Jamie Fewery
Page 18
‘We were a bit early. Well, a bit less late.’
175
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 175
10/09/2018 17:07:24
‘I’m so happy to see you, Es,’ Tom said, kissing her cheek, still cold from the walk from the plane to the terminal.
‘You almost gave me a heart attack.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that—’
‘You’re out!’
‘I know!’
‘You’re out,’ she said again, throwing her arms around him.
‘I’m out.’
‘How does it feel?’
‘Fine. Well, so far. I didn’t really have time to think about it. I
sort of just got up and ran from the house.’
‘Oh Tom,’ she said, sounding as if she was on the verge of tears.
‘Tom, I’m so proud of you.’
He didn’t say anything back. The emotion of it, the achievement
of something so huge but so mundane was overwhelming him.
‘And you feel okay?’
‘So far, so good.’
‘Not, like, unsettled or anxious or anything? Because I can drive,’
she said, speaking quickly. ‘We can take our time.’
‘I’m fine, Es,’ he interrupted. Though, in truth, there was an
element of him that was il at ease and had been since he’d got to the airport. Thankfully it hadn’t been busy. Even now, knowing he’d be
happier indoors was less important to him than the knowledge that
he was doing the right thing. For Esme. For both of them.
If that meant pushing himself a little, he was happy to be pushed.
‘If you’re sure,’ she said, taking his hand in her mitten. ‘But you
have to tell me, Tom. If you start to feel bad. Just say. Okay?’
Tom nodded, but Esme wasn’t satisfied with this.
‘Promise me, Tom. Baby steps, not giant leaps, okay?’
‘Promise.’
‘Okay.’
176
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 176
10/09/2018 17:07:24
‘Excuse me,’ a gruff voice said, interrupting the two of them. ‘Is he here to take you home then?’
‘Oh God,’ Esme said to the minicab driver. ‘I’m so sorry. It was
a surprise.’
‘Fucking hell,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Almost two in the
fucking morning.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You still have to pay,’ he said. ‘You know that, right?’
‘Oh. Of course,’ Esme said, opening her bag to get her purse.
‘Ninety, wasn’t it?’
The driver nodded, took the money, stuffed the ESME SIMON
sign in the bin and marched off towards the exit.
‘I’ll pay for that,’ Tom said.
‘Yeh you will,’ Esme said in return, leading him towards the
sliding doors that opened into the cold night.
As they went, Tom focused on the things around him that would
keep him in check. Five things he could hear, see and smell. It was
a tactic Christine had told him to employ the first time he went
out – something to root him in the safety of the world around him.
In this case, it was the closed fast-food kiosks outside the terminal.
The smell of the night air, a mix of jet fuel and bus exhaust. The
uneven, grey pavement and how it felt against the soles of his feet. All things that were certainties. Reliable parts of the world that couldn’t possibly be unpredictable, and so would never be cause for alarm.
After a few steps, Tom stopped.
‘Everything okay?’ she said.
The answer was no, but Tom swallowed it down.
‘I think so. Just need a second.’
‘Take as long as you need,’ she said and he wondered if she meant
it in every possible way. He had been so het up on his way to the
airport that parts of the anxiety of being out were masked. Now,
with Esme again, the surprise over, Tom felt things coming back.
177
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 177
10/09/2018 17:07:24
‘We can go back inside if you want,’ Esme said. ‘It doesn’t matter what time we get home,’ she said, checking her watch. Tom could see
it was almost two. No matter what she said, Esme would be worried
about having so little sleep before a work day.
Tom drew a breath. He knew from experience that he would
never feel entirely settled about it. As ever, there was no proper fix, and no guarantee that he would ever wake up in the morning and
not feel the rising in his chest, clammy palms and unexplained sense
of dread.
But he had to be an active participant in getting through it.
‘I’m okay,’ he said, convincing himself as much as her.
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ he said, taking a determined step forward, and forcing
a better version of himself back into life, piece by piece by piece.
178
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 178
10/09/2018 17:07:24
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
9 – 10 am
A DYING MAN’S WISH
November 2015 – Knighton, Leicester
Esme put their shared overnight bag in the boot of the car and
went back to the house. Her mother was waiting in the doorway,
an old maroon cardigan unbuttoned and wrapped around her body,
standing on the threshold in a pair of grey slippers. A light rain was falling, the last remnants of the storm the Simons’ usually perfectly
manicured front garden had endured the previous night.
‘How long will it take you to get home?’ Lena said.
‘Couple of hours,’ Tom said from where he was standing at the
driver’s door, reaching in to affix the mobile phone holder to the
windscreen.
‘Sorry we can’t stay longer,’ Esme said. ‘We’ll be back, though.’
‘It’s fine, darling.’
