Dancing Over the Hill

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘Finding it difficult?’ asked Gina.

  We both nodded.

  ‘So open it up a bit. Maybe put in pampering treatments. Things you’ve never done before.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well it’s your list not mine, but mindfulness or meditation class, a Thai massage, go on an archaeological dig, volunteer as dog walkers at the local rescue centre, go to an author talk at a local bookshop, a concert – something you can talk about afterwards but whatever interests and appeals to you both.’

  ‘Those are great ideas,’ said Cait. ‘I’m going to write all those down. Matt, do you agree?’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said.

  Cait sighed as if exasperated. I knew I was behaving like a truculent teenager but I couldn’t help myself. It was either that or strangle her.

  42

  Cait

  I drove home from visiting Dad at Lorna’s. He’d settled in well there and he and Lorna seemed very comfortable with each other, chatting companionably out in the garden with cups of tea, the dogs at their feet. I was glad to see him happy, a little jealous too. He was my dad, not Lorna’s. I brushed that aside. It was a great resolution to what had been a year of worry about him, and her too, and he was only fifteen minutes away. I could visit any time. I hadn’t had a chance to get Lorna alone to tell her that it was all over with Tom, nor Debs who hadn’t replied to texts I’d sent in the last week. No matter, I thought, I’d tell them next time I saw them both.

  As I drove, I thought about Matt. Just as I’d felt we were making progress, he’d turned into a misery again and retreated back behind his wall. I’d tried everything – researched material for his programme and come up with some good stuff, prepared his favourite meal, bought a good bottle of wine, but all he had to say was ‘umph’, as though he was a hormonal teenager. Luckily we had more sessions booked with Gina and I hoped that she might be able to get him to talk about whatever was bothering him.

  I got home to a quiet house and no sign of Matt. Must be out at the gym, I thought as I spied a note on the island. ‘Gone to stay with Duncan for a few days, maybe longer. I think you know why. Matt.’

  My blood ran cold and I sank onto a stool at the island. Oh god, he knows about Tom, I thought immediately. How did he find out? What did he know? I had to talk to him. I had to explain that nothing had happened. I reached for my mobile and called his number. My call went straight to message service.

  I went to the fridge and poured a large glass of wine, then went and sat in the sitting room. I felt sick and anxious. I tried Matt’s mobile again. It was still on message service. I texted. ‘Matt, please call.’

  I have been a fool, I thought as I tried his number a third time – an utter, complete fool. What should I do now? Talk to Debs? Or Lorna? No. What can they say? Both had warned me that seeing Tom would be playing with fire. Or … was it one of them who’d told him? They were the only people who knew. I couldn’t bear to think that either of them had gone to Matt – surely not. It couldn’t be. I trusted them both, my oldest friends and confidantes. I had to speak to Matt. I glanced over at a wedding photo on the bookshelf and my eyes welled up with tears. ‘I am so sorry, Matt, so very sorry.’

  I drank my wine and sat staring out at the back garden. I felt numb with shock, unsure what to do next. I must have sat there in a stupor for hours because I eventually became aware that the light had faded and it was late evening. I went upstairs, got into bed and tried to sleep. I longed for a few hours oblivion but that relief wouldn’t come and I spent a troubled night, tossing and turning until I eventually got up and went down to make tea and feed Yoda.

  The house felt so quiet, and I understood Lorna when she’d described hearing the ticking of the clock and hum of the fridge-freezer. I had no desire to do anything – not to watch TV, read a book, not even to look at animal rescue clips or do quizzes on Facebook.

  I went into Matt’s den. I wanted to feel his presence. I sat at his desk and noticed piles of papers, notes for his TV series. On the right, he had an in-tray. In it was a blue paper file. I reached over and opened it. On the top sheet, it said, For Cait. A Book of Lists to let you know that I do speak your language and have been listening all along.

  I began to flick through the pages.

  On the second page, he’d written: Things I love about you. He’d listed:

  Your eyes.

  Your quirky sense of humour.

