The Day She Died: A Novel

by Catriona McPherson

  Inside

  She sipped the water like it was Highland Park, forty years old, rolling it round her mouth. She was good at making things last. So much counselling, so many hours of therapy, so good at tricking her own brain into choking off at the neck whatever her body was going through. So she sipped and savoured and delayed the precious moment when she would finish the first one. Great excitement then. Now she had a bottle she could use for something. Make something. Change something. And she had cardboard too. And the wrappers from the muesli bars. Oh, she had plenty to keep her busy. And she could do sit-ups and yoga. She could make up poetry and set it to music. She could think of fruits beginning … apple, banana, citron, damson. Dances beginning … American Smooth, Black Bottom, Cha-cha-cha, Dashing White Sergeant, Eightsome Reel, Foxtrot, Gay Gordons, Hesitation Waltz. And try to do the steps. Until she stumbled on the toilet and turned her ankle.

  After that she curled up in a ball and cried for a while. Roared and screamed and wailed. That had a name in some kind of therapy too.

  At six o’clock in the morning, he was flat on his back, covers at his waist, bare chest rising and falling, slow and steady. I turned away and swung my legs down, trying to make my movements as small as they could be. I had just transferred my weight to my feet, just clenched my bum to lift it off the bed, when he laid his warm hand on me.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I need a pee.” The hand was gone, but I could still feel the tingle of it, a perfect print of it, all five fingers and the palm, and it made me think of glitter scattered over glue. I scrabbled on the floor for the t-shirt and yesterday’s knickers. “Plus the kids,” I said. “D’you want a cup of tea?”

  “Coffee,” he said and turned over, until he was lying face down with his arms under his pillow. He had old acne scars on his back, flat purple patches all over his shoulder blades, a few down as far as the dip in his waist.

  “I’m glad to see you don’t have a hairy back,” I said.

  He grunted, could have been a laugh. “Yet,” he said. “Dave was like a gorilla by the time he was seventy, and I take after him.” I pulled the t-shirt on over my head. “Would you love me if I turned into a seventy-year-old gorilla?” Like it was really happening, not just a day dream

  at all.

  “Sure,” I said. “If you wax it.” And I left the room before he said any more.

  “No school today, Ruby-duby-doo,” he said when he finally appeared. I had the kids up, washed, and eating toast and jam in the kitchen. He was wearing those canvas trousers and a work shirt again, no tweedy suit today, but he’d shaved and his hair was pulled back from his forehead, the top half in a ponytail that hung down over the curtain of the bottom half. That hairdo that was just for girls until the Italian footballers started doing it. “Cheers for the coffee, Jessie,” he said, putting the cup in the sink.

  “Am I not getting back?” said Ruby in a tiny little voice.

  “Hm?” said Gus. He’d forgotten, as much as he had on his mind.

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “Miss Colquhoun said she’d miss you so much she might come out on Saturday and see you. She’ll be sad every day until you’re back again.”

  “But this is Jessie’s day off,” said Gus, “and you get to stay here with her.”

  “No,” said Ruby.

  “You’ve got to, Roobs,” he said. “Daddy needs the car.”

  “Did Mummy take her car to heaven?” she said. I glanced at Gus. Where was Becky’s car? Still at the bottom of the drop? Police station? Junkyard?

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Stupid,” said Ruby. “In heaven, you can fly.”

  “Do you want some toast?” I said to Gus. “Listen, if you tell me where the van keys are, I’ll do some bits of shopping or whatever.”

  “The van’s not really … you can’t get both kids’ seats in it.”

  “Could you use it and I’ll take the car?” I asked him.

  “Does Mummy need her car to come and visit us?” said Ruby.

  “Mummy coming!” Dillon said.

  “Do we actually need any shopping?” said Gus.

  “Fine,” I said. “No problem. I’ll stay here till you’re back. Be great fun, eh kids? You can show me the best bits of the beach.”

  “When the shop’s open’s the best bit,” said Ruby. She gave her toast crust a look of distilled hatred and dropped it on the floor. “Mummy cuts them off, by the way.”

