Rowan wanted to reach out and take his hand, but couldn’t.
“I thought there wasn’t any point any more. And for about six months I was fine – I functioned. I went back to work, put in all the hours I could, tried to do the best for Bee that I could . . . and then I broke. I couldn’t see any point in anything. I didn’t want anything – I got to the point where I didn’t even want to go back in time any more. When I stopped counting the hours since she’d been here, when I stopped saying ‘this time last week’ or ‘month’ or ‘year’. I stopped leaving the house. I lost my job – my career, really. I used up my savings, let the house go to pot – it only got a clean when Betty or Mum would call.
“And they wouldn’t talk about Jenny to me – no one would. And I couldn’t talk about her to anyone else either – it was just too hard to even say her name because I thought that if I did I’d open the gates to a dam that would drown me. But all the time I was drowning anyway. I didn’t realise it until I found Jenny’s dad . . . when he died. And I looked at him and thought what a blessed release it was for him because all he had ever wanted was to be with his wife Rose again, and all of Jenny’s life had been spent trying to make it up to him for her death and that’s partly why she was the way she was – all damaged and stubborn and indecisive – but still wonderful underneath. But when I really looked at him – when I looked at the layers of dust on everything around his house, and found his awful old sweater folded up neatly beside his bed – when I saw what was left in his fridge – something triggered inside me and it was like looking in a mirror except it was a reflection of a future me that looked back. That was the point where I decided that I had to take my finger off self-destruct. I suddenly saw that I had a whole life ahead of me – and that it wasn’t just mine, it was Bee’s too. And that was the turning point, as they say.”
He paused for a breath, looking at the barely touched bottle of beer and running his finger up and down through the condensation. A part of Rowan longed to touch his finger with her own forefinger but she held back.
“I saw a counsellor for a long time afterwards,” he continued, matter of factly. “I didn’t tell my family that either – they’d have mocked me endlessly. My mother and Vicky would have said it was a waste of time, that things would get better by themselves, that I should just pull myself together. But I had to talk to someone – I realised that when I saw how alone John Adams had been for so long. That’s what had killed him, I reckon. The fact that he had never shared the burden while at the same time placing a whole different one on the shoulders of his only daughter. I couldn’t let history repeat itself. The counselling was the best thing that I could have done. Without it, I wouldn’t be here today. Not just sitting here, trying to convince you how much you mean to me – because that’s what I’m doing. But actually physically sitting here. She talked me back from the brink, not to put too fine a point on it. There was so often during that time that I wanted to just stop the world and get off – because everyone else was fine, just getting on about their business and I wondered why I wasn’t – why I just couldn’t. That’s when I fell to pieces. When the grief wasn’t anyone else’s except mine. When there was no one left to share it with me. That’s where the doc came in. And all the while I learned how to deal with the grief, I was learning about me too. About why I did the things I did through my whole life. That I probably married Jenny because I was so eager to be a grown-up, not to be the six-year-old kid who’s getting his action man covered in lipstick because his sisters have bullied him into handing it over for their game. Not to be the guy who stays in college until the middle of the night just ’cos he wants to avoid the world of grief at home. I wanted to be a grown-up – to escape from them, like I said. And when I left college it all happened so fast. I’m the luckiest guy in the world, Rowan. I landed the job at Brightwater and the first idea I pitched them turned into Grimlet. And it got even better from there – awards, bonuses, more money than I knew what to do with – but I still wanted to play at being grown-up. That was the phrase my mother used to use and I hate to admit that she was right. Not that I was playing, you understand. I genuinely loved Jenny – I still love Jenny – but I’ve actually become a grown-up instead of playing at being one. I’ve learned what it is to be a dad, for example, rather than wanting to be one to have something of my own . . . do you understand?”
Rowan nodded and shifted in her seat.
“What I’m trying to say to you here is that yes, I loved Jenny. And I love this house because it was the first real, meaningful thing that I ever bought, and of course I love Bee beyond words. When I lost Jenny, I suffered so much because I was certain that I had lost all of my future. But that’s just what happened. And there’s nothing I can do about that now, even though it still hurts, just not as much, all of the time.”
Ed cleared his throat, reaching his hand across the table to take Rowan’s.
“But I am not that Ed any more. I’ve had to become a new make and model, a different person. I don’t want to turn time back any longer. And the first time that I realised that – that I really realised it – was during the countdown on New Year’s Eve 1999 – the night I met you. That’s what I mean when I say I’m lucky. That was the first night out I’d been on since I lost her. And you were one of the first people that I spoke to – who wasn’t Mike, of course.”
Both of them managed a weak smile.
