‘I know.’ I don’t turn to face her.
‘And your brother,’ she adds. I give a shallow nod this time. ‘He is devastated, Edward. I really think you two should talk.’
‘We will,’ I say, mainly to appease her, but she prickles at my response, no doubt picking up on the fact that I’m not committing to when.
‘I know he is not always easy to talk to at the moment, Edward. I know you’ve tried… before… But, this is different now. You’re brothers. You need each other. You must work through this.’ She pauses, giving me time to agree with her. To put a timescale on when I’ll make contact with him. ‘Edward?’
I’m not sure what she wants me to say. I’ve already told her I can’t yet. I’ve explained that I need time. I’ve asked her to try to understand, however difficult that may be.
Oli lets out a murmur and I pick him back up again. ‘Sometimes you need to let them cry,’ she advises.
‘Sometimes you need to listen to your children,’ I answer.
She pauses for a moment, then, taking my point, reaches for her coat and bag with a formal nod. ‘You don’t have to do this alone,’ she says, hooking her belongings into the crook of her arm. ‘There are ways to get through this.’
Words, I’m certain, that could only ever come from a person who hasn’t dealt with grief on this scale, ever in her life. It’s not her fault, I realise that, but neither is any of this mine. Simon, on the other hand…
Four
Rachel
Since dramatically falling into our feather-filled sofa – an old house-warming gift from Mo’s mum and dad – I basically haven’t moved. We’ve done Pretty Woman, A Chorus Line and argued over Bridesmaids vs Dirty Dancing. As if that’s even a competition! (Dirty Dancing EVERY time!) The cliché of single girls and chick flicks makes me itch a bit, but what else are hangovers good for?
Mo has crawled off the sofa in search of her onesie, leaving me to glance around the blank canvas that is our flat. Surrounded by empty crisp bags and chocolate wrappers, it’s clear that we live like students… minus the shared-house grime and road cones. Okay, it’s possible I’m sweepingly generalising about student accommodation, but certainly our place looks like that freshers’ flat I ended up in after a particularly misjudged night out. Turns out the fresher in question wasn’t as ‘talented’ in the bedroom department as his friends had suggested, or maybe I just fell asleep because I was really, really tired.
I shudder at that particular morning-after memory, picking up the birthday card that arrived from Dad in the post this morning instead.
Dad. I haven’t spoken to him all day, which is unheard of. I’ve been a bit distant for a few days, in fact, which is out of character since we lost Mum. It’s just that… well, I don’t really know where to begin. I don’t know how to tell him what I’m feeling, partly because I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling. Or why. Except that it started when he told me he was putting our family home on the market, which – and I accept this is somewhat dramatic – made me feel as though I’d have no home to go to if he did. I moved out years ago; it shouldn’t matter. And yet, somehow, it does matter. Which makes me feel confused and guilty in equal measure.
‘We should get fairy lights,’ I shout to Mo, like that’s all that’s required to sort the flat (and my mood) out. She’s reverted to grunting and I can hear her doing so as she wades her way through a pile of clothes that will definitely be on her bedroom floor… one clean pile, one dirty… and a very fine line between the two. Apparently she knows which is which, but for someone so organised and professional at work, her level of scruff-dom never ceases to amaze me. I persevere. ‘You know I love a fairy light, Mo! And they’d totally brighten up this room.’ Ideas start to flow as I imagine draping lights and throws around the place, focusing on making a (not so) new home here, given that the other one is on its way out. ‘In fact, why stop at lights?’ I clap, excitedly. ‘We should decorate!’
Mo is still huffing and puffing in her room. It’s unclear if that’s because of my ideas or the state of her floordrobe. I pick through Mum’s old magazines on the wonky coffee table, ones that Dad gives me from her obsessive collection every now and then. From the first ever Elle magazine from 1985 to some random collectors’ ones about Egypt, she had thousands. There’s an old 1970s interiors one somewhere in this pile. ‘How long have we lived here? Eight years? Maybe it’s time we put our mark on it?’ I say, lowering my voice from a shout as Mo walks back into the room. She’s unsteadily vertical, nursing a Doritos baby in her belly.
