If I Could Say Goodbye

by Emma Cooper

  And for a moment . . . hope flickers inside me like a flame. I’m not a man prone to fanciful talk, but I swear I can feel heat from it; I didn’t even know I had been cold.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Jennifer

  I wait for them all to leave, running my finger along my bottom lip where I can feel Ed’s kiss lingering, the warmth of it, and I know I have made the right decision.

  ‘Jen! Help me with this, will you?’

  Mum’s pink-slippered feet are standing on the rungs of the ladder. ‘I’ve found another box of Kerry’s notebooks.’

  I reach up and take the cardboard box from her and carry it downstairs.

  ‘Cuppa?’ Dad asks as I land the box onto the pine table.

  ‘Please.’ I rip off the tape as Mum joins me, sneezing from the dust in the attic.

  ‘I thought this was another box of Christmas decorations. I thought I’d get them down and give them a bit of a clean, it’ll be here before we know it.’

  ‘It’s only the beginning of autumn, woman,’ Dad says, giving me a wink.

  ‘Oh, shush. You know I like to have everything clean and tidy ready for Christmas.’

  My hands grasp a notebook entitled ‘Kerry Hargreaves 2006 Top Secret – do not open’.

  ‘It says top secret for a reason, dearest sister.’

  ‘2006 . . . how old would she have been?’ I ask.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Dad thinks. ‘Eleven, twelve?’

  ‘Yeah . . . I would have been sixteen.’

  The first page reads: ‘Things that make Jennifer happy – smile rating 1–5’.

  ‘How lovely is that?’ Mum says, clutching her heart. I flick through the pages: Giving her my last Rolo (3); Letting her borrow my iPod shuffle (4); Fibbing to Mum about who broke the toilet seat (5). There are pages and pages of entries. The book then splits off into ‘Chapter Two – Things that make Jen jump – scream rating 1–5’.

  ‘That little sod!’ I say, laughing as I recognise some of the things listed. ‘She put that frog in my school bag!’

  Dad brings the tea to the table and scans the page. ‘You did scream, no wonder you scored a five.’ He crunches on a bourbon cream, reaches over and turns the page. ‘Dressing up as a ghost and jumping out of wardrobe (5)’.

  Mum clears her throat, trying to ignore the elephant (or in my case the sister) in the room.

  ‘I remember that, she had your shirt on, Dad, and had covered her face in Mum’s talcum powder.’

  ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘No, she made me swear not to say anything or she’d tell you that I pretended to be sick and got the day off school because I hadn’t revised for my French exam.’

  ‘Did you? You little swine.’ But Mum is smiling.

  We spend the evening going through the notebooks, laughing at the things she got up to without us knowing. I miss her so much my heart aches, but I don’t look at her once.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Ed

  Jen’s coming home. It’s been a month with the new meds and I finally have my wife home. She’s still not properly back to her old self – I still sometimes see the sad look on her face, she still sometimes stares off into space – but it’s different now: she isn’t looking at something in the space . . . the space seems as empty to her as it is for me.

  Hailey is pulling Jen’s case on its wheels through the hall and chatting about how she’s a free reader at school. Oscar pulls her hands and drags her into the kitchen, where blue-and-white-striped Greek flags are folded around cocktail sticks and stuck into pieces of pitta bread. He runs to the fridge and pulls out tubs of taramasalata and tzatziki. He has insisted that we prepare a Greek dinner.

  ‘Ta-dah! This pink stuff is trar-ra-ra-slaaaata and this one is tus-in-ki.’ His beaming smile looks up at her, eager for praise.

  Jen bends and picks him up. ‘Oof! You’re getting so big!’ she exclaims as she pulls him close and kisses his ear, making him wriggle and giggle.

  ‘Me and Daddy made . . .’ Hailey looks at me for confirmation as she says, ‘moussaka. I helped chop the au-ber-gine.’

  ‘I can’t wait to eat it. Aren’t you all clever?’

  ‘Wait until you eat before you make your conclusions,’ I whisper into her ear. I kiss her on the cheek and her hand grabs mine, pulling me back to her.

  I stand on the threshold of Oscar’s room while Jen makes all the right noises for the animals in his favourite story. Hailey appears, smelling of strawberry toothpaste and camomile shampoo.

  ‘Is she fixed?’ she asks.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But is she properly fixed, like when you bought new legs for the chair Grandpa broke and fixed it with the screws, or is she fixed like when you superglued my unicorn cup together?’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘The day after Oscar’s nose bleeded all over Mummy’s bed sheets. You fixed it but I could still see all the cracks. I didn’t like it properly.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I say, thinking of the discarded cup.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s just that it was never the same after it broke.’ She lets go of my hand and pushes her way into Oscar’s room, sits on the end of the bed and sucks the ends of her hair.

  Jen catches my eyes as Hailey roars like a lion and Oscar dissolves into a fit of giggles. My heart doesn’t expand like it’s supposed to according to all the romantic audio books that Jen listens to. Her eyes don’t twinkle, they don’t sparkle or dance . . . but there is a light behind them. I think that’s the best way to describe it: there is light, whereas for the past few months they have been dull.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Jennifer

  ‘Well, that was . . .’ I roll off Ed and we both laugh.

  ‘I know.’

  Everything is as it should be. This is one of the moments I want him to remember. When we’re both flushed with the afterglow of sex, our bodies wet with sweat, our heartbeats racing and in sync. This is the woman I want him to remember.

  ‘God I’ve missed you,’ he whispers into my hair.

  ‘I’ve missed you too.’

  We stay silent for a few minutes, a smile nestled into the corners of my mouth, the rhythmic strokes of his hands up and down my spine.

  ‘Who is your perfect woman?’ I ask.

