Ten Journeys

by Various

  “People who, even though they seem OK, just aren’t your friends? It’s a bit like that, but stronger.”

  He doesn’t look convinced, but I just try smiling and stick to my guns. It’s hard to explain. But I just didn’t love her. And she just didn’t love me back, it wasn’t all my fault.

  “I’ll be honest Daniel, I still feel like a terrible father for leaving you when you were so small. I would not have judged anyone kindly, if I’d heard of them doing that.” Daniel, as so often, betrays nothing. His mouth remains neither in a smile, nor frown, his eyebrows steady, no flicker across his face. It’s too much to expect that he might chirp up in my defence. But I have to try. “But I wasn’t leaving you, I was leaving your Mum. We weren’t getting on, and your mother didn’t want me to stay any more than I wanted to.”

  I stop at this, as I’m suddenly reminded that I shouldn’t be saying any of this. I’m not saying it for him, nor for her. I’m just saying it to get it off my chest. I’ve time, I hope, to explain all this to him. Today is not the day.

  Sympathetic and compassionate. I have a lot to work at.

  “She was a nice girl, I don’t want to make anything else out like that. You know that anyway, but…” Lord, I’m struggling here. This is what Louise did too, just sit there and not say anything to save me as I dig my holes. Why should he say anything? “But it wasn’t just me. We were both unhappy. It was a sort of favour for both of us.” What a thing to say. Take it back.

  “Yes, that’s what Mum said,” he mumbles. And he shows he’s not his mother – he’s himself. Five words, and he’s put me at ease. More than that, I could just about weep.

  Lord knows, Louise may have irritated me many times, but isn’t this a surge of gratitude to her? She didn’t have to defend me to Daniel.

  I feel almost free of a burden. With only five words.

  I’ve looked back over it, looking at my mistakes, hundreds of times. It would be easy to say that the mistake was not splitting with her early on, when we knew it wasn’t working. But that would have meant no Daniel, and I can’t bring myself to think that. Staying together wouldn’t have made things better. Louise was quick to notice we were making each other miserable, both of us. She was right too. I had to leave. So what did I do?

  Messed around for a couple of years drinking, and not managing to sleep around, probably best given the situation I’d found myself in. Then I moved down south for a job. That was definitely a mistake; though I think I’d convinced myself they’d be better off without me back then. Maybe I didn’t need much convincing. Worst was not arranging for more visits from him – once a year. He must have hated those trips. He looked more uncomfortable when I met Kathy, and worse still when the kids came along.

  But early on? No, I don’t think so, there’s not much I could have changed with Louise, which wouldn’t have led to misery of one sort or another.

  Leaving your wife and nine-month-old child. It’s an arsehole’s thing to do. It really is I’ve come to terms with that. Daniel may too, with age. I bloody hope so.

  But now, all that matters to me is that Louise told him otherwise, so maybe I still have a chance with the boy after all. Selfish prick, I only mourn when it suits me.

  Here’s the crematorium. I pull in and drive down a long treelined lane, well-cut grass on either side, and see the car park at the end. I’ve never been here before.

  We are here with perfect timing, actually, just short of ten minutes before it starts. I’m sweating a little at my collar, and can feel my pulse beating, just gently, in my wrist against my sleeve. As we pull up, the faces of people I know, barely, and always dread seeing, come into view. First is Louise’s mother and father, short, unhealthy-looking people at the best of times, now absolutely grey with grief. I can see Newton, Louise’s widower, holding the youngest of her three children, Thomas (I think). What is he, eighteen months old?

  Newton is a reasonable man, someone I feel I could have actually been friends with in other circumstances. Never an angry word from him, the slightest hint of jealousy or grudging, he was always a pleasant, grounded man. So I see him and feel terrible, imagining myself in his situation. He’s with his brother, a guy I’ve seen but never spoken to. I never really have to. My meetings with Louise have been very short since I moved down south, especially since I met Kathy.

