last minute errand, thus miss the bus and therefore have to walk all the way to college, then be caught in a storm and burst in here instead. I left Benny chatting with him, even if Stephen wasn't exactly the most inclined person to chat back to Benny, and sat down instead with Stan. It took a moment for me to notice that Stan was staring right at Stephen, taking in those same blue eyes, high bones and naturally pouty lips that so many people had fallen for before. I felt myself smirk a little when I saw the look, and when Stan realised I had noticed he blushed slightly and moved on to a different subject, which I refused to allow.
"His name is Stephen." I whispered. "When Benny's left, you should talk to him."
Stan glared at me and shook his head. "Dream on. It's not what you think."
"Uh huh." I smirked. "I'm sure it's not. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt, Stanley my dearest." He growled at me as I pinched his cheeks, and lunged over the table to tickle me mercilessly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stephen notice this, and while I wasn't sure Stan noticed, I knew we were onto something.
Getting them to talk to each other on the other hand was a different matter. It was like me and Benny, whom, despite the whole encounter with Stephen, was still not on casual speaking terms with me. Stephen, on the other hand, he had really taken a shine to, and always sat with him whenever he was there. Benny started asking if Stephen would come every day instead of missing out three days of the morning, and while I knew Stan pretended like he didn't seem to notice, his eyes always slid across and he always perked up a bit in hope. I thought it was adorable, especially when Stan started arriving earlier and earlier. The girls had started to suspect something too, then something even more when Stephen actually started coming in the mornings.
When my bugging Stan had eventually gotten too much for him, he said that he'd talk to Stephen when I spoke to Benny. That seemed like an easy enough deal and when Benny came in that day I made sure I was the one to get to him. Stan had rolled his eyes at me, shaking his head. "I mean properly. Sitting down, introducing yourself, talking about meaningless crap for a while. Got it? I can't just waltz over to Stephen and take his order now, can I? He'd think I'm a right weirdo." I rolled my eyes too, but inside I was on the verge of just saying 'no' with my nervousness. Benny wasn't someone easy to talk to. Whilst he seemed carefree enough, he was a person who was practically the epitome of cool, with his unique styles and varied tastes and genuine free-spirit personality. He was a person hard to compete with and unless you were over the age of fifty it was hard to keep his attention. You could practically see his mind wander to far off lands as he looked at you, and I was terrified of disappointing him by being too boring for him simply by acting as I usually would. It would be so easy just to say no and never go over to talk to Benny properly, but then I look at Stephen's sad, colourful eyes in that pale, morose face, and see that longing in Stan's similarly depressed expression, and I know they could potentially help each other, and therefore I know I have to talk to the hyperactive young Davis.
I make Stan promise to leave when Benny comes, because I'm not going to embarrass myself in front of him and I'm also not having him punch Benny in the mouth if things go terribly wrong and I get upset. That in place, he asks me to take a break when he talks to Stephen, similarly get out of the way for practically the same reasons as my own. I agree.
The next day was nerve wracking. Stan came in early, Stephen not far behind, and both sat in their usual seats which weren't really at either ends of the café, but they were damn near close enough. I wasn't expecting Benny until at least nine, so when Stephen left about an hour after he arrived, Stan left too, after hugging me quickly, telling me good luck, and to ring him later. Nodding, I set about to steel myself for the next encounter.
Benny arrived at about nine forty-five, and ordered the usual from Leslie which wasn't 'usual' at all, and Leslie winked at me largely as she passed me to get his Cola can and tell the cook the in-house weirdo wants everything that can be grilled, grilled in a Panini in three layers, if you don't mind. The cook, a middle-aged man called Jim, said "That kid ain't never gonna eat that, but why the hell not." and set to it.
Meanwhile, I called my break, Miss Costello grinning knowingly at me but not saying a word, and hesitantly I approached him and slipped into the seat opposite. He looked at me with a smile on his face, and it wasn't clear in his expression how he felt about me being there, invading his morning breaking of the fast.
"Hello." I started. "I'm Chelsea." He nodded at me.
"I know." He grinned, and I took that as a good sign. "I'm Benny, but you know that too. What brings you to my table this morning?"
I blushed a little bit. "I just thought it was a bit rude of me to have such a regular, yet not really know you."
"Ah. Well, that's good, 'cause I was gonna come talk to you soon too, 'cause I've been noticing you're serving me a lot more." I wasn't sure if that was true or not, you never know with Benny, but it made me grin regardless. "You also serve Stephen a lot," he continued. "But I guess it's harder to talk to someone who don't talk back. You know, it's nice to have a responsive audience for once." The boy was practically bouncing in his seat now. I could have taken that as either childish or adorable. I decided in the end to just accept it as the boy's general energetic personality. "Hey," he then said. "Are you ordering? Or do you like get food free because you work here? Wow, that'd be awesome, d'you think I could get a job here?" He was beaming with a powerful intensity which could have blinded me with its glow. Then all at once it dropped and I almost jumped at the sudden change. "Or do you need decent GCSE grades? Only thing I got good in was like maths, but even then that wasn't exactly one hundred freaking percent."
