The Story of Us

by Dani Atkins

  I turned around and surveyed the sea of sombre-clothed people behind us. So many of those present today had also been on the guest list to the wedding. How many of them were thinking of the very different ceremony they had been planning to attend? Bright-coloured clothes, with flamboyant hats, instead of black suits and ties; a choir singing out in celebration, instead of in sorrow; a service that produced smiles full of joy, instead of hearts full of grief. How many of them blamed Richard and me for being indirectly responsible for Amy’s death? It wasn’t a difficult equation: no wedding, no hen party, no crash, no funeral.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat, which felt almost golf-ball sized, and stared intently at the column of late arrivals snaking in through the large oak doors. The pews were full, so I guessed most of them would have to observe the service from the rear of the church. I scanned the row of those already standing up against the back wall, my head going from left to right. The shock at seeing him there was so startling that I actually heard the small bones in my neck crick as I whipped my head around to check that I hadn’t just imagined it. Standing tall and immaculately suited against the wall of the church was Jack Monroe.

  I knew he’d seen me, had probably even noticed my look of wide-eyed surprise, but the only acknowledgement he gave was the merest inclination of his head. After a moment’s hesitation, I nodded back. I turned around, about to mention it to Richard, but caught one look at his face and decided against it. Richard was not doing well. I knew from the moment he had picked me up that morning that he was only just holding it all together. There was a tightness around his mouth, as though every facial muscle was being held in rigid paralysis, lest it give away any trace of emotion. Once we were alone in his car, I had questioned anxiously, ‘Are you all right?’ He had looked at me bleakly.

  ‘Not really. Are you?’ I shook my head, yet still I was surprised at his reaction. ‘I just don’t do well at funerals,’ was his eventual explanation, and as I’d never been to one with him before, and hoped not to again for a very long time, I had to accept his answer.

  As much as you think you are ready for it, nothing prepares you for that moment when a shuffling silence descends on the church, the organist begins to play the first straining notes, and the pall-bearers begin their slow procession up the aisle. I reached down for Richard’s hand and gripped it with ferocious intensity, trying to focus all my attention on the bones of our entwined fingers and skin, instead of on the shiny black casket with the gleaming silver handles, being held aloft on the shoulders of the six men, walking slowly past Amy’s friends and family. One of them was Nick, and seeing his usual jovial expression replaced by one of such solemn concentration tugged at my heart. I wondered if Richard was regretting his decision not to be up there beside him. I had been surprised when Donald Travis had asked both men to be part of the funeral procession; and even more surprised when Richard had sorrowfully declined. Looking at him now, and feeling the tension rippling through his body as he surveyed the casket as it slowly passed by, I had to concede he’d probably made the right decision. He scarcely looked capable of holding himself upright, much less of carrying such a precious cargo. His comment that he didn’t do well at funerals was an understatement.

  After the casket was carefully lowered by the bearers on to the stand, I found it impossible to look anywhere else. I know there were prayers said, and hymns were sung, and I guess I must have stood up and sat down at the appropriate moments, but the whole event felt disjointed and unreal, as though we were caught up in the world’s most vivid mass nightmare. It was an effort to stop myself from scrambling to my feet and shouting out my objection, that there’d been some dreadful mistake, and that Amy couldn’t possibly be lying stiff and cold inside that shiny black casket. But it’s only at weddings where you get the chance to object to the proceedings; at funerals you’re just supposed to keep quiet and accept it all, however terrible it might be.

  Donald’s eulogy to his daughter was heartbreaking, loving and brave, and that he got through it at all is testimony to an inner strength I doubt many people possess. I didn’t need to look around to know that pretty much every woman in the church had been moved to tears by his words; you could hear it in the rustle of tissues and the discreet sniffing. The men present weren’t immune either, and even though Richard hadn’t raised his head from the moment Amy’s father had begun to speak, the occasional tremor in his shoulders gave him away. I was deeply touched that he was so moved, because I honestly didn’t think I had ever seen him cry before. He wasn’t given to public displays of emotion. Even when I had wept like a lost child when I’d broken up with him five years earlier, Richard’s eyes had stayed stonily dry. Seeing him now, so openly vulnerable, was both unsettling and unfamiliar. I linked my arm through his and drew myself closer to his side, uniting us.

