If I Could Say Goodbye

by Emma Cooper

  ‘I’m, I’m just—’

  ‘Quick!!’ Kerry points to the cabinet again but has got the giggles and is crossing her legs like she needs a wee. I bite back the humour as I rip open a charcoal mask and begin smearing it all over my face.

  ‘Jen! Open the door!’

  ‘I’m having a poo!’ I shout through my lips, which are poised in the same way as Ed’s are when he shaves around his mouth as I cover the red marks with black mud. The handle bounces up and down urgently. ‘Almost done!’ I make an ‘Ugh!’ noise as though I’m giving birth rather than having a Monday-morning movement. I flush the loo and slide the lock free.

  Ed releases a feminine screech and his body jumps backwards, his hand on his chest like a Victorian debutante. The mask is beginning to harden and so I try to keep my face straight even though I want to laugh; I’m aware that beneath the mask, my face may still be red.

  ‘It’s just me,’ I explain, the words shortened and spoken from that place at the back of our throat which we employ when wearing a face mask. ‘Fancy a kiss?’ I ask him with the same face-mask-blunted words; I pucker my lips ever so slightly so as not to shed my fake skin. I take a step forward as Ed backs away. My hands form themselves into monster claws, charcoal mask blackening my palms, as I threaten to grab him. Ed looks down at his white shirt and mutters a warning, ‘Jen . . .’ But I don’t care about his white shirt; I care about the way he is looking at me, the relief that is relaxing the muscles between his eyebrows, that he knows that behind this mask is the old me, that the woman in the mirror isn’t taking over this body. I advance, small cracks appearing in the mask as I make suggestive eyebrow wiggles in his direction; he retreats down the stairs, glancing over his shoulder at me as I follow his descent.

  ‘Seriously, Jen! I’ve got a meeting first thing!’ But he’s laughing, I’m making him happy. I love making him happy; nobody on this earth has a smile like my husband. It changes his entire face; it turns his already handsome features into a face that you can’t take your eyes off: it’s enigmatic. I dismiss his protests, knowing that there is a row of neatly ironed white shirts hanging in his wardrobe.

  ‘Stop!’ He puts out his hand like a traffic warden, but the smile is there, the love behind his eyes is there. I don’t stop; I grab his tie and pull him towards me, kissing him deeply, marking his shirt with my charcoal palms.

  ‘Ugh!! Mummy, you’re making a mess of Daddy’s face!’

  Ed groans beneath my lips, half passion, half disappointment at being interrupted. I give him a nose-to-nose kiss.

  ‘Daddy likes it.’ I kiss him on the lips again and turn to Oscar, the monster claws out, as he squeals in delight and runs away upstairs with me in hot pursuit. Hailey is about to step onto the landing but is forced back into her room by her excited brother; she turns her head, tracking his feet as they jump onto her bed, where he begins bouncing up and down.

  ‘Grrr!’ I make the claws again and go to tickle Hailey under the arms, but the look she throws me stops me in my tracks.

  ‘I need to get my shoes on or I won’t get my sticker.’ She pushes her glasses up her nose and barges past me, shaking her head at Ed, who is stepping from the last stair to the landing. His hand stays on the banister as he watches Hailey push past and rush down the stairs.

  ‘I’ll—’ I move towards him, but he shakes his head.

  ‘Give her a minute. I’ll just change my shirt, then I’ll speak to her on the way to school.’

  I nod.

  ‘Why don’t you have a bath and relax?’ The look is back behind his eyes, the look that watches my movements like I’m made of glass, like I’m about to crack and splinter into pieces; the look that knows he won’t be able to fix me if I shatter.

  The bathroom door closes softly behind me. I run warm water into the bath and begin to wash away the mask in the sink. I look up into the mirror.

  Half of me stares back.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Ed

  I pull up on the carpark, ignore the messages on my phone that tell me that I’m going to be late for the meeting and instead, slip my hands into the palms of my children and join the snake of suburbia through the school gates. Huh . . . snake of suburbia, I like that. That’s what happens when you start reading self-help books in your spare time, you get all . . . wordy. I snap myself back from the self-help books with a knock, knock joke.

  ‘Who’s there?’ they say in unison.

