Things I Should Have Said and Done

by Colette McCormick

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lizzie was losing patience.

  Mum fell into the chastised younger sister mode.

  ‘Will it help her to forget her mummy?’

  ‘Of course it won’t,’ Lizzie dismissed. She tried to reach out to her sister again but Mum pulled away. ‘Naomi’s never going to forget Ellen, Marc won’t let her.’

  ‘Won’t he?’

  I looked at George. He shook his head but I noticed his shoulders shrugged at the same time.

  ‘No, he won’t. He loved Ellen very much and she loved him,’ Aunt Lizzie insisted. I realised I was nodding. ‘There is no way he’ll let that child forget her mother.’

  ‘But will he remember her mother?’

  ‘Every time he looks at his daughter.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Marc managed to clear my wardrobe at the second attempt. I watched him take each item from its hanger and fold it before placing it into the black bag sitting on the bed. Each one was put carefully on top of the last one. Marc worked methodically and silently.

  He had taken the day off work and set to his task as soon as he got back from taking Naomi to school.

  He worked his way from left to right, emptying each hanger in turn.

  Occasionally he would hold a garment for a moment longer than necessary, as if what he was holding had some significance. I didn’t look at what he was holding because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face.

  Eventually, all the hangers were empty and Marc closed the doors, pushing them into place with a finality that cut me like a knife.

  He fastened the top of the bag into a double knot before gently lifting it to the floor.

  He ripped another bag from the roll and opened it wide at the neck. He snapped it like a windsock. He moved to the set of drawers beside the window and opened the top one. My underwear lay just as it had on the morning I died.

  Marc had his back to me. He started to shake, slightly at first but then more vigorously. I realised he was crying and I felt his pain as if it were my own. He reached into the drawer and took out a handful contents. He lifted them to his face and held them there as he sobbed. He took a deep breath before stuffing them into the black bag he held in his other hand. There was no care in the way he stuffed the contents of the drawer into the bag. He bundled them in and sobbed all the time.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellen,’ he said through sobs as he quickly tied a single knot and threw the second bag to where he had placed the first one so carefully.

  Marc slowly closed the drawer he had just emptied. He lowered his head as his hand rested on the handle of my secret drawer, the place I’d kept all of those special little things that were precious to me.

  Slowly, Marc pulled and my secrets were revealed.

  He pulled the drawer out completely and carried it to the bed as if his legs were no longer able to support his weight.

  The first thing Marc took was the plastic wristband Naomi had worn for the two days she was in hospital after she was born. Her name, her date of birth, and her weight were all recorded in faded ink. Marc twisted it in his fingers and put it back. The next thing he took out was a beige vellum envelope. He opened it and pulled out one of our wedding invitations. When he opened the card a pressed flower fell out. It was all that remained of the bouquet of freesias and lilies I had carried as I walked down the aisle. Marc read the details of that day.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Brian Price have the pleasure of inviting you to join them in celebrating the wedding of their only daughter Ellen to Marc Philip Reed at St Oswald’s Church, Cavendish Street on 2nd October at 3pm. RSVP’

  I didn’t need to see the words to know them. They would be with me forever.

  He put the card and flower back into the envelope and returned it to the drawer.

  He did a similar thing with everything else in my drawer. He took it out and looked at it before putting it back. When everything had been examined he carried the drawer back to where he had taken it from and slid it back along the rollers.

  Once it was closed he patted it and turned to the bags on the floor. He lifted one in each hand and carried them out of the room. A couple of minutes later we heard the front door open and we heard Marc start the car and pull away.

  I stood in the room I had once shared with the man I loved and, for the first time, I truly felt like I was dead.

  I sat on the swing and gently moved it to and fro. George was balanced in the middle of the see-saw. Dusk was falling and children had long since deserted the playground.

  ‘Will he forget me?’ I asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought so.’ He shuffled to get a better position. ‘But he’ll move on.’

  ‘Move on?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, get on with his life.’

  ‘Will he?’

  ‘Course he will.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When he’s ready.’ I could feel George watching me. ‘Life has to go on,’ he said gently.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered.

  I started to work the swing and it moved higher and higher. I felt the cold night air flow through my hair.

  I still loved Marc, and I wanted him to be happy. But the thought of him with another woman … I closed my eyes and forced the image away.

  It was a long time before the swing came to a stop, and that meant a lot of time to think. George was still balanced on the see-saw with his head down. He looked up as I stopped.

  ‘Can I ask you something, George?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What …?’ I couldn’t ask because I didn’t know what it was I wanted answering.

  ‘He’ll always love you.’

  ‘Will he?’ I rested my head against the chain I was holding.

  ‘Yeah.’ George jumped down and straightened the collar of his jacket. ‘If he loved you when you died he’ll love you forever.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ I asked as he walked towards me.

  ‘It’s a proven fact … like Pythagoras.’

