The Coordinates of Loss

by Amanda Prowse

And then I sleep some more.

  It’s like someone has shut off my awake valve.

  It’s like having to navigate in a strange city where each narrow road looks the same; there are no landmarks, no hints and no signs. I am driving fast and yet can’t see the road. All I know, is that in one direction lies a sheer cliff and in the other, an open meadow and it’s only when I reach one that I shall know which is which.

  I am terrified.

  I am sad – no, I need a word beyond sad . . . I am bereft.

  I am desolate.

  I am broken.

  I am so broken that what I want to do is put my foot hard to the floor and head for the cliff.

  Yes, that’s what I want.

  So why don’t I?

  Two things.

  Cowardice and the fact that no matter how small, how unlikely, there is the tiniest of chances that I will get to hold my boy in my arms once more.

  Yes, just for one second of feeling his face next to mine, I would wear this cloak of grief for ten lifetimes . . .

  Rachel sat up quickly in the bed. This was how she woke now – alarmed, gasping for breath and with the churn of sickness at the cloudy thought somewhere at the back of her mind that she had to be somewhere or had missed something very important. As if someone had thrown something cold over her. It usually took a second for her to remember the event that had cleaved open her world. And when she did remember, her tears fell, and it was like it was the first time she had heard the news.

  Images of Oscar crowded her thoughts, and the sickness in her gut and the feeling that she needed to get to him were almost paralysing.

  Sadder than sad.

  These words she now fully understood.

  Slipping her arms into her dressing gown, she pulled on some cotton socks; her grief had left her with a permanent chill that made her bones ache and kept her skin dappled in goosebumps. Collecting the Tic-Tac box from the dresser, she ran its smooth surface over her cheek, and with it safely ensconced in her palm, made her way along the hallway. Pausing at Oscar’s bedroom door, she placed her hand on the white-painted wood and smiled. This was a little trick she played on herself, picturing him on the other side of the door, either snug in his bed with an open book lifted over his face or sitting cross-legged on his rug with his cars spread around him in a traffic jam. By not opening the door, it was easy to imagine and it helped soften the spike of thoughts that threatened to lance her sanity.

  Weakened, she gripped the wooden handrail and trod the wide, curved stairs, making her way across the vast double-height hallway, heading toward the kitchen.

  The phone on the table rang. She rushed to it, swallowing the optimism that rose in her throat, able to picture nothing but sweet reunion, the moment when she might take her boy in her arms once again!

  Where have you been, my love? On a boat? You swam to a boat? You clever thing! But you are home now and I will never, ever let you go . . .

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Rachel?’

  ‘Mum,’ she managed, caring little for the ricochet of disappointment that echoed around the word.

  ‘Oh, my little love, my little girl! Your dad spoke to James a couple of times and I didn’t know whether to call straight away or what to do.’ She paused. Rachel cried silently. Her mum spoke softly: ‘I have sat up for two nights just thinking about you all and praying, something I haven’t done for a long while, but, Rachel, I will try anything and everything. I can’t get you out of my mind. I thought you might be sleeping or busy, and truth is we are all just in bits; we don’t know what to do for the best, and I am so worried about you. My heart is broken.’

  She nodded. And mine . . . shattered into a million pieces and scattered into the deep, deep sea.

  ‘Is there any news?’

  ‘No. No news,’ she whispered from a throat lined with broken glass so every word cut.

  ‘I just can’t . . . I just can’t imagine . . . my poor little Oscar. He was such a lovely little thing.’

  He is such a lovely little thing. Her brain made the adjustment as her mum continued.

  ‘It doesn’t seem real, Rachel; it doesn’t seem true and I hate that we are so far away; I feel helpless. I went up to the big Tesco to get some bits in and I was all of a daze. I saw Mrs Hicks and she said I looked peaky and I just broke down right there and then. I abandoned my trolley and Dad was waiting in the car and he didn’t know what to do. Should we try to come over? Your dad says we can get a loan and Peter said he could help us with the fare.’

