Chapter 9
I hear a bell ring and, as the opaque mist finally diffuses to expose what’s underneath, I see I’m in the hallway of my house and Ellie’s running to answer the front door. She opens it to reveal my mum on the other side and I’m not sure whether it’s me or Ellie who’s more thrilled to see her.
It was quite some time after I died before I realized that everything I saw in the living world had to be channelled through Max or Ellie’s presence; I never have access to anything that doesn’t involve either one or both of them. So I only ever see my mum or Harriet or anyone else I used to know if their interaction with Max and Ellie happens to coincide with my access to the living world. And given that Ellie only visits Mum once a month, those coincidences are far less frequent than I’d like.
‘Aren’t you all grown-up, answering the door to Nanna. How are you, darling girl?’
‘I’m okay. I was just watching cartoons on TV. What are we going to do at yours this weekend, Nanna?’
Mum still hasn’t quite got her jacket off but she’s used to Ellie chattering away the second she arrives.
‘Well, by the time we drive back to Salisbury it will be nearly lunchtime, so I thought we could go to that café you like for a sandwich and a hot chocolate. Then I thought maybe you’d like to go to a farm for the afternoon – there’s one we haven’t been to before where you can ride horses. How does that sound?’
‘Can I really go on a horse? I’d love that.’
‘I thought you might. And then tomorrow, if the weather’s good, which the BBC says it will be, I thought we could have a nice long walk along the river before I cook you your favourite Sunday lunch.’
‘We’re having roast beef?’
Mum nods, smiling with pleasure at Ellie’s excitement.
‘And roast potatoes and your special gravy?’
‘Not only that, I’ve also made chocolate brownies for dessert, if you think you might be able to manage all that?’
‘I can definitely manage all that. I’m going upstairs, Nanna, ’cos I’ve got to finish packing my bag.’
Ellie scampers up the stairs on all fours and disappears into her bedroom. Max calls Mum from the kitchen, where he’s already in the process of making coffee.
‘How are you, Max? Ellie seems to be in very good spirits.’
‘That’s the end of the school year for you. It’s a relief for both of us, albeit for different reasons. She’ll be bored by the end of next week whereas I’ll only just be starting to recover.’
So it’s the start of the summer holidays. That means no more than a couple of weeks have elapsed since my last visit, since Ellie’s Sports Day triumph.
‘Yes, I remember it well from Rachel’s schooldays. Those first couple of weeks of feverish activity before a month of restlessness kicks in. I know you teachers need a break but I do think six weeks is too long for children.’
‘As both a teacher and a parent I don’t disagree with you on either count. But spending a few days with you will be great for her. She’s been really looking forward to it.’
‘I have too. It’ll be lovely for me to have her to myself for more than a single night.’
I don’t think Mum means to sound pointed, but she does nonetheless. It’s been an unspoken bone of contention ever since Ellie was born, the fact that Max’s parents get to see her almost every day in contrast to Mum’s monthly visits. I know she’d never say anything, and I’m sure she’d rather she didn’t even feel it, but I’ve always suspected that she wishes I’d never moved to London. I think she’d rather I’d stayed living in Salisbury, found a job locally and provided her with the proximity to her grandchild that she’d been selfless enough to give her own parents.
‘So, Max, what have you got planned with four days of freedom ahead?’
‘Oh, you know, just seeing some friends, catching up, maybe a beer or two. It’s been a hellish term and the summer holidays really couldn’t have come soon enough.’
‘That’s nice. Are you seeing anyone I know?’
‘Yes, I’m going out with Connor and a few of his … um … friends this evening. He’s organized a bit of a night out.’
Mum doesn’t clock the significance of what Max has just said, but I do. It’s actually happening. He must actually be allowing Connor to take him out on that stupid double date. Perhaps this isn’t even the first. Perhaps they’ve been hitting the town on dozens of double dates in the fortnight I’ve been absent.
‘That’s nice. A boys’ night out, is it? I’m sure you could do with one of those.’
‘Er, kind of. Well, not really. No, I don’t suppose it is.’
Mum raises an amused eyebrow as though Max is simply being vague.
‘So what have you got planned?’
Max looks decidedly sheepish. Shifty, even, I’d say.
‘Connor, he’s … er … he’s arranged for us to go out with a couple of friends of his. A couple of women he knows, through work I think. Although I’m not sure exactly how he knows them, I haven’t really been paying much attention to be honest.’
Max keeps his back turned to Mum as he gabbles nervously, evading her gaze for as long as he can so he doesn’t see – as I do – the changing expressions on her face from confusion to deduction to surprise to incredulity.
‘Do you mean to tell me you and your brother are going out on dates together tonight?’
Max hands Mum the mug of coffee but he still isn’t ready to look her in the eye.
‘It’s nothing serious. It’s just a bit of fun, you know. Connor thought I could do with getting out of the house.’
Max feigns a half-hearted laugh but Mum’s face remains stony.
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this, Max. You’re actually going on a date tonight? With another woman? When Rachel’s only been gone just over a year?’
‘Celia, please don’t take this out of proportion. It’s really not a big deal if we don’t make it one.’
