The Dead Wife's Handbook

by Hannah Beckerman

  I also know that the woman who eventually walks through the door that Max can now barely take his eyes off for more than a few seconds may bring with her the best or the worst of evenings. That she may be the woman with whom Max spends the rest of his life. Or she may not.

  Either way, I don’t believe that any of us are ready for this.

  The pub’s double doors swing open and a woman halts hesitantly for a second, scanning the room in search of the swiftest of rescues before her eyes eventually settle on Max, who stands up clumsily at a table devoid of enough space to fully erect himself, and offers her a comforting wave.

  ‘Hi. You must be Dodie.’

  Max stretches out his hand to be shaken while simultaneously inching his head towards her in anticipation of an introductory cheek-kiss, a movement which fails to be reciprocated, leaving him bobbing in and out of Dodie’s personal space like an inconclusive jack-in-the-box until, finally, accompanied by a nervous laugh (from him) and an awkward smile (from her) he touches his lips to this woman’s cheek. It’s hardly a consummation of the relationship but already my stomach’s somersaulting with the violence of envy.

  ‘What can I get you to drink?’

  ‘Just a coke would be great, thanks. I’m driving.’

  A flutter of surprise stumbles across Max’s face. I can understand why. He told Harriet he planned to traipse here via two separate buses this evening under the relatively sensible assumption that blind dates and alcohol are inextricable bedfellows. Now Max must decide whether to continue to drink alone and order his third pint of the evening or join Dodie in her sobriety.

  Max elbows his way to the bar where he spends an uncomfortable few minutes endeavouring to attract the barman’s attention while simultaneously offering Dodie a series of awkward, reassuring smiles. After the third of these, Dodie turns to face the opposite direction, affecting an impression of interest – however improbable – in the antiquarian maps hanging in frames on the wall. With Max free to devote his efforts to getting served, I turn my attention to a closer study of Dodie; I know that once Max returns it’ll be impossible for me to concentrate on anything other than the most microscopic signs of possible flirtation.

  Dodie is what I suspect Country Life magazine might describe as ‘hearty’: tall, broad-shouldered and on the stocky side of slim, she’s the kind of woman whose appearance welcomes the image of her elbow-deep in blood and placenta, yanking a foal from a horse’s belly. And the clothes she’s chosen to wear for a blind date might be better suited to life down on the farm too; there’s a knee-length brown corduroy skirt, fitted just a fraction too snugly across her ample hips giving the impression that she and the skirt are engaged in a not-so-private battle for supremacy. She’s paired this with a bottle-green crew-neck jumper that looks like it’s had a few too many dates with detergent and is now in dire need of one of those gadgets you see advertised in Sunday supplements promising to de-bobble your sweaters. Her calves are encased in sturdy brown leather biker boots that wouldn’t look out of place on a signed-up member of Hells Angels, while her shoulder-length hair doesn’t seem to have encountered any form of electronic drying, curling or straightening device in recent days, protruding defiantly from her scalp as if each and every strand has its own, individual statement to make. It would be fair to say that the whole appearance would be better suited to a pub quiz in Ambridge than a first date in a Notting Hill bar.

  As I’m studying the woman my husband has chosen for his first date in over a decade, she suddenly dispatches her right index finger into the far reaches of her upper left jaw, picks at something for a second or two, extracts it, inspects whatever was lodged in her teeth that now sits under her nail and then, without so much as a moment’s surreptitious survey to check she’s not being observed, pops the retrieved morsel back into her mouth for consumption.

  Even from this far away, it’s enough to turn your stomach.

  I check back to where Max is finally getting served and there’s no indication at all that he’s seen what I saw. If he had, I’m not sure how he’d cope sharing a single drink with her let alone an entire evening; if there’s one thing Max can get endearingly neurotic about, it’s people displaying in public the kind of personal habits that really ought to be kept private. He absolutely hates it. And it’s not even as if I can warn him about what I’ve seen. Honestly, what’s the point in life after death if you can’t alert your husband to the objectionable habits of the woman with whom he’s about to spend the evening?