  She pictured her parents and brother having the chat around the little kitchen table in their house in Yate. Of course if she wanted them there Rachel would pay for flights – if only all problems could be fixed so simply with a quick flourish of her credit card. ‘There’s no need to come, Mum, thank you, though. There’s nothing to do.’ Her response, she knew, was neutral, numb. Nothing to do that will make a difference or help bring Oscar home, otherwise I would be doing it.

  ‘I don’t really understand. What happened? Did he fall in? I hate boats, you know I do, and I hate the sea and this is why . . .’ She faltered. ‘My mum, your gran, lost her brother at Dunkirk, never got over it. He was weighed down with his kit and whatnot.’ She sniffed and Rachel erased the image that formed, unable to cope with a thought like that. ‘I can’t stop thinking about that little boy, our lovely little boy. I hear his sweet voice on Skype, “Hello, Nana!” he’d always say, so excited to show me something and talking nineteen to the dozen. And I can’t believe he’s gone.’

  ‘He’s not gone,’ she spat. ‘We don’t know what happened and until we do—’

  ‘But, Rachel, James said that there had been a terrible accident and that he’d been killed, drowned—’ Her mum broke away, crying.

  ‘James said that?’ She felt an incendiary flash in her veins and hung up the phone. Racing into the kitchen, she spied Cee-Cee at the sink. ‘Cee-Cee, where is James?’

  Cee-Cee turned slowly, her lack of speed in itself an irritation.

  ‘Where’s James?’ she fired.

  ‘I think in the garage.’ The woman blinked and looked as if she had been about to say more.

  Rachel dashed out of the back door, along the path and around the house. She yanked open the side door to the triple garage and almost ran to where he stood. There was a second where she registered the look of surprise on his thinned face.

  ‘Rach,’ he began.

  ‘How could you? How could you tell my mum the things you did?’

  ‘What things?’ He blinked.

  ‘You made it very clear to her that things are . . . final. You gave her no hope!’

  ‘Because I need to be able to tell someone what’s going on, and I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘That’s bullshit!’ she shouted. ‘You have no right to say that stuff to her, to anyone!’

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again.

  She looked down, noticing for the first time several envelopes on the arm of the chair. He followed her gaze.

  ‘There have been hundreds of emails too, literally hundreds. One very long one from Vicky and Gino. I only skimmed it, but it was very kind. Vicky called, she left you a message, sent you her love.’

  She nodded, unable to picture having the conversation with her best friend at home, the girl she had grown up with, the first person after James she had shared news of her pregnancy with.

  Guess what? Guess what? She had held the tops of her arms and they had jumped together like a skipping duo.

  Clever, clever girl ! Vicky had hugged her tightly and kissed her face.

  Rachel only saw Vicky when she went home, but they regularly swapped emails and messages. It was one of those cherished relationships where they simply picked up where they had left off. She half sat, half collapsed into the chair and reached for the envelopes. James wiped his face with his palm. ‘I was putting them out of sight; I figured you weren’t ready. There are others.’ He paused as she gathered them t
o her chest. Most had stamps, a couple had been hand-delivered. Some addressed to Mr and Mrs Croft, others to Oscar’s mum and dad. She placed her finger in the small gap under the gummed flap of an envelope and pulled out the pale-blue card with a white dove on the front. Gingerly, she opened the stiff card and read aloud, ‘So sorry to hear of your terrible loss. Keeping you in our thoughts and prayers, Mr and Mrs Wentworth.’ She looked at her husband. ‘I don’t know who they are.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know who most of them are. We’ve had dozens, from all over the island, all walks of life.’

  She handed him the card and felt a flare in her chest. ‘How dare they send things like this to us? How dare they? Everyone has given up on him. These seem so final!’

  ‘I think’ – he coughed – ‘I think it’s that everyone is a few steps ahead of you, of us, and that’s easy for them because they are not torn apart like we are.’

  ‘Well you need to set them straight! There is still the chance . . .’ She paused, losing her thread. ‘You need to stand up for him, James!’

  ‘I . . .’ He gasped.

