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

by Mansell, Anna

  I think for a minute. ‘I’m alright.’

  ‘And once again, but with more conviction!’ He smiles.

  ‘No, I am. I’m fine. I’m just… tired. Probably tired and hormonal. A combination of the two. Has your neighbour been baking again? I could do with some cake.’

  ‘No, I’ve got a garibaldi in the biscuit tin though.’ He looks around. ‘If I can find the biscuit tin.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I should probably wait for my tea anyway. It’s Mo’s night to cook and she hates it if I don’t clear my plate.’

  Dad smiles knowingly. ‘Is she okay then?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s great. In fact, we went out on Saturday and she’s met someone that she seems quite taken by.’

  ‘Has she? Blimey! Is he prepared for his life to be turned upside down?’

  ‘Ha! I reckon. It’s nice to see. She’s not been interested in anyone for years.’

  ‘Quite right too, a distraction to her own life, all these relationships.’

  ‘Maybe so. He’s a mate of one of the dads from work, actually.’ As the words come out, I feel a hint of colour in my cheeks and try to hide behind my mug, taking a long swig of my drink.

  ‘Ah, work. I’m a few weeks off completing on the house now, you know, so that money will be ready.’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad.’

  ‘There’s no excuses. Your brother’s having some to extend his travelling. There are more places he wants to go so he’s opted for the university of international travel. What’s your course of choice?’

  ‘University of “blow it all on clothes and handbags”?’

  Dad looks at me in the way only dads can.

  ‘Okay, alright. I don’t know.’ I pause and, again, like only Dad can do, he waits for me to continue. ‘So, Mo suggested I train to be a teacher.’

  ‘Oh, Rachel!’ He claps his hands together. ‘That would be perfect. I can totally see you doing that, and your mother…’ He trails off, no doubt aware that mentioning how much she would have loved it is bordering on emotional blackmail. ‘You’d be brilliant at that.’

  ‘She suggested I study science as my specialist subject.’

  Dad’s face breaks into the beam of a man for whom pride has just exploded in his heart.

  ‘What do you reckon? Could I be a science teacher?’

  ‘Only the best science teacher them kids would ever have.’

  I shift my gaze out of the window.

  ‘What?’ he asks. ‘What’s up?’

  I get up, stepping towards the old 1970s sideboard, which has school photos on it. There’s one from when I was in the junior school. I remember the day, with my hand-me-down clothes from the family over the road. I smiled a gappy grin at the camera and Mum loved the result. Then there’s one from years later, me and Rich together, after Mum had died.

  ‘I never understood why you bought that one,’ I say, taking a closer look, the frame cold to my touch. ‘We look so sad, empty almost.’

  Dad comes over, taking it from me. ‘Because your mother would have,’ he explains, simply. ‘Just like she’d have ordered every school photo you’d ever have taken. How could I not? I’d have been able to hear her berate me the second I missed the deadline!’

  ‘Do you still hear her?’ I ask.

  Dad smiles, turning away to pack up the photo in bubble wrap, placing it in a box marked ‘Keep’. ‘I hear something,’ he says. ‘Time distorts the voice, though. I’m not sure she sounds like she did back then: a faint lisp and the rounded vowels of Nottingham born-and-bred, I think. She’s with me. I can still hear, see and smell her. But maybe I have to try a little harder. And maybe it’s photos I see, rather than her actual face, you know?’ He places a hand on his heart, smiling sadly, sitting back down with a creak and a groan. He seems older than his sixty-three years.

  ‘What do you think she’d say about all of this?’ I ask, pointing to the boxes around us.

  ‘I know she’d say I had to do what I felt was right. And that I had to get rid of some of this stuff… and to go easy on my knees and back.’ He smiles. ‘Too many years not looking after myself; I’m beginning to feel an age. Not mine, necessarily. But one older than I should be, probably.’

  ‘Did you have help, Dad?’ I ask. He looks at me, and through the grey beard and messy hair I can just about see the science lecturer within. ‘Someone to talk to? To help you through it.’

  ‘I had you and your brother.’