“And at the time,” Ed continued, “I thought that the connection we had was just the one I was trying really hard to find – that it was something I was making up because it suited me. But my God, Rowan, I was so drawn to you then. And I never regretted letting anything go as much as I did you when I saw you heading off home that night, away from me. And I thought about you so often afterwards – looking out over London and wondering where you were out there and if I’d ever see you again. And then to find you, the day I started in Grafix – my first bloody job since I’d gone and lost myself the one at Brightwater. I swear that I’m not the fate and destiny kind of type, Rowan, but you have to agree that the odds of us meeting again were a million to one. But we did. And I can’t help feeling that it was meant to be. And that’s why I need you to stay with me. Maybe we’ve rushed into things, I know. That was a bit of the old Ed – impatient to get on with things, impatient to get to the good times – but I’ll work on that, I promise. That impatience would have broken me and Jenny eventually and I can’t bear that to happen to us.”
“What do you mean, ‘would have broken you’?” probed Rowan.
Ed looked down at his beer and scratched at the corner of the label. “I’ve never said this out loud to anyone before, but I have a horrible feeling that Jen and me . . . that we mightn’t have lasted. When I met her, when we began, I was very eager to get to the good bits. To start the future, I guess – which is ironic when I think how long I spent subsequently trying to scrabble back to the past. But there we were, with everything I’d ever dreamed of – a house, a car, my fantasy job, a beautiful little girl. I wanted the good times to get better and better, instead of just enjoying them as they were, being patient – breathing in and breathing out and taking my time. But I wanted more, more and more – not money – happiness. Fulfilment. And I wanted that for Jenny too – we spent our marriage at a different pace to each other, and I was so breathless for her to catch up that I pushed her into things that maybe she wasn’t ready for. When she died, a part of her wasn’t happy. I knew that. And now I can look back and say that it was the part when I hurried her along to catch up with me. Where I wanted her to be as ecstatically happy as I was in order to make myself even happier . . . am I making sense?”
His and Rowan’s eyes met across the table and held for a moment, his filled with pain and honesty, hers with confusion and sadness.
“I’ve been through so much darkness, Rowan. But finding you – and having you find me back – that’s been a light rising over the horizon. And I swear that you’re not second place – you’re not
any of those things that you’re scared of being.”
He paused, looking at her for affirmation, finally reaching his hand across the table to find hers.
He looked down at their fingers as they entwined and cleared his throat.
“I love you, Rowan,” he said. “I really do. I wouldn’t have asked you to be part of my messed-up, complicated life if I truly didn’t – as screwed up as that sounds. And I’ll do what it takes to make you realise that the life we have together is a completely new one. I absolutely love you, as the song says. And I am learning every day. And I want to be with you and only you. So go if you need to – to Judith’s, or Claudia’s or wherever. And stay as long as you need – as long as it takes. But please, Rowan, think about everything that I’ve said – I mean every word of it. And please, whatever you do, just come back.”
Chapter 38
november 2001
Jenny
In a little over a month, it will be four years since I died. Four long years. Four short years. Depends on which side of the mortal veil you are, I suppose.
The truly worrying thing is: how much time is there left? How long do I have to stay here and watch this nightmare play out? Trapped. Listening to my husband plead with another woman not to leave him? To hear him tell her how much he loves and needs her – and worse, for him to mean it?
To hear him say that he is over me – over the life that we had together, the life that we planned.
To hear him say aloud to her that he feels in his heart and soul that that life, those plans, would never have come to fruition.
This is what it feels like to have all of your hopes and dreams hit hard with a shattering blow.
Because I might be dead, but my dreams have stayed with me – after all, how could I have made new ones for myself?
And in my dreams – had I lived – this is what would have happened: we would have loved and cherished our beautiful little girl and given her a brother or a sister – both, perhaps. We would have had a dog or a cat or both of those too. Ed would have reached dizzying heights in his career and I would have begun mine – something that I was good at, something that made me happy.
We were singing from exactly the same hymn sheet, after all. But Ed was right. We sang at a different pace. By the time I was tentatively humming the first few notes, he was full belt into the chorus. But I would have caught up, I swear I would. And we would have been as happy as he wanted us to be – in exactly the way he wanted us to be.
We’d have had family holidays, Christmases, birthdays – watched our little ones grow and grow until the day came that they would leave us for lives of their own. And though it would have broken my heart to see them go, my consolation was to be that Ed was by my side, and that we would still be as in love, if not more so, as the day we met.
He was always going to be there, you see. And I was always going to be there for him.
Except for the bit of my life where I wasn’t, of course. The bit that ruined it all. My one selfish act that took me from him – that more or less delivered him into her arms.
That’s how I saw it was going to be. It was going to be great. Me and Ed. Ed and Me. Ed and Me and Bee makes three . . .
Until I ruined it.
And now this – watching him replace me – this is my punishment, a greater punishment than I can endure, I think.
But I can’t escape.
And I can never, ever forgive myself for my stupidity.
That life is what should have been.
And this – this is what is.
Chapter 39
August 2009
Rowan
Sunlight danced on the facets of the diamonds, making them glisten as the hand of the wearer moved to show them at their best.
Rowan giggled as the waiter interrupted them with the two food-laden plates. “How lovely,” she said, smiling, as she sat back to allow him to place it before her.
Once he was gone, Rowan shook her head to indicate disbelief, still beaming. “I’m so absolutely delighted for you, Clauds,” she said sincerely. “The ring is stunning. You must be thrilled.”
