How to Say Goodbye

by Katy Colins

‘B-b-but, she was married! You know her husband. You did that work of art for her?’ Too many questions forming before I could keep up with them.

  I thought back to the impressive sculpture he was working on in his studio. It wasn’t a figure of eight but a larger replica of the love knot. This twisted metal had been staring me in the face all along. It wasn’t a new project; it was for a woman who would never get to see it.

  ‘That’s how we met. She’d seen my work in a magazine and got in touch to commission a piece for herself. I ask all my clients to come in for a chat and we just hit it off. I present at different art colleges across the country, attend art fairs quite regularly, and she travelled a lot with work…’

  So it was easy for them to be together without anyone knowing. I had already heard too much. I should have asked him to leave. Callum’s face swam in my mind, my loyalty to him far outweighing the pleading look Daniel was giving me. But I was also desperately curious to know more.

  ‘Did no one ever get suspicious?’ I breathed.

  ‘You can get away with anything if no one is paying you any attention.’

  ‘How long did it go on?’

  ‘Two and a half years.’

  So, for half of her marriage to Callum she’d been secretly seeing another man. So much for Mel’s suspicions that something had been going on with Owen.

  ‘She wasn’t happy in her marriage, Grace. I didn’t steal her from her husband if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Her husband; he couldn’t even bring himself to say Callum’s name. ‘I know what we did was wrong, but the more time we spent together the more we realised that we had found what we were looking for in one another.’

  ‘So why didn’t you just come clean? Why didn’t she end her marriage if she was that unhappy?’

  He sighed deeply, he looked exhausted. ‘She couldn’t just give it all up for a penniless artist –’

  ‘Pfft!’ I couldn’t stop myself. I’d seen how much his pieces went for. How he clearly made enough money to gallivant around the country, sleeping with another man’s wife. I doubted they stayed in cheap motels.

  ‘OK, not penniless exactly.’ He shifted on his feet. ‘But it was more complicated than that. Abbie was part of that glam world, she needed to be for her work. It was only going to be for another year or so and then…’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Well, we were planning to be together officially.’

  I wanted to thrust my hands over my ears and not hear another word.

  ‘Grace, we weren’t just having an affair. We were in love.’

  The small room closed in on us. His body no longer had the strength to keep the bravado in place. He crumpled onto the sofa as he let out belly-shaking sobs. As if on autopilot I passed him some tissues to wipe his eyes and blow his nose.

  ‘Thank you. God, that feels like such a release.’ He tried to smile sadly, snot glistened at the tip of his red nose.

  Something came to me. ‘The flowers.’

  He looked up from scrunching the damp tissue in his hands.

  ‘The expensive bouquet. They were from you. You didn’t leave a note on the flowers for her funeral.’

  ‘I did. I wrote her a message, but I took it off and burnt it.’

  I felt all wobbly and nauseous. ‘That night… the night she died…’

  ‘She was with me.’

  Of course. That’s why she was on the back roads not far from the Stables Studios. It was all making horrible sense.

  ‘She came to my studio a lot. The space was our little hideaway. That night…’ He swallowed and tried to catch his breath. ‘That night she came over after dropping her mate off –’

  Owen. The rumours were half true. Abbie had been with another man but it wasn’t her colleague. Callum had also been right: she hadn’t just gone straight home, she’d headed to her and Daniel’s love-nest.

  ‘She said she’d had a row with her husband. She didn’t ever want to go back to him. But we had this plan. We just weren’t ready to come out in public just yet. I needed to end the rent on my studio, build up enough work before we could suddenly change our lives so much. I told her to keep pretending like normal. She just had to wait a few more months…’ He balled his fists to his eyes. ‘If her husband had found out about us he could have divorced her and taken everything. We both needed to get enough saved and in place for our new life together. We’d even talked about moving abroad, so she could be closer to her parents. When the time came, we wanted them to help out with grandchildren.’

  ‘Grandchildren! You planned to have a baby together?’ My voice rose, the pounding in my head threatening to knock me out.