I shook my head, saying he probably could if he wanted, what with his investing so much into the daily profit. He sighed a bit at that, smiling again thankfully, as I wasn't sure how to deal with anything but a smiling Benny. "If I help you guys out so much, better not go for the chance of free food. I'd be taking away your income in more ways than one. Three, to be exact. Hey, hey, you know Stephen. Did you know he got like 99% on his physics exam? I didn't even get a pass. Then again, I didn't sit the exam. The guy is a genius."
"No, I didn't know. When was that?" I replied.
"Like three days ago. Did you? You're in his college right?"
"Yeah, I passed."
"Wicked. I would have failed so bad if went to college. You know the only reason they didn't kick me out of my school in like year nine was because my mum practically owns the school system. Dude, she's one of the main governors. Governesses. Whatever."
"Really?" I hadn't known that, though I knew that Benny wasn't exactly poor. I also didn't know he was practically a free-loading delinquent, though I probably should have guessed. I passed half an hour talking with him quite pleasantly, and when he started to calm down I'd manage to slip a few more words in and because I was speaking more he'd get excited all over again. Only when Leslie called me over because she wanted her own break was when I realised the time. I left Benny munching down his horrific looking sandwich which was almost as big as his head knowing he'd never eat it all, wondering to myself if I was disappointed with how it went or not. He wasn't quite who I expected, though I wondered why that was, because everyone knew his track record and knew he wouldn't ever step foot into a schooling institution ever again until the day he died, and that didn't quite sit right with me; me, who was pulled back into it when realising very little came of got getting a proper education now days. Yet, at the same time, Benny was still a mystery, and I could feel his eyes linger on me as I walked away and it made me blush a little bit, and privately think that maybe he was still a little cute, and that delinquents perhaps weren't all that bad.
The next day was Stan's turn, and it can't have gone too bad because when I came back off break, Stan was fumbling with his money in slight embarrassment under the knowing gaze of Miss Costello who thought that the little dare between him and me was amusing, and at the end of the café Stephen was trying to hide a smile behind his teacup. I put my thumbs up at Stan, winking, and Stan flushed bright red before making a snide remark at me and Benny, which caused me to blush and thank the heavens that eight o'clock was no reasonable time for Benny to be awake, never mind here at the café. Between us there were no discussions of what we spoke about because we both knew that what the four of us had said to each other, those exact words, were basically useless. It was all the feeling. It was becoming painfully obvious Stephen and Stan were clicking, and in a way, I guess me and Benny had too, because it hadn't gotten awkward like I had known conversations with crushes to go, and we hadn't run out of things to talk about. On the other hand, Stan had found quite quickly subjects which made Stephen talk, and which Stan was more than happy to listen to. He had then told me that while smart, stick-thin geeks weren't usually what turned his head, he guess this one was different. I said it was those gorgeous eyes. Laughing, Stan had agreed. Then he'd asked, quite seriously, what it was about Benny which had attracted me. There wasn't anything particularly attractive about him, as harsh as that may sound: he looked like a girl, was thinner than Stephen was, and didn't have crystal clear blue eyes which pierced your soul to make up for it, either. I was stumped for a while, often asking myself the same question and not quite managing an answer even to me. I wound up saying that it was probably his smile. It lit up the whole gaunt face, made him sit straighter in his chair, brought alive for a moment. I knew Stan understood, now that he'd been dealt with a similar pack of cards with the same, most beautiful smile.
"Hey," Benny said to me one morning, bouncing up and grabbing me with such familiarity you'd think he'd known me his whole life. "These drama students who sometimes hang around, they wanna shoot this film based on this crazy ass musician which everyone's heard of and yet nobody can recall quite what he sings and wants me to play one of the characters. How cool is that? Will you be my lover?"
Caught in his high-speed train of thought and speech it took me a while to latch onto and really digest the last five words he'd spouted. Behind the counter, Maureen had been listening and had burst into giggles. Benny looked at my saucer-wide eyes, expecting an answer or some form of intelligible speech for a minute or so, before shaking me lightly and clicking in front of my face a few times.
"Chelsea, you okay? Can you hear me? I mean for the film, you know? It'll be fun, and you fit the description. Kinda. Ever considered being blonde?"
