Mind Games and Ministers

by Chris Longden

  “It’s a terrible thing,” Half-crouching, combing through the mint and marjoram mini-forest.

  “Being left on your own with the kids. Utterly dreadful. So,” he turned and lobbed the weeds into the lavender bushes, “you can tell me to mind my own business. But I just wanted to say. That if I’ve been at all insensitive this afternoon. Or sounded like a complete prick. About anything. Well. I do apologise.”

  I raised my legs to my chest, hugging myself. Self-preservation via body language. But I quickly put my legs back down again. Not as a result of any impressive psychological insight, but because the shorts were rather wafty and I had suddenly remembered that I was knickerless.

  “Well. If you mean the motorbike thing. Then, yes, I can get a bit … uptight about that kind of thing. But for God’s sake, don’t be tiptoeing around me. Behaviour like that completely does my head in.” I sipped my wine. He listened.

  “I hate the way that people fanny about. When you’ve been bereaved. Even people who were quite sensible previously can’t deal with you, act normally around you anymore.”

  “Oh?”

  “They get all freaked out. Yeah, you get the odd person who might cross the street in order to avoid you. Or who never even mentions it to you. But most folk seem to think that they have to act in a constantly morose manner around you. As though you’d somehow take offence if anyone else in the world were enjoying themselves. Everyone doing the eggshell walk for poor old you.”

  Michael stepped out of the herb garden now, plonking his backside onto the side of the boxed panel.

  “And a lot of people seem to think that because your other half died in particular circumstances – for example, an illness, dangerous driving or whatever – that you’ll want to start campaigning for that cause. As though you’ll want to set up a new charity for stupid men who kill themselves riding motorbikes. Or something.”

  My words petered out. I looked away, across the valley. Evening lights of the little villages nestling along the looming peaks of Derbyshire were beginning to glow. I began again.

  “The thing is. I’ve always been a campaigner. I’ve always tried to challenge injustice. So I’ll never be lacking an outlet for changing the crappy things in society. Whether at home or overseas. And I don’t feel the need to cause a big ruckus about our own particular … tragedy.”

  I swallowed. Not an adjective that I frequently used. Most of the time, I viewed losing Adam as simply a stupid, shitty dose of bad luck. Which could have so easily been avoided.

  (Correction. Which Adam himself could so easily have avoided. But again, best not to think about that.)

  Michael gulped some of his wine and stood up.

  “OK, so you’d prefer me to be honest with you? No tiptoeing, you said.”

  “Please.”

  “Well. At the risk of sounding quite brutal here, I’m not too fond of burned pizza. So do you mind if I go and fetch it? I mean – we can wait if …”

  Straight to the point again. I smiled. And he nodded. He wandered back to the house and soon emerged with pizza, plates and a box of cupcakes. I hadn’t lost my appetite, despite the threat of meat overkill. Michael plonked himself on one of the cast-iron chairs, while I preferred to stay at a more discreet distance, perched on the wooden bench, as I ate. He tucked into his food, swallowing an enormous mouthful and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Hungry-man, lack of self-consciousness. (I had forgotten that. I missed that.)

  “So, tell me. Does it get better over time?” he asked, adding quickly, “I don’t mean losing your husband. Of course it doesn’t. I mean – do you get better at it? Dealing with people’s reactions. You know. People like me. Clumsy bastards who can’t manage to say what they intend to!” He groaned and dropped his head towards the slice of pizza that was halfway to his mouth. His nose skimming the mozzarella.

  “Oh, Michael – you’re doing fine,” I chuckled. “Just don’t tiptoe. But to answer your question … no. It gets worse. I mean, I get worse at it. I get ruder to people. Because I hate the monotony. Whether it’s someone at the bank and you’re explaining the mortgage situation. Or something medical to do with the kids. Or a sales caller wanting to speak to your husband. Or when a parent at your kid’s new school invites you ‘both’ to a barbecue …”

  (Or the insurance people. No. Don’t think about the insurance people. Shelve that one.)

  “Yeah. It just gets tedious. And I’m genetically predisposed to using black humour when I’m naffed off. Which not everyone appreciates, of course. It can upset people.”

