Damn this! she scolded herself - am I going to spend the rest of my life wondering if it was my fault? -- Tom, if you ever loved me at all, how could you leave things in this mess? She found herself hating him, and felt even more guilty about that, haunted by the memory of the times when she had displeased him by seeking independence.
It was only after the girls had left home that Sylvia realised how much Tom`s work absorbed him. Her own life had become routine to the point of boredom – beds made, dishes washed, meals cooked and paintwork wiped. One depressing rainy day in mid-October, she`d made a sudden resolve to pull herself together and become something more than just Tom Brandon`s Wife.
From that moment she took herself in hand, paying more attention to her appearance to boost self-confidence largely lost during the years as the pale shadow of her husband. With renewed initiative, she undertook more confident things – joined classes and clubs, took a part-time job at the Hospital Shop, acquired new friends and interests. Had Tom begun to feel left out of her life? Probably no more than I used to feel left out of his, she concluded, and it didn`t make me commit suicide out of spite - how dare he leave me feeling as if I`m to blame? - or am I?
She thought she was coping well until Edgar called to take Patty back home to the children. Watching them drive away, Sylvia found herself overwhelmed by a rush of something like terror. `I can`t stop in this place by myself!`
`You`re not by yourself. I`m here,` Delia reminded her, touching Sylvia`s heart with remorse. She and her elder daughter had somehow never been close; Patty had always been the best-loved one. So perhaps it was not surprising that the emotional gulf between mother and oldest daughter was more noticeable than usual, but this particular gaffe must be corrected at once.
`I know you`re here, darling, and I`m glad. But the fact is, I don`t know if I can bear to stay here at all tonight.`
`Then come home with me. It`ll give you time to . . .` Delia stopped speaking, apparently stuck for words after considering what the right way of ending the sentence might be.
She continued to stay at Delia`s until the necessary formalities were attended to, the most pressing being the organisation of the funeral. She could not be bothered to consult the Yellow Pages for a choice of undertakers, and there seemed something disrespectful about shopping-around for the cheapest option. Therefore she approached the first to spring to mind – Jos. Halliday and Sons (Funeral Directors) Ltd., with premises in a large Victorian villa a couple of streets away.
Though discreetly eager to oblige, they drew her attention to one slight problem. (Not again! she thought - nothing else I `ve ever done`s been straightforward, so why did I think organising Tom`s funeral would be any different?) `What exactly is the problem?`
Mr. Halliday Senior coughed delicately. `Given the circumstances of your husband`s death, you won`t be allowed to hold the funeral until there`s been an inquest.`
Sylvia sniffed scornfully. `To establish whether I`ve bumped him off for the Insurance money?`
Mr. Halliday, accustomed to dealing with the tantrums of the bereaved, did not flinch at the brutal suggestion. `Purely a formality in this case, Mrs. Brandon. We`ll make what arrangements we can now, then once the inquest`s out of the way we`ll be able to set a firm date for the funeral.`
At least Jos. Halliday and Sons were right in surmising that the inquest would not be prolonged. Although not a single marital, fiscal or medical reason could be advanced to account for Tom`s decision to end his life, the intention seemed clear enough. He had paid off his Credit Card well before the due-date, and settled a few outstanding bills less than a week before leaping into eternity from the boiler-room gantry without explanation.
Suicide, the Coroner found, having little choice in the matter. It was no comfort to Sylvia, but at least the Police stopped asking questions that had begun to make her wonder if they thought she was somehow responsible.
The funeral itself, in spite of the best efforts of Jos. Halliday and Sons, was nightmarish. Although Sylvia occasionally attended the parish church, Tom had not been a believer, so the usual religious ceremony would have been hypocritical. In any case Sylvia did not dare to ask, afraid that the Vicar might refuse to bury a suicide in holy ground, an embarrassment she could not face. She therefore opted for the clinical ambience of the local Crematorium chapel with its piped music, and velvet curtains that hid the coffin discreetly from view before it sank into the basement where the ovens roared.