It took me a while to identify the pain in my chest as disappointment and not just the after effects of honest-to-god, heart-stopping shock which came with Benny's blatant form of bluntness.
I tried to ring Stan later that night to tell him, because as I grew more tired throughout the day the harder it seemed to contain the anger and frustration and distress caused by that stupid kid setting my hopes up then burning them right down, even though I knew it probably wasn't intended quite like that. But Stan was busy, and only picked up on my third upset attempt. He shouted at me before I could say more than 'hello', saying that he couldn't talk right now, he'd talk to me in the morning, and his aggressive, annoyed tone made me even more upset because I realised I'd upset him too.
The next day I had calmed down, and now was angry at Stan for brushing me off. But even that died down when I saw Stan and Stephen walk in together and yet sit apart, both looking a bit embarrassed, but also quite dazzled. My anger faded into pure hysterics. Both Stan and Stephen weren't too happy. Not minutes after did Benny come in, see me laughing and likewise join in, even if he didn't know what it was for. I was pretty sure Benny had enough people skills to notice the only two not amused in anyway was Stan and Stephen and thus be able to put two and two together. Somehow working as one, I went to Stan when Benny went to Stephen and we told them to not sit so far apart. Almost simultaneously they both stood up, looked awkwardly at each other, before Stan decided he was moving and Stephen sat back down upon realising Stan's decision. Grinning and shaking Benny's hand, I took his order of orange juice "with bits in it" and five hash browns with ten cherry tomatoes. I had lost a quid today on Benny's order, but so had everyone else and it was going into the rapidly growing pot of the money mutually lost on that particular bet, which was nicknamed "The Benny Bank" and whoever next guessed Benny's full order correctly got the lot, and with five people betting a pound on it every day and periodically loosing, there had to be a lot of cash stashed away in that pot and probably held the most money in the entire building.
Benny and I started to hang out a lot more, and Stan and Stephen started to see a lot more of each other as well, and we did end up being in a short film made by some University students who all wanted to go into movie business in various areas. Somehow, in the space of fifteen minutes, they'd compiled a short, but compelling chapter in the life of some odd person who made music I didn't really care to listen to, with three other people besides Benny and me in it. Benny and I were good friends, and he was some wonderful singer and guitarist and what not, and he was having a small and mostly unknown fling with a similarly famous model whom eventually became infatuated with him. By that time, Benny and I had run off and gotten married secretly, leaving her understandably devastated and hatful. I think it received a good grade from their assessors.
I really thought Benny and I could be, especially in those shared, albeit staged, kisses when we stood at a fake alter being watched by support actors and cameras and crew, and he leaned in and I met him in the middle, and he was looking at me, even though I had closed my eyes. I felt it when his grip around my hands tightened, and he held me a bit closer. I felt it when he rested his head against mine when we parted and looked deep into my eyes as people cheered around us. It was like fireworks exploding, like something official had really happened, like another milestone had passed for us. I felt it when we walked down the road, and he asked me what I'd call my kids. I said I hadn't thought about it, though I liked the name Alice, I guess. He nodded, saying it was a nice name. When I asked about him, he grinned at me widely, saying he'd call his first kid Johan, and then his second one Cheshire. His third would be a little girl called Joan, and if then a boy called Vyvyan, and then another girl called Jude. I asked why, and he said it was just such a beautiful collection of names. He hadn't decided on middle names yet, but his parent's names would probably be involved.
Later that day he held my hand again as we headed home, and he didn't let go until I did.
A week later I went round to his house after work, wondering why I hadn't seen him at the café that day, and I knocked on the door of the apartment he shared with two other people, and they were the first ones I saw. One was called James, and James was studiously working at the table by the window with a desk light that was perhaps unnecessary hovering as close to the paper as his nose was, and he was scribbling away at the speed of light as if trying to win against the television in a competition of what inanimate object could be the loudest. The other boy was called Carl, and he was the one sitting in front of the TV, smirking lightly to himself and occasionally turning the volume up to see whether James could beat him this time. James valiantly tried. A short while later, James obviously got to the end of his tether when Carl turned it up again, threw his hands up into the air with a growl of frustration, and then chucked what appeared to be his heaviest chemistry text book, and aimed it straight at Carl's head. Carl protected himself from it, said "What the hell is your problem?" and James shouted, "You're my problem you lazy wanker!" before proceeding to receive a pillow in the face.
"God, get a sense of humour." Carl said, which did not produce a positive reaction from James. The boy threw his hands in the air again, standing up, and then catching sight of me as he tried to walk out.
"Oh, hello." He said, tone changing completely, sounding a bit sheepish instead.
"Hi," I said a little embarrassed about being caught watching their fight. "I'm Chelsea." From the corner of my eye I saw Carl whirl round to look at me.