  ‘Then how can he move on?’

  George settled himself onto the swing by my side. He used his feet to sway gently.

  ‘He has to … for his own sanity, he has to.’ He watched his feet for a moment then, stopping the movement of the swing, he concentrated on me. ‘Marc is a young man with a long life ahead of him. Like anybody else he has needs.’

  ‘Needs?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to think about that.

  I could just about make out George’s smile in the fading light.

  ‘Marc might need a hobby,’ George suggested. ‘Look,’ he said, swinging to me and taking hold of my hand. ‘Marianne was married within a year of my death.’ He moved his head to the left until it almost touched his shoulder. ‘She needed a man in her life.’ He looked up to the sky as if he was looking towards another place. ‘Marianne wasn’t the type of woman who could live without a man.’ George smiled and so did I.

  ‘How did you feel?’ I asked

  ‘How could I feel?’ He failed to hide the sadness from his voice. ‘I was dead and she wasn’t. She had a life to lead and there were things she needed to help her do that. If I’m being honest, it hurt. Of course it did. How could she get over me so quickly? My mum went mad when she found out Marianne was seeing another bloke. “How can you do it?” she said, “with my son still warm in his grave.” I suppose that’s how I felt too.’

  I opened my mouth to ask one of the many questions I had but George hadn’t finished. ‘But Marianne couldn’t cope on her own … She needed a man to support her … She needed a man to love her.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I still loved her but I couldn’t hold her in the night when she was scared. The love of a dead man was no good to her.’ He started to inch his swing forward and back and I sensed he was coming to the end of his speech. ‘She may not have loved me last,’ he said moving the swing further with each motion, ‘but she loved me longer.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’ I asked after a few seconds.

&nb
sp; ‘She’s like us,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘And her second husband?’

  ‘He’s here too … and her third and her fourth.’ My eyes and mouth were open wide but George just laughed. ‘I told you she wasn’t the kind of woman who could live without a man.’

  ‘But who is she with now?’ I asked.

  ‘All of us.’

  ‘What?’

  George laughed as he worked the swing. ‘Things are different here.’

  He was right. I knew he was right. But dealing with it was hard. I knew that Marc had to move on; like George said, Marc was a young man. It was just the thought of him with another woman in his arms or worse, his bed.

  I felt George’s swing slowing by my side and after scraping his feet along the ground several times it stopped.

  He looked at me and smiled. ‘No-one ever said being dead was easy,’ he said.

  I smiled too.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Marc emptied the contents of the saucepan onto the plate. He gave it a shake to spread everything evenly before setting it down in front of our daughter.

  ‘Eat up,’ he encouraged. ‘They’re your favourite.’

  This was the third time this week I’d seen Marc give Naomi Spaghetti Hoops.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ he said, pushing the plate towards her. ‘You’re always hungry.’

  ‘I’m not today.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged her little shoulders.

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  She shrugged them again.

  ‘Naomi.’ Marc had allowed the merest hint of anger to form in his voice.

  ‘I don’t like them.’ Naomi pushed the plate away and spoke with her chin on her chest.

  ‘They’re your favourite,’ he said again but something pitiful had replaced the anger.

  ‘Not any more,’ Naomi said defiantly.

  ‘Why?’ Marc asked.

  Naomi caught four or five hoops on one of the prongs of her fork. She lifted and angled it so the hoops fell off. She carefully placed her fork on the edge of her plate. ‘Because you don’t make them like Mummy did.’ And with that, she jumped from her chair and ran from the room.

  I started to run after her but a noise from Marc stopped me.

  I turned and watched as Marc slid down the wall until he was on the floor with his back resting against the cupboard. I half expected to see him adopt the foetal position, but he remained upright. He stared at the floor in front of his feet, the only movement an occasional twitch of his cheek. After a minute the rate of his breathing increased and he started to shake. After another minute his body racked with sobs and tears flowed down his cheeks.

  ‘Had to come,’ George’s voice came from close to my ear.

  ‘I’ve never seen him like this,’ I said from behind hands that were now inches from my mouth.

  ‘He’s never had to grieve the loss of a wife before.’

  ‘But it’s been weeks since I died.’

  ‘He’s been bottling this up for weeks.’

  I dropped to my knees in front of Marc.

  ‘Why did you leave me, Ellen?’ he asked, unknowingly looking straight into my eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ I said.

  ‘Why?’ he asked again

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I miss you so much,’ he whispered. ‘I need you. I can’t do this by myself.’

  Eventually the sobs stopped but not the tears. They flowed down his cheeks and off the end of his chin.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. I winced as I watched him move his head forward and bang it on the cupboard door. ‘I don’t know how to do a plait in her hair. I don’t know how to iron the pleats in her school skirt and I can’t make Spaghetti Hoops taste the way that you did. They come out of a tin, for God’s sake.’

  He allowed his head to rest on the cupboard door and closed his eyes.

