“I’m keeping a diary. I write every day and I’ve gone back and wrote things from the past. Sometimes it’s so I don’t forget, my brain isn’t so good anymore, but also as a way to discharging the memories.”
“You used to write all the time when you were a child. I have a bundle of little stories you and your dad made up,” mum said.
We chatted about their Christmas and New Year and I asked whether anyone had heard from Casey. I had written her a letter, I’d poured my heart onto paper and I handed it to Carla for posting. It was my last attempt to contact her.
“Stefan calls, every week. He wants to visit,” Carla said.
I didn’t answer immediately. Slowly, I shook my head.
“He’s better off without me and my issues. I’m not that person anymore, Carla. I don’t know what I have to offer. I don’t want to burden him.”
“I’m not sure he’d see it that way. Maybe we’ll chat about it when you’re home,” she replied.
I’d thought of Stefan a lot. His face was something I conjured in my mind frequently when I needed comfort. But I meant what I said. I wasn’t the same person to the Jayne of just two months previous. Part of me was still numb and part of me was terrified of seeing him again, of wanting him, and then not being able to have him because the memory of our last day together was so painful.
I didn’t know what I had left in me to offer. My heart was still so very bruised.
We chatted for a half hour but I noticed Carla become nervous. She pulled some papers from her bag and set them on her lap. I looked at her.
“Tell me,” I said quietly.
“I have some papers for you to sign. Michael put the house up for sale, I’m sorry, Jayne. I fought him hard but it’s his name on the mortgage. Your solicitor has managed to secure half of the proceeds, and we should be able to get a small settlement in the divorce but he’s hidden everything.”
“Tea anyone?” Glenn strode into the room holding a tray.
“Do you time exactly when I’m going to get shit news?”
“Yep,” he said, and then smiled.
I reached for the papers. “Where do I sign?”
I scribbled my signature where indicated then handed them back to Carla.
“Thank you, for all you’ve done. I think I need some time on my own right now.”
Kerry handed Benjamin back to me for one last cuddle. I kissed his forehead as his fingers curled around one of mine. “Nanny will see you soon,” I said.
I stood and hugged each of the women and ushered them from the room before they saw my tears. They’d seen me break down enough in the past; I wanted them to finally walk from that hospital with the memory of my smile.
“You up for your tea?” I heard. Lilian always knew when to make an appearance.
“They bloody forgot me,” she added as she poured herself a cup.
She sat on the end of the bed holding her mug. “So?”
I told her what Michael had done. “You know we could probably kill him and get away with it. Play the insanity card.”
Through my tears, I laughed. “Karma, my friend. He’ll grow to be a lonely old man,” I said.
“How’s your dog?” she asked.
“Kerry is still at the house until it’s sold, I guess. She’ll be looking after him but I need to get home and get this sorted.”
That day I made a pledge to myself. I’d attend the daft art classes, and I’d work hard to beat that illness. I was needed at home and Michael selling up had spurred me on.
Lilian and I walked to relaxation together. I never quite got the class other than it was an excuse to lie on a hard yoga mat on an equally hard floor and listen to sounds of the sea. Jenn, the therapist and about the only one I actually liked, smiled as we entered the room. Another patient, Karen, or KL as she wanted to be known, sat beside me.
“Evening, Jayne, I am so ready for this. I’m exhausted,” she said with a yawn.
Relaxation class was just everyone’s excuse for an hour’s nap. Or it would have been had KL not chatted the whole way through. I often wondered if they had her meds mixed up; she literally bounced everywhere.
Carla came frequently; she brought more papers and eventually told me the house had been sold. The first people that viewed it had put in an offer way below the asking price but Michael had accepted it. My belongings had been packed up and were to be placed in storage, and Dini was staying with mum. The divorce was quick to follow. I didn’t contest the adultery charge. I didn’t care what reason was given just as long as it was done and finished with. The solicitor had done well. My marriage ended with half the equity from the sale of the property and a lump sum of money. It wouldn’t make a dent in what Michael had hidden away but I didn’t care.
“I need to find somewhere and quick. I have Kerry to think about,” I said as we completed the last of paperwork.
“Well, I have news on that as well. Francis, and you’re not going to believe this, has handed over the trust that was set up for Ben. Kerry has enough to buy a small house.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No, seriously. She came to see me. I can’t tell you how fucking surprised I was to see the old bat on my doorstep. Anyway, the Colonel had wanted the money to be left in trust for Benjamin but she over-ruled. Can you imagine that?” Carla laughed at the thought.
“I’m so pleased. So what’s Kerry doing?”
“She wants to stay on that little estate they lived on before. She’s made friends and her mum and baby groups are there. I’m going with her tomorrow to look at a couple and, she doesn’t know this, but if she’s short, I’ll make up the difference. My investments are doing quite well and I don’t need all that money.”
“Just need to sort me out now,” I said with a sigh.
“When you leave here, you come back with me for a while. Give yourself some time to think about things. And you know, he keeps calling.”
I didn’t have to ask who the ‘he’ was.
