A/N:
[1] This chapter is rated T.
Hope you like it :).
iv.
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What we're doing, here, ain't just scary. It's about to be legendary.
Legendary – Welshly Arms
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What Clive doesn't know is: she misses Billy's funeral for another boy.
Doesn't dare tell him, doesn't want the argument, the fight. The day of the service, she's on the road again, somewhere outside London on the motorway, speeding at 80mph like she's the only one there, music blasting out of her speakers (here you go, way too fast, don't slow down, you're gonna cra-a-a-ash). Clive calls; her phone connects to the dashboard in the car, the song abruptly cutting on a high note. "Are you going?" Martha wonders, trying to hide the nerves in her voice.
Clive sighs; she imagines him shaking his head. "No, I'm in court all afternoon. You?"
She pauses. The guy in front of her is driving so fucking slow it's painful to watch; she sticks to the rear end of his car until she wins the glaring contest in his mirror and he finally moves to the middle lane. Fucking idiot, she thinks, re-accelerates. "Can't either." There's a shrug of her shoulders; the words tell Clive but they don't tell him, really, neither confirm nor deny, just let him assume what she wants him to. Martha can't, so it must be because she's in court, too. It works: Clive breathes into the phone; it comes off loud in her car.
"Maybe we can go tomorrow? I mean, it won't be the same but –"
She swallows, heavy; Clive lets his sentence hang. No, it won't be the same, but then Billy will still be dead, won't he? Martha thinks. In truth, she's slightly surprised by the offer, didn't think it'd be something that Clive would want to do, and maybe he doesn't, maybe he's just offering for her sake, but it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like Billy talking to her after her dad died, insisting on the necessity of "saying goodbye." He would have wanted her to come even if she doesn't.
"Yeah, okay," Martha agrees, nods before saying her goodbyes and hanging up the phone, almost missing the exit for Long Lartin. Maybe it's an excuse she uses to avoid having to confront the reality of Billy being put to the ground, maybe she could have gone to see Sean literally any other day, but she likes to think of it as a sacrifice, like her cross to bear.
She misses Billy's funeral for him.
.
They met in Year 7. Blonde, untamed curls and bright blue eyes: new school. Her parents had chosen one somewhat closer to home for secondary (she could go on her own, like a big girl, her father said) and Sean had just moved into a new council estate, his mum having separated from his dad, soon to be on his way to jail for burglary. His little brother, Jimmy, cried all the way through Bolton in the car. Sean, on the other hand, was, as he put it later, just happy he'd stop having plates thrown at his face every time he'd set the knives and forks the wrong way around, come dinner time.
They clicked. Martha doesn't know why, can't explain it, but they clicked fast and real, the way only children can. Over the span of a few months, her mum started referring to them as 'conjoined twins' (she still liked him, back then), jokingly saying that one would never go anywhere without the other. Martha's parents were aware of Sean's family "situation", welcomed him into their home with fresh biscuits and hot chocolate on Thursday afternoons. Sean was polite, thankful: the only way she's ever been able to see him since.
Time went by and Year 7 turned into Year 8, Year 9. Before Martha knew it, they were hiding in someone's attic, playing spin the bottle with a bunch of kids and a boy named Matthew Brown kissed her on the lips (her very sloppy, wet, first kiss). Sean subsequently refused to talk to her for days. Matthew and she lasted about a week (some sort of teenage romance Guinness Book record) and around a year later, one cold November morning, Martha kissed Sean and embarked on what would become the longest, most serious relationship she's ever had.
Clive wouldn't understand that. It's why she doesn't tell him about it, about visiting Sean in prison instead of going to Billy's funeral, or about the thoughts that keep swirling in her head. Clive believes Sean simply waltzed back into her life and turned her entire personality around, turned her into someone deaf and stupid, into someone she's not. The thing is: Sean reminds her of who she used to be.
Sometimes, she wonders if he wasn't the only relationship she's ever had. Jérôme was – well, Martha never really loved him. Not the way she did Sean. With Sean, it was – she remembers feeling like she wanted to spend her life with him, have children with him, be with him, would have put her life in his hands – no questions asked. From ages eleven to eighteen, it felt like he was part of her. Like they grew up as one entity, Martha working to try and pull them up in spite of the numerous attempts he involuntarily made at pushing them down. For years, she was part of a duo: Martha and Sean, in school, at parties and anywhere she went, like her identity would forever be linked to his.
It's weird, remembering that, now, (that intensity) knowing that before he forced his way back into her life with the grandeur and style he'd always sported around her (in handcuffs, of course, to make matters worse), Martha used not to think about them all that much, anymore. It wasn't that she'd forgotten about him (how could she?) but slowly, from the time she left home to the time she got silk, he gradually faded to the background of her life and she stopped wondering where he was, what he was doing (who he was seeing). She'd run into him sometimes, on Christmases after he came back from Afghan and would visit his mates; she'd be in the pub with her friend Jo (the only person outside her family she's known longer than him – Martha's a fiercely loyal animal; she and Jo were together in Year 1) and he'd come over, say hello.
"Sean," Martha would say, the vowels in his name a closed sound, like her father said it.
Jo would roll her eyes after he'd leave, whisper in her friend's ear. "My God. Is he ever going to get over you?"
Today: "Sean," Martha also replies to his greeting as he sits down in front of her and she breathes in, her hands joined over the table to keep them from shaking. She's come prepared, repeating phrases in her head as she emptied her belongings into the box they handed her at the x-ray machines, letting one of the guards pat her up and down for contraband. Martha bites her lip when she sees him, the distraught expression on his face, handcuffs around his wrists before the guards take them off. She wants to walk away.
Yeah, she thinks, shaking her head at the memory. It occurs to her that maybe, she's the one who's never quite got over him.
.
