The First Last Kiss

by Ali Harris

  During the first year I’d leave the house at dusk every day – no matter the weather – and walk down to his favourite bench that was on the sea-view path, tucked just below The Green where he’d had his 30th birthday party a week before he died. I’d watch the violet clouds drift by, along with the boats, and I’d listen to the caw – or as Ryan had once pointed out – the ‘cor’ of the seagulls as they flew overhead (‘They’re Essex Seagulls!’ he’d said). That was our time to talk. I’d tell Ryan all about my day, what I’d been doing to the house, the floors I’d stripped, polished and varnished, the colours I’d chosen for the walls, the 1950s kitchen table I’d found at an auction. I’d tell him about the conversations I’d had with Nanny Door, how his mum was coping, and I’d ask him advice on how I could cope with her better. I’d tell him about the grief support group I was going to, and about Casey’s latest escapades. I’d talk about Beau and Gemma, and how Carl was doing, I’d tell him about The Shrimpers’ latest footie results, where they were in the league and who they were playing next. I’d tell him I missed him, and that even though I still didn’t think I could live without him, I was doing my best.

  But even though that was the place I talked to him the most, the truth was Ryan wasn’t there, he was all around me. I found comfort in the fact that his footprints were indelibly marked on the pebble beach and on The Broadway, on every street corner in fact. He was there in the schoolchildren’s faces that passed me on their way home and who would never forget cool Mr Cooper. It comforts me to know that Ryan’s legacy lives on in all those he taught both here and in Hackney. Who knows what they might achieve in their lives because of him? The pubs had his fingerprints moulded on their pint glasses. His footballing prowess was clearly marked on the local pitch. The sea breeze had his spirit. And, of course, his parents’ house has his ashes. It was what he wanted and I understood. He said he didn’t want me to feel tied to a place just because he was there. He wanted me to be free to travel the world if I wanted to. But he knew his parents would live in their house forever.

  But it was hard living here too. It felt like everyone had unachievable expectations of me. Widows are meant to be old, to wear black, to be poised when it counts and to sob at expected moments, like at the funeral. But the one thing I remember about Ryan’s funeral is that I didn’t cry. Not one little bit. I just gazed at the casket, blaming Ryan for my lack of crying action.

  ‘Hey, Cooper,’ I said in my head. ‘Look no tears. Just like you made me promise – now everyone is looking at me like I’m some unfeeling bitch. You happy now?’

  ‘Ah, but Molly, you’re my unfeeling bitch,’ I’d heard him say, which made me laugh. Which was also inappropriate behaviour at a funeral apparently.

  I cried every day, other than the day of his funeral, for that entire first year. And I watched his film every day, too. Often more than once. And the same during the second year. On each of those 730 days I would be struck with a memory that made me weep with the pain of losing Ryan. And not just on the ‘difficult’ days, you know, birthdays, anniversaries, Sundays. Every single day and at any given time. In the toilet, on the train, in my bed, in the supermarket, into my cereal bowl, in a bar . . . there was no warning of when it would happen. It just did.

  But the day we cremated him? I promised him that I would wear the brightest colour I could (my old yellow sundress I wore the night he kissed me in Ibiza – not just because it was his favourite, but because it’s the Shrimpers’ colour) and a smile. I wore bold red lipstick because I knew Ryan would like it (even if my mother didn’t). And also because it meant I wouldn’t have to kiss any distant relatives. (Or close ones, to be honest.) I could just wave my face in their general direction, without making actual contact. Because I didn’t want to kiss anyone. His lips were the last that mine had touched; if I closed my eyes I could still feel his mouth on mine on that last day as he finally slipped away, and I wanted it to stay that way forever.

  So on that bright September day in 2007, I stood in my citrus bright sundress, with my shoulders back and my head high, and I smiled. I smiled as I stared at the stained-glass window that was directly above his casket, imagining how I would photograph the way that the protracted sunlight shone through it, the colours glittering like jewels as they danced across the box where his body lay. I smiled through my eulogy and when his brother and the boys carried in Ryan’s coffin to Take That’s ‘Rule the World’ – just as Ryan had requested. I didn’t even let my chin wobble. I just gripped my hands together and I smiled. I was like some sort of smiling machine. Then I smiled as I met all the hundreds of mourners. I smiled though my face ached and my heart hurt. And then I smiled some more. I said hello to everyone but all the time I was saying goodbye.