  “Oh, no,” Michael carried on. “Forget the black humour. From having only known you for a short while, I would say that you would be far more likely to resort to sarcasm. Which everyone knows is —”

  “I know, I know. The lowest form, and all that. And you’re right. Adam was forever telling me that I deserved an Oscar in Sarcasm.”

  It felt good to say his name out loud.

  Michael stood up to help himself to a fourth slice of pizza. “Christ, I’m hungry after today’s escapades. But Rachael, if your attitude is working for you, who cares? Who cares what other people think of you? Why should you have to conform to some ‘bereaved person’ role? You come across as quite an opinionated person, who I wouldn’t have thought would give a tinker’s cuss what people think about her.”

  Nail-on-head moment.

  “I don’t know. But it does bother me. Despite the way that I might come across to others. When it comes to this subject, I guess I do care about how people perceive me to be reacting. Whether I’m absorbing myself in the pre-requisite grieving widow stuff.”

  I stopped talking. Conscience pricked by a not-so-romantic reminiscence.

  The two of us in his car. Me and Shaun. In the car park next to Oldham Art Gallery. I glance out of the window and notice the car that has pulled up alongside us. My parents’ next-door neighbour. Nosey Norman.

  Please don’t see us. Please don’t judge me. I know, I know. It’s too soon. Too soon after. But this is different. Shaun and I never fit the usual categories of…

  “Well, I say that you really should disregard the views of other people. Surely what’s most important … is you and your children? Have the three of you developed a sensible way of getting to grips with it all? If that doesn’t sound too …”

  I waved his concerns away with an arc of green pepper.

  “It’s hard to say. The kids are still so young. It happened twenty months ago now. So Lydia – she’s six, soon to turn seven. And yeah, obviously – she does have very strong memories of her dad. Matthew was just off his second birthday. Doesn't remember anything. So you can read all the self-help books, get your bereavement counselling, join your internet support forums ...” I paused for a minute, trying to formulate the words. “But how we’ve been dealing with it? I don’t think that we have. As a family, I mean. If that makes sense. It could hit the kids a lot harder in their teens. Who knows?”

  “Yes,” he nodded, licking a stray strand of mozzarella from his lips. “And different personalities react differently to trauma. Same for kids as for adults.”

  “And nothing is static. To begin with, Lydia didn’t want to talk about losing her daddy at all. She would say to me, ‘let's talk about something nice instead!’ And now it’s progressed to the opposite. Questions about God, what happens to dead bodies, will she have to go and live in an orphanage if I die? Can she have my dresses because I never bother to wear anything nice? That kind of thing.” He smiled wryly.

  “Interesting child.”

  “And as for Matthew? I can’t have a sensible conversation with him unless it involves Spiderman or bottoms.”

  “Well, as you know, I’ve yet to have a sensible conversation with any child,” he chimed. “Not that I’ve tried hard, if I’m honest. I just don’t have the patience. Not even for my own nephew and nieces – who in my humble opinion are odious little brats, actually – so you already have my admiration for being capable of spa
wning and bringing up a child. Or two of them. But surely you aren’t completely on your own? What about your friends, your family?”

  “Oh, my parents have been great. They do as much as they can for us, but they don’t exactly live around the corner from us. So I don’t like to rely on them too much. And Adam’s parents are lovely, but they’re in Reading. My sister, Vicky, is in London. And then there’s my best friend, Kate. She’s always done her best to help, but she’s got enough on her plate with having twins as well as being a teacher.”

  (And Shaun? Funny way of helping, that).

  Michael suddenly reached across the table, snatching up a brightly coloured box.

  “See. I’ve got cupcakes. Cheap and quick dessert. I know how to treat my guests well.” He opened the box and shoved them at me. I declined. “Suit yourself.” He put an entire cupcake in his mouth and chewed. A Matthew trick. Gannet.

  I asked him, “Did Brenda tell you anything about the accident?”

  He shook his head and swallowed. “No. Not at all. She didn’t elaborate. I didn’t ask.”

