How to Say Goodbye

by Katy Colins

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he nodded but his eyes said the opposite.

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you need me…’

  He pulled open the front door. Every fibre of me wanted to stay. To stay trapped in the bubble we’d created – gardening and laughing and being in denial at what the world had thrown at us. But that bubble had popped. We couldn’t hide from the world any longer. We both needed to jump feet-first into our respective griefs, and deal with it all head-on, as traumatic as it may be.

  ‘Take care, Callum.’

  He would pack a bag, put the bins out and lock the door. I didn’t know when he would set foot in this town again, or when I would see him again. The thought almost broke me in two. As I walked away I realised what I’d been putting off for long enough. I knew what I needed to do, as painful as it was going to be.

  Chapter 41

  Fear gripped my throat. All you have to do is get to the other side of the road. That’s it, easy peasy. My brain coaxed me but my body remained frozen rigid. I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. My breath was coming out in strangled starts. I stood motionless between two lanes of traffic. Hovering on the concrete island as cars whizzed past. Horns beeping, people laughing, songs from radios blaring. Black spots appeared at the edges of my vision. I blinked once, twice, hoping to shift them. I was feeling light-headed, not helped by the rush of heat that throbbed up my catatonic body.

  Why was everyone else acting so normal? Two school kids messing about to my right. An older woman on her phone bleating about Andy not calling, again. A skinny black lad shouting out something to someone over the road. The smell of cigarette smoke. They all effortlessly moved forward when the green man flashed up, but still I remained stuck in the middle.

  Drivers sniggered as they waited for the light to change. I could feel their eyes on me. Red double deckers, white vans, Uber drivers, cyclists, taxi cabs, sleek Mercs revving pointlessly as they drove past. Another lot of pedestrians joined me. I swallowed the saliva pooled in my mouth, willing this terrifying sensation to end. I was going to collapse. I was going to have a heart attack and fall into the road, into the path of an oncoming car. More eyes on me. People jostling and two men in sportswear nipping between a lull in the traffic, ignoring angry horns beeping at their stupidity.

  That was the reason I’d left this place. The people, the noise, the constant movement, all too much to take after what had happened. My foggy brain unable to cope with such never-ending stimulus. I gritted my teeth and tried to stay strong, not let myself be dragged under by another panic attack. There was a reason I’d come all this way. I had to pull myself together and focus on that. As the traffic slowed I used every ounce of energy to move my feet like those around me, who made it seem effortless.

  I made it to the other side. My legs were pure jelly. I tumbled backwards, grazing my arms against a brick wall trying to support myself. I felt like I’d run a marathon, my hands were shaking and clammy with sweat. I stared at the pavement, focussing on the cluster of weeds poking out of the cracks. A cigarette stub was being climbed over by a woodlouse. My breathing was slowly returning to normal. I needed to pick up my pace and get it over with, so I could be on the next train out of there, back home to sleepy Ryebrook where I belonged.

  *

  My feet instinctively knew where to take me. I’d walked the route so many times before. I still wasn’t entirely sure if going there was going to make any difference to the healing process that I needed to embark on, but it had to be worth a shot. I took a left and then a right, past the tiny deli on the corner, surprised it was still there. I stopped and craned my neck. Looming in front of me was my old place of work. Our office was on the sixth floor of the twelve-floor glass building. The co-working hub in reception still existed, bright pops of colour from trendy pods and curved sofas visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  I could close my eyes and smell the air freshener the cleaners used. Imagine my feet treading on the patterned carpets. Within seconds I was back there. The day I stepped out of the lift. I was probably going back much too soon after what had happened; the doctor had offered to give me a sick note but I needed to keep busy. I could always go home early if it got too much. It took me a while to pick up on the atmosphere. My senses heightened seeing Mitchell with his arm around a woman who was crying silently on his shoulder, his face pale. Something bad had happened. Another two employees had their heads low, shaking them sorrowfully. Henry’s name flashed in my mind. It was as if I knew before I knew.