  The hands on the wall clock moved slowly. Marc sat on the kitchen floor for thirty minutes without moving or making a sound.

  All I could do was watch.

  Day became night and the only light came from the security lamp outside the back door, which cast an eerie glow over the kitchen. Naomi opened the door and stood in silence. Marc didn’t seem to notice her silhouetted in the doorway. She moved towards her father. And even in the half-light I could see she had been crying.

  She stood beside Marc’s outstretched legs and looked at him. At last he opened his eyes. The pain that they shared was visible. He held out his arms and she joined him on the floor. She sat on his thighs and rested her head on his chest.

  ‘I miss her,’ she said.

  ‘I know, sweetheart,’ Marc whispered. ‘I miss her too.’

  ‘Why did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘But I know she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave us.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t eat the sketti hoops, Daddy.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He brushed a stray hair from her face. ‘But it’s spaghetti.’

  ‘Sketti.’

  ‘Spag … hetti.’ He separated the word out.

  ‘Mummy let me call it sketti.’

  I saw Marc’s chest rise and fall as he controlled his breathing. He forced a smile onto his face. ‘Sketti it is, then.’ He rested the side of his face on her head and the tears in his eyes glistened in the darkness.

  ‘Where’s Mummy now?’ Naomi drew circles on the table as she asked.

  George and I watched Marc as he examined the plate he was washing in minute detail. He placed it carefully back in the frothy water, plucked a tea towel from where it sat on the bench, and dried his hands. He turned slowly and walked the three steps to the table.

  He pulled out a chair and sat opposite Naomi. We watched him rest his elbows on the table and temple his hands in front of his face.

  Even though I knew it was impossible, I swear I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I was anxious to know how Marc was going to answer her. We had discussed how we would answer things like ‘where do babies come from?’ but not ‘where’s Mummy now she’s dead?’

  As was his way, Marc was considering his answer carefully.

  ‘She’s in here,’ he said, tapping his chest.

  ‘Good answer,’ George muttered.

  ‘How can she be in your chest?’

  ‘Not my chest, darling.’ Marc smiled as he spoke. ‘In my heart. And not just in my heart, in your heart too.’

  ‘How can she live in my heart?’

  ‘As long as you remember her, she’s alive in there.’

  Naomi nodded her head in a very grown-up way and then announced. ‘She lives here too.’

  ‘I knew she’d seen me.’ I whispered in George’s direction, clapping my hands together in excitement.

  ‘I saw her,’ she elaborated.

  ‘Told you,’ I shouted, punching George just below the shoulder. He rubbed the spot and pulled a face.

  In my excitement I hadn’t noticed that Naomi had left her seat and the room.

  Once more, Marc’s elbows were on the table and his head was buried deep into his hands

  ‘I did see her, Jessie.’ Naomi sat on her bed and cradled her doll in her arms. She stroked the doll’s blonde curls with her fingers. ‘I did see her,’ she insisted. ‘I’m not lying.’

  It had been hours since Marc had turned off the lights and retired to our bedroom. I wondered if he was asleep. George and I sat in the living room, the one Marc and I had finished decorating just a few weeks before the accident. I admired the décor I had helped to choose.

  ‘Why, George?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Why not you?’

  There was no answer. I pursed my lips and thought for a moment.

  ‘I didn’t want to die.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Most people don’t.’

>   ‘You don’t seem to mind.’

  He pondered for a moment, resting his head on the sofa. ‘I’ve got used to it,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. Anyway, the world is different place now from when I was alive. I don’t know how I’d have fit.’

  ‘How long have you been here, George?’

  ‘You mean dead?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Don’t know. A long time.’ He lifted his head and looked around. ‘Nice room,’ he said, seamlessly changing the subject.

  ‘Thanks.’ I smiled with pride. ‘I picked the colour.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked around. ‘What do we call that colour?’

  ‘Pistachio.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, nodding his head slowly.

  ‘It’s a nut,’ I explained.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘What? You don’t know pistachios?’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘George,’ I pushed him playfully. ‘You’ve been here longer than I thought.’

  ‘Clearly.’

  Dawn was almost upon us and we were still sat in the pistachio room. There was nowhere else to go and besides, this was my home. I sat on the end of my sofa with my legs curled under me. George and I had been silent for most of the night. I was going over the evening’s events again and again.

  ‘I knew Naomi had seen me.’ I broke the silence.

  ‘At last,’ he sighed. ‘I thought you’d never mention it.’ He shuffled in his seat until he was facing me. I twisted and we sat facing each other.

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘What does what mean?’

  ‘Do you ever answer a question with anything other than a question?’

  ‘Rarely, but in this case I couldn’t if I wanted to. I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘What does it mean that Naomi saw me?’

  ‘It means just that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That she saw you.’

  ‘But why did she?’

  George coughed. ‘You want the honest answer?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said eager for the revelation.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You must.’