  No point in holding back now, Rachael. Go for it.

  “Well, this is what happened. Adam was in South Africa with his best friend Jim.”

  “No,” Michael held his hand up to stop me. “I’m all for not fannying around, as you like to put it. Not tiptoeing. But I don’t want to be intrusive.” He shook his head, licked chocolate crumbs from his lips and waved his hand in front of him. Giving me the choice to move on from the conversation.

  “It’s fine. Honestly. I’ve had to tell so many people now. The words themselves don’t mean very much.”

  He bowed his head slightly. All right then. Continue.

  “Adam and Jim were in South Africa. On holiday. The result of a competition that I entered, actually. Me and my OCD need to win once I’ve got my mind set on something. A supermarket competition. The more toilet rolls you bought, the more entries you were allowed. I went all out on the old bulk buys of the stuff. And I won a trip to South Africa for two. Only, of course, we had the kids so we couldn’t go there together. So we decided that it made more sense if Adam went. With a friend. His mate Jim from the biking club. They were on day six of their holiday. The day before they were due to fly back home.”

  He nodded. I sipped more wine. I had been wrong when I told him I was used to telling this story. No. I was used to conveying the bare facts to people who didn’t know me. The administrators and the bureaucrats. Not this sort of background information, this version of events. Fran on Feelings was the closest I had come to on this level of detail. And she was paid good money to listen to me witter on, so she didn’t count.

  “And then came that infamous knock on the door. A Sunday afternoon. Two uniformed police officers. I thought it was something to do with work. With Sisters’ Space. Some case, maybe – kicking off. Lydia trotted over to the front door. Her usual chatty self. But then they asked me if there was someone who could watch the kids. And I knew then. I just knew it.”

  Chapter 7

  TWO TALES OF THANATOS

  The musical chimes of a clock drifted through the open window. Striking the hour. I let them finish.

  “Jim and Adam were both motorbike crazy. So Jim had this idea of hiring a bike for their last day. Said he wanted to ‘explore Africa the proper way’. Adam had wanted to go shark-cage diving. Apparently he had said to Jim, ‘We can go biking any time. There aren't many sharks in Yorkshire are there?’ But Jim got his way.”

  Michael was stroking his five o’clock shadow.

  “So, at the end of a nice day they were finishing off their little bike tour at a nature reserve on Cape Point. A very twisty road. And one of those ‘sharp bend’ signs that you would have expected to be there. Well. It wasn’t.”

  I twisted my fingers into strands of hair, feeling the dampness from the shower.

  “Adam was driving. Jim was on the back. Both were sensible riders. They’d seen too many accidents not to take it seriously. They weren’t complacent with their bikes.”

  I was chopping carrots for a casserole. Adam had commented, casually, ‘Hey, remember that Shaun – that bloke you used to work with who’s a member of the Manchester Biker Club? Apparently he had a really bad accident today along the Snake Pass.’

  Heart a-skittering. Followed by a flare-up at my husband. Because for Adam ‘bad’ meant that poor old Shaun had written his sexy superbike off. For Adam, Shaun’s broken arm paled in comparison to the tragedy of smashing up a top of the range bike.

  “They lost control on the corner that skirted the edge of a cliff. A sheer two-hundred-foot drop. Off Cape Point itself. Literally the end of the world. But Adam managed to do some kind of manoeuvre so that they fell onto a ledge. I know. It sounds crazy doesn’t it? Like something from a film. But, well. Adam didn’t make it. Jim survived, though. Broke a lot of bones.”

  “Bloody hell,” came from Michael, who was now sitting on the edge of one of the cast-iron garden chairs.

  “There was an investigation. Meaning that it was all a long and drawn-out process. Release and transportation of the body. Death certificates, disposal of body certificates. But the inquest said that it was ‘accidental death’. And that he died instantly. Through head injuries. No bike fault. No problem with the road…” I paused. Michael had worked his way through the cupcakes and was toying with the remnants of the fifth in its paper case. He looked up.

  “Christ. So … does that make you feel as though you got no real answers?”

