by Claire Dyer
‘Tell me you’re happy at least. With him, I mean. That he makes you happy,’ he says.
There is a long silence and then, looking steadily at him, she clears her throat. ‘It’s not a hearts and flowers thing, Boyd,’ she says. ‘We’re good friends, that’s all. It’s …’ she pauses.
‘Yes?’ He’s fingering the knob on the lid of the teapot in an effort to distract himself.
‘… convenient.’
‘Is that all you want?’ This question also comes unbidden and he knows as soon as he’s asked it that he has no right to do so, no right at all. ‘I’m sorry,’ he adds quickly. ‘I shouldn’t have asked that.’
‘No,’ she replies, ‘you shouldn’t. You,’ she looks up in the direction of the bedroom where Honey is still asleep, ‘are the last person who should be asking me that. And that’s why I tried to keep it quiet, why I don’t want a fuss. It’s nice as it is.’
‘Does Trixie know?’
‘What is this, Boyd? Why should it matter if she does or doesn’t. It’s nobody’s business but my own really, isn’t it?’
Boyd can’t answer this and so, in an effort to change the subject, he says, ‘Trixie stayed on for a bit last night. Saw us get settled in after we got back from the hospital.’
‘Did she? That was nice.’
‘I really don’t know what I’d do without her, you know.’
‘She’s still part of the furniture, isn’t she?’
Vita looks tired, Boyd thinks. He wants to be able to take a step towards her, hold out a hand and place it on the back of her head, feel her hair under his fingers like he used to, but he knows he shouldn’t be thinking this at all.
And then she’s saying, ‘Is that tea going to pour itself or what?’ and automatically he picks up the pot.
She’s still holding the paper and says out of nowhere, ‘Astringency.’
‘Pardon?’ He’s adding milk, just the amount he knows she likes.
‘That’s the answer to “tart quality”. It’s “astringency”.’
He hands her a mug and says, ‘Oh, of course it is. How did we not get that?’
‘Must be getting rusty, I guess.’ And, he thinks, it’s not the only thing they’re rusty at. They should be better at doing this than they are and he shouldn’t mind about her and Colin. They’ve been through too much to get to where they are now, after all, haven’t they? ‘I’ll take Honey hers,’ he says, ‘and then shall we crack on with twelve down?’
‘Actually Boyd, I think I’ll head on up if that’s OK and have my shower now. I need to change my clothes.’
As he watches her go, he feels an ineffable sadness settle on his heart at the thought of her ‘convenient’ relationship, at the thought of her wearing the same clothes as yesterday, of her getting out of bed next door and putting them back on to make the short journey home, at the thought that she will peel these clothes off again upstairs and get dressed into something else and go into her studio and carry on painting the pictures of the bloody dogs she hates painting. This isn’t the life he would wish for Vita. He wants something better for her than this. He wishes it was still in his gift to give it to her, and this surprises him.
He doesn’t know Colin all that well but guesses he’s a nice bloke, that he’ll have Vita’s best interests at heart but there is, in the back of Boyd’s throat, a taste of something bitter and the thought that actually Colin may not be good enough for Vita, not good enough at all.
These thoughts are buzzing in his head as he carries Honey’s coffee upstairs. He can hear the shower running in the bathroom and deliberately doesn’t think of Vita’s small, firm, familiar body, her sturdy legs, her hair, the water channelling between her breasts. No, he doesn’t think of these things but instead he tiptoes into his and Honey’s bedroom and stands for a long moment looking down at the girl he loves now as she sleeps, at the small frown puckering her brow.
‘Hello there, sleepyhead,’ he says at last, putting the mug down.
Honey stretches and winces as she tries to move her foot. ‘Shit,’ she says, ‘I’d forgotten that for a moment.’
‘That’s a fine way to greet me,’ Boyd chuckles as he says this.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbles. ‘I meant of course, good morning, Boyd.’
‘That’s better.’
‘Is Vita home?’ she asks. ‘Is that the shower I can hear?’
‘Yes, she’s just got in.’