It goes downhill from the moment they start talking. The reasons why they clicked as children are the same reasons why they never did as adults: once they'd grown up together, they outgrew each other, like seeds planted for two different trees on a lot too small for their branches to spread. Sean still lives in a world where the place they stand today can be justified by the lines they crossed as kids, whereas when she looks at him, Martha sometimes can't tell that a part of her identity ever lived inside him.
They sit down and he leans forward, curiously eyeing her face before the words come out of his mouth. "Did you get in a fight?" he asks, amused, a casual smirk on his lips.
Sean, like Alan yesterday, is referring to the cut at Martha's eyebrow, faint but still there, and while she knew Alan's question came from a place of concern, Sean's comes from misplaced curiosity and mild envy. Martha's sick of people asking about it, really, when the words were so hard to find, even with Clive last night, and annoyance is already boiling under her skin after just a few minutes spent with Sean. "Yes," she answers, provocative, because it's true (she did – get in a fight, that is), but also not. Her word is quick and slightly irritated; she reaches under her seat to place a paper folder in front of them, redirecting his attention. Sean puffs out a laugh, leans back in his chair and catches her gaze. There's amusement, on his face, and a hint of pride, too.
"Now, that's my girl," he says. Martha hates him for it.
Irrationally, first, she hates him for making fun of something painful that he, frankly, couldn't possibly know about. If she told him, Sean would likely react just like Clive did. I'll fucking kill him, he'd say, except, well, he probably would. She also hates the possessiveness in his words. He might not have meant it like that (a part of her brain is always very busy trying to find excuses for him), but she's already told him before (once, in his bed: 'I don't belong to you, Sean McBride'), and he should know better. Martha rolls her eyes, sighs, arms crossed over her chest, throws him a glare: stop, it warns. Sean's a lot like her, puts on a front when he's vulnerable, hides the fear in his eyes behind a large dose of brashness and street-smart superiority.
As he speaks, though, she sees one of the guards snigger to his left, and while Sean's words were annoying, it's nothing compared to how angry that makes her feel. It's what Sean wants, Martha knows, what he's always looking for: a crowd, an audience to laugh at his lousy, sexist jokes to hide the powerlessness underneath.
Sean is a shy boy, she remembers, who grew up in the body of a man who's just trying to survive.
In the span of seconds, she goes from Martin Luther King, to Mother Teresa, to full on Rottweiler (well, really, to Martha fucking Costello). Channelling her exasperation at Sean in productive ways, that's something she's known how to do almost her whole life.
"Can I get some privacy with my client, here?" Martha asks, eyeing the guards, pointed and menacing, with authority in her voice she frankly didn't know she could still muster.
One of the guards grumbles as Sean stares, mesmerised. "He assaulted –"
"I know," she says. They don't move. "Look, I'll take full responsibility –"
"Ma'am, with all due respect –"
"Either you leave right now or I step out of this room and call your superiors to make a formal complaint against you, personally," Martha points at him, eyeing the name tag on his uniform. "For not letting me see my client and listening in on our privileged conversation. Your choice."
In the guard's look, she sees the hesitating, slightly disapproving glare Jo sometimes gave her when they were young, in regards to Sean. As it turns out, like most people in Martha's life, she was never a huge fan of him. Hid it better than Martha's mother, true, (who didn't even try to hide it, really, made a point not to), but Martha could very well read between the lines of her childhood friend's words.
One time, the both of them had skipped school to smoke joints at the edge of the local football field, wet grass under their bums dirtying the fabric of their school uniforms. Martha coughed as she breathed in, the roll-up sitting between her fingers for a moment. 'Shit, how much did you put in there?' she laughed, a distinct grassy smell lingering in the air.
Jo giggled, weed-induced, leaning back against the fence surrounding the field, a rattle of metal echoing in their ears. 'Don't worry,' she said with a wink. 'I got a friendly discount.'
Martha laughed, too, the drugs slowly getting to her brain as she took another drag – it had been kind of a while. She shook her head, chuckled. 'Who from?'
Jo went quiet. Very quiet, very quickly. Took the joint from Martha's hand but held it in hers, not smoking, just watching the empty field in silence. The air was misty, like before rain; they could barely see the lines drawn on the grass. Jo looked at Martha, a sort of anxious tone in her voice. 'Sean,' she admitted, quickly, under her friend's inquisitorial gaze. 'Oh, come on, Mar. Promise me not to get mad.'
And, to her credit, Martha didn't. Like most things with Sean, she had sort of guessed, by then, that the necklace he'd given her just a month before (in a proper box, with the warranty – she knew he hadn't stolen it) had been paid with money that probably hadn't been legally earned. Yet, she felt hurt at the fact that he hadn't told her, that he was bright and yet sometimes too much of an idiot not to get caught, and that there would likely be nothing she could do to prevent it. He'd already got into trouble with the coppers once before, they'd barged into his mum's place at six in the morning while they were sleeping; when Martha protested, they'd threatened to take her with them, too.
Jo must have sensed the worry in her look before she spoke: 'You really love him, don't you?'
Her words were Martha's first encounter with love, in a sense, with a word that seemed to encompass whatever it was she felt, a mix of fondness and dependency that made her willing to put up with pretty much anything Sean did. She'd said it before, of course, because he'd said it to her (after they first had sex – maybe because they'd had sex, the simple fact that she'd agreed to it enough to send him over a cliff, back then) and while he'd sounded honest, Martha had known that she wasn't, felt like she was saying it just because she should, like they did in the movies. When Jo spoke, that afternoon, the first question to hit Martha's mind was to try and identify when that changed, when she started saying the words and actually meaning them. She felt fear, too, for the first time, that day.
Marth, what's he doing to you?
Decades later, in jail, after a good few seconds of a glaring contest between Martha and them, the guards finally step out of the room, reluctantly. Sean waits until they're gone to raise a playful eyebrow at her, sitting back in his chair. "Well, fuck me, Martha Costello," he says, shaking his head, disbelieving. "That gave me a bloody hard on."
