Love Is a Four Letter Word

by Claire Calman

‘Perhaps you could coach me via an earpiece?’

  ‘I may have to. Are you taking him to meet your mum and dad?’

  ‘Sure. Of course. Excuse me? Do you think I’m completely stupid? He can meet them once we’ve made it to our golden wedding anniversary and not before.’

  ‘Oh, come on. They’re lovely really. He’ll probably charm your mum to bits.’

  ‘We’ll never know. I can just see her smirking at his springy hair – “Oh, William, there’s a clean comb in the bathroom if you want to tidy your hair at all. I suppose all that manual labour does take its toll on one’s appearance.”’

  ‘She’s not that bad. She’s always been very nice to me.’

  ‘Teacher’s pet. It’s only because you didn’t have the misfortune to be born her daughter.’

  ‘Give the woman a break. She’s only human.’

  ‘No she’s not. She was put here by aliens to make humans feel so flawed and inferior that we’d all top ourselves.’

  ‘Why are you sounding so miserable anyway? You’re supposed to be full of post-shag afterglow.’

  ‘I am, I am. I just feel a bit, you know …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Weird. Like I’ve been un— I can’t explain it. Got to go. I can hear Will coming downstairs.’

  18

  Three o’clock in the morning. The yellow light from the bedside lamp shone on a tangle of limbs, heavy with sleep. Bella shifted and took in an eyelid-slit view: the light, the pillow by her cheek, Will’s face from below. The stubble on his chin, dark pinpricks. His hair, flattened against the pillow. Even his nostrils were lovable, she thought. She moved slightly to nuzzle his neck.

  ‘Hello, you,’ he said, opening his eyes a peep to match hers.

  ‘Hello, you.’

  ‘You know –’ He yawned, catlike. ‘You know when I first realized I was in love with you? You had this incredibly sexy dress on and you came running down the stairs and – you looked – so – beautiful I couldn’t speak.’

  ‘Makes a change.’

  ‘Shut up. Then you started wibbling on about your tummy and you suddenly seemed so young and vulnerable, as if you were going out with the grown-ups for the first time.’ He closed his eyes again and his mouth smudged a kiss across her left eyebrow before he settled back to sleep.

  She nuzzled closer to his chest, as if she might absorb him through every pore in her body. Her eyelids shut tight, clenching onto the moment, feeling tears start to well. Let me have this, she prayed silently, like a child not daring to jinx her wish by speaking aloud. If I’m good for ever, can I? Please let me have this. Please.

  Bella woke first and slid out of bed, carefully lifting the covers so as not to wake him. She made a pot of tea and brought it up to the bedroom. He was lying on his back in a straight line instead of his usual diagonal sprawl, taking up most of the bed. His body was absolutely still, his face expressionless. She put down the tray and drew closer, leant over him.

  ‘Will?’

  No response. Her brows bunched into a frown. Dry mouth. Her hands clammy and cold, heartbeat loud in her ears.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  Patrick’s father gets slowly to his feet as Bella is shown into a side room. He holds her by her upper arms.

  ‘I’m too late, aren’t I?’

  Joseph nods.

  ‘He never woke up. They said he didn’t suffer.’

  She hears the words, thinking, ‘That’s what they say in hospital dramas.’ He didn’t suffer. Does that mean you’re supposed to feel OK about it? Joseph crushes her in a tight hug so she can barely breathe. Rose, Patrick’s mother, looks blank and numb. Bella dips to hold her and they clasp each other for a minute, survivors in a storm. Sophie is on her way down from Newcastle, Joe tells her. They still haven’t managed to get hold of Alan. Bella can tell that his parents need her presence, they need youth around them, some reminder of life.

  ‘Do you want to see him?’

  A silent, screaming ‘NO’ echoes inside her head, ricocheting around her brain. She is afraid and then ashamed. ‘What would Patrick want?’ she asks herself. ‘What would Patrick do if it were me?’

  She nods once and a nurse leads her to just outside the room, saying she can take her time, have as long as she likes.

