Saving from Monkeys (24 page)

By unspoken agreement, we didn't take him towards Jonah's car. The idea of putting Elliot in a confined space
at that point was on par with sticking a firecracker in a little box, not good. Instead, we walked round the back of the church, past the graveyard, and out onto a little dirt track that ran down into a reserve.

Elliot didn't pull away from us, or object to the way we were pushing him along, which in
itself was a worry. As we turned a corner, however, and were hidden by a screen of trees and bushes, he stopped suddenly.

Jonah and I halted on either side of him, and exchanged concerned looks, wondering what he was going to do next. I know my money was on him bolting, but I was so very, very wrong.
Instead of blazing away, Elliot tore the cap from his head, crushing it in his hands and then sinking down to his knees right there on the dusty track.

Dropping his head forward until his wave of hair was almost touching the
ground, he opened his mouth and released a completely silent scream of misery.

----------

It hurt so fucking much.

He clawed at his chest, trying to rip at it, trying to howl, to let everyone know about the pain, but he was a failure even at that and nothing came out.

He felt a small hand on the back of his neck, and then Rox was awkwardly dropping down beside him, pulling him up and against her until his strangled pants disappeared against her skin.

He'd tried so damn hard to keep
this from them. He'd tried to make it about Rox because he understood what she was doing. Someone important was dead and she cried, that made sense to him. The way he felt - the emptiness, the 'what do I do now?' stuff - was ugly and uncertain and he didn't want to face it. It looked like that was over now, though, there was no escaping the red hot knife of guilt and fear that twisted at his gut.

So what do you do
when the coping mechanisms you've put in place all come crashing down, and you feel like you're breaking apart? You don't have a choice, he realised. You just hold tight to the nearest person who gives a damn, and let it hit you.

Chapter 14
– The Best Letter Ever Written and the Final Goodbye

I would happily have lived with creepy, alternate universe Elliot for the rest of time to save the real Elliot what he was going through then.

I gripped him as tight as I could, but it still felt like he was disintegrating into little grains of sand and slipping through my fingers.

I could feel his dry sobs against my neck, uneven and hoarse, and I curled an arm up to shield his face from Jonah. They were incredibly close, sure, but this was the kind of intense, private stuff that no-one should see. To this end, I turned my head away as well, resting my cheek against his hair, giving him the privacy I knew I would have wanted in the same situation.

We stayed like that for a long time. My knees went numb, and I was pretty sure I was going to have the dents the gravel from the path had put in them for all eternity, but I didn't twitch.
  Jonah, for his part, stood guard above us; a reassuring presence at my shoulder.

Eventually, the gasps from Elliot slowed, and then he was pulling away from me until he sat to one side with his head hanging down between his bent knees.
A few seconds passed and then I heard voices drifting down from up by the church; the ceremony was presumably over. Elliot stayed hunched away from us, and I lifted worried eyes to meet Jonah's.

"I'm going to go up and head things off," he said, clearly thinking the same as me, that the last thing Elliot needed was any of the pretenders from the funeral or, heaven forbid, his
mum
, coming down and seeing him like that. "You two going to be alright here?"

I nodded, Elliot didn't react.

I listened to the crunch of Jonah's heavy feet on the rocky path, but soon that faded away to faint background noise and it was just me and Elliot.

He'd obviously pulled away for a reason, so I didn't try to comfort him again. I did shuffle round to sit next to him, though, now on my bottom and at least able to position the massive upskirt angle away from us both. Abi would have to forgive me for the view of my knickers her boyfriend had
presumably copped when I'd dropped down next to Elliot. I don't think he would’ve noticed anyway, all things considered.

Several more minutes ticked by and then, with a sudden, sharp intake of breath, Elliot came back to himself. It was immediately clear he wasn't happy with what he found.

"Damn, Rox," he croaked, throwing the propeller cap to one side and scrubbing at his hair. "I'm sorry, I-"

"No, don't." I cut him off quickly, not sure I could cope with seeing the 'Rox's grief is the only grief that matters' Elliot again, or having him apologise for
being
that Elliot. Putting on the 'Smelliot is so annoying' voice that used to come so easily to me, but now needed a bit of work to find, I added, "Despite occasional evidence to the contrary, I’m aware that you’re a human being.. It's not coming as some massive surprise to me that you have a heart and that it's a bit broken right now."

