The Dream Wife

by Louisa de Lange

  ‘No, of course.’

  ‘And I’ll arrange the funeral. I know all the right people to make it a wonderful celebration of his life.’ She smiles like a switch has been flicked; it seems strange, forced and unnatural. I wonder if she’s still in shock.

  She gets up. ‘Did he have a will?’ she asks, one hand on the doorknob.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll phone our solicitor.’

  She moves forward to hug me again, then thinks better of it and pulls away, patting my arm instead.

  ‘Take care of yourself, my dear, and David Junior.’

  ‘Of course,’ I say. Johnny, damn it, I think.

  31

  The first knock is controlled: a quick ring on the doorbell, followed by a tap with the knocker. No answer. My arm starts to ache, so I put Johnny on the doorstep and he immediately buries his head in my leg. I adjust the heavy bag on my shoulder and knock again, this time with more force.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ comes a voice from behind the front door, and I breathe out in a big whoosh of relief, not realising how long I have been holding my breath.

  I hear the door unlock, and at last it’s opened, Adam standing in front of me, effortlessly gorgeous in a basic grey T-shirt, jeans and bare feet. He is holding a tea towel, drying his hands and glancing back into the living room, where Georgia is playing.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ I gibber at him, words coming out in a jumble. ‘But I mucked up and I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Come in, come in,’ Adam says, seeing my flushed cheeks, sweaty forehead. ‘Hello, Johnny,’ he adds, ushering him inside.

  I walk into the living room, Johnny behind me, hand in mine, and plonk the bag at my feet.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you, I wouldn’t normally …’

  ‘It’s fine, sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  I almost laugh. ‘No, I’m fine, no more tea. I just wondered if you could look after Johnny for an hour or two? I know it’s a big ask …’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s just I need to go to the morgue, and the policeman called and I said okay, fine, but then I forgot about Johnny and you can’t take a two-year-old to a morgue, can you?’ I pause and catch my breath, glancing up at Adam. He looks confused.

  ‘The morgue? Why do you need to go to the morgue?’

  Three days on, and Johnny and I have fallen into a chaotic existence. Without David forcing structure and routine on us, I’ve been a bit disorientated. I haven’t really noticed the time. Get up when we want, eat breakfast and lunch on the sofa, watch endless Thomas the Tank Engine, have a bath when we notice the smell, and generally forget about the trappings of domestication.

  So when DS Coleman rang, we were in the middle of fish fingers and chips for lunch for the second day in a row, both still in our pyjamas, Johnny with a smudge of chocolate round his mouth from an earlier post-breakfast snack. We were enjoying our freedom.

  ‘Mrs Sullivan,’ said the voice at the end of the phone. He paused, and I heard the background chatter of a busy office. ‘Your husband’s post-mortem has been completed and we would like you to come to the hospital to discuss the results and identify the body.’

  ‘Discuss the results?’ His words woke me with a jolt. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We just like to talk these things through. Is two p.m. this afternoon okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I said, but of course it wasn’t. I didn’t have any childcare for Johnny and I couldn’t bring myself to call Maggie. So my new friend Adam it was.

  Adam’s face changes instantly as I explain the events of the past few days. His cheeks flush and he moves backwards slightly, away from me.

  ‘How did David die?’ he asks quietly.

  ‘We’re not sure. The policeman is going to explain what they’ve found. I am so sorry,’ I say, ‘but I didn’t know where else to go.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Adam says. ‘Johnny can stay here, it will be fun.’

  I notice something in his tone is forced, but there is nothing I can do. I hastily run through Johnny’s routine. Snacks, park, Rabbit, nap if possible; he’s had his lunch, water bottle is here. Johnny stays by my side throughout, quietly watching Georgia, who ignores us, playing with her toys. Adam nods as I go through it, paying attention but saying nothing.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ I say at the end. ‘I won’t be long, I promise.’

  Adam turns to Johnny, bending down on his knees in front of him. ‘Do you remember us from the park? Would you like to play with Georgia?’