  ‘Yes, but someone for you, I mean. Someone you could talk to about the loss of your wife. About the pain you were feeling.’

  He shakes his head, throwing away my comment. ‘It wasn’t like that back then. They didn’t have all the advice people get these days. You’d get sympathy all around, but people didn’t expect you to do anything other than manage your feelings in the privacy of your own home. I never wanted you and your brother to see me not coping.’

  ‘I know.’

  We fall back into silence, giving me a chance to look around the room. The paintings Mum hung, the curtains she made, the cut-glass lampshade she’d clean in the sink each spring. Probably not cleaned since the spring before she got ill.

  ‘So, you complete in two weeks?’ I ask quietly.

  ‘Fingers crossed.’ He gives me one of those smiles that parents give when they know you’re pretending to be okay with something and, really, you’re screaming inside. ‘It’s a young family, they’ve had a bit of trouble getting the mortgage, but I think it’s sorted now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes.’ He looks about. ‘It’ll be nice for a family to breath some life into the place again.’

  ‘Is that how it feels?’ I ask, without thinking. ‘As if there’s no life here any more?’

  Dad sighs. ‘It’s felt like that for a long time, love. I was never any good as a homemaker. Look around you. I’ve basically piled years on years on years into corners, cupboards and rooms I don’t use. That wallpaper’s been up since 1986 and God knows when I last washed the curtains.’

  ‘You’re supposed to wash them?’

  ‘Apparently!’

  ‘Wow! Who knew?’

  ‘Your mother would have,’ he answers with a sad smile. ‘Which is the other job that needs doing: all of your mother’s magazines.’

  ‘I can help,’ I say, wishing more than anything that he’d tell me I don’t have to.

  ‘That might be nice, thanks for the offer. Maybe something there would come in handy for the teacher training. Like I said before, she wanted to do it herself someday. There’s bound to be something in there.’

  ‘I don’t think teaching now is like teaching in the 1980s.’

  ‘Thank God for that!’

  ‘Hmm.’ I check my watch, not feeling up to talking about this any more. ‘I should go, you know. I’ve got a few things to do at home.’ I take my cup through to the kitchen, weaving my way through the boxes. ‘Shall I come round over the weekend to help?’

  ‘That would be great, if you have time?’

  ‘Of course, Dad. No problem.’

  He walks me to the door, giving me a cuddle when I turn around to face him. ‘You’d make a brilliant teacher, Rachel. And your mother would be so very proud, as would I. But make the choice because that’s what you want, not because you think it’s a good thing to do in her memory.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m stalling, Dad,’ I say. He looks at me, waiting for me to expand, but I can’t. ‘There’s just… a lot to think about.’

  ‘Of course there is. No rush,’ he adds. But we both know that life can change in a second and stalling could result in nothing ever changing, or worse, an opportunity missed.

  Twenty-Four

  Ed

  ‘Thanks for coming over, mate.’ Greg takes the new bottle I pass him.

  ‘No worries.' He leans forward to grab a slice of the pizza he brought round, expertly flinging stringy cheese into his mouth before it drops on the carpet. ‘Having said that, whatever’s keeping you from t
he office better not be catching! I could do without a week off work; I’m well behind on this month’s target.’

  ‘Nothing catching. Just a severe case of I-really-can’t-be-bothered that I have allowed myself to succumb to.’ It’s a better excuse for taking the rest of the week off than, I am not coping on a day-to day-basis with this torrent of pain and family-related shit. ‘It was that night out on Saturday… it made me realise how much I don’t want to do this job any more. And how shit my life is.’ Oli grumbles over the monitor, as if he can hear or understand what I’m saying. ‘Oli excepted.’

  ‘You been looking for another job, then? What would you do?’

  ‘The only reason I get out of bed in the morning is because Oli cries to be changed and Floyd stamps on my head until I feed him.’ I ruffle his back as he purrs on my lap. ‘I just needed to buy myself a bit of time, really.’ I reach for a slice of pizza myself, not hungry, just not wishing to look impolite.