Martha clenches her jaw, arms crossed over her chest, stony court glare set on him.
She sees the look in his eyes change, then, out with the show-off glance he usually throws the gallery; she sees something soft and lost – the boy she used to know. "Sorry, Mar," he apologises, immediately. "Shouldn't have said that."
.
She gets him to sign the papers, eventually, which is why she came in the first place. Doesn't know if it's the tone of her voice or the exhaustion in his but he doesn't put up much of a fight. "It says that I'm stepping out," Martha informs, dutifully. The memories of them replay in front of her eyes: ten years of her life in bad quality reels. "It says that you've been notified," she adds. "That your file will be remitted to your solicitor pending appeal for instruction of another brief."
Sean barely looks at the print, signs all three copies and returns the open file across the table, eyes refusing to leave her face. "I feel like I've just signed divorce papers," he says, a half-smile tugging at his lips. (He's always been like this, Sean: half-smiling and half-not.) Martha swallows, looks away and refuses to speak, hardly moves. Simply retrieves the papers and orders them into a neat pile, closing the folder above.
A copy will be mailed to your solicitor, she thinks, wants to say, should say, but doesn't, can't, just –
"I feel like I'm losing you all over again," Sean adds, staring straight into her eyes.
His voice is the first to break, actually, as he speaks, and Martha realises that's why she couldn't bring herself to say anything, before, recognised the feeling at the back of her throat, has become so familiar with it over the last few weeks as her tough façade gradually deconstructed, leaving tears piling amongst the wreckage. Martha looks at him and sees his eyes red; he smiles at her, twisted and sad, a slight shrug moving his shoulders. Sean nods, understands.
"Both times for being a fucking cunt to you," he says, almost whispers, like someone who knows they shot themselves in the foot. "I'm sorry, Mar."
She shakes her head, clenches her jaw. It's not – "You lied, Sean." The words are the same as the ones she spat at him after the trial but means them differently. Sean opens his mouth, probably to apologise again, but it's not what Martha wants to tell him. Back then, she was angry, less sensible than she is now. "You lied because clients lie," she amends, explains, catching his glance. "I should have known. It's my job to know."
"It's not your fault, Mar."
And as he speaks, she shifts in her seat, moving the folder that still lies between them, moving because if she doesn't – if she stops thinking, acting – she will cry, this time around. "I can't, Sean," she mutters under her breath, a broken secret admitted to him. I can't do this, Martha thinks. I can't watch you –
The thought finishes - ugly, terrifying words at the back of her mind: I can't watch you die, too.
And, that's the thing, isn't it: the fear simmering at the bottom of her stomach? At trial, before Billy passed away, before her life was turned upside down, she used to think Sean was being paranoid, with the guards and the tea, and the calling wolf – he'd always been a bit dramatic, after all, hadn't he? She couldn't afford to think about it, couldn't let the pressure paralyse her, but now all she can do is think about it, isn't it? Now feels different. Her doubts reach beyond his case, beyond Mickey Joy and the Monk family, and anything that could have been done or said, and she wonders: could he be right? And: did I just send him to the slaughterhouse?
It's not the first time Martha has these thoughts, of course, but it's first time she gets to look at him while she has them, tangible, alive at the other end of the white Formica table between them, and yet, it occurs to her that he could be gone in a matter of seconds. That this could be the last time that she sees him, the boy she used to think she would never live without.
Panic builds up at the pit of her stomach; she wants to leave, now, leave this room, this town, leave England, altogether. Martha doesn't want to see him, doesn't want to face the consequences of what happened, between them, doesn't want –
She must move a little because his hand reaches for hers, across the table in an attempt to keep her close to him. It's funny, really, because his skin is hard, hurt, calluses at the base of his phalanges, nails bitten raw and yet, when he touches her again, Martha stills, muscle memory slowly reacting to him. In her head, they're in bed, years and years ago, his fingers light over her skin, like feathers softly dragged across her shoulders, rain falling against the window outside. I love you, his eyes said, then, and now; Martha looks at him, bites her lip. Sean smiles, laughs a little, quiet, nods. "'I know in the past I've found it hard to say, telling you things but not telling you straight. But the more I pull on your hand, the more you pull away.'"
She frowns. The quote feels familiar but she can't quite place it, wonders if it's something he's said to her, back in the day, something –
"The Streets," Sean cites, amused, and of course, she should have known. "Dry Your Eyes." Martha glances at the wall behind him, blank, sterile, and it's such a contrast with his look, his face, on which she reads so much (emotion, empathy, anger, fear -), too much, maybe."I used to listen to that song and think of you, you know?" he tells her and no, she did not know that, no. "Shame it came out after we were done, innit?"
And, the truth is: Martha used to think of him, too. Remembers the way she'd change the channel every time the song came on; it always felt uncomfortable. "'Plenty more fish in the sea,' though, right?" Martha quotes back, wants to remind him of what he did, too. From the other girl back then to the other girl now, the one who testified in the middle of a courtroom about how he beat the shit out of her every time she stepped out of line. Sean's hand leaves hers, thrown over his heart in mock hurt.
"Ouch," he smirks and it's always been hard to compute, in her brain, how he can be so good at one thing and so bad at the other. How he could comfort her through the panic attacks she used to have at the thought of her dad eventually forgetting her, and yet cause her the same stress at the thought of him dying, twenty years later. "What am I going to do until the appeal, Mar?" he asks, honest, hammers his point home. "I can't even eat food without fearing it's been poisoned."
And there, there's a moment. It's the first one since she lost the trial, since whoever she used to be broke, a moment during which the thoughts inside her head insist: no, that's enough. Sean taunted her once with a that's my girl thrown in casual possessiveness and she barked at the guards, but didn't say a thing to him. He taunted her again with his bloody hard-on and all he got was a glare, as if that would ever be something that she would tolerate.
