The Husband Who Refused to Die

by Andrea Darby

  ‘Yes.’ My voice is quiet. ‘Far too late.’

  ‘I know. It wasn’t what I wanted. I couldn’t handle it. Everyone was interfering, her parents, mine. I got dragged along.’

  I can’t get my head around it. Did I believe him? Could I forgive him? I wasn’t heartless, but I wasn’t sure any of it excused what he did.

  ‘You remember Jono?’ I nod several times, watching Ashley sip his drink. Jono was the one responsible for us getting together, Ashley’s friend, a biology student at the same poly as me. He’d invited Ashley to a student party I was at – the first time we’d seen each other since primary school. ‘I asked him to find out how you were, to … look out for you. I was going to come and see you at poly after … the loss – the baby, but Jono saw you at an end of year party. You’d,’ he hesitates, ‘moved on.’

  I cradle my coffee cup, welcoming a pause as Ashley stands to let a lady and her large shopping bags out from the table next to us. I feel dizzy, my mind frantically sorting through things to say.

  So he had a spy. I can’t recall seeing Jono after the ‘split’. I’d heard through the grapevine that Ashley was seeing someone else. I’d sent a strongly-worded letter saying he should have had the balls to tell me. I’d called him a few times too, but he never answered. I hadn’t moved on. There was no one else until Dan. Friends warned me to be careful that it wasn’t on the rebound, but I’d laughed at them – it was over a year later, how could it be? Maybe my friends had been right?

  Patchy images from that poly party emerge. The beach theme. Then I see it. I’d snogged the face off two different guys that night. It was my lager-headed way of dealing with the hurt and anger over Ashley. I’d spilled a bottle of cheap beer over the second one’s Hawaiian T-shirt and, after being sick in my flip-flop, had spent a long night in the downstairs loo with a toilet seat and hula-hula garland as a pillow. Yes, Jono had been there. I remember. I was desperate to ask him about Ashley, but too afraid. Then later, feeling several lagers braver, I couldn’t find him; he’d left. If only I’d been more persistent.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ I say, as Ashley sits back down. He nods gently. I have the answer to the question I’ve been asking myself for twenty years. Why, when we’d been so bloody good together – or so I thought – he’d left me high and dry? But I don’t know how I feel. Or what to say. I’d imagined that, if I ever got to tackle him, I’d rant, slap him, maybe bash out his brains with the complete works of Shakespeare; unleash all the anger and hate that had festered inside me.

  ‘So are you with Hayley now?’

  ‘No.’ I urge Ashley to elaborate with my silence. ‘I’m … married. We’ve been together, gosh … seventeen years.’

  ‘Any children?’ I regret the question immediately.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh … I assumed … your Facebook status, the photo of the little boy—’

  ‘Oh, that’s my nephew. Handsome like his uncle, isn’t he?’ He smiles at last. ‘What about you. Any children?’

  ‘Yes, a daughter, Eleanor – she’s thirteen.’

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your husband. I saw it—’

  ‘Thanks. And for the card.’

  A brief silence follows. I feel exhausted. Ashley looks it too, shoulders hunched over the table. We both seem to sense we’ve said all we can for now, that we must somehow drive away the dark fog that’s descended over the bright furnishings in Delish.

  I’m relieved when Ashley asks if I’ll excuse him while he has a quick word with his friend – a woman with raven hair and purple lipstick who waves, rather sheepishly, as she joins the queue at the deli. I need time for it all to sink in, to begin the process of sifting through the wreckage, to discover which emotions remain, what I really feel.

  Ashley’s gone a while. His body language suggests she’s a good friend, though she seems restless, fiddling with a huge silver ring, eyes constantly flitting over at me as they talk.

  There’s an aftermath of unease after his revelation, but when he returns we manage to lighten the chat, slipping into some of our old routines and behaviours, batting little funnies back and forth, me speaking a little hurriedly, Ashley more thoughtfully and listening in that detached, dreamy way of his. He tells me about the accident, the months in hospital, how he fractured both legs and a complex hip operation has left one slightly shorter than the other. He’s more talkative than I remember. I’d always felt it was what Ashley didn’t say that was more important.

