The Coordinates of Loss

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I am going to build a big snowman and go sledging and we can have a snowball fight!’

  She hadn’t the heart to tell him that Hank’s grandma lived just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado, where at this time of year snow, and lots of it, was almost guaranteed. The same, however, could not be said of a 1970s housing estate in a Bristol suburb where the best they could hope for was a smattering of frost, which quickly turned to grey sludge under the wheels of vehicles. Rachel figured it better to let him dream and plan, hoping that the distraction of all the attention from his UK relatives, an abundance of chocolate figures on the Christmas tree, and Treacle the cat to play with might be enough to divert him from the rather disappointingly mild winter that was forecast.

  ‘You can help me, Dad,’ he had enthused. ‘And I’m going to get the sledge and go from the top of a hill and I might take off and fly across Bristol! Like they do in The Snowman, and I’m going to get some snow and put it in the freezer and I’m going to bring it back to Bermuda and give it to you, Cee-Cee!’

  Cee-Cee had clutched her chest in excitement. ‘I have never seen snow in real life! Thank you, Oscar, that would be wonderful! I shall look forward to it.’

  ‘I’ve never seen snow in real life either!’ Oscar piped up.

  She and James had laughed, sipping their gin and tonics and looking at each other over his head in the middle seat on the plane, wondering how they would manage not only Oscar’s snow expectations, but now Cee-Cee’s too!

  The memory was as vivid as it was painful and now, here alone, the sight of her dad in the arrivals hall brought a lump to her throat. While all around them joyful reunions rang out in the form of squeals, howls, whoops and laughter, the two stood sedate and quiet, hugging each other tightly with something akin to relief.

  ‘It’s all right, my babber. It’s all right.’ He spoke the affectionate term into her hair and she closed her eyes, ignoring the background noise and squashing her face against his coat. She wished she were still a little girl, when these words spoken with certainty by her daddy could fix just about anything.

  Despite the blue sky of this October day, Rachel was cold. Her dad glanced at her shivering form as she folded into herself on the front seat and cranked the heating up in his Ford Mondeo. She hadn’t the heart to tell him that her chill went all the way down to her bones.

  ‘Your mum packed snacks.’ He nodded towards the back seat before restoring his gaze to the slow lane of the M4. ‘There’s a box of ham sandwiches and a flask of tea and some fruitcake if you are hungry.’

  ‘I’m not, Dad, thanks.’

  ‘You’ve lost weight. You look thin.’

  She nodded. This she knew.

  ‘We’ve got your room all ready. Mum changed the bed linen and Peter took all the cardboard boxes of his junk and put them in his garage. Mind you, about time. I think some of it was his old university files and things. I’ve wanted it gone for a long time; cluttering up your old room like that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you want to nap? I can recline the seat.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine, Dad. I slept on the plane.’

  With relief they settled under a blanket of silence for some minutes. Rachel used the time to stare at the wide embankment of the three-lane motorway, where full trees provided a roadside canopy, hinting at the lush farmland that lay beyond. This one impressive thoroughfare reminded her of how narrow Bermuda was, with its three tapering main roads that defined boundaries, and the high walls and narrow lanes that were claustrophobic at times when the traffic was heavy. She held her hands out, flexing her fingers to catch the steady stream of hot air that came from the dashboard. Rachel thought her dad looked older, paler, greyer and she felt a spike of guilt at the fact that she had mentally disregarded her parents’ grief in light of her own. She recalled James saying something similar about his mum and dad. Her in-laws, always a little aloof, preoccupied with their own busy lives, had written apparently and offered to come over.

  A quick glance at the clock told her it was nearly midday here. James would be having his breakfast. This one small fact already made her feel so very far away from him, not only in miles, but in time too. It was another indicator of how their lives were becoming even further out of sync.

  ‘It is lovely to see you, babber, despite everything. We have been’ – he swallowed – ‘we’ve been so worried and so sad of course.’

  She nodded.

  Her dad continued. ‘I can’t believe it.’ He shook his head. ‘None of us can.’ There was the unmistakable sound of tears in his voice. ‘Such a lovely, lively little lad.’

