The Lost Wife: An uplifting page-turner about grief, love and friendship

by Mansell, Anna

  ‘No, horrible stuff.’

  ‘I’m…’ He signals in the direction of town. ‘I’ve been…’ This time, signalling behind him.

  Oli starts to grumble in his pram and Ed looks at his watch, pushing the pram back and forth. ‘He’s hungry,’ he says, looking up and down the street.

  ‘They could probably warm his milk up here,’ I say, relieved to have something I can talk about with confidence. ‘I mean, you don’t have to sit with me, it’s fine.’ Ed looks as though he’s weighing up the pros and cons as Oli’s cries get louder. He strains to see inside the café, then back down to Oli and in his bag, searching. ‘Shall I ask them?’

  ‘No, no. It’s fine, I’ll…’ Oli starts screaming as if his throat has been cut. The pitch puts Ed further on edge and makes the man with the normal ears tut and shift the angle of his laptop, as if that will lessen the volume. Ed pushes the buggy back and forth faster.

  ‘Go on, you go and sort his bottle out. I’ll sort Oli,’ I say, taking the bag off the back of the buggy and passing it to Ed.

  ‘It’s your day off,’ he says, taking the bag.

  ‘Day off, schmay off. Go on!’

  I lift Oli out, distracting him with his favourite game of crazy horses. I clip-clop him gently on my knee before jigging him about quickly, singing ‘Crazy Horses’. He howls with laughter. Ear guy moves.

  By the time Ed gets back, Oli has all but ramped up to screaming again, no longer impressed with my distractions. I reach for the bottle and plug the gap, silence falling around us. ‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’

  ‘If only it was that easy all of the time.’

  ‘I envy babies for this. If I cried like I’d like to when I’m hungry, Mo would slap me round the face, not plug me with a burger. I hate getting hungry, makes me properly grumpy.’ My belly rumbles. ‘In fact, I may have to get something to eat now.’

  ‘Here, let me, seeing as you’re feeding him.’ Ed gets the menu, putting it in front of me.

  ‘Are you okay, Ed? I mean, that’s probably a stupid question, given… everything, but, you seem…’ I realise I’m not sure I want to end this sentence. You seem ‘sad’ is a little trite under the circumstances. ‘Down’ is no better. ‘Like you’ve given up’, possibly too close to the truth, if his slump in the chair is anything to go by.

  ‘I’m not great, no. But what can we do? I just have to get on with it.’

  ‘Of course, I mean, I guess so. But… well, you don’t have to do all this on your own.’

  ‘Mum said the same thing.’ He laughs humourlessly. ‘Did I miss a memo about available hands to help out in times of crisis?’

  ‘Well, I mean, I’d always be happy to help, but haven’t you got family, or friends who can help?’

  ‘Sure… I mean… I had friends, but they were…’ He swallows, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘They were “our” friends. And, it’s too hard… now, you know?’

  I nod my head, though I don’t really know. But maybe that’s because I had Mo, who pretty much managed all of my first few years after Mum died.

  ‘I’m not really from a very “hands on” kind of family. We’re a bit… stiff upper lip for that.’

  ‘Something like this, though, it can change things, teach people new ways, give them perspective.’

  ‘I admire your optimism, but it’s not as simple as that.’

  Oli drains the bottle in record time and I shift him onto my shoulder for winding. Ed passes me a muslin and a pregnant woman walks past, hand in hand with her… boyfriend? Husband? Who knows, but they both look at Ed and me as if they’re weeks off being in the same boat as us, and I want to shout and explain: It’s not my child. Ed has a wife. I’m just helping. Except he doesn’t have a wife any more. And the explanation gets more complicated. The potential for errors in assumptions increase. I remember this happening to me, with a friend’s mum. The assumption she was my mother, too, somehow instantly deleting people from history, it hurt. Ed watches them walk away, and I just know it’s hurting him now, too.

  ‘I need to go,’ he says, reaching for Oli as the baby lets out three soft but purposeful burps.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.’ He reaches into his wallet and drops a tenner on the table. ‘Please, let me shout you coffee. It’s the least I can do.’ He moves off before I can give it back.