‘Ah, OK.’
Boyd realises that neither of them, it seems, is brave enough to ask the other how they feel about this latest development. And so it looks like it’s going to be one of those things that just gets accepted, isn’t questioned, isn’t analysed. And, he thinks, this is probably for the best.
‘I’d better check my phone,’ he says as Honey hoists herself up in bed and takes a sip. ‘And you’ll be wanting to check your horoscope, I guess.’
‘Guess so. Didn’t have time to check it yesterday; it may have told me I’d take a tumble if I had!’ She laughs, picking up her own phone and staring intently at the screen.
Boyd’s phone has been on silent and he’s missed three calls from Jean, the manager of Queen Anne’s, his mother’s nursing home.
‘Fuck,’ he says under his breath, ‘what now?’ and hurries out of the room to listen to the messages.
‘Hello Boyd,’ Jean’s voice is husky on the voicemail, huskier than it is normally. ‘It’s Jean. From Queen Anne’s. Just wondering if you could give me a call back? It’s quite urgent. Thank you. Hear from you soon, I hope.’
She’s left a breathy gap between each of these sentences as if struggling to work out what to say. The first two calls are just missed calls, she’s left this message on the third. He dials her number and is standing at the top of the stairs when she answers.
‘Boyd,’ she says. ‘I know it’s early but thanks for calling back.’
He can picture her at her desk with its jumble of papers and the painting of Stonehenge on the wall behind her.
‘Sorry I missed your calls. What’s up?’
‘Um,’ she replies. ‘This is tricky. I don’t quite know what to say.’
‘Just say it. Whatever it is, we’ll cope I’m sure.’ He still has no idea what she wants, what she’s got to tell him.
At that moment, Vita opens the bathroom door and, with a towel wrapped around her body and another around her head, starts walking towards him. In their room Honey is chuckling at something she must be looking at on her phone as Vita steps by him.
‘It’s Jean,’ he mouths at her.
Vita nods briefly and goes into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Boyd doesn’t think about the damp towel, the drops of shower water that may still be on Vita’s eyelashes, about Colin and Colin’s hands on her. No, he doesn’t think of any of these things, or so he tells himself in the split second before Jean speaks again.
‘Your mother’s in hospital,’ she says quickly. ‘She was admitted yesterday.’
It takes Boyd a moment to compute this. He’d seen his mother at the hospital yesterday, she’d said she was just in for a routine check-up and he’d believed her.
‘Which hospital?’ he asks, although of course he already knows the answer to this.
‘Royal Surrey. We’ve only just received her permission to tell you. I have to admit, it’s been difficult these past few weeks, not being able to pick up the phone to you to tell you about the tests, the diagnosis.’
‘But she’s fine, isn’t she?’ Boyd’s brain is playing catch up with his heart, his heart is beating a million times a minute it seems, while his brain is moving in slow motion. ‘I mean, she had a backache when I visited her last, but otherwise, she seemed fine. They said her blood pressure was OK and that she was eating well. She said she was just in hospital for tests. It was just routine.’
There is an agonising pause and it’s as though Boyd already knows what Jean is going to say next.
‘It’s cancer, I’m afrai
d, Boyd. It’s in her bones and now her liver. It’s a matter of palliative care from now on. I’m so terribly sorry.’
‘Why didn’t she say? How come I’m the last to know?’
‘I can’t answer that, I’m sorry. You know what she’s like.’
He’d thought he did, but now he’s not so sure. He’s known this woman who is his mother all his life and yet he can’t tell whether she’s kept her illness a secret up to now in order to protect him or to punish him.
‘I should go and see her,’ he says. ‘Today. I should go now, shouldn’t I?’
‘It may be an idea, Boyd,’ Jean replies. ‘I am so terribly sorry.’
‘I’ll be in touch later when and if I’ve been able to speak to her doctor, OK?’
‘OK. And do take care, Boyd. Everyone here is thinking of you.’