  Your patience.

  Kind heart.

  Your endless curiosity.

  The way you move.

  Your zest for life.

  You’ve put up with me all these years.

  You’re a great wife, social secretary, cook, friend.

  You’re a great mother to our boys.

  A great daughter to your dad.

  I groaned inwardly as I read what he’d written. He’d been working on this secretly and, as I flicked further through, I saw that there were pages and pages of lists, some complete, others unfinished.

  On page three, he’d written. Things that I know annoy you about me and I will change. I smiled as I read:

  I don’t talk things through with you.

  I snore.

  I’m in your way.

  I keep forgetting to turn the gas off when I’ve cooked.

  I wear my dressing gown past 9 a.m. (not lately).

  I make a mess in the kitchen.

  I can be grumpy.

  Another page listed ideas for date nights.

  Another showed a list of things to do in our retirement. I smiled when I read ‘learn how to tango’ then ‘keep chickens’ and ‘get a dog for long country walks’.

  He’d clearly put a lot of thought into it and even compiled an A–Z of activities. When did he think we were going to get time to do all this? I asked myself as I glanced down through archaeology, bird watching, cookery classes … on it went.

  On a page midway through was a list of options of where we could live, though it appeared he was still working on this page. He’d scribbled notes in the margin: downsize, get a cottage in Devon or Somerset, a houseboat on the canal; as long as we’re together it will be home. That brought a tear to my eyes.

  On the last page, he’d written: it’s never too late, and he’d begun a list of writers and artists who didn’t start until they were older. Pablo Picasso, J. R. R. Tolkien, Frank McCourt, Mary Wesley; the list went on for three pages.

  I felt moved by the thought and effort he’d put into compiling the lists. All the time I’d been ranting and raving like a harridan about him not communicating, he’d been here in his den, trying to do just that. And now he’d left home. Oh god, what have I done? I asked myself for the umpteenth time. I tried Matt’s mobile but, once again, it went to message service. For lack of anything else to do, I decided to clean. In an attempt to bring some order back into my life where I could, I swept and dusted until every surface was gleaming. I cleared out cupboards, wiped shelves, I polished tables, washed windows until they sparkled, scoured the bathrooms, changed sheets on all the beds but still no call from Matt.

  Early evening, I poured a glass of wine and went into the sitting room. I glanced over at the bookshelves on the left wall. One shelf at the bottom held all our photo albums. I hadn’t looked at them in years and had deliberately avoided them since Mum and Eve died. I got up and heaved them over onto the coffee table.

  I sat back on the sofa and began to turn the pages of the first one. There were photos of Mum when she was young, and seeing her kind, familiar face made me catch my breath. Bittersweet though it was, I wanted to look, see more, remember her. There she was with my brother, Mike and me, as toddlers in the garden at the old family house where she and Dad had lived for over forty years before they downsized to their bungalow. There was a great shot of her sitting in a train somewhere on a holiday with Dad. She was great looking: high cheek-boned, beautifully dressed in a tailored suit, like one of those Christian Dior models from the 1950s with the pinched-in waists.
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  I turned the page and saw Mum and Dad at my wedding – in fact, all the photos from that day. Matt, Eve and I, we all looked so young. Further pages showed Matt and me with Sam and Jed when they were young. In those pictures, Mum was older, her hair grown silver, but still the twinkle there that she always had in her eyes. It was a joy being reminded what a presence she had been in our lives, in my life, but unbearable to know that she’d gone. I’d had a good relationship with her and, after my boys were born, she’d been supportive but never intrusive, and had always been there either in person when I was at the end of my tether with exhaustion or on the phone with endless advice on how best to cope.

  ‘Today of all days, more than ever, I want to talk to you,’ I said as I sipped the wine. ‘I’ve made a mess, Mum, been an idiot, and I don’t know what to do or who to turn to.’ But the room remained quiet and I felt a stab to the heart, knowing that I couldn’t pick up the phone and hear her voice at the other end, comforting and reassuring that, in the words of her favourite saying, ‘this too will pass.’

