From The Moment I Saw Him ....

by MacDonald, Catherine

  “I promise, my darling, that this is the last trip for a while. I don’t like leaving you, but I can’t pass up this chance to work with Charlie Davis. Can you reschedule the appointment for a fortnight’s time? That’ll still be okay, won’t it? And when I get back, we’ll sort out who we want to come to the wedding - you can draw up a list of people while I’m away. We’ll book the big room at the pub for a knees-up. It’ll be fun.”

  I thought wryly of my parents’ old plans for a big reception at Beresford Golf Club when their daughter tied the knot - but at least they would be pleased I was married at last.

  “I don’t want you to go, Nick. I worry about you, in all these dangerous places,” I murmured, holding him as close to me as I could. The baby kicked violently, and that made us laugh.

  “There - that’s the baby telling you not to be silly,” Nick exclaimed. He gave me a long, loving kiss. “You know I always look after myself, there won’t be any problems.”

  The night before he went away, I slept very badly. In the early morning, I looked down at him as he lay in our bed, and traced the beautiful dimple in his cheek. His dark hair was tumbled, he looked absurdly young, and I was reminded of our early days together, when we didn’t know what life held in store for us. I wished I could hold the moment forever. He was inexpressibly precious to me.

  Feeling hot, I went outside to the balcony. The morning sky was red and angry, and I wondered if a storm was coming.

  Nick always travelled light, and it did not take him long to throw the things he needed into his case. A taxi was coming to pick him up at midday, and we spent the morning staying very close, hugging and sharing the little things which made up our life together. I was very sad when I heard the hooting of the taxi below.

  I walked out with Nick and stood at the top of the steps. To my surprise, a slim young woman in combats jumped from the taxi, and hailed him. Her hair was cropped short, she had an imposing way about her.

  “Nick - get a move on, we’re running late!” she called, then caught sight of me. Her eyes widened.

  “I didn’t know you were about to become a dad,” she exclaimed.

  “Eithne - Charlie - Charlie -Eithne,” Nick said crisply.

  So this was the famous photographer. I had thought Charlie was a man.

  Nick caught sight of my face.

  “Eithne - come back inside a minute,” he said.

  He drew me to him, he was smiling. “It’s not what you think - look at her hair - she likes girls,” he whispered. He was laughing now.

  I followed him back outside. My heart was thumping, and I desperately wished he did not have to leave. He turned back, kissed my bump, caught my face in his hands, and kissed me on the lips.

  “I love you,” he said. He ran down the steps, looked up and sent me his brilliant smile, then got in to the taxi, and was driven away.

  Chapter 27

  I felt empty after Nick had gone. In the afternoon, I wandered by the river, watching the water rushing past, very resentful of the demands of his job and his exciting life. Whatever her sexual preferences, I could see that working with someone like Charlie would be irresistible to Nick in his swashbuckling mood. It seemed to me that he had put me and the baby second to yet another assignment.

  Later on, I tried to be positive. I rearranged his appointment with the register office, and telephoned the pub about hiring their room. I didn’t think it would take me long to decide on wedding guests, as we would be limited for numbers, but made a shortlist anyway, to agree with Nick on his return.

  Various friends called, and I arranged to meet Jo in town. She and Simon now had a little girl, Ella, and I knew she was dying to give me advice ready for when my baby arrived.

  The days dragged on endlessly. The weather was very hot, and I felt oppressed. There was another week to go before Nick returned, then I was determined to assert myself, and make him refuse further trips abroad until after the baby was born.

  On the Friday afternoon, I hauled myself out to walk by the river as usual, hoping there might be a few cooling breezes down by the waterside. The day was cloudy, and it was not especially pleasant, but at least it was a way of killing time. I dawdled on my way home, but my heart lifted as I approached the flats, when I saw a figure sitting on the steps. For a joyful moment, I thought that it was Nick, but when the figure stood up, I saw that it was Rosine’s husband, Andrew.

