blood. What the fuck was your major malfunction there?”
“I can’t remember. I bet you deserved it, though.”
“I had to start school looking like I’d escaped from Hannibal Lecter,” I told Melissa.
“Poor little Toby.” She stroked my cheek. “Did you tell the other kids you’d been fighting supervillains?”
“I wish. I probably just said it was the neighbors’ cat.”
“So there’s mine,” Leon said, noticing just in time that he was about to light the wrong end of his cigarette. “Toby, you’re up.”
“What? No I’m not. That doesn’t count.”
“It’s what you’re getting. Take it and like it.”
“After Su’s thing, that’s what you come up with? That was crap. Do a proper one.”
He blew smoke at me. “You do a proper one.”
“I’m not going till you do.”
“I’ll go,” Melissa said.
I sat up to look at her face: calm, steady, unreadable. I couldn’t tell how stoned she was. “You don’t have to,” I said.
“Why not?” Susanna asked.
“Because she barely even knows you guys. It’s not the same thing.”
“Why don’t you let her decide for herself?”
“My mum’s an alcoholic,” Melissa said. Her voice was clear, almost dreamy. “One time, when I was twelve, she fell downstairs and broke her leg. I was supposed to be asleep, but she’d been making a lot of noise. She couldn’t get up. My dad was working nights, so he was out. She was screaming to me to help her, but I pretended I was asleep. I thought if she had to lie there like that for a while, in an awful lot of pain, it would scare her off drinking. I knew she might choke to death—she was getting sick—but I left her there anyway. I listened to her all night, till my dad came home and found her.”
“Jesus,” I said. I had heard snippets of stories, along the way, but not this one. “Baby—” I put an arm around her waist and drew her to me.
“It was a long time ago. She was fine; her leg healed up. And she doesn’t remember it.” To the others: “It didn’t work. She still drinks.”
“Oh, you poor little kid,” Leon said, big-eyed, leaning over to squeeze her hand. “Of course that doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“Amen,” Susanna said. “If it had worked, you would’ve been a hero.”
“I don’t think it does,” Melissa said. “I hope it doesn’t. It was a terrible thing to do, but I was only twelve. I don’t think one thing, specially one when you’re a kid, can make you a bad person.”
“It doesn’t,” I said, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head. “You’re one of the best people I know.”
That got a touch of a smile. “Well, probably not that. But . . .” A small sigh, as she leaned her head on my chest. “Trying my best to make things better. Whatever difference that makes.” And to Leon: “Your turn.”
He could hardly refuse, after that. I was blown away, yet again, by Melissa. She had to be wondering what the hell I was trying to do, she hadn’t wanted me to do it to begin with, and yet here she was throwing herself into the breach, heart and soul, to help me do it.
After a moment Leon said, “OK.” He gave her hand one more squeeze and moved away to settle his back against the wall, his face in shadow. “So. Back when I was in Amsterdam, I was going out with this guy Johan—remember him?”
“Yeah,” I said, which wasn’t true. Leon always had a boyfriend, none of them ever lasted longer than a year or two, I had given up keeping track.
“I do,” Susanna said. “What happened there? I thought you guys were serious.”
“We were, yeah. We were talking about getting married. And then one day, while Johan was out at work minding his own business, I dumped all his stuff in the hall outside our apartment with a note telling him we were over, and changed the lock on our door.”
“Why?” Susanna asked. She was lying back on the terrace, dead leaves caught in her hair and a cool shine of moonlight in her eyes. “What had he done?”
“Nothing. He didn’t cheat on me, didn’t hit me, practically never even got narky with me. He’s an amazing guy, he was mad about me, I was mad about him.”
“Then why?”
“Because,” Leon said, “it wasn’t going to last forever anyway. Shut up, Toby, I’m not being dramatic here, I’m just stating the bleeding obvious: for whichever reason, growing apart or fighting or cheating