  My breath quickened. Stop being stupid, I told myself. I hadn’t spoken to him that morning as he’d been at an event which would have gone on till the early hours. I was pulling my phone out, about to message him, when I overheard Tasha tearfully say how she didn’t know all the details, that they were all in shock. Everything slowed down as I watched her mouth move.

  ‘Mr Clarke, yes. It’s just such an awful tragedy.’

  Henry Clarke. I was right. Something had happened to Henry. Had there been an accident? Was he in hospital? I kept watching her mouth move.

  ‘He passed away this morning. So sudden.’

  Henry is dead, Henry is dead, Henry is dead.

  The words were wrong, all wrong. Someone had made a mistake, a cruel and horrific mistake. I couldn’t breathe. Panic gripped my throat, its sharp fingertips digging into the base of my neck. My lungs were constricted with terror. She rushed over and picked me up from the floor. I’d fallen without realising. The sound of my blood rushing in my ears drowned out everything else.

  A tangle of arms and firm, cool hands moved me to a chair that had appeared. Concerned faces peering down at me. A bottle of lukewarm water with the lid off, thrust in my hand, someone ordering me to take a minute to catch my breath.

  The next few days were a blur as I managed to piece together what had happened. After the event, Henry and some work mates had gone for a few drinks at a bar by the canal. He didn’t want to share a taxi back to the hotel, said he would walk instead. His body was pulled from the water by two locals walking their dog. They tried to save him, one began CPR, but it was too late. The dog walkers were now in counselling and Henry was dead. Death by drowning. An accident, a horrific accident.

  There should have been better lights along the canal, a bungling council cut no doubt. No lifebuoy to throw to him. Students probably nicked it on a night out, thinking they were having a laugh. Nothing anyone could do. Numbed by alcohol, he wouldn’t have been able to reach the side of the dirty water, his body in shock from the cold waters. It was too deep, even for confident swimmers.

  ‘Grace?’ I had to do a double-take at the plump woman waving at me as she approached.

  I had been crying without realising. I hurriedly wiped my cold cheeks and swallowed the lump in my throat. I hadn’t even heard her call my name until she came close enough for me to realise who it was. Tasha Birtwell.

  ‘Oh my god! I thought it was you!’ she screeched, flashing a mouthful of crooked teeth. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. What are you doing here? Are you OK?’

  I nodded numbly. I hadn’t expected anyone to recognise me. I hadn’t even imagined anyone would still be working there from the time when Henry and I had been. I thought people moved on; apparently not.

  ‘I’m just popping out for some lunch.’ She nodded to the deli. ‘Old habits die hard, ain’t that right? This is such a lovely surprise! Please tell me you have time for a coffee at least? For old times’ sake?’

  Before I knew what I was doing I nodded and she swept me up. Linking a meaty arm through mine and steering me away from the spot I’d been planted on, as if it hadn’t been five years since I saw her last.

  I sat down, banging my knee on the Formica table as I did. Was I really doing this? Was I really having coffee with Tasha as if this was the most normal thing ever?

  ‘So, you just visiting? You moved away didn’t you?’

  I nodded. It was all just too weird.

  ‘God, so how
long’s it been?’

  I found my voice. ‘Five years.’

  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Where does the time go?’

  ‘You still work there then?’

  ‘For my sins.’ She chuckled and tore open another sachet of brown sugar for her coffee. I couldn’t stomach drinking any of mine just yet. ‘Yeah, there’s probably not many faces you’d recognise actually. The place has changed, you know? People come and go and well, life moves on, and obviously Henry wasn’t there steering the ship…’

  It hadn’t taken us long to reach the elephant in the room. I took a deep breath.

  ‘I need to apologise, Tasha. I know I owe you an explanation for why I went AWOL.’

  She smiled but it didn’t quite meet her eyes. ‘I was wondering if you’d bring it up.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘What happened, Grace? You know I tried to find you? Found your brother on Facebook but he wasn’t very helpful.’

  Freddie had never said.

