DEAD GOOD (25 page)

I open my mouth as if to say something but she waves away what she presumes was going to be my sincerest condolences with one of her hands. If only she knew.

‘Hmm?’ I try again before realising that this is probably making me look like the biggest prat this side of the table.

‘It was a few years ago, now,’ Antonella continues, playing with her spoon beside her cup – but still managing to keep her face looking as pretty and composed as it has been all afternoon. ‘These things – terrible things - they happen,’ she says regretfully. ‘At the time, of course, it’s the end of the world. It was the end of my world. But it is good to talk. To keep the memories alive, you know?’

I nod. Although I don’t know. How could I?

Antonella continues. ‘To lose a son at such an age is a very sad thing… very sad. And of course to lose my beautiful little girl too – a tragedy. A terrible tragedy…’ she trails off and now I can see a slight sheen appearing in her eyes as she remembers. God, she seems to be coping with it pretty well right now. I look at Leo. His head is slightly bowed so I can’t tell what he’s feeling or thinking – unlike he can with me. Where’s the justice, eh?

‘It was a very tough time for my sister and her husband, eh?’ Uncle Victor reaches over and strokes her hand. ‘Ve-ry tough time for us all. We lost our parents too, you know? The house was on fire. Do you remember it?’ he looks over at me and dad. Dad shakes his head.

‘It’s a terrible thing to say, I’m afraid,’ my dad sighs unhappily. ‘But if it’s not happening to you personally, then it doesn’t get the full attention it deserves…’ he trails off. ‘If you know what I mean,’ he smiles hopefully. ‘ We probably did read about it in the papers at the time. I can understand, though, that it must have been a very upsetting time for you all. To lose so many so suddenly. I can’t begin to know how you must have felt. I am truly sorry for your loss.’

Uncle Victor and Antonella are nodding their appreciation. They’re smiling - but not in an “isn’t life fabulous” way – in a kind of sad but realistic “life goes on” kinda way and I’m very touched by their strength.

But - blimey. Way to go dad!. I am seriously impressed with his verbal skill and stretch out a hand to squeeze his arm just to prove it. He grips my hand back and smiles lovingly at me but now I wish we weren’t giving out such close family vibes of unity because as I look up and over the table, Leo lifts his head slowly and steadily to stare back across at me and now I clutch my dad’s hand even tighter.

thirty-three

Thankfully it isn’t long before mum and Davey turn up. By then I’ve managed to avoid prolonged eye contact with Leo and instead worked out with his lovely mum when I can pop back in next week to help on the tables again. Apparently I’m pretty good. I have “an eye”, Antonella tells me.

‘My daughter would have been thirteen next week,’ she says brushing her hand across my cheek as mum stands with me, Davey on her hip. ‘A teenager,’ she sighs. ‘I can hardly imagine what she would have been like. She was a little monkey…ah… move on. Let’s move on. How about Monday?’ she runs a pencil over a list on the wall. ‘Monday’s are not so busy. It will give you a chance to get used to it a little more, what do you say?’

I nod. I hope, keenly. Although the fact that Leo’s eyes are burning a hole in the side of my face is making it a little difficult to keep focussed. But I must. Stay focussed.

‘How about homework, lovey?’ mum says, letting Davey go as he wriggles free of her arms. He races over to the window again – presumably in the hope that Mia might appear sometime soon. Antonella’s eyes follow him and she smiles at him as we watch him clamber onto the low-sill and do a tight-rope walk. ‘My little girl used to do that when she was small,’ Antonella says thoughtfully.

‘Homework’s fine, mum,’ I say trying to deflect the conversation from Davey and Mia and the window-sill performance. ‘We only get one lot on Mondays. I’ll do it as soon as I get home.’

Mum gives me one of those “yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before” stares and although I totally get where she’s coming from, this time I mean it – I do. I do, okay?

‘I will!’ I whine and mum nods her “we’ll see” nod.

‘Maddie’s been a great help today,’ Antonella tells my mum. ‘I don’t know how much Vittorio can pay her but if she’s willing to give it a go, she can do a couple of my shifts in the evenings if she wants to – it’ll give me a chance to have some time off to be with my family anyway.’

Now my ears prick up. She said family didn’t she? She really did. And family generally means an extension of the couple thing, doesn’t it? I mean, if she’d been referring to her and Leo’s dad, wouldn’t she have just said “husband” or “us”? Well, wouldn’t she? I thought they were all killed in the fire?

My eyes are instinctively drawn to Leo as I’m thinking these things and trying to work out in my head exactly what it is I’ve just heard and how I can possibly ask Antonella to elaborate on what she’s just said without it making me appear either (a) stalker-ish or (b) morbid. Again, -ish.

Leo’s face is a puzzling mixture of sadness and confusion. He looks almost like he’s seeing his Mum for the first time; as if she’s someone he doesn’t really know. What? What’s happening?

He still says nothing to me. Just stares. And I feel like slapping him into saying something. Anything. Just a hint of what the freakin’ hell’s going on right now.

‘Your family?’ My mum sounds like she’s been taking senior acting lessons the way she says this. She’s talking as though she doesn’t know Antonella’s history – that she doesn’t already know she’s the mother of the kids that died with their grandparents in our house or at least, when it was their house. But I know she does know. What is she playing at?

