CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOW
The evenings are the hardest, because the house feels so much emptier now Adrian is gone for good than when he was simply somewhere else. It’s as though when he was alive, his presence, his aliveness, was palpable even when he wasn’t here. I try to do some reading for next semester, even though I’m still not sure if I’ll be up to taking on the point three contract after all, but I find I’m reading the same paragraph over and over.
The house is making noises as if it’s restless. There’s the knocking sound, which is only the central heating pipes cooling down but which seems louder and more insistent than it did before. There are creaks and cracks as the floorboards settle, and the wind, which wasn’t particularly strong when I put the rubbish out, is whistling loudly under the back door and through the gaps in the old window frames. I pour a glass of wine and turn on the television, flicking through the channels until I find some old episodes of Frasier, Adrian’s favourite sitcom. Amazingly, I find myself laughing out loud, and it distracts me for a while. Then there’s a documentary about Elgar and I try to focus on it, but before long, the dark thoughts begin to creep in and that same question starts to niggle away at me – what was he doing out there on the A621 that day? Where was he going? It’s driving me nuts. I turn the television off, pour more wine and make my way up to the study, where I switch on his laptop again. I don’t know why – I’ve already searched his emails a couple of times. His work account is full of reminders about meetings and briefings, marketing stuff from educational suppliers and invitations to attend conferences or subscribe to research journals. There’s nothing unusual in his personal email, either. Maybe I should go further back. Or maybe I’m missing something.
When the screen comes up, I click into his personal account. There are new emails, but nothing of interest – a reminder to renew his phone insurance, spam purporting to be from Microsoft, a notification that his bank statement is ready to view. Nothing significant at all. As an afterthought, I click the trash folder. I scroll down, reading everything that isn’t obviously junk. I hate doing this, especially the personal stuff – from his dad, or from Chris, or Richard – but I read every one, searching the innocent lines for a clue. This is ridiculous. I’m about to close the programme when something catches my eye. I didn’t spot this before, but I notice it because the subject is Invoice and delivery details. Adrian rarely buys anything online. It’s from an online gift company. Item: Wooden Farm Animals Set – a beautiful hand-painted farmyard set, perfect for little farmers. An educational toy, suitable for age 2+. Further down the page it says, Recipient: Oliver Simpson.
Simpson. Who do we know called Simpson? I stare at the screen. Oliver. I can’t think of anyone with a little boy called Oliver. Maybe it’s a colleague. But if he was friendly enough with them to send the child a birthday present, surely he’d have told me? I scroll down to the bottom of the invoice for the delivery address. Castledene. My heart starts crashing against my ribcage. I click print, and as the paper comes out of the printer I notice something I didn’t spot before – at the bottom of the page, underneath the boxes describing the item, the cost, (£24.99 plus next day delivery £4.95) and the delivery address, is a box headed, Your personal message. The small type inside reads: It was nice to meet you, Oliver. You are a fine boy and I can see that your mum is very proud of you. I know it’s not your birthday or anything, but I thought I’d send you something. I hope your mum doesn’t mind, and that she’ll read this to you. Tell Mummy I’ll be in touch, and maybe I can come and see you one day. Love, Adrian xxxx
I lie in the darkness staring at the ceiling and trying to make sense of that email. Is it possible that I know who Oliver Simpson is but I’ve forgotten? The medication sometimes affects my memory, especially when I’m tired. It dulls things, pushes them to the back of my mind, so I’m not aware of them for long periods of time, but I don’t think it’s ever wiped out a memory completely. I sigh and turn over. It must be a colleague’s little boy. He probably told me when I was distracted and I just didn’t take it in. But the note said he was planning to see the child. Or hoping to. There’s something odd about the wording. Or am I being paranoid? But I can’t ask him, so how am I supposed to get it out of my head? I turn over again, then I move over to Adrian’s side, but I still can’t sleep. If I hadn’t had a couple of glasses of wine I’d take a sleeping tablet, but I don’t want to be sluggish and muzzy in the morning. I haven’t taken my other pills yet, I remember. I sit up and switch the lamp on. I hate having to take so much medication: two different lots of painkillers; drugs to keep my mood stable; drugs to stave off the depression. I feel like an old lady as I open the plastic pill container with compartments for each day of the week. The consultant said I might have to take some of these indefinitely, but how am I supposed to know whether I still need them? In the last few years, I’ve been on a range of meds at different doses and in varying combinations. It can be hard to get right, the consultant explained, because some people respond better than others. ‘With some patients,’ he told me, ‘and you appear to be one of them, we have to go through a whole series of different medicines, waiting for the body to adjust and the side effects to settle down, before we find a combination that works. It’s trial and error, I’m afraid, an imperfect process but it’s the best we have.’
When I was at my worst, I was so heavily medicated I was barely conscious. What followed were dark moods and hopelessness, and at that point I wasn’t really aware of the numbness, although I remember other patients on the unit talking about it – saying it made them feel ‘blunt’ or ‘shut down’; some said it could make them almost catatonic. I didn’t care at the time. I welcomed the inability to feel.
