Who Says You Can't Go Home?
Monday 19th April 2004

Mark Albert Fowler
Died Monday 12th April 2004
aged 36 years
A brave and inspirational man; son, brother and most beloved friend to all who will be missed forever.
Safe in our hearts always, Mark, sleep well.
Funeral to be held on Thursday 22nd April 2004, St. Mary's Church, Walford at 2pm.
Floral tributes from family only
On Mark's requests, donations will be distributed to AIDS charities via Seven Oaks Funeral Directors, Walford.

I crumple the obituaries page in my fist. The words have been put there in front of me. And I still refuse to believe it. How can I? How can I bear to see it as the truth. In the year since I last saw Mark, there was hope. Just imagining him on his bike seeing the world like I never will. Just that, never daring to think that he really might...

Why didn't I go with him? Why didn't I? I could have looked after him, proved my worth to someone since Tom's death. I loved him differently to Mark, but it's still love that would have made me be there, to see him through his last days, to know that he'd gotten everything he might have wanted for whatever time he had left. I can't have lost him. I can't. This is too soon. If I'd gone, I wouldn't just be imagining his face as he took in all the magical things he was so determined to see of this whole wide world before he left it. But why now? Why like this?

Mark's more like me than he would ever have admitted. So stubborn. But he left the place that would always be his home to chase his dreams. I let mine die so that I might stay and why? I've clung on to everything I thought was mine in this damned little Square because I thought it meant something. But it doesn't, because look what's happened to me all the time I've been here. All I do is hurt and lose the people I love without ever really knowing how I did it.

I spent twenty years trying to get out this place
I was looking for something I couldn't replace
I was running away from the only thing I've ever known
Like a blind dog without a bone

And Mark... he woulda have been able to make it seem OK. Like after Tom died, he was an absolute rock. Hurting too, because he had lost a friend, but still he could put his arms around me and tell me it'd be alright as long as I believed it would. And we'd sit, listening to old record from when we were kids, and I'd start to smile. I could never help it when Mark was around. He'd laugh and say "There you go!" And he'd stay with me for a few more hours, not saying a word if I didn't want him to. Sometimes I didn't need him to. Just being around him was enough to bring me out of myself.

Because Mark was incredible. He'd gone through so much, what with his illness and he still got on with life well, determined to find the next positive thing. He always used to say that if he didn't, he'd never find a reason to get out of bed in the morning and he saw no point in self-pity when someone somewhere had given him another day. He lived knowing there was a time-bomb waiting to destroy him from the inside and yet he still had a smile for everyone.

I'm gonna miss that smile so much. But Mark... he's my star now. He'll never stop shining.

I was a gypsy lost in the twilight zone
I hijacked a rainbow and crashed into a pot of gold

I went around to the Fowler's today, to comfort Paul and make sure Martin knew I was there for him. We went upstairs to Martin's room for a bit and like some naughty school-kid, he withdrew a few of Mark's records he had snaffled for his own collection over the years. I couldn't help but laugh as all the memories came flooding back and I think Martin appreciated having someone besides his mum to share these things with, especially seeing as Chelle apparantly can't make it back to Walford. We listened to a few tracks, smiling.

When I got up to leave, he pressed them into my hands. I trued to refuse, but he insisted, stooping to kiss my cheek. "Keep smiling Sharon." he said quietly. "That's what Mark wants."

So here I am, alone in my own house, playing Mark's records, surrounded by Mark, missing Mark. But I just can't smile anymore and I'm so sorry. Because I'm listening to the words and all I can think is, he was so damn strong, always moving on, but never forgetting the importance of what he'd left behind. His friends and family. It hurts to know none of us on this side of the Atlantic saw him again after he left the Square, but again, that just proves how his stubbornness and strength went so perfectly together. He just wanted to be Mark. He never wanted to hurt anyone of us by appearing to be anything less. This way, he's left us with memories. Memories of a man with the determination to live his life without regret.

I been there, done that!
I ain't looking back on the seeds I've sown
Saving dimes - spending too much time on the telephone
Who says you can't go home?

