by kendra Smith
‘I’m fine, sort of, most of the time. But on the other hand, I suddenly get waves of exhaustion. Charlie, look, I really want you to listen to me.’ She tries to sit up on her pillows. ‘When you’ve been through something like this, you realise there’s no time for misunderstandings, OK? No time for feeling confused. Do you hear what I’m saying? Have you talked to him properly, Charlie, really talked to him?’
I shrug. Maybe she’s right. It reminds me of something Daniel said when he came to see me after that funeral. Life’s short. No time for regrets.
‘Do you miss him, Charlie?’
The thought strikes me and I almost want to laugh out loud. At the moment, I am so angry with him, but do I miss him? I almost ache because I miss him so much, I miss the way he looks at me, I miss his smell, I miss his arms around me, I miss looking forward to seeing him. I miss the sense of possibility between us that he held for me. I miss that world we had in the car. It came to symbolise so much for me: safety, security, where I could be myself. Where we laughed. More than anything, it was where we had a good time: our world. It’s like I’ve lost a limb, and I’m left with a heartache that I can’t explain. I sometimes find myself thinking, Oh, Daniel would like that, Daniel would find that funny and then I shake myself when I realise where I am.
‘Yes.’
‘And when did you last speak to him?’
‘I haven’t – in ages. He’s tried to call a few times but I haven’t taken his calls.’ As I look up, I see how weary Dawn looks, as if the last few days have added years to her. A nurse comes in to do Dawn’s ‘obs’: goes through her blood pressure, her blood oxygen and her pulse. When she’s finished she tells me that that’s enough for today, that Dawn needs to rest. I peck her on the forehead and she murmurs goodbye and I leave.
As I travel down in the lift, I think about what Dawn has said. No time for misunderstandings. But how we can go forward after all this turmoil? I know I will have to talk to him soon for Tyler’s sake, but not right now. How can I possibly trust him – he has kept the truth from me. But there it is again, that annoying voice looping around in my head: but didn’t you do that too?
84
Dawn
‘Mum! It’s the police on the phone – way cool!’ Felix handed her the landline.
It had been a week since she’d left hospital. She was living in her house, with her kids, going through the motions, but there was a huge chunk of her helicoptering above herself, watching the proceedings.
Oh look, I seem to be smiling. Oh yes, here’s my kitchen, my newly moved spatulas, my family around the dinner table. Smile. Hold it together. Don’t think about the results. Just brush your teeth, good girl, another day over. Get up, do the same again; there, there, you might have cancer. Yes, that’s right – the C-word. But first, quickly make a ham sandwich for the lunchboxes and stop flinching every time the phone goes. Be cheery with your friends, say the right thing. Be positive, Dawn. Studies have shown that being positive is good news for cancer patients. Go back to the mindfulness website and actually read it rather than slamming the lid down on your PC.
She took the handset and had an enormous urge to throw it across the room.
‘Mrs Hughes?’
‘Sorry, yes.’
‘It’s the Hampshire Police, the Police Community Support Officers. We’d like to talk about a mobile phone we’ve recovered. We believe it’s yours? Can you describe it?’
‘My phone? Well, I have it right here, officer,’ she said glancing at the kitchen table where it lay. Even she was taken aback with her abrupt tone.
‘You are Mrs Hughes?’
‘Yes,’ she said curtly. Just then, another thought occurred to her. ‘There is another Mrs Hughes here, my mother-in-law.’
‘That’s fine. We will be in your area soon, so we’ll drop round.’
Twenty minutes later, two men turned up at her door in yellow high-visibility jackets with ‘Police Community Support Officer’ emblazoned across the back. Felix was beside himself when he’d found out they were on their way and had hidden in the bushes with three Nerf Guns to attack ‘the enemy’.
‘Come in,’ Dawn said shakily. ‘Sorry about my son.’ She nodded to the garden. She could just make out Felix darting across the garden from bush to bush, as she went into the kitchen. What on earth is going on?
‘Just wait through there—’ she gestured to the living room ‘—and I’ll get my husband.’
Dawn stood at the kitchen door. ‘Eric, you’d better come here, it’s the police.’