  So yes, I said the hardest goodbye five years ago. But today, today is about saying hello.

  I arrive at Southend Hospital at 4.45 p.m., just as I’d promised. And he’s there waiting just as he’d promised, looking more like George Clooney than ever. I pull up in front of the reception and his serious, shadowed, night-shift face evaporates into a smile.

  I smile back as I open the passenger door and he leans in, his arm resting on the door.

  ‘G’day, Sheila,’ he drawls, exaggerating his native Australian accent for effect.

  ‘Taxi to Stansted for Doctor Prince?’ I say in a broad Essex accent and pretend to chew on some gum as he slides in and kisses me.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he says gently, stroking my cheek. ‘You haven’t been doing too much, have you?’ Chris gazes at me in concern and his hands weave their way from my waist to my front and he bends down suddenly so his face hovers over my bulging six-month bump. I smile as I rub my hands over it, marvelling at the glorious convex shape, the hard little mounds that hint at little feet, or elbows, or knees, the constant nudges – and the new weight – that never lets me forget just what I’m carrying.

  ‘What’s that you say, Minnie?’ he says. We call her that, because Chris thinks she’ll be a mini-me. He puts his ear to my tummy, listening and nodding intently. ‘I should be looking after your mum? Oh, don’t worry, I plan to do just that. For the rest of her life.’ I think of the St Christopher Nanny Door gave me and that is tucked away safely in my handbag and I smile. Chris kisses my tummy and then the wedding ring that hangs on a chain around my neck because it will no longer fit on my swollen, pregnant fingers, and then my lips.

  And I smile because I know he will look after me, but I also know that even though we’re flying to Sydney today to start our new life together, he accepted that emergency shift when they called him up last night because he’s a surgeon first and my husband second, and I’m completely cool with that.

  I glance at Chris as I weave through the hospital car park, towards the exit. Lovely, calm, patient, strong, intense Chris, the ‘prince’ who came into my life three years after I lost Ryan, who cemented everything I’d learned from being with (and then losing) Ryan, and who made me realize that there is love after death. People often ask me if they think it was a psychological decision to marry a doctor after losing Ryan. I mean, he saves lives for a living and doctors aren’t supposed to ever get ill themselves, are they? But to this I simply tell them that the only psychological decision I made the day I met him was to go out and get drunk in a bar. I wasn’t looking for love, I think it came looking for me. Either that, or it was sent . . .

  It was eighteen months ago and I’d just found out that my collection of photographs called ‘The Eternal Kiss’ had been offered exhibition space at Gallery@Oxo. These were the photos I’d taken of young couples who had contacted me through my blog and who were living with a cancer diagnosis – and who wanted to make every kiss count. The messages had flooded in after I’d posted my final message and photo of Ryan and I, and I’d asked Christie if my blog could be continued by readers who were dealing with or had lost a partner to cancer. She had understood completely when I also said I wouldn’t be returning to work after Ryan died. I couldn’t face it. A
nd besides, I had quickly decided that I was going to do what I’d promised Ryan.

  I was going to be: happy, fulfilled and optimistic. I couldn’t imagine falling in love again and I couldn’t imagine going back to work either, so I started by picking up my camera and taking photographs again. It was on the first anniversary of Ryan’s death that I had the idea. I wanted to thank Macmillan Cancer Support and the Haven Hospice in Leigh-on-Sea for everything they’d done. I started taking portraits for anyone who contacted me, either through the blog, or through the hospice. I didn’t do it for money, or for my career, I did it because I wanted to give them a little of what Ryan had given me: a kiss that would last forever.

  The photos were simple. There were no fancy settings, no beautiful backdrops, just these terminally ill cancer patients kissing and being kissed, just them and their love shining through the lens. I realized that this was what I have always loved about photography; everything we can’t find the words to say, it snaps. Everything we feel, it frames.