‘I blame you, Rach. I told you that third bag was a bad idea, I’ve no self-control,’ she groans.
‘Did you?’ I ask, eyebrows raised, because what she actually said as she threw them in my direction was: ‘Fuck it, open that last bag, would you?’ Mainly because we were watching Dirty Dancing and she knew I was about to cry at Patrick Swayze singing ‘She’s Like the Wind.’ That song gets me every time.
I flick through the magazine. ‘What’s that new craze everyone’s on about? Hygge? How do you pronounce it? Hig? Hug?’
‘Hue-guh.’
‘That’s the cat! Maybe we should decorate like that. Like the Danes?’
‘Rachel,’ she groans – at her discomfort I think, rather than me, ‘hygge is a lifestyle, not a colour swatch for your wall.’ She’s always been smarter than me with this stuff. ‘It’s about embracing peace and tranquillity. Nature. Good food. Good friends. We’re there already, aren’t we?’ She kicks one of the empty crisp packets out of view with a look that suggests she’s blaming it for the aforementioned discomfort… as opposed to herself for single-handedly eating the contents, which, frankly, I admire. ‘I think that’s what your dad wants you know, Rach. Peace and tranquillity. That’s why he wants to move to one of those wooden lodge type places.’
‘Have you seen it, Mo? He showed me a picture. It’s not a lodge, it’s a bloody caravan!’
‘Caravan. Lodge. Whatever. If he’s happy, does it matter?’
I know she’s right, I really do, but I can’t help my first response. Maybe I need to work on how long I let my inner child stamp her feet for.
‘Of course’ – she sidles into the sofa beside me – ‘you’d know how important it all was if you spoke to him about it.’
‘Who says I haven’t spoken to him?’ I say, mock aghast.
‘Rach, if you’re not talking to me, you’re usually on the phone to him, or exchanging text messages. Since he told you about the house you’ve all but cut off ties.’
‘It’s only been a few days!’ I mumble.
‘Yeah? And how many times have you gone that long without talking before?’
I put down the magazine in exchange for the local paper which somehow offers more distraction from her line of questioning. ‘I still think we should decorate,’ I mutter into its pages.
Mo takes a tea light out of our stash in the coffee-table drawer and lights it. ‘There, hygge. Nailed it. So, I’ll ask you again, have you spoken to your dad?’
‘Local black spot takes new mother’s life,’ I say, reading out the headline. Mo fixes me with a stare, so I scowl in her direction, flicking the pages with pantomime force until I find the full story a few pages in. ‘Paramedics got the baby and driver out, but they couldn’t save the mother.’ I carry on reading as Mo folds her arms. She’s probably giving me one of the stares she has when she disapproves of my behaviour. I pity her future children. ‘The driver was the woman’s brother-in-law.’
‘Nice try, Rach. Yes, that story is awful but, more to the point, when did you talk to your dad now Richard’s not there?’ Mo gives my brother his Sunday name, ignoring the pained look on my face. ‘Your dad’s on his own for the first time since...’
‘Jean next door is about,’ I say, not wanting to think about the last time he was on his own.
‘Sure, because that’s the same as one or both of your children.’
‘Jean’s lovely!’ I say.
Mo go
es into the kitchen and starts banging cupboard doors, probably in search of something to drink. ‘God, I bet Rich’s having the best time,’ she says. I shrug as she comes back through with a pint of water. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel,’ she announces. I look up sharply, because not only is she on stony ground with this subject matter, but she is categorically NOT a backpack traveller.
‘Since when? As if I can see you trekking the Annapurnas!’ My voice is loaded with the sarcasm of someone who knows that Mo is, at best, a three-star-hotel kind of girl, ideally four or five.
‘Ha! Got your attention, though,’ she says, smugly.
’Look, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t begrudge Rich leaving Dad on his own.’ Well… I might begrudge it a little bit. ‘It’s just that’ – I growl into a cushion that rests on my knee – ‘I don’t know why Dad suddenly wants to move on. I don’t think I want to help him pack up the house. I don’t know why he can’t just stay there forever.’
