by Carrie Adams
“Let’s hope you’re right. In the meantime, please, not a word until the funeral is over.”
“I promise, but it’s going to be hard. I feel like a teenager.”
“You look like one.”
“So do you.”
“Liar,” I said.
“It’s true. You’re divine.” He ran the back of his hand down my cheek.
“Me? You’re the one with the ridiculous eyelashes. Boys shouldn’t have eyelashes like that, it’s not fair.”
And so it went on for another nauseating hour. Knee to knee. Nose to nose. Fingertip to fingertip. Flattering, cajoling, teasing, loving. How we didn’t end up ripping off each other’s clothes, I’ll never know. But we didn’t. I can be proud of that, at least.
Ben was right, it was near impossible to keep the jaunt out of my step. We allowed ourselves the pleasure of holding hands until the lift doors opened, and then, like any other illicit couple, our hands dropped away, and our normal roles took over. We walked to Sloane Square, talking incessantly about our imaginary future—where we’d live, when we’d get married, what my parents would say, what his mad mother would say, what Claudia and Al would say—and arrived there in a nanosecond. I let three buses go on up the King’s Road without me because I didn’t want to leave him. When I did finally get on one, Ben got on too. It was pathetic. I was delighted. Halfway up the road, his mobile rang. It was Sasha. I felt like I’d swallowed the bus whole.
“Hi, Sasha.”
“Hello, listen, really sorry, but they want me to fly on to Düsseldorf tonight. I know I promised that I’d cut down on this—”
“Don’t worry.”
“Thanks, hon. Listen, call Tessa. She’ll need cheering up.” I grimaced. Ben shrugged.
“OK, babe.”
Babe…I didn’t like the babe much.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ben put the phone back in his pocket and looked at me.
“I feel sick,” I said.
“That bit is going to be difficult, but once she knows, it’ll be easy.”
It felt worse than difficult. It felt downright treacherous.
“Look on the bright side—at least I can come over again tonight,” he said.
“Not tonight. I have to go back to Helen’s house.”
“Really?”
No, not really, but I didn’t think we’d be able to resist one another much longer. We were almost always touching. Leg, face, cheek, hand…But it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want difficult to become ugly.
“We’ll speak,” I said, getting ready to leave the bus.
Ben grabbed my arm. “Don’t go. Can’t you go to the hospital later?”
I looked at his large hand wrapped around my slim forearm. It looked so good there but I could feel the callus on the palm of his hand, just below his wedding ring, brush my soft skin.
“I have to go. I haven’t had a moment to visit since our stupid argument. And I need to see Cora.”
“But you said everything was OK with you and Billy.”
It was. We’d been playing telephone tag since our brief conversation and the messages were kind and supportive on both sides, but that didn’t mean I no longer owed her an apology. We both knew that Helen’s death had kicked our fight into touch, but I wanted her to know that I didn’t think I’d got away with it.
“No, Ben,” I said, more emphatically. “I’ve got to go.” I pressed the button on the pole and heard it ping up near the driver’s ear.
“Can’t I come with you?”
And make Billy and Cora complicit? “No,” I said, kissed him on the end of his nose, and stepped off the bus.
“Hey, where am I going?” he called after me.
“Work?”
“Shit, work…I’d forgotten about work.”
The doors closed. Daydreams are powerful things. I should know.
I walked from the King’s Road to the Fulham Road, oscillating between utterly overjoyed and completely dejected. I had to steady myself as I approached the hospital. Jaunty wasn’t how I should be approaching this visit. I went up in the lift. I pressed the buzzer of the ward, my speech prepared, but I didn’t have to get past my name, I was buzzed in. The woman behind the reception desk smiled at me and pointed me in the right direction. I was so relieved to see Cora propped up in bed and not surrounded by tubes in intensive care, as I had imagined, that for a split second I forgot all about Helen’s death and just rushed to her bedside. Billy stood up, and after letting me smother her daughter in hugs, held her arms open to me.
“I can’t believe you’re here. Fran told me you’ve been looking after the twins, is that true? Have you brought them? Are you OK?”
“I just wanted to come and say sorry,” I mumbled over her shoulder. “To your face.”
She looked at me then turned to Cora. “What do you say to Tessa and I going out and getting something good to eat?”
“In other words, you want to talk about things I’m not allowed to hear,” said Cora.
“No,” said Billy. “Well, OK, yes, but we’ll get something good to eat too.”
“You could stay, I can’t hear anyway.”
“What?” I asked.
“She can, it’s just—”
“My androids,” said Cora proudly.
Billy looked at me and forced a look of concern on to her face. “Cora has something wrong with her adenoids, her hearing is a bit impaired.”
“From the pneumonia?”
“Actually, no; they only found out because of all the tests they were doing. It explains the head in the clouds, but not the hearing, since I’m pretty sure that’s always been selective.”
Cora opened her mouth in protest.
“Doughnut?” Billy asked her daughter.
Cora nodded happily.
“We’ll be back in five.”
As soon as we were out in the corridor Billy turned to me. “I haven’t told her about Helen.”
I clenched my jaw shut and nodded. The moment had passed. Cora was well, but Helen was still dead.
