The Last Act of Love by Cathy Rentzenbrink

Author:Cathy Rentzenbrink [Rentzenbrink, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781447286400
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

PLAINTIFFS

I went back to Leeds for my final year feeling less burdened than at any other time since the accident. I moved in with Sophie on Delph Lane, a nice little street just a ten-minute walk from the university. There was a wonderful curry house called Naffees just up the road, and we went there a lot. I’d order a lamb dopiaza with a paratha, eat half, and ask them to pack up the rest so I could have it for breakfast the next day.

Sophie was keen to introduce me to her friend, John. They had just spent a year in Moscow together.

‘You’ll really like him,’ she said. ‘He’s just like you.’

His house had fallen through, so we invited him to stay on our sofa until he got sorted. He had lots of good stories about Russia – the huge cockroaches, how difficult it was to buy food, how he’d travelled around with a Russian MP and been taught to shoot at a firing range.

‘Must have been a proper culture shock,’ I said. ‘Much more exciting than my few months in Normandy.’

‘That’s because I’m so windswept and interesting,’ he said. ‘I think you should fall in love with me.’

We started seeing each other, but I knew I had to tell him about Matty if I wanted him to really know me. I dithered over it for ages as I was enjoying feeling like a normal person and didn’t want to introduce gloom into this exciting new relationship. But one night, after several drinks at our kitchen table, I said I needed to tell him something.

‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘I knew you were too good to be true. You’ve got a “thing”, haven’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Every girl I’ve ever gone out with has had some shitty secret, some melodrama. Come on then, what’s yours?’

I hated him in that moment. ‘Just fuck off,’ I said.

‘No, go on. Tell me – we might as well get it over with. I’ve known all along you’ve been gagging to tell me something.’

I stared at him. I wanted him to leave.

‘What is it? Did your French teacher like you a bit too much? Are you not over your parents’ divorce? Did one of your best friends have sex with you and then not talk to you again?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘My brother was knocked down by a car when he was sixteen and I was seventeen. He’s in a Persistent Vegetative State, which means he has periods of wake and sleep but nothing else. His brain is completely fucked. My dad and I want him to die and are thinking about applying to the courts, but my mum says she’s not ready. That’s my thing.’

I was crying now. ‘I loved him. I love him. That’s my thing.’

‘Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Come here,’ he said.

We got drunk and I cried all night. And from that time on, John and I were inseparable.

My parents adored John from the off and he settled easily into pub life, coming home with me most weekends.

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