| 4 |
NECESSITIES
Tich dug through the tray of green beans, trying to find a pack that didn't expire immediately. Finding her target, she quickly dropped them into her basket, and headed towards the peppers.
Then, she did a double take. Mrs Holmes stood slightly vacantly, barely holding onto her trolley, her long cardigan pulled down over her hands. It was the first time in weeks that Tich had seen her wearing anything other than a dressing gown. She looked good. She'd done something with her hair, and although Tich wasn't sure if the makeup was to blame, she couldn't help thinking Mrs Holmes looked healthier. More like herself.
"Oh, hello," Mrs Holmes noticed her in return.
"Hi," Tich greeted with a smile. "How are you? It's good to see you up and about again." Mrs Holmes nodded and gestured at the mountain of food in her trolley.
"Well, needs must and all that." She smiled indulgently. "We missed you at dinner last night, although I suppose the boys appreciated a break from your gluten-free diet. With Mark showing up too, we've cleared the fridge quite quickly. Those boys can really eat!"
Tich blushed. Sometimes she forgot how hard her diet was on those not used to it by now. The Holmes family had been cooking gluten-free meals since Sylvia took up Tich's diet in a fit of pity seven years ago. Of course, they didn't need to do that anymore. Tich had been taking it for granted.
"Are you here by yourself?" she wondered, eyeing up the food in Mrs Holmes' trolley again to distract herself from the shock, then remembered her manners. "Sorry for the other day, I should have let you know I wouldn't be there." Tich hadn't wanted to hang around after Mark arrived. As a team, they had issues to sort out, and Tich had thought the best thing she could have done was to leave, taking Marilyn with her.
"No, no, Tony and Jim are helping me today." Which left Mark at home with Al and Victor, a winning combination. "It's very sweet of them. You know, Tony's an incredibly resourceful fellow. Manages their money for them now that Mr Stevens is busy refusing to tell the media where they've gone. You know, they refuse to let me pay for anything! Not even Al's, and he's my son. So I thought the least I could do was drive them here. We gave Mark a lift too. Did you know he's leaving tomorrow?" Tich's lips parted. "It was a really short visit, but it was sweet of him to come. It's quite a long way to travel just to check in on Al. Are you buying for your mother? How is Jo these days? Francis too. We must have them round sometime."
"Where did you...?" She stopped and shook her head, suddenly irritated at herself. She didn't need to know where they'd dropped Mark off. It wasn't her business. "I am, yes. We're having a stir-fry, but Mum forgot the vegetables." Mrs Holmes nodded.
"That's the problem with these three for two deals, you're so focused on what you can get that you sometimes forget what you need." She looked at Tich and smiled lopsidedly. For a minute, she looked just like her daughter, and a wave of nostalgia washed over Tich. It was the expression Sylvia used when she knew Tich wasn't paying attention. "We dropped him off at the park, if you're interested."
Tich blushed. She was interested – but not because she was attracted to him. After all, Mark was Sylvia's. Not that they had any right to him one way or the other. Tich closed her eyes. Logic like that was so stupid it was painful to remember, but they used to giggle and joke about things like that all the time. Even if they knew it was nonsense, they'd hoped and dreamed their silly dreams. It didn't hurt anybody. Just themselves, in future years, when the dreams died.
He wasn't even nice.
"Sorry." She shook her head and smiled. "There was something I wanted to talk to him about, that was all. I didn't realise he'd be leaving so soon."
"Well, boys do that at their age." Mrs Holmes' smile became a little sad. "I wish Sylvia had been given that same chance. She always said she'd like to travel."
"We were going to go to Egypt," Tich muttered, picking up a twin pack of courgettes and adding them to her basket. "We wanted to see the Pyramids and ride camels by the Nile."
"You still can," Mrs Holmes interjected, trying to be encouraging even though Tich could imagine it was taking a great effort. "You can tell Sylvia all about it when you get there." Tich's face froze. She had no words to respond to that, so she nodded and forced a smile. She didn't want to say that she didn't think Sylvia would hear her. She wouldn't take that away from Mrs Holmes. Tich didn't know what she believed about afterlives anymore. Heaven and Hell. God. Religion. She wanted to believe. She wanted to believe Sylvia was happy somewhere and looking down at them, but at the same time, it seemed too easy to be able to blame everything on a higher power. She'd been trying not to think about it.
"I should get going," she whispered, gesturing to the shopping basket. "Mum will be wondering what's taking me so long." The supermarket was only a fifteen minute walk from Tich's house. She'd have expected Al's friends to walk here too, since Sylvia's house was closer, but judging from the huge stockpile of food Mrs Holmes was buying, she suddenly understood their need for a lift.