  Johnny nods, looking to me for approval, and I gently encourage him. I glance at my watch: I am late already.

  I wave goodbye as I rush out of the house, trying not to look behind me, trying to stifle the guilt at leaving Johnny alone with someone I’ve only just met and know nothing about. All my instincts tell me to keep him close, to keep him next to me at all times, but not today, not at the morgue. I resolve to get it over and done with quickly and be back with him as soon as I can.

  I run to my car, and swerve out of Adam’s road. My phone cheerfully tells me at regular intervals where to go, tracking the roads and turns. At every T-junction I feel my stomach drop a little further as the panic takes hold.

  Down squeaky white corridors stinking of bleach and disinfectant under buzzing luminescent lights. Down to the bottom floor in an impossibly slow and clanky lift, to more corridors and increasingly glum-looking faces.

  Finally, I walk up to the metal swing doors of the morgue, and without another thought push them open.

  The room is as generic as any other NHS waiting room. Scratchy worn-out green chairs circle the edge, a few magazines scattered on a small table. A reception desk sits on the left-hand side with a doorbell sticky-taped to the wood. I press it and it plays a discordant tune, ‘Camptown Races’, I think. Doo-dah indeed.

  With my ringing on the doorbell getting no response, I wait a moment by the desk, taking in my surroundings and fiddling with the biro attached to a string next to the bell. There is one other person in the room with me, an ageing gentleman who seems cheerful, incongruous in such depressing surroundings. He sits in one of the green chairs, tapping his foot in time to the tune he is humming under his breath. He looks up at me as I stand at reception, and smiles. I nod, then turn back to the empty desk.

  The swing doors I came in through open with a whoosh of air, and a woman in a nurse’s uniform glances around.

  ‘Oh, Mr Barker, there you are,’ she says, looking at the older gentleman with her hands on her substantial hips. She glances in my direction.

  The man jumps up with an enthusiastic childlike leap and practically skips over to the nurse, who takes his hand. She squints at me again.

  ‘Are we expecting you?’ she says.

  ‘I got a call this morning to come in and identify my husband. David Sullivan?’

  She stands with the man’s hand still clutched in hers. ‘I didn’t know we had anything …’ she coughs, ‘anyone down there.’

  She moves with the gentleman to the reception desk next to me, and leans over the wooden barrier.

  ‘Maureen!’ she bellows, and I jump.

  A shuffling of feet heralds the arrival of Maureen.

  The nurse nods at me, then leaves with the cheerful man trailing behind her.

  Maureen raises an eyebrow. ‘Did you ring the bell?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I didn’t hear it.’

  There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  Another pause, and Maureen looks at me. ‘And how can I help you?’ she says, in the unwelcoming tone one would normally expect to receive for taking a sticky toddler to a posh clothes shop, whilst wearing tracksuit bottoms.

  ‘Um, I was called by DS Coleman to come here,’ I mutter, and hate myself for my lack of confidence.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘David Sullivan.’

  She looks down at the clipboard in front of her, then back at me.

  ‘DS Coleman’s
not here yet. Take a seat, and I’ll let you know when he arrives.’

  I do as I am told and sit down on one of the scratchy chairs. They are as uncomfortable as they look. I pick my phone out of my bag and flick through photographs from the past few months. Shot after shot of Johnny smiling, reaching to grab the phone; Johnny with food round his mouth, Johnny with food in his hand; Johnny and myself grinning in a selfie. All of Johnny, none of David. I have never had an opportunity to take a photo of the two of them together. I think there is a posed one of them when Johnny was born – David looking stiff and forced and Johnny’s face contorted into a cry – but not much else.

  In the silence while I wait, I wonder how Maggie is getting on with the funeral arrangements. When my mother died, there was barely enough money to buy food, so a funeral wasn’t exactly a priority. The council took over, burying her in a cardboard box somewhere. I don’t care where; I don’t have any motivation to find out.

