The Dead Wife's Handbook

by Hannah Beckerman

  ‘She’s in my class. She doesn’t sit on my table but she’s in the red team for PE like me.’

  ‘And she said that to you? When?’

  ‘The other day when we were doing games.’

  ‘Well, she’s talking rubbish, angel. I promise you – I promise you with all my heart – that Mummy didn’t die because of anything you did. I know it’s really hard to understand and I can’t promise you that you’ll ever understand it completely, but I can promise you that none of this is your fault. Can you believe that for me, Ellie? Please?’

  Max holds Ellie tight in his arms as if only by fusing her body to his can he protect her from the emotional elements.

  Ellie pulls away from him.

  ‘But Georgia said that if I was really good then maybe Mummy would come home.’

  Grief and impotence combine to create the Molotov of emotional cocktails. I know I’m dead and yet still it’s incomprehensible to me that I’m powerless to shield Ellie from the toxicity of others’ stupidity.

  ‘Sweetheart, you have to trust me. Georgia doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Will you promise me that next time Georgia or anyone else says anything about Mummy you come and tell me straight away so that we can talk about it?’

  Max is unable to hide his annoyance. Not with Ellie, but with Georgia and her mum and all the other people with their injurious proclamations from whom he can’t protect Ellie, despite his best intentions.

  Ellie doesn’t pick up on Max’s frustration. She’s too lost in her own world of confusion.

  ‘But does that mean Mummy’s really never coming home? Really never? Not even if I brush my teeth every night and every morning and go to bed on time and keep my room really, really tidy?’

  Ellie looks at Max pleadingly, willing him not to destroy her most precious of fantasies. I wonder who wishes the most that he didn’t have to: Ellie, Max or me? I also wonder if this is why she’s been so well-behaved these past few months, whether she’s been engaged in a private pact, drawing an invisible correlation between her own good behaviour and the likelihood of my return.

  ‘Sweetheart, you have no idea how much I want to be able to tell you that Mummy will come back to us one day. I wish it were true as much as you do. I’m sorry, sweetheart, really I am. But you’ve just got to remember, Mummy loved you so much and you still have lots of people who love you and we’ll always be here for you.’

  Max squeezes Ellie’s limp body even tighter. She doesn’t seem to have the will to hug him back.

  ‘But if you couldn’t stop Mummy from dying then how do you know you won’t die too?’

  It’s the sixty-four million dollar question and it’s taken a year for her to ask it but now that she has I can’t help worrying that it may have been preying on her mind all this time. I hate to think of her connecting the two, fearing the worst, imagining her own orphanhood. I hate it because I know how terrifying it is. I’m not sure at what age one stops feeling that to lose both parents would be the most painful of abandonments. I don’t think I’d quite got there by the time I died, even as a grown woman with a child of my own.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, angel, I promise.’

  ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘I just know, sweetheart. There’s no way I’m leaving you, not for a very long time.’

  Sometimes lying to your children is the only option. The kindest option. Or the selfish option, the one which allows you to keep the grief-stricken wolves from your family’s door just a little longer.

  ‘If Mummy’s really never coming home again then will I ever get a new mummy? Like Tom got after his mummy moved to Australia?’

  Ellie’s question jolts every fibre of my defunct being in a single, debilitating instant.

  Tell her, Max, please tell her no.

  ‘Sweetheart, people only ever have one mummy. And yours loved you very, very much. No one can ever replace her, and we’ll never forget her, will we?’

  Ellie shakes her head vigorously. There are tears in her eyes. Mine too.

  Perhaps Max was right; perhaps it was selfish of him to bring her. Selfish of us both to want her company here today.

  I probably should have known better, shouldn’t I? I was three years older than Ellie when my dad died but my memories are still sharp enough for me to recall those feelings of confusion and fear and doubt. So perhaps I should have known that Ellie’s presence here today would reignite the emotional flames, that it would rekindle the unanswerable questions, that it would reprise the endless whys.