‘Well forgive me, but I think it is a big deal. It hadn’t even occurred to me that you’d start dating again. Not so soon. What on earth possessed you, Max?’
‘I’m not dating. Not really. I don’t know why I even mentioned it. It was stupid of me. I’m sorry.’
I know why Max mentioned it. It’s his full disclosure gene, the congenital predisposition to tell people the truth even when it’s not in his – or their – best interests.
‘So is that why you wanted me to have Ellie for longer this time? So that you and Connor could go out on these … on these dates? God, I feel like such a fool. I suppose I’m the last to know, am I?’
‘There’s nothing to know, Celia. Please, you have to stop seeing this as more than it actually is. It’s just one night out with my brother and some of his friends. Nothing more.’
‘I wish that were true, Max. But it’s not, is it? It’s not just a normal night out. It’s a night out with a woman who I suspect will be hoping for a little more than polite, platonic chit-chat. That’s generally the purpose of a date, isn’t it, or have things really altered that much since my day?’
Max falls silent momentarily. I detect a ripple of frustration furrow his brow before he blinks it away and lets out a long, slow, patient breath.
‘I’m not looking for anything other than a vaguely entertaining evening with my brother, Celia. It’s just that most people seem to think I need to get out of the house. Start engaging with the world again. That’s all I’m trying to do.’
‘I don’t disagree, Max. I’ve told you myself that I’m worried about you getting stuck in a rut, that I think you need a change of scene. That’s why I keep asking you to come and stay with me more often, just to get out of London for a few days. But you kept telling me you’re fine. Now I discover you’re so fine that you’re about to go on a date with an unknown woman when my daughter’s been dead barely a year.’
Mum stares questioningly at Max, as if daring him to contradict her, and I feel a wave of gratitude to her
for being the only person to voice my concerns, for being the lone dissenting voice amidst the Pro-Dating Brigade. It’s not that I want Max to be on his own forever, or to be unhappy, or to spend the rest of his life in mourning for me. I just wish I had some control over the timeline of his recovery. Don’t they say that divorcing couples should move at the pace of the slowest partner? The same, surely, must be true of the bereaved? And right now the prospect of him dating other people feels painfully premature.
But perhaps I’m deluding myself. Perhaps I’d be saying the same thing in two years, in ten years, in twenty. Perhaps I’ll never be ready to contemplate the possibility of Max being romantically involved with someone else. I can’t predict the future. All I can do is know how I feel now, and now feels much, much too soon.
‘I don’t want to row, Max, but surely you can see why I’m upset? It just seems very … precipitate. I couldn’t have conceived of going out with another man a year after Robert died.’
It’s true. She couldn’t. In fact, Mum never went out with another man ever again after Dad died, in spite of plenty of people asking her, in spite of the fact that she remains, to this day, an attractive woman, in spite of my encouragement, particularly after I left home, that she seek happiness in a new relationship. It was never too late, I used to assure her, but Mum was resolute: she’d had her love, she’d lost it prematurely and that was the end of it. As I got older, and my own romances came and went, I became convinced that Mum’s decision was irrational, that it didn’t make sense to keep alight a long-gone flame to the extinguishment of all others. I remember telling her on more than a handful of occasions that nothing lasts forever, that Dad wouldn’t have wanted her to be alone, that she had the rest of her life yet to live.
It’s only now that I realize how ignorant I was, and how arrogant.
It’s only now that I realize how much I wish Max were as resolute as Mum.
‘Everyone’s different, Celia. I’m just trying to do what I think might be right for me. If you want the truth, I’m not sure I’m ready for this yet, either.’
‘Why do it then? I don’t think I’m the only person who’ll find it strange. How’s it going to look to other people if they see you out with another woman so soon? They’ll think that you never really cared about Rachel, that you and she didn’t have the wonderful marriage I know you did. They’ll think it odd that you seem to have recovered so quickly. Doesn’t that worry you in the slightest?’
‘Celia, you’re preaching to the converted. I’ve had exactly the same anxieties. But somehow Mum and Connor and Harriet have all managed to persuade me otherwise. You were right, I was in a rut and now I feel I have to do something to get out of it.’
‘But I don’t understand why that means you have to take such … such drastic action. It almost sounds like you’ve forgotten what you and Rachel meant to each other, how much you loved one another, how special she was to you. How can that have disappeared so quickly?’
Mum has begun to weep slow, lonely tears and I don’t know whether she’s crying for me or Max or Dad or herself. Perhaps it’s just not possible to distinguish one load of grief and pain from another.
Max slumps into one of the kitchen chairs, his shoulders hunched forward in resignation. Sadness, frustration and defeat are written on his face as clearly as if in indelible ink. I watch him sitting there, no doubt wondering how on earth he got himself into this conversation, and I can’t help thinking that here is a man for whom it’s impossible to do right by everyone, however hard he tries.
‘Forgotten her? Why would you even say something like that, Celia? This is Rachel we’re talking about. The woman I loved, the woman I married, the woman I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. But now I’m not. And I have to find a way to try and deal with that, every minute of every day, for as long as I live.’
‘I know you loved her, Max. I know you did. That’s why I can’t understand how you’re even contemplating seeing other women so soon after she’s gone.’
