(2013) Four Widows

by Helen MacArthur

  “Told me the truth?”

  “I wanted to protect you.”

  “NO! Don’t you dare. You weren’t thinking about me… you…” At this point, I couldn’t connect my brain to my mouth; the thousand things I wanted to scream remained in an oxygen bubble above my head.

  Chris looked at me. “It was a sign,” he said. “Don’t you see? He died. I lived–a broken collarbone is small price to pay to see justice done.”

  I returned his stare. He walks away from a high-impact crash whereas Harrison was killed outright. It was a miracle he survived–I saw the wreckage. But did Chris think this made him the better man? All I see, looking at him standing there, is how there are different kinds of dead.

  And why confess now? Questions queued up in my head.

  “Did you know she is taking my son away from me?” he roared, on cue. “She steals your husband then she plans to take my son.”

  He refocused his rage on Gee. “Fuck who you like but you can’t take my son.” His voice broke but he continued, “You think you can go back to London and shut me down–shut me out. I won’t let you.” Flecks of spittle fired out on the tail end of the words. “I will take you down with me–tell the world what we did because you were there, too. You are as much a part of this as I am.” He thrust a fist in her direction, looking as though he wanted to throttle her. “You did this. You did. This is your fault.”

  The roar deafened us, but I had one question that needed to be heard over the noise.

  “How long?” I asked.

  Gee didn’t answer, instead pointing a finger at Chris, rushing her words. “He phoned me from the bar, told me he was with Harrison.”

  She threw Chris a flammable look. “I knew something terrible was going to happen. I grabbed… grabbed Ben from bed and drove…I tried to warn Harrison but he wouldn’t answer his phone.”

  “How long?” I persisted.

  She paused, breathless. “Harrison was drunk. Didn’t have a clue what was going on; just thought Chris was going to give him a lift back to the hospital. He should never have got in the car. What the hell was he thinking?”

  It wasn’t a drunken moment of madness on Chris’s part. It was a planned takedown. There has been an accident.

  Chris shouted her down. “You wanna see a man’s face when he knows it’s game over.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Said he wanted to talk it over with me–” He choked on the words.

  Gee turned, frantic. “I tried to get there–and almost made it. I saw… I saw the headlights, I saw the lights. Harrison phoned me from the car, told me what was happening, and then Chris was shouting. I stayed on the line, I could hear everything,” she gasped. “Harrison was shouting, trying to talk some sense into him–slow down… slow down…”

  She sunk to the floor and turned to Chris. “You killed him. It should have been you who died, not him.”

  “I loved you more than he ever could,” sobbed Chris, covering his face with his hands. “So much it hurts.”

  “HOW LONG?” I screamed, feeling Jim’s hand come to rest on my shoulder.

  Gee had one last frantic look around the room, possibly to mark out an escape route or call an anaesthesiologist to put her under. I wanted to see her suffer.

  “Tell me.”

  “Six months,” she said, realising there was no way out.

  Ab ovo. And so we have our beginning.

  Silence settles in soft sootiness. I turn into my own shadow; there is nothing to me but darkness. I want to run but remain still, turned to stone, knowing I can crumble like over-fired clay in a moment. One false move and I will be dust.

  Chris, arms hanging at his side, seemed to find no comfort from revenge.

  Six months.

  I had been married to Harrison for one year. Gee had been with him half this time but did he love her twice as much? With this thought, I wondered if my lungs had collapsed; decreased amounts of oxygen in the blood cause me to feel short of breath. I take smaller breaths and stroke a finger down the zip of my bag–the bag with the gun. Guns. Not one but two. I am broken hearted; armed and dangerous. I am a bullet firing faster than the speed of sound.

  Gee refused to look at me and I wanted to blow her apart; I wanted to scream: “He was mine to love. You had no right to him–he was trying to fix you, not love you.”

  What more might have been said or done, I honestly just don’t know. We heard the front door open as the childminder returned with Ben.