‘I sometimes wish we lived closer.’
‘Nonsense. You have your life. We’re fine here.’
‘We’ll come back next week.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I know you are, Mum. I just want—’ Esme said, her voice crack-
ing before she could continue.
179
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 179
10/09/2018 17:07:25
‘I know,’ Lena said, embracing her. ‘You should go and say goodbye.’
Esme disappeared into the house, as Tom checked the car over,
ready for this latest drive down the M1 back towards London – a
journey they had made six times since Tamas’s diagnosis for prostate
cancer a few months before.
It was the second time he’d been given it. The last coming a
couple of years ago, when a routine doctor’s check-up revealed
abnormalities. One operation and a round of chemotherapy had
led to the all-clear, and seemed to give him new life and a new
enthusiasm for it.
This time Tamas was out of luck. The cancer had spread to his
kidneys and lungs. His whole body gradually surrendered to the
disease. Initially he had been given four months to live, eight if he
was lucky.
But things had deteriorated rapidly, as if the knowledge that
the end was coming had caused his body to give up fighting. Now
February looked ambitious. Christmas was a target for him. But
Tamas and those around him were keenly aware that each new day
might be his last.
Most of the time Esme and Tom came on the pretence of provid-
ing help – supp
orting Esme’s mother by cooking meals, doing the
shopping, tidying the house. Though in truth Lena was managing
just fine. The regular visits, Tom knew, were Esme’s long goodbye to
her father, even if she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
‘How is Esme coping?’ Lena said.
‘Fine,’ Tom said, almost instinctually. ‘Well, not fine. But she’s okay.’
‘I just wish they would talk. She carries so much about him with
her. She never forgave him like I did.’
‘I know. She will,’ Tom said, hopefully. But in truth he and Lena
both knew that his thinking was more wishful than realistic. Esme
180
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 180
10/09/2018 17:07:25
stil bore the scars of his walkout twenty years ago. The spectre of Noelle – the recently graduated student he had a six-month affair
and two-year relationship with – cast a constant shadow over the
two of them.
‘I’ll go and say goodbye,’ Tom said.
Esme was leaving Tamas’s bedroom with a handful of mugs when
he arrived at the top of the stairs. She dabbed the cuff of her dark-
blue lambswool jumper against the corner of an eye, smudging the
mascara.
‘You okay?’
‘Fine,’ she said, as she passed him to go back downstairs to her
mother, leaving Tom to take her place.
The bedroom was overly warm and airless. Suited to the needs
of the patient, who was feeling the cold more with each passing
week. A vase of purple Sweet Williams sat atop the pine dressing
table opposite the bed, adding some colour to the plain magnolia
and beige room.
Tamas was propped up on a stack of four pillows, beside him the
same breakfast-in-bed tray the two of them used every Sunday for
tea, marmalade on toast, and the weekend paper. On the bedside
table was a small stack of copies of The Economist (a subscription Esme and Tom had bought him and which Tom suspected he never
read), and a collection of pill bottles.
‘I’ve just come to say goodbye,’ Tom said, trying to steal his
attention from a recording of last night’s Match of the Day, playing on the small television in the corner. Tom hoped the football would
not spark yet another retelling of the story of Tamas’s 1993 meeting with Ferenc Puskás in Dublin, when Hungary played the Republic
of Ireland.
‘Shut the door,’ Tamas croaked.
‘Sorry?’
‘The door,’ he said impatiently. ‘And turn this shit off.’
181
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 181
10/09/2018 17:07:25
Tom did as he was told.
‘Is there something you need?’
‘I need five minutes,’ he said, clearing his throat.
Tom wondered what would be worse: one of Tamas’s serious
‘chats’ or a request to attend to some medical need for a man he
did not want to get that familiar with.
‘Before I go I want to talk to you about Esme,’ he said, pushing
himself up weakly on his pillows. ‘Sit if you want.’
Tom elected to remain standing, unable to think of anything
more awkward than perching next to Tamas on six inches of spare
mattress.
‘What is it?’
‘You make her happy, Tom,’ he said, with a little cough. I know
everything isn’t always easy and normal for you. But she likes to care for you. And says you care for her.’
‘That’s . . . good,’ Tom said, unsure of what to say and slightly
irritated that his problems were being summarised as ‘not normal’.
‘I didn’t always make her happy. As you know. It’s hard to live a
long life without making mistakes. Even big ones.’ Another cough,
though Tom suspected it was forced this time to al ow for a swift
move away from the difficult subject he still hated to talk about.
‘Anyway, I had hoped I might have a bit more time to spend with
her and Lena. But life has other plans. So now, it’s up to you.’
Tamas reached for his glass and took a small sip of water.