  He simply nodded.

  I thought of the way Callum doted on his nephews. How desperate Mel had said he’d been to become a dad, and how he had learnt to accept that fate had played a different hand. For better or worse.

  ‘She was going to save up as much as she could. Leave him with the house and move in with me. We would finally become this family, but then…’ He raised a clenched fist to his mouth. The tears flowing once more.

  But then she died.

  Leaving him the only one in the world who knew their sordid secret.

  The woman I’d created in my mind, whose perfect life I’d pored over online, and whose grieving husband I’d comforted, had been one massive lie. She’d fooled everyone.

  ‘But now it’s all been snatched away from me.’ He blew his nose noisily. ‘And the worst part? I didn’t get to say goodbye. I can’t even grieve for the woman I loved. I don’t have that right. I have to deal with how my world has been shattered, all the joy stolen from it, on my own.’

  I felt lost for words.

  ‘Can you imagine how that feels, Grace? What we did was wrong but we were committed to each other, it wasn’t some one-night stand or dirty affair. I loved her more than anything, and now no one knows what I’ve lost, no one knows what’s been wiped out in a split second with nothing but memories to keep me going to try and survive this.’

  Apart from me. In more ways than one, I knew…

  Chapter 32

  Daniel had left me alone in my flat, which had somehow turned into a confessional booth, me promising that his secret was safe with me, for now. I couldn’t process everything I’d learnt that evening, let alone make a decision on what I was going to do with his sordid information.

  I needed time to think.

  Callum had been grieving for someone he didn’t really know. I felt a rage burning inside. How could Abbie have done that to him? Strung him along, like his affections and devotion meant nothing? How had I ever wanted to be like her?

  I touched my hair, mortified at my own foolish stupidity in thinking that Andre would transform me into a version of Abbie, and that all my problems would melt away. Abbie had clearly been storing a cupboard full of skeletons but, as one of only two people on the planet who knew the extent of her betrayal, what was I going to do?

  Daniel may have felt better after unloading, but I felt like I’d been in a boxing ring all night. My head was pounding. I’d barely slept. My tired eyes were itchy and full of grit. Every muscle ached in my weary body. I rolled over and pulled up the duvet, hiding the morning sun that streamed in through the curtains. I’d told Daniel to give me space. Little did he know just which memory vault this had wrenched open. My past taunted me. Painful memories that I’d boxed away, locked and hidden, were trying to spill open.

  I couldn’t let that happen, not after all this time.

  *

  I sank further into my chair, overwhelmed at the mess piling up on my desk, half listening to Linda telling me about what she’d got up to at the weekend.

  It struck me that I should have let Linda look after the Andersons after all. Linda would have planned a traditional service, let Callum get on with his life, and not interfered in his grief. No one would be any wiser about the double life his perfect wife had been living.

  How could I even begin to explain to Callum
how I had learnt of Abbie’s infidelity? I’d only discovered the truth because I’d been obsessing over the tiny details of Abbie’s ‘perfect’ life. It was such a mess. I mean, who did that? Who got so consumed with a woman they would never properly meet, that they prowled her social media in a bid to be more like her? The laughable thing was that it was all so fake. The smiling couple’s dinner parties, the loved-up selfies, the honeymoon albums and heartfelt posts. Whose benefit were they really for?

  I felt humiliated. I’d wanted to steal some of Abbie’s confidence for my own life. I’d tried to be braver and bolder because of her. I’d opened up about my son to the rest of Grief Club, thinking I had the capability to be a stronger version of myself. I shook my head. Who had I been trying to kid? Trying someone else’s life on for size. It clearly didn’t fit.

  I needed to see a friendly face, someone whose advice I trusted. I wouldn’t have to wait long to see Ms Norris at Grief Club, but until then I needed to keep busy with work and try not to think about the dilemma Daniel had placed me in.

  ‘So, how are things with you and your new squeeze?’ Linda asked, breaking my sorry thoughts.

  I frowned at her.