  I got up to go to the fridge for another glass of wine; once there I took out the bottle and returned with it to the sofa.

  In a second album, there were photos of Eve and me. Brownie camera shots from our school days, gawky teenagers in our grey and mauve uniforms, our skirts worn too short for school but hoicked up for the photos; later, in college days, in flared jeans and cheesecloth shirts. I smiled at seeing her. ‘Bloody miss you too,’ I said to the album. More photos showed us at Glastonbury, in our hippie gear, velvet and lace, my hair long, plaited, Eve’s feather-cut around her elfin face.

  As I pored over the pages, looking at the people I’d loved best in the world and lost, I felt a quaking deep inside, then a wave beginning to build. I took a deep breath to try and contain the intensity of it, but it was coming, rising, surging its way up, unstoppable, overpowering, erupting up through my chest, my throat, destroying anything in its way, and I heard a sound come out of me like a wounded animal. I leant back on the cushions on the sofa and let the tsunami of grief do its worst. I had no strength to resist so surrendered and let it pour out. ‘When you’re ready,’ I heard Gina say in my head as the torrent inside spilled out in ice-hot tears.

  I had no idea how long I was there on the sofa but, after a while, the waves subsided, leaving my head aching and my eyes sore and swollen.

  There was one more album to look at. When I opened it, there were half a lifetime’s photos of Matt and me. The bright, eager man I’d met so long ago; it pained me to look at him and think he really might have gone for good. One shot showed Matt with a tiny Sam in his arms, his astonished yet overjoyed face at his first son’s birth; another showed the same delight when Jed came along. As I turned the pages, I recalled sleepless nights we’d spent when the boys were unwell or frightened, Matt always there to comfort them. A photo showed him playing football with the boys out in the back garden, another with his head bent over their homework as he tried to help and guide. Anger and frustration, distance when they grew and pushed the boundaries, then the proud father at their graduation. I remembered the sagging of his shoulders and posture at the death of his father, again when his mother passed, his strong and reassuring arm around me when my mother died, and again after Eve had gone. He’d always been there, sometimes in the background, but constantly there, watching over me, trying to gauge how best to be or what to say to make things right. How could I have thought about leaving him? He’d been my rock, my safe place, and I’d shut him out. He hadn’t deserved it.

  Oh god, here comes another one, I thought as I felt another tidal wave gathering deep inside. I’d thought I had no more tears but I was wrong and, in the end, I didn’t even know who I was weeping for – Mum, Eve or Matt. No wonder I kept this all in, I thought, it hurts like hell. It also occurred to me that the wall I’d built to keep the pain inside, had also kept Matt out.

  As the light faded in the evening, I curled up on the sofa, empty and exhausted. Yoda jumped up beside me, nestled into my chest and started purring like an old bus. It was a comfort having him there and I soon fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  43

  Cait

  I woke the next morning with a throbbing head and dry mouth. I went straight to my mobile. There was still no word from Matt but there was a text from Lorna. Tried you last night, you OK?

  I didn’t want to speak to anyone; instead I found a throw and went back to the sofa and slept. When I awoke late afternoon, there were four more texts from Lorna. Are you OK? Call me. Am worried.

  I went upstairs, showered, made a cafetiere of coffee then heard the doorbell. Matt? No, he has his keys. I had no desire to see anyone but, after a few minutes, I heard Lorna calling through the letterbox.

  ‘Cait, it’s me.’

  I went to the door and let her in.

  ‘You look awful,’ she said as soon as she saw me and took in the dressing gown. ‘Are you ill?’

  I shook my head. ‘Matt’s left me.’

  ‘Oh god, no,’ she said and hugged me. ‘Let’s make some tea and you can tell me what’s happened.’

  She led me through into the kitchen and made tea and toast while I filled her in on what had happened.

  ‘There were only two people who knew about Tom—’

  ‘It was Debs,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Debs? How do you know? Are you sure?’