Instead of singing hymns, they played recordings of “The Wind Beneath My Wings” and “Memory”, Tom`s favourite songs. Sylvia had expected no comfort from the ceremony, and found none. Afterwards, inspecting the wreaths on the grass in the Garden of Remembrance, she felt completely drained of emotion. It was as if she was attending the funeral of somebody she hardly knew.
They held the tea-party at Delia`s pleasant well-groomed home. Everyone came up to Sylvia with suitably mournful faces and said How Sad It All Was, that Time Was A Great Healer, and that she must Look After Herself, and Not Make Any Big Decisions for at least three months. Too dazed to argue, she doubted whether she would ever again be able to make decisions, big or small.
`How brave you are,` they said, congratulating her dry-eyed calmness, and never sensing the terror she was struggling to conceal -- What would they think if they knew I was only this calm because I felt absolutely nothing during that service? -- Tom might just as well have been a complete stranger.
`Of course your religion must be a comfort to you, dear,` one tactless hanger-on offered, as if God were a hot-water-bottle standing by to make her cold bed warmer.
`Not in the slightest. Why should it?` Sylvia asked, to make her sanctimonious visitor cringe. Since Tom`s death, she had discovered a tendency to be less careful about hurting other people`s feelings.
TWO
Sylvia returned to the museum-flat after the funeral, to begin the process of going through Tom`s possessions. Delia stayed there with her overnight. Though grateful for the company of her elder daughter, Sylvia surmised that her nearest-and-dearest – probably afraid she might follow Tom`s example if left alone for too long - had had hit on this method of ensuring she did not present them with another unwelcome bereavement. With no inclination to watch TV or play cards, they sat at each side of the fireplace like human bookends until, just before nine, Sylvia decided she had had enough. `I think I`d like to go to bed now, dear.`
Delia sprang to her feet at once – was her eagerness due to relief that the frightful evening was at an end? `I`ll come up with you.` Sylvia was not sure why she had agreed to the offer until they reached the bedroom-door, where she would otherwise have hesitated to take those first few steps all alone into the room where she and Tom had most completely been as-one. `Thanks,` she said. `I`ll be all right now.` That might or might not be true – time would tell, but for the moment it sufficed.
The sight of the bed she had shared with Tom proved to be the catalyst that released her pent-up grief. Lying on top of the covers, Sylvia wept at last, as the doctor had warned her she must, before she would begin to feel any better. In the weary aftermath of tears, she pulled back the covers and rolled inside without even undressing, hoping for sleep. But the end of the numbness brought on a surge of obscene sexual desire for Tom whose body she would never hold in her arms again. Tossing and turning, she endured grossly erotic dreams in which he treated her with what would have seemed – until then – utter depravity.
Starting awake, she pressed her hands over her face to shut out the hideous pictures. Why was this happening? Finding no answer, she drifted towards sleep again, hoping the dreams would not recur. But there was no escape from the nightmare – this time she found their positions reversed, and she herself stimulating Tom in ugly frightening ways. Gasping, she fought for wakefulness, but each time she relaxed, there they were again, she and Tom, using lips, tongues, teeth in a never-ending parade of shameless acts they had never practised in all their years of marriage.
Finally
she broke out of the dreams to sit bolt-upright in bed with a shriek that brought Delia trembling to her side. `Mum? Are you all right?` The adult Delia, startled into wakefulness, looked just as helpless and vulnerable as the little girl she had once been, when nightmares disturbed her sleep.
Sylvia pulled herself together, brushing tears away with one hand. `Yes, I`m okay. Sorry. I had a bad dream, that`s all.`
`About Dad?` Sylvia could admit to that, but not to the skin-crawling revulsion within her that brought bile rising into her throat.
`I need to go to the bathroom.` Spurning Delia`s offer to accompany her, Sylvia shut herself in and fell to her knees before the toilet-bowl, throwing-up violently in the grip of massive self-disgust. What`s wrong with me? -- am I going insane? -- we never did things like that when Tom was alive, so why am I thinking about them now, when he`s dead?