I look at the tablets in my palm. What’s the worst that could happen if I were to stop taking them? They’re probably not doing much now, and even if they are doing something, is it really worth feeling like this, as if I’m not properly bereaved? I’m fairly sure I’d be able to think more clearly if I wasn’t chucking all this shit down my throat. I want to feel the grief. My soulmate is dead and I want to cry my eyes out.
I throw back the covers and get out of bed. I take all the little boxes and blister packs from my bedside drawer and toss them into the wastebasket, then I take the pill dispenser into the bathroom and flush all the pills down the loo.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NOW
It’s nearly five thirty by the time I arrive home. The house is in darkness. Why hadn’t I left a light on when I went out? At least the heating will be on. This is the first time I’ve been out for more than about an hour since Adrian died, so it feels a bit strange anyway. I had to force myself to go out today – I agreed to do a tutorial, but I was so tempted to cancel it at the last minute. I know it’s stupid, but I feel that if I leave the house for more than a few minutes, Adrian might come back while I’m out and I might miss him.
As I let myself in, the sadness of the empty house sweeps over me. I switch on the lamps in the hall to kill the darkness, then I hang my stick on the hook and dump my bag on the floor so I can take my coat off. This afternoon’s tutorial went well, and just that hour of thinking about something else has helped me feel a bit lighter. My line manager’s been brilliant – he’s agreed to postpone my return to lecturing until at least after Christmas, and he said he was prepared to allocate my students to another supervisor if necessary, but I don’t think he’ll need to do that. After all, I’ve coped with supervision for the last two years, often in an emotionally ragged state, especially at first. I hang my coat up and head to the kitchen, where I can see a red light flashing on and off. I assume it’s the cooker, but then I see that it’s the house phone, and the display says there’s one new message. How bizarre – no one calls the landline these days. In fact, I’m not even sure why we still have it. I press the button to listen to the message, and my heart stops as I hear Adrian’s voice, cheery as always: Sorry we’re not here to take your call at the moment, b
ut if you leave your name and number after the tone, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. And then there’s a message about huge discounts on solar heating panels. I delete it, then pick up the handset and go through the menu until I get to, To listen to your greeting, press one. I press one, and lean against the dresser as Adrian’s voice pours into me, soothing as balm. Then the female voice says again, To listen to your greeting again, press one. I press one, cradling the handset against my cheek. I pull a kitchen chair towards me and sit down. To listen to your greeting again, press one . . .
By ten o’clock, I can barely keep my eyes open. I consider plugging the landline in next to the bed so I can listen to Adrian’s voice just before I go to sleep, but I know it’s a false comfort, so I resist the temptation. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wipe that message, though.
I fall asleep quickly, for once, and sleep right though until the alarm goes off. There’s a beat or two before I remember that Adrian isn’t away for a meeting or a conference; he’s dead and he isn’t coming back. At first this happened every morning, but it’s not so often now. But the next thought that comes into my head has been the same every single day: why was he on that road, and why did he lie about the car? And since I found that email last week: who is Oliver Simpson and why did Adrian buy him a present?
I get out of bed cautiously, my back stiff from being in the same position for too long, and make my way downstairs. Ibuprofen wrecks my stomach if I haven’t eaten, so I make toast and eat it quickly, standing at the kitchen counter. I look out of the window at the miserable greyness as the coffee machine does its thing. It’s starting to snow. Not heavily enough to settle, just a few soft flakes falling lightly from the sky. There are two crows and a magpie in the branches of the old plane tree, pecking at the bark and occasionally opening their beaks to call their strange, harsh call. Horrible creatures. I shiver as I remember the crow that walked in through the back door a few weeks ago. It dawns on me as I take the first sip of my coffee – that was the day Adrian went to the conference, the last time I saw him alive.
Once the painkillers have kicked in, I go back upstairs to do my exercises, then shower and dress. As I stand by the window towelling my hair, I watch next door’s children playing in the garden, no doubt enticed by the snow. They run around shrieking in delight as they try to catch the snowflakes. I love seeing them all wrapped up in scarves and bobble hats, the toddler in a puffy snowsuit that makes him look like a little Michelin man. They’re doing their best to make snowballs out of the light dusting of white. The little one is wearing pea-green mittens, but the others have bare hands that are red with the cold, as are their noses. They must be freezing. My eyes start to fill as I watch the children playing. Would I cope better with losing Adrian if I were watching my own children playing out there? At least there would still be a tiny part of him left, something for me to love. Even though I know there would never – could never – have been another child, the pure scientific fact of it now is hard to take.