The third time is the charm, though, and instead of indulging Sean, succumbing to the fear and guilt he wants her to feel, she pushes back on him, just like she used to back then. Martha Costello drags the both of them out of the water, and saves them from drowning in the mess he's created. "You'll live, Sean," she tells him, matter of fact, because she knows that if she tells him, he will. "You'll live and you're going to promise that to me," Martha speaks, quick, before her nerves fail her. "Now, you do whatever you have to do in there, I don't care." Her jaw clenches, a glance thrown at the locked prison doors next to them. "But don't you fucking ever dare say that you won't make it again, because if you don't make it, I'll never fucking forgive myself. And we both need me to forgive myself."
There's no way to tell how long she holds his gaze, then, forces him to look at her on her terms, until she allows him not to. Sean's demeanour changes, afterwards. It's not the words she says, per se, but it's the meaning behind them. In her head, Martha's thrown back to the night when she broke up with him. Sean begged but the hard look on her features said: 'I love you, Sean, but I can't. That's enough.'
Martha's eyes close for a moment, now, before they find his again, stares locking, facing each other; she forgets the prison around them and it feels like they're in the park they used to spend time in on summer afternoons, just the both of them. This might be the last time she sees him in a very long time, she thinks, and the part of her that still loves him, cares about him, that speaks, then. "You come say hi when you get out, yeah? Until then, we're done."
Sean laughs, nods, once, promises like they did when they were kids. "Cross my heart, Mar."
.
That evening, she gets home but doesn't call Clive like she usually does. Doesn't cry either, or do anything out of the ordinary. She eats a half-burnt piece of toast instead, staring blankly at her TV and sits at the kitchen table with a fag between her fingers, contemplates.
'I wonder, sometimes, you know?' she told Billy, one evening. 'What life would have been like if I'd stayed in Bolton.'
She thinks of Sean, today, and thinks: probably a lot like this, actually. Billy also said something, back then, that she never thought would resonate now. 'I think you'd prefer the life you're currently living, Miss.'
Martha closes her eyes, tries to push the memory of her clerk away. She's just shut the door on Sean, today, but maybe Clive was right to suggest a trip to Billy's grave, tomorrow.
He keeps jumping into her brain uninvited and maybe, she needs to learn to let him go, too.
.
Clive picks her up in the morning. She slips into the passenger seat of his car without uttering a word, listens to him talk over a very posh-sounding jazz playlist he's selected. A heavy knot sits at the pit of her stomach. 'I'll go get some flowers,' she told him before he made his way to her place, and now they're carefully laid down on the back seat, his driving definitely not aggressive enough that they would ever fall.
Martha tries listening to him when he talks, tries to nod and smile when appropriate but she finds it hard to concentrate. Her eyes glaze over at the motorway, the bridges, the cars and the truth is: she misses Billy so much she might bleed to death with the pain of it.
.
They arrive about an hour later. Martha makes Clive park outside the village, walk down the streets in the shade of rows and rows of brick houses, with pink and purple, and orange blossoms pouring out of their windows. The weather has been getting gradually hotter and hotter over entire country; she feels light drops of sweat gliding along her lower back down to the waist of the old summer skirt she fished out of her wardrobe this morning, the fabric flowing over her legs. It's beautiful out here, quiet, the rustle of the wind stroking the leaves of trees, heels tapping a rhythm against the pavement. No sirens, no ambulances or fire trucks, she would never dare to make noise louder than a whistle.
When they finally get cemetery, the walls tower over Martha like they did in Long Lartin, yesterday. Clive and she get lost for a bit, counting alleys and rows while he stares at the map in his hands; Martha's the one who spots the fresh flowers out of the corner of her eye, in the end, the newly turned grass around it. There is something drawing her down the alley; she feels it in her gut, walks, slowly, Clive behind her. She stops, stares.
William Charles Lamb, Martha reads.
1969 – 2014
The headstone looks expensive, granite, with additional words of wisdom from family and friends, bouquets and plastic plants scattered over it. Clive doesn't speak, next to her, their upper arms briefly touching as they stand. The sun is hot against her shoulders, she can feel the heat burning, her skin prickling where it's bare, white turning red. Martha wonders what would have happened if they had gone yesterday, if she had seen men putting Billy to the ground with her own eyes, but a part of her likes that she didn't, likes her pain to remain private, only to be shared among the both of them. Billy lies here, now, between Mr & Mrs Gerald Greene from Basildon and a teenager who got killed in a car crash in 1997, for however long an eternity is. Martha finds that comforting, oddly, to know that he'll always be there, if she needs him.
Clive kneels, adds their flowers to the mix, yellow and white mums awkwardly fitting between tulips and rose ornaments. As he stands back up, Martha notices the quick movement of his fingers reaching his forehead, chest and shoulders; he's crossing himself, she realises, and doesn't even look like he knows he did it when she raises an eyebrow at him, like a habit, the way you always lock your door in the morning without ever remembering doing so. For a moment, it's as though Martha can't move, mesmerised. Suddenly, it seems mad that she almost raised a child with the man standing next to her without even knowing what he believes in, whatever it is.
"Do you believe in –" Martha asks, quickly before she can filter her words and trails off, not wanting to overstep. He's spoken about childhood memories of going to church on Sundays but nothing since. "God, the afterlife and all that?"
Clive's glance finds the side of her face, she can feel it as she watches the leaves of trees move softly in front of them, intrigued. He smiles at her question, seems to think about it for a while, quiet as she listens to the birds sing. "Yeah, I think so," he admits, looking back at Billy's grave, shrugging. "I'd like it to be true, at least."
Martha nods, silent, and there's a part of her that quite likes the idea, too. Thinks: I get wanting to believe that, yeah.
