by Beth Morrey
The fireworks, raging around us throughout, suddenly ceased, and silence hung in the air, only interrupted by the catch in my breath. Leo’s eyes were closed, then he sighed, and it was like a great oak shaking off the last leaves of autumn. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally looking at me. “It’s just . . . such a lot to take in. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
I reached out my hand. “I don’t know what I want you to say. I just know I needed to say it.”
The bangs started up again. After a second’s hesitation, he took my hand and held it. “It was never fireworks with us, was it, Missy?” he said, almost to himself. “It was always about coming home.” I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He squeezed my fingers. “Come on, let’s go inside and have a hot drink. I can’t think straight out here.”
We went indoors, stamping our feet and rubbing our arms against the cold as we took off our coats. Leo went off to put the kettle on, and, more for something to do, I went to the living room and started to build up a fire, scrunching newspapers and arranging kindling as if the careful positioning would restore order to everything. It was just catching when Leo came in to the room, holding two steaming mugs, which he set down on the side table by the sofa. Pushing me to one side, he stiffly lowered himself to his knees to attend to the fire, holding out his wrinkled hands to the leaping flames. Ham-fists, just like Fa-Fa.
I stood up, equally stiffly, and went to sit with my drink, watching him as he busied himself with the poker, adding another log. Then he got to his feet and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have that drink, shall we?”
He joined me on the sofa and we sat for a while in the firelight, sipping our cocoa. Outside the pops and squeals continued but we were snug in our cocoon. Eventually Leo drained his cup, set it down and turned to me expectantly. “Well, Missy? What was it you wanted to tell me?”
A volley of shots outside accompanied the blow. I pretended to sip my drink, although it was also finished by then. So much unsaid. Then said. Then unsaid again. The bitterness and shame coursed through me as I stared at the blazing fire, blinking back tears and then turning to Leo with a crooked smile.
“Nothing, my darling,” I said, taking another fake sip. “Nothing at all.”
Chapter 44
Phillip brought Bobby home to me and we buried her in the garden by my roses. Denzil dug the grave, and we stood in a circle as she was laid to rest. Sylvie brought a small cypress tree, and we planted it above her, though neither she nor I would ever sit in its shade.
Angela brought Otis, as she wanted him to know about death, but I couldn’t bear to see his pinched little face as he watched us shoveling earth over the small mound. So I just looked down at a worm burrowing through the overturned soil, and thought about cutting the crusts off the sandwiches I would serve later.
Bobby would have enjoyed her small wake, wandering around nosing for crumbs. I gave my few guests ham sandwiches and sausage rolls, because they were her favorite, and we talked about what a wonderful dog she had been, which she would also have enjoyed, head to one side, listening for her name.
The worst moment came when Felicity arrived. Angela had rung to tell her the news, and my grief was now spiked with guilt because I was forced yet again to accept that Bobby was not my dog, that I’d been in loco parentis and failed in my duties. I was worried she would be angry with me, but as we stared at each other in my hallway, her cheeks streaked with mascara as they had been the first and only other time I’d seen her, I realized that she was holding out her hands, and after a second I took them, though I feared what she said next would break me.
“Millicent, I’m so sorry.”
Angela appeared from the kitchen, but seeing us there put a finger to her lips and pointed in the direction of the living room. We sat on my sofa, and in a prim little voice, I told her what had happened. She wasn’t as thin as I remembered, and she’d lost the dead-eyed look she’d had in the café. I suppose I’d gained it.
I couldn’t bear that she was so grateful. She kept thanking me for taking Bobby in, like it was a huge burden; like I’d done her a favor rather than the other way round.
“The other thing I wanted to thank you for,” she said, after Angela had tiptoed in with cups of tea, “is what you said to Adrian.” She looked at my bracelet of pearls as she spoke, but I was embarrassed rather than gratified; the Missy who had confronted her husband was a wholly different woman from the stiff, formal creature who sat opposite her now. I felt shamed by the pearls—to think that I, an eighty-year-old grandmother, stood in the street and bared my breast to all and sundry. The very idea was vulgar and nonsensical. She talked about how empowered she’d been by the story, while I cringed and wondered if I should put more sausage rolls in the Aga.