  Sometimes I wonder whether it’s a help or a hindrance that I’ve been through the same experience as Ellie, whether it renders my empathy more poignant or simply more comprehensible. I think perhaps I was luckier than her in many ways because at least I had someone to blame. I could direct all my anger towards the middle-aged drunk who got into his car that Saturday afternoon after a liquid lunch in the local pub and, moments later, failed to stop at the red light of the pedestrian crossing that my dad just happened to be walking over at that very moment. Ellie doesn’t have that. I can’t imagine what she’ll do with her blame, once she’s old enough for the anger and the resentment to kick in. Perhaps there’s some way Max can mitigate against her ever having those feelings. I hope there is. I don’t want her ever to know that rage.

  Max puts Ellie back on her feet and gently wipes away her tears. He leans a hand against my headstone. I almost believe I can feel his tear-stained fingers on my face.

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  Max is speaking brightly now, clearly wanting to change the tone of this visit. Would that he could, or else Ellie may never want to return.

  ‘Why don’t you tell Mummy what you’ve been doing at school today?’

  Ellie looks relieved to have some guidance but not altogether convinced about the suggestion on offer.

  ‘But how do we know if Mummy can hear us?’

  ‘Well, we don’t. But I’d like to hear about your day anyway.’

  Ellie holds on to Max’s hand as she begins to talk, her words directed in turn between the daddy by her side and the headstone in front of her.

  ‘Well, today we had PE and Miss Collins was telling us about Sports Day and me and Megan want to do the race where you tie your legs together but Miss Collins says she’s going to put all our names in a hat.’

  ‘That’s the three-legged race, isn’t it munchkin?’

  ‘Yes, the three-legs race. And then we did Art and Miss Collins told us to draw a picture of our favourite animal so I did a white rabbit but then there was nothing for me to colour in so I coloured him pink.’

  White rabbits. Max was reading her Alice in Wonderland at bedtime last week. She was mesmerized by it, her fascination with rabbit holes and magic potions and returns from another world perhaps provoking some of her questions today.

  ‘And why don’t you tell Mummy about the spelling test you did this morning? You did so well, didn’t you angel?’

  ‘Well, we had to learn ten words and Daddy tested me every day after dinner for a whole week and when we had to do them in class I got them all right. Miss Collins gave me a gold star and a smiley face sticker for my jumper. See?’

  Ellie leans towards my gravestone and pulls her bottle-green sticker-adorned jumper towards it, as if showing her trophies to a living being rather than an inanimate lump of granite.

  I’m here, sweetheart, and I’m so, so proud of you.

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell Mummy?’

  ‘Erm … I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well then, how about we play a game?’

  Ellie’s eyes light up. Max sits down, cross-legged, on the grass in front of my headstone and pulls Ellie on to his lap.

  ‘Why don’t we play a game where we each have to say something we love best about Mummy. Listen, I’ll go first. I love Mummy’s meringues, the ones with all the gooey cream in the middle and the strawberries on top and the special raspberry sauce round the edge.’
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  Ellie thinks for a few seconds, brow furrowed with concentration, as though it’s critically important that she recalls the best possible memory.

  ‘I love Mummy’s roast potatoes.’

  It’s true. She did always love my roast potatoes. Max keeps trying to recreate them but he always forgets the drizzle of lemon juice. Everything else he remembers – the onion, the garlic, the fresh rosemary, the salt and pepper – but never the fresh lemon. Ellie keeps gently reminding him of his omission, telling him that they’re ‘almost perfect, just not quite’, as if painfully, unconsciously aware of the necessary encouragement she’s giving Max for his unexpected, new-found role in their lives.

  ‘I love Mummy’s singing and how she makes up words when she doesn’t know the lyrics so she ends up singing a lot of gibberish.’

  ‘Gibberish. That’s funny.’