‘On his own? In a five-bed semi?’
‘Rich will be back before he knows it.’
‘Rich is away for a year, Rachel. At least.’
‘But Mum’s still there with him!’ I say. Mo drops back onto the sofa beside me again and I swear I detect a look of gratification that she has made me say what’s bothering me out loud. ‘If Dad moves out, what happens to Mum’s memory? To our memories of her there, in the family home? With us all, together?’
‘Your memories don’t go because you leave the house. Christ, Rach, you haven’t lived there for years. Moving out wasn’t exactly hard for you, was it?’
‘Dad told me I had to. He said I had to build a life of my own. And I could hardly let you rattle around this old place on your own.’
‘It’s a two-bed apartment, Rach. I’d hardly be rattling.’
Irritated that she won’t let me get away with momentarily behaving like a child, I turn back to the newspaper. ‘Campaigners are calling for new safety measures on that part of the road. It’s the fifth fatality in three years.’
‘Okay, okay, sorry. I know it hurts. But maybe that’s why you need to talk to him.’
‘Talk to who?’ I ask, my inner child being a dick again.
‘Father Christmas,’ she sighs, taking the paper from my hands and throwing it onto the coffee table as she stands. The rush of air blows out the tea light, then wafts an empty chocolate wrapper onto the floor. I wonder how many days it’ll stay there for.
‘It’s your birthday, Rach. You need to talk to him today. Or, better still, go to see him.’
‘I guess.’
Mo pretends to tidy things up a bit, but I sense it’s a ruse to pick at this conversation. ‘Your brother said there’d already been a viewing on the house, you know.’
‘When did you speak to him?’
‘We Facebooked. He didn’t get a response from you yesterday and he knew you’d been upset about the house stuff so he was checking you were okay.’
‘I’m great.’
Mo flops back down onto the sofa beside me, ramming a finger into my side at the exact spot that always makes me laugh. ‘Get off, you know I hate that!’ I giggle.
‘At least you’ve got a smile on your face, you miserable bugger! Come on, let’s get in the car and go to see your dad.’
‘I’m probably still pissed.’
‘Okay, one night this week maybe?’
‘No,’ I say, petulantly. ‘Besides, it’s my birthday, shouldn’t Dad come see me?’
‘Wow, I think it’s your maturity that I admire the most.’
We fall silent, before I groan at being a dick and shuffle to get comfy again. ‘I told him I was out all day,’ I admit. ‘I sent him a text to say thanks for the card.’
‘Rach!’
‘I know, I know. I just… I don’t know what to say to him. I can’t explain it.’
‘You’re allowed to tell him how you feel,’ she says, which invites sledge-hammering guilt into my consciousness. ‘You just can’t expect him to live his life by your requirements.’
Once again, Mo’s ability to be the grown-up shames me into submission. I flick the TV channels, searching for something else to focus on. Coronation Street. Location. Age-old repeats of Friends. ‘I think we're getting too old for this hangover lark,’ Mo eventually, delicately says. ‘You clearly can't handle them. Maybe all future birthday celebrations should be restricted to mineral water and salad.’
‘I hate salad.’
‘Okay, frikadeller?’
‘Frika what?’
‘Deller. Meatballs. Hygge?’
I groan. ‘Only if it’s the ones from Ikea. With chips.’
‘Now there’s an idea…’ She wiggles her eyebrows. ‘What time does it shut?’
Five
Ed
The door clicks shut as Mum finally leaves, the house falls quiet. Ellie should now be slipping her arms around me, draping one arm over my shoulder, the other reaching beneath to clasp her hands across my chest. She should be nuzzling into my back, dropping a butterfly kiss on my neck. I should turn and hold her in my arms, like I always would, relieved to be on our own again.
How long will I still be able to imagine her like this? Almost feel her? This morning, I lost the sound of her voice for a moment and it was like losing her all over again. I wish she’d recorded an answerphone message, or that we’d had our wedding filmed. I wish… I wish.