"Alright then," Mrs Holmes said, sounding only a little sad. "Bye dear."
"See you on Friday," she said, determined to give her something. "I'll talk to my parents about having your family round for dinner sometime." She couldn't bring herself to ignore the thought about bringing Sylvia too. If only they could.
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Tich took a detour to the park. It was another ten minutes added to her journey time there and back, and she didn't know how long it would take to find Mark, let alone speak to him, but it wasn't like her mum was cooking yet. She wasn't in a rush. Even so, she ran there. It was good to keep in practice. She was rather pleased that her new birthday hat clung to her head so well. She'd half expected it to fall off every five minutes so that she'd have to keep doubling back for it. It would have made a good interval training. But surprisingly, even though the pudding-like hat seemed like it should be a nuisance, it was useful. For all its obscurity and ugliness, she loved it. Probably because Al had given it to her.
The park wasn't big. There was a larger one an hour away, complete with swing sets and roundabouts for little kids. This was more of a set of playing fields, but the one thing it did have was a series of tennis courts, so she headed in that direction. Suddenly aware that the light was fading from the day. She stumbled to a stop as she passed an Oak tree and spotted Mark sprawled out on the grass, his head pillowed on his muscular arms. His racket lay on the grass beside him. What little sunlight was left threw leafy patterns onto him in sharp relief. Her lips parted slightly. There was no one else in the world that dressed quite like Mark. Not that Al and his teammates had normal tennis outfits either, but at least they'd been dressing for the weather around here. Mark, by all rights, should be frozen. His eyes opened, and he sat up, as if he'd sensed he was being watched.
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"What?" he asked.
"You're leaving?" she checked, still staring at him, unable to help it. She felt cold just looking at him. "After all the fuss you made, you're going already?" He reached up and rubbed his temple.
"Why does it bother you?" She was floored. For a minute she didn't know what to think. She didn't know the answer. She couldn't even remember what she'd wanted to talk to him about, just that she'd wanted the chance to talk to him one more time. To talk to the boy Sylvia had liked. Celebrity or not. She'd wanted to get the measure of him. It was stupid. There was no sense of catharsis to be reached here.
"Do you even know what's happened?" she asked, unable to help herself. Surely, he must've worked out that he was at Al's house. Must've understood that something was wrong in the way they were all acting, but would anyone have mentioned Sylvia? Would he have cared? Mark grunted.
"The girl in the photographs," he started, standing up and bending over to grab his racket as Tich's heart sank. "Sylvia. They told me. She was your friend?"
"My very best," she whispered. She had to look up at him when he straightened up. She clutched her bag more tightly, twisting the strap in her hands. "Can't you stay?"
"How would that help?" he asked, watching her fixedly. "I can't make him move past this. We're not that close."
"I don't want him to move past this." She frowned and played with the brim of her hat. "Sorry. I just irrationally thought you could help somehow. I shouldn't have asked."
"What does that mean?" She stared wide-eyed at his accusatory tone. "You want him to grieve forever? Did you want company, was that it?"
"No!" she said with a sharp gasp. "No, hang on." She closed her eyes. She was bad with words. She knew that, and she usually panicked when she couldn't express herself, which often made everything worse. She was trying to make a conscious effort to say what she really thought this time. "I meant, I don't want her to be forgotten. Of course, I don't want everyone to grieve forever. I don't want them to be sad for the rest of their lives, but I don't think they should be so blasé about it either. Sylvia's gone. It's a big deal, and I guess I'm annoyed that Marilyn's like that. I know it's her way of coping, but for me, it's impossible. How can she pretend that nothing's wrong all the time? Sylvia was such a huge part of my life that I can't ignore that she's missing. I realise I sound stupid. I don't know what made me come here." She covered her eyes, pulling the hat brim low, temporarily disfiguring her upside-down smile as her bag almost hit her in the face.
She instantly regretted what she'd said about Marilyn. Marilyn was a great friend. But she'd been sitting on the thought for a while, trying to keep it in, and her self-control had broken.
"Maybe I'm jealous that everyone else can move on," she admitted, slowly lower her hands again. She stared at the ground, unable to look at him. "And I know I can't do that yet." She stopped. She was having the wrong conversation. Or rather, she was having it with the wrong person. What she was actually afraid of, or rather, what she actually needed was for Al to stay with her. He was the one person who'd loved Sylvia as unconditionally as she had. The one person who seemed to be struggling as much as she was. Apart from Mrs and Dr Holmes, but as much as Tich liked them, she couldn't really bond with them in quite the same way. She was selfish.
"Okay," Mark said suddenly, breaking her concentration. His expression was neutral when she looked up at him. "I'll stay."
