Mum's List

by St. John Greene

  Now, every time I watch Reef play rugby I’m filled with incredible pride because it’s such an outstanding achievement for him just being on the pitch. Finn, too, goes like a little train at rugby practice, and it’s a delight to watch them both play. It takes me back to my own playing days, when I was a scrum half for a Bristol team. Kate was my biggest fan and would come and watch even when it was bitterly cold.

  Once, when we were playing against a team from Bath University, the opposition supporters were screaming all sorts of abuse at me, oblivious to the fact my girlfriend was standing among them on the sidelines. Little Kate, wrapped up like an Eskimo in a hat and scarf against the sleet and howling wind, listened in silence for ages while they called me a “ginger-haired git” and goaded their players to take me out of the game. She waited for the perfect moment, after I scored a try, before making her allegiance known and bursting into loud, enthusiastic cries of: “Well done, Singe!”

  “Who are you with, then?” one of the opposing fans asked.

  “The ginger-haired git,” she replied with a big grin on her face, watching him turn redder than my hair before apologizing profusely for the comments he had made.

  The memory made me smile to myself as I looked back at my diary, and read out the words I’d written under January 20, 2011: “Reef, hospital appointment.”

  “Fantastic, amazing, awesome news. Doctors delighted with Reef. All tests good. Told he now has same chance as anyone else of getting cancer!”

  I could hardly believe my ears when Professor Stevens told me that. It was the best news I had heard in years and years, and I wished I could share it with Kate. It was the news she had waited so long for, the news we had been told never to dare expect. It was an absolute miracle.

  I took both boys up to Kate’s grave after the hospital appointment, explaining to them it was exactly a year to the day since Mummy died, and it would be nice to deliver some great news along with some fresh flowers for her gravestone.

  The friendly robin who lives in the churchyard sang a beautiful song while we placed white roses around her, and I quietly told Kate Reef’s incredible news. I allowed myself to imagine her ecstatic reaction. “If we were only allowed one piece of luck, I’m so glad Reef got it,” she said.

  When the boys were out of earshot I explained that I was trying to get tickets for the Ireland v. England Rugby International in Dublin in March. “That was an easy one, Kate, telling me to take the boys to see an international rugby match!” I whispered while the boys pottered along the hedgerow, peering out to sea. “I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  The boys waved good-bye to Mummy as we left, just as if they were waving to her across the playground as they did so many times when she was alive. There were no tears, and I felt no tightening in my chest or throat as I had done on so many previous visits to Kate’s grave. It was freezing cold, but the air felt light, and the boys looked carefree. We had visited Kate’s grave so regularly over the past twelve months it had become a normal part of our lives, and it always would be. When we climbed back in the car Reef and Finn gave me a lovely little smile each, which melted my heart.

  Focusing back on my diary, I saw there were plenty of other noteworthy dates and anniversaries in the first few months of 2011. We finally got 4 Saints back at the end of January and went for a string of celebratory days out on the Bristol Channel, inviting any friends who were brave enough to endure the bitterly cold winds to join us.

  Valentine’s Day was easier than last year, I remembered. I ignored it again, and the page was blank in my diary, but this year it was a whole lot easier to ignore. I’d learned, to my relief, that once you’ve survived one painful date or anniversary, it gets a lot easier to cope with the next one.

  I had started to go out on dates more frequently, still with women who were a friend of a friend, one way or another. They were not serious in terms of romance, but I always enjoyed chatting and going out to dinner or seeing a film. Just having some uninterrupted adult conversation did me the power of good.

  One of my dates asked me very directly: “How are you coping with your loss?” We were sitting in a pub overlooking the coast at Clevedon. She’d been very open about her own life, and her problematic divorce, and I found myself giving a very frank, florid answer, which came straight from the heart.

  “This is exactly how I would describe it,” I said, flicking my eyes between her and the sea. “When Kate first died it was like I was standing on a beach, being hit constantly with wave after wave of grief. The waves knocked my feet out from under me, and I was taken by the surf every time. Some days it felt like I’d never be able to get back on my feet, or even come up for air. As time’s moved on, I still get hit by the waves and my footing is still unstable, but now I always manage to climb halfway up the beach and sometimes I even get a bit further. Does that answer your question?”

  I grinned, feeling quite pleased with my self-analysis.

  “I think you’re doing brilliantly,” she said, staring at me through watery eyes.

  “That’s kind of you to say,” I replied jovially. “But what choice do I have? It’s sink or swim. I have two little boys to bring up and I have simply got to cope, I have got to get through.”

  “Yes, but not everybody manages it as well as you,” she said.

  “Not everybody has two cracking little boys like I do, and I’m lucky,” I said. “A smile, a wave, or an ‘I love you, Daddy’ from the boys keeps me going, no question, but I’m only human and I still have moments when the grief comes up and bites me.”

  She nodded kindly and didn’t probe. I wasn’t going to tell her that I still went on Kate’s Facebook page from time to time to read condolence messages from friends and family, and that I couldn’t bear to take her account down. Nor was I going to mention the fact I still sprayed Kate’s perfume on my pillow to help me sleep at night, or that a simple, unexpected remark from the boys could completely break me, even now.