`Mum, are you all right?` Receiving no answer, Delia shouted again, louder. `Mum! Let me in!`
Still shaking, Sylvia grasped the edge of the washbasin for support as she rose to her feet. `It`s okay, Dee. I`ll be out in a second.`
Back on the landing, she apologised. `I don`t know what came over me just then.` The apology was as much for the horrendous imaginings as for alarming her daughter.
Thinking she understood, Delia sympathised. `It`ll be the shock coming out. I`ll see you back to bed, then make us a cuppa, how about that?`
`Yes. Thanks.` In the aftermath of nausea, Sylvia`s mouth felt foul, as if the taste of sex still lingered there. Perhaps tea would wash it away, and bring back innocent sleep such as she had known before Tom`s desperate decision robbed her of peace.
By the time Paul called to take Delia home the following afternoon, Sylvia found herself looking forward to being alone, so that she could stop being on her best behaviour with everyone and get down to grieving – and living – in whatever turned out to be the best way for her. First, however, there were formalities to be coped with. Paul, the businessman, approached the future from a typically business-like standpoint. `Were all his affairs in order?`
`I haven`t a clue.` The question smacked of impertinence, Sylvia thought, so soon after Tom`s death. She had never probed into that side of his life, a cause for belated regret.
`They probably will be, It`s usual in cases where people . . .` Paul caught his words, exchanging them for more tactful ones as Delia kicked his foot. `Where people do what he did.`
`Kill themselves, you mean?` Sylvia saw no reason to spare her son-in-law`s feelings, since he seemed to be making little effort to spare hers.
`Perhaps his solicitor could tell you?`
`Honestly, Paul, I haven`t the faintest idea whether he even had a solicitor. We never had any call for one.`
`There might be papers in his study that would tell us,` Delia put forward, and Sylvia tried not to think that the us carried a suggestion of prying. `Would you perhaps let Paul and me go through them, in case there`s anything there?`
Definitely prying, Sylvia decided, rejecting their offer. `I`ll go through them myself. It`ll give me something to do when I`m on my own tonight.`
She waved them goodbye as the car pulled away, turned slowly and walked back into the empty flat, her high heels striking eerie echoes from the black-and-white-tiled floor of the hallway. Well, here comes the rest of my life – I might as well make a start on it.
She began by watching TV, but switched it off within minutes. Music might be better -- but the CDs that she and Tom had chosen together were too painful a reminder of a shared past now mocked by the callous way in which he had ended his life. Even her favourite film on video failed to engross her, and was quickly dispensed with. This is terrible, she thought - how am I going to fill my days – and most of all, my nights – if everything I do reminds me of Tom like this? It was not much to look forward to. Then she remembered her promise to examine his personal papers – that should fill in hour or two.
His keys, returned by the Police, lay on the mantelpiece and she reached out for them with a sense of guilt. Tom`s desk had been his private domain - just as the bureau in the spare bedroom was hers - and it felt somehow wrong to open it when he was not there. She turned the key in the lock, half-expecting to hear his voice -- “What are you looking for, darling?”-- but around her was only silence, for he would never be there again. The thought was crushing and frightening, making her lay the keys down abruptly, unable to face the task tonight. There would be other times, other days when perhaps she would have overcome this terrible feeling of disorientation.
One of the Museum trustees called to see Sylvia next morning, bringing forms to sign that would activate Tom`s pension. `I`d forgotten about that,` she said, suddenly aware that there was a whole financial future she must plan for. `He said it was about seventy pounds a week, I think – is that right?`
The man hesitated before replying. `Had he lived to reach pensionable age, he would have received an amount something like that. As his widow, the sum due to you is rather less.`
`How much less?` Her question sounded mercenary, but it had become important to know.
`Thirty-two pounds sixty-seven pence a week.`
`Thirty-two pounds? Where`s all the rest gone?` Sylvia was disgusted by the sound of her raised voice shouting about money at such a time.
`The terms of the pension scheme are that if your husband had lived into retirement, he would`ve been entitled to just under seventy pounds a week in his own right. But he commuted some of that to provide a further small pension for you after his death. The thirty-two pounds-sixty-seven is that smaller pension.`
`So who gets the rest?` Sylvia demanded.