I'd give anything to say I could do the same. But that's all my life is... one miserable string of regrets and losses. No wonder I've clung so mercilessly to this place. But it just seems like with mark gone, well and truly gone, nothing much remains that made it good in the first place. So my dad's back, but he's different... how can he not be after so many years away? Besides, between him and Mum, they made me miserable over at that pub, I can't deny that. It was the Beales and the Fowlers that gave me held me together. Ian with his sheer stupidity, Paul & Kath with their shoulders to cry on and hot, sweet tea and extra biscuits, Michelle with her girly gossip and Mark... for just being Mark. He was such an amazing human being. He cared about everyone.

And now he's come home for the last time. Or maybe it's just that even now, he doesn't know how to stay away from the place, like me. We run away, we need space. But we always come home. It's where we belong. It really is where the heart is. Even if mine's breaking right now.

Who says you can't go home?
There's only one place they call me one of their own
I'm just a hometown boy - born a rolling stone!

And Mark always said you have to look forward. But for him, we're gonna look back. Because Mark gave the last of his precious energy admiring a world cruel enough to take him from us all. And now he deserves to rest. At home. Where else would he go? His family need him back and this is the only way they can have him.

Who says you can't go home? Who says you can go back?
I been all around the world and as a matter of fact
There's only one place left I want to go
Who says you can't go home?

I bow my head, ashamed to admit I'm crying. I don't know how I can really have the nerve when Mark would never have shed a tear for his own cause. I just can't recover from the way I found him so desolate in the rain a few nights before he left the Square for good. When he was first told he was going to die. He just wanted to be dead. To die straightaway, rather than have to suffer the shameful process of detoriation. Because he didn't want anyone else to see. So even though I somehow convinced him to embrace the time he had left, he summoned all the strength left in his treacherous body and went alone. And though I'll always respect him for that, I wish he hadn't. 

Because all it means now is that I've lost him forever. I've lost my rock. I'm never going to see him again. 

I bite into my thumbnail, trying to smother a sob before it tears through me, tears sliding down my cheeks, but am interrupted, flinching frightfully at the sound of a key in the lock. I bite down into my lip, like if I'm silenced, then whoever it is isn't going to notice I'm here, even though Mark's record is still playing at a volume to shake the walls. It was meant to drive all these horrible thoughts from my head but...

"Sorry... I didn't think anyone would be in..."

At the sound of Dennis' voice, hardly expecting words, never mind his, I leap up from the couch, screaming involuntarily in fright.

"Whoa, whoa, Sharon, it's OK, it's me, it's just me..."

It's alright! It's alright! It's alright! It's alright! It's alright!

Lowering my hand from my mouth, I stammer; "Wh-What are you doing... just turning up here?"

He smiles weakly. "It's not gonna happen again, don't worry." And he lifts his hand, his keys entwined in his fist. He turns and drops them on the table. "Leave 'em here shall I?"

"Do what you want." I bristle dismissively. "S'nothing to do with me anymore is it?"

I glance at him quickly, and he's biting awkwardly into his lip. "I wish you wouldn't be like this..."

I laugh. Cold and high. "You're incredible Dennis, you know that? Surprisingly enough, none of this... here, now, is about you. So why don't you just get out?!"

I spin wildly away, my thoughts catapulted right back to Mark and tears slipping readily from my eyes as I shake.

"Sh-Sharon? Are you OK?"

Mocking him through my tears with an even weaker laugh, I wipe at my eyes as he hesistantly presses his hand into my shoulder, not quite knowing if it's OK to touch me. But when I don't throw him off immediately, entirely without the strength or will to do so, his thumb brushes comfortingly across my shoulder blade.

"I'm fine." I sniffle. "Just go. I'll be fine..."  

He pulls me round by my shoulder and I'm forced to look him in the eye for the first time in days, practically since... since we were still lovers.

"Will ya? Really?"

I hate that he can see my lips trembling as I fight to keep back a sob as my rivers of tears pour freely down my stained face. His eyes burning questioningly into mine, like he still hasn't surrendered the ability to read my battered soul, I reluctantly shake my head, whimpering; "No..."

