If I Could Say Goodbye

by Emma Cooper

  ‘Theme park rides.’

  ‘Really?’ I’d replied. ‘I love them.’

  ‘I suppose it’s because you have to trust so many people to do their jobs right.’

  ‘Ah . . . so you have trust issues.’ I grinned and bit into the dough.

  Why hadn’t I considered that?

  I release my grip on the bar, push my hand against the force of gravity and clasp my fingers over Ed’s. His thumb finds mine, rubbing it rhythmically.

  ‘It’s almost over,’ I say to Ed above the screams and the air filling our ears and mouths . . . ‘It’s almost over.’

  Chapter Seven

  Jennifer

  When I was a child, grown-ups would tell me that I was just like my mother. I can see why: we both have thick hair that hangs straight and heavy against our shoulder blades, even though mine is dark and hers is light, and as I pass her the milk, I think about how our mannerisms are similar: we hold our backs straight, we laugh at the same things. But as a child I could never understand why people thought we were alike. My nose lifts at the end, hers is hook-like. My eyes are almond shaped, blue and wide apart, whereas hers are round, hooded and green.

  When I found out I was adopted, I felt something change. Perhaps change isn’t quite the right word: it felt as though something had clicked . . . like the way you get used to a door that never quite shuts properly, and no matter how much pressure you apply, no matter how many times you have tried the handle, it just never closes. But once I knew the truth, the door inside nestled against its frame, without fanfare or ceremony, just gently clicking as it fell into place.

  While I begin the crossword, I worry that my children will have that feeling if I die before them, that inside they will always feel as though the door is ajar, that for my children, it will never click into place; I’ll be gone.

  ‘Jennifer?’ Mum’s voice interrupts my thoughts. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  I look down at the crossword, my handwriting is capitalised, each letter formed with a determined point, the pressure behind the ink like a scar; three-dimensional shapes with depth to each indentation: one across reads ‘FUCK’; seven across shouts ‘BASTARD’; the ‘d’ descending into nine down reads ‘DICKLESS’. It doesn’t stop there either. From ‘DICKLESS’ the word ‘SHIT’ is scribed and from that ‘TITS’ is made. Mum has interrupted as my hand has begun to write ‘CUN—’. I click the tip of the pen.

  ‘I saw Nessa the other day.’

  ‘Yes . . . I heard she was back.’

  ‘Has she been in touch?’

  ‘No. I’m not expecting her to be either. I’m sure she would want to—’

  ‘What? Move on?’

  ‘No. Yes. I just mean it will be awkward for her, and us, if she were to visit. What on earth would we say to one another?’

  ‘I suppose so. It just feels weird, you know, that she will be close by but not close by, if you know what I mean. It’ll be odd for the kids too, they got used to spending a lot of time together.’

  I close the crossword page and begin drawing a pair of glasses on the front-page picture of a portly MP.

  ‘Do you wish it was me?’ I ask Mum. The words leave their confinement; they bound from my lips hitting Mum’s face, marking it with two angry red blotches. She tastes the bitterness behind them and pulls her mouth into a knot.

  ‘We are not having this conversation,’ she replies, taking the pen from my fingers and scraping the newspaper across the table.

  ‘I understand if you do,’ I continue. Mum slams the pen down, making the sugar cubes inside their bowl jump up, momentarily suspended mid-air in shock before descending back into sweet chaos.

  ‘I loved you both equally.’ Her voice is steady: a statement, not a clause. ‘I would be mourning you in the same way.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I place my hand on her shoulder; her head nods in response. But the subject tugs me.

  ‘If you could have your time with her again . . . would you do anything different?’

  ‘No. I treasured every moment of my time with her from the day she was born. I was never supposed to have her in the first place, so any time I got was a gift. You can’t let life slip through your fingers, Jennifer.’

  ‘I’m not, I’m—’

  The door slams on my sentence.

  ‘Jen?’

  ‘I’m in the kitchen!’ I reply and turn to flick the kettle back on.

