by Tamar Cohen
My handbag is on the mattress beside me, and a little frisson of guilt passes through me as I retrieve the small package. Ta-da! New knickers! I bought them on my lunch break today. I know I shouldn’t have (the TV bill!) but I just couldn’t resist. At least it’s only underwear, not a new pair of shoes or a dress or anything. There’s something about putting on a new pair of knickers, especially silky black ones with pink spots and a pink bow at the back that come wrapped in tissue paper from a shop that definitely isn’t Marks & Spencer, that makes you feel instantly sexy, which is just as well because Simon and I have a lot of catching up to do!
It’s not really about sex, though—well, not just about sex. Whenever Simon comes home after being away, I almost feel like I have to reclaim him. I know that sounds mad (when I told Jules she said it was “sick”), but I can’t help it. I don’t feel relaxed until we’ve been to bed and I’ve taken him back, so to speak, like a dog marking its territory. Sometimes I think it’s to do with me being so young when we first met. I hadn’t long got out of that adolescent stage of writing my name in books or anything else I could get my hands on. (I’ve noticed Sadie does it, too, always very neatly, unlike her usual writing. I think it’s a girl thing.) As I was the youngest of three sisters, there wasn’t much in our house that hadn’t already been claimed with someone else’s name, so it seemed extra important to me. I even had a special pen I used—a fine-tipped, blue-ink pen—and I’d practice my writing in rough beforehand, to make sure I got it right. Maybe that’s what I’m doing with Simon—writing my name on him all over again. I hope he’s not knackered out, like he sometimes is when he gets home from a stint away. I hate that. It reminds me of the fifteen-year age gap, which is one of those things like pensions and life insurance that I can’t bear thinking about.
“You’ll wind up being his carer,” my mum charmingly pointed out when I rang to confess we’d got married on a beach in Goa, with just a couple of newly made friends for witnesses. That was another thing that bothered my mum.
“Why couldn’t you get married in a church like normal people?”
I did try to explain how Simon had been engaged once to a woman who’d made such a song and dance about the bloody wedding that he’d been put off them for life. That’s partly why he was so relieved to meet me, because I’ve never really been one of those big-white-meringue-dress kind of girls. While I’ve always loved owning nice things, I never wanted to own a husband, not even a nice one. Being bridesmaid at both my sisters’ weddings was quite enough for me, thank you very much, especially as Jules’s wedding ended in divorce within eighteen months—she was still paying off the loan for the dress when she was signing the bloody divorce papers. I can’t think of anything worse than stressing about seating plans and whether the bridesmaids’ flowers match the groom’s cummerbund. We probably wouldn’t have bothered to get married at all if we hadn’t been living in Dubai, where you really don’t want to go having a baby out of wedlock.
Now Sadie’s older, of course, I can understand why Mum worried so much. When your children are younger you think you want to raise them to make their own choices, but gradually you realize what you really mean is the right choices, your choices.
I wish Mum had lived long enough to see how happy we’ve been, Simon and I. Not that we haven’t had our bad patches, and some spectacular rows—especially in the beginning when I was so insecure about him being away all the time and needed constant confirmation that he wasn’t about to go looking for someone else whenever he got lonely. But on the whole we’ve been happy, and it upsets me that Mum never got to see it. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the thing you miss most when someone dies, not so much the person themselves as the things they’ll never know about you and what’s happened in your life. The you they’ll never meet.
Every now and then it does cross my mind that Simon and I might get married all over again back here, in a proper church wedding. I’d love a big party with all our friends and my dad and sisters, and Sadie, of course, but it isn’t a big deal. When we first met, Simon loved how unconventional I was about things like that compared to his ex-fiancée, Selina. Even her name is prissy! Apparently, she was totally insecure and status driven, and incredibly possessive. I’ll never understand how he ended up with someone like that. Even though he finished with her years before we got together, I’ve always made a point of being everything I imagine she isn’t—even though I admit sometimes I’ve had to bite my lip a bit.