  ‘Ed!’ I call after him. ‘Asking for help is important!’ I say. He pauses, drops his head to the ground with a nod and walks away.

  Sixteen

  Ed

  I wasn’t sure what to say when Mum picked up. I’d never really called to ask for her help, because I learnt as a kid that she wasn’t the kind of mum to step in during a crisis. Where some mothers would wrap their children up in aprons and love, she’d pat us on the hand as if that were sufficient affection to see us through. She’d offer us a cheek to kiss, rarely embracing us. That was just the way she’d been brought up herself.

  And yet, Rachel’s words kept repeating the whole time I walked from pub to park bench in town, searching for Simon. Just in case. I can’t do this alone. I don’t have to.

  So, I did call Mum. Desperate, hopeful, needing someone to talk to about Simon; someone who understood, understands, what this is all about. Someone who knows him, who can give me some of that other thing Rachel mentioned: perspective.

  And here Mum is, on my doorstep, responding to that call I made over an hour ago, when I didn’t know what else to do... A call I now regret.

  ‘Mum, hi.’

  ‘I’m sorry it took me so long; the gardener was due and I had to make sure he knew what was required of him.’ She walks ahead of me down the hallway, her back straight and formal; like a stranger, uncomfortable in my home. ‘How’s Oli?’ she asks, looking around, hands clasped tightly at her waist.

  ‘He’s fine, asleep upstairs. Nursery is tiring him out.’

  ‘That’s good. He’s settled in okay, then?’

  ‘Well, it’s only been a couple of weeks, but yes, he seems to be, so far. And Rachel, the girl who looks after him, she seems great with him.’ The memory of crumbling before Rachel’s eyes returns and my stomach twists. I cough my throat clear. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’

  ‘Right.’

  She sits at the dining table, fiddling with something in her handbag, putting it on the chair beside her. Moving it to the floor. Picking it up out of Floyd’s way as he purrs into it, then bounces up onto her lap.

  ‘Get down,’ I say, lifting him from her, but not before he’s dug his claws into her cashmere scarf. ‘Shit, sorry, I...’ I try to smooth the snagged strands down, but she pulls the scarf back from my hands.

  ‘It’s fine, it’s just a scarf,’ she says, and I think she really wants to believe that it is fine, and it is just a scarf. It’s not really her fault that she can’t.

  I throw Floyd in the direction of the cat flap and thankfully he takes the hint. Not sure what to say, I clatter domestically around the kitchen instead: flicking the kettle on, unloading the dishwasher, setting the steriliser.

  This is ridiculous. She’s my mother. She’s Simon’s mother. She might not be able to help how she deals with life, but this time I need her to step up.

  ‘I saw Simon.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Does she seem surprised? ‘I came out of work and he was across the street.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing, before I could reach him he disappeared. The road was busy, I couldn’t cross. He was there one minute and gone the next. He looked a mess.’

  ‘I see.’ She thins her lips.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Or spoken to him at all?’

  ‘Not properly, not for a few weeks, maybe longer. He seems to have…’ She looks down at her perfectly manicured hands. ‘He seems to be struggling to communicate.’

  I resist suggesting that
it’s a family trait.

  ‘He hasn’t been good since… the accident,’ she says, eyes still down. ‘I think his old problem may have resurfaced.’ Mum never had worked out how to say that he had a drink problem out loud. Because he stopped it himself, without seeking help from a group, or a doctor, she’d always managed to play it down. ‘I think your brother may be drinking again,’ she finishes quietly.

  ‘That’s what Lisa said.’

  ‘When did you see her?’ she asks, definitely surprised this time.

  ‘A few days ago. He sent me a text message. It was an apology. I haven’t spoken to him since he called me after the accident. Even at Ellie’s funeral he couldn’t talk to me. He just disappeared, after the service. Never returned my calls. Until the other day, like I say, I got a message and…’ The feelings of anger and hurt come rushing back. ‘I don’t know, Mum. It’s ridiculous. He drove the car that killed my wife and he can’t even talk to me about it? I don’t even know what I want him to say, what we’d talk about, but I just feel like we should fucking well talk.’