  Max returns with Dodie’s alcohol-free drink and a wise third pint for himself. As he tries to squeeze into the Lilliputian gap Dodie’s left between him and the table, his arm knocks against a picture frame, spilling the top quarter-inch of lager on his hand which he subsequently licks off while trying not to spill any more. I catch Dodie raise an offended eyebrow as though he’s the one with the uncouth manners.

  ‘So, you drove here. Did you manage to park okay? It gets so busy round here on Friday nights, doesn’t it? I remember when hardly anyone ever ventured out this way for a night out, when it was all about the West End. Now you can barely walk to the end of the street in this neck of the woods without a new bar popping up.’

  Max is attempting to sound socially savvy but the truth is, neither he nor I have been out drinking to a trendy new bar for almost as long as Ellie’s been alive.

  ‘Yeah, I parked just up the road. It’s free after six-thirty. Even the resident bays.’

  ‘So you don’t live round here, then?’

  Dodie studies Max slightly nervously, as if weighing up the likelihood of him being a serial killer who’s assessing whether to slit her throat at his house or hers.

  ‘No, I’m a north London girl. How about you?’

  ‘I’m in Acton. Have been all my life. Well, most of it anyway. I grew up there but my wife and I started out in a rented flat in Kentish Town. She was never that keen on the area, though, and it never felt like a place we’d make a home together. She always thought it was a bit – what was the word she used to use? – grimy. It’s funny how areas change so quickly isn’t it? I’m not sure I could afford to buy there now even if I wanted to. Anyway, when it came to thinking about starting a family and buying a house, we headed back to Acton. My mum and dad are still there and it’s where I teach so it all worked out pretty well, really.’

  Max is gabbling, as you might expect from someone who hasn’t had to make polite conversation with a total stranger in these circumstances for over a decade and who’s probably spent almost as long under the legitimate assumption that he’d never find himself in this position ever again. But Dodie doesn’t appear to be giving a conversational inch. She simply nods, disinterestedly, just the vaguest acknowledgement that Max has spoken but reciprocating nothing, not even an encouraging smile.

  Doesn’t she realize how lucky she is to be sitting just inches away from him, sharing the very same table, close enough to touch him if she so chooses, although I sincerely hope she doesn’t?

  ‘So, you’re a vet. What made you want to do that? They say never work with children and animals and yet here’s us doing exactly that. We must be mad.’

  Max smiles at her broadly, signalling – in case she hadn’t realized – that he’s made a joke. Dodie eyes him earnestly.

  ‘I’ve just always loved animals. My dad’s a vet and I grew up around animals so it was never really much of a decision for me. More of a calling, I guess.’

  I laugh out loud and it’s probably a good thing there’s no one to hear me. She takes care of household pets, for goodness sake; it’s hardly discovering the existence of the Higgs Boson, is it?

  ‘That’s a bit like me with teaching. Although the calling there more often involves kids shouting at each other across the classroom.’

  Dodie finally manages to raise the corners of her lips into something approaching a smile, although it could just be a grimace.

  ‘Yes, well I’ve always preferred animals to people. They’re just
so much less demanding.’

  Dodie slurps a long, voracious gulp of her coke while Max looks at her expectantly, as if waiting for the punch-line to what he assumed was going to be a joke. Dodie remains silent.

  ‘Yeah, my wife, Rachel, she always used to joke that to be a teacher you either had to have loved school so much you never wanted to leave or hated it so much you wanted to punish the next generation. She was a marketing director for Visit Britain and I did sometimes wonder whether being in an office surrounded by adults all day might not be an easier option. Not that I’m saying her job was easy. Not at all. A lot of the time it was much harder than mine. And much longer hours. And she was great at it. Brilliant, in fact. It’s just … well … you know what I mean?’