  “In the early days I had moments when I couldn’t even make a cup of tea,” I added simply. “It’s not like that now. It gets easier.”

  There was disappointment over the rugby tickets in March. The game was a sellout, and despite my best efforts to get to Dublin with the boys, we had to admit defeat and watch the match at the local rugby club in Clevedon. England lost, and from a supporter’s point of view it wasn’t a great match. I can only imagine how much Guinness was drunk in commiseration and celebration.

  “You know what?” I said to my brother afterward. “I think it was meant to be that me and the boys didn’t get to go to Ireland.”

  “What, because England lost?” Matt replied.

  “No, not for that reason. The boys really enjoyed watching the match at the club with me, waving their flags and wearing their rugby tops. They’re probably too little to really appreciate a big international game. It’s something I can look forward to doing with them when they’re older, and they’ll get more out of it.”

  “Er, but what about the list?” Matt asked tentatively. “I thought the main reason to go was because of Kate’s list?”

  “It was,” I replied. “And if this had happened this time last year I would have been much more cut up about it, but things have changed. I can take as long as I like working though the list. It’s there to help me, not to put me under pressure. Kate didn’t set time limits.”

  Matt nodded. “I’m glad you’re so cool about it,” he said. “You’ve changed. That’s good.”

  I kind of ignored my own birthday. I turned forty-five on March 18 and stayed in with the boys, who made me a card and a little paper pot to keep my pens in. This was hardly in keeping with Kate’s instruction to “Celebrate birthdays big time,” but I didn’t think she meant mine. Besides, as I’d promised Finn, he was having an unofficial birthday party the same week, when we’d also celebrate “Mum’s Day” on what woul
d have been Kate’s fortieth birthday on March 22.

  I hired the old Curzon cinema in Clevedon again, inviting more than two hundred friends and family, including both Reef and Finn’s classmates, to a private screening of Yogi Bear.

  “Look, Daddy!” Finn shrieked excitedly as we walked in. The cinema screen was filled with the words “Happy Unofficial Birthday, Finn!”

  “How did you do that?” Finn asked me, open-mouthed.

  “Magic,” I told him, and he smiled all afternoon as he bounced around with his “I am FIVE!” birthday badge pinned to his chest, asking me to perform “more magic, Daddy!” by doing his favorite tricks with disappearing coins, which I enjoyed as much as him. We tucked in to cream buns after the film and had a wonderful time. The staff of the Curzon, all volunteers, had gone to an enormous amount of trouble to make the day extra special, and I was very grateful to them.

  At bedtime that night I asked the boys if I could measure them again on their door frame. It was ages since we’d done it, and they were both delighted to see they’d gained an inch or two in height, though Reef was still not much taller than his brother.

  “You’ll both be catching me up soon,” I joked.

  “Mummy was small,” Reef said, looking at the little marker reminding us Kate was a petite five foot one. “We’ll catch her first!”

  I took the opportunity to remind the boys about Mum’s Day, as in the excitement of Finn’s party it had barely been mentioned.

  “Do you remember last year when we got the boat on Mum’s Day?” I asked.

  They both nodded obediently, but I wasn’t convinced they remembered the connection.

  “Well, it’s a whole year since then. It’s Mum’s Day again—hasn’t time flown?”

  “When are we getting our big bedroom and secret passage?” Finn asked.

  “Very, very soon,” I told him. “After the Easter break and before the end of summer. It’s quite a lot of sleeps but I reckon the time will fly.”

  “Can we keep our height chart on the door frame?” asked Reef earnestly.

  “We certainly can,” I told him, making a mental note to remind the builders not to damage it. Good old Reef, I thought. Not much escaped his logical brain.

  I kissed the boys two times and said good night. “Mind the bedbugs don’t bite!” I added, to which the boys replied: “Especially the daddy ones!” I don’t know when we started saying that, but it had become part of our routine before we said “acres and acres.”

  I closed their bedroom door and walked across the landing alone. I’ve done the same thing hundreds of times, but somewhere along the line I’d lost the aching, empty pang that used to descend on me immediately after the boys went to bed.

  Now, sitting on my bed alone with my diary, I remembered the lonely first nights after Kate’s death, and I felt relieved they were a memory. I still felt lonely, don’t get me wrong, but it was a far less painful type of loneliness. I’d learned to cope with it, I guess, even though I still didn’t like being on my own.

  There had been another gradual change in routine too. In the early days after losing Kate, friends and family made a point of phoning me after 8 p.m., knowing that’s when I would be on my own and in need of a chat and some moral support. Nowadays, after 8 p.m. was the time I exchanged texts or calls with dates. It was a relief to swap the: “How are you feeling?” conversations for some light-hearted flirting and a bit of saucy banter.

  With the extension getting underway I had a lot to do to keep me busy in March, which was a blessing. The conservatory and the loft both needed emptying before the builders could start work, and my diary reminded me that I decided to tackle the conservatory on the eve of Finn’s party.