Clive turns to her, then, asks: "You?"
And, frankly, she's not sure. On the one hand, there's a degree of fate and happenstance in life that she can't quite deny. Her whole career, for instance, turned on a university moot court exercise she'd barely prepared for, something about property deeds, hung-over, drums pounding in her head, her opponent speaking so bloody loud.
Their lecturer was a handsome middle-aged man: Mr Evershed, a former Q.C. He ran after her at the end of class, catching up before she'd turned the corner. 'Miss Costello!' he shouted behind her. Martha turned around, heavy books in her arms. 'How much time did you spend on this?'
Shit, she remembers thinking. Tell the truth, you'll look like a slacker. Lie, you'll look stupid. Assuming she'd tanked the moot, Martha made a quick spur of the moment decision, chose the former. 'Couple hours, maybe,' she said, looking anywhere but him.
He laughed. What a dick, she thought. 'Yeah?' he nodded, smiling. 'And you're looking to be a solicitor, I assume. Have you got a training contract, yet?'
A couple hours later, she was handing him a copy of her CV, with a promise to keep an open mind and not to sign anything with anyone else without advising him first. He didn't tell her a thing, a part of her hoping that maybe he knew someone in a big Club of Nine firm; Martha checked her mail every day, impatiently, waiting for news. It came in the post on a Tuesday. She opened her mail and found a formal interview request from Shoe Lane in it, spilt her morning coffee all over it. 'The bar?' she asked, storming into his office, uninvited. He laughed, sipping on tea. 'I don't have the –'
Frankly, she didn't know where to start. Background? Money? Gender? He cut her off before she had time to figure it out. 'Look, I saw you argue down there. You're charismatic, you seem to know your worth, and most importantly, I think you had fun. Which is what matters most, in my book.' He put his cup down, stared right at her. Through her, it felt. 'You should consider it.'
A month later, she was awkwardly standing in the only suit she owned in the heart of London - had nearly bankrupted herself to buy it along with her train ticket - shaking Alan's hand. When she started, the following September, she met Billy, Clive, and that was that, really. End of story.
So, she thinks as she eyes Clive, now: fate, yes, maybe. God, probably not. Martha notices that there is no cross on Billy's grave and she finds herself wanting to stand by that, because something in her gut tells her that when he father died, a story ended, too. Sometimes, she indulges, wonders if he's watching over her, over them all, but mostly, as far as Martha is concerned, all it is, is wishful thinking. She can't remember the last time she visited his grave, tried to talk to him in her head.
So, in the end, she looks up at Clive and shakes her head no, quickly, sad but comfortable, knows that he won't judge her for it, just genuinely wants to know. Her stare is fixed on Billy's grave as she swallows, heavy; she closes her eyes for a moment.
Martha doesn't believe in God, true, but she believes in rituals. They calm her, intimate and real. Her skirt has a pocket hidden in the folds, she slipped something in it on her way out this morning, a souvenir of sorts. She can feel the silk fabric dancing over her fingers before she opens her eyes again, thread long enough to roll around her wrist.
Slowly, she fishes the ribbon out of her pocket, its pink shade contrasting with her skin. Clive glances at her from the corner of his eye; she feels his stare on her as she steps forward, drops on one knee in front of the stone. It's odd to think that Billy actually is down there, his body at least, lying still for the rest of eternity. The dozens of post-mortem reports she's read in her life tell her that soon enough, only his clothes, hair and bones will remain, flesh eaten away by animals and insects, returned to the Earth. She'd rather be burnt, she thinks, a shiver running up her skin, at least that would be the end of it.
Martha reaches over to the corner of the headstone, drapes the ribbon over it. She ties a knot, beautiful, large, even buckles falling right above his last name, like a sash over his shoulder. Her hand flat against the stone, the sun high in her back, words form in her head: I think we're going to be okay, Billy.
When she pulls herself back up and takes a short step to the right, away from the tombstone, Clive's look falls over the ribbon. There are so many pink ribbons lost in her home and in Chambers, sliding under pieces of furniture and in coat pockets; it sort of fits here. It's the resignation she promised herself: moving on.
She looks up at Clive and suddenly, Martha sees the red in his eyes, tears he's trying to wipe away falling down his cheeks. She's cried too much about this to cry again, really, and maybe that's why she's a bit startled to see him like this, for a minute, remembers the lie he told her, years ago: 'this baby, it's just.' Martha could see it in his look, back then, the collection of untruths he'd uttered to protect himself; she could have pushed, should have pushed, didn't. I miss him too, you know, he's saying, really, and maybe that's it, maybe she was too self-centred to see it.
Martha's always been pretty self-centred, to tell the truth.
Wordlessly, she crosses the distance between them and finds herself pulling him into an embrace, his head fitting on top of her shoulder. She hugs his body tight, the way Muriel hugs Robin, hugs her, hugs everyone: like both their lives depend on it. Martha lets Clive cry the way she cried on his shirt when she lost the baby, and "Goodbye, Billy," she mutters under her breath, so low she doesn't even think Clive can hear. And that's what Billy told her, at the hospital, after all, isn't it? 'Bye, Miss.'
When they leave, she looks at Clive as he steps into the passenger seat of his car and thinks of him, of Billy, of Sean and most importantly, of herself. The last two days have been tough, between prisons and cemeteries, and yet, it also feels like a new beginning, a chance to start over for the ones left standing. Martha sits behind the wheel, her left hand on the gears and thinks of what she said to Sean, yesterday, and for the first time, considers that it may apply to her, too. 'You'll live,' she told him and -
Yeah, she decides. She's going to live, too, whatever the hell that means.
.
A new moment starts, then, for the both of them, with a breath of fresh air (of life – breathing, living life) that she allows herself to draw. That afternoon, she takes control, dries Clive's tears and drives him home.