And then I crumble, like bowing my head makes it anymore unlikely he'll know my tears fall, that my sobs overcome me and tear through my chest, making me gag. I cling desperately to his shoulder, otherwise knowing my legs are gonna fold beneath me. He holds me as best he can, steadying me as he strokes my hair, not saying a word, perhaps as unprepared for this as I had hoped to be. I never wanted to fall apart in front of him. But he's here isn't he?

"I.... m-miss... M-Mark!" I splutter desperately.

"I know you do. I know."

"Why did he have to go now, Dennis? Wh-Why did he h-have to leave me n-now?"

He falls silent, hoping to simply soothe me with his closeness. And it is a comfort, but it's a treachery all at once. Because it's all a lie. He lied.

So I wipe furiously at my eyes, needing to compose myself as I pull back from him, gasping in breaths that are awkwardly shallow. Oh God, I'm so embarrassed. But Dennis doesn't even blink, his eyes still most definitely upon me as I sink into the cushions of the couch, finding it hard to even meet his eye. I blanche at my lip as he wordlessly hunches his shoulders and edges towards me, perching on the arm-rest.

"I... I tried to come and see you this morning..."

"I heard. But I was... just as much of a mess then as I am now. I weren't up to it."

"You're not a mess Sharon." he says softly, like he almost believes it himself.

I don't, laugh. "Shut up. Of course I am, I feel awful..."

"Yeah, I bet you do. I'm so sorry, y'know. About Mark."

I smile weakly as I will myself to turn and look at him. "Shouldn't you be saying that to Vicki; he was her uncle after all. Her family."

He looks suitably uncomfortable at that, but somehow doesn't let it vex him. "Yeah, and I will. But it's you that's here right now yeah, and you've lost someone too."

I wish he could understand the irony. I drop my hand from my mouth and it lands with a slap in my lap. "Course I have. I'm always losing someone, Dennis. I just... never really believed it'd be Mark. And I don't know what I'm supposed to do..."

"Talk to someone."

"Like who?" I demand. "Michelle's just lost her brother and if she hadn't, I'd still be talking to Mark, but he ain't here! You tell me, who is there now Mark's gone?"

Hanging his head and toying anxiously with his hands, Dennis mumbles; "I'm here."

"And why should I talk to you? You didn't even know him!"

"No-" he agrees with an awkward sigh of submission. "-but from what you and Vicki have said about him, I know I'd have liked to."

"You reckon? He was Tom's best friend, Dennis..."

I really don't know what it is I'm expecting to see as I snap my head round, my gaze locked on his. I get this jolt in my stomach and it's like I like I feel cheated. Because there were no flashes of jealousy, no nothing. Who is this man?

"So? He was a good man wasn't he?"

I nod certainly as I blink to hold back more hot tears that come anyway. "The best. He- He didn't deserve to die like this..." And as I begin to cry again, Dennis anxiously slides his arm across my shoulders.

"No-one would. But he saw it out his way yeah?"

"Yeah." I gasp miserably with another nod. But then as I lift my weary head, I just about manage a smile. "Oh Dennis, I wish you could have met him. I think you two would have really gotten on."

"You reckon?" he questions doubtfully, arching his eyebrow. And that forces out a laugh I never knew still remained within me.

"Yeah, yeah I do."

Relieved to see me smiling, Dennis moves back. "Look, as long as you don't mind me being here, do you want a coffee or something?"

"You mean... you'll stay?"

"Course I will." he assures me with a smile. Oh I've missed seeing people smile these last few days. Then he moves off to the kitchen and to be honest, despite it all, I'm glad to be here with someone that isn't my dad, trying to box me in, or Vicki with her own grief to deal with. Despite the unease swirling in the pit of my stomach, I feel more relaxed than I have for days; at last finding the strength inside to drag myself up from the couch onto my own two feet and move shakily over to the sideboard, crouching down and removing one of my oldest photo albums.

Settling myself on the couch again, I lean forward and am a good few pages in to the most dusty of my memories by the time Dennis arrives back in the room, with just the one mug in his hand. And if he hadn't set it down in front of me, I don't think I woulda realised he was back at all, I'm so lost of the images of hugs and bad hair and... young faces. All of us, we look so damn young and it doesn't feel all that long ago to me, and yet... Mark's gone. He's gone and he's never coming back.