‘Because she’s never coming back. I’m never going to see her again. It’s taken over a year for that to sink in, but I finally get it. Now all I want to do is collect together whatever shards of life she’s left behind and try and rebuild something that in some small way resembles normality, whatever that may be.’
I’m never coming back. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Max say it and the feelings of fear and anxiety and incapacity are akin to finding myself here for the first time all over again. He’s starting to move on with his life, and there’s nothing whatsoever I can do about it.
I think of all the thousands of hours I’ve filled with fantasies about what I’m doing here, about whether the reason I can still keep an eye on the living is because I won’t always be part of the dead, about whether this vicarious, impotent, semi-existence is an endurance test before I’m proved worthy of a return. But now I discover that not even Max hopes ever to see me again.
‘I’m sorry, Max. Of course you’ve got to do whatever you think best, whatever’s right for you. It’s just come as a bit of a shock, that’s all. The last thing I want is to fall out with you over it.’
Max sighs, whether out of relief or forgiveness, I’m not entirely sure.
‘Of course we’re not going to fall out, Celia. I just think no one really understands how hard this is. I spend all my time weighing up every last decision to figure out what’s best for Ellie and what’s best for me in this odd little two-person family we find ourselves in. It’s bloody hard work so I suppose I take it pretty personally when people tell me I’m getting it all wrong.’
Mum places a prominently veined hand on top of Max’s.
‘Max, you should know that if there’s one person who understands precisely what you’re going through it’s me. I have been exactly where you are. Of course I know how hard this is for you. That’s why I keep offering to help out more. It’s why I keep suggesting that I come and stay for a while – to help out, to look after you both. I think it would do you both good and you know how much I’d love to.’
‘I know, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I just think it’s important for Ellie and me to adjust to living together, just the two of us. And it’s not as if I don’t have a lot of help on hand, what with Mum and Dad just around the corner.’
Mum’s face tenses almost imperceptibly but I know every nuance of her expressions too well not to read it. I can see how much more there is that she wants to say, how much hurt there is that she wants to share and how strong the self-containment needs to be for her to hold on to it all.
‘Well, the offer’s there if you need it.’
‘Thanks, Celia. And I’m sorry about today. It was insensitive of me even mentioning it.’
Mum doesn’t respond for a few seconds as she lowers herself slowly, carefully on to one the kitchen chairs. For the first time I see how much she’s aged, not just the greying hair and the additional lines of grief she wears under her make-up but the tiredness of her limbs that no longer seem imbued with the energy or the inclination to move with any great alacrity.
‘I just miss her so, so much, Max. I still talk to her all the time, you know, sometimes without even being aware of it. I’ll be in the kitchen or the garden and I’ll realize suddenly that I’ve been chatting away to her, as though she were still right by my side. She was my rock for such a long time and now I just don’t know what to do without her.’
Mum drops her head into her hands and weeps quietly as I hover nearby, just a few feet above her and yet infinitely out of reach. Max pulls up a chair beside her and puts a gentle arm around her shoulders.
‘It’s hard, Celia. No one knows quite how hard unless they’re going through it with you. That’s probably why I’ve kept such a close rein on the group of people Ellie and I spend time with now. So few people understand.’
‘You’d have thought I’d be better at dealing with it this time around, though. I should know how to cope by now but thi
s is so much worse than I ever thought possible. I thought I knew the worst that grief had to offer when Robert died but this … I just don’t think I’ll ever recover from this.’
‘It’s going to take time, Celia. It’s going to take time for all of us.’
‘I’m not sure there’s enough time in the universe for me to get over losing Rachel.’
‘I know. I feel it too. Every day.’
‘I know you do, Max. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be burdening you like this.’
‘You don’t have to apologize. Of course you should be sharing this with me.’
Mum squeezes Max’s hand and smiles gratefully before the lines around her eyes deepen and she begins shaking her head as though to eradicate whatever image has come into her mind.
‘I just wish it had been me. It’s all the wrong way round.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s all so cruel, Max. No parent should ever have to bury their child. I’d give my life a thousand times over for Rachel to have hers back. I wish it every single day.’
I choke back my own tears as I watch Mum’s head drop into her hands. I had no idea she was still so raw. I hadn’t realized because I haven’t seen her in such a long time, though that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty for not knowing.
It’s only now, seeing her like this, that I’m able to acknowledge to myself just how much I miss her too.
When I was alive, Mum and I would talk on the phone almost every day, just as we had done since I first went to university, when I’d guiltily left behind the person who’d nurtured me single-handedly for the past nine years. It’s a different bond, I’m sure, that between a parent and a child where there’s a loss or an absence or a vacuum that you’re both trying to fill. There’s a responsibility to one another, a responsibility to make good the loss and to be that much more to one another to accommodate it, a closeness that I suspect is unnecessary in families with both parents present. It’s a responsibility that I sometimes found overwhelming, on days or nights when I’d be out with friends worrying about Mum at home alone in ways that my peers never seemed burdened by. But it was all I’d ever known, and one’s life as a child inevitably feels normal if you’ve never experienced anything different.
The Dead Wife's Handbook Page 10