  This is what goes through my head: I was almost right for my husband but not quite; whereas my sister nailed it: taller, blonder, better, doctor. The subtle shift in genetics is all it takes. We are the same but we are different.

  I wanted to say, You didn’t even like him. Then realised how naive this would sound.

  We never liked the same guys. Never. These thoughts drilled into my brain. How did this happen? Why?

  Maybe he was trying to fix her, make her happier. Maybe he simply loved her more than he could ever love me.

  My supernova sister, an exploding star: once a billion times brighter than the sun, starts to fade before me and I turn my back on her before the lights go out. We walked quietly out of the living room and through the front door without bumping into my beautiful nephew who is asking for apple juice in the kitchen. I couldn’t.

  Jim steers me onto the street and I start to shake violently, almost putting cracks in the pavement. He wraps his arms around me and I drag him onto his knees, such is the dead weight inside me. Heartbreak heavier than sandbags, it is strong enough to bring down two grown people on a street. I sound like a wolf howling but can’t stop–God knows what people think. Jim’s arms tighten their grip and he buries his face in my neck, whispering words until I am eventually silent. He misunderstands me, though. I don’t want to be rescued this time: I want to be wrapped in a sailcloth with one, two, three, four cannon balls for weight and given a burial at sea. More weight so I never have to see the surface again. More weight.

  How many times, Jim? How many times can you save someone who keeps on falling apart? Sometimes the shipwrecks on the horizon overshadow the sun.

  Ab ovo, Ms Walker. I guess the professor knew Harrison’s personal life was imploding, made worse by the death of Vivienne Roberts. We are not just surgeons.

  We are not just running away.

  The drive back to Edinburgh took forever, perhaps, I guess, because I’m used to Jim driving at breakneck speed whenever I’m in crisis. This time, though, he took his time, careful, cautious with mirror-signal-manoeuvre procedure. He wanted to get me home in one piece–futile exercise when someone is already broken. We didn’t speak although he glanced at me often. I could feel his eyes on me. I kept doing this to him: dragging him into chaos and I didn’t know how to stop.

  He didn’t tell me that I was going to be okay, but he did put a call through to Cece. He was bringing me to her house. Didn’t want me to be alone. I wanted to be alone but couldn’t muster protest.

  I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t fight. Could only feel a colossal freeze set in; a deep chill running through me for the first time in six weeks of relentless sunshine. I preserved energy and took short shallow irregular breaths. There was numbness in my head I have never experienced before and I can’t even describe what was happening to my heart. On the upside, I had two guns in my bag and didn’t use them. Enough damage done. I thought about it though. Pull the trigger—boom and be done with it.

  Chapter Forty Two

  Do Not Resuscitate

  Jim told me the plan. “You’re not going back to the office. Cece’s waiting for us.”

  “Work?” I croaked.

  “I’ll cover for you.”

  When Harrison died, my reserve generator kicked, ensuring me sufficient power to see me through the crisis. This was different. Chemical pathogens had shut down my nervous system, rendering me useless–I couldn’t go through the motions and pretend I was going to be okay.

  Cece took me in, ushered
me into her home and granted my one request: a dark room.

  I couldn’t eat, and could barely hold down water, pleading with Cece not to force me. I vaguely remember her talking, telling me that she wasn’t going to leave me.

  “Go to Ribbons,” I said, weakly. “You need to be at the restaurant. I need to sleep.”

  Eventually, we compromised: her housekeeper would be around whenever Cece wasn’t. I wasn’t to be left on my own.

  I nodded, numb, knowing that once I got to that spare room, I was never going to leave.

  Cool darkness was such a welcome contrast to the churning heat outside. The bedroom at the back of the house looked over a communal garden square, rose-bloomed and quiet. With the blinds pulled right down, no splinter of light could scratch me. I completed the blackout with the sheet pulled over my head.

  I expected to lie awake in the darkness, bedridden and trapped but a flash fever burned out insomnia and I fell into an exhausted sleep. At last, a cure for sleeplessness: 40-plus temperature. The heat hurt the back of my eyes.