And so the smiles that every image forces to my lips is tainted by each fresh wave of tears as I am forced to remember.

"Meant a lot to you didn't he?" Dennis murmurs kindly, peering over my shoulder at the album as he settles down beside me. "Mark?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he did. Kept me sane for longer than I can remember. What am I supposed to do now eh? I mean, look at him...."

I tilt the album up from my lap, pointing out Mark. Glancing at me apologetically, Dennis looks back to the photo and laughs.

"What?" I demand defensively.

"His quiff!" he splutters. "Looks like he's just stepped out of Grease or something!"

"I'll have you know that that hairstyle had the girls tripping over themselves to get to Mark!"

"Yeah? So what about you?"

"No!" I scoff dismissively, looking away to turn the page. "Mark was like my..."

"Your what?" Dennis presses as I trail off.

"My brother..."

"Oh right." He smiles sympathetically as he catches the panicked way I'm looking at him, waiting to gauge his reaction. "Sharon. it's alright, you can say it you know. It don't have to be a dirty word... Just... tell me about him."

"Well... I was a daddy's girl yeah, but Mark, he was a mummy's boy. Not like Ian, not that-"

"Wimpish?"

"Dennis!" I scold, shooting him a warning look even as my tight lips curve in amusement.

"Alright, I'm sorry. Go on."

"There weren't nothing he wouldn't do for his family. And that's what he made me feel like. His family. And even he was low, so low; going in and out of prison when he was a kid... finding out he was gonna be ill... he still took each day as it came, believing there was something to get out of it, something good. It's just... in the end... it ain't all in this one Square is it?"

"No."

"So when he knew there wasn't much time... and God, he only told me that because I was the one that found him out on Arthur's bench in the rain a few nights before, thinking he'd done God knows what to himself, not trusting any of us to help him through it... he got his bike, and he drove away. And I kinda knew I wouldn't see him alive again, but if he wasn't here every day there was just... this hope.. that he had another day y'know? Out there in the world somewhere, doing something amazing. Because he was amazing. After everything he suffered, and I don't just mean being ill... he still had no regrets. He knew he was loved and he didn't wanna change a second of his life."

I went as far as I could, I tried to find a new face
There isn't one of these lines that I would erase
I lived a million miles of memories on that road
With every step I take, I know that I'm not alone

"That's a good life." Dennis mumbles, glancing down into his lap. And I know what he's thinking. Because I know him, I know things about him he wishes no-one had had to know. And these things mean that both of us know, unlike Mark, we'll never die without regret. And me, thinking of Mark, there's one suffocating thought going round and round in my aching head. It won't go away. And I'm scared to think on why not.

"What if it wasn't?" I ask frightfully, searching Dennis' blank face with manic eyes with the answer I need to soothe me. "What if all the time he was alone, wherever he was... what if he wasn't really living? What if he was just waiting to die?"

"Oh Sharon, no. That ain't it darlin', it's not. Mummy's boy yeah? Family man. He was waiting to come home, that's all..."

You take the home from the boy
But not the boy from his home
These are my streets, the only life I've ever known
Who says you can't go home?
Who says you can't go home?
There's only one place they call me one of their own
I'm just a hometown boy - born a rolling stone!

I wish I could believe he's right because I love him more than I can bear to realise for listening to me when it might have been so easy for him to scarper. But he's here, holding me without hesitation, knowing I need him to comfort me. But I know he's wrong. I know it because he's proved it to me in his own actions.

"Waiting to leave me." I sob, not afraid to do so in front of him anymore. Because this realisation, it eclipses my pride. It tears me in half. "Just like everyone else. Like Mum, Michelle, Tom, Dad even. What's wrong with me? What is it? Why does everyone I care about leave me?"

I feel his breath get lodged sharp in his chest. "They don't." he whispers mournfully in my hair. "They don't."

"Then where are you?"

"I'm right here..."

"No..." I whimper, pushing against his chest to straighten my back. "You just came to give back your key, to walk away... to leave me; you're just like everyone else! What have I done, Dennis? Please, tell me! Before I lose you too, tell me what I'm doing wrong. I've put my heart and fuckin' soul into everything... everyone I've tried to make part of me and they... they slip through my fingers; it don't matter how hard I try and hold on. And it's happening with you, it's happening with you right now and I can't... I can't deal with that on top of everything else... please don't make me..."