  The exhibition was shown in conjunction with Macmillan Cancer Support and the Haven Hospice – and so far has raised lots of awareness and money. After London, it travelled around the country. I still can’t believe how successful it’s been, with national and international press picking up on it – and now international exhibitions, too. It is a wonderful feeling to be finally doing some good, making sense of, not just my life, but Ryan’s too. I honestly believe that it helped to heal my heart and gave me the confidence to do what I’ve always dreamed. And then I met Chris.

  I pull over in the car park as I hear my phone by his feet. He grapples for it amongst the passports and tickets and the tinfoil-wrapped ginger biscuits I carry with me at all times. Minnie likes them.

  ‘It’s your BFF,’ Chris says, handing my phone to me.

  ‘Hey, Case,’ I answer as I put it to my ear. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Still hung-over from your farewell party last night, trying to pretend you’re not leaving as well as working out how long it’ll take us to save up enough money to fly to Australia on his crappy nurse’s and my PR’s wage.’ I hear her sniff. ‘I’m not sure who is crying more about you both going to Oz, me or Rob.’ I hear her pull away from the phone as a familiar voice chastises her, and I press speaker-phone so Chris can be privy to the conversation between our two friends.

  ‘I’m not crying! Do not let Chris think I’m crying . . . ’ Rob calls gruffly. Rob and Chris met at Southend Hospital and when Chris and I had been together a few months, we orchestrated a meeting between Casey and Rob by inviting her to a fundraising ball. Just as we’d predicted, they’d clicked and ended up getting married a month after us. Mia and I were bridesmaids. I think of the photo I have in my purse of that happy day and smile. He is a lovely bloke, a trainee nurse and a bit younger than us, well, eight years actually – but they are so happy. I mean, who says you can’t fall in love in your early twenties? Not me . . .

  ‘He so is crying,’ Casey mutters. ‘Listen Moll,’ she says tearfully, ‘I just wanted to say I love you, I miss you already, and I am well jel that Mia has stolen you away from me, and if you don’t come back when that little bubba is born so I can dress her up in lots of super blingtastic Essex-style baby clothes I will have to just do something drastic and . . . have a baby of my own!’ I laugh as her voice goes all muffled. ‘Of course, I’m joking! I’ve already got one baby to look after . . . ’

  ‘Whoops,’ she laughs when she comes back on the line, and I squeal as I hear Rob shout, ‘Can we start practising now, Case?’

  Ahhh, young love, I think fondly. Chris and I have moved on a bit further from that first flush of carefree passion. It’s just who we are together. We are more serious, more grown-up. And I like that. No, I love it.

  ‘Case, of course we will come back soon. And we can Skype all the time, remember?’

  ‘OK, but I don’t really get that Skype stuff, Rob will have to set it up,’ she sighs. I chuckle. So much for feminism. ‘Now just go will you, Molly? But don’t say goodbye or I’ll bawl, OK? Say . . . I know, say . . . see you tomorrow instead . . . too late, I’m bawling. Oh no, I’m going to look a right mess . . . ’

  ‘See you tomorrow, Casey,’ I say but she’s gone.

  The sun is just starting to dip in the sky as I pull onto the motorway, tinting the clouds with a pale pastel-pink hue, the exact colour of the gorgeous little outfits that we’ve been given for our baby girl at our farewell party. True to form, my mum and dad gave us books. ‘For the journey that you’re about to embark on,’ Mum had smiled as she’d handed the present to me.

  I’d furrowed my brow at this. ‘But we have lots of travel guides already, and Chris is Sydney born and bred so we don’t nee—’

  ‘These books aren’t for that journey, dear,’ she’d laughed as I ripped it open. In the precisely wrapped parcel was every baby-rearing manual you could imagine, downloaded onto a Kindle. ‘Easier to travel with,’ she’d explained proudly.

  ‘Finally, a bit of technology you approve of!’ I’d laughed, giving her and Dad a hug.

  ‘Well, these are for you to read until your dad and I arrive in Sydney.’