  There are various friends of Louise’s around, and a number of people I don’t know – they may be there for Louise’s funeral, or maybe someone else’s, I wouldn’t know. All of which reaffirms my initial instinct: I shouldn’t have come.

  Nonsense, of course I should. It just takes me too long each time to remember. In the first case, three days. Not until the Saturday, when Daniel came over for the weekend – Newton, on the doorstep, asked, just checking (he thought), that I knew where I was going on Monday. Daniel, there beside Newton would have seen the whites of my eyes as it sunk in. Sure, I’d be able to find it fine; I struggled my way into saying. Newton, open as ever to visual clues, insisted I was welcome at the funeral. Could I imagine doing that? Saying to any of Kathy’s ex-boyfriends, please, come along to her funeral?

  Not until then did I realise that perhaps, at the wake of one parent, Daniel may like the support of the other. By which time, of course, it was too late to let my new work know.

  I park the car, and unclip my seatbelt, keen to get going, but Daniel pauses.

  I nearly ask him if he’s OK, but he’s probably just thinking, and I give him some moments to prepare himself.

  Newton has spotted us now, and nods at me in acknowledgment. He looks tired and drawn too. How much time does someone take off after the sudden death of their wife? He’s a GP, so you’d think he’d have to be in the right frame of mind. How do you get in the right frame of mind?

  Daniel shifts in his seat and turns to me. “Dad, I want to come and live with you.” His earnest eyes search for traces on my face, and I wonder what he finds.

  What I hope he sees – joy; relief; love.

  What he might see, if I can’t hide it – fear; doubt; guilt.

  He’ll definitely see surprise. You can’t account for a surprise like that. I can hardly believe he’s asked me. It is all I’ve been hoping for this past few years, and yet…

  “Well, that’d be…” I have to try and be sensible about this. “What about Newton? And your brothers?”

  I don’t want to hurt his feelings, and thankfully he doesn’t interpret my tactless question like that.

  “Newton is nice,” he shrugs his near teenage shrug again. “But he’s not my actual family, is he?”

  I should be delighted, and I am on a certain level. But it’s balanced, against a fear that he doesn’t really mean it. Emotions of the day, getting on top of him. I can’t blame him. His eyes, still dry four days on, I can’t expect a rational conversation with him here.

  “Listen, I would absolutely love that Daniel. Really I would. But we have to go now, so we’ll talk about it later. OK?” It doesn’t sound like my voice, doesn’t sound natural, but Daniel nods and opens his door.

  There is a stiff breeze, and I wish I’d brought a coat. Newton makes his way over, and says something to Daniel I don’t catch.

  I shake his hand. “Hi.” I say, and then shake my head. I can’t think of a thing to say. “I…”

  “Hi Martin,” Newton says with a soft, sympathetic smile, and Thomas struggles in his arms, trying to get down to Daniel.

  There’s a loud voice from behind, and I don’t notice it’s directed at me until half way through the sentence.

  “… a bloody nerve coming here. After what you did to her. After what you did to HIM!”

  Louise’s mother, her grey face turned to an angry red. I haven’t seen her for a couple of years, maybe four or five, and she’s aged very suddenly. She’s put on weight around her jowls, and her waist, and her hair has greyed, her eyes have four times more wrinkles.

  “Why did you come? Eh? WHY?” And her anger is turning to tears now,
but not faded totally.

  “Martha, please. I asked Martin because…” Newton starts, a gentle, calm voice, not the voice I think I’d be using on such a day. I would be stropping like a teenager.

  Martha actually beats Newton’s chest as he starts to say this, and it’s a struggle not to be utterly swept over by this sort of open anguish. “I don’t want him here, Newton. He ruined her life, ruined it.”

  I don’t even want to defend myself on this. I am doubtlessly among the last people she would want at her daughter’s funeral. But I start, “Martha, I’m here for Daniel, to try and…”

  “For Daniel?! Now?!” she shrieks, and tears are streaming now, her eyes, showing sorrow more than anger. Looking towards me, but somehow not at me. She shakes her head as though to add something but instead just moans, before Daniel steps in.