  She peers through a small glass panel in one of the double doors. Patrick is lying on a narrow, trolley-type bed in a small room. She breathes a slow breath, squashing down a wave of nausea and palpable dread, and pushes open the door. A side table covered with a crisp white cloth holds a cut-glass vase of fresh flowers: pale lemon-yellow carnations, feathery fronds of maidenhair fern, orange trumpets of alstroemeria, flecked with brown.

  She looks down at Patrick. His mouth is open and she can see the dull silver glint of his old fillings and the small chip in his front tooth that he had never got around to having fixed. He should have gone ages ago. That was typical of Patrick. Absurdly, she starts to cry at the thought, small, tight, breathy sobs. She wipes them away impatiently with her hand. Not much point getting his tooth done now.

  She wishes they had closed his mouth. Weren’t they supposed to do that? His eyes were shut. She half-wanted to close it herself, but – but she couldn’t. What if it sprang open again?

  He looks slightly paler than usual, as you might expect under the circumstances. And there is a padded bandage covering half his head, though Bella suspects that, as this looks pristine, it is to protect the bereaved from the sight of their loved one with a squished skull. Bereaved. That’s what she is, she realizes – a bereaved person. People will look at her with pity in their eyes, speak to her in hushed tones. They’ll be embarrassed and won’t know what to say. Aside from the bandage and two scratches on his forehead, Patrick looks surprisingly normal, as if he’s dropped off, as he tends to do, for a quick doze. Perhaps if she prods him, he’ll sit up with a jolt and say ‘I wasn’t snoring. I was just breathing deeply’ the way he does. Did, she corrects herself.

  She looks at the flowers again, traces the crinkled edge of one carnation with her finger. Someone has bothered to arrange these flowers, trim the ends, pull off the lower leaves; laid this cloth on the table, smoothing the iron-creases with a cool palm. They must have known that the bereaved see everything, that no detail is too small to be significant.

  One arm lies outside the crisply turned hospital sheet. She wants to touch his hand, reach over and give it a reassuring squeeze, though whether for Patrick or herself she can’t be sure. She wants so much to feel his warmth, to feel him return the pressure of her hand. Perhaps she should touch it? Shock herself with its coldness, its waxy softness, so she would understand that it was true, know that he was really dead.

  But she can’t. Instead, she pats the other arm, the one safely under the sheet.

  Her voice, when finally she speaks, is a hoarse whisper, sounding to her ears as if it comes from someone else.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  Joseph comes in then, and stands behind Bella, solid and comforting. He squeezes her shoulders.

  ‘Do you want to stay longer?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ A small shake of her head.

  ‘Come on.’ He puts his arm around her, supporting her and steadying himself. ‘Come and have a cup of tea. The nurse has made us some. It’ll do you good.’

  ‘But I can’t just leave him here all alone.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Joseph strokes her hair back from her eyes and dabs tenderly, clumsily at her cheeks with his cotton handkerchief. ‘He’s gone now. It’s not him any more.’

  He leads her from the room, but she turns at the door for one last look.

  ‘Bye,’ she whispers.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  ‘Will?’

  Silence.

  She tweaked his nose.

  ‘Will.’

  He opened one eye.

  ‘Boo,’ he said.

  ‘You pig.’ She pinched him. ‘You bloody scared me.’

  ‘Hey, sorry. Ow. T
hat hurt.’

  ‘Good. Don’t do it again. I’m confiscating your tea now.’

  ‘Tea in bed?’ He lifted his head from the pillow and whimpered. ‘Oh tea, tea, oh please.’

  She poured it out, then took her own cup and went to run herself a bath.

  Will picked up her post from the doormat. As he handed it to Bella, his gaze dropped to a postcard on the top. His eyes met hers, then he glanced down again. She looked at the card: ‘Hi Sexy!’ it said in large capitals. Bella felt herself flush slightly and Will quickly turned away. The card was postmarked from Washington. Julian. ‘Sorry we couldn’t get it together again before I had to leave – the price of being a jet-setter! Great to spend time with you. See you on my next visit!?! Best to Nick and Viv. Luv, J XXX.’