  Her hand had fluttered up to her throat, and then hovered under her eyes where she’d dabbed them with a handkerchief. ‘We’ll be on that plane as soon as she’s born, and we will stay as long as you need us, won’t we John?’

  Mum and Dad finally took the plunge a few years ago and retired.

  Dad had nodded. ‘Ahhh . . . of course! Or at least, until we decide it’s time to continue our own journey!’ He’d popped his arm around Mum. ‘Patricia and I have already planned our trip to New Zealand after our extended holiday with you. And then we’re going to go to America. First to New York, and then your mother has agreed we’ll go to Connecticut and see the original Constable painting of Hadleigh Castle that’s on display in the Yale Center of British Art!’

  ‘It’s his way of bringing home with him on our travels,’ Mum had said, and had gone to give Dad an affectionate tap on the wrist, but then had kissed him gently on the lips instead.

  I turn on the radio and smile as I put my foot down and cruise along the motorway towards Stansted airport. The sky stretches out in front of me and through my windscreen I distractedly watch two aeroplanes soaring up and across the sky. Chris has dropped off to sleep beside me and I feel a tingle down my spine as my current favourite song, ‘Paradise’ by Coldplay, comes on the radio. The first time I heard it I felt like it was written for me, well, written for the girl I once was. I did expect the world, I did dream of paradise, and life did get heavy. I listen to the song, swallowing back the tears as Chris Martin’s distinctive voice soars out of the speakers. And in my mind, so does another.

  We did it then, she says. We found happiness, after all. Against all the odds

  We did, I reply silently in my head, looking at Chris, and then looking up.

  From now on, it’s about looking upwards and onwards, just like both the men in my life have taught me to do: Ryan is the love I grew up with, and Chris is the love I’ll grow old with. Up and on . . .

  As that thought enters my head, I look up at the sky and watch the same two aeroplanes crossing paths, one ascending heavenward, the other cruising straight across, both leaving a white trail that crosses the other, like a kiss in the sky.

  THE END. AND A NEW BEGINNING

  Acknowledgements

  Writing this book has taught me so much, not least to appreciate everyone in your life and to try and make every single kiss count. So here goes.

  An eternally appreciative kiss to my fabulous friend of 18 years, Nick Smithers, who turned up one cold January morning when I was close to breaking point and stayed for the next three weeks to support me whilst I tore my hair (and my heart) out writing the final chapters of this book. He became my first reader, my early editor and my saviour. Nick, you know this book would not be what it is without your incredible input and your absolute certainty in me when my confide
nce was failing. Without you I’d never have seen the Light at the End of the Tunnel so thank you for being my . . . wait for it . . . ‘Starlight Express’! And thanks too, to your wonderful mum, Freda Smithers, for bringing her district nursing wisdom to my manuscript and for putting me in contact with Rupert Deveraux who gave me such great insight into his job as a Macmillan Nurse, as well as the plight of both cancer patient and carer.

  Big thanks to Macmillan.org.uk for their invaluable help and to the WAY foundation (www.wayfoundation.org.uk) an organisation that supports young widowed men and women as they adjust to life after loss. A special thank you to the members of that foundation who so generously shared their stories of losing a partner with me. I’m in awe of your strength and spirit.

  Enormously thankful kisses to my amazing family and friends for putting up with my stress and tears for a year. If you notice that I hug you all a little tighter these days, now you know why. A special mention too to my fellow author and new friend Paige Toon for the weekly playdates/writing pow wows that have become the highlight of my week since moving to Cambridge. Here’s to many more happy years of hanging out to come! Thanks too to Rachel Bishop for looking after my kids so wonderfully while I was writing this book and putting up with me coming downstairs all the time for essential tear-drenched cuddle fixes with them!

  Big kisses to Juliet Sear for throwing open her home (not to mention her incredible cake shop, Fancy Nancy) in Leigh on Sea to me while I was researching and then writing the final chapters of the book, and for the brilliant and hilarious tour of the area you gave me with your sister and my great Uni chum, Nancy Maddocks. You guys helped make the book come alive in my head before I’d written a word.