‘It’s really pretty. Mummy was clever at drawing, wasn’t she? Can we put this up on the wall in my room?’
‘Of course we can, sweetheart. Why don’t you pop it in there now so it doesn’t get mixed up with the things we’re taking to the charity shop?’
So that’s where those black plastic bags are heading. I suppose it’s preferable to the dump, at least.
Ellie doesn’t move. She’s wearing her thoughtful face, the one that indicates she’s mulling over a possible question or, at least, the viable prospect of asking it.
‘Do you think the people who buy Mummy’s things from the charity shop will look after them? What if they buy them and then just throw them away?’
Max and Eve exchange a loaded glance, silently debating whom they feel is better placed to answer.
‘You know what, Ellie? When people buy things second hand, whether from a charity shop or an antiques market or even a car boot sale, they tend to treat them better than if they’d bought something new. I know I always do. There’s something really special about second-hand items; you know they’ve had a history – a whole life – before you owned them and it makes you treat them with even more respect precisely because they’ve belonged to someone else before you. So I honestly think all your mummy’s things will find very nice homes to go to.’
Eve’s right, but it’s a truth sadder than fiction. Because however much my belongings might be appreciated by whomever ends up owning them, those people will never know the history of those objects, will never know the stories attached to them, will never know why they were special to me. I’m the sole proprietor of those memories.
They won’t know that those pink slingbacks with the slightly loose clasp that Eve has just taken out of the wardrobe were the ones I was wearing in New York the day Max and I ran in search of an empty doorway to shield ourselves from a torrential downpour that appeared out of nowhere and then refused to depart for the rest of the afternoon. They won’t know that the blue belted vintage dress draped over the side of the armchair is the one I was wearing in the wedding marquee that day I first met Max and that I’ve kept, sentimentally, ever since. They won’t know that the handbag Ellie is currently rooting through, where she’s found nothing more than an old lipstick and a couple of crumpled tissues, is the one I bought with my first annual bonus, a bag that cost more than was reasonable to spend on a repository for keys, wallet and a travel card. They won’t know that the wooden box lying on the bed awaiting bagging was a purchase from the Marrakech souk where I’d bargained my way down to twenty per cent of the original price, with Harriet egging me on. They won’t know that the red glass bowl Max is covering with bubble wrap, the bowl that has been sitting on my dressing table for the past decade playing host to an array of assorted earrings, was actually my grandparents’, one of the few items I’d rescued from their three-bedroom cottage in Wiltshire before the house clearers had moved in and offered us a derisory price for the lot. Whoever ends up owning all of these things won’t know any of that.
‘But do you think Mummy would be sad that her things won’t be here any more? That we won’t be looking after them for her?’
She’s directing the question to Max. Perhaps only he can reassure her that her participation today is legitimate.
‘I think Mummy would be pleased that her things are going to find new homes, to be useful to other people and give them pleasure. I think that would make her happier than them being stuck in wardrobes and cupboards forever, not being used by anyone.’
I’m honestly not sure whether that’s true. There’s something comforting about all my things still being housed in my former home. Maybe it’s the desire for them to be retained under one roof, the fear of them being scattered too far and wide, in unknown locations with unknown proprietors, never again being able to track their fate. Maybe it’s simply the fear of yet more change.
Ellie is hauling an opaque plastic trunk from under the bed and, as she lifts the lid, I realize with debilitating panic that it’s the box containing everything I don’t yet want her to see: my diaries, letters, notes I’ve sent and received, scribbles of thoughts and feelings, a compendium of my inner life dating back to before I was Ellie’s age. I’m not ready for her to read any of that. Not yet. It’s too soon and she’s too young.
Max glances across at her just in time, a momentary frown of alarm on his face.
‘I don’t think we need to look through that box today, sweetheart. That’s one I’m going to put in the loft and we can go through it together some time in the future.’