`What rest?`
`The other . . . what? . . . nearly forty-pounds you`d`ve had to pay to him if he`d been alive. You`ve collected enough contributions from him to pay for it, so who`s getting the benefit?`
`No-one. It`s just the way the rules of the Fund operate.`
`Then the rules are wrong. Why shouldn`t I get what Tom paid for? It`s daylight-robbery.`
The man looked flustered and annoyed. `I`m sorry you`re taking it this way, Mrs. Brandon. It`s neither my fault nor his, simply the rules of the Fund, and there`s nothing I can do.`
`I want to speak to somebody higher-up than you.` It sounded rude, and was meant to, but the museum-official tried to keep his temper and succeeded, quite clearly Humouring-The-Bereaved in a manner that only served to irritate her even more.
`I`ll get the head of our pensions-team to ring you himself, as soon as I get back to the office.` The man hesitated, probably wondering how she would deal with the worse news that was to come. `You`ll realise that, because of the importance of the position your husband held, we`ve had to advertise the post immediately, so we thought it would be best to discuss this with you now, even though it`s so soon after the funeral, in order to give you time to make suitable arrangements.` At first she did not grasp his meaning, until he added cautiously, `About where you`re going to live.`
They want me out of the flat, she realised in horror – as if losing my husband isn`t bad enough, I`m losing my home as well - where will I go? But it would be pointless to blame a messenger plainly embarrassed by the insensitive previousness of his errand.
The Someone-Higher-Up from the pension-fund who eventually rang her was even more dismissive. `All the occupational Pension funds I know of are organised in exactly the same way. The amount payable to you is thirty-two pounds-sixty-seven.` Sylvia let the matter go, with a sense of relief. The confrontation she had demanded felt undignified in practice, like conducting an assessment of the pecuniary value of Tom`s life. How could she have entered into such a shameful argument about money, when all that really mattered was that Tom was dead?
Probably still under the influence of shock, Sylvia found herself opening Tom`s desk with no compunction whatsoever. Delia, arriving in the evening to see how her mother was, found her studying a series of documents spread out over the dining-table, a puzzled expression on her face.
`W
hat`s up, Mum? Is there something you don`t understand? Perhaps I could take a look, and explain?`
And perhaps you could stop prying, Sylvia just stopped herself from snapping. There certainly was something she did not understand, and perhaps Delia might have some suggestions to offer. `It`s these bank-statements of your Dad`s. There`s not nearly as much money in his current-account as I thought there would be.`
`Now much is not-nearly-as-much?`
`Only two-thousand-six-hundred and fifty quid.`
Delia hesitated, as if unsure how to answer. `It`ll get you by for the moment, I suppose, but it`s not a lot, is it? Surely Dad should`ve saved more than that?`
A hint of criticism in her tone attracted a sharp response from her mother. `He probably could have, if he hadn`t spent as much of it on you.` The lavish wedding Delia had opted-for was still being paid for, three years later.
Delia flushed, turning her face away. `That`s hardly fair, Mum. He told me we could have whatever we wanted. And anyway, the figures still don`t square up. He wasn`t a heavy smoker, or a big drinker, he didn`t gamble, and he had no rent or mortgage to find. So where have all his wages been going?`
Delia`s tactless question hit on a point that Sylvia herself could not help but puzzle over -- where had Tom`s money gone? He and Sylvia had lived comfortably but not ostentatiously and, as far as she knew, he had been saving for their old-age. That was certainly what he had told her, yet the depleted bank-account did not bear it out. Ridiculous explanations rioted through her mind – had there been some dread secret, covert gambling, perhaps? Was he supporting a bastard child of whom she knew nothing? Had there been expensive hobbies unknown to her? Could he have become addicted to drugs without her realising – surely that must be impossible. Or perhaps somebody had been blackmailing him? No, she told herself – there was no way of keeping such things hidden in a relationship as close as theirs had been. And yet, just how close was our relationship? she reflected -- not close enough for me to know what was going on in his mind, apparently.
A Long Road Through The Night Page 2