  ‘Ipe.’

  ‘Ipe who?’ questions Oscar, a wry smirk on Hailey’s face.

  ‘Ugh,’ I say. ‘In your school trousers?’

  She giggles at Oscar, who is picking his nose thoughtfully. ‘Ipe. Who.’ He examines his finger and wipes it on his trouser leg.

  ‘I poo,’ Hailey explains, catching my eye. ‘What is he like?’ her face asks.

  ‘Oh!!!’ His body folds over in a fit of giggles. I rub the top of his hair, sending it sticking up in all directions before he runs off with a ‘Bye Daddy!’ towards the school doors, through the playground where his classmates are running around in circles, proclaiming themselves to each be a character from PJ Masks. We watch as he skids to a halt, surrounds himself by friends, drawing them near. ‘Knock, knock.’ His gang lean in closer; he smiles, loving being the centre of attention as he delivers the punch line. The bell is rung; he throws me a quick wave and giggles his way towards the open doors.

  ‘Oscar!’ Hailey shouts, chasing after him. He turns and runs back to his sister, who smooths down his hair, rubs the corner of his mouth with her thumb and straightens his collar, her plaits and blue bows swinging, her glasses perched behind her protruding ears.

  I’ve got a lump in my throat as I watch this. Why didn’t I do that? It should have been me, us, that makes sure our son is ready for school. Hailey comes back and I have to clear my throat before I can speak to her.

  ‘OK, pudding?’ I manage to ask. She grins at me. The summer has brought out freckles across her nose, two of her teeth are missing and her glasses are smeared. I reach over, take them from the bridge of her nose and wipe them with a tissue from my pocket. She takes them from me, stands on tiptoes as I bend down, and kisses me on the cheek.

  ‘Bye, Daddy! Have a good day at work!’ She heads past the lower-school building and rounds the corner to the upper school. I follow her around the perimeter; the green crosshatch fence dissects my view, but I watch her. She walks past the clusters of girls gossiping, past the boys reluctantly picking up their football and hanging their bags on their shoulders. She doesn’t speak to anyone. And nobody speaks to her. I hook my fingers through the diamonds of green plastic and watch as she disappears through the doors.

  Jen’s not the only one having a crisis.

  Chapter Forty

  Jennifer

  Ed says we need to talk. Kerry repeats him and stands by his side as he sits next to me on the sofa. He takes my hand.

  ‘This all sounds very serious. You’re not dying, are you?’ I try to joke. It’s not a good joke.

  ‘This isn’t a joke,’ he confirms, dropping my hand.

  I try not to laugh at the joke-less joke, but the fact that I keep thinking of the word joke makes me giggle.

  ‘You need help, Jen.’ Again, Kerry and Ed speak in unison, their words echoing each other. This stops my giggling.

  ‘Around the house?’

  He takes my hand again, ignoring my attempt at humour. ‘Do you remember when we were first together? How we couldn’t bear to be apart? How we told each other everything?’

  I nod. ‘I still can’t bear to be apart from you, Ed.’ I lean my forehead towards his.

  He takes a deep breath and pulls away from me. ‘This is . . .’ he clears his throat, ‘This is part of why we need to talk.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Isn’t that a good thing? That after all this time I still want to be with you?’

  Kerry puts her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It is, but it’s not because of that you didn’t want me t
o go to work the other morning, is it?’

  ‘Oh, that. I just . . . I just had a horrid feeling, you know? Like a premonition, like something was going to happen to you.’

  ‘I get that, but—’

  ‘I just panicked, Ed. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘No. That in itself isn’t. When Kerry died, I used to feel like that sometimes too, I was scared that something would happen to you, that a car might hit you or the kids, but—’

  ‘There you go then,’ I say, as though this concludes the matter.

  ‘It’s not just that. Jen, your moods swings are—’

  My eyebrows shoot up a couple of notches.

  ‘Hear him out, Jen, you know exactly what he is trying to say.’ Just like she did when he tried to convince me that going back to work after Oscar was born was a good thing. I look over at her and roll my eyes. I’m about to reply, but I don’t.

  Why are you here?