Then, as she sat twisting a tissue round her fingers, I found myself saying, in a broken whisper that seemed to come from someone else: “I talked to her.”
Fix leaned forward to hear better. “Sorry?”
“I talked to her. Bobby. Bob. We talked . . . I told her everything. She listened to me. She understood.”
She took my hands in hers again. “Oh, Millicent. The best dogs do.”
I’d let my tea go cold; when I took a sip, it made me choke, which brought on a coughing fit, and the tears I was working so hard to contain fell freely as I hacked and retched, bringing Angela back in to find out what all the noise was. She led Fix away to meet others who had known and loved Bobby, leaving me to compose myself.
When they’d gone, I sat for a while thinking about Leo and the latest letter that had arrived that morning, and then when I was done thinking about that I got up and went back to the kitchen, where Angela and Sylvie were tidying up. I put the unheated sausage rolls in the fridge and wrapped some leftover ham sandwiches in foil, thinking they’d do for dinner later. One of Otis’s most recent pictures fell off the fridge door as I closed it—a drawing of Bobby and me standing outside our house. With a child’s disregard for perspective, the dog was as tall as the second-floor windows. Would she always loom as large in whatever life I had left? He still drew me with long hair.
Angela and Sylvie left, with hugs and promises I barely listened to, so anxious was I to have the place to myself again. As soon as they’d gone, I went back to the kitchen and dug out the sherry bottle, hearing the tick tick tick of the clock, and the silence behind it. I poured myself a glass, and then another and another.
I took the bottle and sat in Leo’s study, in his chair, stroking his desk as I sipped. On a whim, I went over to the shelves and started pulling out his books—Killers of a Queen, the one he called his “blockbuster.” Pressured into writing it by his publishers, he hated the process and the result. Then The Three Ambitions of Archibald, about Archibald Rosebery. Another of Queen Victoria’s prime ministers—the more Leo found out about him, the more he claimed to dislike him. Then The First Victorian, his Disraeli biography—some said his best work. They all came out, one by one, until I reached The Bedchamber Crisis, his first book—the one that bought us our sofa. As I pulled it from the shelf, it slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor, the pages opening and fluttering, a piece of paper falling from the leaves. When I saw Leo’s handwriting spidering across the pages, I felt simultaneously hot and cold, hopeful and despairing, desperate to read and terrified of seeing more.
I took it back to the desk and unfolded it fully, my hands shaking.
Dear Missy, I read. Then stopped. A letter to me. His last letter.
Chapter 45
Dear Missy,
There are so many reasons I wish I didn’t have to write this. The first is obvious—I have to write it while I still can. Eventually the mists will descend and swallow me whole, and then the Leo you know will be swept away for good. So while I have this brief and terrible period of clarity, I have to say the things that must be said. Forgive my poor scrawl—this is written in haste. Not
to get it over with, but to make sure it’s done properly, before it’s too late.
Firstly, the money. Horace Simmonds will keep an eye on our investments, and we should muddle along for a good while yet, but if it comes to it, you must do as you see fit. Don’t worry about me; I will cease to have any say in the matter anyway. But know that whatever you decide, you have my blessing.
Secondly, Melanie and Alistair. I am sorry I never warned you of Alistair’s plans, which were evident to me. I thought it might not come to pass, but now that it has, please, Missy—when they finally go, send him off with a smile. That day when we took him to those grim digs in Selly Oak—I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I remember your face that afternoon, your fingers clutching his sweater. You smiled then, so bravely, and you must do it again. Because if you don’t, you will lose him anyway.
When he is gone, lean on Melanie. She was always my girl, wasn’t she? From the moment she was born, my little curled-up hedgehog. But I know her spikes have irked you. You find her difficult for the same reason I admire her so: she reminds us both of you. Try to recognize Mel’s fine qualities as your own, and rely on them to carry you through this. She will be your rock.