  We order a second drink and, with my curiosity at fever pitch, I ask whether his wife’s in the acting business too. As always, he hesitates, widening his eyes before he speaks.

  ‘No. She teaches – Year 4 primary.’ A teacher’s perfect for Ashley, someone to organise him, I think.

  I tell him about my job – and lack of ambition. His CV’s impressive by comparison and he’s more animated, eyes flashing when he talks about his career, the challenging Shakespeare roles, several at regional theatres like Brighton, where he was Roderigo in Othello. A few years ago, he’d been a Hamlet understudy in a major ‘Off West End’ London production.

  The work’s unpredictable; he’s had several, prolonged ‘rest’ periods, falling back on the photography and a few ‘crappy jobs’. He couldn’t work for months after the accident and wonders if his best acting days are behind him. I suspect he’s being falsely modest.

  ‘The photography’s good. I’m happy to focus on this a bit more – excuse me for stealing one of your dodgy puns.’ Ashley smiles, then looks at his watch. ‘Alas, I’m going to have to shoot.’

  I feel bound to oblige. I hold up my hands. ‘No, don’t shoot!’ Yet I should be the one shooting you, I think.

  Ashley grins. He’s used to my stupid jokes, I muse, watching him finish his lemonade. They haven’t got any more sophisticated, especially when I’m nervous. But give him enough lager and Ashley could be equally daft. I’ve never forgotten the time, at a party, when he donned a friend’s leather jacket, slicked his fringe back using my cherry lip salve and serenaded me with a song by The New Crew – or TNC, as us fans knew them. Our friends were in fits. He strangled every note, grabbing at his crotch as his voice strained to reach the falsetto heights of Scott, my teenage crush. Ashley was no singer. And he couldn’t have looked less like Scott – all dark, polished and Osmond-like.

  It was the track I’d heard just recently on Mark’s car radio: I’ll be Loving You (Forever). Ashley had dragged his hangover to town the next day and returned with a copy of the CD. ‘I remember you telling me you’d lost this,’ he’d said. ‘And I know you still like them – secretly. I hope I didn’t embarrass you too much last night. I was pretty pissed.’ He’d put his hand on his heart: ‘I promise never to sing along again’. That was one promise he kept. But the title of the song – he didn’t keep that one. Perhaps it was the brackets. Damn those brackets.

  ‘Don’t be late, Bardie,’ the raven-haired woman yells over. She’s at the door waving a brown paper bag and grinning cheekily.

  ‘I’m on it.’ Ashley looks coy, hands fidgeting in his lap as he smiles back. ‘Lily’s one of the cast,’ he tells me.

  Wickedly, I wonder if they do more than just tread boards together.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mum serves up mashed potato that evening. It’s delicious. It’s hers that got me hooked. Real potatoes, a hefty dollop of butter; not a lump in sight.

  At the dining table, I’m desperate to tell Mum how wrong she’d been to dismiss Ashley’s ambitions as fantasy, and him as too idle to make it. ‘I was right to be so excited and hopeful for him,’ I want to say, as she sits, straight-backed, taking small mouthfuls of food. ‘He’s done Shakespeare – some major roles at impressive venues.’

  But, of course, that day’s assignment had been secret – though, earlier, when Mum asked if I’d had a nice time, and I’d given a brief, rehearsed reply, I was convinced she’d seen the fib etched on my face.

  As the others talk about their day, Eleano
r in fits of giggles recounting how Dad had dropped his Cornetto in shock when a monkey made a sudden run at the cage he was stood next to, I keep replaying Ashley’s revelation, unsure what to make of it. He’d offered to walk with me to the bus stop, even though he was late for his rehearsal and it was in the wrong direction; then realised he’d forgotten his script. But he didn’t seem unduly bothered, still taking things in his small, slow stride.

  ‘It’s been great to see you again, to have the chance to … explain; say sorry,’ he’d said, as we stood near the queue at my stop. He’d leaned in, placed his hand behind my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek. It was the first time I’d smelled him. The first time I’d breathed properly perhaps. And it knocked my nostrils back – the same slightly peppery, warm scent but with a slight hint of summer sweat and some gentle deodorant I didn’t recognise.