He shifted uncomfortably, and was obviously about to say something when his change in position elicited the crunching sound of paper from his pocket.
Ah yes, the mysterious envelope. It hadn't rated a second thought for me considering everything else that had been going on, but the way Elliot's face blanched at the crackling noise brought it quickly to the top of my 'items of interest' list.

"Either your hip is crunching like you're 100, or..." I trailed off, letting him make the decision whether to acknowledge the envelope's existence or not.

He hesitated for a moment, but then pulled it out and stared down at it warily. I tipped my head down for a closer look, but there wasn't much to see. It was a nondescript envelope, clearly unopened, with 'Elliot' written across the front in handwriting I didn't recognise.

"Nan wrote me a letter," Elliot said flatly, in answer to my unspoken
query. He started to tap it against his knee, I think to try and disguise the fact that the hand that held the envelope was shaking. "Or, at least, she told Chase what she wanted to say and he wrote it down," he amended. "Chase gave it to me the morning after she-" Like he'd been unable to say 'funeral' earlier, Elliot faltered on the label for Nan having died. Fair enough too, it still seemed completely ridiculous to think that she was gone.

"So...you haven't read it yet?" I asked, very much redundantly as I could see the envelope was still sealed. I'd just needed something to say when he'd lapsed back into silence, glaring at the letter as if it was Pandora's
box.

"No," he replied, sounding frustrated. "I've tried, but..." he swore and then ground out, "this is it, you know? This is the last of her. I read this, and that's all I'm ever going to get from Nan."

I nodded as if I understood, even as a tiny bit of me wanted to point out that he seemed to need any bit of Nan he could get just then, no matter if it was the last.

Elliot seemed to have mastered the skill of reading that tiny bit of me, though, because he asked sharply,
"You think I'm being stupid?"

"I think you're just being you," I replied carefully, dusting off my disused skills of circumspection, so rarely used around him. Despite my cautious reply, however, he snorted and said,

"Don't you think that's the same thing?'

This sudden flash of humour made me smile a little bit, and then he was tearing at the seal of the envelope like it was a bandaid over a healing scab; like the quicker it was over, the less it would hurt.

The letter clearly wasn't long, it only took up a couple of pages in Chase's loopy scrawl. I expected Elliot to turn away from me and read it privately, but he surprised me by holding the paper between us, so we could both bend our heads and read.

Hello there grandson-mine,

The best thing that can be taken from all this is that I get to say 'if you're reading this, I'm already dead'. I've wanted to do that for years, but I suppose it's very much a once in a lifetime kind of opportunity.

So here it
is, my deathbed missive. How very droll. I always hoped I'd be writing this in a cave up some foreign mountain with rebel forces encroaching upon my point of last stand, but safely tucked up in bed with a beautiful gay man tending to my every whim comes a close second.

So, let's get to it.

Firstly, your mother has no doubt organised some posh, incredibly dull funeral and invited a whole bunch of boring strangers who never met me, and probably wouldn't have liked me if they had. Who cares? This doesn't concern me, so don't let it twist your knickers into a knot. My family disowned me a few years after I disowned them (they always were a bit slow on the uptake), and all my favourite friends are dead (it's completely untrue that only the good die young) so it's not as if there is a multitude of mourners missing out.

I didn't give my daughter a lot in life, if she wants some genteel ceremony to celebrate finally seeing the back of me, let her have it. By the time some God-botherer is forcing himself to say nice things about
me, I'll hopefully be off haunting a good looking man's shower.

Secondly, and I need you to pay proper attention to
this, don't worry about what you're doing now I'm dead. When one of my paramours died (occupational hazard with older lovers), I ate nothing but porridge for three months. Don't ask me why, I don't remember him having a particular affinity for breakfast foods. I don't recommend the porridge route, it does terrible things to your digestive system and what at first seems like a charming whimsy can be a real hassle when eating out. What I'm saying is that maybe you're digging yourself a hole to sit in for a couple of days, maybe you're having wild, experimental sex with a variety of genders (here's hoping!), or maybe you're doing your 'fix it' thing and scuttling about putting everybody else's needs before your own. As long as you're not doing yourself any permanent harm, carry on.

No, I don't care how you grieve, but I do care how long you do it for. I'm 80, and have done nothing but drink, smoke and behave in a way that really should have sent me to my grave a lot sooner. There's a reason I tried to change my middle name to 'excess' some time during the 70's. Dragging out being sad about me is just a waste of your time. And you know I hate time-wasters.