  Greg nods in appreciation of a shot on the snooker we’re half watching on the television. Ellie used to love snooker; she’d purposely book business meetings in Sheffield around May so she could hang around and catch games at The Crucible.

  ‘What do you reckon, then, Maguire or Carter for the final?’ he asks.

  ‘Carter surely. O’Sullivan’ll beat him though.’

  ‘Probably.’ Greg nods. ‘And buy time for what?’

  ‘To work out my life. Work out how to deal with it when the shit hits the fan. When you’re out in a club and feel guilty for not being at home on your own, mourning. How you cope when your sister-in-law accuses your brother of fucking your wife.’

  ‘Woah, wait, what?’

  I groan, because as flippantly as I’ve just reeled all that off, I feel sick every time I think about it. I’ve stopped calling the house because I don’t want to risk having to talk with Lisa again. But every day I try Simon’s mobile.

  ‘It’s all bullshit though, right? I mean, Ellie wouldn’t have… would she?’

  ‘No! Of course she wouldn’t,’ I say, because I can’t admit that, as time goes on, as Ellie’s voice in my head shifts and changes, as the clarity of her comes and goes… I can’t admit that I feel as though I’m certain of nothing. ‘I keep looking around the house, though; it feels… vast. Vacuous. It feels hollow and empty without her in it.’

  ‘You can’t move, though, not yet.’

  I shrug.

  ‘You can’t, mate! You can’t make rash decisions like that so soon after… you might regret it. I mean, you know, that’s just my opinion—’

  ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you!’ I joke, feeling the least funny I’ve felt in months, as the weight of life pushes down on my heart, on my spirit. ‘It’s just not getting any easier, that’s all.’ Will it ever? That’s what I want to know, or need to know. The house, work, they both feel alien; as alien as life does right now. Will I ever learn to live with it?

  ‘You’ve got good people around you, though,’ Greg reasons, draining his bottle of beer. I pass him another. ‘I’m always on the end of the phone if you need anything; your mum, she must be about. And I met the girl who looks after Oli; that’s got to be reassuring, hasn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve met Rachel?’ I check.

  ‘Yeah, she shares a flat with Mo.’

  ‘And Mo is…?’ I feign ignorance.

  ‘This girl I met. Last weekend. She’s… I dunno. Amazing. We’ve only been out a couple of times this week. But…’

  ‘A couple of times this week? Blimey! That’s intense.’

  ‘Yeah…’ He drifts off to a memory and I feel jealousy creep in.

  The early stages of my relationship with Ellie were fast, exciting, like an out-of-control roller coaster that was heading in the perfect direction. I can still feel it. She might be fading in and out now, but I can pull myself back to those first few dates. When the fear of commitment was quickly replaced with the fear of losing her. Of messing it up. Of losing out to someone better, someone more worthy of Ellie than me.

  ‘She’s… she’s amazing!’ Greg grins, back in the room.

  ‘Nice one, mate, that’s great. I’m happy for you.’ And although I try to mean it, the jealousy has taken over, making me feel shit for me, and shit for being a crap friend who can’t just celebrate his happiness. I hide it all behind a giant swig of my beer as I reach for another bottle.

  For the rest of the evening, Greg chats about the snooker and I fight the need to ask him to leave. When all the beer has gone and the last bits of pizza have congealed, he stretches out. ‘Right, I’d better shoot.’

  ‘Good to see you, thanks for coming round.’

  ‘No worries. Just… you know, go steady. It’s bound to take time, all of this. It’s only been…’ He looks to me for the answer, realising he isn’t keeping track.

  ‘Nearly four months,’ I say.

  ‘God, is that all?’ Which is the opposite of what I feel, because it’s like my entire life has been hoovered up by the last few months and I can’t remember a time before Oli, or what it really felt like having Ellie beside me, day in day out. All I know is that it was right, and it… she… made life worth living.

  Greg drops his empty bottles in the kitchen and notices a scribbled sketch of Oli that I did. ‘Who did this?’ he says, twisting it around for a better look.

  ‘Me.’ I take it from him, flinging it onto a pile on the side. It’s the first thing I’ve sketched in months.

  ‘You’re good!’