Claudia glanced down at her left hand and waggled her fingers, again catching the light as best she could to make the clusters of tiny diamonds on the band, either side of the pear-shaped centre stone, sparkle. She giggled and Rowan joined her conspiratorially.
It was a gloriously sunny afternoon. They sat outdoors at what had become Claudia’s local since moving to Cambridge – The Commoner’s Arms it was called, named for its proximity to Midsummer Common. Inside, it was cosy: inglenook fireplaces and original oak beams. But today they sat on the patio outside, savouring the feeling of sun on bare arms, soothed by the gurgle of the River Cam as it made its lazy progress by.
“It’s just all a whirlwind, Rowan,” observed Claudia, pulling her knife and fork from their napkin sheath and laying them either side of her plate while she smoothed the linen over her knee and examined the plate of fish and chips. “Robert’s promotion and then buying the house. It’s so much bloody work, by the way, Ro. Don’t ever land yourself with a do-er upper. Bloody money pit too.”
She slid a forkful of mushy peas between her lips and removed the fork with a flourish, taking a moment for an exaggerated, appreciative roll of the eyes. Rowan marvelled at how Claudia’s lipstick always stayed perfect, her bee-stung lips never anything other than bright cherry red. Like her auburn hair, styled to perfection like a 1950s’ housewife, and her wasp-like waist. As they had entered the pub, other customers had stared at the tall, curvaceous figure in the polka-dot sundress which flared from her waist to just below her knees, the sweetheart neckline perfectly showing off her pale white skin, a red scarf knotted at her neck. Rowan grinned as she considered her own clothes – a long, black cotton skirt worn with a black vest top and a short denim jacket, now slung over the back of the chair. Her blonde curls were cut to just below her ears, her arms laden with silver bangles, and a locket that had belonged to her mother hung on a long chain around her neck. They looked like they were from two different eras, she mused.
“Anyway,” Claudia continued, her fork hovering over her plate as she decided between a mouthful of haddock or a fat chip, “it all happened about three weeks ago. It was a Tuesday evening, I think. I got fed up painting the bloody dining room – my hair was all spatters of Cinder Rose and I stank of white spirits – so I took a glass of wine down to the end of the garden and sat on the iron bench down there for a bit of peace and quiet.” She leaned over the table as if she was telling a great secret. “Truth be told, Ro, the last person I wanted to see was Robert trudging down the lawn, but no sooner had I so much as had a slug of my Riesling than I spotted him, ambling toward me, looking all shifty.” She rolled her eyes. “I groaned, Ro. Positively groaned. But down he comes and plonks himself beside me – and I have to admit to myself that even though he is annoying, he looks absolutely dishy in his ancient Springsteen T-shirt and long shorts – sort of like his own rebellious cousin if you know what I mean? Like we’re in a TV show and they’ve changed the actor playing Robert to a slightly hotter one . . .” Claudia paused for effect and sipped her glass of San Pellegrino.
Rowan giggled at the thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Robert in anything except that leathery jacket thing and his jeans,” she offered.
Claudia nodded in agreement, taking a bite from a chip and leaving the rest suspended on her fork mid-air. “That’s because he doesn’t wear anything else! He read a handbook once on how to be a trendy college professor and he’s rocked that look ever since, despite my best efforts at reform – I mean, he’d look fan-bloody-tastic in a pair of skinny jeans, don’t you think?”
Rowan clamped her hand over her mouth to prevent the mouthful of food she had just consumed spraying all over the table and her dining companion.
“And a pork pie hat,” continued Claudia, thoroughly enjoying the effect her mental images were having on her friend. “Sort of like Pete Doherty meet
s the skinny one from The Inbetweeners – you know, the one who does the robot dancing. Anyway, he popped the question there and then – completely out of the blue. In retrospect, I think he only did it to re-incentivise me to finish the painting. I like to think that because he did it when he did he had to go off the following day and cancel the river trip in Paris or whatever the real plan was.”
“Come on, Clauds!” laughed Rowan, used to the way that her friend constantly played down her relationship. “It sounds so lovely and perfect – I can picture it. Not Robert in the shorts, mind . . .”
“Please don’t try,” pleaded Claudia, her face straight. “Not while you’re eating anyway. And yes, I’ll stop now. I’ll be good. It was absolutely lovely. It was a lovely, summery dusk and I could hear the river in the distance and see our lovely house – well, our house that will be lovely once we’ve worked our way through the Farrow and Ball catalogue and actually bought some furniture that isn’t made out of books – and there were little stars just blinking in the sky and clouds of midges that weren’t feasting on me for a change. And it was hazy, and it had that smell . . . you know, that lovely summery one? And I was ecstatically happy.”
Rowan smiled gently at her friend. “I’m so thrilled for you, Clauds. You deserve it, you really do. Robert is just lovely and you two are great together.” They shared a smile for a moment before Rowan returned to her food. “On a more practical note, have you got a date set yet?” She looked up to see her friend colour.
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