  Rachel looked out of the window and read the sign:

  Reading Services 3 Miles

  Chieveley Services 24 Miles

  Membury Services 43 Miles

  Leigh Delamere Services 83 Miles

  She then stared at the lorry in front, which had a large loaf of sliced white bread on it – anything, anything to distract her thoughts and dilute her dad’s words. He seemed to take her lead and once his breathing had found its normal rhythm and his distress abated, they drove on without further discussion.

  And that suited her just fine.

  On previous trips, she usually felt her excitement mount as the car pulled on to the A432. There was something about seeing place names familiar to her youth – ‘Chipping Sodbury’, ‘Wickwar’, ‘Iron Acton’ – each one with a picture and an event associated with it in her mind: eighteenth birthday parties, twenty-firsts, Bonfire Nights. Her tummy would bunch with fondness at the sight of houses where school friends had once lived, the Horseshoe pub, where she had taken many an illicit sip from her teenage years onward, and the petrol station where she had worked on countless weekends in order to save money for holidays and festivals – including one fantastic summer trip to Ibiza, where she would meet a boy called James Croft who would promise her the whole wide world . . .

  But not today; today there was no joy in being ‘home’, no nostalgic flutter at the thought of belonging to a place that carried her history in its very soil. It was disappointing, but not wholly surprising, that the feeling here was the same as it had been in Bermuda: a sensation like she was floating, belonged nowhere; lost in time and caught between the pincers of grief that refused to loosen their hold no matter where the house or time zone in which she lay her head.

  As her dad ratcheted up the handbrake and unclipped his seatbelt, her mum came rushing down the path in her slippers, her dark, short hair revealing a strip of grey root at the scalp. Her tears fell and she held a red dishcloth up to her face.

  ‘Oh my God! Oh, Rachel!’ She pulled open the passenger door and without waiting for her to get out, slumped against her inside the car, holding her in a fixed position and howling her tears. ‘I can’t believe it. I can’t!’ she sobbed. ‘That poor little mite. I can’t stop thinking about him and I just wanted you home where I can look after you. That’s all I wanted and here you are.’

  Her mum was near hysterical and Rachel felt the pain she expressed mirrored in her own gut, twisted and inflamed with all it tried to contain.

  Eventually her mum straightened, her eyes puffy and her mouth slack. Rachel climbed from the car and jammed her fingers into her jeans pockets; her hands still cold in this chilly climate, a good twenty degrees cooler than Bermuda and without the humidity to which she had become accustomed.

  ‘Come in; Dad’ll bring your bag.’ She linked her arm through her daughter’s and led her through the front door.

  Treacle, the ginger tom, stood as if waiting for her in the hallway. She noted the age that had crept over his handsome face and bent to stroke him as he sidled against her legs. Oscar had been so in love with Treacle, scooping him up and burying his face in his soft fur. Come on, Treacle! he would call, slapping his leg, hoping to call him to heel like a puppy.

  Each time Rachel stepped inside the house in which she had grown up, she was slightly taken aback by how small it was. Not in
a sneering way, but more that it fascinated her. The perception of her youth was that there had been plenty of space inside the three-bedroomed, semi-detached modern dwelling for her and her parents, her brother, all of their friends, their fat cat, a guinea pig or two and even visiting relatives from far and wide. And yet now as she stood in the narrow hallway, she realised that the entire downstairs would fit inside the kitchen-cum-dining room of their house on the North Shore Road. She wondered what Cee-Cee would make of the thick-flocked wallpaper, swirly-patterned wool carpets, toasty radiators, the abundance of cushions and the clutter of ornaments, all harbouring dust. She had been inside Cee-Cee’s cottage once; it was cosy, but without so many of the elements that made a British home. The walls were painted stone, the floors cool ships’ timbers, and the fireplace was blackened on either side where woodsmoke cast its shadows as it danced up the chimney.