I remember standing here at this very window a few days after I had the miscarriage, staring out at the garden where we planned to put a swing and maybe even build a tree house for when the children were older. It was earlier in the year than this – autumn – when the trees were at their best, all reds and browns and golds and russets. The doctor had said there was no reason we couldn’t start trying again straight away, and when I told Adrian, he looked so pleased that I burst into tears. He put his arms around me immediately, holding me while I cried. When it first happened, he’d cried, too, but a week later, he was coping and I was still a mess. I’d been growing that baby inside me for almost ten weeks. I hadn’t felt it move but I’d felt its presence, I’d talked to it, connected with it. He kissed my head. ‘I know you’re still devastated,’ he murmured as my tears subsided, ‘but it is good news, isn’t it?’
I nodded, feeling in my pocket for a tissue. ‘I know it is.’ I stepped back from him to blow my nose. ‘But I wanted this baby.’ More tears leaked out.
‘I know,’ he said softly, putting his arms round me again. ‘So did I.’ We stood there for several minutes, and silent tears ran down my cheeks as he rocked me slowly back and forth, almost as if we were dancing.
When I gave a shuddery sigh and mopped my face, he turned me gently towards the window. ‘Ten years from now,’ he said, standing behind me with his arms around my waist and his head resting against mine, ‘we’ll have half a dozen kids running around out there.’
I turned to look at him, raising my eyebrows and managing a small smile.
‘Oh, all right,’ he said, kissing my cheek. ‘Two or three kids, then.’
So within a few weeks, we started trying again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEN
Being almost eight months pregnant in the height of summer was no fun, especially when you were working in a building with dodgy air conditioning – and we couldn’t open the windows because of the noise from the building works going on around the university. Would it all be done by the time the students came back in September, I wondered? Then I remembered I wouldn’t be here anyway.
I picked up a cardboard file and fanned my face. It really was unbearable in here today. I made a mental note to try to plan it better next time I got pregnant. Not that I was complaining, really. Part of me would always mourn my lost baby, even though he or she was not much bigger than a Brazil nut, but now we were only a few weeks away from meeting our new son or daughter, I couldn’t be happier. I looked at my watch – ten past three. I might as well start packing things up now. I’d been feeling great – once we’d got past that scary twelve-week point, at least. Before that, it was hard to enjoy being pregnant, even though I had virtually no morning sickness this time. But since then, I’ve felt better and better with each passing week. I’d planned to work up until thirty-eight weeks, but now they said my blood pressure was a bit high, so today was my last day in the department.
I was still slightly in shock that everything had happened so quickly, to be honest. I fell pregnant straight away this time, whereas before we’d been trying for seven months before I conceived. Last time, we were doing the usual thing of waiting until the twelve-week point before we told anyone, so as not to jinx it. But when I lost the baby, I was in such a state we couldn’t possibly have kept it to ourselves, so I ended up having to say, Actually, I was pregnant but we lost it. Whereas if people had already known, I think it would have been easier just to tell them the sad news. So this time we told people straight away – well, when I was six weeks. Everyone was thrilled, but it was clear most of them thought the early announcement was a bad idea, especially after what happened last time, and there was a collective sense of relief around us when we got to twelve weeks.
My maternity sundress was sticking to my legs, so I tried to hold it out away from my body and waft the cotton fabric about a bit to get a draught going around my legs. I could feel the sweat gathering under my breasts and prickling at my armpits and the backs of my knees. I took the cap off a bottle of water and stood by the window under the air conditioning while I drank. The humanities department was on the eleventh floor, and there was a brilliant view from up here – you could see all across Sheffield, over the rooftops and church spires of the city centre, right out to the hills and moorlands of Derbyshire and the Peak District. The sun was glinting off windows and cars, making everything look silvery, and there was even a bit of a heat haze. You couldn’t see the Peace Gardens from here, but when I walked back that way at lunchtime, the grass was covered with people sunbathing or watching children run in and out of the fountains. I wasn’t sure if it was cooler near the water, or if it just seemed cooler, but I fantasised about going down there now, sprawling on the grass and maybe catching some of the spray from the fountains. I couldn’t, of course. If I sat down on the grass, I’d never be able to haul my bulk back up, for one thing. I’d have to be content with a cool shower when I got home.
I’d been treat
ed like a queen since the moment I walked in this morning, and I’d been showered with presents and cards. I managed to pack most of the smaller gifts into a couple of big supermarket shopping bags. Then there was also a changing mat, a baby bath and a bouncy chair that played music and vibrated to soothe the baby. All these lovely things. I was so overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity, I kept having to stop to wipe away a tear.
I probably wouldn’t get it all in the car, but if I took most of it now, Adrian could pop back for the rest of it later in the week. I was hoping someone would help me take it all downstairs, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. It was always quiet on campus at this time of year – exams were over, the marking was done and there was a lull before it all kicked off again. I opened the door and looked out into the corridor. Where was everyone? The department was deserted. It was a bank holiday weekend, though, so perhaps they were all drifting off early. I was trying not to mind that everyone appeared to have buggered off without saying goodbye, when Carol, the course administrator, poked her head round the door. ‘Could you pop up to the top floor, Leah? Little surprise for you.’
My heart lifted. Not everyone had gone, then. ‘Another surprise? You’re spoiling me.’
The Flight of Cornelia Blackwood Page 6