  ‘What’s the matter with you? We don’t know anything, nothing! He might be on a boat, he might, he might . . .’ She looked up at the ceiling, trying to find the words.

  ‘He might what?’ He spoke through a quivering mouth, battling a fresh wave of tears as he took a step towards her. His words when they came were slow, considered. ‘He’s not coming back, Rachel. He’s gone. He died and the fact that you won’t accept it is making me dread every phone call, every knock on the door because when it gets confirmed, when they find . . .’ He paused. ‘I am so afraid of how you are going to react, how you are going to cope that it is making this living hell even worse, if you can possibly imagine that.’ He rubbed his eyes and face and slumped down on the battered armchair that sat by the wall, surrounded by an assortment of cardboard boxes and old tennis rackets, buckets and spades, inflatables, and a mountain of sandals and beach shoes; the detritus of family life. ‘I feel like it’s okay for you, you only have to worry about you, you have submitted entirely to your grief, but I don’t have that luxury. I need to keep things going and I am so, so worried about you.’ He looked up.

  ‘You think it’s okay for me? Did you really just say that?’ Her chest heaved.

  ‘I . . . I didn’t mean it like that, I meant—’

  ‘You don’t know anything!’ she screamed with her fists clenched, white-knuckled, as she shook.

  She watched as his face crumpled once again and his head hung down. ‘Please, please, Rachel.’

  ‘Don’t you “please, Rachel” me! I will not give up on him, I won’t! He might be on a boat, he might—’

  ‘No! He is not on a fucking boat! It has been three days and if he was on a boat or had been picked up by a boat or had swum to a boat – if anyone knew anything, they would have come forward! We would know, it would have been picked up by now.’ He raised his voice. ‘It was an accident. He either fell or jumped, we will never know, but he is gone! He is gone!’

  With teeth bared, she lunged for him. James caught her by the wrists as she sank, hollowed by grief and weakened by sadness, falling until her head nestled in his lap. He held her fast, until her limbs stopped thrashing and her breathing steadied. They were silent and still for some minutes, as the distasteful dance came to an end.

  ‘I can’t accept it, James. I can’t let myself think it might be true. I want to stop every clock. Break every watch. I don’t want there to be any more time or any future, not for anyone if there isn’t for one him and there isn’t one for me.’ She whispered the admission. ‘It’s like the universe has placed two hooks here and here – one through my heart one through my head – so that every breath, every movement, even blinking, hurts and it’s exhausting, but necessary because if these hooks are removed . . .’ She closed her eyes, tightly. ‘They are the only things keeping me upright. Keeping me anchored. Without them I’m nothing, just a puddle of skin and bones melted by grief.’

  ‘I know.’ He knotted his fingers in her hair and soothed her scalp. ‘I know.’

  She continued to talk. ‘I can’t stand it. I don’t know how I am going to get through this. It’s too tough, too hard. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I want to do it. I wish I could just disappear.’

  ‘Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that! You can do it, you have to, and we can, because we have no choice.’

  ‘I . . .’ She sat up, resting her arms on his knees, sitting now on the cool floor. ‘I blame myself. And I blame you, too.’

  James nodded, as if this much he knew and these too were his feelings.

  ‘When I see you sleeping by my side, I detest your peace. I want to shove you awake and shout at you; why . . . why didn’t you remind him, “Stay in your room, Oscar! Never go up on deck without us!” Why . . . why didn’t you shackle him to the bed, nail up the door, lie across the floor, anything – anything to keep him where he was supposed to be, to keep him safe—’ She halted at the sound of his sob.

  ‘I think that too. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I?’ he cried.

  ‘And why did you get the fucking boat in the first place? Why did you do that?’ She sobbed. ‘You were just showing off! You knew they could be dangerous!’

  ‘I . . . I thought Oscar would love it. I thought we would love it. I don’t . . . I don’t know.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’

  And again the silent minutes passed, while these latest hot words of destruction pierced their core and neither made further comment on the terrible phrases they sharpened and fired as weapons.