‘My husband and our little boy,’ Antonella smiles. ‘He’s nearly two now. Little monster. Just like my little Mia. And Leo – but that was a long, long time ago now…’ she drifts off slightly but mum is ready to take up the slack.

‘You’ve got a son?’ she tries to clarify and Antonella nods. ‘That’s lovely.’’

Inwardly I’m cringing ever so slightly because I don’t want mum to have put this lovely, lovely lady on the spot. Who knows, if she asks too many questions in too short a space of time by this - this almost stranger to her – my mum - then she may very well begin to lose the plot, plunge to the depths of despair and start to have some kind of breakdown right here in front of us. It can happen. No it can, I’ve seen it hundreds of times on Eastenders. Perfectly normal, reasonable, fine upstanding members of the community… okay then, members of the cast – but perfectly sane and level-headed characters going about their business one minute then BAM! total blubbering messes the next. Sometimes even with knives or guns. It happens. Usually in the general vicinity of Albert Square. A perfect example of life imitating art – or the other way around. I’m not good with that one.

But Antonella doesn’t seem to be put off by my mother’s questioning-to-shame-a-hardened-detective. She’s still smiling and looking as pretty and unflustered as she has been all afternoon.

‘When our family was killed in the fire…’ she trails off and I wonder immediately if this is the bit that will set her off blubbing but she takes a very deep breath and raises her eyes to meet mum’s. And my mum has got this really caring, sympathetic look on her, like she’s some kind of counsellor or therapist or something and even I feel like I’m watching a BBC drama on the telly. It’s that riveting. ‘I’d just found out I was pregnant. I hadn’t had time to tell Leo and Mia – I was only telling Tony, their father, that night – that’s why we were out, celebrating…’ he head falls with a kind of shame. ‘Celebrating. What a word. What an idea! Having a wonderful night whilst our beautiful children were dying at home?’

Now I can see her eyes filling with tears.

‘I can’t imagine how it must have been for you,’ my mum says, glancing briefly at me to make sure I’m okay hearing this. Or maybe she’s appreciating me more because of what she’s hearing now. Either way, this is some serious moment that’s happening and I haven’t even thought of Leo the once. Okay, then, just that once.

‘Of course it was horrible at the time,’ Antonella says with a small smile. ‘Truly, the end of the world. Nobody wants to bury their children. Nobody expects to have to endure grief like that, but life goes on. I had another life that was just beginning – inside me. You know?’ She turns to me and brushes my cheek again. ‘I couldn’t even speak about it for a year. I had post-natal depression because every time I looked at little Milo, all I saw was Leo and Mia. I felt such guilt. Thank goodness he was too small to realise how unhappy I was. But I never got the chance to tell my other two. I wish they’d known. I wish they could see that they have a beautiful little brother and that we wish they could still be here…. I wish…a lot of things…’ she stops and wipes her eyes with a napkin.

‘A terrible tragedy,’ mum says, ‘terrible.’

‘Yes,’ Antonella takes in an enormous gulp of air and holds it. Then slowly she releases it. ‘– but from every negative there must come a positive, yes?’ her dark eyes shine. ‘There is only so much crying one person can do. There is a time to stop and say “enough”’ she waves both her hands, ‘you have to believe that things – even bad things - happen for a reason and that reason is not to make you sad forever. The Good Lord does not wish his children to suffer indefinitely.’

Even I’m smiling with her – her words make such perfect sense. Not so much about the reference to God. I’m still on the fence with religion to be honest.

‘And we have Milo. We must concentrate on the good and try not to think of the past. Only if it brings happiness, you know? I’ll bring him in one day and maybe he and your little boy – Davey is it?’ mum nods. ‘They can play together.’ She turns to watch Davey over by the window still and smiles.

‘Mia’s not here,’ he says breezily – as if it’s such a normal thing to say - and right then I feel something large and heavy plummet to the bottom of my stomach. My mouth dries up and the silence seems to last an eternity.

I’m not sure who to look at first, my eyes are still glued to Davey and his stupid, insensitive outburst and I want to slap the words back into his mouth so that nobody heard them in the first place. It’d be great if Time Travel were invented right now – this minute – please?

‘Not today, Davey – maybe she’s someplace else right now, you think?’ Antonella winks at my baby brother and strokes his pudgy cheek again before handing me my hours of work for next week. ‘Alright, Maddie?’ she says.

thirty-four

I tell Mum and Dad I want to walk home. They don’t even protest very much. I think they know that Leo’s with me and we need to talk.

‘So you seriously didn’t know?’ I ask him again. ‘About your baby brother?’

He shakes his head solemnly. And then he lifts it and I can see a vague line of tears running down his misty cheeks. I want to wrap him in my arms and tell him everything’s going to be okay, but how do you comfort the deceased? He takes in the deepest gulp of air ever, then slowly releases it and for a moment I wonder if there’s any point in a dead person breathing, then decide it’s probably got something to do with unconscious brain functions or something. I don’t know.

‘You make me laugh,’ Leo says, turning the corner with me. He obviously just heard the biology lesson I gave myself in my head. ‘You’re the only person who’s made me laugh since I died.’

‘You’re a bit guarded to start with and difficult to get close to, but I consider you worth the effort,’ he punches the air like he’s a winner and I can’t help grinning like a loon.