I try to find the strength to move, lead-weight legs making everything twice as hard. The pile of Ellie’s letters sits on the side. I reach out, hovering my hand above it at first, before letting my fingers graze, then rest on top. She was the last person to touch the letters, organising them until her return. Each envelope has her name; the top one is a small white parcel, a gift from a friend maybe?
I turn the package over, shake then gently squeeze the padding to feel the contents. If I close my eyes I can hear her: ‘Ooh, a present.’ That she hadn’t opened it was unusual. She’d always laboured the present-opening process, shaking, sniffing and squeezing gifts until her curiosity got the better of her and she’d tear the packets open, contents falling into her lap. That this one remains unopened shows how life had instantly changed when Oli arrived.
Should I open it?
The palms of my hands itch with the truth that she’ll never see it, a reality that once again knocks air from my lungs. I gently place the package and letters into the box on the side. One of many boxes she would collect precious memories in, storing them away in her wardrobe along with diaries and boxes upon boxes of shoes. I replace the lid, pick the box and Oli’s Moses basket up, before finding the strength to climb the stairs, breathless.
I place Oli’s basket down on the stand by Ellie’s side of the bed. I undress and get into bed, then pick up her phone, placing headphones into my ears like each night since the first that I was here alone, total silence too much to bear. Flicking through the music lets songs nudge at memories: Madeleine Peyroux whilst we ate and talked in the early days. Guns N’ Roses, played loud to clean up after that house-warming. She played air guitar with the vacuum, I joined in on air-drums at the breakdown.
Oli’s fidgeting limbs stop as he drifts off and I realise I’m hungry for the memories, ravenous, playing a few bars of a new song then moving on to the next. There’s comfort in the pick and prod of raw, open wounds exposed by each song. Sarah Vaughan, ‘Come Rain or Come Shine’, Ellie’s favourite song. The lyrics, Vaughan’s striking, smoky voice, peel away layers of memories and, again, I can feel Ellie’s embrace. I can feel her snuggled up beside me. Thick-socked feet holding my own together. Her fingers tracing a heart on my shoulder. Like always.
And with the chorus comes the physical, all-consuming, sick-making pain.
It’s heart-punching, gut-wrenching; it’s debilitating.
I put the phone down on the duvet and press the heels of my hands into my eyes, but rushing stars don’t change my view. I can’t escape. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I can�
�t see, hear or feel. I pick up the phone again and throw it into the box with everything else, the music still playing but muffled beneath the stash of memories. With new energy, I rip the duvet from me, leap out of bed and push the box to the very back of her wardrobe. As I let the door swing shut, Ellie’s smell suffocates the sound of her music and the last of my strength. I fall to the floor, crushed. Sobbing dry tears again.
This wasn’t in the plan. How will I ever live again? Why did she go out? Why wasn’t I there? What could Simon have done differently to change things? Why was Ellie even in his car in the first place? And that question, above all, rings around my mind. So much so that I reach out for the landline, on her side of the bedside table. Last touched to answer Simon’s call. I dial his number. I have to talk to him. Mum was right. I have questions. I need answers.
‘Hello?’
It’s Lisa.
‘Hello? Who’s this?’ she asks.
‘Lisa, it’s Ed.’
‘Oh.’
‘I need to talk to Simon.’
She laughs. ‘Sure, you, me, the police.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, there’s a queue of us, Ed. But he’s currently paralytic on the sofa downstairs and I don’t suppose he’s got a lot to say for himself.’
‘He’s drinking?’ I ask, because we stopped Simon drinking years ago. ‘Since when?’ I ask, wondering how she let this happen. Lisa pauses. The phone line crackles. ‘Since when?’ I repeat.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ she sneers.
The phone line goes dead.
‘Lisa? LISA!’
But she’s gone. And I’m left with another unanswered question.
Six
Rachel
We wandered the aisles of Ikea. We ate our body weight in meatballs, despite still nursing crisp-induced indigestion. We bought two packs of tea lights and some fairy lights in the shape of stars, which we agreed we’d drape along the fireplace. I tried to persuade Mo we didn’t also need a giant pack of Daim bars, which made us laugh out loud because we both knew I was lying.
The Lost Wife: An uplifting page-turner about grief, love and friendship Page 2