They're silent on the way back; he stares out the window and doesn't even bother complaining about her driving habits, fields and fields of unidentifiable crops passing before the shade of their sunglasses. Martha's in charge of the stereo, soft Moriarty folk rolling in the background; she mouths the lyrics as she steers. Oh Jimmy, she recites. Oh, won't you please come home, where the grass is green and the buffaloes roam? A conscious effort is made to drive under 70, never going too far from the slow lane; when Clive dozes off, about thirty minutes in, it occurs to her that she could just keep driving, her foot on the accelerator, before he could stop her. They would be in France in the morning, Spain in a couple of days. Not Barcelona, she decides, somewhere nice, deserted, with oranges and lemons hanging from trees, and the water warm over her feet.
"Clive," she says, laying a hand on his shoulder as she turns the engine off, stops the car in the car park under his building. "You're home."
He stirs, yawns, looks around, takes an extra couple of seconds to comprehend where he is and how he got there in the first place. She knows the feeling. "Sorry," he speaks, turning to face her. "Kind of passed out on you, there."
Martha shrugs, the heat of the air already creeping back into the car. "Looked like you needed it," she simply states, taking a gulp from the bottle of water standing between them. It's lukewarm, now, leaves her thirstier than she originally was.
Clive smiles, nods, weakly, shifting in his seat. The clock in front of her reads 5:34 pm. "Do you want to come up? I'll call you a cab," he adds. "Least I can do."
She had thought up this plan in her head while driving: she'd walk to the closest station and hop on the tube, try to clear her head a bit. But it's hot – excruciatingly hot – now, and she really can't bring herself to make the effort. William Charles Lamb, she still sees written on the tombstone every time she allows her thoughts to drift.
"Yeah, I'd love that," she changes her mind and smiles, honest.
.
Clive's apartment hasn't changed much since the last time she was there. Everything is still spotlessly clean, apart from a few dirty dishes in the sink. "Sorry," he says, quickly, stepping past the counter. "Didn't have time to clean up this morning. What do you want? Tea? Coffee? Anything?"
"Tea's fine, thanks." Martha slides onto a stool, politely looks away as Clive reaches to turn the kettle on, grabbing a couple of mugs and bags from the cupboards around. He sets the cups down on the counter, drops a sugar into his; she shakes her head when he offers her one. The blinds are halfway down around the room, leaving his flat somewhat dark, but reasonably cool. Martha doesn't want to think about the furnace her apartment probably is, at the moment.
His weight awkwardly shifts from left to right as they wait in silence for the water to boil. Clive always cleans up after himself, she knows, even in Chambers, hurrying to get to court; Martha's never known him to leave a dirty cup on his desk. She watches him, carefully, gauging his every move, the way his jaw sets in concentration as he pours water into their mugs.
"Clive, you alright?" she asks, the words coming out of her mouth before she can really stop herself.
He quickly shrugs, turns around to put the kettle back onto its stand. "Of course, what d'you mean?"
"You forgot the tea bags."
He looks down, looks up at her, curses under his breath. She takes one good look at him. The dark circles under his eyes, his hair in bad need of a cut, she thinks of his tears earlier and hates this, hates what they've become. She knows what he's doing, putting on a brave face for her sake and all she wants to do is to let him know that just because she told him about something horrible that was on her mind a few days ago, doesn't mean he can't talk about what's on his. "Sorry," he says. "Distracted."
Mugs emptied, tea bags added (this time), water poured: he passes the cup in her direction, watching her watching him, standing on the other side of the counter. The funny thing is: no matter how mad she gets at him, there's still that look on his face, it catches her off guard, every time; it makes her heart beat faster, makes her want to smile up at him. It's a curse, she thinks, but even though she's not sure they should even be talking right now, she's said goodbye to too many people, lately, and maybe she won't be able to make it through without him.
He's on cue when he speaks again; she wonders how much he can actually read on her face of what's going on in her head. "So, where are you going?" he asks, his blue eyes locked on hers. "When you leave, I mean?"
It's a good question, one that Martha doesn't have the answer to, yet. She takes her time, trying to find an honest response she'd be happy with, sipping on her tea. It tastes familiar, warming the back of her mouth. "I don't know," she admits, reconsidering. "Somewhere nice," she smiles. "I haven't decided."
And it's true, she hasn't. Her mind has been so cluttered with different things, lately, she just thinks she'll do like before, go to the airport and point at the first destination that comes to mind. Clive smiles, nods, asks: "Abroad, maybe?"
He asks that with a smile on his face; it makes her wonder if he knows the answer already, knows that she made it to the airport before deciding to stay for Billy. He may have looked it up, come to think of it, put a plan in place for when she takes off again, a plan to follow her across the world if he has to. Not that he'd ever acknowledge it, of course, but maybe.
"I was thinking of heading to Bali," she admits, looks away. It was the ticket she'd booked before everything happened and it's a bit embarrassing, now, come to think of it. So bloody predictable: anyone who really wanted to would have found her in days, probably not what Mickey Joy had in mind when he told her to run for her life.
Clive seems to think it's hilarious, actually, the sound of his laughter ringing in her ears. "Been there with an ex-girlfriend," he smirks. "Largely overrated."
Martha lets out a short laugh, absentmindedly playing with the hem of her skirt under the bar. There's a story there, she feels, and she's kind of curious about it, saves it in the corner of her brain for future use. "Have you looked at actual pictures of the beach there?" she laughs, shaking her head at him. "You're going to have to find something more convincing than that to make me stay," she tells him, a smile hidden behind her mug.
"I promise I will," he says, laughter in his eyes as he looks up at her. She can see him think, though, the wheels turning inside his head, waits for him to speak. "Would it be so bad, though? To stay, I mean. The bar's made for you, Marth."