“I can’t, not yet. I’m too embarrassed. Why would he want to be tangled up in my mess?”
“Maybe just email? He either calls or emails everyday, Jayne. If he didn’t want to be ‘tangled up in your mess’ he wouldn’t do that, would he?”
“I just don’t know what I can offer him right now. I need time.”
What she didn’t understand was, although I accepted my depression, it was under control because I was medicated and working through my issues. It was hard work. I was exhausted all the time with the internal battles that waged. I didn’t have the energy to give to another.
I had been at the hospital for three months and it was time for me to go home. As much as I’d begged for that, when the day came, I was terrified. I spent ages packing up my room, folding the new clothes that Carla had bought me. I hugged Glenn and Lilian; we made promises to keep in touch, promises we knew we’d never keep.
We were stripped bare in that facility, raw and exposed for all to see. Deep down we knew we’d never keep in touch because that would be a reminder of the worst time of our lives. But it was nice to walk out that front door on the arm of my best friend and my mum and know I’d made a lifelong friend in Lilian, but one that would stay in my heart only.
It had been decided that I would go back to Carla’s but I wanted to collect Dini on the way. He’d saved my life, whether he was aware of that or not, and I’d missed him. Carla had agreed that Dini would stay with us; she knew I’d keep him under control and away from her large collection of handbags.
As mum opened the front door, he ran at me. He leapt, nearly knocking me to my feet. I don’t think he’d ever licked or whined as much. If there was ever a way of communicating with him, I’d want to thank him.
Going home, wherever that was, wasn’t as easy and I had hoped. For a while Carla walked on eggshells around me. There was a forced cheerfulness, an awkwardness that made me sad. I tried to fit back in to some sort of life, but knowing I’d lived just a short distance away in my
dream house made me not want to be in the village. We’d driven past one day while a removal lorry unloaded the furniture of its new occupants. That had hurt.
Kerry and I decided to visit the storage facility that was the temporary home for all my furniture. She needed some pieces for her new house.
“Can we go in your car? Mine needs a service,” she’d said on the phone.
When I’d first left the hospital, Kerry always drove. She didn’t seem comfortable with me driving and with Benjamin in the back. It was those little things that I noticed, that lack of trust in me and my mental state. I had a lot of repairing to do, but asking me to drive was a step in the right direction.
I picked her up from her little house and we made our way out of the village. It would be the first time I’d ‘visited’ my belongings. We were given a key and a number of a storage box. By ‘box’ I meant something the size of a shipping container in a warehouse that could have housed a jumbo jet.
Each box was labelled and neatly stacked. My furniture was wrapped in protective material. We made a note of what she needed; the delivery company would transport it over to her.
I paused by a stack of boxes with Ben’s name on them. It actually saddened me to see that Casey had far more in her name. She’d obviously taken nothing when the house had been packed up.
“You need to send those to Francis,” Kerry said as she patted one.
“I might have to. I can’t keep the cost of this going each month. I haven’t told Carla, but I need to find somewhere to live soon. I can’t stay with her indefinitely, and I know everyone is worried about me, but I can’t be myself with her anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Kerry asked as we sat on the sofa and pulled a box with Ben’s name on it towards us.
“She’s not ‘normal’ around me, no one is. I feel like everyone is being too happy, no one wants to share bad news or have a bad day even when I’m around.”
She looked at me. “I guess we’re all scared it might cause you to…you know.”
“I get that but that’s not the case. I just need everyone to be normal. I’ll never go back to the person I was before, but this is hard work for me.”
“I guess it’s just going to take us all a little time,” she said gently.
I watched her hands shake as she opened the box and pulled out a shirt. She held it to her face and closed her eyes.
“I miss him so much,” she whispered.
I placed my arm around her shoulder as she cried. She was the first to ‘let go’ in front of me. I wondered how hard it was for everyone to hold in their grief.
“Tomorrow, let’s go to the cemetery, take Benjamin,” I said.
It would be the first time I’d visited since his burial. I didn’t feel guilty about that; Ben would not want us wailing at his graveside.
I rifled around in the box and found a smaller one. Inside the white cardboard was a blue velvet box. I held it up in my hand to examine the intricate clasp.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think I’ve seen that before.”
“Shall I open it?”
“Yes.”
I slowly opened the lid and what I saw brought tears to my eyes. A slim gold wedding band sat on the velvet cushion. I gently picked it up. Inside it was engraved.
KG & BA
“I think this is for you,” I said.
We all believed Kerry and Ben would marry at some point, perhaps Ben had plans for that sooner than we thought. Kerry’s hands shook as she slowly slipped the ring on her finger.
She picked her baby up from his car seat and cradled him to her chest. She laid her cheek on the top of his head and cried.
We sat for a while before Kerry wiped her tears on the sleeve of her jacket. She smiled sadly at me before putting a sleeping Benjamin back in his car seat.
“Shall we go?” I asked. She nodded.
We locked the container and made arrangements for furniture to be delivered before handing back the keys, then made our way back to Carla’s. Kerry was going to stay for dinner and Carla had decided on a Chinese takeaway.