  “Andrew…how nice of you to call on me, did you have a meeting out this way?” I called, as I drew nearer.

  He looked a bit strange. There was a sweaty sheen on his face and strain showed in his eyes.

  “Er - something like that,” he muttered. “Eithne - can we go inside?”

  I reached for my keys, but as I unlocked the outer doors, a taxi screeched to a halt, disgorging Robin and Sarah. I saw that she had been crying, and was puzzled.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked in amazement. Robin looked across at Andrew, I saw him give a tiny shake of his head.

  ‘Eithne, darling, let’s go in,” Robin said, his face very tense and pale. I felt frightened.

  “Robin - is Nick ok? Please tell me this isn’t about him?”

  He took the keys from me, and shepherded me up the stairs to the flat. He unlocked the door and gently led me to the sofa.

  By now I could hardly breathe.

  Holding me in his arms, his voice shaken with emotion, he told me that Nick’s convoy in Angola had been ambushed, and that Nick had been killed in the attack.

  I thought I would pass out. Then I began to tremble, and uncontrollable tears poured down my cheeks. I could hardly take in the import of what he had said.

  Everything became blurred. Other people arrived, faces, misty with tears, swam in and out of my vision. I heard Andrew say “Her parents are coming”. Low voices rose and fell. I was offered tea, brandy, hugs and everything I could have wanted except the one thing I had always wanted so much and now would never have again.

  After a while, I became aware that my mother was there, and I wept stormily on her shoulder. I did not know how I was going to survive this blow, and then I remembered the baby. I had not felt it move for ages, and now I was frightened.

  “Mum…the baby…. I think there’s something wrong ...,” I choked out.

  She stood up, alarmed. I heard her say she would phone the doctor, and they led me away to lie on my bed, where I dissolved in a morass of misery.

  I must have dozed, because I woke to find the doctor there, professional and soothing. He examined me and said that the baby’s heartbeat was strong, but that the shock might have affected both of us. He spoke to my mother about sedatives, administered something to me and then he was gone.

  Whatever he gave me caused me to sleep again, because when I awoke it was dark and everyone had left, except for my parents, keeping a wretched vigil in the sitting room. I stared at the ceiling, and prayed I might die too.

  How we got through the next days, I hardly know. The only comfort - it was not much - was the knowledge that Nick had not suffered, the bullet had killed him instantly. I sat, gazing into the water, drowning in tears, as I hugged my stomach, almost crushed by the knowledge that Nick would never see his child, and I would never see my adored Nick again.

  If it had not been for the baby, I think I would have slipped away and let the river take me. I know that my parents were careful not to leave me on my own during these dark hours - perhaps they were frightened of what I might do in my shock and grief.

  After a week or so, I began to emerge from the first trauma, and had to start learning how to begin living in a world in which I was now very alone. Nick and I had formed such a tight unit in recent years that even our closest friends were a little detached from our partnership, and I felt frighteningly isolated, despite the great outpouring of affection and grief which came my way from his friends and colleagues.

  Like an automaton, I received a stream of visitors and well-wishers. This was not very good for me, because they would
cry and I would cry with them, and the terrible clouds would descend again. The flat was filled with flowers, and still they came: in the end, I think my mother was giving them to the neighbours as we could cope with no more.

  Nick’s parents came to see me, and this was another ordeal. His mother had been prostrated by the blow. Now she wept over me and told me her only comfort was the thought of the baby, that Nick would not be completely lost to us once I had his child.

  They arranged for his body to be embalmed before flying him home. The funeral was to be held at St Peter’s Church in Beresford, a beautiful medieval building, closely associated with the school he had attended. What with red tape and other delays, the funeral could not take place until mid-September - the time when I had hoped we would be married.

  My parents did not want me to go, fearing that the strain would be too much, but I was adamant I would attend. My mother bought me a plain black maternity dress - I was very pregnant by this time - and I found a huge pair of dark glasses to shield me from pitying eyes.