And, in truth, it takes her a moment to answer, to try to be honest with herself for once. "I don't know," she sighs, a sad smile on her face that doesn't reach her eyes. Thinks. "I just – I kind of want to see if I can be something else for a little while," she admits, looking down. "You ever felt that?"
"Yeah," Clive chuckles, shakes his head. "When I was 19 and fucked off to Bali with a girl I'd met in Oxford," he adds. Martha nods knowingly, laughing, can totally see it and at the same time, can't. He must have been so different, back then. "Couldn't stop arguing for two bloody weeks, worst holiday in history."
Martha laughs, takes a sip, jokes: "Your fault, I'm sure." Her smile reaches her eyes.
He chuckles, nods, too. "Evidently."
.
When their laughter dies down and she's finished the last drops of tea from her mug, though, Clive grabs both of their cups and turns around to place them in the sink. Martha thinks again of what he said, of what it would mean to leave. She thinks of her plan of going up to Bolton later this week, wonders if it would really help. She doesn't think Clive will say anything else, now, thinks of reminding him that he needs to call her a taxi when: "Listen, Marth," he starts, staring into her eyes. "If you're going to leave, there's one thing I wanted to say –"
And as soon as he opens his mouth, she feels a very acute need in her stomach to do the exact opposite, actually, gets the very strong urge to not listen, to sing like a child with her fingers stuck in her ears, stop the nice truce they've been enjoying from breaking into a million pieces. She thinks she begs him with her eyes.
"What I told Harriet –"
"Clive –"
"I'm sorry for one thing, alright? I'm sorry that I didn't think of it," he tells her, in a breath. She knows what it is, even before hearing the rest. "I'm sorry that I never thought of –" Clive trails off and for a short moment, seems to look for the appropriate words – Martha's searched for them, already and there aren't any. "Of the baby," he settles, like he couldn't find anything else to refer to it, a foetus that lived inside her for a little over three months and left a gaping hole when it went. "I didn't think of the baby the way you had to. Not now, and not three yea-"
"Don't." They've never talked about it, never had the conversation, and frankly, that's because Martha has never really wanted to. That night, when she came back from the hospital, she could have called him but chose not to. Just chain-smoked and stupidly cried over a child that would never be and the bit of innocence in her that died with it. "I was angry the other day, I should never have, I –"
Clive shakes his head, right then, running a hand over his face. "For God's sake, Marth, for once in your life please let me finish," he snaps, catches her look and she's caught off guard by the need she sees in his eyes, stops moving, her mouth closing, listening. She hates that she's hurt him, hates that about herself. "What I wanted to say is this: I panicked," he speaks, pauses at the end of his words. "And, I was an arse. Back then, and again the other day. I'm sorry."
The real Clive Reader, Martha thinks, hears, in the quiet of his living room. She listens to the low buzz of the fridge, the regular thud of his dishwasher. Frankly, she doesn't know what to say, has never thought of him apologising like this, directly to her face.
It's a change, a significant one she doesn't know how to react to.
"I panicked too, you know?" Martha finds herself telling him, before she can think. An admittance on her end as well and Clive looks surprised, the words leaving her mouth honest and unfiltered. "Three years ago," she explains. "Had an appointment booked to, er, terminate. Asked Billy to keep me out of court, but Nick got our trial delayed and I –" she stops, tells him the truth. "I didn't go. That's when I told you." Her fingers tap nervously, palm flat against her thigh; she smiles, almost to herself. "Not that you weren't an arse, I mean, you were, but –"
"You weren't going to tell me?"
The pressure his stare bores onto her face forces her to cross his gaze, eventually, but it's hard, really, to face the hurt in his eyes. Martha shakes her head, looks away. "Would you have wanted to know?"
Clive opens his mouth to reply automatically, and of course, she knows what he'd say now, but –
"Not now, Clive. Not in hindsight, knowing what happened. Back then, I mean. You and I, back then?"
You and I, back then, she means, weren't the same people. She'd pushed him away after her stunt with Jérôme, horrified at the thought that the words he'd told her (It matters to you, I think) could somehow be true. Before Nottingham, she'd sworn to herself she and Clive would never, ever happen again. And even when it did, she labelled it as a lapse of judgment, a sweet, guilty misstep with truly terrifying consequences.
Alone in her bathroom when the unappealable verdict of her pregnancy came to light, the first thought that hit her mind was: fuck.
Clive averts his gaze, then, when she looks up; it takes him a good fifteen seconds to answer, like he's replaying everything in his head. "Yeah," he finally says. "Even back then. I'd probably have been a dick about it, but I'd have come with you, in the end," he tells her, his gaze back on hers. "Or brought you chocolate when you got out. Something," he adds. Almost against her will, she feels a smile tug at her lips. "Who knows, maybe I would even have earned that snog you promised ages ago."
Martha laughs, this time, the sound of it quickly escaping her mouth. There's a twinkle in her eyes when she says: "I never promised anything, Clive."
"Not a complete no, then," he smirks, flirts. With her free hand, she reaches over to gently slap his shoulder, pretending to roll her eyes. Clive has always been good, she knows, at wooing her into conversations she doesn't want to have while still making her laugh, dancing on that tightrope, keeping her from walking out on him. They stay silent for a bit, basking in amused bliss, but she can read his body language, isn't surprised when he speaks again. It's a whisper, caught in his throat, like he barely dares. He should, Martha thinks when she hears the words coming out of his mouth. She thinks about it all the time.
"What do you think he would have been like?" he wonders. "Or she, I mean?"
Martha smiles to herself, discreet, closes her eyes. He would have been a boy, she thinks. Has no actual scientific basis for it, but that's what she felt in her gut, for whatever it's worth. With her eyes closed, she'd see him, playing football with Clive on a Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park, wobbling around, three or four years old, shouting: "Mummy! I scored! Did you see that?"
She sits up, now, reaches for a paper towel in front of her, folds and unfolds it to keep her hands busy.