They say goodbye, or Boyd assumes they do; he can’t quite remember as he puts his phone in the pocket of his bathrobe and stares at the closed door to Vita’s room. He should tell Honey, he should phone Trixie to say he won’t be in the office again today, he should do both of these things and yet, the most logical and important thing he actually wants to do is to tell Vita this news; it’s as though only she will understand the full enormity of it.
He’s just raising his hand to knock on Vita’s door when Honey staggers out of their room and, leaning up against the wall, says, ‘What is it Boyd? What’s happened?’
And so he tells her instead and she says, ‘I’ll come with you. To the hospital. I should come, shouldn’t I?’
‘You don’t have to. You should stay here and rest.’
‘I want to come. I want to be there with you.’
And he loves her for saying this, for wanting to do this thing for him. And, if he’s honest with himself, he’s relieved; it will be a comfort having her there. Even though she and his mother have not met before, this might be the easiest and best way for them to do so. It may be one of the last chances they have.
‘I should tell Vita though,’ he adds, as he steers Honey back into the room and helps her sit down on the bed.
‘You do that while I try and get dressed,’ she says. ‘And then I guess you should put some clothes on too, eh?’
‘You’re right, I should!’
But before he does, he walks slowly until he’s outside Vita’s door and this time he knocks and she says, ‘What?’ and he says, ‘It’s Mum,’ and she flings open the door and is standing there, her hair in waves around her shoulders, her eyes vulnerable and exposed without her glasses, and she is saying, ‘Christ, Boyd. What’s she gone and done now?’
It’s awful telling Vita, especially as he’s so short on actual facts. All he can say is that his mother is suddenly dying. This morning when he got up, she’d been 3D and alive and difficult and feisty and angry and part of the backdrop to his life. Now, a mere hour later, she’s slipping out of the picture frame, already fading. And, surprisingly, Boyd finds he’s furious about this.
He feels beleaguered: first there was telling Honey about William, then Honey’s accident, then finding out about Vita and Colin, and now this? What’s life going to throw at me next, he wonders?
Later, when all three of them are downstairs, Honey having fashioned a way of getting down them on her bottom with Boyd behind carrying her crutches, Boyd finds the house too small and crowded. Part of him thinks he should face this alone but another part wants the company of one or either of these women, but actually not both.
‘I’ll come,’ Vita had said. ‘To the hospital. I’ll come with you.’
‘It’s OK, Honey’s coming.’
‘But Belle doesn’t know Honey. Not like I do.’ She’s standing in the kitchen now, her arms folded across her chest. She’s wearing black leggings, red boots, a smock-type thing Boyd hasn’t seen before. Her hair is back in its plait, her eyes behind her glasses and she’s radiating some fearful kind of energy he doesn’t quite understand.
In the lounge, Honey’s sitting on the sofa, her leg up. She’s wearing a long flowery skirt, her denim jacket. She looks impossibly young and vulnerable and he’s standing in between the two of them, a surprising mess of emotions. He’d sometimes wondered what life would be like without his mother and her disappointments but now, faced with the news Jean’s just given him, he finds he’s not at all ready to find out.
‘Vita,’ he says, ‘will you help Honey into the car while I ring Trixie. She’ll be wondering where I am.’
‘I can manage,’ Honey says, struggling to her feet and hopping over to pick up her crutches.
‘Don’t be so silly.’ Vita takes the crutches from Honey and helps slot them under her armpits and then, steering her gently with one hand, she takes the keys to Boyd’s car out of his hand with her other and they make their way gingerly to the door.
Boyd dials the office number. ‘Trixie?’ he says, as he watches them go. ‘It’s me.’
The shock is starting to wear off but even so, telling Trixie about his mum is harder than he thought it’d be. Of course, she says, ‘Don’t you worry about anything here, Boyd. I’ll look after everything. You just go and see her. I’ll hear from you later no doubt.’
‘I was,’ he says, ‘going to come in and inspect the step down into the storeroom, take photos, and the like. Promise me you won’t touch anything or go down them yourself today. Promise me.’
‘I promise,’ she replies.
‘I’ll call you later, OK?’
‘OK, Boyd. Take care now.’