  It was a beautiful day, and the sun shone brightly as we filed into the church. Through my misery, I was pleased to see the building was packed, with colleagues, school friends, and other friends and relatives. I recognised Peter Leigh at the end of a pew as I took my seat, he looked bleak and austere in a black suit and tie. Dave Jackson sat on his other side, his face rigid and shocked.

  The coffin had lain in the church since the night before, amidst a huge bower of blossoms, and as I walked in, I saw, to my horror, that it was open. I hissed at my mother to sit a few rows back from the front. I could not have borne to look inside: I still could not bring myself to believe that my passionate Nick was now a lifeless body. A couple of strangers obligingly made room for us, giving me the end seat, in case I needed to creep away before everything was over.

  Then the DeLisles came slowly in with Mrs DeLisle leaning heavily on Nick’s father, Rosine veiled and in tears, and the ceremony began.

  I found it hard to sit there. Neither Nick nor I were at all religious. We had never even discussed death, thinking as we did that we had so much of life before us. My lips moved during the hymns, but I don’t think any sound came out. The vicar’s words could give me no comfort or hope.

  A colleague from The Telegraph gave the eulogy, and I was told afterwards that he spoke brilliantly. I was concentrating on making it to the end of the service, feeling rather faint, with a nasty buzzing in my ears. At one point, I recognised my name, and words about “enduring love”. I heard muffled sobs all around, and wondered how it was that my hopes and dreams had come to this sorrowful conclusion.

  Finally, prayers were said, and the ceremony drew to a close. I saw the DeLisles approach the coffin, presumably to say their goodbyes, and bowed my head. I felt as though my heart was splintering to pieces inside me as I remembered that final goodbye on the day Nick left for Angola. Then the sad silence was broken by Mrs DeLisle, exclaiming loudly,

  “Where’s Eithne? Eithne should be here.”

  She turned, scanning the faces of the congregation, and saw me; she walked towards me and gripped my arm, yanking me up from the pew.

  “No!” I implored her. I was horrified. I wanted my last sight of Nick to have been the living person, laughing and saying “I love you”, not a body devoid of life and feeling, but she took no notice, pulling me imperiously to the front of the aisle and to the coffin side with manic strength.

  I gasped, and tried not to look, but at the same moment, I became aware that my Nick was not lying there in the coffin. There was only a beautiful shell, a waxwork, whatever soul or spirit had inhabited the living Nick was gone, who knew where.

  I turned to confront Mrs DeLisle, still holding my arm in an iron grip, her face a tragic mask.

  “There’s nothing there,” I told her gladly. “There’s nothing there.”

  Then a blackness rolled over me, and I welcomed its dark embrace.

  I was unconscious for a long time and I came round to find myself lying in the vestry, anxious faces hovering above me. During my faint, I had received the vivid impression that all this had been a mistake, that Nick had come back and was laughing at our grief, and it was a crushing disappointment to find the dream was not the real world.

  A doctor, one of the DeLisle’s friends, was feeling my pulse. He looked at me carefully, and assisted me as I tried to sit up.

  “Emotional stress,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any real problem, but you should see your own GP as soon as possible. I’m sorry, my dear, this is a difficult time for you. Nick was a lovely young man.”

  I nodded. A tear squeezed out, and I blinked it away.

  A tall, black suited figure hovered in the background. My mother said, in querulous tones,

  “We have Peter to thank for catching you before you hit the ground. I don’t know what Marie DeLisle thought she was doing, anyone would think she wanted to make you worse than you already are.”

  I realised that the black suited figure was Peter Leigh, and struggled to sit up a little more. He knelt down by my side.

  “Gosh, Eithne, you had us worried, you went very white,” he said quietly. “I am so very sorry about all this. I hadn’t spoken to Nick for a while and I didn’t know about the baby.”

  A ray of sunshine speared through the dusty air, and I started to feel less wobbly.