  Maggie phoned yesterday to ask what church we went to, and I managed to avoid saying the name of his golf club. I muttered something about non-practising Christians, and she got off the phone before I could ask any more. I need to get more involved; I need to be a better grieving widow. This mess and disorganisation has to stop, and I need to pull myself together. I’m Johnny’s only parent now, and I have to start acting like it.

  An overhead luminescent tube starts to flicker, casting an eerie glow. I’ve just picked up one of the magazines when a man clears his throat in the doorway.

  DS Coleman looks exactly the same: his suit crisp and clean, buttons done up smartly, his shoes shiny. He holds a taupe folder under his right arm. His adherence to the importance of his profession reassures me; this is a man who knows how to do things right.

  He escorts me wordlessly into another bland room. It has similar chairs, but blue this time. The one I am sitting on has a hole in the seat cover and I can see a bit of yellowing sponge seeping through, trying to escape. I poke it back in with my finger.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs Sullivan,’ he starts, fingering the folder in front of him. He smiles awkwardly. ‘We have the results here from your husband’s post-mortem.’ He doesn’t open the folder, and I imagine all sorts of photos of David’s insides within its pages. ‘The pathologist found that he died of an extensive brain haemorrhage affecting the frontal lobe of his brain, the prefrontal cortex, resulting in significant cerebral oedema. Simply put, he had a huge amount of bleeding in his skull when more than one artery burst. He wouldn’t have suffered,’ he added. ‘He died very quickly.’

  I nod. ‘Do you know why?’

  DS Sullivan opens the file a tiny amount, concealing the inside from me. He looks at me again. ‘We found no external trauma to the outside of his head, except for a small cut to his forehead that we believe happened when he fell. When we referred the report to the coroner, she concluded it was one of those unpredictable events, something that might have always been there that no doctor could have foreseen happening. Was your husband’s health generally good?’

  ‘I don’t think he ever went to the doctor, for anything.’ Too much of a proud bastard, I feel like adding.

  ‘And did he look after himself?’

  ‘He played golf every Saturday. But he did drink and smoke, and he ate a hell of a lot of red meat.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself, Mrs Sullivan. Annie,’ he adds, and I look up in surprise. ‘No wife can stop her husband doing the things he loves.’

  I snort and then hide it with a tissue, shaking my head in mock grief.

  DS Coleman places one hand on my arm. ‘Don’t worry if you don’t feel up to it today, but as soon as you can formally identify the body, we can release it for the funeral.’

  I look up, my eyes clear. ‘No, that’s fine, we can do it today.’

  We walk down yet another featureless corridor, lit overhead by the same strips of luminescence. DS Coleman marches in front of me, his shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. He stops by a closed door and waits for me before turning the handle and opening it, escorting me in with an outstretched hand. The door closes behind us.

  The room is thin and long, smelling of cleaning fluid, bleach and metal. It has a wide window stretching the length of it with wire inside the glass, reminding me of the reinforced windows from my old school. I wonder what they expect people to do in here, how people react. Through the window I see what looks like an operating theatre, all steel and silver, with something on a trolley in the centre. It’s covered with a large navy-blue sheet, and a man stands next to it, looking at us, his hands clasped in front of him.

  DS Coleman glances at me and I nod, then he nods through the glass. The man slowly removes the navy sheet from the end of the trolley, and I see David in front of me.

  The sight takes me by surprise and I start, my hand flying to my mouth, naturally this time. He is face-up on the trolley, his hair slicked back. His face has a waxy, yellow pallor, his eyes mercifully shut.

  ‘Is that your husband, David Sullivan?’ DS Coleman asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, but somehow the word comes out as a croak. ‘Yes,’ I repeat.

  DS Coleman knocks on the glass gently and David’s face is hidden for the last time.

  We say our goodbyes and I stumble slowly out of the morgue and back into the normal part of the hospital. Without concentrating, I wander, and find myself in a part of the building I don’t recognise. I didn’t come this way earlier. I stand for a moment in front of one of the signs, looking for the way out, my vision blurry and my mind racing.

