A Suitable Companion

Chapter 9: Both sides, now

The next weeks are so strange, I feel like I'm in limbo. I have become so used to the routines we have together, me and Charles, so life feels empty with him gone. It is like I'm suddenly having a vacation I neither asked, nor made plans for. Of course, I can see Smurf more than usual but for some reason I'm not racing to the opportunity. When I'm with him, it happens quite often that I zoom out, feel like I'm looking at the two of us from the outside and ask myself what I'm doing. But still, it is familiar, it is safe and I'm not up for more changes for the moment. We go to Newport for an extended weekend trip, to visit his mum Jackie and his twin brother Geraint.

Jackie is sweet and Geraint is very likeable, in many ways easier than Smurf. He was born minutes before Smurf and I have the feeling that Smurf always had some kind of inferiority complex towards his brother for that reason. In reality, I don't think the difference between them has anything to do with timing, it is just that they are different personalities despite that they are identical twins and share the same set of genes. But Smurf seems convinced that him coming second has given him a disadvantage in life somehow, one of the many things he seems to be slightly bitter about.

The stay in Newport is nice but Smurf keeps nagging me constantly, complaining about every little thing I do. There is something wrong with the way I dress, the meal I helped cooking does not taste well, I'm not listening attentively enough to what he says, I don't leave him alone when he needs to prepare for an exam next week, I'm not as social as he would like to in between, and when I beat him playing cards it makes him unreasonably angry. I just do not know how to please him.

In the evening, Geraint and I sit in the kitchen talking over a glass of wine. Smurf has gone up to study some accounting stuff and we have a very relaxed chat. Sometimes I have wondered briefly what it would have been like if it was Geraint I had met first instead, but that is just a passing thought.

"Molly, I have to ask, what are you doing with Smurf?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's my brother and I love him, but he's not easy. At least not to you. Are you happy with him?"

The same question I have asked myself. I just do not know what to do about it as I'm not prepared to break up and it bothers me that someone else notices I may not be happy and asks. So, I react as one so often does when someone else points out something one already knows is wrong, I become defensive even if I know he means well.

"We're perfectly happy, thank you" I snap.

"I'm sorry Molly if I stepped into something I shouldn't have. It's just that I think you are great, and I love my brother. I want both of you to be happy."

I'm unable to continue the conversation as I now have a lump in my throat.

"I'm sorry Geraint, I will call it a night and hit the bed now."

And I do. Smurf stays up studying late and I lie alone in the bed in his old boys bedroom, staring at the ceiling in the darkness and I do not know why tears are running down my face.

-O-

After a few days I go visit Charles. I'm only allowed to stay for a short while. The positive effects of his increased dose of medication has not yet had a breakthrough and it may take a couple of weeks. Only when they have alleviated the worst symptoms with medication, they can for real start working on the root cause. Now he is still in a too bad shape and mostly he is sleeping. I just sit by his bedside for a while and keep him company. He looks like a child, although a very tall one, dressed in the white hospital clothes and tucked between equally white sheets. We do not say much, but it is great just to see him again and I think he likes me being there.