“I want to know what happened. Don’t spare me. Tell me everything.”
She saw him nod and waited. He fished a cigarette tin from his pocket, offered one to Katherine. She didn’t usually smoke but took one anyway; the tin looked like Billy’s, she thought. Tommy lit the cigarette for her. The tip trembled terribly in the flame. He lit another for himself and for a moment they smoked in silence, Katherine’s furtive little drags and exhalations, Tommy drawing the smoke all the way down to his boots.
“He said he’d been looking for me, for years maybe, some bloke of his finally tracked me down . . .”
Quietly she listened to the unraveling of Billy’s life, and with it the children’s, also hers. This folly he had embarkedupon, the stranger at her birthday party, some misguided plan to go after Edmund Noone. Why? What was the point? Of courseshe could understand him wanting to find Tommy, but why couldn’t that be enough? She already knew the answer. Because nothingever was, for Billy. Not her, not their children, not the empire they had built . . . nothing was ever good enough.
“I think maybe he wanted to put things right about what happened,” Tommy said. “Show you he was sorry for what we did.”
“Billy isn’t sorry. Surely you know him better than that.”
“Well, that’s what he told me anyhow.”
Angrily, she tossed her cigarette. “Billy’s only regret is that I found out the truth about him. Nothing more than that.”
“He said he wanted you to be able to look him in the face again.”
“More likely I’d have slapped him. He risked everything . . . and for what?”
“It ain’t been easy, you know, living with what we did.”
She looked at him sharply. “I’m sure it hasn’t, for you. But Billy has slept like a baby every night of his life. I know you’reonly saying these things to be kind, Tommy, but don’t. We both know what he is—was. Deep down Billy never cared about anyonebut himself. He believed himself a victim too. Going out there to right the wrongs against him . . . in his own mind Billywas the hero of every story. It was always someone else to blame.”
From her sleeve she pulled a handkerchief, dabbed her eyes, her nose, stuffed it back under the cuff and composed herself. “He would have taken us all down with him. You included. You’re lucky you got out alive.”
“Only barely.”
“Do you have a family? Are they safe?”
“Of sorts. No children. I doubt he knows anything about them. Billy didn’t.”
“And what about you? Would Noone still come after you?”
Tommy shrugged. “I was lying in a hospital bed four days ago, he could have done anything to me then. Me and him, I don’tknow, I think he almost liked me in a way. It hardly seems worth his while bothering. What could I do?”
Hesitantly she reached for his hand and held it, the skin as rough as unplaned wood. “Thank you for coming all this way totell me. I know it was a risk.”
“You deserved to know.”
“I suppose it makes this a little easier, hearing it from you.”
She smiled at him, let go of his hand, watched him take it back and cup it in his lap. He looked weak, she thought, compromisedsomehow. The stubs of his two missing fingers—she remembered him nursing the bandage, fourteen years old, right here on thesesame steps.
“Will you stay?” Katherine asked him. “Our eldest two are away at school, but Thomas and Suzanna would love to meet you I’msure.”
“It’s their daddy they’re waiting on, not me.”
“They’d be grateful for it, Tommy. As would I.”
He glanced at the house over his shoulder, a little fearfully Katherine thought. All the memories would be so raw for him, this the first time he’d been back. Watching him in profile, his worn and stubbled face, a faraway absence in his eyes. There was so much pain in him. All those awkward furtive glances and shrugs, the little tics, Tommy was a man literally crawling in his own skin. Obvious, now that she saw it, the effect his childhood still had. That same darkness she’d seen in Billy, but amplified, more raw, more real—he was not that naive little boy but a man, a stranger, truthfully she had no idea who he was.
“I was thinking I’d go down to the house while I’m here. Might be my only chance. Visit Mary too, if that’s all right.”
“Of course it is. Don’t be silly. Take as long as you need.”
“Will you manage, d’you think? After?”
She sat up tall and sighed. “I expect so. I’m used to being alone.”
“What will you do?”
“Raise my children. Live my life. Carry on. Mourn him, obviously. When we were first together, Tommy . . .” She drifted intosilence, shook her head. A quick burst of laughter as she said, “You know, he once just about threw my father down these steps.Kicked him out of the house, said he’d castrate him if he ever came back. I was horrified but delighted. That’s the effecthe had on me, the kind of man he was. Then, I don’t know, status, money, secrets, lies—is it even possible for two peopleto love each other after such a length of time?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
She pulled herself up to her feet. “No, well, I’m not sure it is. Please consider staying, Tommy, even if it’s just for onenight. If you head down to Glendale now the sunset may catch you and you’ll end up sleeping there, which is not the best idea.Besides, I’d welcome the company. I’d love to hear your stories—I’ve thought about you often, we both did, wondering whereyou’d got to, how you were. If it helps, I won’t tell the children until after you’re gone. That way you won’t feel responsible,and it’ll give me time to get used to the idea, not to mention figure out what on