Ellie looks suspicious, as if aware that she’s being denied the most coveted of prizes. I thank Max silently for answering my unknowable entreaties as he carries the box to the bottom of the loft ladder.
‘Dad, I’m thirsty. Can I go and make some hot chocolate?’
‘Of course, angel. Make that three and we’ll come down and join you in a few minutes.’
Ellie hops off the bed and clatters noisily down the stairs.
Eve looks out in the direction of Ellie’s departure and waits until she hears the kitchen door close behind her.
‘There are another two bags here for the spare room. I didn’t want to mention them in front of Ellie, obviously.’
Eve’s reference to the spare room sounds suspiciously euphemistic, except that we do have a spare room and that’s where Eve and Max are heading right now, each with a bag of my life in their hands.
The spare room, once home to little more than a sofa bed, a desk and a few bookshelves, now appears to be the vault for a dozen cardboard boxes and about the same number of plastic bags. I’m guessing it’s all mine. Who knew it was possible to accumulate quite so much baggage in a relatively short lifetime?
As Max and Eve pile the two most recent additions on top of existing mounds, Eve surveys the room with a sigh.
‘When do you think you’ll get time to deal with all of this?’
‘Well, the dump is open till ten tonight so I figured I’d head off after Ellie goes to bed, if you don’t mind staying with her on your own till I get back? I shouldn’t be too late. I’m hoping to be able to get it done in two runs.’
So all of this does belong to me. Or at least it did. It’s not going to belong to anyone for much longer.
‘I really don’t want Ellie to see that I’m throwing away so much of Rachel’s stuff. But I don’t know what else to do with it. I feel guilty about getting rid of it, but then I feel guilty at the thought of keeping it all as well. I know it doesn’t make any sense to hold on to every single thing she ever owned, and I know it wouldn’t be fair on you if I did. When you move in next week, I want this to feel like your home. And that’s never going to happen if every drawer you open contains some sort of reminder of Rachel.’
So this is all in aid of Eve’s imminent occupancy. I suppose I should have guessed.
‘Max, I’ve said it already but I’ll say it again. There’s no rush for any of this, not on my account.’
‘No, I’m ready. It’s not just for you. It’s for me too, and for Ellie. For all of us. We can’t realistically move on when this house is full of so many tangible shadows. It’s irrational, anyway, holding on to all these things – all her schoolbooks and her work files and old painting equipment that wouldn’t be of any use to anyone now anyway. No one’s ever going to look at any of this stuff so it doesn’t make any sense to keep it. I know that.’
All those personal effects of mine: the artefacts of my childhood, my adolescence, my working life, my private passions. All of that being dumped into a landfill site, like a common grave for anonymous possessions. It’s like a second funeral, for the last remnants of my corporeal life, only this time there’ll be no hymns, no eulogies, no family or friends in attendance to ensure a safe send-off.
I feel like crying.
It’s not me who breaks down, though. It’s Max who sits on the sofa bed and suddenly begins to sob – slow, muffled cries, the sounds of a man desperate
to restrain himself but at the mercy of feelings beyond his control.
Eve sits down next to him, placing one arm around his shoulders and the other on his leg, saying nothing, allowing him to mourn in silence.
‘I’m sorry, Eve. I don’t know what’s come over me. It’s just a lot harder than I imagined. I’ve been telling myself that I can be pragmatic about this, that it’s just a job I have to do, that it’s the next necessary, logical step, but it’s so much more complicated than that. Every single item we’re packing up reminds me of something, something to do with Rachel. I feel like I’m doing a lifetime’s memorializing in a single day. I’ve been trying to keep it together, for you and for Ellie, but I just feel overwhelmed.’
Now it’s my turn to feel guilty, to be swathed in the selfishness of someone who’s neglected to remember that I’m not the only person for whom this is a day of finalities.