‘Did you say police, dear, have they found my phone?’ Joyce turned around abruptly, but looked decidedly peaky. ‘I’ll just go and take a look.’
Dawn followed Joyce and Eric back into the living room, where Joyce sat down and started to pick some cat hair off the sofa.
‘Mrs Hughes.’ One of the officers looked at Dawn. ‘We traced the phone back here because of some of the content on the, er, pictures. Your house is clearly in them, that’s how we knew where to look, and some lovely pictures of your roses this summer.’ He swiped a few photos and then stopped.
‘However, we’ve had a complaint from—’ he looked at his notepad ‘—a Mr Blackmore about some, erm, unwanted pictures being sent – several times I might add – and we traced it back to this number.’
‘Unwanted pictures – what do you mean?’ Eric strode over and looked at the phone.
‘Eric, dear, I don’t—’ Joyce started to say as Eric abruptly stopped. His eyes widened.
‘Mum! Are these your photos?’ He shot Joyce an annoyed look.
Alice bounced into the room just then and leapt on the sofa, next to the police officer – she peered at the phone he was holding.
‘Ooh, Nanna, those are the selvies we took, aren’t they? Look, there’s a picture of the cat when she was blue!’ She grabbed the phone out of the officer’s hand and held it up for Dawn to see.
As Dawn stared at the phone, all she could see, after the bedraggled blue cat photo, was picture after picture of Joyce standing with her hands on her hips, exposing rather too much cleavage encased in what looked like a 36D black lacy bra.
*
‘What got into your head, Mum?’ Eric was handing Joyce a cup of tea. They had sent Alice and Felix – who was very disappointed that there had been no shootout in the front garden – into the TV room to watch a movie.
‘Well, I didn’t know I’d sent those to the wrong person. They were meant for Angus. I didn’t mean to send them to Mr Blackmore.’
‘That’s the problem, Mum, you mis-keyed his number and sent them to Mr Blackmore. Hang on, who’s Angus?’ Eric suddenly asked.
‘Angus Blake, he lives in Chesterbrook,’ added Joyce, her cheeks going crimson. Suddenly Dawn put two and two together, remembered Alice had blurted out that Joyce had had a man for a ‘sleepover’. She’d forgotten all about it.
‘Yes, dear, it just seemed like a bit of a laugh. He said all the teenagers were doing it. It was his idea!’
Eric rolled his eyes. ‘Of course it would be his idea, Mum!’ He shook his head. ‘Honestly.’
‘But I’d also met Mr Blackmore at the bowling club, and I’d popped his number into my phone too. I must have got them mixed up in my – what do you call it – ‘Contacts’ list. How embarrassing.’ Joyce touched her Elnett-hardened hair.
‘And that’s who you’ve been seeing at the pub?’ Dawn ventured.
‘Pub?’ Eric sat up in his chair.
‘Yes, darling, your mother has a better social life than us.’ Dawn smiled and then took a sip of tea.
‘Yes, Angus is lovely – I’ve been really lonely, you know,’ Joyce suddenly announced as her eyes filled with tears. ‘When I “met” Angus on a gardening blog when I was at home – there was a link on one of the Tweets I got – we both “chatted” to each other on our direct message on Twitter. Then when he told me where he lived, in Chesterbrook, it seemed like the perfect chance to kill two birds with one stone. To stay
with you, and to see him. If things didn’t work out, then I was just going to go home.’
‘And things have clearly worked out?’ said Eric, pouring milk in his tea and looking over at Joyce.
She nodded.
‘I’m happy for you, Mum,’ Eric said, reaching out and squeezing her arm. ‘But I’d like to meet him – and no more sending photos!’
‘No, darling, I’ve rather learnt my lesson there. I’m not sure I can show my face at the bowling club any more!’
‘Muuum!’ Alice was wailing from the hall. ‘It’s a doctor thingamajig,’ she screeched as she came tearing back into the lounge holding Dawn’s phone.
Dawn held out her hand and silently took the phone from her daughter.