  ‘I figured I’d done something wrong. One minute everything was fine, the next… you’d shut yourself off from all of us. I didn’t realise how Henry dying had affected you so much that you had to run away…’ She paused. ‘That’s why you left, wasn’t it? Because of him?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I thought so. I knew you had that silly crush on him, but I didn’t think it would cause you to just up and leave everything you’d worked for. To leave me without saying goodbye. I thought I meant more to you than that…’

  ‘You did! Tasha, I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  I thought of the many appointments I’d had with Doctor Ahmed, the tiny white pills he’d prescribed. The waves of depression, the panic attacks and the gripping anxiety that I’d tried my hardest to get some sort of control over. Leaving London had been the best thing. The second best was burying my own grief into helping others with theirs. Training to work as a funeral arranger, in a small town where no one knew me or my history, was the only way I could function after everything. The only problem with sticking a plaster over a wound is that sometimes it comes unstuck.

  Her face twisted with worry. ‘What are you really doing here, Grace?’

  ‘I guess I felt the time was right to face my demons. It’s taken a lot of courage to come back to the city after all this time, back to this place.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I was in a relationship with Henry.’

  ‘What?’ Tasha’s mouth fell open and eyes were rapidly blinking.

  ‘Henry and I were a couple. We were in love, planning to have a family together.’

  ‘W-w-wait… but he –’

  ‘Was my boss. Our boss.’ I sipped my drink, hoping the tremble in my hand wasn’t obvious.

  ‘I thought it was a silly crush. I’d no idea you were serious together.’

  No one would ever believe that someone like me would have been so bold as to date her boss. That we had been planning a whole new life together, that we had created a new life together. I wondered if, when his family cleared out his flat, they’d found anything of mine, anything to prove that what we had existed, or if the mementos had been swept up with everything else he owned, no questions asked.

  ‘That’s not all.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Before he died I was twelve weeks’ pregnant with his child. A little boy.’

  ‘You have a son?’ she gasped.

  I shook my head, digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand to keep the tears at bay.

  ‘I had a miscarriage.’

  ‘Oh, Grace.’ She was biting her bottom lip. Her eyes glassy. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  I had a flashback of her pulling this exact same expression. Back then it was full of concern as she ordered me a taxi, waited with me until the driver pulled up. It was after the office had been briefed on Henry’s sudden death. She’d consoled me, explaining how we were all in shock but how management had said to take time off if we felt it necessary. ‘Thanks, I’m sure I’ll feel better after a lie-down,’ I’d said, my voice hoarse. I lasted two more days then I never went back to the office. My mum let me crash in a flat she was renting at the time in Ryebrook. I lied and told her that London wasn’t for me. Putting on a brave face I told her that I was done with living in the capital and being so skint. She had been too busy dating a loser called Dwayne, who rode a battered Harley, at the time. Too lost in her own happiness to realise I was drowning in grief. Because no one in my new life knew about my past, I could easily kid myself that Henry had just gone away, that he’d dumped me. A person’s absence can also become a presence. I never drank again, knowing just how much of a part alcohol had played in snatching Henry from me. I’d been living with trauma, not grief. The anger, disbelief and shock had nowhere to go so I forced it down and created a new reality.

  ‘It was one of the reasons Henry drank so much that night. Why he went AWOL. He was dealing with things in his own way. He’d been so excited about becoming a dad. Tragically, he… well, you know the rest.’

  She nodded.

  ‘It cut him deeper than I ever realised.’

  I wished more than anything I’d seen the signs, that I could have got him to speak to me, to open up and work through our pain together. I was so engrossed in my own fog of sadness that I didn’t reach out to him in his. That was something I’d have to live with.

  Tasha shook her head sorrowfully. ‘You went through all of this alone? Why didn’t you speak to me? I could have been there for you. I thought we were friends. But you just… you just left.’

  ‘I needed a fresh start.’

  ‘So why have you come here today? Why now?’

  ‘Well,’ I paused. ‘It sounds mental but… I tried to convince myself that Henry was still alive, that we’d just broken up, that one day we would meet again and…’ I shook my head at the absurdity of what I’d conceived in my head as a coping mechanism, ‘… perhaps we’d make another go of things. I just couldn’t comprehend everything I’d lost in one go, so I only really allowed myself to mourn my son. I was angry at Henry for the way he died. Obviously he didn’t choose it and it was a tragic accident, but I felt like he’d put himself in that vulnerable position.’ It still felt very new and odd to be verbalising this tangle of messed up thoughts after all this time.