There’s a strange gap in the conversation. They’ve spoken on the phone countless times and yet this time Boyd can sense an undercurrent, something Trixie’s not saying but that she wants to.
‘Who?’ she says into this gap. ‘Who’s going with you, to the hospital, I mean? You’re not going on your own, are you?’
‘Vita and Honey are coming. Vita’s helping Honey get in the car at the moment.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Trixie says. ‘Well, in that case I’d better let you get on.’
There’s another gap into which Boyd says, ‘Thank you, you’re a godsend. Don’t know what we’d do without you.’
‘Well, yes, that’s as may be,’ she replies, before saying, ‘Go on, you’d better get going then. And Boyd …?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope it goes OK, at the hospital. You know.’
‘I know. Bye for now Trixie.’
‘Bye.’
Vita’s closing the car door as Boyd steps out of the house and turns to lock up behind him. It’s only just gone nine and yet he feels he’s already lived half a lifetime today.
Honey
It’s strangely OK to be shepherded down the path by Vita; she’s strong and capable and her hair smells comfortingly of lemon shampoo. Boyd’s car is where he left it yesterday, facing the bottom of the road.
‘We should arrange another sitting, I guess,’ Honey says to Vita as they reach the gate. ‘For the portrait, I mean.’
‘Mmmm,’ Vita replies. ‘Suppose we should.’
‘I mean, while I can use this,’ Honey adds, pointing to her foot, ‘as a reason to stay home.’
‘Mmmm,’ Vita says again, manoeuvring Honey around the car to the passenger door, snatching at the handle and yanking it open. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘I’ll help you in.’
And that’s when it happens. Honey’s lowering herself into the seat and preparing to swing her legs around when she looks off into the distance and catches sight of him standing under the horse chestnut trees at the end of the road. The leaves are full of blight at this time of year, have begun to turn and there are drifts of them crowding up against the fence bordering the park.
He is leaning against the tree, hunched inside a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette.
‘You OK?’ Vita asks, as Boyd slams the front door shut; scaring a bird from the tree and causing Reuben to look directly at them.
‘Of course,’ Honey says. ‘I’m fine.’
But he’s still there as Boyd turn
s the car round at the end of the road. He’s still there as they drive away. Honey closes her eyes and imagines opening them to see that he’s gone, that he was never there in the first place but instead, when she opens them, his reflection is getting smaller and smaller in the wing mirror.
Neither Boyd nor Vita say anything at the junction or as Boyd pulls out into the flow of traffic.
Vita
It’s been years since I’ve been in a car with Boyd.
We had a car seat for William which we put in the front and I’d sit in the back and crane my neck around the headrest, constantly checking on him on the few journeys we did together before he died. I’d watch his tiny lips move, him punch the air with his fists, open his eyes wide when we went under a bridge. I can’t remember what we did with the car seat afterwards.
Other than that, I always travelled in the front seat, next to Boyd as he drove, and so it’s odd now being in the back, staring at his left ear, the jut of his jaw, and seeing the top of Honey’s head in the seat in front of me, a few dark roots showing in her cropped, peroxide hair. At a set of traffic lights, Boyd reaches across and squeezes Honey’s knee.
Isn’t it strange how you never know you’ve lived the last day of one kind of life until you realise that kind of life is over, and you’re looking back at it and can pinpoint the exact day that everything changed?
And so there must have been the last day on which I rode in the front of Boyd’s car as we drove to a place we’d planned to go to together, as a couple, with me comfortable and relaxed and knowing that when we left, we’d leave together and drive home again; there must have been the last day I ironed a shirt of his as his official wife, not his estranged or separated wife, or angry or grieving wife; there must have been the last day we made love – his tender hands, his full lips, the way we came together, practised and easy with one another; there must have been the last day when we smiled at one another – the simple, open smile of two people who love each other, who share a life and home and photo albums and the word ‘us’; there must have been the last day we went to the supermarket, bought bread and milk and eggs and carried them through the front door in plastic bags. There must have been a last day before William died.