  “Bet Mummy doesn’t drop them on the floor, though,” I said.

  “Didn’t,” said Gus. “Mummy’s gone, Roobs.”

  “A puppy would eat them up,” Ruby said.

  “Yeay!” said Dillon. “Puppy-dog! Woof-woof.”

  “Can we get one, Dad? Can you look in the paper at the resky dogs? Maybe there’s a resky dog?”

  “I’m off,” said Gus. “See you tonight.”

  I followed him from the kitchen through the living room to the front door.

  “Tonight?” I said. “You think it’ll take all day?” I could have chewed off my tongue when I saw the look on his face, everything falling blank.

  “How long should I give it?” he said. “Persuading them to do a post-mortem, I mean. Before I call it quits?”

  “I’m sorry. I just hope they’re okay with me as long as that. I hope nothing happens that I can’t handle. Cos I don’t think they could take more bad stuff, you know.”

  He smiled. “Them?” he said. “They’ll be fine. I hope you’re okay. Don’t let Ruby walk all over you.”

  “Okay.” I leaned in to the hug he was offering. Easy, affectionate, not a trace of new, awkward feelings. I might as well have been handing him his packed lunch and reminding him we were having the Joneses over for bridge that night. Christ, I was even holding a tea towel.

  “What’s a resky dog?” I said.

  “Rescue,” said Gus. “For God’s sake, don’t read the adverts out the paper to her.”

  I nodded. “How does she even know about them?” I asked.

  “God knows,” said Gus and was gone. I wandered back through to the kitchen and put the tea towel over the rack. I’d babysit. I’d have another go at the milk stain on the couch—I’d noticed the sour smell, even stronger, as I passed through—but I wasn’t giving it Calamity Jane’s cabin all day long. Suddenly, playing houses—playing mummies and daddies—didn’t sit that easy. It was like I was in a dream and I kept waking up for a minute and seeing that it made no sense at all, but before I could shake it off I was asleep again.

  “So who told you about rescue puppies, Ruby-two-shoes?” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. “Mummy,” she said. “Come on, Dill. Let’s go and play.”

  I unstrapped Dillon and set him down, let them wander off with jammy hands and crumbs in the folds of their clothes. I wiped the table and the high-chair tray, shook the crumbs out the back door for the birds, thinking about a woman who would tend a garden and look for a puppy while she was planning to kill herself. A woman who would let herself get pregnant two more times after a depression that crushed her. Someone who would end her life instead of getting out of a marriage she was sick of.

  But she’d left a note.

  And who knows how it would feel to be married to someone that didn’t love you. Even a great guy like Gus. Or a moody bastard like Gus, who hated you asking anything he wasn’t ready to tell you. Which one was he, when you got right down to it, really?

  I stared out of the kitchen window, thinking of how he had told me he didn’t want to bring the novelty pen through the room, even in a bag. That’s who he was. And how could living with a guy like that be bad? I could just see one corner of the grey plastic lid. It was still in there. I felt a pulse starting to thump in my neck. Stupid bi—

  Then I stopped myself. Instead of that, I told myself: it’s hidden a
way and it can’t float out. It can’t hurt you. And for the first time in your life, you’ve got someone to help you. Someone even willing to give his kids a talking-to about it. So don’t waste his efforts and freak yourself out, eh?

  But I could feel the misery unrolling over me like fog. Gus had been great, but it wouldn’t last. He’d get sick of me like everyone always did. There’d be some day, some advert on the telly, or some fancy-dress costume, some daft comedy that suddenly had a slow-motion pillow fight where you could see them hit people’s face and they’d have them stuck to their eyelashes and be spitting them out of their mouths, and I’d lose it. And Gus would have had a long day or a bit of bad news or be stressed like last night (Did you switch that bloody monitor off when you were touching it?) and he’d wish that just for once I would give it a rest, and he’d roll his eyes or crack a joke and this lovely, impossible bubble would burst and then there’d be nothing.