  “It’s all right, Dad,” he puts one hand on his grandmother’s arm and the other round her back. “I’ll be fine. Maybe you should just wait here.”

  Martha is no longer looking at me, her hand covering her face, making heaving, grieving groans. Newton looks on pleadingly, and I know I’m not going in. What surprises me is that I’m quite disappointed about it.

  I nod, and am actually shaking as I get back in the car.

  I’m a little embarrassed, but nobody is looking at me. They are chatting amongst themselves, meekly smiling at each other, trying to make the best of the situation.

  At once, I’m reminded again that Louise is gone. Her brain has stopped operating, her heart stopped beating. Her body lies in that building, an empty carcass. I will never speak to her again. Clearly that’s the point of a funeral, to bring some finality to it. To slap us in the face with it: she’s gone.

  I know these thoughts I’m having are clichés. They’re nothing different than those that have passed through the minds of a billion humans before me. I’ve heard people saying these things before, too. I’ve even thought them in an abstract way before, but I’ve never actually put a real person I know to those clichés. And I’m shaking now at the bluntness of that undeniable truth, death, grief, finality. I close my eyes and wait for it to pass.

  Everybody is moving in to the crematorium, and I’m out here alone.

  I have to phone Kathy. Nominally, it’s to talk about Daniel and what he said. Realistically, it’s to take my mind off death, and back to life.

  I pull out my phone and speed-dial the number, but I have to stop and think about this. How am I going to word this? What will she say?

  She said again last night she didn’t think Daniel liked her. I can’t tell, really. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe, he’s just being quiet.

  Actually, he’s definitely being quiet. But maybe there’s no motive behind that. He’s quiet with me too.

  What will she say? She’ll say that he doesn’t like her. She’ll say there isn’t space. And there isn’t much, I’ll have to put James and Sally in together for a few months until we can convert the loft. She’ll ask why there is room for Daniel, but I don’t think there’s room for another baby.

  How can we have another baby just now? But then, how would she know about that particular worry, if I don’t tell her?

  We could have another baby. I’d be happy to, if it makes Kathy happy. We could possibly afford it, now that we’ve moved up here. We’d need a bigger house, but we could struggle by until then.

  So, what’s my plan? Phone her up and say, Daniel is coming to live with us, so you can have another baby? A little crude.

  The phone is ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s just me.”

  “Hi. How are you? Aren’t you at the funeral?”

  “I’m at the crematorium. Long story, but I didn’t go in.”

  Kathy sighs quietly. She knows I didn’t want to go, and she’ll be making that assumption. That I got out of it. I can’t blame her for that, can I?

  “I didn’t want to, I tried to go in. Martha, Louise’s Mum, she… well, she didn’t want me to.”

  “Right. Poor woman.”

  “Yes, I can’t even imagine.” I say this on autopilot, blathering out the words, which fit the conversation. In fact, I’m imagining what she’s going through, me standing here at the funeral of one of my children. But I don’t want to, so I speak instead. “Daniel is still very quiet. I hope he’s OK.”

  “Mmm,” she says, a little distantly.

  “How are James and Sal?”

  “A bit wild, this morning. James has had about three meltdowns. How was work?”

  “They were fine, didn’t mind me leaving, like we thought.”

  “Good.” She’s being very terse, waiting for me to get to a point.

  “Look, Daniel asked this morning if he could come and live with us. I know it’ll be a bit tight, but I don’t know, I would really like to talk with Newton about it. Not today, obviously.”

  “Oh right,” she says, quite breezily. “That’s good, actually. It’d be good for you. And really good for James and Sally.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind? I know you and him haven’t got on so well recently…” I trail off. I’m starting to sound like a soap opera, the way I talk.

  “Of course I don’t mind. It’ll be hard, I suppose. You know, because he isn’t actually mine. But he’s yours. And the poor little boy’s just lost his mother.”

  What did I think she’d say? Get lost you can’t have your son?

  “I know. But still. I wanted to talk with you about it before it went anywhere.”