  Ellie giggles infectiously and then goes quiet for a second, seemingly lost in her own world of memories.

  ‘I love Mummy reading me bedtime stories and doing the silly voices of all the people in the book.’

  ‘Yes, Mummy’s story voices are the best. You’re good at story voices too, sweetheart. Mummy always said you’d be a good actress, didn’t she? Oh, I’ve thought of another one. I love Mummy’s hair when she’s just washed it and it goes all curly and bouncy.’

  ‘And I love Mummy painting my nails. Especially when she does my fingers and my toes all matching. Pink and red are best. They smell nice too. Can you paint my nails when we get home, Daddy?’

  ‘I can try but I think you might be better off asking Granny to do it for you later. You know one of the things I love best about Mummy? Her laugh and the way her eyes go all crinkly when she smiles. Although she never liked me saying that. She thought I meant she looked old and had wrinkles. But Mummy never had wrinkles, did she, munchkin?’

  ‘No. Mummy was the most beautiful mummy in the whole world ever.’

  If there are a million ways to break a heart, then hearing myself relegated to the past tense has to be one of the most painful. And listening to the people I love best honouring the simplest quotidian pleasures of our shared lives one of the most bittersweet.

  I wipe away the tears that are blurring my view, only to discover that they’re not alone in obscuring the scene before me.

  As the white mist gathers, I leave Max and Ellie sitting in front of my headstone embracing one another with memories, while the last of the day’s sunshine begins to fade, casting my inscription into shadow.

  Chapter 4

  Max’s dad is watching Channel 4 News as Max’s mum comes down the stairs from where she’s been tucking Ellie into bed after an early dinner. It had been right of Joan and Ralph to invite themselves over tonight. I’d been unsure when Joan had suggested it last week, wondering whether it might be important for Max and Ellie to be allowed time on their own together today. But after their trip to the cemetery earlier, I think they both needed the kind of oxygenation that only fresh company could provide. Anything else and they’d have been in danger of becoming locked together in a hermetically sealed world of mourning.

  Joan brought over a home-made lasagne, one of Ellie’s favourites. She brings them supper two or three nights a week usually, not to eat with Max and Ellie but simply by way of culinary support. We could never have envisaged when we moved to Acton eight years ago, pregnant and craving stability, just how important Joan and Ralph’s proximity would eventually become. I’d been ambivalent about returning to Max’s childhood suburb, fearful of the ramifications of living quite so close to my in-laws and nervous that it would forever feel like we were camping in their back garden rather than establishing grown-up lives of our own. And I had, in all honesty, been concerned about the message it would send to Joan, the mother who could never quite believe that Max and his brother weren’t in need of her daily involvement in their lives any more.

  When Max and I were first dating I was surprised and, occasionally, irked by just how often his mobile phone would ring only to reveal his mum’s name flashing up yet again. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t allow her boys to be men, to fly the nest without wanting to ride on their wings, to acknowledge that she was feeding her own desire for closeness, not theirs.

  But I didn’t have Ellie then.

  Because then Ellie arrived to turn our own lives upside down and I realized that I’d known nothing about motherhood until that moment, nothing of that deep, primal, inarticulable drive to safeguard your child and ensure their happiness. And I’ll never know now what kind of parent I’d have been to Ellie in her twenties, thirties, forties, whether I’d have encouraged her independence as Max and I always vowed we would, or whether I’d have given in to those urges towards protectiveness too.

  But our return to Max’s old stomping ground swiftly transpired to be the best move we could possibly have made given that Ellie’s birth brought with it the realization that there’s simply no overestimating the importance of a family network for first-time parents. We relied on Joan and Ralph more than I’d ever imagined. And then I died and their presence three streets away gained a value that none of us could ever have predicted.

  Because here they are, in my sitting room as they’re so often to be found, on a day when Max and Ellie need them most.