"My best guess is blond, blue-eyed, and overly argumentative, Clive," she tells him, attempting a joke, but even when she sees him smile, shy, the look on his face remains serious, like he knows exactly what she's doing. Martha shakes her head, blinks, feels the tears clouding at the back of her eyes, that familiar lump in her throat. "I don't know, I try not to think about it," she lies, looking away.
His fingers find their way to hers, the three clear lines of his veins visible on the back of his hand, and she feels a light squeeze, lets herself feel his touch against her skin. "Yeah," he nods, catching her glance. "Sorry."
Martha doesn't want him to apologise, to tell the truth. There's nothing to be sorry for. It's his right as much as hers, she thinks, to imagine, to ask, question what could have been. It's just always been difficult, for her, to do so without letting herself be submerged in the depths of melancholy, and she tries to explain that in the way that she looks at him, then, catches his gaze and can't seem to look anywhere else. She remembers them, three years ago, and how different they were, before either of them took silk, before, well, anything, really. There was an innocence in the way he looked at her, their banter light and easy, playing with each other's nerves. She remembers them at twenty-five, too, and the countless hours they spent holed up in their shared office, pouring over dozens of files, her vision becoming blurry on the hundreds of pages of small print. Martha wonders where that time flew; it feels odd, to think of a life without him. She's lost Billy, already, and even when she doesn't know how to forgive him, Martha also doesn't know how she'd cope losing Clive, too.
As she turns away, she feels his palm over hers, his thumb running over her knuckles. She glances up at him, his eyes blue and intense in the semi-darkness of the room. His right hand finds the side of her face, reaching over the counter, skin rough against her cheek. She leans into him more than she needs to.
"I –" he says, trails off. In the blink of an eye, he looks away for the shortest of times; when she finds his eyes again, she can see him thinking, settling on his words. "I really want to kiss you right now," Clive says, and Martha can't help but smile, her heart beating fast in her ears. She feels twenty-five again, with a boy that feels like a friend.
She bites her lip, pretends to hesitate. There's something really empowering, she's got to admit, about him asking. "Go on, then," she breathes, hardly above a whisper. "You've got my blessing."
A short laugh escapes Clive's mouth before he straightens up, looking determined to do it properly, walking around the kitchen island to meet her. Martha doesn't move from her stool, merely eyeing him as he moves, only spreading her legs enough for Clive to stand in front of her. It's hard not to smile against his lips when he finally reaches down, softly, his mouth barely open, just enough to taste hers. The kiss is short, almost chaste - nothing like their hungry kisses in Nottingham, or back in that empty courtroom – and yet she's certain that right at this moment, he steals a piece of her heart. It's intimate, secretive almost, like she's the only person in the world.
He pulls back, ever so slightly, lingers close. "Martha, I –" he starts, and this time she brings him back to her before he has time to find his words, unspoken confessions dying on his lips. She doesn't know what he was going to say – doesn't care – his mouth opening over hers, she slides off the stool and stands on her tiptoes to push him against the counter, her hands in his hair, hips against his. That summer afternoon, Clive tastes like boy and Earl Grey.
When Martha breaks the kiss, reluctantly, she looks into his eyes and it's sort of a secret but she catches herself wondering what they would have been like, in an alternate universe, where she wouldn't have miscarried, where he'd have gotten silk the first time around, where she wouldn't have swooned, wouldn't have lost Sean, lost Billy, lost him. Martha breathes in, lets herself relax and close her eyes, her forehead against his chin.
"I want to do that again," she admits, looking up at him.
Clive grins, like someone whose plan is working. "That's if you don't go to Bali," he says.
She nods, knows what he wants her to say, shakes her head and repeats what she's already told him, a concession of sorts. "I'm here," she tells him. "For now."
Clive's eyes close for a second; he nods. "Okay."
Martha doesn't know how long they stay like this, in his kitchen, her body pressed against his, just staring into each other's eyes. It turns into a game, eventually, of who will be the first to look away. Clive pulls a face, in the end; it makes her laugh and she curses under her breath, conceding defeat. Reluctantly, Martha pulls away from him, untangling their fingers. "Wine?" she asks, grinning.
Clive lets out a soft laugh; it comes out in multiple breaths like when she's puffing on a cigarette. "Open bottle of white in the fridge, red's in there," he says, pointing at one of the cupboards. "Your choice."
She nods, stepping away and busying herself, setting a couple of glasses down on the counter, opening the fridge. Considering the heat, Martha goes for white, the slightly tinted liquid reflecting filtering glimpses of sunlight.
Martha takes his old spot standing on the other side of the island as he sits on her stool, clinking her glass against his. After they've both taken a sip, she adds, smiling:
"See? I am here, drinking with you."
.
Nothing happens, that night.
He calls her a cab around 1 a.m. and insists on paying for it ('it was my fault you had to come out here, after all,'), squeezes her hand through the open window before the car drives off and she thinks about how funny it sounds, that phrase. 'We kissed,' her friends would say, in college, in uni. 'But that's it, nothing happened.' It's mad, really, because nothing happened and yet as she closes her eyes, sitting against the leather of the seats, vaguely listening to her driver as he chats away in Hindi on the phone, she can still feel Clive's lips against hers, his fingers over her palm and she's a teenager again, playing a couple of kisses over and over in her head, and what she said, and what he said, and that smile that has yet to leave her face.
She's had her fair share of the wine, but she doesn't think that's what lulls her to sleep.
She feels safe, that night, in her bed, thinking about him.
.
.
[1] Crash by The Primitives
[2] Dry Your Eyes by The Streets
[3] Bad Husband by Eminem
[4] Jimmy by Moriarty
[5] "... might bleed to death with the pain of it," is a quote I stole from The Queen of Storytelling, a.k.a JK Rowling. I believe it's towards the end of OOTP.