  Mum purses her lips at my swearing.

  ‘It’s such a weak thing to do. A fucking text? It’s so… insignificant. So, I went round to see him. I wanted to stand in front of him. I wanted... I wanted…’

  Mum waits, expectantly, for me to finish.

  ‘I wanted to know he was sorry, I guess.’ I’m unravelling, but this time, unlike with Rachel, Mum’s steel seems to push it back. It’s facts that I want to share with her, not emotion. ‘I wanted to shout at him. I wanted to be angry, even for just a moment. Surely that’s understandable? Surely I’m allowed a moment of anger, a moment of baseline human response to all this?’

  The look on Mum’s face suggests she isn’t sure, but I don’t need her validation on that one. I’ve read the grief pamphlets. I know anger’s a legitimate thing, a part of the grieving process. Even if Simon hadn’t dumped his car in a ditch, I could be angry. Given that he did do just that, my anger can be directed at him without apology. ‘You know what, Mum, I wanted to make him hurt as much as I was. As I still am.’

  ‘Edward, your brother does hurt,’ begins Mum, and I’m taken aback. Where she has sat for the last five minutes, apparently letting words and emotions wash over her, there is sudden engagement. There’s animation in her face. She’s defending him like she used to when we fell out as kids, one of us tormenting the other. ‘Of course he hurts, that’s why…’ But the moment passes and she sighs, trailing off. She concertinas her scarf neatly on her lap, drifting back to characteristic coolness. ‘That’s why, it would appear, he’s been drinking himself into oblivion.’ She smooths the concertina back out, places her hands on her lap and looks at me. ‘This isn’t easy for any of us, Edward. I wish I had words to say that would make it better for you both, but I don’t know what I can say, or do... I’m not…’ She stops herself with a swallow of words. ‘I haven’t seen your brother for weeks. I get the occasional phone call, usually from a phone box somewhere, I think. He rambles about what happened, about how he feels. He tells me things aren’t good with Lisa. It’s as if he releases a stream of consciousness that he then packages back up again. He is lost, Edward. He is…’ She searches for the right word to sum it all up. ‘He’s devastated.’

  ‘Devastated.’

  ‘Yes, and I am sure that sounds like a tiny portion of what you feel. There are no words to express how this affects any of us, but I wish I could reach him, Edward. I wish I could make him understand that the way he is dealing with his pain is harmful, dangerous even. But I don’t know where to begin.’

  I drop into the chair beside her and she reaches her hand out towards mine. She pauses before we connect, as if she can’t quite manage it. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that she seems to force herself to touch me in any case. Particularly as her hand is unfamiliar, her skin paper-thin. ‘He is killing himself, Edward. And I don’t know how to help him.’

  I see that her eyes are glassy, her stiff upper lip is not so in control. Is this the first time I’ll see her cry?

  ‘Edward, I don’t know how to help either of you.’

  ‘Mum…’ I drop my head to the table, no idea how to answer, no strength to carry her emotions as well as my own.

  When I look up again, Mum looks down at her watch, the tiny gold timepiece she got as a present from Dad on a wedding anniversary, years ago. ‘I should get back, Edward. The gardener needs paying before he leaves.’

  ‘Okay.’ It’s easier for both of us that I don’t argue with her desire to escape.

  She looks around, reaches for her handbag and pulls out a piece of paper along with a clunky mobile phone. ‘I bought one of these, for emergencies. I’ll leave it in my handbag. This is the number.’ She slides the paper across the table as she stands. ‘I am not very good at any of this, Edward, I do realise that, but if there is anything I can do – care for Oli, help you with anything – please do call me. If I’m not at home, I’ll make sure this phone is on.’

  I get up from the table and she moves towards me, waiting for me to kiss her cheek as usual, which duty has long taught me to do without question, then I follow her as she leaves.

  The door closes behind her and my body drowns in all of the feelings I’ve been suppressing while she was here. Rachel was wrong. I am in this alone. Whatever Mum says, however eager to help Rachel may be, it’s me and Oli against the world. Simple as that.