Like about him getting that new contract just after we’d moved back to London, which means he now spends just as much time away as before. I can’t really complain, seeing as he only took it to pay for the move and because the market in Dubai was so crappy, and as Seleeeeena would obviously have thrown a hissy fit about something like that, I had to try to take it in stride. Well, mostly.
Anyway, the one good thing about his going away is his coming back! He should be here any minute!
My phone rings while I’m cracking the eggs into the pan. I’ve got Adele playing at top volume, so I have to strain to hear what the unfamiliar voice is saying.
“Lottie? It’s Chris.”
“Chris who?”
I’m already cursing myself for answering. All I want to do is get this bloody Spanish tortilla out of the way for Sadie. (When is she ever going to grow out of this vegetarian phase—and where the hell is she anyway?) Simon and I will get a takeaway or something later. (Sometimes I wish I was the kind of woman who could throw together a lovely home-cooked welcoming meal, but fuck that for a game of soldiers at the end of an eight-hour shift! Anyway, Simon doesn’t mind. He calls me his undomestic goddess. “Just as well she’s good in bed or I’d have to chuck her,” he joked the last time I attempted to cook dinner for friends—a risotto that looked and tasted like wallpaper paste.)
My impatience must be obvious, because the voice on the other end of the phone goes all tight and thin like a skewer.
“Griffiths,” he replies. “You remember?”
“Oh, my God!”
I’m so surprised that it comes out as a kind of squawk. What the hell does Chris Griffiths want? I haven’t seen him in aeons. I start babbling like a complete lunatic to cover my embarrassment, as I always do, but he butts in, and his voice is now all tight and awkward. All of a sudden I have a vivid image of him standing in the doorway of my old flat, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot, and I feel sorry for him. He was always so socially uncomfortable.
“I found your sister Emma through Facebook of all things,” he said, making Facebook sound like something from Mars. “She messaged me your number. I just wanted to say how sorry I am. About Simon, I mean.”
The phone is tucked uncomfortably under my chin, and I’m conscious of the oil still spluttering angrily in the pan. I think about turning the sound down, but my iPod dock is out of reach on the table, balancing on a pile of Sadie’s schoolbooks. The place is a tip. Funny how when you live with mess you don’t notice it, but then something unusual will happen that shifts you out of your normal perspective, like an old boyfriend phoning out of the blue, and all of a sudden you’re seeing the things you don’t normally see. Like the empty pizza boxes on the chair, and all the stuff for the recycling heaped on top of the wooden counter next to the sink.
“What do you mean?”
It’s the weirdest thing, but I start to have this tingling feeling, like an anaesthetic working its way through my body. Chris’s voice, when he replies, is even more awkward than before, if that’s even possible. “Our old boss at the property mag Simon and I worked on all those years ago sent an email round this morning saying Simon was... Well, he had...you know...died. I know we didn’t part on the best terms, but I really was...that is to say, I really am...terribly sorry.”
The oil is crackling ferociously now, and I turn it down absently while my brain tries to sort out what’s been said. Obviously, there’s
been a horrible mistake, but that awful word died is bouncing around my skull making it impossible to focus.
“I don’t have a clue what you’re on about.”
Is it some sort of sick joke? Chris Griffiths was always on the odd side. I try to see how it could be funny, but there’s a horrible black shape forming in the back of my mind, and the tingling is getting worse.
“Simon’s on his way home. He’ll be here any minute. He’s been away.”
But my mind keeps replaying the “this phone is currently switched off” message I’ve been getting every time I try to call.
“He quite often has his phone off when he’s away,” I add unnecessarily, wishing Chris Griffiths would just go away so that I can get rid of this bloody black cloud mushrooming in my mind.
“Look, Lottie, I don’t know what’s going on. If I’ve made a mistake, I’m really sorry and embarrassed, but the email was very specific. It even included information about the funeral tomorrow. Oh, God, this is just so awful.”