  Unless. I could feel the blood draining out of my face and my hands turned cold. Unless I made the most of this miracle—having someone who cared—and tried again. There was a novelty pen, in a bag, in the wheeliebin, ten feet from where I was standing. I could open the lid and find out if the bag was see-through. If it was, I could look at what was inside and count to a hundred. And then tonight I could tell Gus what I’d done, and instead of so what I’d get a great big cheer.

  And if the bag wasn’t see-through, then at least I tried.

  I’d walk on the beach and I wouldn’t avoid the sticks and seaweed at the high tide line, which is where they always were. I wouldn’t look at them, like some OCD freak, and I wouldn’t look away from them either. I’d act like a normal person. And I’d tell Gus later how brave I’d been.

  “I’m just nipping out the back, kids,” I shouted. My voice was warbly with adrenalin; I sounded like a pigeon. There was no answer. I stepped outside into the porch and then outside again to where the wheelie stood against the wall, next to the wood store. I gripped the lip with both hands and breathed in and out.

  “Gus King cares about you,” I said out loud. “Sick timing, but it’s true. You’re not alone anymore. It’s all going to be okay.”

  I lifted the lid with my eyes screwed tight shut, then leaned over the rim and opened them.

  Twelve

  It was empty. No bag, see-through or otherwise. Nothing. Not so much as a sweetie wrapper. I let the lid fall again and rolled around to lean against the porch wall until my breathing settled.

  He had taken it away. I smiled at the thought of it, and a warm feeling started low in my stomach. Not one in a million people would know I’d be freaked out at the thought of it being there and take it away. Not even folk with problems of their own. Not even my sister-in-law, who was dead scared of heights. Especially not her, actually.

  “But the thing about”—she pointed upwards but couldn’t say the word—“is that you can … ” She pointed downwards and gave me a patient smile. “See? Whereas feathers”—oh, she could say that word okay—“can’t harm you at all. That’s just silly.”

  I had swivelled in my chair to stare at my mother. We were all sitting round the table having Sunday lunch together, for the benefit of Allan’s suitable new fiancée.

  “Yes, they can,” I said.

  Penny blinked and smiled, a flash of her eyes and a flash of her teeth for each one of us round the table, one after the other. My mother managed a bit of a smile back. My brother dropped his eyes. I kept up my hard look.

  “In a roundabout way, right enough,” I said. “But they caused me quite a lot of harm once, didn’t they Mum?”

  “They can’t have,” Penny said, patiently. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, Jessie likes nothing better than to spoil nice things,” my mother said. “She’ll never learn, no matter what lessons are sent to her. Take no notice, Penny. It’s not worth worrying about.”

  “True,” I said. “Not worth a worry. Not like dropping from a great height and going splat and crunching all your bones to rubble.”

  I got sent away from the table. Twenty-two I was, and I got sent to my room. I could hear my mother saying sorry and assuring Penny that she wouldn’t have to put up with me again. That poor Allan was too kind for his own good, but I just spoiled everything, been the same since I was a child. “Takes after my late husband,” my mother said. She always called him that. Late. Maybe she even believed it herself by now.

  “Jessie?”

  I looked down. Dillon was standing in the porch doorway, one foot on top of the other so that only one of his socks would get wet. “Done a poo,” he said. “A big one.”

  “Good!” I said. “Let’s see if it’s big enough to win a prize!”

  He giggled and held up his hands for me to lift him. I took a deep breath and held it, but it wasn’t so bad. Just kind of warm smelling, really.

  “I don’t even know where your changing box is,” I told him, carrying him inside. “Or if there’s a special bucket.” I stopped. Dillon was winding his fist into my hair, tugging it. “In fact, the bins must need emptied something chronic, eh?” I said. “Here’s the deal, Dill. I’ll change your bum and then you help me empty the buckets out to the wheelie, eh?”

  “Can I help too?” Ruby was standing in her bedroom doorway with her hairbrush in her hand. “If you do my bobbles?”

  “Deal, squeal, spit, and seal,” I said.

  “Squeal, squeal, squeal,” said Dillon, wriggling and releasing quite a lot more smell.

  “Dill’s got a wet sock, by the way,” Ruby said. “I’ll get some dry ones.”

