Burnt

Her second cold shower of the hour and still she felt baked. She’d been sunburnt before, of course, but this scorching intensity was something entirely new and unwelcome. It was as if the sun had somehow penetrated her pores and begun to boil her muscles. The slightest movement sent ripples of pain through her body and she’d convinced herself that even her bones felt hot. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she was being slowly cooked from the inside out: microwaved. Could that happen? she wondered as she stepped out of the shower onto the cool bathroom tiles. It seemed an equally grim and realistic possibility.

After a failed attempt at drying her red raw skin with a towel that felt like a scouring pad, she walked back into the hotel bedroom, her wet feet slapping on the bare floorboards. Collapsing on the bed, she lay on her back and stared up at the futile fan on the ceiling, wondering once again why she’d insisted she join Carl on his business trip to Delhi.

‘You know it’s going to be hot, don’t you?’ he’d said when she suggested it. ‘Really hot, Jenna.’

‘God, don’t patronise me, Carl,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen Slumdog Millionaire. Don’t you want me to come or something?’

‘I just want you to think about what it’ll be like. I’m going to be working. You’ll be on your own a lot.’

‘I can entertain myself.’

‘Fine.’

‘Fine.’

And so that was how she found herself in Delhi, neon red and nauseous after just two days. How had she been so stupid?

‘Oh my god,’ Carl said when he arrived back at the room, dropping his briefcase. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I fell asleep by the pool, she said. ‘I feel sick. Carl, I think I’m going to die.’

‘You’re not going to die,’ he said, sitting beside her and kissing her forehead, somehow finding the one spot that didn’t feel on fire. ‘Do you want me to hose you down?’

‘Don’t make me laugh,’ she said, ‘it hurts.’

‘It wasn’t a joke.’

‘Look at me,’ Jenna said. ‘I look ridiculous.’

He kissed her again. ‘You look beautiful. Obviously you look better when you’re not radioactive, but even now there’s a certain attraction.’

She failed to repress a smile. ‘Pervert.’

‘Lobster.’

‘Is there any after-sun left?’ she asked, nodding towards the bathroom.

‘I’ll go and see.’ He came back a moment later with a bottle that he placed on the bedside table as he knelt beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ Jenna asked, sure that her sun-fried brain was playing tricks on her and what she was seeing was a mirage. Surely he wasn’t about to propose. Not here, not now. She’d imagined this moment so many times before, but this exact scenario had never been one she’d pictured.

‘Maybe this isn’t the ideal time,’ Carl said, taking a small black box from his chinos, ‘but I wanted to ask you at a moment we’d both remember. And I don’t think either of us is going to forget this in a hurry-,’

‘Carl-,’

‘Let me finish.’

As he took the ring from the box, her heart thump, thump, thumped against her chest.

‘Jenna Andrews, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

She looked down at the finger on which he’d slipped a silver band adorned with a single sparkling ruby that matched the red of the rest of her body.

‘I can’t believe you’re asking me this now.’

His face fell, ’What’s wrong?’

‘Carl, I look like a knob.’

He sighed and took her hand in his. ‘Jenna, I love you. Burnt or otherwise. Are you going to marry me or not?’

She looked once again at the ring and tears welled in her eyes.

‘Of course I’ll marry you,’ she said.

And with that Carl kissed her again, on the lips this time, with a want and need that eclipsed all the pain of the sunburn. For now, at least...

Amends

She would die in the old manor she’d lived for all of her eighty years; Michael knew that the moment Sarah called to inform him of their mother’s second heart attack.

‘You’ll come home, won’t you?’ said Sarah.

‘Have you taken her to hospital?’

‘She won’t go.’

‘Then I’ll be down in the morning.’

His sister sighed. ‘You can’t come now?’

‘It’s midnight, Sarah.’

‘And I suppose you’ve been drinking.’

‘I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine. I’d hardly call that drinking. ‘

‘Well, it’s nice to see where your priorities lie.’

‘I’m not arguing about this. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Michael said, hanging up.

At forty-five, Sarah was five years Michael’s junior, but it was in the old manner of their relationship that she talk to him like a misbehaved child; more so in the months since she had moved back with their mother, looking after her as she would the family she so longed to have.

‘What’s happened?’ Phil asked as Michael pushed open the bedroom door.

‘Mother’s taken a turn for the worse. I’m driving back in the morning.’

‘Shall I come with you?’

Michael smiled as he slipped into bed. ‘I can’t see Mother being keen on that, can you?’

‘Well, I’ve never met her.’

‘So isn’t that answer enough?’

Phil took Michael’s hand in his, a touch - after twenty five years - as familiar as his own reflection.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, in all honesty.

Lying in Phil’s embrace, Michael stared at the red digits of the digital alarm clock. Was it normal for him to feel numb at the news that his mother was close to death? Probably not. But their relationship had never been one he’d call normal. In fact, he wasn’t at all taken aback that the only emotion this news stirred in him was relief.


‘She’s in the kitchen,’ Sarah said when he arrived.

‘How is she?’

‘She’s had a heart attack. How do you think she is?’

Michael followed his sister into the stuffy room where their mother’s two tortoiseshell cats were curled in front of the Aga.

Their mother was in her rocking chair beside the television that she never watched, a blanket over her knees.

‘Look who’s here, Mum,’ Sarah said softly. ‘It’s Michael.’
Michael sat in one of the kitchen chairs beside her.

‘Hello, Mother.’

It’d been a year since last he had seen her and her deterioration was immediately apparent: no shine in her eyes, no colour in her skin. The pale purple cardigan she wore had more life in it than the body it covered.

Looking at her now, Michael couldn’t see even a shadow of the woman he’d long held in such contempt, and he felt a pang of regret for so defiantly cutting her out of his life. Could it really be too late to make amends?

‘Michael?’ his mother said, putting out her hand.

‘I’m here,’ he replied, taking her hand in his. ‘I’m here.’