  Finally the service was over, and the congregation got to their feet in a collective daze as Amy was lifted and carried away for her final journey. Richard and I joined the shuffling queue of mourners preparing to exit the church. Amy’s parents were positioned just outside the main doors, to receive anyone wanting to offer some words of condolence or comfort, none of which would probably penetrate the white noise of their grief and pain. From the length of the line, it was going to take us a good ten minutes to reach them.

  ‘I’m just going to have a quick word with someone,’ I told Richard, giving his arm a brief squeeze. He nodded distractedly, not even looking around as I slipped away and began to weave through the pews to the rear of the church. Some of the mourners had already left by a small side exit, and initially I couldn’t see him. Had he already gone? I mumbled ‘Excuse me’ repeatedly, as I squeezed past small clusters of people gathered around the exit.

  ‘Emma.’

  I turned, and found he was right behind me. He was much taller than I had remembered.

  ‘Hi,’ I replied, feeling an unexpected nervous flutter, somewhere at the back of my throat. I swallowed it down, and tried again. ‘Hello, Jack. This is a surprise; I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.’ It wasn’t exactly the most welcoming of greetings, but he didn’t appear to take offence.

  ‘I bumped into Caroline in town the other day and she mentioned when the service was. I wanted to come; it felt like the right thing to do. I hope that was okay?’

  It wasn’t my place to say either way, and if some might have questioned why he felt the need to be present, I understood totally. Around us were people from all areas of Amy’s life, who undeniably had known her better, and for longer than Jack had done. But a connection had been forged on the roadside that night, one that tied him to me and Caroline, and to Amy. In a strange way he had even more right to be there than the mourners who hadn’t seen Amy in years. I was just surprised that Caroline hadn’t mentioned that she’d seen Jack again.

  There was a look of genuine regret etched into his handsome features. ‘I just wish that I’d found you all sooner, or had been able to do something more…’ His voice trailed away, and without stopping to consider whether it was appropriate or not, I reached over and grasped his hand in mine.

  ‘I don’t think finding us sooner would have made any difference to Amy. You did everything you could. More than most people would have done. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here today either.’ The debt I owed him could never be repaid, and just saying ‘Thank you’ didn’t even scratch the surface.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked gently, in a tone I recognised from the night of the accident. As he spoke, his eyes searched my face and I knew he wasn’t looking for the visible scars, which were already much less prominent, but for the deeper ones, the ones which were going to take far longer to heal.

  ‘I’m fine, just fine,’ I replied, in a stupid knee-jerk response, like the one you give to a doctor when you’re really sick and they ask how you are. I looked around at where I was, and then back up to meet his eyes, which were still studying me intently. There is something intrinsically wrong about lying wh
en you’re standing in the middle of a church. ‘Actually, that’s not true. I’m not fine at all. I’m bloody terrible, in fact.’ You probably aren’t meant to swear in church either, but fortunately both God and Jack seemed prepared to overlook it.

  ‘It will get better,’ he reassured me, giving the hand I hadn’t realised he was still holding a gentle squeeze. ‘I know it doesn’t seem like that now, but trust me, it will.’

  As crazy as it might sound, I already trusted him, even though I knew almost nothing about him. And because of that, I wanted to believe him, nearly as much as I wanted to continue holding on to his hand, which felt strongly comforting around mine, but that was wrong on so many levels that God was never going to let that one go. I carefully withdrew my fingers from his, and he instantly released me.

  ‘Today has just felt like this enormously difficult and painful mountain we’ve all had to climb. I’m sure next week, when I’m back at work, things will be better.’

  He nodded understandingly. ‘Where is it that you work?’