  ‘Cheers, I used to do them a lot, but not so much any more.’

  ‘Maybe you should…’ he says, standing on the top step, hand out to shake mine. ‘Maybe that’s a job you could do,’ he suggests, as if it was that easy.

  Pretending I’m okay in the sanctuary of my own home is exhausting. Ten minutes later, as I fall into bed, I look over at Ellie’s wardrobe. Behind that door is the box of sketches she collected over the years. All the little doodles I’d do for her, from our early days right up until her last. She kept every single one of them along with little memory prompters: cinema tickets from our third date – Capote, chosen purely because she’d always loved Philip Seymour Hoffman; the venue receipt from the wedding; the tinfoil ring I put on her finger, just after I’d proposed. All sorts of bits and bobs from our life together.

  I get up and stand before her wardrobe with new-found determination. The need to smell her, to have her clothes close to me; her memories, her treasures. When I open the door, her smell hits me full force like holiday sun when you step off a plane. It’s suffocating. Shoe boxes are neatly stacked one on top of the next. A photo of what’s inside each box is stuck to the front, reminding me how organised she was, how on top of things.

  At the bottom right-hand corner sits the candy-striped box I packed away, this one without a photo. I move it out and sit for a moment. I don't go through her stuff normally, I just stand and rest my hands on her clothes. It feels intrusive, somehow, to open boxes and dig around. I guess the time will come when I have to sort it all out... I lift the lid on the box and the parcel and letters she hadn’t opened slip out, showing little sketches on scrap paper below. Each one drawn in my hand, the date and my initials in the corner. A kiss. A heart. Sometimes both. I lift a few out, staring at them, not quite connecting with the Ed I was when I drew them.

  On the top, there’s a drawing of me carrying a wedding-dressed Ellie over the threshold to our home. Complete with veil, bouquet and caption: Here's to us, Mr and Mrs Moran. There’s one of her singing into a microphone; I drew it for the first anniversary of our first date. I place it on the floor, grasping more in my hand.

  A text message from Mum interrupts my thoughts:

  Your brother’s back at his house. Thought you’d want to know.

  The news stops me in my tracks; pictures are scattered around me. Our past, on paper. A past I thought I knew precisely.

  I need to talk to Simon.

  I have to have the strength to believe.
In her. In our marriage. But I can’t do that without his version of events.

  I look at my watch. It’s 10.20 p.m.

  Twenty-Five

  Rachel

  ’Rachel? It’s Ed. I’m sorry to call so late, but…’

  I fling one of Mum’s old Marie Claires on my bed, sitting up. ‘Are you okay? Is Oli?’

  ‘We’re fine, I just… I need a favour. It’s huge, I’m sorry to call you so late.’

  ‘It’s okay, don’t worry. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I need someone to sit with Oli, I have to go out.’

  ‘I can do that.’ I reach for my diary, lid in mouth, pen poised to write. ‘When?’

  ‘I need you to come over now?’

  The phone crackles slightly. ‘Now?’ I check, spitting the lid out.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry it’s short notice.’

  ‘Ed, are you sure you’re okay?’ He sounds hurried, he’s rushed and breathless. Whatever his answer, he doesn’t sound alright. My heart now makes a slow but determined journey from chest to throat. There’s something wrong. I can tell.

  ‘I just… I need to go and see someone… my brother… it can’t wait. I’ll pay you, of course. Double for getting you out so late. Are you sure you don’t mind? I wouldn’t ask if—’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I put the lid back on the pen and throw the duvet back, jumping out to reach for my clothes. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Rachel, I really appreciate it.’

  ‘It’s fine. I said I wanted to help and I meant it. See you in ten.’

  I hang up, lifting my nightshirt over my head and replacing it with a sweater and jeans. I ram odd-socked feet into my trainers, throw my book and phone into my bag, pull on my coat and lift my keys from the hall table. Mo’s telly seeps through a crack in her bedroom door. ‘I’m just popping out,’ I shout up the hallway, moving quickly before she has chance to follow and ask me where.

  When I open the front door, Greg is standing there, about to knock on it. ‘Greg!’