“Well, why don’t you get straight back to whoever sent that horrible email, and find out exactly what they’re playing at? It’s obviously a mix-up, or some stupid joke, but tell them to get their bloody facts right next time.”
As I press the off button on the phone, I’m suddenly aware of a sticky warmth in my right hand. Then clear liquid begins trickling through my fingers. I gaze transfixed at the remains of the egg I’ve been holding in my palm.
Oh, God. Oh God Oh God Oh God. There’s now a pool of yellow-stained albumen on the wooden kitchen floor. If I focus on that, I can block out any other thoughts.
Where’s my asthma inhaler? Where is it? Thank God.
Press and gulp. Breathe. Breathe.
I need to talk to someone. I need to hear a reassuring voice tell me that Simon is where he should be, doing what he should be doing. But even as I’m scrolling madly through my phone contacts, I’m realizing that there’s no one. Simon’s working life in Dubai is pretty much a solo operation, so there are no work colleagues I can call, and all our friends here are really mine. Like most men, Simon’s useless at keeping in touch with people from way back, and his parents are both dead, so no help there. I can feel a ball of panic building inside me. If I stay here, staring at the mess of egg on the floor, I’m going to explode.
In desperation I ring Jules, although if she starts spouting any of that self-help-book crap I’ll hang up, I swear to God.
“Oh, fuck, babes, that’s awful.” My sister’s voice is squeaky with shock and indignation. “Don’t worry, Chris Griffiths always did have a screw loose. I’m sure Simon will walk through the door any minute. You’ve just got to have faith, hon.”
I’m glad now that I called. Of course it’s a mistake. I’m so stupid sometimes, always jumping in when I should hold back and analyze a little more.
“I do have faith,” I say, not wanting to tell her about the black shape at the back of my skull or the hammering of my heart in my chest. “I’d know if something had happened to Simon. I’d know deep down.”
“Absolutely, babes. There’s such an amazing connection between the two of you, something would have told you if he’d...gone. Just keep those positive thoughts going.”
All of a sudden there’s a beeping noise. Another call coming in. Simon—finally! My heart jumps right into my mouth, and I cut Jules off without a word.
“Hello?” I shout. “Simon?”
But the voice isn’t the one I’m longing for.
“Sorry, no. It’s Chris again.”
His voice has always sounded like that. Nervous and trembly. I mustn’t start reading anything into it. It’s the way he’s always been.
“Look, Lottie, I don’t know how to tell you this. I wish to God I didn’t have to. But I’ve spoken to Bill, who sent the email. He says there’s definitely no mistake. I’m so sorry, but it seems Simon really is... God, this is so horrible. He really is...dead.”
My head is shaking, even before he has finished speaking. Stupid. Chris Griffiths was always stupid, and always, always jealous of Simon. He never forgave him for all that business. Trust him to get the wrong end of the stick. Trust him to get it all wrong.
“I’d know. The police would have told me. Someone has to identify a body. Someone has to arrange a funeral. You’re talking rubbish. I don’t know why you’re talking such rubbish. I would have been told.” Chris makes a noise that’s halfway between a groan and a cry, and for some reason it makes me hate him.
“I’ll forward you the funeral details. What’s your email?” To my astonishment, I hear my own voice obediently trotting out my email address quite as if there isn’t a fucking great tsunami churning everything up inside me, turning me liquid.
“I’ll send it now. Oh, God, Lottie, please believe how sorry—”
But Chris’s sympathy is lying in the puddle of egg, and now I’m on my knees, watching the yolk seep into the denim of my jeans and trying to close my thoughts down one by one so I don’t have to think about what he’s said.
“He’s wrong,” I repeat like a mantra. “He’s wrong. He’s wrong, he’s wrong.” Simon is on his way back from Dubai. Even now he’s in a taxi somewhere, getting closer. He’s probably had the driver’s entire life story already—so maddening, that compulsion to get perfect strangers to open up.
I have no idea how long I remain like that, but at some point the doorbell rings, and I fall into Jules’s arms on the doorstep, almost sending us both crashing to the floor.