"Really?" James said, critically studying me up and down. "Oh, I'm James. And that's Carl." He pointed to the man on the sofa.
"Seriously?" Carl said, looking at me but talking to James. "You're kidding. That cannot be Chelsea. No way, Benny couldn't ever pull a chick like that."
I huffed up a little in indignation, and James glared at Carl. "Shut the fuck up, asshole."
"Sorry." Carl realised his mistake and put his hands over the sofa in surrender. "Sorry."
I nodded, then turned to James, though still aware of Carl's amazed eyes on me. "Where's Benny?"
"In his room. He's still packing." James replied.
"What?" I said, eyes wide and tone perhaps a bit too shrill. James started a little.
"You know, 'cause he's leaving isn't he?"
I pushed passed James and through the room, looking for Benny's bedroom. He was easy to find, seeing as his wooden door was both doodled on randomly in a manner that could only be described as 'Benny-like' and it was also swung wide open and Benny himself wasn't too hard to see as he bustled around, humming quite happily to himself.
"Benny?" I asked, and he looked around at me with a wide smile on his face.
"Hi Chelsea!" He smiled, going to hug me, but I stopped him, and upon this action he frowned which I felt was more appropriate to this particular conversation.
"Where are you going?" I demanded, and he licked his lips slowly, thinking carefully about his answer. Why, I didn't know, but it best be a good one.
"Venezuela." He said. I asked him why the hell would he go there?
He said, "I'm going to live on a Tepui."
If I knew what a Tepui was, I would probably be more speechless with surprise than angered, but because it didn't make any sense to me I could only gape at him in bafflement and pure fury. "What?" I growled.
"They're like table top mountains, 'cept at the top they're not smooth or flat at all, 'cause they're covered in like weird rock formations and sinkholes and like planets and animals unlike any other on this earth, and they're up to 700 kilometres or something high, which is tall as hell, and there is like 115 or something, and I'm going to climb every one of them and then find my favourite and live there and it'll be awesome and –" I covered his mouth with my hand and glared at him.
"Shut up. Why are you leaving?" He looked down at my hand which I was forced to remove before he answered me. He took both my hands in his and looked at me very seriously.
"I don't wanna stay here anymore." He said, looking at me sternly when I opened my mouth to interrupt. Quickly, I shut up. "I don't want to be around people, Chelsea. Some people, like you and Stephen and my parents and James and sometimes Carl, you six are wicked – best people ever. But people irritate me so much, and I just wanna get away. You know, most of those Tepuis have never had people climb up them before. I don't wanna be the first to do it - I wanna be the only one to do it, at least in my lifetime. Think how lovely it would be – just me, rock, fog and flash storms. You know, on some of those Tepuis they have such intricate formations of rocks they're like a labyrinth – a few people have gone in there and then disappeared without a trace. How weird is that? How fantastic. They're not very large either, the Tepuis. Well, they are, but it's not like you couldn't see most of the top from a helicopter. I'd love to go; to get lost and just stay there forever, no matter how long or short forever is."
I threw my arms around him, horrified by his morbid wish of loneliness and despair. "You can't go. You can't just run away from reality like that! From me like that!"
I felt him shake his head where it was pressed against mine. "Don't be daft, Chelsea. I'm not leaving you. Not really."
"Yeah, you are." I said, starting to cry into his chest, and as he felt me shake from sobs he was stunned by it and frozen in place by his shock. He lifted up my chin when he came back to his senses, and rubbed away some of my tears as they continued to fall. A pale t-shirt he'd been holding dropped from his fingers and landed softly on the floor. He traced my cheeks and rested his head against my forehead, sighing and smiling lightly, shaking his head a little and muttering distantly to himself in a whisper too low for me to hear.
"You're insane." I managed to choke out. "You're insane and I don't want you to go away from me." And he pulled me closer, embracing me tightly, and I dug my head into his shoulder. "Don't leave, please, don't leave." He was shaking his head again, and feelings in my heart swelled when I realised he wasn't going to go. "You're not leaving." I marvelled, tears flowing for a new reason all together. "Oh, thank god, you're not going!" And through the tightness of his grip I could feel the grip of hopelessness and anguish around him, but it softened eventually when he realised he'd made up his mind and accepted it. I couldn't let go of him for a long time.