“I’m so sorry, Tessa.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. It was me, I don’t know what I was thinking. I had no right to storm in like that.”
Billy looked at me. “I know how frustrating it is when you see someone you love missing out on life.”
“Especially since it is so precious,” I said, agreeing with her.
“Ever since Ben called me and told me that Helen was in the crash too, I’ve been thinking about Christoph, me and Cora, what you said.”
“Me too, and—”
“Let me finish,” said Billy.
“Sorry.”
“Christoph doesn’t deserve her, or me, for that matter. I’ve embarrassed myself enough. It’s over. I honestly thought I’d lose her, Tessa; she went so floppy and white, her lips were grey and everyone was running around shouting things. Look.” She pointed to her long, dark hair. She didn’t need to show me, I’d seen the new streaks of grey. She looked ten years older.
“I’ll live with the memory of that moment for the rest of my life. I should have seen it sooner, it shouldn’t have taken something like this to make me realize what was important.”
I knew exactly how she felt. I took Billy’s arm and squeezed it. “I think we’ve both been coasting a bit.”
Billy looked at me. “Putting on the brakes, you mean.”
I nodded, agreeing with her again. Well, I was certainly taking my hands off the brakes now.
We passed another ward. Sick children lay in rows. We averted our eyes. “I would have disemboweled myself if I’d thought it would have helped Cora,” said Billy. “And the pain wouldn’t have compared one iota to what I felt, still feel, still fear.”
There was a bench in the corridor. We both sat down, and Billy held my hand. We sat in silence for a while, the noise of the hospital drifting past us. “Christoph doesn’t love her. If he did, he’d be here. I’ve done some very stupid things over
the last few years, but he didn’t even bother to call…I can’t believe Helen could just be killed like that. Who knows what’s round the corner?”
Suddenly Billy squeezed my hand then released it. “I’ve made a decision,” she said. “When this is all over, you have my full permission to get what we deserve from Christoph. No more. But no less.” She looked at me sideways. “I’m not settling for less any more. Life is too goddamn precious.”
For a moment I was torn between doing the right thing by Sasha and spilling my guts about Ben. He loved me. We were going to get married and have a host of children and none of them would ever have to worry about me again. I wasn’t settling any more either. I must have smiled a fraction.
“What?” asked Billy.
“I’m just very pleased that something good has come out of Cora being unwell. You’ll be rewarded, I know it.”
Billy shrugged. “This isn’t about meeting someone else, Tessa. I’m fine on my own, actually. I feel lucky because I have Cora and she’s a very special little thing. I need to re-engage with life, not men. If I meet someone, fine. But, you know, they usually bring a fair amount of complications with them and, to be honest, I’m not actually sure it’s worth it. I’ve always wanted to learn the piano. I think I’ll start with that.” She looked at me again, more closely. “What about you? Are you going to keep the twins?”
Wow, that was direct. “Um…”
“Being a single mother isn’t easy, but you’d never regret it.”
Disembowelment? Are you sure? “Right now I can’t see beyond the funeral.”
“Well, we’ll be there for you, whatever you decide to do, OK? Me, Fran, Ben. You have a great network of friends. Use us.”
A network I was about to blow apart.
“Thanks, Billy.”
“You are an amazing person, I hope you know that.” Billy turned her body towards me so that I couldn’t look away. “That’s why people flock to you.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound humble.
“I’m ashamed about what I said to you in that restaurant because deep down I know that the last seven years wouldn’t have been bearable without you.” I shifted, embarrassed. Billy grabbed both my hands. “No, I mean it. You had every right to shout at me. The truth is, you’ve been more of a parent to Cora than Christoph ever has and I know we are lucky to have you. The twins will be lucky too.”
I expected to experience a sense of victory, but I didn’t. I felt ashamed. Who was this great friend, this person to whom people flocked? Not a marriage-wrecker. Not a stealer of other people’s husbands. Were friendships unconditional? I wasn’t sure. I think you earned them, that’s why they were so valuable. I looked at my feet.
“One day you’ll learn to take a compliment,” said Billy, misunderstanding my awkwardness. “But for now, why don’t you go and sit with your goddaughter, and I’ll get the doughnuts.”
“I’d like that,” I said, and walked straight back into my safety zone.
Cora was lying back against the pillows, looking a little less perky, and for a moment I stopped in my tracks, but she lifted herself up when she saw me and smiled.
“How are you feeling?”
“What?”
“How are you feeling?”
Cora roared with laughter. “Got you.”
“You minx.”
“I’m learning sign language,” said Cora.
“Really?”
“What’s this?” She crossed her arms in front of her like a Russian dancer, raised the top fingers to make horns and wiggled her fingers on the bottom hand.
“Absolutely no idea,” I said.
“Bullshit!”
I laughed.
“One of the nurses told me that.”
I sat on Cora’s bed. There were flowers all over the room, and books and teddy bears. Word had got out. Cora had been inundated with gifts. I picked up a Paddington Bear. “To Cora, with love Ben and Sasha.” I put it down quickly.
“Do you want a cupcake?”