Dying is not coming as some great surprise to me. People who act like they can live forever are idiots; you can't, and you'd become a real pain in the arse if you did. You have your time, you make your mark, and you move on. So I'm moving on. I would obviously have preferred death by a pirate's cutlass rather than having a generic brain malfunction, but whining about it doesn't change it. I'll be dead, but you won't be (unless we agree on some bizarre murder suicide pact between now and the end), life goes on, the wheel turns, birds sing and all that.

I'm supposed to give you some great life lesson at this point, but I think we can agree that's probably not something I could do with any integrity. You've always known right over wrong better than me; even as a toddler you were the one telling me to stop giggling during a minute of silence. Perhaps just keep Rox around. She'll have no problem telling you when your head's up your own arse, and she'll probably even give you a hand pulling it out if you ask really nicely. That girl's an absolute class act. She'll get where she wants to go and she'll do it in inimitable style, you let her know I think so.

I think that's pretty much all I wanted to say. I've had a good time, it's been a laugh. Remember that I travelled the length and breadth of this world, and you were the best thing I ever came across. Don't you dare make me a martyr. Look both ways before you cross the road. I love you.

Nan xxx

I blew out a heavy breath as I came to the end, feeling my lashes start to spike together
yet again
with those bloody tears.

"So..." I cast around for a moment trying to find a way to sum it up and finished with, "that's pretty much the best letter ever written."

Elliot passed it across to me and then turned away to quickly wipe his sleeves across his face. When he spoke, though, his voice was steady. "Yep, pretty much."

The paper shook in my hands as I took the opportunity to read the letter through a few more times. I wouldn't have thought it was possible a few hours ago, but I found that I loved Nan even more now. Only she could write a goodbye like that; one that showed her complete understanding of her grandson, and left nothing to his tortured imagination.

I was honoured to have been mentioned, and knew I would think back to this letter every time I had a crisis of confidence. It was like I'd said to her when trying to get out some sort of appropriate goodbye, she'd been the first one to believe absolutely that I would succeed. That that awesome, worldly woman trusted that I could get where I wanted to go, was the kind of blessing I'd once only dreamt of.

God, I would miss her.

"Probably should’ve read this before going off my face in the church, hey?" Elliot muttered suddenly and I surprised myself by releasing a little burble of laughter.

"Hey," I nudged his shoulder, impressed. "Good emotional breakdown to weak joke recovery time."

"
Weak
?" He protested and I could already hear a lightness in his tone that hadn't been there before.

He reached out his hand for the letter, and I passed it back to him. As he refolded it and tucked it safely back inside his pocket, I shifted to make myself more comfortable on the hard ground, accidentally kicking my bag as I did so. It fell over and there was a loud thunking sound from within that made Elliot look between me and the bag and ask,
"What was that? Did you come armed?"

I felt a strange little shot of pride at the re-emergence of the Elliot I'd actually come to kind of enjoy being around. To be so hurt and then to come back with a comment like that... well I wasn't the only class act around here.

"Well," I brushed aside that sentimentality and reached for my bag, pulling it up on my lap, "sort of."

I ignored his raised eyebrows at this response, reaching inside and pulling out a
small slingshot.

"When I went to buy my dress there was a joke shop next door," I explained. "I saw this in the window, remembered what you
’d said about how Nan wanted to go by slingshot and thought-" I stopped rather abruptly as Elliot curled a hand round the back of my neck and pulled me to him, kissing me, hard and fast.

I squeaked in surprise, but quickly got up to speed, grabbing a handful of his ridiculous outfit and hauling him closer.

He broke the kiss just as suddenly as he'd started it, but didn't pull away, instead bending his head down to rest against my shoulder for a moment. I pulled gently at the rumpled hair at the nape of his neck and then he pressed two quick kisses against my neck and leant back.

"You're awesome," he said without fanfare, plucking the slingshot out of my hands and pulling at the elastic a few times.

"I've always thought so," I said briskly, refusing to let those two words freak me out. I reached forward to smooth out where I'd rumpled his shirt, and, as I did so, my fingers brushed against the vividly yellow flower still stuck in his brace.

Plucking it from him, I grabbed up a rock from the path next to me and wrapped the stem around it a few times.
Elliot watched me, and then jumped up.