  I go to sleep; a deep unconsciousness washes over me. I rise to the surface whenever I dream I am drowning, which turns out to be huge soaking sweats. Cece drifts into the room, guiding me like a sleepwalker to the sofa at the foot of the bed while she changes sheets. She administers paracetamol with water, which I gulped down greedily. Aspirin, I almost whisper. For the heart.

  Then I realise I don’t care. Do not resuscitate. Let me go. Ab ovo. When did Harrison look at Gee for the first time?

  When I wasn’t sleeping, I sobbed uncontrollably into the pillows, crying more now than I ever did when Harrison died. I cried for my father. I cried for everything. So much so I saw tears in my dreams, washing away villages and towns. I had no idea where it was coming from; a large two-litre storage tank of tears in storage underneath my heart; continually filling and emptying over and over. The pain in my chest confirmed what I already knew; my heart was breaking over again.

  Harrison. How did I miss the signs?

  Jim would sit with me. I would pretend to be sleeping. This didn’t deter him from talking, though. He would go through the flatplan and swap pages around, asking my opinion. I still said nothing.

  He had stepped up at work and covered for me without saying a single word to the team about what had happened. I was out of the office and the world goes on.

  I grew used to darkness and its velvety texture wrapped around me; I found comfort. I had a routine going on that went something like: sob excessively, drink water, crash into comatose sleep buffeted in blackness. No desire to make changes.

  Unfortunately, Cece had other ideas. One morning, she came into the room, as she does, bouncing off the door handle. Even with the covers over my head, the light hurt. I pressed fingers over my eyelids as she pulled up the blinds.

  She announced, “It has been seven days.” Like this was significant. Seven years to become a different person–I had some way to go.

  I turned over, facing away from the light.

  “It’s time to get up, Lori. The girls are coming over and I’ve made breakfast. Cherry pastries. Coffee.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can.”

  “No, I don’t think I can.”

  “Half an hour. Then go back to bed.”

  “It hurts too much.”

  She rested a cool hand on my forehead. “I know.”

  Seven days since I found out about Gee and Harrison. It felt as though I had been lost in the dark for a decade.

  “Suzanne’s here?” I croaked.

  Cece sounded emotional. “We all are.”

  I shuffled into the room, wearing one of Cece’s vintage kimonos; its vibrant red contrasting with the pale puffiness of my face. I took small steps as though my feet were bandaged, each step exhausting.

  Suzanne was first on her feet, reaching out to put her arms around me. Kate took one of my hands and squeezed while Cece stood behind me and rubbed the small of my back. Me in the middle. I couldn’t fall down.

  I started crying again–couldn’t help it; salted tears that could erode rock. I put my hands over my face so the others wouldn’t see the mess. “I’m sorry,” I sniffed, barely coherent, while realising Suzanne was crying too.

  Cece bundled tissues into our hands and steered me towards a chair. She was brisk and efficient, instructing Kate to pour coffee while Suzanne was ordered to slice pastries and pass them around on plates.

  When I peeped over the tissues, one look at Kate’s face confirmed the state I was in. She handed me a mug of steaming coffee and I accepted obediently, taking small sips to placate Cece.

  Suzanne spoke first. “I’m so sorry about the things I said. I needed to lash out. I was angry at Ted but I couldn’t fight with him. I was too scared to lose him again.”

  I sat further back into the chair, relieved I was not expected to speak. It was like I had walked into the Art Bar for the first time; conversation continued around me.

  “What I said was awful,” Suzanne continued.

  Kate sighed. “What you said about me was true.”

  I nodded. Suzanne had delivered harsh home truths.

  The heat had broken–this change was heralded by a sharp crack of thunder and I saw clouds collecting.

  “Can we open a window?” I asked.

  Cece flung one wide so we could hear the rain hit the scalding-hot pavements. I inhaled the distinctive molten-wet smell and closed my eyes.

  Suzanne repeated the apology. “I really am truly sorry. I wanted to get in touch before now but didn’t think anyone would want to speak to me. I was so ashamed. I behaved so badly. You were only trying to help.” She hung her head.