  Ralph moves from the sofa to the armchair, an action which may be motivated by the fact that it’s the seat closest to the television or it may be because it’s the chair furthest away from where Joan is grilling Max about his current state of emotional well-being.

  ‘So, love, how was it today? Did Ellie cope all right? She seemed fine this evening, all things considered.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum. We ended up having quite a tough conversation. Ellie was asking about whether Rachel was ever coming home so I explained everything to her again. But if I’m honest I felt like a bit of a fraud. Even I still fantasize about Rachel coming back one day so I don’t know how I’m supposed to convince Ellie she’s not.’

  ‘I’m sure you did just the right thing. You mustn’t be too hard on yourself.’

  ‘But that’s just it. I feel like I never know whether I’m doing the right thing any more. I’ve no idea if going to the cemetery was a good idea, whether it’s right to keep reminding Ellie or whether it just emphasizes the fact that Rachel’s not here any more.’

  ‘Of course it’s right, Max. It’s about honouring Rachel’s life, and that’s exactly what you did today. I’m sure Ellie will be grateful for it in years to come. How long did you stay?’

  ‘About an hour in the end. I got Ellie to tell Rachel about what she’d been up to at school. I just felt like she needed something … I don’t know … active to do. But I think it might have confused her even more, the idea of talking to someone who’s not really there, who can’t talk back. She did it though. You should have seen her, Mum. She was so sweet, holding on to my hand, chatting away. She really is amazing.’

  ‘She’s a treasure, Max. And you’re doing wonders with her. I know you don’t like me telling you, but I’m ever so proud of you.’

  Max’s humble gratitude is conveyed with one of his goosebump-inducing smiles and I’m transported back in an instant to the very first time I saw that smile, grinning at me across the table at a friend’s wedding, one of those tables tucked away in the far corner of the marquee reserved exclusively for singletons who come without even the hint of a plus-one to accompany them. Max had caught my eye pretty early on, that smile drawing my attention towards him despite the littering of flowers, glassware and rapidly depleting wine bottles between us, the two of us exchanging the kind of silent, visual communications usually reserved for husbands, wives or – at the very least – lovers, an unspoken flirtation all the more exciting for its surreptitiousness. Max had been the life and soul of that table of strangers, delivering wry observations on the day’s events, cracking jokes and creating an atmosphere of inclusion to an occasion that can so often leave one feeling like nothing more than an extr
a on a film set.

  It was only later, when we knew one another infinitely better, that I learnt how out of character it had been for him, how Max would never willingly place himself centre stage at a social gathering, how he’d done it purely in the hope of attracting my attention.

  I think I’d fallen a little bit in love with him there and then.

  ‘It’s just a suggestion, love, but have you thought about taking up a hobby, something to get you out of the house a bit? Why don’t you do some photography again? You used to be so good at taking photos.’

  It’s true. Max is a brilliant photographer. He never used to go anywhere without his trusted Canon. He must have taken thousands – literally thousands – of photographs of Ellie and me over the years. I haven’t seen him pick up his camera once since I died, not even to take a picture of Ellie.

  ‘I don’t think so, Mum.’

  ‘Why not? Think of all those lovely pictures you took of Rachel. Some of those are good enough to be professional.’

  ‘Because they’re pointless, Mum. They’re pointless, pathetic lies.’

  ‘What do you mean? Don’t be silly. They’re lovely memories, those photos.’

  ‘But they’re not going to bring her back, are they? If you want the truth, I can’t stand to look at them these days. It’s as though the more I look at photos, the less I can remember Rachel as a real person. I hate them for reducing her to nothing more than a hollow image on a piece of paper. I’d burn the lot of them if it weren’t for Ellie.’

  There’s a ferocity in Max’s voice that I suspect has shocked Joan as much as me. I wish I could be real for him once more, to stroke his warm naked skin, skin that never seemed to chill even on the coldest day, and to kiss the lids of his eyes which he once said was like me kissing directly into his soul.