I don’t deserve such an accolade. One of my greatest regrets is not being a truer and more devoted husband to you. Now I sit amidst all the books I wrote, I wonder if I couldn’t have written a little less and attended a little more. You were always there, always present, always loving, however hard you tried to hide it, while I . . . well, perhaps my fate is a fitting one, to be forever absent.
My other great regret—the main reason I wish I didn’t have to write this letter—is that I failed you. I remember Bertie. That night you told me—I did everything wrong. The shock of it, the anger, and the grief . . . and then it was blown away in one of those hideous blizzards where everything blurs and I can barely hold on to who I am. But it came back, bit by bit, and I pieced it together again. So I remember you telling me about him. And I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to say then what I can write now: let it go. The guilt, the pain, the loss—anything you are carrying with you is not yours to bear alone. I shoulder it now, and when I go I will take it with me.
We had such happy times, you and I, and that’s what I want you to hold on to. More than half a century rubbing along, and that’s something I don’t regret. You were always the one, Missy. The one I saw across the room at the St. Botolph’s party, sipping your wine and looking so out of place. The one walking down Sidgwick Avenue with the sun in your curls. The one swaying in my arms in the cellars of the Cambridge Union, with tears on your cheeks. You thought I didn’t see, but I did. I just never said. I never said.
I’m sorry for all the things I didn’t say, all the things I wasn’t. But I hope you’re not sorry. Don’t spend what’s left of your life feeling guilty or apologetic—move on. Onwards and upwards, Mrs. Carmichael. I’m going to forget about you; you have my permission to do the same. Let go. But know this: we may have sung different songs, and sometimes we were out of tune, but I think we harmonized rather well in the end. Don’t you?
Chapter 46
Sherry has always been my nepenthe, the anti-sorrow drug of choice, to quiet all pain and strife. After reading Leo’s letter, I drank another glass, put on my coat—the old black one, not my Christmas parka—and set out.
It wasn’t a long walk, and besides, it was one I did quite regularly. The usual route, down the little alleyway and along the boulevard until I came to a low, long building, wooden-clad on the ground floor with red bricks on the second story. We’d chosen it together, and Leo had joked about the red bricks; he still made jokes then. He always made me laugh, from the very beginning. Even when I’d been annoyed with him, he was able to tease me out of a bad mood, coax me to an unwilling chuckle. They say laughter is the best medicine, but that couldn’t save him in the end.
“Good evening, Mrs. Carmichael.”
I didn’t say hello to Rachel as usual because I had to get in and get it over with before I lost my nerve. So I marched straight past, down the soft carpeted corridor to the last door on the left. At the back, with the big window overlooking the oak. That was the one he wanted. I turned the handle and went in, breathing in the faint scent of the daffodils I’d brought a fortnight ago. They’d be wilting by now.
“Hello, Leo, my darling.”
For a moment he sat in profile; that corrugated forehead, jutting Roman nose, firm chin. Such a strong, beloved face. Then he turned and gave me a hazy smile, lifting a finger from the arm of his chair before bending back to his cards. The Goldberg Variations were playing softly in the background; they were very good about ensuring he was always listening to music—it had been one of his stipulations. I joined him and sat down in the chair next to his. For a while I watched him laying out his cards in a vague approximation of Solitaire, but of course when you looked more closely you could see that there was no rhyme or reason to the order, just like there was no rhyme or reason to Leo anymore.
He was still handsome, my husband of nearly sixty years. Still upright, with a full head of hair, mostly silver but threaded with the gold of his youth. He’d aged so well in body. Such a tragedy, because I knew which he would have preferred, sitting there in his chair, turning over the same cards, looking at the same tree, day after day. After a while I cleared my throat and began my speech, wanting to get it all out before the effects of the sherry wore off.
“Leo, there’s something I want to say to you.”