  Max shifts uncomfortably in his chair, possibly unsure whether even he knows what he means.

  ‘So, what are you … like … divorced or separated or something?’

  Max looks pained. I feel pained. He must have known the subject was likely to arise, but he still doesn’t seem prepared for it.

  ‘The “or something”, I’m afraid. Rachel – my wife – she died. I’m a widower, although I hate that word. Makes me feel like I should be pottering around in tartan slippers and a tweed dressing gown, smoking a pipe and listening to Benny Goodman.’

  And that’s exactly what you should have been doing by the time I left you, my darling, if only I’d left you at a reasonable hour in our life together, rather than deserting you when we were still in the adolescence of our marriage.

  ‘God, that’s awful. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  It’s the first inkling of interest she’s shown in the conversation so far and it is, of all things, death that’s sparked her curiosity.

  ‘She died of a heart attack. She’d had an irregularity her entire life that she hadn’t even known about. And then one day it just gave way. There wasn’t any warning. She hadn’t even been ill.’

  ‘Really? Sorry, I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It’s okay. There’s nothing much you can say. One minute we were out having dinner together and the next she was slumped on the floor. I don’t want to sound cliché d, but it just all happened so fast.’

  ‘So you were there? You actually saw it happen?’

  Dodie seems a little too excited about the horror of this story for my liking.

  ‘The paramedics told me that she’d died within minutes, before they even arrived. She died in my arms which, if you read enough books about coping with grief, you soon learn is everyone’s ideal death fantasy. I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies.’

  I don’t think I’ll ever stop finding this story unbearable, however many times I hear Max tell it. I remember so little about it myself. I’ve got no memory, in fact, of anything from the time I felt that first sharp stab of pain and realized that my throat was constricting with a determination so clearly against my best interests, to the time I found myself here, a little while later, watching Max cope with the rawest moments of his grief and contemplating whether an afterlife I’d never believed in existed after all.

  ‘So when did all this happen?’

  ‘Just over a year ago. Still early days, as everyone keeps telling me. Well, when they’re not telling me to get out and start living my life again. It’s amazing how everyone becomes an expert on grief the moment someone close to you dies.’

  There’s an uncomfortable silence. This is beginning to sound less like a date and more like a therapy session. It unnerves me that this woman who may yet have romantic designs on my husband has inadvertently encouraged him to open his heart to her. Who knows what she’s planning to do with its contents?

  ‘Sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It’s not really date-chat, is it?’

  ‘It’s fine. It sounds like you’ve been through the mill a bit.’

  Well, that’s one way of putting it, I suppose, but only if you’re hoping to win a prize for understatement of the year.

  ‘This is the first time I’ve been out since Rachel died. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Maybe I’m not ready after all. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Better out than in, as they say.’

  Dodie chews ferociously and unselfconsciously on her thumbnail, ripping it off with her teeth before extracting it from the tip of her tongue and flicking it on to the wooden floor. Max doesn’t seem to notice, lost in his own train of thought, as though now he’s opened the floodgates he doesn’t know quite how to stem the tide of storytelling.

  ‘Sometimes I think it would be so much easier if I only had myself to worry about. But there’s Ellie too and most of the time I have no idea if I’m doing the best things for her.’

  ‘Ellie?’

  ‘Yes, my daughter. I think she’s mentioned on my profile.’

  She hasn’t clocked that he has a daughter? Maybe she’d have paid more attention if his profile had referenced a family pet instead.

  ‘Yes, right, of course. How old is she?’

  ‘She’s seven now. She was six when Rachel died. There are times when I wonder what on earth I’d do without her. It turns out the needs of a young child are a great leveller when it comes to keeping your grief in check.’