  She could hardly bear to look in the neat sitting room where pictures of Oscar at a variety of ages graced the mantelpiece and the top of the television set, along with those of his two cousins – her brother’s kids, Hayden and Nate.

  ‘What can I get you, darling, a cup of tea?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mum.’ She didn’t really want a cup of tea but knew that the distraction for them both would be most welcome.

  ‘The police still not found anything?’ her mum asked in such a matter-of-fact way as she filled the kettle that it caught her a little off guard.

  ‘Not yet,’ she whispered.

  Maybe never and maybe that’s better . . .

  ‘Peter said he’d come over when you are a bit more settled; I said I’d let him know, poor mite. He and Julie have been proper cut up over the whole thing. It’s made them really tighten their grip on Hayden and Nate, but I told them an accident is an accident, nothing more, nothing less.’

  Rachel bit the inside of her cheek.

  Poor Peter and Julie. Yes, it must be tough, sitting at home with their two kids while my heart and soul are shattered.

  Again she felt guilt at the flash of hatred she felt towards these people, her own kin, on whom she would not wish ill for anything in the world! And yet . . . and yet this feeling was almost instinctual.

  She looked at the spot on the wall where the photograph of her, James and Oscar on board Liberté, tanned and smiling used to live, pinned there for more years than she could remember, along with a couple of postcards. She noticed the picture was missing.

  ‘And how’s poor James doing?’ Her mum shook her head. ‘I hate to think of him on his own.’

  Rachel leaned on the countertop, taking the hint that her mum was less than impressed with how she had left him in Bermuda. It didn’t matter whether she was three or in her thirties, to be censored by her parents caused the rise of guilt in her throat just the same and it didn’t taste pleasant. ‘I think we both needed a bit of space, Mum.’ It was an understatement, a hint of the truth that she felt they might destroy each other had she stayed.

  ‘And I said to your dad, all that money, that lovely life, and it just shows nothing is foolproof; no amount of wealth can save you from heartache. Life can be so cruel.’ She poured hot water on the tea bag in the mug.

  Rachel felt the punch of her mum’s words, softened by the knowledge that they came from a place without malice, a loose tongue and a stream of thought that babbled without regard for where those words, no matter how sharp, might land.

  ‘And talking of your dad, he’s driving me bloody crazy. Won’t talk about his feelings and gets upset at me for crying all the time. But I can’t help it, Rach, honest to God I can’t. I don’t know how to stop my tears. And if I mention what’s happened, he leaves the room.’ She grabbed the kitchen roll and tore a square, balling it into her eyes, as if to prove the point. ‘He comes in from work, has his tea and goes walking. Walking! Says it clears his head. I think his head’d be better cleared if he stayed here and talked it out, but no.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what he does each night, puts on the work boots he’s taken off not an hour since and treads the same route by all accounts. He goes out round Engine Common and up to Rangeworthy and then across and back down the Jubilee Way. Peter says it’s about seven miles, give or take. Every night. Seven miles! Can you imagine? He’ll be needing new boots by Christmas at this rate. New knees by the summer.’

  ‘Do you mind if I go and lie down, Mum?’

  ‘Of course not, babber. Here’s your tea.’ She handed her a green-and-brown paisley-printed mug that had lined the shelf for more years than either of them could remember. Rachel held it and felt the echo in her palm of countless warm drinks taken morning, noon and night. This one little cup and tea; constants in celebration, commiseration and now in mourning. ‘If you need anything just shout and I’ll cook us all a lovely tea for later.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Oh!’ her mum shouted, wiping her hands on her skirt. ‘I nearly forgot! This arrived for you day before yesterday.’

  Rachel watched her walk to the shelf over the radiator in the hallway and grab a brown envelope that was propped against the wall. She knew even from this distance that it was Cee-Cee’s handwriting on the envelope that lay in her mum’s palm. She felt the corner of her mouth lift in a smile. It was strange to see this thing here in her childhood home, flown from Bermuda, all the way over the Atlantic Ocean. Her two worlds colliding at a time when she least expected it.