  “I was happy to see so many of the St Peter’s crowd here,” I told him. “I know Nick would have been pleased as well.”

  My mother was talking intently to the doctor. I looked at Peter, grateful to him for being there for Nick, and now for me too. Despite his height, there had always been a downy kind of quality to him as a boy, like an unfledged bird, but he had grown up into a capable looking adult, with close cropped blond hair and somewhat stern features, which softened when he smiled. We chatted a little. He told me he too was going through a painful time, although his was due to divorce and not death.

  “Was it Hilary?” I asked. I was very out of touch with his life.

  “No - a Swedish girl, Silvia - we married straight out of university, far too young really,” he said. “Her lawyer’s been giving me a pretty hard time about the business.”

  He told me that he had been working with his father, developing their engineering company until it was quite a major concern.

  “I get down to London fairly often at the moment,” he said. “Can I look you up from time to time? There might be things I could help with, especially when the baby comes.”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  I thought ruefully that I would need all the friends I could get in the future. Peter would be someone dependable, of that I was sure.

  I had missed the interment, for which I was grateful. I did not want to attend the wake. No one could say anything to bring me comfort. People helped me to my feet, and I went back home with my parents. Once there, the memories and feelings associated with my old room became too much, and I asked them to take me back to Wapping. I felt closer to Nick there than anywhere else.

  Chapter 28

  Three miserable weeks dragged by, and then the baby came. The Fates, who had been so unkind to me, allowed me a small respite, and to my joy, I had a little boy, dark haired, dark eyed, exactly like his father. It was too early to know whether he had inherited Nick’s gorgeous smile.

  The baby - Nicholas, never Nick - helped lift the edge of our grief, and I began to feel I might have something to live for after all.

  At first, I acceded to my parents’ entreaties, and went back to Beresford for a while. This meant that the DeLisles could see the baby as much as they wished. Nick’s mother hung over him with tears, and they wanted us to live with them permanently, but I did not feel this was possible for me.

  I got a little stronger each day. My whole world was now centred on my son and I began to make tentative plans for the coming months. Because Nick and I had not been married, I had nothing in the way of financial assistance from his old employers,
and very little from the State. I knew I would have to go back to work.

  When Nicholas was about three months old, I petitioned to return to Wapping. I missed my flat, and I missed my friends. My parents were anxious, but once I had taken up residence at the flat again, I took comfort from the company of those who loved me. Jo was a frequent visitor, Robin and Sarah came most weekends, and other agency friends, even little Euan from my Marsham and Hunter days, helped to ensure I did not have too many lonely hours. Peter Leigh came to see us too. I enjoyed his company because he was one of the few I could talk to about the early days with Nick. He was a kind and considerate friend to me.

  I still passed terrible, grief stricken hours. Sometimes, when I had put the baby down after a night feed, I would drift into the spare bedroom where Nick’s clothes inhabited the wardrobe, and bury my face in them, aching for his familiar smell, and I would cry until I thought my heart would break. I could not bear to think that this time, he could never return to me.

  Nicholas and I went for long walks on the riverside pathways, sometimes alone, sometimes in company. He was a cheerful baby, despite his sad mother, and his bright face and bonny looks attracted a lot of attention.

  I did not lack advice from well-meaning friends about my future. Some counselled me to return home to Beresford, where there was support from both sets of grandparents, but I was afraid I would be stifled in the small town atmosphere, and haunted by my memories of Nick in our younger, carefree days. Others advised me to return to work straight away, in order to protect my career. But I could not bear to leave Nicholas before I had to. As my maternity leave drew to a close, I reluctantly advertised for a nanny, and here again the Fates were kind, when I found Pauline, a fortyish, level headed lady who lived just down the road from me. She had brought up her children, was divorced, and was looking for a baby on whom to lavish her affection. I think she fell in love with Nicholas as soon as she saw him, and I felt confident I could entrust my precious baby to her care.