‘I really didn’t want to lose it in front of you today, Eve. I don’t want you to think that this has any bearing on us or that I’m not ready for you to move in because I am. I can’t wait for you to be living here full time. I suppose there’s just always going to be a part of me that still misses Rachel, that’s still angry with the world for taking her away from me and Ellie so bloody early. A part of me, if I’m honest, that will always love her. But that’s completely separate from the love I have for you. I need you to know that. It doesn’t diminish my feelings about you, about us, in any way at all.’
I wipe away my own tears that have greeted this unexpected revelation. I’ve watched over the past year as Max has fallen in love with another woman, begun to build a life with her, invited her into our home and allowed her to mother our daughter. I’ve watched as my presence has receded from his life, as he’s cleared space for her to step into my role while I’ve been powerless to intervene. I’ve assumed that I’d been dismissed from our home, from his memory, from his heart even. But now I discover that there’s still a place for me in Max’s life, even as he builds a new one with Eve.
I look around the room at the boxes and bags of belongings destined for the dump. Max is right. These aren’t my life. They’re inanimate remnants of a life so much richer, a life so much fuller and a marriage that can’t be obliterated however far it’s buried underground, whatever new relationships live above it, however long Max survives me.
I wish I could tell him not to worry, tell him that I understand, tell him that he need not feel guilty about this removal of material possessions. Tell him that they could bury the lot six miles under and it wouldn’t diminish the relationship we had. I wish I could hold him and look him in the eye one last time and tell him that it’s okay.
It’s Eve, instead, who holds Max’s face in her hands.
‘I don’t want you ever to feel that you can’t talk to me about Rachel. Of course I know how much you still miss her and that a part of you will always love her. I know that she’ll always be special to you if for no other reason than she’s the mother of your daughter. And I don’t imagine for a second that I could ever replace her, for you or for Ellie, and neither would I want to. We’re starting something new, you and I, and that’s a continuation of the past, not an eradication of it. All I ask is that you promise never to shut me out, never to keep those feelings to yourself. I want to be able to share it all with you, even the painful parts, to be involved in remembering Rachel with you and Ellie. After all, who knows whether you and I would have fallen in love if you hadn’t already lived with and loved someone else so successfully. Not all men have learnt how to do that, you know. We’ve both got a lot to thank Rachel for, when you think about it.’
Max wraps Eve inside his arms in an envelopment of love and gratitude. As I watch them hold on to one another, Eve’s words repeat over and over in my mind with all the reassurance that I hadn’t realized until now I needed from her.
I feel absent from Max’s life but not, for the first time, excluded. It’s as though I exist, somewhere, in the folds of their embrace and the knowledge of that provides the impetus I need to tear myself away, to leave them to the disposal of objects I no longer require. It’s a moment to allow them their privacy and to retreat, for the time being, back into the world to which I now belong.
Chapter 32
There’s a white transit van parked outside our house, its back doors swung open, revealing its contents to any passerby with a tendency towards curiosity. There’s not much to see, just a couple of boxes and a lone oversized Selfridges bag. I wonder whether I’ve been absent only a matter of hours, whether this is the van that will transport my worldly possessions to charity shops and rubbish dumps and recycling centres. If it is, I think I’d rather not be here to witness it.
While I’m contemplating whether to try and will myself away before I see things I may wish I hadn’t, Ellie, Eve and Max emerge from the front door, empty-handed. Max climbs into the back of the van, hands Ellie the Selfridges bag, Eve one of the boxes and carries the final package out himself, closing the van doors behind him with a decisive thrust of his hips. The three of them walk into the house and close the door behind them. I join them inside a second later.
The hall is again filled with boxes, bags and suitcases, but the luggage is not any I recognize. This, I’m guessing, is a day for moving in rather than moving out.
‘Right, that’s the last load and I, for one, am exhausted. I vote for a tea-and-biscuit break. Do you ladies agree?’
‘Dad, why would I ever say no to a biscuit? I’ll make the tea.’
While Ellie runs into the kitchen, I follow Max and Eve into the sitting room and am greeted by changes that signal, once and for all, as if I needed any further proof, that this is no longer my home.