  It’s a question, not spoken out loud, because she isn’t on my sofa. Half of her is buried beneath a headstone, the rest of her released on the crest of a hill that we used to have picnics on when we were kids: nothing but microscopic pieces of ash being carried on the breeze like a bird.

  ‘If I’m a bird, then you’re a bird.’

  I roll my eyes at her as she misquotes from The Notebook.

  ‘That, Jen.’ He points his finger at me as if saying you’ve hit the nail on the head. ‘That is what I’m talking about. You keep looking off into space.’

  ‘I’m not looking into space . . . I’m just . . . thinking about when you were trying to convince me to go back to work after I’d had Oscar, do you remember? Kerry told me to hear you out. So, go on, I’ll hear you out.’ I do my best not to look in the direction of where she was standing when we’d had that conversation.

  ‘Talk to me, Jen.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ I look at his face and it is as though he is in physical pain.

  ‘Just get it off your chest, Ed, tell me what you think is going on.’

  ‘OK.’ His shoulders lift, like his body is filling with all of the things that he needs to say, like the things he needs to say have been hiding inside the cavities of his chest, lurking in the chambers of his heart, skulking about. ‘You’re not yourself, and I know that you have had a lot to deal with, but Jen, I think it’s more than that. Your behaviour is erratic, you’re happy one minute, like euphorically happy and I think, you know, she’s fine, she’s back to normal but then . . .’ he clicks his fingers, ‘like that and you’re on your ass. You don’t speak, you don’t dress, sometimes I don’t think you even know what day it is.’

  ‘It’s those tablets from the doctor, they make me feel sleepy and sick, I’ve stopped them now—’

  ‘I know that, Jen.’ He swallows, trying to keep the words inside under control, but I can see they are fighting to get out. ‘I’ve been using that excuse myself, she’ll be better once she’s slept, she’ll get better if I help more with the kids . . .’ He doesn’t meet me in the eye when he says this. ‘But you’re not getting better, Jen, you’re getting worse. You’ve stopped obsessing about making the house look nice . . . you haven’t lit a Yankee Candle in weeks.’ He throws his hands up defensively. ‘Don’t take that the wrong way, you know I don’t give a crap about the state of the house, or Yankee Candles . . . although I do like the smell of the Black Cherry one; anyway, the thing is, you do. Well . . . you did. Being organised, being tidy, is as much a part of you as the colour of your eyes.’

  ‘The colour of my eyes? What are you going on about?’

  He drags his hands through his hair agitatedly. ‘I’m trying to say that you’re different, Jen . . . When was the last time you washed your hair?’

  My head is filled with the things he is talking about and I shake it to try and clear the thoughts, the way I try to get water out of my ears when I’ve been swimming. ‘My hair? My eyes? Ed, I don’t—’

  ‘You’re ill, Jen. You need help.’

  ‘This is ridiculous! You think I’m going mad because I haven’t hoovered and washed my hair?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘You can’t be serious?!’

  ‘That’s not what I meant, I—’

  ‘I am not going to listen to this any more.’ I get up and go to walk out of the room.

  ‘The kids know, Jen.’ His voice is low and serious. It stops my movement. Kerry’s hand is on mine, stopping me from pulling down the door handle. I feel Ed’s movements coming towards me, I can feel the breath on the back of my neck. ‘Do you know what Oscar has just asked me?’

  I shake my head. I don’t know because I didn’t put the kids to bed. What was I doing when it was bedtime? Then I remember I was talking to Kerry in the garden.

  ‘He asked me when you would be happy again.’

  I bite my lip, picturing his face, pink from the bath, his Spider-Man pyjamas warm from his body, his hair smelling of Matey bubble bath.

  ‘He wanted to know if he could learn more jokes, if he could make you happy again.’

  My breath is shallow, my chest rising and dipping with the strain of it. Ed’s voice continues even though it cracks in places.

  ‘And Hailey . . . Hailey has changed, Jen. She has no friends; she worries all the time about Oscar and you. She hardly eats . . . I watched her walking across the playground and not one person spoke to her. Not one, Jen. They need you, they miss you. I miss you.’

  I turn to face him. ‘I’ll do better. I’ll go back to the doctor’s. I’ll fix it.’ I kiss the corner of his mouth, stroke the side of his chin, and leave the room.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Jennifer

  ‘So!’ Kerry rubs her hands together and pulls on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘Let’s get cracking, where shall we start?’