  She had this odd sort of smile on her face. ‘Mr Anderson…’

  I clenched my teeth. ‘Like I’ve told you before, there’s nothing going on with me and Mr Anderson.’

  I sharply turned in my chair and forced myself not to rise to her bait.

  ‘Grace?’ Frank’s deep voice rang out. ‘Have you got a minute, please?’

  Frank rarely called us into his office, apart from for team meetings. He preferred to lean against the back wall by our desks, giving himself a break from the many emails and legal documents he had to sift throught.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I hovered uncertainly in the doorway. There was something in the way he was looking at me that made me feel uneasy.

  What if he’d overheard Linda’s suggestion that there was something between me and Callum?

  ‘Take a seat please.’

  He cleared his throat as I perched on the edge of a chair.

  ‘Is everything OK, Frank?’

  He sighed sadly. ‘Grace, I’m afraid I have some bad news.’ He had gone really pale. ‘Ms Norris has passed away.’

  I felt like I’d been punched. My head shot up. ‘What?’

  ‘I know you two had built up a bit of a friendship in the time of her frequent visits here. I’m terribly sorry, Grace.’

  ‘A-a-are you sure?’

  I felt stupid as soon as I asked. Why would he lie to me? My brain scrabbling for this to be an awful prank. No. No, this can’t be true. I was going to see her at the next Grief Club, she was going to help me fix this mess of tangled lies I’d found myself in.

  He nodded solemnly. ‘I’m sure.’

  I swallowed and tried to let this news filter in. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  Frank sighed deeply. ‘She had a fall. She was out walking her dog when it happened. Hit her head quite badly. You know how fragile people get at that age…’

  I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from showing how much it hurt. I nodded along, trying to take it in. Ms Norris had seemed like she was made of steel. Tears pricked my eyes, but I wasn’t going to cry, I had to remain professional. I blinked them away and picked up a paperclip from the table, rolling it around between my finger and thumb, unable to look at Frank.

  ‘… She didn’t regain consciousness. Bleeding on the brain, apparently. I’m so sorry.’ He sighed and pressed his fingers into steeples. ‘It’s now a case of bringing together everything that you two discussed and making sure we follow her wishes. I’m more than happy to ask Linda to step in, as it may be too difficult for you?’

  ‘No! I mean, no, I would like to look after Ms Norris, thank you.’

  Frank kept his eye on me. I realised he looked exhausted. ‘There’s no shame in letting others help, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ My voice was barely more than a whisper. Don’t take this away from me. This is what I do best.

  ‘I can do it, Frank. I’m OK, I promise.’ I smiled as tightly and brightly as I could muster.

  The tears would come later, but I was grateful that I could keep it together to prove to him that there was nothing to worry about. There was no way I was going to let Linda handle Ms Norris, no matter how tough it would be.

  ‘I understand your admirable work ethic, but I also have a duty of care for my staff. I remember looking after my first prepaid funeral; she was actually a bit like Ms Norris,’ he mused. ‘Miss Archibald. Always popping in to make small amends. I think she was just terribly lonely.’ He sighed, lost in the memory. ‘I wanted to give her the send-off she deserved, but by that point she had become like a grandmotherly figure to me. So when it came to it, I had to let my colleagues step in. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t do the same. It’s OK if you need help.’

  We had a very strict policy that if anything was upsetting us then we had to air it. I’d never needed to use that before, and I wasn’t about to start then.

  ‘Thanks, Frank. But I really would like to do this for her.’

  ‘Alright, but you know that we’re both here to help if it does get a little too much.’

  I shut his office door behind me, before hurrying to the bathroom. I turned on the taps to hide the noise of the unsightly sobs racking my chest.

  I’d only seen her last week. I blew my nose on the scratchy toilet paper and tried to calm down. No, wait, it hadn’t been last week. It slowly dawned on me as my breathing evened out: I’d missed a couple of Grief Clubs as I’d been busy with Callum’s garden, and then I’d had that awkward drink with Daniel, then he’d turned up with that painting. The last time I saw her was over three weeks ago.