‘Mrs Hughes?’ there was a voice at the other end. It was the clinic. Dawn felt hollow, there seemed to be no words left inside her. ‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled, ‘you’ll need to speak to my husband.’
‘I’ll take that, darling,’ Eric said, got to his feet and took the phone silently from Dawn, just as Alice did a neat pirouette and landed on the sofa.
Eric kept staring at Dawn. ‘I see.’ The room became oddly silent. Alice started to suck her thumb, something she had recently begun to do again. Joyce put her arms around her on the sofa.
Dawn realised she was holding her breath. She watched Eric as he nodded a few times, then the tears trickled down his cheek. God, no, no! It couldn’t be. She shuddered as images of removing her breasts flashed through her mind. She’d do anything, anything to be well. She thought of Alice and Felix – she wanted to be part of their lives, to watch Felix grow up, join the army (heavens, no) become a man, see the proud father he might be; and Alice, wasn’t it every mother’s right to watch her glitter-mad seven-year-old turn into a beautiful woman, to be able to glory in her walking up to the podium on graduation day, to wipe away a tear when she stood at the altar, to be a Mother of The Bride?
Her dreams were being shredded, dreams of family holidays, splashing in a pool in Spain, cocktails at sunset and to be able to say to Eric, ‘I love you,’ as he walked on the beach with his little grandson, and then down-sizing, choosing a house with a small garden, arguing over the colour of the walls. She suddenly so badly wanted to be able to live longer to argue about the colour of walls – any walls.
Eric took a deep breath and looked at her and mouthed: ‘All clear.’
She sank back on the sofa as the air left her lungs. She breathed out very, very slowly as Eric came off the phone and walked over to her. He sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her, let her place her head on his chest and whispered: ‘Negative, it’s negative, it’s all OK’. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her. No cancerous cells. All clear.
She turned her face in to his warm chest, enjoying the comforting solidness of it, the smell of cut grass, and she cried and cried tears of relief, as first Alice tucked herself under her arm on the couch, and then Felix, who’d been listening from the doorframe, came and nestled next to her feet.
85
Charlie
There’s a knock on the front door. I’m upstairs having a clear-out. Bunging all my old clothes that don’t fit me any more into black bin bags and I am about to head to the charity shop. I’ve got some fabulous new ‘pieces’ as Ramone calls them, so I don’t need these ‘saggy baggy’ clothes any more. No more zis trackpants! It was Ramone’s idea for a blitz. Plus, half of them don’t fit me. Today, I’m wearing some indigo jeans and a white shirt. I have more time to go to the gym now, fewer cleaning jobs and things have toned up. It feels good. My fresh start, beginning with looking after myself.
I clatter down the stairs humming to myself, and open the door.
There, standing in the early October sunshine holding some ‘L’ plates in his hands is Daniel. ‘Heard someone round here badly needs driving lessons? Her driving’s a bit rubbish.’ Daniel’s looking at me, a deadpan expression on his face.
I want to hit him. I want to run up and scream at him and beat my hands across his chest for making me so miserable. I want to hit, and hit and hit his muscly chest with my bare hands, dig my nails into his skin… But I’m rooted to the spot. And I can’t ignore this explosion of emotions bubbling up inside me, as well as anger – it’s the tiniest bit of joy, that he’d turn up unannounced. Nevertheless, I’m fed up of people walking all over me. I will talk to him when I’m ready. I start to close the door.
‘Whoa, whoa there. Listen, let’s go out. Charlie, OK?’ he says, his arm outstretched to stop the door closing, his eyebrows raised, a smile in his eyes. ‘Shall we drive to Merchant Hills, take a walk – and talk – Charlie? You haven’t been answering my texts.’ He’s looking straight at me. ‘And the last time I tried to call you, you hung up on me.’
Well there’s a reason for that. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how I’m meant to feel. But I suppose I can at least listen to what he’s got to say. I nod and turn to fetch my bag from the hall.
We drive in silence through Chesterbrook towards the turning for Merchant Hills; it seems too hard to speak. Where would we start? There’s oceans of unspoken emotion between us. Rather than ‘water under the bridge’, there are gallons and gallons of feelings, tears, pent-up aggression and God knows what else that I feel right now. Does his girlfriend know he’s here? It’s easier to sit in silence. I feel light-headed, yet so frustrated at the same time.
