Disclaimer

48. SUMMER 2013

It’s time now to begin tidying up, to wipe our fingerprints away. I have closed down Jonathan’s Facebook page. Nancy had wanted me to leave it up, but I felt it best to take it down. She is feeling frustrated, I can tell. She doubts that my softly, softly approach, as she calls it, will achieve the outcome she desires, but I ask her to be patient. Look, I say. Look at little Nick’s Facebook page. He hasn’t touched it. That means something. There has been nothing new on his page for twenty-four hours. That is unusual for him. He can’t keep his little mitts off his page. “Status.” What a very grand word. His status hasn’t changed. How good that must make these young people feel. To have status. A status. Jonathan never had any doubt about his status — he didn’t need Facebook to endorse him. He never had to doubt his importance in his mother’s life.

I can say it now. I was sometimes jealous of Nancy’s devotion to Jonathan. Our relationship changed after he was born, of course it did. Not at first. At first it was us and our new baby, but as he grew, as he became more defined, I felt at times that it became me and them. They had a special bond and there were occasions when I found myself competing with him for her attention. I must have seemed needy to her, weak. Of course Jonathan needed her more, and it was unfair of me to ever try and pull her back from him. The only times we ever rowed were over Jonathan, over how best to manage him. We didn’t row often, less and less in fact the older he became. I started to back away from decisions about him. Nancy was unwavering in her belief that what he needed was unconditional love and support. That’s what every child needs, she said, and it was hard to disagree with that.

Oh, Nancy, how brave our son was. When I heard how he had died, saving a child, I was surprised. How shameful is that? I didn’t know he had it in him to save another life. And you suspected me of that, didn’t you? Although you never accused me of doubting his courage, you knew that I would have had a problem matching his death with his life. I am sorry it has been left until after your death for me to try and make amends. When I discovered the little boy he saved was his lover’s son, it made more sense to me. He wanted to please her; he wanted to show her how brave he was. He was in love.

I leave the computer open on Nicholas Ravenscroft’s Facebook page and go into the garden. I have already started building the bonfire. It was something Jonathan and I used to do together when he was little. He loved Fireworks Night, staying up in the dark, throwing things onto the fire, writing his name with a sparkler. It is dark now and I flick through a notebook, not reading it, just watching Nancy’s handwriting dance before me, and then I place it on the pile of wood along with the others. I light a taper and hold it against the fire lighter, watch it catch with a satisfying flicker and lick. The leather smells and curls as it burns, darkens and smoulders, the paper hungry to swallow the flames.

When I go back inside, I see Nancy. She is sitting in front of the laptop and she turns to me and smiles and I think it’s because the smell of the bonfire has conjured up happy memories of Jonathan and me together on Bonfire Night, but I am wrong. There is a message from the father on Nicholas’s Facebook page.