We weren't immediately dating, and when we were we took our time. I only moved in with him when five years after we'd been going out he asked me to marry him. He worked at the IKEA store a few miles away because he said he loved that shop something fierce, and I had long since gone to university and gotten a degree in Sociology which somehow led me to a rising career in journalism, of which I was very proud of. Obviously, since Benny was the spoilt child of two very rich parents, he probably didn't have to work, but found after a few years, pretending wasn't fun anymore and so had actually found some income. Of course, his parents had treated him to a beautiful bungalow in the suburbs which we lived in when we became engaged (but he bought the ring all by himself), and then, when we were married a few years later, the Davis parents gave us a house for the family which may soon be arriving, hint, hint. We didn't try for children for a while, though, and when one started to grow inside me it was totally unexpected. Not knowing what to do about it, Benny was possibly more panicked than me at first, sitting me down, making me breathe slowly, treating me to fattening stuff I didn't have cravings for yet. After about a week I sent him to live with James and his wife Lailah and called Stan and Stephen round who had managed like me and Benny, to stay together, though they had a few more bumps down the road than us. At the end of it all, Stephen was an up and coming brilliant physicist as he'd always wanted and Stan was a producer. They had a big house all to themselves and were quite happy together, even without a civil partnership to officially bind them. Stan, when he heard the news, took it about as bad as Benny did, and Stephen had to bodily kick him out, which was still impressive when Stan was bordering on six-foot, and Stephen was still skinny and only five-foot-six, only a small bit taller than me, but he still had those amazing eyes.
"Pregnant, huh?" He smiled lightly. "Well, I didn't know Benny knew how it all worked." Which was a playful jab on both Benny's intelligence which, admittedly, did leave something to be desired, and also his age, which was a few years younger than the rest of us. While we were twenty-seven, with Stan closer to twenty-eight, Benny was still only twenty-five, and while that didn't seem much of a difference now, it was all the difference when we first started dating with me at almost twenty and him still only seventeen. It was a cradle-snatcher joke Stephen picked up as soon as he heard we were dating, and one he hadn't ever dropped. He meant it in the nicest way, of course, though. He promises.
"Stephen," I had told him. "I am freaking out. I dunno if I'm old enough to be a mother! Or if I can be one at all! Not like Benny's helping, running around like a headless chicken, and oh my god that man is going to be a father."
"A terrifying prospect. Let us pray the child has your sense as well as your good looks." Stephen said. "How many times have you done the test?" He then asked calmly.
"About fifty times. Seriously, Benny wouldn't stop asking, and that was even after I had done like twenty. They're in a heap in the bathroom – just this horrifying pile of blue. We haven't dared move them in case they miraculously change their minds and decide I'm not pregnant."
"And that is both disgusting and amusing, albeit mixed somewhat with mildly hysterical. You do know you sound about as insane as your husband, yes?"
I nodded weakly, feeling a little overcome. "Stephen, I'm going to be a mother. And the father is seriously hyperactive to a point where it has got to be a medical concern. You don't think it's genetic?"
"It could be. Then you'll have to deal with two twitchy children." I could never tell if Stephen was being sarcastic. I thought for one insane moment about Benny and his suggestion of a sarcasm sign. "But then again, it may be your fault for breeding with the energetic weirdo."
"Thanks." I muttered miserably, wondering if we were really fit to be parents. Stephen sighed and sat down on the settee with me.
"Look," He said in all seriousness, which, to be fair, was his usual tone. "Benny is crazy, and you are too for marrying him, but then again you're also two people who have managed what, almost seven years together, which is better than Stan and my own relationship, and not many people last this long, and without kids as well. You're doing well at work, not that either of you really need to work what with mama and papa Davis just itching to write you cheques for anything your little hearts desire, and now you've got another little desiring heart whom they will go gaga over, and for some reason you're worrying? You don't find many people as stable as you two, even when you're both, in my opinion, critically unstable."
I punched him lightly on the arm, and he patted my stomach in an almost analytical way, like I was a specimen he was studying, and for that I punched him again. He smiled, and handed me the phone. "I think you need to call back Benny. And then maybe it's high time to invite the parents round for a meal of enlightenment – that they're going to be grandparents."
