Disordered Minds

'No.'

'Why not?'

He closed his eyes. 'Why do you think?'

'I don't know, Jon, but I can guess. Because suffering in silence makes you feel better about yourself? Because you've persuaded yourself Emma would rather have a relationship with a brutish father who abuses her than with a coward who hides in the lavatory?' George's tone was abrasive. 'Perhaps you're afraid he'll come round and hit you, and you've decided Emma isn't worth the thirty seconds of pain? Perhaps you agree with her ... you are a coward and an embarrassment and she'll be better off without you? Or you're like Howard ... and you hope that if you self-mutilate long enough someone like me will come along and rehabilitate you.'

He took to rubbing his face again. 'She'll refuse to speak to me,' he said harshly. 'That's why I haven't phoned.'

'Oh, I see,' said George in mock surprise, 'you're afraid of rejection. Well, well, well! What a man of double standards you are, Jonathan. It doesn't matter whose feelings you've hurt ... just so long as yours don't suffer. Are those the rules you operate by?'

'You know they aren't.'

'I don't, I'm afraid. You shared a bed with the girl and made love to her. At the very least you have an obligation to find out if she's all right.' She gave him an ironic smile. 'Or am I being very old-fashioned?'

'You look like shit,' said Billy, examining the new bruises under his sister's makeup. 'Are you all right?'

'Yeah,' she said, pulling her scarf over her mouth. 'Nick's got a fucking awful temper, but he doesn't mean to hurt me ... not really. He's powerfully jealous, which I guess means he loves me.'

Billy took her arm and steered her toward a cafe in the alleyway opposite Dingles. 'You're such a tit, Lou,' he said, using a term he'd often called her in childhood. 'When are you going to learn that guys who love their wives don't beat them up?'

'Don't start,' she said crossly. 'I had enough of the lectures before. I wouldn't be here except I was afraid you'd come banging on the door again.'

He pushed open the cafe door and led the way to an empty table. 'What do you want? Tea? Coffee? Something to eat?'

'Black coffee,' she said ungraciously, 'but I can't pay for it because he took all my money.'

So what's new? Billy thought, as he went to the counter. The only difference between now and twenty years ago was that she was better dressed and lived in an expensive house. The beatings still happened ... she was still having to touch her family for spending money ... she still didn't want her brother knocking on her door. It was damn weird whichever way he looked at it.

He returned with two coffees and put one in front of her. 'So who's Nick Fletcher?' he asked, sitting down. 'What does he do?'

'He's a businessman,' she said.

'What kind of business?'

'He's a bookie.'

'Never heard of him.'

'No reason why you should.' She changed the subject abruptly. 'So what have you been doing with yourself, Billy? Are you married? Got kids?'

He nodded. 'Do you remember Rachel Jennings? Sister of Mark Jennings who was in your year? We got hooked up in 'eighty-five and had twin daughters two years later-Paula and Jules-they're sixteen now.'

'God!' said Louise. 'You mean I'm an aunt?'

Billy grinned. 'Of two redheads. What about you? Did you have any? Am I an uncle?'

She stared into her coffee cup. 'I had a miscarriage once but that's the closest I came. It's a bit of a bugger really. I'd have liked kids.'

There was too much regret in her voice for him not to believe her, and he wondered who'd told Councillor Gardener otherwise. 'I'm sorry.'

'Yeah. So how are the folks? Are they still in the old house?'

'No, Rachel and I bought it off them so they could move to Cornwall.' He gave her a potted history of the family's fortunes since 1980. 'Dad's supposed to have retired but he works as a jobbing gardener to avoid going stir-crazy at home, and Mum got born-again religion two years ago. She's a parish visitor or something: calls on old people who can't leave their houses ... then spends every Sunday in church. Dad can't understand it at all, keeps telling her she must have a lot on her conscience.'

It was seeing the smile vanish suddenly from Louise's face that made him think about what he'd said. He'd heard Robert Burton use the expression several times, but he'd always assumed it was a mild joke to account for Eileen's sudden obsession with Jesus. Billy knew it annoyed his father, even made him jealous to have his pliant wife find an interest in life that excluded him, but he'd never taken the teasing seriously.

He watched his sister's gaze drop to the coffee cup again. 'Is there something on her conscience?' he asked curiously.

'How would I know?' she snapped. 'I haven't spoken to her in years.'

'Then why are you looking so guilty?' She didn't answer.

He stirred sugar into his own coffee. 'Do you want to know how I found you?'

'Not particularly, but you'll tell me anyway. It used to give you a hell of a buzz to prove how clever you were