  ‘Look’ – her mum flipped it over – ‘this was written on the back: “Please keep for Mrs Rachel Croft, many thanks”,’ she read aloud.

  ‘It’s from Cee-Cee.’

  ‘Your housekeeper?’

  ‘Yes.’ My housekeeper and my friend.

  ‘It must have raced you here!’ her mum offered brightly.

  ‘She sent it ahead.’ So it would be waiting for me.

  Rachel held the letter to her chest. As she trod the stairs, she saw Oscar marching up ahead of her two years earlier. ‘I can touch the walls on both sides, Mum!’ he called out, fascinated by the narrow walkway and the small square of landing at the top. He loved it here: neat, compact, cosy.

  Her bedroom was as she remembered it, minus the cardboard boxes full of Peter’s junk that he preferred to keep at their parents’ house rather than clutter up his own pristine new-build, less than a mile away.

  She stood by the window with a view over the square back garden and tore open the envelope.

  Rachel, sweet girl,

  I have been thinking about what to write to you and wanted to start by telling you this; everyone I have ever loved and everyone I have ever lost are still with me. Every day, all around. I see them, I feel them and I remember them. They are not gone, not truly, and I know that is scant comfort to you right now, but I hope in time . . .

  Rachel paused and swallowed the sob that built in her chest. She wanted nothing more than to see and feel her son around her every day, but to do so without the pain and ache of longing that accompanied every thought of him now. She scanned the rest of the words; some paragraphs brought her small comfort.

  . . . I see your pain and I recognise it as my own. I know that things are hard for you right now, and that you would rather not face each new dawn. I also know you will not believe me when I tell you that this will not always be the case, but it’s true. Things get easier, they do. As the months and years pass by, you will see.

  Time heals. Time heals.

  Her dad knocked on the door as he entered. ‘Here’s your case, love. Have you been crying?’ He wheeled it to the end of the bed.

  ‘Yes. I got a letter from Cee-Cee. She is lovely and what she says always makes me think and I don’t always want to think. Sometimes I want to switch off.’

  ‘I understand that. Are you going to have a doze?’

  ‘I think I might. I’m always tired.’

  ‘That’s just your body’s way of coping, shutting down to conserve the little reserves you have left. Listen to it, Rach, sleeping is the best thing.’

  ‘Thank you, Dad.’<
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  ‘Your mum, she . . .’ He looked up at the ceiling and drew breath.

  ‘I know.’ She gave him a small smile.

  ‘What’s that?’ He nodded at the Tic-Tac box in her hand.

  ‘It’s sand and shells that I found in my pocket. On the day . . .’ She paused. ‘From where we lost him.’

  He nodded and headed for the doorway. ‘She’s right about one thing, though – my walking has kind of taken over. It keeps me from thinking and wears me out sufficiently so I can sleep. Come with me, if you like.’

  ‘I might.’ She crossed to the single bed of her childhood, the one where Oscar had slept while she and James were relegated to the blow-up bed not a foot away on the floor. She lay down in the dip in the middle of the mattress and pulled the duvet over her shoulder, taking instant comfort from the familiar view of the floral wall and the dressing table at which she had spent hours curling her hair, curling her friend Vicky’s hair and practising her make-up – trying to make herself pretty, trying to land a handsome boy like James Croft. A small part of her yearned for that simpler time when someone like James Croft was an idea and she did not know that pain like this was possible.

  And it just shows, nothing is foolproof; no amount of wealth can save you from heartache . . .

  ‘I was only a lad.’ Her dad spoke and she jumped, having almost forgotten he was there. ‘But I remember very clearly when my dad died and my mum shut down completely, like a robot with an off button, and it was scary. But she came back to us. It took a while, but she came back.’ He spoke softly, her lovely dad.

  ‘Thank you, Dad, and thank you for picking me up.’

  ‘Always. Whenever and wherever, that’s my job.’

  ‘And it was my job to keep Oscar safe.’ Her voice broke at this rare, unfiltered admission.

  ‘You can’t think like that.’ He walked back into the room and sat on the side of the mattress. ‘You can’t!’