CHAPTER 51
I opened the front door as quietly as I could manage, and she was there, a small holdall in her left hand. I didn’t know whether I should step forward, or aside, so I did the latter, and she slipped in and headed straight for my room. I stood at the open door for a moment, then closed it, once again as quietly as I could manage, before following her. When I arrived, she simply undid her coat and let it fall, to reveal her pyjamas. I lifted the covers on her side, and as she slipped into bed, I did the same on my side.

[‘Her side, Mr Rhodes?’. ‘Just piss off’]

I turned to face her, and she turned away, before wriggling backwards into my arms. Her voice was a whisper.

“I am so sorry, Mike. I shouldn’t be here, but I should be here, and whatever I do is wrong, and because of that I must have hurt you, and that will always be wrong…”

My arms told me she was weeping, as tears rolled off her face, so I made a sort of joke of it, saying that I had only given permission for dribbling, and that was when the sobs came from. She was as silent as she could manage, but it still tore holes in me. All I could do was pull her closer and wait out the tremors. Her hand crept up to squeeze my forearm, and a whispered question followed.

“Mike… are you Jewish?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“Yes. No…”

“My parents were, Maz. I sort of am, by ancestry. Why?”

She took a long, shuddering sigh, then pulled my arm tighter around her.

“It was so much, Mike, too much. I got an e-mail from Mum today, and… One of my brothers is getting married, and she wanted to know when I was due home for it, and what I said, my conscience, and I could hardly fail to, well, notice. You. Your… your cutting”

“Maz, it’s almost universal in the States”

“You’re not from the States, Mike”

“No”

“It had… I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and what Mum had already called me, and what she would… I am so sorry, Mike. I can leave now, if you’d prefer”

“No. I wouldn’t”

She was silent for nearly a minute, before speaking once more.

“Neither would I, Mike”

“Please turn this way, Maz”

She stayed as she was for an age, before finally rolling to face me. Make a joke or say something silly, Rhodes.

[Adulterer!]
[I told you. Go and get fucked]

“Ms Rahman, have you really been thinking about my private parts all day?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly keep them that private, did you?”

That was the trigger that finally broke the dam completely, and while her sobs were muffled in my chest, they took a long while to abate. As I held her and sought for my own strength, I heard soft footsteps outside the door. The next morning was clearly going to be fun.

She wound down in the end, and I took the risk and kissed her forehead.

“Thank you, Mike…”

A slowness in her breathing, and she was away into sleep, and I held her until I lost my own fight with exhaustion. I know I dreamt, I dimly recall that said dreams were weird, but that is all the detail I can remember.

The next morning was almost a rewind of that Sunday, waking to bright sunshine through the blinds and a warmth beside me. I turned to look down on her, and she looked up as I stirred. Keep it gentle, Rhodes.

“Morning, you”

“Morning back, you. What the hell is Kul going to say, Mike? And Sangeeta, and Dal?”

“Probably ‘Good morning, Maz’, I’d guess”

“Hell. This seemed like such a good idea last night”

I did my best to keep my voice level.

“It was a very good idea indeed, Maz”

She looked up, and all I could see were those Dwr y Mynydd eyes, and that was when I realised I was as lost as I had been when Caro had smiled at me over a pool table, and it was my turn to weep, and it was Maz who found her patience.

She spoke as I myself wound down from my own weeping.

“She hasn’t left you, Mike”

For once, I understood completely, and pulled her back against me until I could breathe without hitches.

“Maz?”

“Yes?”

“What a right pair of emotional cripples”

“Yup. What do we do about it?”

I thought for a while, and all I could remember were her words.

“What you said about seeing the sun come up, fresh light and a new day?”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Are you blind? Sorry; that was a bit rude. Maz, I am doing my best to ignore a load of voices that want me forever tied to the past”

I had a sudden gush of soppiness, or perhaps honesty, to the gob.