  This isn’t theory any more; this isn’t a game. My husband is dead. Properly on-a-slab-in-the-morgue dead. And nobody knows it was me, nobody even suspects I had anything to do with it. But the fact is there, staring me straight in the face: I am a murderer. It was my actions and my actions alone that put him there. Sure, he was a wife-beating, PA-shagging grade A bastard, but I killed him. Or did I? Standing in that empty corridor, I try to convince myself that perhaps I had nothing to do with it, perhaps it was just one of those random events as the police officer described. Nothing but coincidence and happenstance rolled into one bit of truly bad timing. Perhaps.

  I take a deep breath and steady myself for a moment, one hand on the wall in front of me. Whatever the truth, the reality is I have a small boy waiting for me. A small boy who needs his mother and nothing more. I dig into my handbag as my mobile beeps, showing the symbol for a new message.

  I laugh as a photo comes through. Johnny is standing on a chair next to a kitchen worktop, wooden spoon in his hand, chocolate cake mix all over his mouth and a big grin on his face. He is doing normal things, making cakes, in a normal kitchen. With a normal man.

  Johnny’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it.

  Part Four

  White

  Annie opened her eyes. She lay still, taking in her surroundings, disorientated. This room, this featureless box, wasn’t anywhere her subconscious would have taken her. She didn’t recognise it, she didn’t understand. She sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the metal-framed bed, touching the pillow and sheets gently with her hand.

  The room was basic and still. The walls were white, with some scuffs and scrapes across the paintwork but otherwise no distinguishing marks. There was the bed, and a small bedside table made out of cheap wood, its top scratched and worn. A second bed and table mirrored her own on the opposite side, pristine and bare, but otherwise nothing else. Above her, a light bulb was enclosed in a plastic box pinned to the ceiling. She looked down. Her clothing was as bland as the room: a white long-sleeved top and grey tracksuit trousers. Her feet were bare.

  She stood up and walked to the door, no more than three steps to get there. Like everything else it was white, with a stainless-steel handle and a small window in the middle at the top. She stood on tiptoes to look out, but could only see a patch of wall on the opposite side of a corridor. She tried the handle; it moved but the door wouldn’t b
udge. It was locked.

  She sat back down on the bed and closed her eyes. She conjured up the park – the gentle rustling of the trees, the feel of the grass between her toes, the concrete path, the wooden bench. She smiled and opened her eyes, but the white room was as present as it had been before. She frowned, and tried again, this time thinking about the beach, asking Jack what was going on, hearing the seagulls, the roar of the ocean. Again, the white room.

  She took a deep breath. She could feel her breathing quicken as the walls started to close in. She felt trapped in this strange dream, the silence, the endless white. She struggled to understand why she was here. Was this Jack’s doing? If so, where was he? And where the hell was she?

  Wake up, she thought, wake up and go home and start again.

  Wake up.

  But she was still here. The white walls, the silence.

  She stood up and tried the door handle again: still locked. She pushed her whole weight against the door, then pulled it towards her. It didn’t budge an inch. She could feel the panic buzzing in her veins and she hammered her fists against the door, screaming.

  Wake up.

  She heard the squeak of shoes on a polished floor, more than one person running, getting closer. She heard frantic shouts, and a face appeared in the window. She screamed louder. The door opened, followed by a barrage of bodies charging at her. They threw her onto the bed, pinning down her arms, her legs. Heavy weight on her chest. She screamed and thrashed, then felt a sharp prick in her arm and her body went limp.

  Everything went dark.

  32

  I wake with a gasp and sit up suddenly in my bed, the duvet tangled round my feet, the pillows thrown to one side. I put one hand on my chest, where my heart is frantically beating, and lean back, trying to get my breathing under control. My throat feels scratched and sore, and I wonder if I have been screaming, playing out the nightmare in real life.