  She put the card on the mantelpiece, next to one she’d recently received from Patrick’s parents – ‘Very glad to hear you’ve escaped from the big smoke. We did worry about you in London on your own … Do keep in touch … visit any time …’As well as the occasional card or letter, there were still periodic phone calls. Rose would ring and ask with maternal concern how she was doing, as if she were a child struggling with a too-advanced sum. Bella would call and speak to Joseph. They were bearing up, he’d say. Things were, you know … his pauses closed by a small cough, just like Patrick. Sophie was doing well, he reported. Alan and his wife had had another baby. Rose was raising funds for a village in Bangladesh. He himself had taken up bowls to pass the time. Life ticked on.

  She felt she should ask them for permission to be happy. Knew, of course, what they would say: ‘You’ve got your own life to lead now, Bella. Don’t waste it. He wouldn’t have wanted that, not Patrick.’ And no, she realized, he wouldn’t, not exactly. How would she feel if it had been the other way round? ‘You wouldn’t feel anything, stupid, you’d be dead,’ she told herself. But still – what if she died and Patrick had been left alone? Or – her scalp prickled – what if it were Will? Would she want him to grieve for ever? In a horrible way, she would – at least in some small corner of himself. What a vile, mean-spirited person she was. How could she ever want Will to be unhappy? No. That wasn’t it. She’d want him to remember, that was all, only so she wouldn’t be lost without trace. She wouldn’t want to have him hunched over his grief, treasuring it and hoarding it like a miser, allowing no-one near – a second death.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Will said after breakfast. Then, without pausing, ‘Are you seeing anyone else?’

  ‘No. Whatever gave you that idea? I can barely cope with you.’

  ‘Nothing. Just a feeling.’

  That postcard from Julian, she thought. HI SEXY! He must have read it.

  ‘Um, do you still see your ex at all? Patrick. You look like one of those civilized types that manages to stay on good terms with their exes.’

  Bella rootled in the fridge for some mineral water.

  ‘Hmm?’ Her voice floated from inside the fridge. ‘No, I don’t. Do you want some water?’

  ‘No thanks. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy.’

  Bella shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. Anyway –’ she opened the newspaper and leafed through to find the listings. ‘Do you still fancy seeing a film tonight? I could give Viv a call, see if she and Nick want to come too. We don’t have to be stuck just with dreary old us all the time.’

  ‘Is that how you see us?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Dreary old us?’

  ‘No, course not.’ She banged the fridge door closed. ‘Still, we don’t want to get too couply, do we?’

  ‘Why ever not? I like being couply.’

  ‘Oh, Will. I’m just teasing. Where’s your sense of humour?’

  ‘Had to give it back. Only got it on loan.’

  Viv rang the next day to recap on their cinema outing, as Bella knew she would.

  ‘Lousy film,’ said Viv. ‘Why does everyone keep going on about how sexy she is?’

  ‘Because she’s blonde and can’t act.’

  ‘But Will – he’s so lovely! And he’s got you sussed, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning he knows how to handle you.’

  ‘You make me sound like a deranged leopard.’

  ‘Well, you’re no giggling pushover, matey, are you? You need someone like that to stand up to you. But the way he looks at you. When’s the wedding?’

  ‘Oh, behave. I’m not thinking about the future or any of that bollocks.’

  ‘Why do you do this?’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Pretend not to like him. A child of three could’ve seen that you were mad about each other.’

  ‘Get me a child of three then. You read too much into everything.’

  ‘Babe? You bloody well hang onto him.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You just want the chance to wear a puff-sleeved number in apricot sateen.’

  ‘With flounces?’

  ‘You can have flounces, sweetheart neckline, basket of rose petals, all the trimmings in the unlikely event of my ever getting hitched. Ladbrokes are offering four thousand to one against, you might like to know, before you hotfoot it to Fabrics ’R’ Us.’

  ‘Bel? You do know about being happy, don’t you?’

  ‘Is this a trick question?’

  ‘No. It’s just – well, it is allowed, you know.’

  19

  ‘Which is my best side, do you think?’ Will turned his head this way and that.

  ‘It’s a well-kept secret apparently.’ Bella balanced her sketch-pad on her knee.

  ‘Oh, tee-hee.’