  It was completely cluttered with toys and books, sports equipment and knickknacks we’d accumulated over the years. Kate would have had a clear system here: “‘Charity shop/give to friends’ over here, ‘keep’ pile here, ‘rubbish’ over there,” she would have said, handing out bin bags and storage boxes as she whipped through the room efficiently. I tried to copy her system but didn’t get very far before I was sidetracked and then swamped by memories. In between a pile of books I found a Valentine message that Kate had placed for me in a local paper I don’t know how many years before. Inside a heart shape, which she’d carefully cut out, it said: “Singe, I love you acres and acres. Forever yours, Katie.”

  I took it to the bedroom and put it in one of our boxes of love letters for safekeeping, wondering wryly if the “keep” pile in the conservatory was going to tower above the “charity” and “rubbish” piles. While I was there I couldn’t resist picking out a few old love letters and having a quick read, knowing that whatever Kate wrote was flattering and heart-warming, and usually gave my ego a massage, both then and now.

  “I love you Singe and I want you in the end. I don’t think another couple could be as good as we are,” she wrote in the first one I looked at. “I will always be by your side. I will trust you, ring you, marry you, even wash your socks!” she promised in another, writing with a fancy silver pen. The next letter I chose was clearly written when we had to spend time apart. “God, I am cold. I would love to have you here to warm me up,” Kate said. “God, I miss you. I’ve lost my human hot water bottle. Let’s hope I don’t get a chill.”

  I exhaled deeply and felt goose bumps prickle my arms. I’d been looking for a sentimental boost, but I’d got a shot of tragic irony instead.

  “Serves you right, Singe,” I scolded myself gently, knowing I should put the letters away now, but not being able to resist reading one last page.

  “My urge for letter writing is dying, but my urge for you is not dying,” Kate had written.

  I kissed the lipstick kiss she’d put on the end next to her name and put the box away, feeling saddened and a little stung by the experience. I hadn’t expected to see the word dying in Kate’s teenage handwriting, or to be left with an uncomfortable ache in my chest.

  While I was upstairs I decided I’d better have a scout around in the loft to get an idea of the scale of the decluttering job up there. Nearly everything stored in the loft would have to be cleared out to make way for the secret passage leading from my old office into the boys’ play den that would be built up there.

  I climbed the loft ladder and began picking through boxes and boxes piled high with old baby bottles and breast pumps, rattles and tiny baby clothes. I felt sorry for Kate, keeping all this stuff, hoping we might have another baby. I wish we’d had another baby too, a little girl like Kate. She would have had her mum’s good looks and contagious giggles, I could just see her. She would have been the icing on the cake for us. I hadn’t known that Kate had kept so much, and I felt a lump rise in my throat as I realized she must have been the last person to touch these things. One large white box had “Singe and Katie!” daubed jauntily on the side, telling me instantly it contained souvenirs from our youth. I pulled out two dusty flying jackets we wore when Kate was in her teens and I was in my early twenties. We’d written our names on the back in bright bubble-gum pink to personalize them for a fancy dress party, and I had a sudden flashback of us posing in matching chinos and baseball caps at a Butlins holiday camp party, sharing a joke with lifeguard colleagues of mine as we showed off our jackets.

  I enjoyed the memory but I have to be honest, I was also wondering what on earth I was going to do with all this stuff. Under the jackets I found albums and box sets signed by the 1980s groups King, A-ha and Adam and the Ants, and beneath the records was a large stash of Kate’s old college work. What was I meant to do with that?

  I put it all back and ventured deeper into the loft. Propped upright in the very far corner, away from the clutter, I spotted a box I recognized immediately. It was a beautiful big cream display box, and in it was Kate’s carefully packaged wedding dress. Believe it or not, seeing the box actually made me feel better, a
s I knew immediately what to do with it. I had to keep the dress; there was no doubt about that. The boys might want their bride to wear it when they got married, or they might just want to keep it themselves to remember their mum. At the very least I could show it to them and tell them all about our wonderful wedding day, when Kate looked so exquisite and elated.

  Climbing down from the loft, I decided I would throw out the baby stuff and ask Kate’s mum if she wanted any of her old college things, and I’d keep a couple of our teenage mementos for old times’ sake. The rest would have to go before the builders got cracking. I felt very emotional as my mind ticked over, but in more of a nostalgic than a sad way. It wasn’t a pleasant job, and if it wasn’t for the extension I certainly wouldn’t have been in a hurry to do it, but it felt kind of liberating to make a start.

  The last week in March was incredibly busy, I noted. I had the boys christened on March 31, our wedding anniversary, as I’d planned. Noel agreed to do the ceremony at All Saints and had asked me who the godparents were. I hesitated. “I haven’t chosen them yet,” I said cautiously.

  “Is there a problem?” he had asked intuitively.

  “Not really,” I had replied. “It’s just that Kate and I talked about this at length, when she was writing her list. She didn’t want to be too controlling, and she told me it was my choice as she wouldn’t be here, but she did tell me who she would be happy to have as the boys’ godparents. I’m just having a job making up my mind.”