Of course both my parents and Benny's were overjoyed, with Benny's father Russell slapping Benny on the back heavily which knocked the wind right out of him before hugging me tightly and grinning ear-to-ear, telling me of his delight. Similarly, Benny's mother Allison was in tears and hugged me before hugging Benny and then embracing my parents before sobbing on Russell's shoulder. My mum, Marilyn was on the verge of tears herself and my father Peter announced a toast to Benny and me, and the baby makes three. Benny, once he had gotten over the shock and finally realised this was happening when Allison dragged us both baby clothes shopping one Saturday, couldn't stop bouncing and as the months progressed on he got happier even as my hormones got steadily more out of whack and I would sometimes get irritated with him. He'd just drag me into a music-less dance, humming and smiling and I would fall in love with him all over again. He was going to take the time off with me – like he needed the miniscule amounts of money from that job, and might even go back to night classes if he could and then maybe enrol in some mature courses at a University if he got decent enough grades. He was going to contribute to making this child as spoiled as possible, no doubt. He held my hand as I gave birth, though apparently he almost fainted, and was the one to hand me my child and the first person I saw when I woke up later, with him holding a big balloon and a huge teddy bear which said "I'm a mother!" with an overly large card to match saying "CHELS MY DARLING WIFE, IT'S A BOY though you already know that AND WE HAVE OFFICIALLY CALLED IT HIM JOHAN DAVID PAUL. WELL DONE, YOU BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING, FANTASTIC WOMAN. I LOVE YOU!" All capitalised, all bold, all brilliant and colourful and supportive and beautiful, and I threw my arms around him even when perhaps I shouldn't have and we had huddled around Johan David Paul and he was the most beautiful thing you could have ever seen, with a splash of curling black hair and the largest, darkest eyes which could have belonged to either of us. He would stare up at us lazily, and Benny was just so cheery he couldn't contain it. We had gifts piling in on all sides, from Benny's family and my family and friends and associates even, and random distant business partners of Benny's father and even the school Benny went to and failed at sent some flowers, possibly under influence of Benny's mother.
Benny proved to be nothing short of a fantastic father, with his enthusiasm and excitement never stopping him, and I found it easier than expected, which I presumed was possibly due to maternal instinct.
Not two years later was I pregnant again, and this time we only panicked slightly. We wondered if we could handle two, but Benny steeled himself to the idea and started getting excited very quickly. She was born a girl we called Cate Julie Joan and Benny thought she was the most beautiful thing in the world. Johan thought she was weird, but he was only a two year old.
On the work front, I was writing articles from home with the help of a few researchers who would go out and help me collect interviews and comments as well as photos and leads. Benny was thinking about taking evening classes to get a few A-levels and perhaps eventually try for some mature student courses at a university. I encouraged him to do so, but he was hesitant to return into the world of learning after almost eleven years.
Three years later, when Cate was three and Johan was five, we had another – a girl we called Alice Anne May, and I told Benny I didn't want anymore, especially when Cate started to get jealous and violent towards her little sister. Benny, who I had always known wanted a big family, didn't quite know how to express his disagreement in words, and I regretted telling him my decision because his eyes showed all the pain he felt. He merely nodded, picking up Cate who was pleading for attention and taking her into the living room and putting on a cartoon for her.
The children grew and Cate showed a talent for dancing early on, going to classes of all types of dance and always saying how she'd grow up to be a ballet dancer, like the ones daddy took her to see that one time. Those Russian ballet dancers! Johan was diagnosed with a mild type of autism, which it was also found Benny had, which caused Johan the difficulty at school in everything but numbers as his father. Benny had taught them all maths when they were younger because he was good at it, and whilst the girls and myself had actually found his train of thought hard to follow, Johan had latched onto it quickly. This was because Benny and Johan thought in a different way which made logical things like maths and numbers a doddle to both of them. Johan had found a particular interest in computers and him and Stephen, who was one of three godfathers to him, along with Stan and James, found it an enjoyable pastime to pick apart programmes and rework them into new things. Finally, my dear little Alice loved the stars, wanting to be an astronaut, but she also had a talent for cooking, baking especially, and often joined me in the kitchen at night, waiting for Benny to get home from the classes he had eventually decided to take.
Years sped past in our happy little family, and we had nothing which hurt us. In fact, it felt like nothing bad could reach us at all. We moved to London when I got a promotion and became the Editor in Chief of British Vogue, which was cause for celebration all around, and Benny had by then managed to study his way into a business course, and he did it full time along with Johan who had done a maths degree, understandably, and was soon to be working from home for a big computer company based in Tokyo, Japan, but which spread across the world. Benny was going to get a position in his father's company once he'd finished his course and was happy to be a part of it all, at last. His father, now that we'd moved, was planning to move the head of his company to London after us, following his son and grandchildren. It was soon found that Benny had a knack for organising as well as numbers, and did a lot in the way of travel arrangements.
Meanwhile, Cate was studying close to home too, getting in at the Royal Ballet School, London, as she'd always dreamed and luckily as we could afford, and Alice was studying Biology, Chemistry and Physics in College. She already had a part time job under Stephen's company.
As they grew even older, Cate received an offer for the Moscow Ballet which she immediately accepted, and we all went over a few months later to see her first performance. Cate was always one to make sure she was home for the holidays and kept us all very happy.