  Max suddenly stops talking and reddens slightly before taking a long, deep gulp of his pint. I wonder what Dodie’s thinking, whether she’s wondering how quickly she can escape this unconventional internet date with her dignity and her evening still intact, or whether she’s perversely enjoying the provision of her ample shoulder for Max to cry on. There are, I’ve no doubt, some women who’d find nothing more attractive than a vulnerable man in need of rescuing and even I have to admit that Max falls into that category right now, however out of character it is for him.

  ‘And so how’s she doing – sorry, what’s her name again?’

  ‘Ellie. I don’t really know, to be honest. Most of the time I think she’s doing pretty well, all things considered. She’s an amazing little girl. I’m sure all parents say that but Ellie really is: she’s so thoughtful and perceptive and kind. And she’s great fun to be with. I hear people complain about what hard work parenting is and they’re right, sometimes it is, but most of the time with Ellie it just feels like – I don’t know – a privilege. I’m lucky, too, that my parents live just round the corner from us and they’re great with her. Not only in the sense of helping out. It’s more than that. I used to think Rachel was the daughter they never had; now I think it’s Ellie. They pick her up from school every day so they’re really like second parents to her. I suppose my mum is actually the closest Ellie’s got to a mum now.’

  ‘Well, not everyone would be so lucky to have their parents on tap. You’re pretty fortunate, in the circumstances.’

  Dodie’s tactless platitude hangs in the air like a lonely phrase in need of companionship but with little hope of finding any. Wouldn’t she be better to remain silent and have people think she’s emotionally incompetent than to speak out and prove that she is?

  ‘Would you like another drink?’

  Max clearly does. Or maybe it’s just that he needs one.

  ‘Um … that would have been nice but I’ve just noticed the time and I said I’d meet some friends for a late supper. I really ought to head off.’

  So it’s to be the emergency rescue package for the failing economy of her evening. Dodie must be aware that no one believes the late-supper story, that everyone knows it’s the oldest trick in the dating book, that even Max, who hasn’t dated for over a decade and hasn’t spent the intervening period watching Hollywood rom-coms, will know that this is nothing more than the lamest of get-out clauses.

  ‘Yeah, right, course. Sorry. I didn’t clock the time.’

  Stop apologizing, Max. It’s not even eight o’clock. She’s been here precisely twenty-five minutes. She should be the one apologizing to you.

  ‘No worries. Thanks for the drink.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. I hope you
enjoy the rest of the evening.’

  ‘Yeah, you too.’

  She’s out of her chair and into her jacket faster than Max can stand up without almost knocking over the table again.

  ‘Well, it was really nice to meet you. I hope all those animals behave themselves and, er, have a good weekend.’

  I can see Max isn’t sure how to end this unfortunate encounter, but before he has a chance to decide on the most appropriate course of action, Dodie finalizes what is sure to be their one and only meeting with a verbal goodbye, an ill-disguised sigh of relief and a decisive departure.

  Max stands by the table, looking slightly confused as to what just happened. I don’t know whether her swift exit has upset or angered him, humiliated or simply bewildered him. Possibly all that, and more.

  Max goes to the bar and orders a fourth pint before returning to the empty table where he sits in solitary silence, dejection and bemusement etched in the lines across his forehead.

  I wish there were some way of me finding out what Max is thinking, some way of him knowing that he’s not alone, some way to reassure him that I’m still here by his side. I wish I could convince him that tonight’s debacle was in no way his fault, that Dodie just wasn’t right for him, that what he needs right now – if he needs anything at all from imperfect strangers – is empathy and patience and understanding about just how hard this is for him. And that while he may be the one feeling despondent at this moment in time, it is he who’s had the greatest escape from this failed venture, not her.

  Max finishes his pint in student-record time and heads out into the still-bright, early-summer’s evening to make his way home, concluding his inaugural night out just as the regular Notting Hill-ites are beginning theirs.

  As Max wanders with just the faintest air of tipsiness towards the first of the two bus stops which will see him back to Acton, where he’ll collect Ellie from his mum and dad’s before heading home, an opaque mist begins to cloud my view and within seconds my access has disappeared altogether.