  ‘Right!’ Ed’s voice announces. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I have to get back to work, so brace yourself, wife of mine.’ His voice becomes muffled, a sound that I’m guessing is stifled from somewhere beneath his clothing. ‘I’m about to make your dreams come true.’

  Realisation dawns as I halt my tea-making activities. ‘Ed—’ I try to intervene, but it’s pointless because Ed is naked. Naked except for one of those cardboard cut-out celebrity masks.

  ‘No!’ shrieks my mother while I begin to laugh, a deep vibration that tickles and steals my breath and bends me over. Channing Tatum’s two-dimensional smiling face is pushed backwards, the elasticated thread securing it, so that the mask now rests on the crown of Ed’s head. His mouth is open wide, his eyes are bulging and a flush of embarrassment floods his cheeks.

  ‘Judith?’ he questions, covering his family jewels with the cardboard mask of my chosen alter-ego: Kylie Minogue.

  ‘Edward, I was just going, I’ll just, um, grab my bag.’ She shields her eyes, but even in my incapacitated state, I can tell that she is taking in what I have long since neglected to appreciate: his broad shoulders, the smattering of blond hair that trails across his chest, leading down towards Ms Minogue’s grinning face. ‘I’ll see myself out,’ she continues, chewing her bottom lip. Ed reverses his bare behind, his bum cheeks quivering white globes beneath his tan line.

  I follow Mum out through the kitchen and into the hall towards the door, her hand hesitates on the door frame as she leans in and kisses me on the cheek.

  ‘Don’t let me keep you from your afternoon delight,’ she smirks as I close the door behind her. I hesitate past the doorway to the lounge, where Kerry is sitting on the sofa eating ice cream out of a tub. She scrapes the bottom with a blue plastic spoon that is identical to the ones we used to get at the cinema. Her lips pull the ice cream from the spoon, which she then points at me as she talks.

  ‘I never really got the attraction with Kylie.’ She taps her front tooth with the blue plastic, a replica of the day we went to see The Notebook. ‘Rachel McAdams on the other hand . . .’ She winks at me in the same way as she had years ago. I’d been swooning over Ryan Gosling. ‘He’s not really my type,’ she had said. ‘Rachel McAdams on the other hand . . .’ It was the first time she had openly talked about being gay; she would have been about fifteen, I think.

  Channing walks towards me. ‘Has your mother gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good, now come here, I’ve only got twenty minutes left.’

  I look back to the sofa, where Kerry’s image has been replaced by the crushed velvet cushions which are so big that we can’t actually sit on the sofa with them on. I throw them onto the floor and pull my dress from my shoulders, leaving it pooling around my ankles as I lower myself onto the cushions. Channing struts towards me but I reach for him, throwing his startled face across the room.

  ‘I don’t want him . . . I want you,’ I say, wrapping my legs around my husband’s waist.

  Chapter Eight

  Ed

  I know I wasn’t going to complain about the sex thing and I want to slap myself in the face right now, but. I’m going to complain about the sex thing.

  Like the other day. I thought, as Jen was making an effort in that department, then so should I, and I know she fancies that Tatum Channing – or is it Channing Tatum? I always get it the wrong way around – anyway, I like to think of myself as a sensitive lover, I’ve always tried hard to make Jen enjoy our sex life. And she has never once complained. Not. Once. But now she has
me doing this and that . . . Ed move your head, up a bit . . . that’s it. And then there are these orgasms that she keeps having and they’re loud. I like that they’re loud, it lets me know that she is enjoying it, but. And she keeps grabbing me. My boy. All the time, like even when we’re having dinner. There I was tucking into my bangers and mash watching Eggheads and the next minute she’d taken hold of my boy and, well, my bangers got cold.

  I can’t believe I’m complaining about the sex.

  Chapter Nine

  Jennifer

  My eyelids flutter open, guilt shaking off the remnants of my broken dreams. It is already light, even though I know from the beginnings of the dawn chorus that it is not much after five.