“Maz, apart from things to do with my wife, you are the best thing I have had…”

I did indeed gush, and she got it all, from my weeks on the piss to that moment I found myself at the crux of Tennis Shoe, without a rope, and that was when I found her holding me.

“So what broke the stupidity. Mike? Sorry if that’s the wrong word”

“No. Perfect word, that. I found someone to look after”

“Ah. Mike?”

“Yes?”

“You know I have an interest in languages?”

I remembered her comments about Malta, and nodded.

“I looked up Welsh names, Mike, and spelling. Davvy should be D A F I, and that’s a boy’s name. Dal really slipped up, didn’t he?”

Oh hell.

“You are a sharp one, Ms Rahman”

“Stop it, Mike. This is part of what threw me… Shit! Please talk me through it”

I took a while to gather myself before I began.

“You have it right, I think. Alys was told she was a boy when she was born. Shit: cut to the chase. She did her best to kill herself, I saw her in hospital, and she confided in me so that I could tell her parents. She’s Alys, end of”

“Is she happy?”

“She is now”

“Good. Enfys helping?”

“Oh god, yes. Immensely”

“Thank you. That gives me… I can understand you so much better. Does she have other friends?”

“Most definitely. I…”

A sudden rush of emotion.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t been able to trust others to look after her”

She nodded.

“I have said this before, but you are living up to what Kul said about you”

I feigned a laugh.

“Really? He talks a lot of crap”

“Yes. But not about you, and there’s my problem. I’ve tried to put it into words before, but it’s a paradox, of sorts. We’ve only just met, but I feel as if I have known you for years. Mike, I was in a bad way after… That New Year, I nearly went home. I don’t know if I could have coped if I had done that”

“From what you’ve said, well, no”

“They’re still family, Mike. They are all---no. They were all I had left”

“And now?”

She wriggled to get closer to me, as if that were possible.

“Now, now I have so many people. Kul for starters, and now, well, if I say I don’t agree with my conscience, maybe you’ll understand what I mean?”

I couldn’t keep a chuckle down, and she lifted her head slightly so that she could look me in the eyes.

“Something funny?”

She said the words without rancour, not as an accusation but as an honest question, and U smiled back.

“It was last night, Maz. My own voices were saying the usual ranting, so I mentally told them to, er, go and get fucked”

At last, an honest laugh, and as it came, so did the tap on our [yes. 'our'] door, along with Geeta’s “May I come in?”, followed by Maz’s “Please do”

Geeta was carrying a tray of tea, which she set down on the top of the bedside cabinet before settling herself on the corner of our bed.

“I heard the door last night, you two, and a little of what you said. If I say I don’t need to know it all, please take that the way I mean it. Kul and I…”

She sighed, looking up to a corner of the ceiling for a moment before speaking again.

“We were worried, my husband and I. Both of us are fully aware of the loads you carry, or at least as aware as is possible from outside the pain. We made a decision at the weekend, that we would simply remain there for each of you, separately or together. That’s it; that’s all the message”

A smile, a different one to her earlier expression.

“Oh, and both of you are late for work. Kul has already gone, as has Dal, and He Who Is Never Obeyed Unless He Asks Nicely has promised to sort your diaries out and lie to your colleagues on your behalf. His words, not mine. He also did his evil laugh after saying that Mike doesn’t have his own diary yet, so he’d be able to claim double credits for half the work”

Maz was shaking her head, but I could feel her face move against my chest as she smiled. Sitting up, she thanked Geeta, and then declared that her entire diary for the day had consisted of four fast food places, all in the afternoon.

Geeta nodded, the softer smile back on her face.

“Then I shall have some sort of breakfast cum brunch on standby for you”

She reached out with both hands so that each of us could squeeze one, then left us to our tray of tea. We sat up, I poured, and as we sipped, Maz simply said, “That’s told those voices, Mike. They have to go and get fucked now, or they’ll be upsetting Mama Bear Butt, and we can’t be having that, can we. Put your cup down, just for a moment…”

She held nothing back in her kiss, and neither did I.