Johan was too much of an introvert to really leave us all, but he had found a girlfriend whom had managed to make him leave his shell and he moved in with her when he was 24. Alice was now studying physical sciences in University. The same year, Benny's father died at the age of 74, and left everything to Benny. Benny, panic stricken, grieving and having to deal with his mother who was completely besides herself with her loss after being married for almost fifty years, felt the weight of the world and collapsed a week later after Russell's funeral from stress, a lack of sleep and malnutrition, scaring us all half to death.
At the time, I was forty-one, Benny thirty-nine, and it was understandable that he had caved under illness, for he suddenly had a whole company along with three children, a mother, and very little preparation to make him the head of the company itself. He was also angry over the fact everyone there would repeatedly call him by his full name which I had only known due to it being on our marriage certificate, that full name being Bartholomew. I had told him Benny isn't even short for Bartholomew, it sounds nothing like it, to which Benny replied "That's exactly the point." To be honest, I liked his name. It suited him in some strange way.
I retired at sixty, with my son being thirty-three and founder of his own software company, funded and always backed by his father. Now married, settled and with two children of his own – the beautiful Kara at four and young Luke at one year old. Cate was thirty-one, the leader ballerina, touring the world and constantly sending us postcards from beautiful places we had never been to. Alice was twenty-eight and opened her own chain of restaurants despite her scientific degrees, and we ate there most nights. She has two children herself, two little boys, one three and one the same age as Luke called Christopher and Darren respectively. Benny was still heading the company, still energetic, still absolutely insane with hyperactivity and new ideas. Completely used to being at the head of his company by then, and thus comfortable in his high status position and booming with success.
Benny retired seven years later, at the age of sixty-seven, due to a glitch in his health – a repeat in what happened when he was thirty-nine after his father died. He had left the company to the children, though they're not sure what to do with it, and had left it in the company's board's hands until they decide. I was the one who made Benny retire, even after his stubborn refusal to all his doctor's pleas, but Benny could never say 'no' to me. He settled down quickly enough, but he also got bored quickly. The doctors all said that rest would ease the pains Benny was experiencing, and eventually they'd go away completely. But, as usual with Benny, things refused to be as simple as that. The forced rest and constant calm he was made to endure caused restlessness and despair, which in turn made his condition worse with the new stress of feeling useless and helpless.
He ended up not eating, and when he was transferred to hospital he got sick of being told what to do and refused to follow the doctors and nurses orders until he was bodily strapped down and forced to eat. Naturally, this made him even worse. He held on just long enough to see me one morning spring morning, just waiting for me to hold his hand, to rest my head against his, so he could kiss me and smile at me one last time, to tell me once more what I always knew – that he loved me and he loved our children and he loved the grandchildren, and I told him not to leave me. He could do nothing but smile and say that he wasn't leaving me. Not really. We still had the memories and he couldn't remember a single one which was bad.
He was gone minutes later, and I was found by the nurses sitting besides him and holding his limp hand, wondering what to do now.
Everything was left to me and the children, but money meant nothing to me, and all it did was make sure I could send him off in style. I couldn't see a life without him – couldn't imagine a way forward without his grinning face in the morning and the waft of Earl Grey, Darjeeling and teeth rotting amounts of sugar to greet me. Nothing could bring him back, nothing could fill the hole in my heart which was shaped like him, nothing could quite make me realise that after forty-eight years together, first as boyfriend and girlfriend and then as fiancées and then as husband and wife, now I was a widow and could only find a bit of peace in having the growing grandchildren over as often as possible. Since Benny passed away, Cate was also home more, making sure I was okay, which I honestly was. I was just lost.
Months passed, which consisted mostly of me spending my time flicking through photo albums and helping everyone move on instead of myself, and I happened upon some clipping Benny had put together in a smaller and older photo album I'd never paid any mind to before because it was always just there and always had been. I saw them in those clippings - great mountains jutting up from the sky, and as I looked at them I remembered a long ago, long forgotten conversation when Benny had been as desperate and hopeless as he had been in those final months before he died, but back then he had a plan to escape to the most remote points on earth where no one else had ever stepped – willing to get lost in endless mazes for the peace and the quiet, and I wished I could remember what they were called.
"They're in Venezuela," I told Kara, who was now nearing on twelve, and loved geography, having her own atlas and encyclopaedia of the world. It had a huge sixteen double-page spread on Venezuela, and Kara found that they were called Tepuis. Tepuis were were huge tabletop mountains which are the remains of a large, sandstone plateau which boarded somewhere and somewhere else which just went in my ear and out the other. Kara spoke at top speed about her passion, totally in her own zone, this and animals being most definitely everything she loved in her little world which was always growing at the rate she was learning, and I wondered if she'd like to go with me to them - to where Benny was going to go and never returned had I not stopped him.