  The sounds of my house engulf me: a warm blanket of the familiar. Oscar’s snores, more like a man in his fifties after a night at the pub, Ed’s breath escaping in rhythmic murmurs, the cars heading along the motorway, carrying its passengers towards a new day. I take a breath, assessing how bad it is this morning. The image of Kerry flying through the air is the first taste: red coat, red boots, brakes squealing. I push out that image with a long, measured breath, but as I inhale, the image of her hands grabs me: strong hands that used to grasp her partners’ when she competed in national figure-skating championships. I breathe out again.

  I brace myself for what comes next, because it always comes: The Montage. The Montage filled with Kerry’s achievements, her body jumping and swirling across the ice, first as a four-year-old then, year after year, the outfits changing as she grows, as her jumps become higher and more elaborate, the film rolling as it pans to her at school, always surrounded by popular friends, always laughing. Then to her first dates with Nessa, their beautiful faces smiling at each other with hidden secrets, their love pure, exciting: solid. The four of us together on the beach, sunburnt shoulders, lukewarm wine, sandy toes, Erica and Oscar making sandcastles together, Hailey hunting for shells.

  And then, as it always does, The Montage rewinds, the crystal clear high definition of Kerry’s life switching to a grainy camcorder recording: me on the sidelines watching her skate, clapping and cheering as the medals were placed around her neck; making excuses not to join her bunch of school friends because I knew they just tolerated me. But then . . . there is Ed, he reaches his hand towards me and I step out of the grainy picture into the real world.

  My feet take me into the bathroom, my reflection beckoning me towards the mirror. I take in the first hint of a tan, the splatter of freckles over the bridge of my nose; the blue of my eyes have life behind them for the first time in months; there is a sheen to my skin that has been smothered beneath grief and is only now starting to breathe.

  I turn my head towards the bedroom, where I can hear Ed mumbling in his sleep. I replay our frantic lovemaking last night, thinking of all the things that I can do to make it better for him, to make it even more exciting.

  Then I have an idea.

  ‘What? I thought it would be helpful,’ I reply, but Ed looks really mad. He’s not the type of man who gets mad. But, all the same . . . he is mad. I start to feel the seeds of doubt about my notes on how to improve our sex life.

  ‘You thought that by giving me a manual of do’s and don’ts when we are at it I would be pleased?’

  ‘But I thought that—’

  He storms out of the bedroom and onto the landing, slamming the door behind him.

  I scurry off the bed and follow Ed as he charges down the stairs.

  ‘What is going on, Jen?’ He throws the notebook onto the desk by the front door and runs his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Nothing is going on.’ I step towards him, reaching for his hand, pulling him towards me. Reluctantly, he follows, but when I guide his hand towards my bra he snatches it back.

  ‘Nothing going on, Jen? Really?!’

  ‘What? Just because I want my husband means there is something going on?’

  ‘It’s not that and you know it.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re upset. You’re always moaning that our sex life has taken a nose-dive since the kids were born.’

  ‘This isn’t just about the sex. I know how difficult it’s been . . . losing Kerry.’

  ‘Me wanting to have sex – good sex – is nothing to do with my dead sister!’

  Kerry raises her eyebrows at me from over Ed’s shoulder. I ignore her.

  ‘If anything about Kerry’s death has taught me anything, it’s to make the most out of the life we’ve got. And life is too short for—’

  ‘For what? Bad sex?’

  ‘I’m not saying the sex was bad before—’

  ‘No, you’d rather give me a list of Improvements.’ He reaches over, picking up the notepad and waving it above his head, making the glass teardrops of the fake chandelier murmur gently against each other, with voices that chime. Ed scratches the back of his head. ‘I’m going to pick up the kids.’

  ‘Ed—’

  But my voice is swallowed by the slam of the door, the whisper of the chandelier gossiping in aghast tones at Ed’s dramatic exit.