  My response was partially lost to the rumble of traffic: ‘Good to see you too.’ I was facing him, a foot or so away, unsure what to say or do next. Reminding myself of the loathing I’d fostered for him, I was eager to reiterate that his explanation had come twenty-two years too late. But I couldn’t. His parting words: ‘Let’s not make it so long next time.’ I was taken aback. Would there be a next time?

  Eleanor’s voice brings me back to the table. She’s moaning to Mum that her friend Bethany isn’t allowed to go to the school disco. Her mum won’t let her. Eleanor’s gutted. They were ‘all good’ after their latest fall-out and had planned to go clothes shopping.

  This news about Bethany’s mum doesn’t surprise me. She’d previously threatened to stop her daughter attending school assemblies because there was ‘insufficient Christian content’, and had refused to let Bethany have her tonsils out – something to do with avoiding medical intervention. Poor girl had months off sick from school.

  I’d tried so hard with her mum, making conversation at the school gate when others sidestepped her, inviting her in for coffee when she dropped Bethany off at the house. She was always perfectly pleasant, but consistently refused my offers, preferring to keep herself to herself.

  The mash is going down nicely, but I’m struggling with Mum’s beef bourguignon, a loose knot still in my tummy.

  ‘Had any more thoughts about moving?’ Mum asks, noting my silence. Eleanor shoots me a frown.

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Mum says, giving Eleanor a conspiratorial smile. ‘It’s a lovely place.’

  Mum had never hidden her house envy. She’d yearned for a detached, but Dad hadn’t earned as much in insurance as she’d hoped, so – unwilling to contemplate moving to ‘a rougher area’ – she’d had to settle for a smarter semi and posher postcode a few miles closer to Guildford. I’d loved our home, even if Mum hadn’t. I wouldn’t call mine a charmed childhood. I longed for siblings, the din and disorder of the family life my friends had, and often resented Mum’s strict rules and fastidious cleaning regime, especially during our turbulent years when my difficult teens and her premature menopause collided and we clashed continually (that’s when Dad bought his first greenhouse, a hormone-free haven where he nurtured prize-winning tomatoes; and whatever else he did in there). But I was loved and indulged, and our immaculate suburban semi was cluttered with happy memories.

  After tea, I join Mum and her Marigolds in the recently renovated kitchen, the eighties limed oak cabinets replaced with a darker wood and huge swathes of heavily patterned tiles. I insist on putting plates away while she attacks the worktops with a giant bottle of spray. She has a heavy arsenal of cleaning fluids, all stacked in a huge basket under the sink and some so uber-powerful they’d render the mind of a sex pest clean.

  Mum says I look much better than I did at Christmas, what a relief it is, how worried she’s been. I’m touched. It strikes me how she’s like one of the cleaning pads that seem to breed in her cupboards. Mum has a tough, sometimes abrasive, top layer, but beneath she’s surprisingly soft. It’s something I’ve only started to appreciate with maturity, and my own motherhood.

  ‘How are you – I mean, really,’ Mum asks, putting down the spray.

  ‘I’m OK, on the whole. Just lonely.’

  ‘I know.’ Mum puts her hand on mine and I turn tearful.

  ‘And Eleanor’s growing up so quickly, she can be quite … combative.’

  ‘I remember it well. You were no angel.’ I smile. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘A glass of wine would be great.’

  Mum fetches a bottle from the under-stairs pantry. ‘Eleanor says you drink every night,’ she says, pouring it into a small glass.

  ‘Not every night.’

  ‘Your dad and I can make a bottle last a week.’ I take the glass. ‘Does your friend have a family?’

  I panic, wondering for a second who she means. ‘Yes. Two children,’ I say, amazed at how convincing I sound.

  ‘Are you going to meet up again?’

  ‘Oh yes, probably.’

  I stay up after the others go to bed, idly googling and mindlessly hopping TV channels. I feel guilty when I pour the last drops of wine from the bottle. I think of Mum. Her disapproval. And Dan.