  ‘I also realised that I kind of ran away from everything and everyone who knew me before. I guess I’m only now accepting what I didn’t want to accept.’

  ‘Jeez, well I’m glad I saw you today. I can’t imagine what you went through.’ She shook her head and gulped her coffee. ‘Are you happy now? With your new life, I mean?’

  I thought about this. The past few months had been a complete rollercoaster. I’d lost Ms Norris but gained a new group of friends in the Grief Club who, when I felt ready to open up to them, would be there for me, able to understand the pain and madness of loss. Callum’s face swam into my mind, along with the familiar gnawing feeling inside at how badly I’d handled everything with him.

  ‘Yes, I mean, I’m getting there,’ I replied honestly.

  ‘You never said what you’re doing now? Still working in events?’

  ‘I’m a funeral arranger.’ I waited for the inevitable shocked reaction.

  ‘Wow,’ she giggled. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

  We both finished our drinks and the conversation moved on slightly, but too much had gone on over the years for us ever to be Tasha and Grace, the old versions of us. I had wasted far too much time already on the past. It was time to look towards the uncertain future.

  Chapter 42

  Since getting back from London I’d been determined to keep my spirits up and not let myself wallow any more, even if that was easier said than done. Tasha had texted to say how lovely it was to see me, that we’d have to do it again sometime. A hollow offer but one that was nice to receive.

  The trip to London had taken it out of me. I’d slept in a deep and dreamless sleep for longer than I could remember. I’d not heard anything from Callum. I guessed he was still away at Rory’s place in Sc
otland. Either that or he was back and not wanting to speak to me. Maybe he had realised he had to move on too.

  I still hadn’t heard anything from Frank either. I didn’t know if I should be using this time to search for another job, but it just felt too daunting to know where to begin. I attacked my flat with an intense cleaning regime, hoping it would give me the satisfaction that the smell of bleach and shiny surfaces once gave me. It didn’t, but perhaps that was a good thing.

  A revelation came to me as I lay in bed at 10.00 a.m., knowing I should get up but also secretly enjoying the laziness. As much as I cared for everyone who came into the funeral home, I’d given my all to each service because I’d been denied a perfect goodbye for Sam and Henry. It was my way of making things right, I guess. I thought that the perfect goodbye was helping others tiptoe into the start of their journey of grief and acceptance. I thought that by making sure everything went to plan, by going above what they asked for and by ensuring a personal send-off, I was softening the blow of what life without this special person would be like.

  But I was only human.

  I couldn’t protect people from the throes of mourning and unbearable grief, just as I’d had to face up to this darkness myself. In helping others with their perfect goodbyes I had been unable to move on. I was amazed this thought hadn’t occurred to me earlier. I had been so engrossed in Abbie’s online life, and the reason wasn’t just because she was glamorous and had nice hair; it was as if seeing the fully lived life of Abbie had made me realise just how small my own world was. My own grief had meant I’d barely lived, ironic given that I worked with death every single day, but it was true.

  Death shapes you and by having a close experience with death it changes you – and this is OK. I should have understood that when it comes to loss there is no neutral experience. It changes the way you look at things; it refines things whether you like it or not.

  Losing Henry and Sam had meant I’d become a funeral arranger and helped many families manage their pain. I mean, what an honour that had been! Loss had actually taught me more than I could ever realise. I am the person I am today because of what happened. If I deny what happened then I deny who I am. Would I have chosen not to have met Henry, not to have fallen wildly in love and enjoyed all those happy times together just because of the scars it caused when our story ended? Not a chance. Why would I want to forget the deep and unwavering love I felt for both my boys? I no longer wanted to deprive myself of the happy memories, as painful as they may have been. What happened happened, but by not letting my nostalgic brain take me back there every so often, it was like saying that those times had never existed, that they never existed.