He turned again, and his striking blue eyes focused on me for a moment. Not the piercing gaze of his prime, of course, but still it was unusual, and I took heart from it.
“That night, when we went to see the fireworks. I told you . . . about Bertie.”
Leo frowned slightly and tweaked an errant card back into place.
“Leo, listen to me.” He turned back obediently and fixed me with that bright blue gaze again.
“And then you forgot. Just after I told you, just after I’d plucked up the courage, you forgot. And I just shriveled inside, because I thought I’d failed. Then I got Bobby the dog—I told you about Bobby, didn’t I? And it felt like something had healed a little. Like I might be lovable, after all. Only now she’s gone, and I didn’t know what to do. But then I got your letter. Leo, you remembered! You remembered! And you wrote to me, and that letter, that letter . . . It was everything.”
“Walnut,” said Leo sadly.
“What?”
“Walnut,” he repeated. “Shriveled. Like a walnut.”
“He was called Bertie,” I said, my voice trembling with the effort. “I called him Bertie. I always thought of him as a boy. With your eyes.”
“Bertie,” he said. He looked at me with those eyes, those beautiful, blank eyes, and then suddenly he took my hand in his, which he hadn’t done in months—years, even. He held my hand and stroked it, and then he said:
“I love you, Missy. You know that, don’t you?”
I looked out at his oak tree framed in the window. He gazed at it every day, and while people came and went, the leaves unfurled, curled and fell, the trunk stood fast. Something to cling to, when everything else slipped from your grasp.
“I love you too, Leo. So, so much.”
There didn’t seem to be much more we could say, so I stroked him back, and we sat there, hand in hand, until visiting hours were over. Then when it was time, I gently pried his fingers from mine and let go, leaving him sitting in his chair, my bright gold chain, looking out at his green oak.
Chapter 47
I missed the old Leo so much it was like a constant throb in my throat, and most of the time I could only bring myself to visit the new one in the hope of seeing some glimpse of the man he’d been. Once, when I was arranging his flowers, keeping up a flow of inconsequential chat, he suddenly looked up at me and said, “Missy, really! Stop jabbering!” and it w
as so close to the kind of thing he would have said in the old days that I was jolted, my garden roses pricking my fingers as I clutched them. I sucked the blood away and stared at him, hoping for more, but he just turned back to the book he was reading. He still read books; he had a little pile of them on the table next to him, and he would sit and turn the pages, carefully, considerately. Sometimes he would be holding them upside down. The light had gone out, and no one was home, no matter how often I knocked on the door.
Sometimes I would allow that thistle of tears to bubble up after I left him and weep all the way home, back to that silent empty house with memories everywhere I looked. But the night after I visited Leo and he said he loved me, I walked out dry-eyed. As I stalked through the reception area, Rachel called out, “Mrs. Carmichael!” but I ignored her, like I’d been ignoring all those letters and phone calls from Horace Simmonds for months. I knew the money was running out, but like everything else, I thought that perhaps if I looked the other way then it would be all right. Semper eadem. Except that nothing did stay the same, did it? Hair got cut, cake got eaten and dogs ran out into the road. So I was going to have to accept that the money was almost gone, and come to terms with what that meant.
I was going to have to sell my house. My huge, prime-location asset in Stoke Newington was going to have to go on the market to pay for Leo’s care. I would have to buy a tiny flat somewhere, probably quite far away if the house prices round here were anything to go by, and use the remainder to repay our debts and keep Leo’s precious status quo. I had to make a change so he could carry on as he was.
I couldn’t bear to lose my home. I knew it would be snapped up by some bright, ambitious family with 2.4 children, a hybrid car and a Cockapoo. I’d been reading Sylvie’s magazines—they’d rip out my kitchen and put sleek units in, replacing the back wall with toughened glass and laying those indoor/outdoor tiles that make the space “flow.” Meanwhile I’d be stuck in some godforsaken bit of North London that estate agents optimistically refer to as “up and coming,” in a flat that would make Angela’s look like a penthouse.