He's looking at me, the surface of each of his eyes broken by unshed tears as he gazes silently at me, blanching his lip. I can tell I've upset him, but I'm here and I'm in pieces. I just can't stand another lose another person. Does he not realise that by now?

Maybe. Because he reaches into my lap, slides the album out of it, gently closing the sides and laying it on the table. Then he edges back, somehow that little way closer to me as he turns to face me, not even blinking as he reaches to stroke away strands of my hair stuck awry to my face as is the effect of my tears upon my face.

"You don't have to."

And before my next breath is out, his lips are pressed to mine, mine to his. And it's like I can taste the regret Mark will never know. I need to ease it away, pretend it's not there. Because there has to be hope for the rest of this painful day? Still something to gain? So I kiss Dennis still, thinking maybe, just maybe this is it.

But he bows his head shamefully after a blissful moment or two, abandoning my kiss. "Oh God... Oh God, I'm sorry!"

"Why?" I quiz innocently.

"I shouldn't have..."

Suspicion roars. "You want to leave me don't you?"

There's a lengthy pause that makes me anxiously, his guiltily eyes never leaving mine as he bites harder into his lip. "No. No I don't. But this..."

Shakily, I raise my hand and begin caressing his cheek with my fingertips. "...it's who we are. I played a game of brothers and sisters once Dennis, and look how it ended. I lost Mark. I can't play again, not with you."

Sighing gently, he cups my face, stroking tenderly down my cheek. He leaves the softest imprint of a kiss on my needy lips. "You don't need anymore than this Sharon. I shouldn't have... I should go-"

"Please Dennis, don't..."

"I... I can't stay!"

"Why not?" I cry, pleading against his resistance.

His tears, brimming in his beautiful eyes for so long look dangerously ready to fall.

"Because I'll make things happen Sharon, things that shouldn't!"

"But it's OK..." I whisper breathlessly against his ear, desperate to hold him close again. "...you can. Just... don't leave me."

Who says you can't go home? Who says you can go back?
I been all around the world and as a matter of fact
There's only one place left I want to go
Who says you can't go home?
It's alright! It's alright! It's alright! It's alright! It's alright!

He dares to smile, believing my sincerity at last. I don't understand why he ever doubted me. He knows what he is to me, and he knows the stupid lies he's made me hide behind to keep him close enough to brave this one moment. A moment when he'll prove to me that I have no-one else to lose. Because he'll stay and he'll be mine. Mark filled the position as my brother long ago. And now I've lost him and in doing so I know I could never have a better brother. I don't want one. I just want to be loved.

And I trust Dennis to do that. Because he knows me, too well to forget me. He knows how to make me trust in his kisses, soft but insistent as I lean comfortably back on the cushions of the sofa, drawing him too as he covers me, pressing down and letting his hands travel reassuringly up my body and down again, caressing me as begins to ease off my clothes, undressing me like I might shatter under too much pressure. But that's just it. I'm not being pressurised. I'm being saved. Because it's all I want to know him as I did. I don't want to pretend he could ever be anything else to me. Because there's no other way anyone alive can keep me strong enough to love who is left.

He pauses, again and again, hesitant for just a few seconds, concerned about me enough to offer me several opportunities to tell him to stop, to say that I don't want this. But I remain silent, and pointedly so, because I do. I want this, I want him to show me that love isn't just about the pain of losing. It's a chance to belong to someone. In innocence or in passion. And Dennis and me, we have been united in both so many times. But there's only one that feels truly right; his mouth upon mine, enjoying every breath of my pleasures as we make love.

No more tears. No more need. No more regret.

Because as Mark would say; there's something to gain from every day.

Except Mark, brave, beautiful Mark will gain no more. I owe it to him to lose no more.

Who says you can't go home?
I been there, I done that and I ain't looking back!
It's been a long, long road
Feels like I never left, that's how the story goes
It doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter where you go
If it's ten million miles or just a mile up the road
Take it in, take it with you when you go
Who says you can't go home?

The End