  The Imaginable Death of Jennifer Jones – #3

  Death by Chandelier

  Jennifer Jones stands beneath the chandelier that catches the sunlight inside its delicate hands. She is tucking her green T-shirt into her jeans when a small sound niggling her senses draws her eyes up. Above the light fitting is the attic, filled with cobwebs and Christmas decorations, baby clothes and school books . . . and a mouse. The mouse twitches his whiskers as he gnaws his teeth against the leads. He likes that he has to scratch away at the surface beneath his feet before he can get to the next level. Down and down he goes, each day revealing a new challenge, a different texture, a different lead . . . this is the last of the maze, the only one he hasn’t got through. He knows he is close. The mouse stops for a moment, lifts his nose as an unfamiliar smell floats up through the new crack he has made. It smells like food: warm and inviting. Perhaps if he works even harder at this wire, he will be able to explore where the smell is coming from.

  The gentle tapping sound stops, and is instead replaced with a groan, a screech. The teardrops of glass sway to one side; they panic, clattering against each other in disarray: we’re sorry, they say, we can’t help it. Plaster begins to fall like rain and she blinks back the chalky dust. Jennifer knows she should move, but the family of glass tears are falling, saturating her skin with tiny cuts, rivulets of blood coursing across the woman’s skin, flooding the carpet.

  I blink.

  I’m being ridiculous: ours is only a small chandelier, the most damage it would do would be to give a nasty bump on my head.

  I pick up the notebook and re-read my notes. Perhaps I was a little too direct with my suggestions.

  ‘You went about that in completely the wrong way,’ Kerry begins, peeling an orange.

  Like you’re the expert?

  She ignores my remark. ‘Nobody likes to be told they are doing something wrong.’

  I didn’t tell him he was doing it wrong, just that it would be better if he . . . Never mind.

  ‘You should have told him what he does that’s right. What you like.’

  I like that it makes me feel, makes me feel . . .

  Kerry begins to put on her best Aretha Franklin voice and sings, ‘. . . like a nat-ur-al womaaaan.’

  I laugh. I’d almost forgotten that she loved Aretha Franklin. How could I have forgotten that? The way that she would throw her head back and belt out the chorus while she was cooking, or driving.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, popping a segment into her mouth. ‘Carry on . . . it makes you feel?’

  Alive.

  ‘Lucky you,’ she retorts as tears sting my eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  Ed

  What person likes to be told that they’re doing something wrong in the sack? And how the smeg was I supposed to know that she doesn’t like it when I kiss her ears? That it sounds – and feels (let’s not forget that!) – like an eel slit
hering around in her ear drum. Well for your information, Jen, I don’t like it when you, when you . . . OK. So I can’t really complain about her in the bedroom . . . especially lately when she’s become so, um, flexible, but I can complain about her complaining. Can’t I?

  Yes. In fact, that is what I am going to do right now. She’s in the bath, the kids are asleep, so now is as good a time as any. I take a deep breath and open the door, but as the door swings open, I don’t see my wife lying in the bubbles, a glass of wine by her side and a book in her hands. I see her sitting up, knees hugged between her arms as she sobs.

  I sit on the end of the bath. I try to rub the top of her arms, but it feels like I’m tapping an old friend who has had some bad news. She needs more than that. I step into the bath behind her, fully clothed, my jeans sticking to my skin, the water rising until it is almost overflowing. I gather her towards me, wrapping my soaking, clothed arms around her. She lets out the tiniest hint of laughter and then the sobs take over her body.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jennifer

  I open the door to let Mum in, but she is hiding behind a tower of brown cardboard boxes.

  ‘Hello?’ I greet her, taking one of the boxes and leading the way into the lounge. ‘Are you moving in?’ I throw over my shoulder as I place the box on the table. She lowers hers with an ‘oof!’ then turns to hug me.

  ‘I thought it was time.’

  ‘Time for what?’

  ‘Time to go through these. Let’s open a bottle of wine first, shall we? I think we’ll need it.’

  My stomach cramps as I realise what is in the boxes . . . Kerry’s notebooks.

  Throughout our childhood, Kerry had a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other. Kerry was never happy until she had excelled; she was always pushing herself to do more, to work harder, to get the perfect outcome.