  Turned out there were nappies in bags all over the house. It must have been a pretty powerful deodorant on them, not to mention airtight twist-ties, but still I was ashamed to think that I hadn’t gone round and cleared them before now, that they’d been piling up since Tuesday. In the basket in Ruby’s bedroom, in the tin bin in the living room, in the kitchen flip-top, in the white plastic bucket in the bathroom. Everywhere except Gus’s bedroom, in fact, and since the baby’s cot was in there it took me a while to believe it. I searched down the sides of the furniture and even in the bottom of the wardrobe (which was nuts), then I carted them out one by one and tipped them into the wheelie.

  “What day do the men come, Ruby?” I asked. “Do you know? Don’t want to miss them.”

  Ruby shook her head and held out her hairbrush and bobbles. “Wash your hands and do my bunches,” she said.

  “What’s the magic word?” It popped out automatically like I was a slot machine.

  “Now,” said Ruby. Then her small eyes filled up with tears. “You’re supposed to laugh. It’s a joke. It’s funny.”

  “Is that your joke with Mummy?” I asked. She nodded. Tears were falling down her cheeks, one after the other, faster and faster, and when I went and put my hand on the back of her head, she pressed her face against me and howled. Which started Dillon off too.

  “I’m sorry, hunny-bunny,” I said. I opened my mouth to say more, but what was there to say? She didn’t know me, and even I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t understand how asking about a post-mortem and organising a funeral could take Gus all day, even if he had to buy a suit to wear to it. But his face that morning when I had questioned him? I didn’t want to see that again. I stood holding them against me as they wept, looking down at the whorls of their hair, identical patterns on their little heads.

  “We need some chocolate,” I said. Not from being some kind of stupid Bridget Jones bimbo, but from remembering what totally mental, off-the-scale shit sweeties could sort for you when you were five. Me? I was well past the age when chocolate could help, but being the big one with the money who could buy it for the wee ones? That was pretty great too.

  The M&Ms were finished and the best the fridge had to offer was Babybel cheese. I checked inside the big pans, the butter bit in the fridge, the backs of the hi
gh cupboards—everywhere I’d have stashed it if it was me—and only found cream of tartar and mace, tins of Carnation milk and Devon custard, tangerine segments and packets of lemon jelly. I could make a sell-by-date trifle, I thought, sure that some of this stuff had to have been here since Granddad Dave was on the go. Why would Becky not have cleaned out the cupboards? She grew her own veg but didn’t chuck out the old stuff in the larder?

  Dillon’s coat was a solid wodge of padded nylon, and once he was trussed, I had no worries about him. Ruby’s was trimmed with fur and shiny pink and only reached the top of her thighs.

  “Have you got a pair of waterproof trousers?” I asked her. “I think it’s going to bucket.”

  “Wellies!” said Dillon.

  “You betcha,” I said. “You too, Ruby. And hats on, hoods up. No discussion.” That had worked when Gus had said it.

  The rain started when we were just about as far from the cottage as we were from the shop, no point turning back, since if we were going to get drenched we might as well get drenched for treats. Dillon was walking at forty-five degrees into the wind with his fringe plastered back over the outside of his anorak hood and his eyes watering. Ruby put her head down like a little bull and barrelled forward. I checked ahead of her for obstacles, but the beach was clear; she’d be okay. I took Dillon’s hand, cold and pink, and tried to tuck my hair inside my hood to stop it whipping across my face.

  “Hot baths when we get back,” I said. “Hot chocolate, jammies on, telly on, fire lit, cosy socks.”

  The children said nothing, just kept fighting their way into the wind towards the sweeties. I felt an enormous rush of what felt a lot like love for them both. Little kids doing what little kids do. No one telling them they were devils for wanting to do it. That wasn’t what she had said, not exactly. “Something devilish about you, Jessica,” is how she had put it. “From your father.”

  “What does that make you then?” I’d said. “You slept with him, not me.”

  And then she’d go on and on about how I was a test—my mother was big on tests and lessons; nothing just happened—and that she embraced God’s plan no matter what he sent her.