Tich frowned, suddenly unsure if that was what she'd really wanted to achieve. Al and his teammates were probably going to be angry with her. Maybe she'd inadvertently made everything a lot worse. But if Mark stayed, if he didn't report back to their coach, she got the feeling Al would have more time here.
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"What are you thinking?" Victor asked, flicking through the channels trying to find something he liked. Al closed his eyes.
"I have no idea." Victor turned to stare at him, momentarily distracted from his pursuit.
"Mark's right though, the tournament is coming up. What if she asks you to stay? What if either of them does? You can't just say no, can you?" Al didn't say anything. His eyes flicked open and stayed glued to the TV, now rerunning Scrubs for the billionth time. His jaw had tightened up, which should have been the signal for Victor to stop, but whilst Victor noticed the warning signs, he chose to ignore them. "You need to seriously think about where your priorities are. Jim'll throw a tantrum if you ditch us out of the blue five days before the preliminaries. Can't say Tony and I would be all that pleased either." Al's expression grew grim. His lips thinned out and his eyes narrowed. He tried his best to keep his temper in check. "Besides, are you sure you're back on form? You weren't just trying to kill Mark for messing with Tich or anything? Because that situation's not likely to repeat itself if you get what I'm-"
"It had nothing to do with Tich. That's not my old racket. When I said it was sentimental, I meant it was Sylvia's." Victor's expression shifted into neutral. "Of course I wanted to kill him." He called Mark a succession of very rude words. "I can't believe he just showed up here spouting all that dedication rubbish. He's not the only one taking this seriously. As if we really came here to hit on girls."
"Well, I don't know about you," Victor said with a smirk, intentionally being crude to break the tension. Al snorted.
"If you touch Tich, I'll break you." Victor pretended to look wounded, but Al's expression was half-serious, so he rolled his eyes and changed track. Al was resistant to certain kinds of jokes.
"Camilla and Marilyn are hot," he said, testing the waters. Al deliberately ignored the jibe.
"So you're not into voluptuous women?" he checked. "Some people would tell you that's shallow." Victor laughed.
"Mate, it's not how she looks, it's her personality that's the problem. I thought there was some unwritten rule somewhere about inner beauty. Helen's vicious. She just attacks us for no reason."
"Harsh," Al said, but he couldn't help agreeing. There must be something nice about Helen, for her to be friends with Sylvia and Tich, but if there was, she didn't like to show it. Maybe she just hated them? If so, in a way, Al didn't really blame her. From her point of view, her friend had just died and they showed up and distracted everyone away from that. But it's not like she'd ever given them a chance. She'd decided right from the start to treat them like idiots.
"Seriously," Victor said, leaning forward. "Are you really telling me you aren't in to any of your sister's friends?" Al half smiled when Victor referred to them as Sylvia's friends. Victor was usually a dick, but he was surprisingly adept at remembering all the really important little things.
Regardless, Al wasn't ready to get into that particular debate. Sure, he liked Tich. He liked hanging out with her. She was totally chilled, and that was rare for him. The girls he met were either fans, who could be a little intense, or very focused on their own tennis careers. Then there was Marilyn, who was totally stunning, but if she was chilled it was only because barely any thoughts seemed to pass through her head. She was very pleasant, and in a world where she was just a random girl, he'd be interested. Like half a dozen other guys he'd be stringing along on a leash. It didn't seem like she was very emotionally invested. To be honest, that was kind of a turn off for him. Camilla was pretty interesting. She was passionate, she acted out, and she always knew what to say. He couldn't exactly read if she was leading him on, or if she genuinely liked him, but he thought she was attractive, even if it wasn't in the most conventional way.
But he wasn't particularly in the mood to chase anyone right now, and with Sylvia gone, the idea of settling down with one of her friends seemed distasteful. He kept thinking he should've come home sooner. The thought made him sick, because it wasn't just Sylvia he thought he'd missed out on.
"Victor, don't go there," he muttered, stealing the remote out of his teammates hands. He flicked through the TV channels. South Park was on. That was a win. He settled back into the sofa and Victor sighed.
"Alright, but if I hit on one of them, I don't want you getting crazy mad at me." Al closed his eyes temporarily, to let the rage boil down.
"They're grieving," he reminded him. Shaking his head.
"That's how some people grieve!" Victor said defensively. "Come on, what do you take me for? I'm not looking to take advantage of anyone. But some people, when something like this happens, like to do reckless things in order to feel a bit more alive... you know?"
"You're disgusting," Al muttered. But he knew Victor's intentions weren't necessarily terrible. It just jarred with Al's own feelings on the matter. That didn't de facto mean he was wrong. "Go for Marilyn," he said at last. "She's more your type." Victor very carefully didn't let the smug grin show on his face. Al may have meant it to be an insult, but they both knew it was a reverse admission.