The photographic shrine to my life with Max and Ellie has been removed, a solitary six-by-four framed picture of the three of us together in Greece nestling cosily among the books. The walls are now adorned with art they haven’t housed before; nice art, good art, expensive contemporary art by the look of it. Just not art that Max and I ever owned together. The mantelpiece is now the proud exhibitor of a single eight-by-ten framed photograph of Max and Eve together on a summer’s day at what appears to be a wedding or a garden party. Their arms are draped affectionately around each other’s waists, both of them laughing – not just smiling, but laughing – into the camera. They look happy. Really happy. I wonder whose party it was, or whose wedding. Whether I knew the hosts or whether the event was part of Max’s new social life, a life I know so little about.
I notice that the tatty green armchair, the chair I’d been imploring Max to dispose of since we first moved in together, the chair he’d acquired when he was a second-year student from somewhere I suspected wasn’t a shop but rather a street corner, the chair he’d refused to part company with for the duration of our cohabitation, has finally disappeared, replaced by a small, smart, brown leather sofa. I see that a stripped pine desk has taken up residence adjacent to the French doors at the far end of the sitting room and a new bookcase is waiting patiently in one of the alcoves to be filled with whatever tomes Eve’s brought with her.
It’s strange, witnessing my old house undergo these changes. A bit like going into a neighbour’s home, familiar in shape and size but disconcertingly different in colour, style and furnishings. Or like a memory that contrasts sharply with another’s recollection of the same event, with no clear barometer for which version – if either – is the truth.
Ellie walks in carefully, precariously carrying a tray too weighty for her little arms. She manages to deposit it safely on to the wooden trunk in the middle of the room before edging herself between Max and Eve to settle down on the sofa with them. Max responds with an amused grin and shifts himself to make room for her.
‘Seriously, ladies, I’m pooped. Do you think we’ve done enough for today?’
‘Are you joking, Dad? There’s still loads to do. We haven’t even started unpacking yet. Didn’t you see all those boxes in the hall?’
Max
laughs and hugs her towards him.
‘You’re a hard taskmaster, Ellie Myerson, do you know that?’
‘Mmm … well, I wonder where she can possibly get that from? Weren’t you up marking essays until well past midnight last night? And on a Friday night too.’
‘Ah, but that, you see, was only with a view to freeing up the whole weekend to help you move in, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know, Ellie. Your dad – he’s the last of the great charmers, isn’t he?’
Ellie and Eve exchange a conspiratorial glance before the two of them pounce on Max and begin tickling him relentlessly.
‘I surrender, I surrender. I admit I’m as much of a task-master as my crack-the-whip eight-year-old daughter.’
‘Too little, too late, Max, don’t you think, Ellie? Get him just below the ribs, that’ll teach him.’
Ellie is giggling wildly and Max can barely breathe he’s laughing so hard.
‘It’s … not … fair. You … have … to stop … if someone … surrenders. That’s the … deal.’
‘What do you think, Ellie? Shall we let him go?’
‘Only if he promises that as soon as he’s finished his tea we’ll unpack the rest of your things until it’s time for pizza and The X Factor.’
‘I promise … I promise. Anything to get … you two … harridans … off me.’
Ellie clambers down from her vantage point on Max’s chest and Eve flops back on to the far side of the sofa, the three of them still trying to catch their breath.
I look at Max and I notice for the first time how much his face has changed. It’s free from the gloom that’s furrowed his brow and darkened the light behind his eyes for the past two and a half years. It’s the face of a man who’s happy, who’s contented with his given lot, who has, at last, found the peace he’s been in search of for far too long. The face of a man restored to well-being after a painful period of emotional ill health. It’s heart-warming to be reacquainted with the exuberance of the man I married, consoling to witness these qualities returned to him, even if I can’t be there to share them. And I have Ellie and Eve to thank for bringing Max back to himself. He couldn’t have done it without them. Without both of them. I know that.
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