“He’s wrong,” I tell her. “He’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s wrong.”
And now Jules is logging on to my emails, bright red hair falling over her eyes, and opening up the one from Chris Griffiths. And there’s a funeral notice, and the name Simon Busfield jumps out like something in a horror film. There’s also a newspaper snippet. Fragments embed themselves in my fogged mind like shrapnel. “Drowned... Police still investigating...”
I’m making a noise like cattle make when they’re scared, and now Sadie is coming in, and Jules is trying to explain to her what is happening and why her mother is lowing like a cow. I watch as my daughter’s face, which is Simon’s face, crumples in on itself, and now I’m staring at the bony ridge of her back through her T-shirt as she bends double over the rug, shoulders heaving, retching. “It’s a mistake,” I tell her, as Jules runs to get a cloth, but deep down I know it isn’t. And all of a sudden I’m running through the flat like a mad woman, looking for Simon in every room. In the studio in the garden, I fall to the pine-boarded floor and curl up like a broken thing. Finally, I allow the black shape to overwhelm me. I’m waiting for Simon to come and find me and tell me that everything will be okay.
He doesn’t come.
3
SELINA
The thing about grief is it doesn’t exempt you from normal life as you somehow imagine it should.
There are moments when I feel my insides going into spasm as if someone is grabbing hold of my guts and twisting. Then the next moment I’m putting out the bins, or answering the door to the gas-meter man, or plucking a stray hair from my chin, or taking Walter for a walk or any of the other myriad tedious chores that make up my daily life.
“You’re so incredible, the way you just get on with things,” Hettie said when she walked in just now and found me emptying the glasses from the top shelf of the dishwasher.
For heaven’s sake, who does she think is going to do it? The dishwasher fairies? Hettie is my closest friend—it’s inconceivable to me that she can’t tell from looking at my face that barely ten minutes ago I was curled up over there in the corner of the kitchen, rocking back and forth on the Chinese black-slate, hand-cut floor tiles and wailing like a banshee.
It’s been six days since Simon’s death (funny how I can say death or since he died, but not dead. Never dead. It’s somethi
ng about that word and how it sounds, the dreadful finality of that one harsh syllable with its thudding d at the end), and I don’t even recognize my own life anymore. I mean, obviously it’s still my life—my friends are still my friends, my children are still my children, but it’s as if someone has taken my life and rotated it ninety degrees so it’s all fractionally and eerily different, like when you get out of a familiar lift one floor too early.
“I don’t really have a choice,” I tell Hettie. “When it comes to getting on with things, I mean.”
“Yes, but lots of other women would be in bits on the day of their husband’s funeral. No one would blame you in the slightest if you were a complete basket case!”
I don’t know how I’d have managed without Hettie these past six days, but now I can’t help wondering if she isn’t a tiny bit disappointed about how well I’m coping, outwardly at least. Not that she wants to see me falling apart or anything, but I suppose there’s something a bit spoil-sporty about a stoic widow on the day of her husband’s funeral. Widow! The word slices right through me. I’ve always loved being a wife, loved being introduced as Simon’s wife. In the early days, when he was still working on the magazine, I used to ring the office sometimes even if I knew he was out, just to say to the secretary, “Tell him it’s his wife,” just for an excuse to say the word. How can I bear a lifetime of being a widow instead?
“Ian will be here in an hour or so,” Hettie says. “I wanted to come early. To give you support.”
I notice that Hettie’s brown eyes have dark red rings around them as if she’s been wearing too-tight ski goggles. It’s not surprising she’s taking it so badly. She and Ian have been our oldest friends since university days. Yet somehow it seems to me that Hettie is wearing her mourning like a badge, and her red-ringed eyes feel like a rebuke. I have the maddest urge suddenly to turn myself inside out so that Hettie can see what I’m really feeling. Like that awful building in Paris with all the internal pipework on the outside. I want to reach inside myself and pull out a random handful of grief and thrust it under her nose. See? I’d say. See now?