  Lorna nodded. ‘She called me last night. She’s in pieces, very upset.’

  ‘She’s upset? Why did she do it? Why would she do that?’

  ‘I think you need to ask her that.’

  ‘Do you know what she told him?’

  ‘Only that you’d been seeing Tom.’

  I felt a sudden panic. ‘Matt’s not with her, is he?’

  ‘No, of course not, Cait. He loves you, but that’s why I’ve been trying to reach you, to warn you that Debs had told Matt. I didn’t know he’d gone.’

  ‘Do you know when she told him? Was it yesterday?’

  ‘I think it was a week ago. She’s been agonizing ever since.’

  ‘I’ll kill her, though that explains why I haven’t heard from her lately, and why Matt had shut down. I couldn’t understand what had happened because we’d been getting on so much better, then he suddenly became uncommunicative and moody so it’s beginning to make sense. God, what a mess. I know I’ve been a complete idiot, but it was never real with Tom. I know that now.’

  ‘It’s always been obvious to me that you love Matt. You’ve just been going through a sticky patch. Tom was just a—’

  ‘A distraction, a stupid fantasy, an escape.’

  ‘I never for a moment thought you were going to act on it.’

  ‘Well, Debs did, and apparently enough to go and warn Matt.’

  ‘I know. That was bad. It wasn’t her place to tell him and, believe me, she does know that. She really regrets it.’

  ‘Why would she tell him unless she thought Matt might be up for grabs? I thought she was my friend but, not only did she betray me, I reckon she was after my husband.’

  ‘No, surely not? She wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she? You know how desperate she’s been to find a man, and she’s often said she’d like an older man, someone like Matt. Or do you think telling him was revenge because I didn’t put her in touch with Tom?’

  ‘Don’t think about it today, Cait. Drink your tea. It’s not the time; nobody’s thinking straight and you don’t know what was said or why. What you have to concentrate on is getting Matt to come home.’

  ‘I know, but he won’t answer my calls.’

  ‘So go round there. Talk to him. Camp on the doorstep.’

  I sank my head into my hands. I felt utterly exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

  Lorna came over and rubbed my shoulders. ‘Come on, Cait, you can make it right again.’

  ‘Can I? Or is it too late?’

  ‘It’s never too late; just let him know that you do love him. I do
n’t think we need to even question if he loves you.’

  Her words made my eyes well up again and I sobbed into her shoulder. ‘How do you cope with the loss of Alistair?’

  ‘I don’t,’ she replied. ‘The pain doesn’t lessen, but somehow you get used to it and learn to live with it. Never forget, the depth of what you feel after the loss of someone is directly related to how much you loved them. The deeper the love, the deeper the pain.’

  ‘I understand that,’ I said, and told her about going through the albums yesterday.

  She hugged me again and her eyes were also full of tears, but I felt comforted and hoped that she did too.

  *

  I set off for Duncan’s a couple of hours later. What will I say? I asked myself as I found his flat and parked the car. Apologize? Beg? Lie on the pavement and refuse to get up until Matt agrees to come back?

  I got out of the car, went over to the block where Duncan had a first-floor flat and rang the bell. Duncan appeared a few minutes later, looking bleary eyed.

  ‘Is Matt here?’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘No, he’s out. What’s going on with you two? He won’t tell me anything but he’s like a bear with a sore head.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  Duncan shook his head again. ‘Want to come in?’

  ‘No. Thanks. Could you ask Matt to call me?’

  ‘Sure, but what’s going on?’ he asked again as I headed back to my car.

  Back at home, I sat and pondered what to do next. I tried calling Matt’s phone again and, the third time, he picked up. ‘Matt, thank god, where are you?’

  ‘Down by the canal.’

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘Walking.’

  ‘Will you come home, please?’

  ‘No, Cait. I need some time alone and I think you do too.’

  ‘I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t know what Debs told you, but this Tom guy, he was nothing, is nothing, nothing happened.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me about him yourself?’