  I go upstairs to check on him, then head to my room. I don’t bother undressing, just climb into bed, wishing – as I do every night – that this night might be the night I sleep.

  Floyd returns, jumping up to settle at the bottom of the bed with a purr.

  ‘You ruined her scarf, you scabby cat,’ I say, reaching for his tail, which he flicks out of reach.

  I pick up Ellie’s phone from her bedside table, dragged back out of her memory box, weeks ago. I put headphones in my ears, as I've done each night now, for weeks. I stop before pressing ‘play’, though, something making me open her text messages. I flick the messages up and down the screen and names of friends and family appear. Colleagues she’d occasionally talk to, and updates from her phone provider about offers and services she’d never need.

  And then I see a message from Simon. It says:

  I don’t even know where to start, but okay, I’ll see you there. X

  I read hers before it:

  Meet me in the usual place. We need to work out how we’re going to tell them, before it’s all out of our hands. X

  As I stare at the bubbles of conversation, my blood runs cold.

  What is this? What does this mean? Who do you need to tell? And what?

  Seventeen

  Rachel

  When I eventually got back, Mo was all keen to chat more about work and uni and future plans. I mumbled something about needing a bit of space, scooped up a pile of Mum’s magazines from the coffee table and retreated to the relative safety of my bedroom. I say relative safety; looking at the collection of discarded mugs that are hothousing all kinds of furry, green stuff, perhaps my safety can’t be guaranteed. Either way, unlike the rest of our flat, my room is exactly that: my room. I haven’t decorated as such, but there are photos Blutacked to the walls: school friends, me, my brother Rich, Dad, my mum. There are thank-you cards from parents and pictures painted by favourite babies. (I know, I’m not supposed to have favourites. Tell that to a judge.) Pink, fluffy fairy lights wrap around my cream metal bed head and, in the corner, there’s a wardrobe for my clothes, because Mo’s perpetual rotation of ‘floor to body to washing machine to floor’ just never works for me.

  I tuck myself into my bed, cross-legged with the pile of magazines on my lap. There are the history magazines I haven’t looked at and, bizarrely, a journal about the art of teaching. Mo would call that serendipitous; I’d call it downright bloody freaky! There’s also the lone copy of Elle from 1985, the year I was born. The woman on the cover is bright-red-lipped and sharp-shoulder-suited
. I briefly ponder the era’s ill-advised penchant for a double-breasted cut before flicking through the pages. Sometimes, when looking through her magazines, it’s easy to imagine what Mum was reading. The pages she’d pore over versus the ones she’d flick past. Did she wonder if that suit would have worked for her body shape? Did she try a red lipstick? My memory is of her in some kind of polyester trousers that rustled as she walked. Sometimes she’d kiss me and the static would make me jump. She had a white shirt that she’d tuck into her trousers, the back slightly ruched, giving her a bulge at the waist. That was her self-styled uniform for work. I don’t really remember what she wore on a weekend. Was she bothered about fashion? Maybe so, given this magazine, but I don’t know. Those last few months, she wore nothing other than a nightie and a look of distant resignation. Like the final pages of her life were inevitable. I don’t want to dwell on the look on her face in those final days, or the sense of sadness that lined her room.

  An article about women and work, the opportunities, or lack thereof, makes me tut. The next page is smothered in bikini-body tips and I wonder if anything has really changed. Maybe only a vague shift in what shape the body should be. I come across the horoscopes and, despite not normally reading them (Aquarius by birth, cynic by scientific upbringing), curiosity makes me look.

  This is the month for big decisions and letting go.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. This month and every month, Elle. I flip the magazine shut and sling it onto the floor, adding to the piles that I’ve read and kept, because what else can I do with them?

  I shuffle down into my bed, hands behind my head, eyes to the ceiling. Did you really want to be a teacher? I ask her. Why didn’t you think you could do it?

  Why aren’t you here to tell me what I should do with my life?

  There’s a knock on my bedroom door. Mo pokes her head around. ‘Get to sleep. I’ve just decided we are going out tomorrow. Glad rags are required. As is an equipped liver and some staying power. Right?’