  She’s not here. I know she isn’t . . . I haven’t completely lost my mind. Not yet. My talk with Ed has made me realise this can’t go on. I’ve made an appointment with the doctor. I know I can’t tell them the truth, that sometimes I’d rather live in my memories of Kerry than be in the real world: it would hurt them too much. But I can tell them that I feel lost, that I keep losing concentration. That’s all it is, isn’t it? When I see Kerry, it’s just me losing concentration.

  I’ve got up early, just like I used to. I’ve cleaned the inside of the bin and bleached the sink so far. Just ignoring Kerry for five minutes has let me see how much has changed. I throw the dishcloth away with pinched fingers and open a new packet, pour bleach down the drain, throw open the window, turn on the radio, make a pot of coffee and sing along to the radio as I plug in my phone charger.

  The Imaginable Death of Jennifer Jones – #6

  Death by Phone Charger

  Jennifer Jones is watching the busy café-goers with interest. It is the last rush before the Bank Holiday and there is a feeling of defeat and exhaustion about the room. But it is not the coffee drinkers and the pastry eaters that Jennifer Jones is interested in. She knows her phone battery is almost dead. Towards the back of the café, there is a slow trickle along the wall. Jennifer hasn’t yet noticed how the water from the ceiling above is running directly towards the plug socket. She orders an iced latte and makes her way to the back of the room. For a second the lights flicker. But Jennifer Jones is too busy looking around for a free table, to notice. She finds the perfect spot and draws the chair back from beneath the table. From her bag, she unwraps a lead, then crouches down to where the water drips towards the socket and goes about the business of plugging in her phone charger; there is a bang, a flash and then . . .’

  I blink and bring myself back into the kitchen. Christ, I hope that’s not how I die . . . and just think about the state of my hair.

  Oscar bounds into the kitchen. ‘Can I have Choco Pillows for breakfast please?’

  I kiss him on the cheek, pull back and smile at him, noticing that he has begun to put on a little puppy fat. ‘How about Fruit ’n Fibre?’

  He scrunches up his nose wit
h a look of disdain.

  ‘I bet I can count more different fruits in my bowl than yours.’

  ‘What do I get if I win?’ He folds his arms in front of his rounded tummy and negotiates.

  ‘How about a trip to the park?’ He considers this.

  ‘And an ice cream?’

  ‘Deal.’ I put my hand out and he shakes it.

  Hailey joins us just as Oscar identifies a crescent of coconut in his bowl.

  ‘Hah! Hazelnut!’ I gesture to my spoon where half a hazelnut sits swimming in milk. ‘That’s three all!’

  Oscar’s head leans in closer to his bowl of cereal, scrutinising the contents.

  ‘Hazelnut isn’t a fruit, it’s a nut,’ Hailey quietly admonishes.

  ‘Three–two!’ Oscar beams.

  ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ I smile at her as she pushes her glasses up her nose and tucks her hair behind her ears. ‘Do you want Fruit ’n Fibre?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No thanks, I’ll just have an apple. I’m not hungry.’ In contrast to Oscar, my daughter has lost weight. The nightie she is wearing is too short, but it is hanging from her shoulders.

  ‘OK. Right.’ I clatter my spoon against my cereal bowl and clap my hands. ‘Here is the plan. After I beat Oscar at hunt the fruit . . .’ I wink in his direction, making him dip his head closer to the bowl, his eyes squinting as he searches the milk, ‘we will get dressed, go to the park—’

  ‘Get ice cream,’ Oscar interrupts. I roll my eyes at Hailey and the corners of her mouth tilt; it’s almost a smile, almost.

  ‘Get ice cream, and then, Hailey, how about we make Daddy’s favourite dinner?’

  ‘Ugh, not that horrid canny-whatsit? I hate that, it’s all sludgy.’

  I ignore Oscar’s remarks about my spinach and ricotta cannelloni.

  ‘I agree with squirt . . . it looks like little tubes of grassy poo,’ Kerry had said the first time I made it. I blink and push the memory away; I need to stay in the here and now.