  ‘Just a bookshop in town,’ I replied, and then felt struck by a double dose of guilt: for sounding dismissive of the job my boss Monique had generously created for me, and for talking about something as trivial and banal as work at Amy’s funeral. What on earth was I thinking of?

  ‘Just keep focusing on the future,’ Jack advised, his eyes soft and warm as they looked down on me. ‘Your wedding must be soon and—’

  ‘It’s cancelled,’ I replied, hearing my choice of words and wondering what Freud would have made of the slip. ‘I mean postponed. It’s postponed.’ I looked around sadly. ‘Actually, it was going to be here. In three days’ time.’

  There were two expressions on his face at my words: one was sympathy, and the other one I couldn’t identify at all. ‘I’m sorry,’ he replied eventually. ‘That must make today even harder, for both of you.’ His deliberate emphasis wasn’t lost on me.

  ‘Anyway, I should be getting back,’ I said, glancing over my shoulder and noticing that Richard, Caroline and Nick had almost reached the huge oak church doors. ‘Thank you again for coming today. You really are a good person.’

  He smiled wryly, but said nothing. I turned to go, and had actually taken two steps before I remembered my slate still wasn’t wiped clean with this man. ‘I’m sorry, I almost forgot. Thank you for the beautiful flowers, Jack. It was really thoughtful. I would have contacted you to thank you when they arrived, but I didn’t know how to reach you.’

  ‘I’m glad you got them all right,’ he replied, before glancing over at Richard. ‘I hope sending them to your home was okay? I didn’t want to cause you any awkwardness.’ Clearly he was referring to Richard’s less-than-hospitable attitude when they had last met.

  ‘No, no, no,’ I refuted, aware I had used at least two too many noes to sound convincing. ‘We both thought they were a really lovely gesture.’

  I thought I saw a slight twitch of his lips when he heard my lie, but he did nothing to challenge it. For the first time I began to feel awkward.

  ‘Well, goodbye then,’ I said, and because just walking away felt wrong, I stepped back to him, leaned up and swiftly kissed his cheek, trying hard not to be aware of the aroma of his aftershave or the slight bristle of his skin as my lips grazed across it.

  I walked back quickly to my fiancé and friends, and Caroline, who was the only one facing in the right direction to have seen my brief encounter, opened her mouth to say something as I approached. I darted a meaningful look at Richard and shook my head almost imperceptibly, before resuming my position in the queue, beside him. Caroline obediently closed her mouth on whatever she’d been about to say, while a look of understanding lit her eyes. Friends do that.

  Loss is a funny thing. It was a word I heard a lot in those early days, from just about everyone I spoke to. ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ seemed to be the go-to phrase, followed by a good deal of arm patting, after which people started to look vaguely uncomfortable and unsure of what to do or say next. That’s the trouble with death, there’s no etiquette book on the protocol for grief or condolences. No one really knows how to react; also no one wants to get too close to the raw gaping wound that’s visible on those left behind, as though – who knows – it might just be catching.

  The dictionary defines loss as the state of no longer having something because it has been taken from you or destroyed. I guess that’s fairly accurate. Except ever since the night of Amy’s death she wasn’t lost at all. She was everywhere.

  She was in the silver bangle bracelet I wore every day, her gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. She was in the fast-food wrapper carelessly discarded on the floor of my car, when she’d insisted we pull into a drive-in for burgers after shopping for wedding shoes. She was in the mirror when I slipped earrings through my ears, because it was fourteen-year-old Amy who’d persuaded us to get them pierced, while Caroline had timidly refused to even enter the shop. She was the first name on the directory of my mobile phone, and I was never going to be able to delete that.

  Amy wasn’t gone at all. She was omnipresent, which was sometimes comforting, and could sometimes make me smile, but more often just made the pain of losing such a bright and beautiful flame the very worst tragedy I could ever imagine.