“No, thank you. You had us scared there, honey.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not blaming you, bunny, but please, don’t do that again.”
“OK.”
“How’s the hearing, really?”
“If I put my hand over my good ear it sounds like I’m in the swimming pool. Now when my teacher says, ‘Cora TarreNOT’—she always says the ‘t’—‘you’re not listening,’ I’ll have a brilliant excuse.” It didn’t matter what you threw at this girl. She impressed me no end. “I get tired very quickly. My chest hurts. I thought I was wide awake a minute ago, but now I’m sleepy.”
“That’s normal, you’ve still got a lot of getting better to do.”
“Will you stay with me, Godmummy T?”
“Sure I will.”
She pointed to her eye, then her heart, then at me.
“More sign language?”
Cora nodded. I did the same. Eye. Heart. You. I held up two fingers. Cora smiled. I pulled the thin hospital sheets up around her. “You warm enough?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t visit you earlier.”
“That’s OK,” said Cora sleepily. “Helen was here.”
I felt myself shudder. “What?”
Cora didn’t answer me.
“Cora?”
Her eyes were closed. She’d fallen asleep. I kissed her softly on her forehead and left the children’s ward.
I stood on the cold pavement and listened to an approaching ambulance siren. “Marguerite, it’s Tessa again, please call me back.”
“Boo!”
I jumped.
“Ben! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Called in sick. Couldn’t stand the idea of not seeing you for three days. Let’s spend this afternoon together.”
“Where have you been?”
“Watching the exit from Starbucks. I nearly missed you, I thought you’d be longer.”
I panicked. “Cora’s sleeping.”
“So, come and have lunch with me.”
“Billy’s around here somewhere.”
“So?”
“So she might see us.”
“I’ve come to see Cora, you happened to be here. Big deal.”
I’d been playing mummies and daddies with Ben and Cora for seven years, but the game had gone sour.
“We’ve got to do this right, Ben.”
“I know, but, God”—he squeezed my face—“I can’t bear not being with you.”
I pressed my hand against his, then pressed my lips against his palm. He pulled me closer and wrapped his other arm around my neck. We stood squashed against one another, me with my head in his neck, him wrapped around me. It was broad daylight, on the Fulham Road, outside a busy London hospital, yet it didn’t cross my mind that anyone would see us. He kissed me on the forehead, I kissed him on the cheek. What was there to see really? We’d done this a million times before. He kissed me again, I kissed him back. He kissed me all over my face; when he took my face in his hands again and kissed me on the lips I thought I would burst. We pressed harder and harder against each other; our mouths remained closed, but the kiss intensified, nearly beyond my control. I was breathing far too hard when he pulled away.
“This is why I can’t see you,” I said, panting.
“It’s going to kill me,” said Ben.
“Three days,” I told him.
“I don’t think I can.”
“Three days, then we tell Sasha.”
“Then you’re all mine.”
“All yours,” I said.
Ben turned away from me, then turned back. “Hell,” he said, “these are going to be the longest three days of my life.”
They may have been for Ben, but I swear, to me they passed in a blink of an eye. I returned to the twins and before I knew it, it was bath-time again. I stayed at Helen’s house and spent three hours on the phone arguing with Marguerite about the service which she had comp
letely hijacked. True, it was only my word that Helen wanted to be cremated, so I could almost forgive Marguerite for riding roughshod over me, but to plan a service that in no way reflected her daughter was just plain mean. And what about Neil’s family? Had Marguerite contacted them? Were they in the loop? They certainly hadn’t made any effort to see the twins. Did they know Neil’s marriage was tempestuous, that their daughter-in-law was addicted to pain medication and vodka? No, like most people, they probably thought Helen and Neil had it all.
The following day was busy with the boys. As was the third. Perhaps it was because I was in such denial about what was happening that the three days passed so quickly. Despite talking at length about burying my friend, I was still in denial about Helen’s death. I was also in denial about the circumstances of her death. Then there was the question of having to be parted from the twins, and whether Claudia and Al really were the obvious choice to adopt them. I was in denial about that.
Sasha had called three times, leaving messages because I hadn’t been able to pick up the calls. She said she was thinking about me, she asked if there was anything she could do, she told me if I wanted to rant, scream, cry or get pissed with someone, she was there for me. Each message made me feel worse. So I busied myself further still. I was blessed with great girlfriends whom I loved unequivocally, but they all fulfilled different roles in my life. Billy was whom I played mother with. Francesca was whom I moaned to. Helen had been whom I took risks with. But Sasha, Sasha was the person I sought advice from, it was she whom I gathered strength from, who made me most comfortable with the choices I’d made in my life. I admired her and was horrified that I was going to lose that. If I was half the person I hoped to be, wouldn’t I choose the sisterhood over the love of my life? Yet here I was, on the cusp of losing a great friend. I was bewildered that being with Ben was going to cost me Sasha. And who knew what else? I was dreading the funeral, I was dreading the day after, I was dreading everything, so I ran around like a headless chicken for three days so I wouldn’t have to think. But finally, because time stops for no man, the 28th arrived and I found myself in the utterly bizarre situation of dressing for Helen’s funeral.