And it was that thought which pushed me forward. I was going to go there, and I was going to live the adventure Benny wanted, without, maybe, the whole getting lost in the mazes of rocks. I asked Kara to do some more research on Tepuis for me when she got home which she promised she would. That night I discussed by idea with Alice at her main restaurant here in London, and she listened closely before she made a judgement.
"If you go, I'm going with you." She said.
"But, the boys," I said, referring to Chris and Darren. She had recently divorced Tony, the boy's father, and she had received full custody for the moment whilst he went to rehab for drug use. The boys were ten and eight. Alice sighed. Similarly, Cate was in the middle of a worldwide tour, and Johan was unable to leave due to Kara and Luke. I was happy to go alone, but my loving children refused and would not allow me to go.
When I was seventy-seven, I had lost all hope in going to Venezuela. Kara was twenty-one now, and studying at University, and Luke eighteen, and Luke was showing distinct interest in his grandfather's company. The children had thought to give it to their own children, and it was very likely to now go to Luke, seeing as Chris wanted to be a hairdresser or barber and was training to do it, and Darren was thinking about Alice's company instead of Benny's.
Kara surprised me one day, a few weeks after term had ended for her, when she came in waving some tickets. "Me, you and aunty Alice." She said. "We're going to Le Gran Sebana!" Which meant nothing to me until I saw where 'Le Gran Sabana' was in the leaflet she'd brought along with her. We left at the end of that week with as little as we could take and Benny's ashes which were sealed tightly and ready to be see the Tepuis he'd so loved.
We took two planes and about three bus rides to get there, and when we did we were awed by the awesome size of the Tepuis. If we were younger, we probably would have made the climb up there, but instead, seeing as I was getting on in my years to say the least and Alice wasn't getting any younger, we took a helicopter up to a few of them. We were headed for the main attractions first, starting with Auyantepui, which was the largest, and going over Matawi Tepui, Autana Tepui, Ptari Tepui, Sarisariñama Tepui. Finally we went over a large crescent shaped Tepui, and it had the most breath-taking waterfall. As we hovered closer, I noticed something small besides the mountain side, and Kara and Alice leaned over too when I called out to them if they could see what I saw. They squinted and strained to look, and we were sure it looked a bit like a house. We said it couldn't possibly be, and called to ask the pilots, but the combined weight on the door caused it to swing open all of a sudden, and I was pulled out of the helicopter. Kara, who sat besides me and who had sensibly not unstrapped her seat belt in order to speak to the pilots, grabbed onto me in a panic; complete instinct. I clung onto her as Alice also went to grab for me, and they helped me clamber back into the helicopter as the pilots straightened it out to further help me, shouting in Spanish. As they did so, I saw Benny's ashes which I had put down by my feet slide out too, and I couldn't even make a wild grab for them to save them as I was instead holding onto Kara.
"No!" I screamed as I watched them fall thousands of feet towards the forest. "No! Benny!" And I started to cry. My daughter and granddaughter pulled me into the helicopter and strapped me in, and I saw through my tears Alice knew similar feelings to me, and she too was close to crying for that was her father falling down into nothing. Kara, who couldn't quite remember Benny herself, knew him from my own stories and she knew my distress as he went. We all watched, anticipating his disappearing into a speck as he hurdled closer to the ground, and Kara was gripping my hand tightly. We watched him reach the top of the Tepui and undoubtedly smash and scatter all over the place, and we hovered there above it until I felt I could go. I never wanted to, of course, I wanted to go down there and pick him back up speck by speck and keep him close, but I also knew Benny would have never wanted that; never wanted to be holed up in the ground or smashed up into a vase. So, instead, I wished him a farewell, closed the door, and let the helicopter take me away.
At home, I was even emptier when I looked up to the mantelpiece and saw even his urn gone. Johan, who had always been closest to his father due to their likeness was at first horrified at the news, but grew to accept it as I had, and he knew as well as I did that he would be happier with the thought of himself free to blow away in the wind, rather than cooped up in a pot forever.
I knew when I died I may even join him, but until then I would do as he would want me to do – watch my grandchildren grow up, be there for my family, and just live my life. I settled into a comfortable routine, and was able to let him go slowly. I never let his memory go, but I knew it wasn't going to be too long until I saw him again. Until then, I could wait and enjoy what was left of my time.
Unknown to me was that on that Tepui there really was a little house next to the waterfall, bright colours faded by time, ageless and nameless, silent and alone. Benny surrounded it, spreading over the entirety of the Tepui as he was floated away by the winds and the rains, and there he gave that lonely old house company. He wasn't lost, but wasn't trapped now either, and was free to be who he was – another weary traveller who had lived their adventures and was now waiting for their loved ones and fellow explorers who'd travelled through life with then to join them at the heaven which was Paradise Falls.
The end.