  Standing shakily and mentally heading back to the sanctuary of her bed, she looked back at her husband. ‘Throw those cards and letters away. All of them. Throw them away! Can you imagine what it would be like for Oscar if he saw them?’

  CEE-CEE

  Cee-Cee returned the clean china plate back to the cupboard and wiped her hands on the dishcloth. It was a hot night with the kind of heat and thickened air that foreshadowed a storm. Even the bugs were jumpy. Sitting on the bench that ran along the back of Grandma Sally’s porch, she looked to her left and pictured her gran rocking in her chair as she fanned her face on a night just like this. Glancing to the right, she smiled at the terrace where her mom and dad had done the same.

  She opened up her notepad and took the pen in her hand.

  Cee-Cee looked up and thought some more about those early days when she and Oscar were still getting to know each other.

  She had closed the book and placed it on the little boy’s nightstand. He yawned.

  ‘So what did you learn today at nursery?’ She had smiled, tucking the duvet around his shoulders to take the chill from the air conditioning.

  ‘I did drawing.’

  ‘You did drawing? You are an artist! Maybe one day you will have a big exhibition in Hamilton or even New York! Can you imagine that?’

  Oscar laughed.

  ‘What did you draw?’

  ‘Umm, I did dinosaurs and a digger and a car with a big snake on it.’ He spoke with the slur of fatigue.

  ‘Well, that sounds like a masterpiece, little Oscar, a masterpiece!’

  Oscar wriggled on the mattress and placed Mr Bob under his chin, the sign that he was readying for sleep.

  ‘Shall I sing to you? Shall I sing you a hymn, little Oscar?’

  He nodded and let his head fall to one side on the pillow.

  Cee-Cee took a big breath and closed her eyes.

  ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

  Look upon a little child;

  Pity my simplicity,

  Suffer me to come to Thee.

  Lamb of God, I look to Thee;

  Thou shalt my Example be;

  Thou art gentle, meek, and mild;

  Thou wast once a little child . . .’

  She’d looked up as Rachel pushed open the door. ‘Cee-Cee, I heard you singing, and you have the most beaut
iful voice!’

  Cee-Cee shrugged, as the woman leaned over her son.

  ‘Ah, I was coming to say goodnight. He looks so tiny when he’s asleep.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘We are just going to have a drink, Cee-Cee – by the pool. James has invited Mr and Mrs Williams from next door over.’

  ‘I know them.’

  ‘Well, you are more than welcome to come and join us.’

  Why would I want to do that? Mrs Williams is as haughty as she is thin.

  ‘No, thank you, but I will sit with Oscar for a bit and then I’ll go home.’

  ‘Okay, well, night night and if you change your mind you know where we are.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ Cee-Cee waited for the click of the door in the doorframe then sat back in the wicker chair with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Williams?’ she whispered. ‘I think I will pass.’ She chuckled.

  She looked now at the notepad, open on her lap. ‘What to write to you?’ She looked up, hoping that some God-given inspiration might fall into her lap. ‘Maybe I could tell you some of my stories. It might help. It could be a good thing that you know a little about the island where Oscar will always live. Ah, Oscar . . .’ She paused and looked up over the garden wall and down towards the beach. ‘I do know that when I was hurting real bad, back when . . . stories would have helped, distracted me.’ Cee-Cee smiled.

  Rachel, sweet girl,

  I have been thinking about what to write to you and wanted to start by telling you this: everyone I have ever loved and everyone I have ever lost are still with me. Every day, all around. I see them, I feel them and I remember them. They are not gone, not truly, and I know that is scant comfort to you right now, but I hope in time . . .

  I think, no, I hope that writing will be an easier way to get all the things I want to say – things that seem locked in my mouth – flowing from my pen and into your hands. I have not written letters for some time and it might be wise to warn you that my thoughts and those I choose to voice are whatever comes to me and for that I make no apology, as I know no other way. I see your pain and I recognise it as my own. I know that things are hard for you right now, and that you would rather not face each new dawn. I also know you will not believe me when I tell you that this will not always be the case, but it’s true. Things get easier, they do, as the months and years pass by, you will see.