“Yes, thank you,” she said as he left her alone.
Ten
When Jon returned to the fifth floor about an hour and a half later he found Steph sandwiched between Eddie and Jason.
“He scrubs up okay, doesn’t he?” joked Eddie before Jason joined in.
“Yeah, but I reckon those shoes cost as much as either of us earns in a month and the suit looks about six months money.”
Eddie looked slightly uncomfortable until Jon laughed. “Unless I had the shoes flown in from Milan on my private jet.”
Steph looked up at Jon in a grey three piece suit with a black shirt and a perfectly matched pink and grey striped tie and handkerchief before gazing down at the handmade Italian leather shoes and thought that Jason’s assessment probably wasn’t too far from the truth.
As he bent down to kiss her she suddenly realised that she must have appeared and smelt the complete opposite of him in yesterday’s crumpled clothes, without so much as a wash never mind a shower in over twenty-four hours, and then she realised that neither her hair nor her teeth had been brushed in that time either.
“Did you bring my toothbrush from yours?” she asked suddenly panicked at the prospect of inflicting her morning breath on his perfectly cleansed and fresh smelling body.
“Ah, now I could lie, but honestly, no. However, I realised when I was on my way back here so I stopped off at the supermarket and picked you one up and some toothpaste.” He passed her a bag containing a few toiletries. “But I left your work clothes in the car, but there’s a t-shirt and leggings in the bag.”
“Thank you, I might just go and try and make myself look a little more human,” she said as she headed towards the ladies toilets.
Once safely inthe ladies Eddie asked, “How is she?”
Jon shrugged. “Okay I suppose. She talked about your mum quite a bit through the night.”
“Really?” Eddie sounded shocked as he drew his brother into the conversation, “She rarely talks about her, does she Jay?”
“No, not really, but it tends to be a conversation killer when you sayI woke up to find my mother’s corpse lying next to me and Dad’s bit on the side told me to stop being so melodramatic for screaming! So you can see where she’s coming from, can’t you?” Jason’s question definitely needed no answer, and if his intent was to shock Jon, then he accomplished that fully.
“Sorry,” said Eddie as Jason walked over to the partially open window and gazed out. “They both struggle with the whole Mum thing, and I think that’s because they were both there and they’re the babies so only ever really saw her ill and witnessed far more than the rest of us who’d moved out. They also have the unenviable common link that they both shortened our mum’s life considerably.”
Jon’s expression conveyed his confusion.
Eddie expanded further. “Mum was poorly when she was about five months gone with Jay and they found she had cancer. The doctors advised a termination, but she refused. She figured Jay was due soon enough and she’d start treatment as soon as he was born and he would be the last Pryor.”
“But Steph?” asked Jon.
“Yes, Steph. Mum had Jay and had a few weeks before she started treatment, and it would seem that despite my parent’s precautions my baby sister still managed to be conceived. Mum went to have some pre-chemo tests done and they found that she was pregnant. The doctors told her she had to get rid of the baby, no other option and that waiting would almost certainly kill her. Even the old man begged her to get rid, but our mum was stubborn and principled and refused. Steph gets that from her.”
Despite the tragedy of it, Jon smiled and couldn’t disagree with the other man who was already continuing his story.
“So it was another year almost before she could start treatment, but she was never really free of cancer after Steph was born and her and Jay know that they were the reasons why her treatment was delayed.”
“Fuck,” cried Jon, unsure what else to say but had a strong urge to hold Steph and kiss her gently, to keep her safe forever.
“Yeah that just about sums it up. Did Steph tell you she was there when Mum died?” asked Eddie, wondering just how much Steph had shared with Jon.
“Yeah and stuff about Janice, but not about her calling her melodramatic,” admitted Jon with a greater understanding of Steph’s reaction and annoyance to Janice the previous day.
“I dunno how much she remembers, but when I got there it was about an hour after they found Mum and Steph was completely hysterical; crying, screaming, rocking in a corner, literally and when the doctor turned up to see Mum she sawSteph first and sedated her. I don’t know what Janice said to her, or the context of it, but Steph was in a bad way and it affected her badly.”
“It must be hard for you all, your dad and Janice.”
“It’s a bit weird. We all had letters from Mum and she liked Janice, I mean she’s a nice woman. The old man told me that him and Janice had tried to avoid ending up together, and I believe him. The thing is that we all know that our parents loved each other and Dad lost his wife a very long time before she died. They were the real deal, the sort of marriage you strive for and life cheated them of the life they deserved. We loved our mum and we still love our dad and want him to be happy. Mum wanted him to be happy.”
Jon nodded, words sticking in his throat, refusing to come out and be heard for several long seconds. “What do you mean,it affected her badly?” Jon asked, deflecting conversation back to Steph rather than her parents.
“She went off the rails big time until she met Charlie really and we thought she was back on the straight and narrow, but he was a bit too nice really, no offence,” Eddie laughed. “And then she ended up with that dickhead Simon who was always bad news. It’s as if she thinks she only deserves a shit as a boyfriend, no offence again.”