  Dan was never a big drinker, but cut back drastically when his health crusade got serious. Around his mid-forties. I’ve never been the jealous type, but couldn’t help suspecting an affair. His regime had become so rigorous and, at times, righteous, there surely must have been a trigger. It seemed universally accepted that the first sign of men playing away was a sudden upsurge of healthier eating, exercise and genital hygiene. I was in bits. Was he unhappy in our marriage? I thought the robust contentment was a mutual feeling. He’d always said he could never stop loving me, but what if he could? I’d never cope without him by my side. Imogen had virtually laughed in my face when I shared my concern. ‘Don’t be so sodding daft, lovely. He’d be one of the last men on earth to cheat,’ she’d protested. ‘He only ever has eyes for you – it’s nauseating to witness at times.’ I had to admit there were no other signs. Sex was great and he was still attentive, the one making more romantic gestures – even if the bouquets of flowers he brought home were often accompanied by a bunch of fennel or a bag of carrots.

  So I moved to suspect number two: a mid-life crisis, or menoporsche as Imogen called it. Yet it certainly wasn’t a textbook one. Other men waxed their backs or got a motorbike; they didn’t overdose on lentils and lunges, or drink their own wee. Perhaps his was just an extreme case, possibly prompted by the slight bulge in the belly when he wore his favourite Fred Perry T-shirts, or my discovery of his first grey pube. He’d gone mad when I’d pointed out the lone silver strand one night. ‘You shouldn’t have told me!’ He’d stared down in horror. ‘OK, I’ll pluck it out and you can forget it existed,’ I offered.

  Looking back, I’m not convinced it was just Dan being troubled by the middle years, a fear of losing the bounce in his bungee. He liked being in control, so it was no surprise he’d take on the ageing process. I’m sure there was more to it. His obsession wasn’t helped by his business – selling health products and gadgets – and constant warnings about all the things that are bad for you. Like most people, I put my fingers in my ears and went ‘la, la, la’ when I heard the latest bulletins about yet another thing you shouldn’t eat, drink, touch or breathe in. But Dan took notice. It was OK to start with – cutting back, cutting down. Then he took it to extremes.

  I could see that both Dan, and perhaps our marriage, lost a bit of sparkle. I can’t pinpoint a moment when it happened. It was as if someone was gradually, surreptitiously, turning Dan’s dimmer switch down. I looked at him one day – grimacing on his weights bench in the spare bedroom, forcing a sweaty smile through gritted, bleached teeth before declaring, breathlessly, that Eleanor and I should start watching the film without him as he still had some reps to do – and his whole demeanour looked more dull.

  He was borderline teetotal in the end. Gluten, sugar, salt, dairy, meat – all on his hit list at one time or another. He even fus
sed over ingredients when we went to restaurants. Although I joked about it, it spoiled things a little. During one anniversary meal, he passed on dessert, peering righteously over a glass of fizzy water while I shovelled in banoffee pie washed down with wine.

  A loud ping stops my thoughts – a junk email landing in my computer inbox. I decide to send a message to Sheena:

  Hi Sheena. I was so shocked to hear about poor Abigail. How awful. Glad she’s recovering well. I understand your anger. You’ve every right to be angry. Eleanor’s thinking about auditioning for a part in Fame at school. Do you remember Bruno, Danny, Coco and co from the 80s TV show? And who can forget Leroy and his skimpy shorts. He could certainly throw his lunchbox around, couldn’t he? Haha. You’re not going to believe it, but I met Ashley today. I was all set to give him hell, but then he told me what had happened. Out of the blue, his ex-girlfriend had announced she was pregnant and he couldn’t bring himself to tell me. He’d decided to stick by her, but then they lost the baby. One big, awful mess. It’s crazy how one decision can change so many lives. He’s hinted at meeting again, but he’s married and, I’m not sure I forgive him for being such a bloody coward!? You’re such a strong woman, Sheena. And you have three lovely girls to help you get through it. Carrie x

  It’s not until I’m in bed, a myriad thoughts whirring around my head and jostling with each other, that I note the absence of the Gola bag, always on Ashley’s shoulder during his farewell routine at poly. ‘I bid you adieu,’ he’d say, pretending to doff his cap. Sometimes I just laughed at his silliness, others I tried to out-silly him with a reply like ‘bless you’ or ‘no, I’m a Christian’. To think that the life of that carefree, dreamy young man, dossing with drama and getting tanked-up at parties, still drinking pop through a straw, had been shaken up and reformatted.

  I think about our second baby – mine and Dan’s – that never came, then poor Ashley’s that came but went so soon.

  ***