“I’m going to start looking for somewhere to live tomorrow,” I said as we sat around the table.
“Are you sure you’re ready? You don’t have to, you know,” Carla answered.
“I am and I know. But I have to start getting on with my life. Tomorrow we’re going to the cemetery if you want to come with us. I need to say goodbye, and then I’ll never visit that place again.”
Carla looked at me; I guessed she was unsure what I’d meant.
“I don’t need to be by a grave, Carla, to remember my son, and he’d hate for us to do that,” I added.
We ate, I even had a glass of wine, my first in months, and we pretended we were happy and life was dandy.
I think that was the hardest thing about the previous few weeks—the pretence.
I might not be mad, I might be medicated to even out my moods, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t sad. But the slightest downturn from the corners of my lips caused Carla and my mum to give each other sly looks, shifting eyes and the wringing of hands. I wasn’t going to fall apart, and it was exhausting having to hide how I felt all the time. I needed my own place; I needed somewhere I could cry if I wanted to without everyone assuming I was about to slit my wrists.
It was a bright spring morning when we set off for the cemetery. Piled into Carla’s car we drove with a forced cheerfulness out of the village and to the small church. My stomached was knotted as we parked the car and walked across the dewy grass to Ben’s grave. Nothing looked familiar and it dawned on me that I was seeing his final resting place through fresh eyes and a calm mind.
Benjamin gurgled in his carry seat, oblivious to the mounting emotion as I laid a blanket on the ground and we sat.
“At least this is a beautiful place,” Kerry said. She laid a single white rose under his headstone.
I didn’t hold back the tear that leaked from one eye. I didn’t bother to dab it away before anyone saw. I reached forwards and traced his name, engraved in the granite. My boy, my first-born, lay forever underground and in the last place he’d want to be.
We sat for an hour or so reminiscing and found plenty to chuckle about. Recalling some of Ben’s childhood escapades weren’t as painful as I thought they might have been. As the clock in the church bell tower chimed midday, we packed up to leave. It was as we were leaving that a car pulled alongside ours.
I came to a halt as Francis wrapped a woollen shawl around her shoulders and locked her car. She stumbled a little, in shock at the sight of us, I guessed.
“Jayne, I didn’t realise you would be here today,” she said.
She had aged, dramatically. Gone was the perfect hair, styled and sprayed within an inch of its life. Gone was the perfect made up eyes; in their place I saw wrinkles and sadness.
“I’d rather not be, Francis. I’d rather Ben be where he wanted to be and not stuck six foot underground but, as you know, I didn’t get a choice in that.”
I tried really hard to keep the bitterness from my voice.
She had the grace to lower her eyes. “I’m sorry, I truly am. Can we talk for a while?”
I looked to Carla and Kerry. Francis smiled when she noticed Benjamin. She crouched down and held out her hand. He grabbed her finger.
“He looks so much like Ben, and you, of course, Kerry,” she said.
“If Jayne is happy about this, why not join us for a cup of tea at my house,” Carla said.
“That would be lovely, thank you.”
I nodded my consent and we headed for our respective cars. Francis followed us the short distance back to Carla’s.
I had been silent on the way back, watching the village through the side window and thinking. I’d never had a great relationship with Francis, in fact, I remembered our first meeting.
It was just after I’d found out I was pregnant with Ben when Michael decided to introduce me to his famil
y. We’d driven to a house that sprawled across the countryside, one I was sure I’d seen in a fancy magazine. I noticed the lack of affection from his parents. A handshake from his dad and an air kiss from his mother was all Michael received as the front door was opened for us. I was granted a cursory look. I’d perched on the edge of a hard floral sofa in a ‘drawing room’ reserved for afternoon tea with the ladies, and interrogated.
“So, which university did you attend, Jayne?” Francis had asked.
“I didn’t. I left school and went straight to work.”
“And your parents? Where do they come from?”
Her nose had delicately wrinkled when I’d said South East London.
I wasn’t good enough for their son. I wasn’t from the County set, my parents didn’t play golf or have a drawing room for afternoon tea. Over the years we’d been polite to each other, formal, and distant.
“Earth to Jayne,” I heard.
I snapped out of my thoughts and realised we had arrived; the car was idling on the driveway of Carla’s house.
“How about that cup of tea?” Carla said as we walked through her front door.
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Francis replied.
We made our way to the large kitchen and sat at the table. Per square foot, I imagined Carla’s house was larger than Francis’ and I watched as she scanned the room and it’s high tech appliances.
I held back the smirk as four mugs were placed in the centre of the table with a bottle of milk, a teaspoon and bag of sugar. I knew she had a jug, a bowl, but I guessed she was making a point.
“I feel terrible. I should have stepped up, Jayne. I’ve wanted to speak to you for weeks but I just didn’t know how to. We’ve never been the best of friends and I regret that.”
Francis’ confession surprised me. I watched her take a cotton, and neatly pressed, handkerchief from her purse to dab her eye.
A Virtual Affair Page 24