  “We’ll speak to Newton next week some time, when everything is settled a little,” she says. “We could maybe just put James and Sally in together for a bit, they’d like that.”

  And as she talks practically for a while, I stop listening, and start thinking about how I don’t deserve the family I’ve got.

  They’re definitely Louise’s friends. Out they come, pale, streaked eyes, thoughtful. I get out of the car, and wait for Daniel. Eventually, he comes out, holding hands with his little half-brother, Richard, who is six, and will only understand enough to know he’s sad. Daniel, who probably doesn’t understand an awful lot more, looks like he’s been crying, and I think for the first time in my life, I’m glad to see he has. He’s talking to Richard, smiling at him. Richard, like Daniel and Louise’s other son Thomas, have the look of their mother. I have always found it odd to see two children I don’t know at all, looking so similar to my own boy.

  Newton follows shortly after them, and Louise’s parents, the last out of the crematorium. Have they done a line-up? They do them at weddings; surely they don’t do them at funerals too. I’ve no idea. Hopefully I’ll not find out soon.

  Newton comes towards me, with his two children, and Daniel.

  “Martin, hi,” he says, “how are you?”

  “I’m OK, Newton. How are you?” I cringe slightly that I even asked.

  “Honestly, I’m glad that’s over. It’s weighed on me a bit over the past few days.”

  I nod, the burden he’s had to carry as his two young children stand around him, lost, is unthinkable to me.

  “If there’s anything I can do, I hope you can ask me. I’m really sorry for what’s happened. And I’m really sorry for before…”

  “Please, don’t worry about Martha. I should have prepared her for you coming. She’s taken it particularly hard, I’m sure she’ll feel terrible.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t. I totally understand.”

  “Listen, I’d really appreciate it if you came along to a wee get-together we’re having at the house – Martha is fine with it. I’d like it if you could come. Not just,” he says with a wry, if tired smile, “because I need you to give Daniel a lift.”

  I laugh a little too hard, nervously. “I’ll pop in for a while. Thank you.”

  I’m never comfortable drawing up in front of this house, but today is worse than ever. Usually it’s to avoid an awkward conversation, steer clear of the hints Louise would make about my not doing enough
with Daniel. Today, well, it’s different, clearly.

  Only a two-minute drive from the crematorium, and Daniel had given nothing away. If he had been an adult, I might have asked if it was a nice service, but Daniel is twelve. Apart from the actual occasion, I expect his first impression would have been that it was a bit boring.

  I let Daniel lead the way into what is, still, his house. He bumbles up the front path, a weedless bed on either side to the front door, shining black, with sparkling gold numbering. Newton’s work, I knew, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’d done it since Wednesday. A bit of solitude, a meditation. The door looked clean enough.

  Daniel opened the door, and there’s a bustle inside. Most of the guests are forcing themselves not to be too gloomy.

  “I’ve just got to use the toilet,” I tell Daniel, withholding the ‘again’ which rang in my head. As I go, I hear two women, neither of whom I recognise: “God yeah, I remember that. It was so funny,” one says, failing to hide a sad smile. “She must have been mortified,” says the other, managing little better.

  The toilet is a poky room, like most downstairs loos are. The décor is sparse, white and light blue, with a few small maritime models on the shelves over the piping, little carved boats and lighthouses. I stand, and nothing comes again. Come on, come on, come on. A small amount comes.

  There, just above the sink to my left, there is a familiar picture, baby Daniel in his mother’s arms. You can’t see much of Louise, if it weren’t for the signs of a nightdress, you wouldn’t know if it were here or me. I have the same picture at home. I remember that day, clearly, and all the details of it, but emotions are so easily dropped from my memories. I don’t always remember, for example, the force of fear, and love, that I suddenly do feel again, now. It brings a small, unexpected jolt to my chest, forcing me to breathe in sharply, and for a moment, I feel like crying.

  Hold it together.

  I see myself in the mirror again, greying, wrinkling, jowl spreading slowly. Standing in this tiny room, holding a malfunctioning cock. Louise is dead. And I am not a well man. I zip up, wash my hands and leave.