  Three weeks since I had last spoken to her. I hadn’t even noticed that she’d not come into the office like she’d said she was going to. A wave of sickening guilt rolled up my body. I blew my nose and swallowed the painful lump in my throat. How could I not have noticed her lack of visits?

  I knew the answer. Abbie Anderson. This woman had been a thief of time, energy and emotion. I had uncovered things I wished I never knew. I’d forgotten about those close to me. All because of being so desperate to uncover a truth that was best left unknown. I shredded toilet paper between my trembling fingers. My circle of friends had just shrunk even smaller, and I was to blame.

  I vowed that I would be in charge of giving Ms Norris the send-off she deserved, even if this meant trying to ignore the awful realisation that the perfect goodbye means nothing if we don’t get to tell the person what they mean to us while they’re still alive.

  Chapter 33

  I could do this. Then why was it so difficult to let go of the handle and enter the room?

  The last few days since the upsetting news had been busy. I’d lost myself in the welcome whirlwind of tasks I needed to tick off, keeping my mind focussed on Ms Norris only. But I had been putting off one task for long enough. I got a grip of myself and walked in, closing the door gently behind me. The calming dove-grey walls and luxurious padded carpet, which your feet immediately sank into, made it feel like a little haven.

  An exquisite stained-glass feature stood in the place of a window, letting warmth and light in. There was also always a side lamp switched on. It stood on a small driftwood table, which had religious texts tucked into its elegantly carved shelves. The only sound in this room was a fan, keeping the air at an exact temperature. The thick walls blocked out any sound from the outside. It felt like you were in a perfectly safe vacuum. Usually I enjoyed being in there, but that day I would have rather been anywhere else.

  I padded to the coffin that stood in the centre of the room. It was raised on a metal bed, covered by a silky, deep purple sheet. I took a deep breath and gently lifted the heavy wooden lid. Lying inside was my friend.

  She had been embalmed, as per her wishes, wanting to look like she was sleeping. Ms Norris’s eyes were closed. A light powde
red foundation added colour to her round cheeks, a wand of black mascara waved over her grey eyelashes. Her hair and make-up had been left to the expert team at the mortuary. There was the slightest stain of coral lipstick on her thin lips, and a flick of peachy blusher down her cheekbones. She looked magnificent. A bubble of emotion threatened to rise to the surface as I looked at her. She would be so relieved she hadn’t been made up like a drag queen. She was wearing Dior, as she’d requested many months ago. A neat spotty blouse with extravagant necktie was tucked into an expertly tailored skirt that skimmed over her plump middle. I picked off a loose thread from her sleeve, noting that her short square nails had a lick of clear varnish on.

  ‘You won’t believe how wonderful you look,’ I said to her. ‘I promise to make sure everything you wanted is be achieved.’ My voice sounded funny, slightly off-key, as I spoke. ‘I’m really sorry I let you down. I should have checked on you sooner and noticed that you’d not been in to see me. I’m so angry at myself for that.’

  I missed her so much more than I ever thought I would. A realisation that did little to comfort me, only to bring frustration that I couldn’t ever tell her how much she’d meant to me.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll pop in and check on you again soon, in case you feel a little lonely…’ Tears were beginning to make themselves known.

  I lowered the lid and walked out of the room. Knowing that she was there and counting on me spurred me on to get cracking with the workload. Ms Norris would get the send-off she deserved. If I couldn’t make my failings up to her in life, then I would in death.

  *

  ‘Grace?’ Frank boomed over the noise of the coffee machine. I’d left Ms Norris to it, and was about to get stuck in with the rest of my to-do list, after a cup of coffee. ‘Can I have a word? In my office.’

  ‘Is everything OK, Frank?’ I asked, hesitantly pulling out a chair.

  Frank rubbed his eyes behind his glasses. ‘Grace, something has come to my attention that I’m struggling to piece together.’

  ‘Oh?’

  I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. Cold tingles ran up my fingers. I clasped my hands together under the desk.