The keys jangle in the ignition, and I’m acutely aware of Daniel’s hand inches away from me on the gear stick. I glance over at his arms, at his familiar little tattoo, the one he got from a trip to Peru of the Andean Cross (a cross with a circle in the middle), which is poking out from under his rolled-up shirt on his tanned skin.
I look out of the window at the passing cars to stop myself staring any more. Maybe his girlfriend likes it too? Maybe she has traced the outline with her fingers? I imagine her making little circles then following a path up his inner arm, across his strong biceps, over his shoulder, across his collarbone, then along his Adam’s apple and up to his lips. And maybe he’d then let her trace her fingers gently along those lips before taking those fingers in his mouth, sucking them, kissing them, then leaning over, kissing her. I shake myself violently with the thought.
‘You all right?’ Daniel glances at me, his hands firmly on the steering wheel.
‘No,’ I mutter.
We pull into the car park. Daniel steers the car into a spot at the back, and pulls on the handbrake.
‘You look great by the way.’ He turns to smile at me and folds his arms, making his biceps look even bigger. I frown, but feel my cheeks heat up. ‘And you looked stunning at the ball – I didn’t get a chance to tell you.’ He grins at me, as some of my determination to be angry with him melts away and I am cross with myself. ‘Because you won’t take my calls!’
‘That’s because—’ I turn round to face him, but, frustratingly, he’s already turned to the door, opened it and clambered out.
A thousand tiny butterflies start to dance on my heart and I shake myself. No, you don’t, I’m angry with you! And we need to talk.
We take our usual path towards the woods. It’s easy to walk with him and we fall into step together as we wander up to the viewpoint. It’s hard not to remember the magical scene in the winter, with the late afternoon sun shining down on us when I believed all was well with the world, that I’d found my soulmate in him.
We carry on walking. I will just wait for the right moment to talk about Tyler, about his girlfriend. But then why not, why can’t he have a girlfriend? It’s not against the law. A wave of sorrow settles on me. I’m acting like a four-year-old. I glance around: some of the trees are just starting to turn a coppery brown, a few leaves have already fallen leaving an early autumn lace patchwork on the grass, but it’s still warm, about eighteen degrees even though the breeze is cool. The ground underneath is dry and solid. Dust springs up after each footstep. A white terrier runs past and barks, then starts to sniff
at a puddle on the ground. It was about here, on Christmas Day, that Pixie had run off into the woods.
‘Let’s wander this way.’ He gestures to another path. ‘I need to talk to you.’
I nod.
‘I found a photo,’ he says, quietly.
‘A photo?’
‘Yes. A photo of you, when you’d sent Lucy a letter – remember, with your photo, seventeen years ago, so she could show me ‘our surrogate’. I was clearing out all the old boxes that were under my bed, the ones I’d been ignoring since I got back to this country – the ones I knew would bring back memories for me, that would be too hard,’ he says and I look up at the path ahead of us, and am acutely aware of my breathing. ‘I’d been putting it off for ages and ages. And then, one day, I was going through them and it hit me like a boomerang: suddenly there you were, with your little dimples and fragile smile – your beautiful hair.’ He stops and reaches out to touch my hair. ‘And I realised it was you. And I put two and two together about you knowing someone on Magnolia Drive, where we used to live.’
I can feel my heart start to beat faster.
He carries on and I walk in step with him. ‘Only Lucy never did show me,’ he continues. ‘She didn’t have the chance. I looked at the date; it was dated the day before she died. All Lucy had told me was that you were a lovely girl, but I had no idea it was you, Charlie. For a long while, I didn’t realise – you have to believe me. When I first met you, I just enjoyed your company. We had fun, didn’t we? And you wouldn’t have known it was my wife as she kept her maiden name when we were married.’
I suddenly do remember the photo. ‘I forgot all about that photo, yes.’ I nod. ‘Lucy said she wanted one of me, just to keep in the “files” – just to have.’