  ‘Turn to your left. More. Bit more. That’s lovely.’ She was now looking at the back of his head.

  ‘Hilarious. Look to your laurels, Oscar Wilde.’ He got up and went to the window, gazing down at his garden. ‘That honeysuckle needs a good prune.’ He half-turned to look back at her.

  ‘Stop! There, like that. No, no, don’t move.’

  Standing by the window, his face half in light, half in shadow, his body twisted towards her, he looked alert, expectant, as if he had heard an unfamiliar sound, or suddenly noticed the extraordinariness of something ordinary.

  ‘Can I see some of your paintings yet? I know you’ve been secretly beavering away.’

  ‘Not secretly. And no you can’t.’

  ‘Yes secretly. And why not? You must have enough for an exhibition by now.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. Anyway, will you ssshh! Concentrating.’ Looking down at the drawing, she sensed his making stupid faces at her. Patrick used to do that too when she sketched him. Perhaps it was something to do with testosterone, the inability to keep still. Her gaze flicked up to Will’s hairline, the clear shape of his brow where the hair jumped up from his scalp, looking eager to grow, to get on with it; she smiled to herself, trying to let its enthusiasm run into the line of her pencil, her tongue touching her lip in concentration like a child. Patrick’s hair was soft and fine, flopping down over the left-hand side of his forehead. She remembered the feel of drawing it, the motion of her hand backwards and forwards as if she were weaving. And the way he reached his hand up, pushing it back off his face, the way he fidgeted annoyingly while she drew, even in his sleep, never entirely at rest, never, until— She swallowed.

  ‘Sssh!’ she said again.

  ‘What?’ Will frowned. ‘I never made a sound.’

  When they stopped for a break, Will told her how weird it was to be looking at her looking at him as she drew.

  ‘You seem to look at me so intensely, but right through me at the same time. I see your eyes flicking over me, scanning me, but you don’t seem to be registering me as me.’

  ‘Don’t take it personally. Drawing’s like that. You just become a body, a face, not Will, the man I know and— so forth.’

  ‘Excuse me? The man I know and so forth? Is that English as she is spoke?’

  ‘Are you ready for the second sitting?’

  ‘What were you going to say? You can’t say it,
can you? Not even casually.’

  ‘What – the “L” word? Of course I can. Don’t be silly.’

  ‘The “L” word. That’s exactly what I mean. Love really is a four-letter word to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll do the jokes thank you.’

  ‘This one’s not funny. Go on, have a go. You might get to like it. I L-L-L – golly, you’re right, it is tricky, isn’t it?’ He folded his arms.

  ‘You can be bloody irritating sometimes. You are such a big kid. Unbelievable.’ She rummaged in her pencil case for her putty rubber. ‘The man I know and love. See? OK?’

  He staggered backwards.

  ‘Overwhelmed with the force of your passion. Look, ease up on the slushy stuff, will you? I’m not sure I can handle it.’

  Bella sharpened her pencil into the bin.

  ‘Yes, dear. Pose please. Left arm round a bit. Yup. And could you twist a little more this way. Whoa, not too much. Yup. That’s it.’

  Her gaze flicked back and forth from Will to the paper, the paper to Will, as she set down the bones, the flesh, the form of him, but she did not see the expression in his eyes.

  Will asked her if she would be free at the weekend.

  ‘I hate it when people do that.’

  ‘You hate it when people invite you to things? Forgive me. I’m sorry. It’s unpardonable. I’ll never do it again.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. You say you’re free, then they say “Ah, good, I’ve got tickets to see Bernard Manning.” People should say what it is first so you have a chance to refuse graciously.’

  ‘So are you free or what?’

  ‘Yes. No. Yes. I should be doing some painting – I want to work up that drawing of you. What is it?’

  ‘I thought you might like to meet my mother.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Oh, charming. She’s lovely. She’s just like me.’

  ‘Smug with stupid hair?’

  ‘No. Easygoing. Loves plants.’

  ‘It’s really a bit tricky this weekend. Got loads to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘ Will. I’m not on trial. I don’t have to account for my movements every second of the day. You know – things. Washing and stuff.’