  Someone who was lost, however, was Richard. Well, not in the real and physical sense, but definitely missing. In the days before the funeral, when I was still off work, he had come straight from school to our house each afternoon, and I could chart the change in him like the world’s most depressing graph. It was as though a doppelgänger Richard had invaded our lives. The person who sat at our table for dinner each night, or beside me on the couch as we stared unseeingly at the television, was not the same man who had slipped the diamond ring on my finger on Christmas Day. Although I’d unburdened my grief in Richard’s arms many times since Amy’s death, I felt as though he was holding back from me. For the first time in our relationship, past and present, I couldn’t get to the source of the problem. ‘What does he say when you ask what’s wrong?’ Caroline had asked, setting down two mugs of coffee on her kitchen table – and a plate of biscuits, that neither of us would touch. Appetite, that was something else we both seemed to have lost since Amy’s death, and in consequence a fair amount of weight. My wedding dress would probably hang off me now, I remember thinking, and then braced myself against the onslaught of grief when I thought of the two midnight blue bridesmaids’ dresses, hanging in their cellophane shrouds in our spare room.

  ‘Emma?’

  I’d shaken my head, trying to jostle my thoughts back to Caroline’s question. Attention deficit. Another loss. ‘Sorry. My concentration is shot to pieces these days. I think it must be lack of sleep.’ Loss of sleep, the list just kept growing.

  ‘Richard says nothing is wrong,’ I had replied eventually. ‘He says it’s just his way of dealing with things.’

  The solution to the problem came from an unexpected source, when a teacher at his school had fallen ill, leaving them without a leader for a skiing trip.

  ‘Of course I said no when they asked if I could stand in,’ he explained.

  Richard was the obvious person to have asked. He and his whole family had skied for as long as I could remember.

  ‘Tell them you’ve changed your mind, that you’ll do it.’

  He’d looked shocked at my suggestion. ‘But I can’t go. I can’t leave you now. You need me here.’ But behind the protests there had been a look in his eyes like a prisoner who’d seen an open jail door, which was slowly closing shut.

  I reached for his hand, curling my fingers through his. ‘Go. I think you need to get away. I’ll be fine. I’m back at work next week and I have Caroline and Nick and Mum and Dad. It’s only ten days.’

  He had pulled me towards him and kissed me with more enthusiasm than he’d shown in several weeks. That alone told me I’d just done the right thing.

  Working in a bookshop can hardly be termed as arduous, but apparentl
y the simple task of standing behind a counter and interacting with the general public was still too much for me to cope with – according to my employer, that was.

  Monique, my boss, had been on the second rung of a small stepladder, filling shelves with glossy hardback books when I walked into the shop on my first day back. She swayed a little alarmingly on the ladder, and I instinctively dashed forwards. She batted away the hand I held out to her, but stepped down to envelop me in a massive hug. She wrapped her short plump arms around me, the voluminous sleeves of her kaftan billowing around us like massive floral sails. Her dangling shell earrings caught in my hair, and I was grateful that by the time I had disentangled myself, the tears her greeting had generated were almost gone.

  ‘Now why the fuck have you come back so soon?’ There were two things I loved about Monique: that despite living in the UK for over forty years she still had a thick French accent; and that she swore like a sailor. To hear them both in her opening sentence had been a double treat.

  ‘I need to keep busy. Being at home gives me too much time to think,’ I confessed. I smiled sadly at the woman in front of me. She was more than just my employer; she was a confidante and friend.

  She nodded, and the shell earrings clattered like mini percussion instruments. ‘Your fiancé called me before he left on his trip, did he tell you that?’

  ‘Richard phoned you? Why?’ Her words were surprising, for it was a poorly kept secret that they didn’t particularly like each other. Monique was the only person who had looked less than delighted when she heard I had accepted Richard’s proposal.

  ‘Ah ha! I suspected you did not know this,’ my boss declared, sounding like Poirot and looking like Miss Marple. ‘He said that I should look out for you and not work you too hard. Pwah! As if I am an imbecile who had to be told these things.’