  “Yes. But that’s okay. I can accept that it was a crazy, freakish thing to happen. Jim can’t, though. He wanted answers. And he still feels responsible for pushing on the ‘let’s hire a bike’ idea.”

  Michael muttered, shaking his head. “God. Poor bloke.”

  “Yes.” I added, “And I tell him to get over it. Forget the whys and the wherefores. I tell him that Adam could just as easily have been killed by a shark if they had followed his own daft idea for a bit of testosterone-induced fun. I tell him that if he’s going to use that kind of logic, shouldn’t I also blame myself for my obsessive bulk buying of toilet roll?”

  Michael smiled grimly. “Hmm. Can we call this ‘Rachael-Logic’?”

  “If you like. I just think that it’s wasted energy to search for answers. To beat yourself up. It’s about as sensible as feeling that some horrible God up there in the clouds has decided to smite you and yours because you think that his religion is a load of old tosh.”

  “So you’re not a … believer, then? Before, in the taxi, you said that you placed more faith in God than in the political system.”

  “Yes. I am. Just to confuse you.”

  He pulled a face. “Explain.”

  “Well … I guess all I’m saying is that I don’t go for traditional answers and crass sentimental responses to death anymore. Got rather too much of that after losing Adam, from people who seem to think that they’ve got a direct line to God. It strikes me as the height of arrogance to believe that if you pray hard enough you can somehow persuade a supernatural being to answer your petty little prayers. Or even the big cares and woes of the world.”

  His head nodded slightly as he continued to carve up small corners of chocolate with his thumbnail. I continued.

  “So I’d still call myself a Christian, but I don’t do the doctrines. The dogma. Any organisation that aims to control people’s minds is something that I’ll run like the wind from.”

  “Right. So you told me what you don’t believe in. The negatives. But what do you put your faith in? The positives?”

  “Hmm … Maybe just that ‘love overcomes everything’. Even death. Even when life feels like utter shit. If you can hang on in there somehow. Yeah … it does.”

  I swallowed, aware of the fact that I was talking an awful lot. Becoming the conversation-hogger that I was always accusing Lydia of. But it felt good. So damned good to be having a discussion with another adult for once. Not about work. Not about kids. And not to a
bereavement counsellor who was always glancing past me and at the clock on the wall.

  “It’s hardly intellectual theology, though, Michael. But going back to the day of the accident. I still have pockets of … memory-blanks. For example, only the other day I remembered just how horrible I was to the police.” I shook my head at the recollection. “Get this. They arrived, broke the news to me and then I told them that they had to leave because I had to take my children to a friend’s birthday party and I was in a hurry.”

  I chuckled, darkly.

  “Poor sods. They’d just had to do the worst part of their job … ‘You’re now a widow with two small children.’ And there was me getting all bolshy in case we were late for sausage rolls at some random kid’s party. They had to take my car keys off me in the end.”

  Michael turned his chair around. It screeched and grated on the flagstones. He threw one leg over, straddling it.

  “Well, it’s not really comparable to what you’ve been through. But I lost my dad when I was just nine. Cancer. He was dreadfully ill for two years.”

  “Really? Oh … that’s awful.”

  “Yes. But I’ve got lots of lovely memories. Sailing, fishing, building a tree house. Before he got ill. But going back to what you were saying before – about your children’s reactions. For a good three years after he died, I wouldn’t talk about him. I would even walk out of a room if people mentioned him.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “Not sure exactly. Embarrassment? That might sound strange … but I don’t like to be pitied. Who does? And also, I think that I was angry. It messed up our perfect little family unit. We were well off. Lovely home in Buckinghamshire. The place in France, of course – oh, I’m not going for the whole poor-little-rich-boy sympathy vote here, by the way …” He glanced at me.

  “I know.”

  “And my family were – are – quite liberal, in many ways. But we’ve always been ‘mustn’t grumble’ sorts. And then there was my little sister. Dad died the day before her third birthday. So we just had to carry on as usual. Ponies, parties. Prepping her for the inevitable showjumping stuff. All that. You know. Your usual nice childhood pastimes.”