Free Lullaby by Bernard Beckett Page A

canisters couldn’t bring us
back together. Georgia tried to get a game going, this thing with a pack of cards,
suck and blow, you have to…’
    Maggie’s look of determined tolerance killed any thought I had of explaining.
    ‘But the game hissed and fizzled like the flames. Theo still imagined he could rescue
the night. And why not? Two boys, two girls, two tents. It shouldn’t have been that
difficult.
    Well, I’m knackered, he yawned. Who’s for bed?
    Might just go for a wander up the river first, I said. I was moving before Harriet
could suggest she join me.
    ‘Theo came after me, caught me at the first bend and pulled me round by the shoulder
like he was setting me up for a punch.
    Okay, what the fuck?
    Already said, I’m going for a walk.
    We didn’t come here to walk.
    I’ve changed my mind, I told him. It was the truth, but not all of it.
    Because? he asked.
    She’s not my type.
    So what?
    You wouldn’t understand.
    I understand you’ve got no balls.
    Better than having no standards.’
    I could see from Maggie’s face that she didn’t understand, and I didn’t blame her.
It wasn’t what we said, that night, standing on the riverbed with the water dark
behind us. It wasn’t the words we chose, but the shape they fell into, the rut of
a thousand conversations past. A poem of anxiety, accusation and denial, and the
last line always there, but never uttered.
    But that night, when he looked at me, I didn’t look away. I stared back long enough
for there to be no doubt—too good for those girls, too good for you. And I turned
and walked away.
    I didn’t tell Maggie, because I didn’t want her to know. I wanted to pretend it was
just the words and nothing more.
    ‘Then what happened?’ Maggie asked.
    ‘I walked for an hour and a half. The moon was three-quarters full and the valley
was deep with shadows and, apart from the tireless chatter of river and rock, silent.
I jerked off in the blue light, but it didn’t make me feel any better. When I returned
to the campsite I was surprised to see the fire still burning red. I had my apology
ready. I thought about suggesting another canister; I was thawing. Only the figure
sitting up at the fire, prodding it with a stick, wasn’t Harriet. It was Georgia.
I took a seat on a log set at right angles to hers. The wind bounced and swirled
through the valley, breathing life into the embers, turning one face suddenly orange,
shrouding the other in smoke. We could hear the other two in Theo’s tent, giggling.
    Guess you’re with me, I said. I was nervous and hoping to be funny.
    Arsehole, she replied.
    It’s a family thing, I said.
    ‘Later Theo gave me his version. When he come back from the river, Georgia had wanted
to know why I wasn’t with him. He’d defended me, because that’s how family works,
and she’d stormed off. Harriet had started crying, Theo had tried to comfort her…That’s
how he told it.
    ‘I dragged my sleeping bag out to the fire. In the morning the bottom was soaked
and the top was shot through with little burn marks. We got a ride out that afternoon.
We travelled back in silence, each of us wanting to get home and wash the whole thing
off. I clung to the insane idea that it was all Theo’s fault, that he’d stolen Harriet
from me. He blamed me for destroying his relationship with Georgia.
    ‘We got over it though. Theo was always good at sorry: gracious and generous, when
the time came. It was just a case of waiting. It took longer than usual, a week or
so, but we got there. I apologised back; there was plenty of stupid to go around.
Forgiven, but not forgotten. I think we both knew that.
    ‘There was the time before that weekend, and the time after, and the two halves never
quite fitted together.’
    ‘I don’t see what you did wrong,’ Maggie said.
    I shrugged. ‘I broke something that didn’t need to be broken.’
    It was the only way I could think of explaining.
    ‘You didn’t have to have sex with her, if you