  Cece moved closer and sat on the arm of her chair. “We rushed in, ambushed you.”

  “When I heard about the little girl, I thought, you can hurt me; you’re not allowed to hurt a five year old. And Ted knows this too.”

  Kate asked. “Did you tell him how hard it’s been?”

  “He couldn’t believe I waited for him–”

  “I bet,” muttered Cece. “Did he offer great explanations?”

  Suzanne’s lip wobbled. “He wasn’t happy. And I didn’t notice. Everything got to him–the death of his parents, lack of work. I think he fell out of love with me.”

  “Call me American,” said Cece gently, “but marriage counselling?”

  Suzanne sniffed. “He’s not a talker.”

  “Evidently.”

  “Where did he go?” Kate wanted to know.

  “He travelled north–worked on fishing boats then somehow ended up in Crieff where he met–” She couldn’t bring herself to say Sophia’s name. “I guess the longer he was gone, the harder it was… to… you know…”

  Cece asked. “Then he just shows up?”

  “He saw me in Corset Magazine. And read the interview.”

  “He did?” I spoke, voice hoarse, feeling somewhat responsible.

  “He said he was so sorry. So stupid–so very sorry.”

  “Did you tell him you never gave up on him?” asked Kate.

  “I didn’t need to. He knew.”

  “Your life is better without him,” reassured Cece.

  Suzanne shrugged. “I told him to leave because I didn’t know how to stop loving him. His daughter won’t know how to either.”

  “He listened?” asked Cece, dubious.

  “He’s gone back to Crieff.”

  “You’re so brave,” said Kate, squeezing Suzanne’s hand.”

  “It was the right decision,” replied Suzanne without hesitation. “But part of me thought…” she paused, shakily, “how easy it would be to keep him.”

  “We know,” said Cece.

  We know, I thought.

  “I’m okay. You know, I’d started to move on before Ted turned up. I’m glad about that. I’m head over heels about work. And even though Ted treated me badly, I’m happy that he’s alive.” She spoke through a handful of tissues. “I still think… it’s a m
iracle. It’s God’s work.”

  Cece stood up to make more coffee. She looked at us, emotional. “It feels so right to be together again.”

  Suzanne left her chair to kneel next to mine. “Cece told me what happened.” She gripped my hand. “There is nothing I can say to make you feel better other than we’re here. We always will be.”

  I nod. Tears threaten. I want to speak. I can’t speak.

  Kate cleared her throat and accepted a refill from Cece. “Suzanne, I’m so glad you’re okay but it doesn’t excuse my behaviour. I would have done better sorting out my own life.”

  Suzanne put up her hand. “Please, don’t. I have nightmares over what I said about Neil.”

  I clutched a handful of tissues and felt genuinely sorry for Suzanne. She looked acutely mortified.

  “Through and through,” said Kate, intensely thoughtful. “The bullet passed through, leaving both entry and exit wounds. The police told me.”

  We glanced at her. He Who Must Not Be Talked About.

  “I couldn’t talk about it,” Kate continued, “because I didn’t stop it.”

  Suzanne went very quiet by my side while Cece, who was just about to refill coffee cups, thought better of it.

  “I’ve spent four years looking for clues, wondering why. I turned detective, I guess. I thought something sinister had happened. Bank details, corruption, extortion–I trawled through everything. Christ, at one point I thought he was a double agent.” She laughed weakly.

  I shifted in my seat, stricken, but Kate didn’t notice, drawing her knees up to her chest. “The only clue I had was one throwaway line: he said his head was full of mistakes. Did he mean I was a mistake? Our children were mistakes?”

  “Did you ask him what he meant at the time?” asked Suzanne.

  “He said he needed to be more organised; said it meant nothing more than that.”

  “He was depressed?” questioned Cece.

  Kate shrugged. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. As I said, I poured over bank accounts, emails, anything that might help me but I found nothing. No answers.” She shook her head, frustrated. “Just one great blank.”