‘I spent thirty years trying to make my daughter’s life as good as
possible. I didn’t always do a great job. But I tried. Then you come
along and finish the job. I know Esme. She is happier than ever.
More content. Talks less about moving to different countries, new
careers, big ideas,’ he said, surprising Tom, who had never heard
Esme talk about living anywhere except for London and, maybe one
day, by the coast. ‘If I have learned one thing,’ Tamas continued,
‘it’s that always looking for something else doesn’t make us happy.’
182
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 182
10/09/2018 17:07:25
‘No. Of course,’ Tom said, still not entirely sure what he was getting at.
‘I want you to marry her, Tom,’ he said, quickly. ‘I know you
want to. So, before I go, I am telling you that you have my blessing.’
‘Oh . . . okay. I mean, I’m not sure she wants to. Es has pretty
much always been anti-marriage. Ever since we met—’
‘You’ve changed her. I can see it. Lena can see it. We talk about it
sometimes. Esme is very firm in her beliefs. Maybe she doesn’t want
the stupid big white wedding. But I know she wants you, Tom. We
can see it. I won’t be there. But I want to die knowing that it will
happen.’
Tom was shocked. Firstly at the idea that Esme might have
changed her mind about something she was so virulently against –
the thing he had just assumed they would live without for ever. And
secondly that it was Tamas’s wish, as though it was something he’d
accidentally left out of his will.
‘I really . . . I don’t know,’ Tom said, struggling to find the right
words. Was he supposed to thank the old man or correct him?
Tom was about to speak again. But voices from the stairs warned
him that Esme and Lena were on their way back to the room. He
quickly slipped out as Tamas turned away, passing Lena, who was
holding a tray laden with a bowl of tomato soup and a buttered
brown roll. He made his way downstairs and walked out into the
cold spring morning to run over what had just happened. And to
ask himself whether there was any validity in it.
Or if what just happened was little more than a dying man trying
to right a wrong.
They were barely on the road out of Knighton when Esme started to
cry, the image of strength she had presented over the past couple of
days falling apart as they drove home to London. Something within
183
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 183
10/09/2018 17:07:25
her had shifted, and Tom imagined it to be more untreatable than anything he himself had suffered.
Tom reached over to her side, taking his hand off the gear stick
to take hers for all of twenty seconds, before the traffic slowed in
front of them and he had to shift down. The car smelled damp, the
result of old window seals that let in water which worked its way
into the material of the seats.
Over the past few weeks, since Tamas’s diagnosis, he had listened
with understanding when she complained about the doctors who
treated him after his first diagnosis,
convinced that better work then would’ve prevented the cancer from coming back with so much
more aggression now. Esme jumped spasmodically between heaping praise on the NHS staff and damning them with a bitterness that
was so unlike her.
‘It’s the fucking doctors,’ she’d said. ‘Not the nurses. The nurses
are fine. But the doctors couldn’t give a shit. It’s all about targets for them. Numbers.’
Tom knew she didn’t mean it. Working in the system herself
meant that Esme was all too aware of the hard work, strain and
limitations that weighed down on the people helping her dad.
But keeping up with her moods, her ups and downs, was difficult.
Although not something Tom had much of a right to complain
about.
‘You alright?’ he said, as they passed the huge shopping centre
that came just before the motorway.
‘I will be.’
‘If you need to talk,’ Tom said, leaving the offer hanging there.
‘What were you and Dad talking about earlier? When we came
up.’
‘Oh,’ Tom said, unsure of how much to divulge. ‘Nothing, really.
He was telling me about when he met Puskás.’
‘Again?’
184
Our-Life-text-pp.indd 184
10/09/2018 17:07:25
‘I know,’ Tom said, trying to sound irritated by it.
He drove them onto the motorway, accelerating to overtake a slow
truck on the slip road. The rain was getting heavier, beginning to
obscure his view. Tom turned the radio up. A reality television star
was being interviewed about his autobiography. They carried on for
a few minutes before he pressed mute.
‘He also talked about us. Your dad.’
‘Us?’ Esme said, distracted from looking out of the window at
the grey sky, bare trees and hard shoulder.
‘As in you and me. He wanted to ask me some stuff about our
future.’
‘Like what?’
‘Well, I suppose it was more like advice really.’
‘Ha,’ Esme said bitterly.
‘Es. Come on.’
‘Of all the people to offer fucking advice,’ she said. ‘Follow what
I say, not what I do.’
‘It’s been a long time, Es.’
‘It still happened, Tom,’ she said. ‘He can’t just rub it out of our
family history because he’s dying.’
This was the other thing about Tamas’s illness. The things he had
done, made worse by his burying of them in silence. No matter how
much the family tried to ignore it, Noelle and his two-year affair