  ‘Is this a trick question?’ Another kiss, more strokes up and down my arm. ‘You’re my perfect woman.’

  ‘Smooth-talker.’ I prop myself up on my elbow. ‘Seriously . . . like when you were a teenager, who was your perfect woman?’

  ‘I used to have a real thing for Penelope Cruz.’

  ‘Really?’ I never knew that. ‘So brunettes then?’

  He lifts a strand of my hair and twiddles it around his finger. ‘I suppose . . . and her accent. Such a sexy accent.’

  ‘Mr Jones . . .’ I do a dreadful attempt at a Spanish accent, ‘are you saying you would like me to talk like these when we are in ze bedroom?’ I straddle him and sit up as he laughs softly. I love Ed’s laugh . . . if sounds were food, his laugh would be melted chocolate.

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘Honestly? I always liked blonds.’

  ‘You’re just saying that.’ He folds his arms behind his head.

  ‘I’m not . . . I always had a thing for Eminem when he was in his Slim Shady era.’

  Ed begins rapping, badly, asking me what his name is.

  ‘You rap like a ztar,’ I reply, the accent making me snort as he rolls me over onto my back and kisses me deeply.

  As we begin again, I’m thinking about how, if something were to happen to me, he could find his Penelope Cruz and how happy he would be.

  Ed is sound asleep, so I retrieve my notebook and tread quietly down the stairs. Kerry is already sitting at the kitchen table, nursing what looks like whisky.

  ‘All sexed out, are we?’ she asks.

  I’m about to reply but I bite my tongue.

  ‘Oops. Sorry, I forgot we’re not speaking.’
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  I ignore her and go to make a cup of tea. But then I think about how short life is and instead go into the fridge and pour myself a large glass of white wine.

  The pages are smooth beneath my fingertips. I look at my previous entries, still hidden beneath my scribbles. What if . . . what if he works it out? That she’s still here? I turn onto a fresh page and begin to doodle again.

  Driving off a cliff Thelma and Louise style?

  No. Scrap that.

  I wander into the lounge, flick on the TV and turn the volume down low. There is an old episode of Friends and I chuckle to myself as Joey asks, ‘How You Doin’?’. My old maths teacher used to look like him . . . we all had inappropriate crushes on him. That was until he threw up into the wastepaper bin in class, poor bloke. He had flu and had been slurping Lemsips noisily beforehand.

  Lemsips!

  ‘Lemsips?’ Kerry asks.

  I ignore her.

  That would be an OK way to go. I go into the kitchen for a refill and pull out the Lemsip box, scanning the label. Yep. High dosage of paracetamol. But where would I do it? I wouldn’t want Ed or the kids finding me here . . . I could check into a B&B? I sit back down on the sofa and pull the notebook towards me. I write the word ‘Lemsip’ but then cross it out, just as I have with all of the other ‘ideas’. Hmmm, I’m not sure about this one. I mean, how many do I have to drink before it’s irreversible?

  ‘What if you started puking it all up? Do you remember that girl at Kira’s party?’

  I don’t look at Kerry, but I still grimace at the memory. She’d thrown up after she’d necked a bottle of advocaat. It was like something out of a horror movie; it shot out of her mouth like there was a fire hose in her gob. A great long blast of custard-coloured puke. What if that happened? I picture myself, exorcising Lemsip all over the walls of a hotel room, yellow puke dripping from taps and ‘Do Not Disturb’ signs. No, that won’t do at all.

  ‘Anyway . . . you said you would stop that, Jen.’

  She’s right. I’m being ridiculous.

  I turn to the birthday section of my book and begin planning Oscar’s party instead. It needs to be extra special, one that will make him happy when he remembers it in the years to come. How about a clown? I know most people are afraid of them, but Oscar loves them, loves the ridiculousness of the water-squirting flowers, the falling over, the unicycle rider.

  ‘Jen?’

  I blink and turn to Ed, sliding the notepad beneath the cushion as I turn to him.

  ‘What are you doing? It’s half-two in the morning.’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ I reply. ‘Want to join me?’ I wiggle the wine glass at him.

  His eyebrows raise and concern creeps in.

  I pass him the glass and he takes a small sip. ‘Want one?’ I ask again.

  ‘Why not? You only live once.’

  We’re on to our second bottle and our second game of strip Uno. This isn’t a game we’ve played before, but I’m enjoying it immensely. ‘Uno,’ I grin as Ed places a red nine onto the pile. I discard my red two with a flourish. ‘Off with them!’ I clap my hands and stand, doing the victory dance in my knickers and vest. Ed swigs the last of his wine and begins humming a striptease song. He struts across the lounge, wiggling his bum cheeks with every ‘da-dum, da-dum’, finally ending by jiggling his legs until his boxers hang from his left foot, which he flicks off, landing them on the light fitting. He bows regally and then demands from his victor.

  ‘No more sex for you, Mr Jones!’ I laugh, trying to avoid his advances around the table. ‘You’ve got a bad back!’ I can hardly get the words out, I’m laughing so hard. He takes advantage of this and almost manages to grab me around the waist, but I manage to escape and make for the stairs. But his hand takes hold of the back of my vest as my feet try to climb. I turn to him, leaning back on the uncomfortable stairs, shushing him, pointing to where above us the kids are sleeping.

  ‘I’ll be quiet.’ There is so much love in his eyes, so much laughter, that once again I know I’m doing the right thing. His kiss is deep and serious, in contrast to the humour a few moments before. I close my eyes, ignoring Kerry telling me we should get a room as she opens the front door that is locked and walks out of it, slamming it without a sound.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Ed

  Jen is still sleeping as I head downstairs. The kids will be up soon and it looks like we’ve had a house party. My back is killing me. Sex on the stairs after a bottle of wine is not as good an idea the next morning as it was the night before. I’m not complaining this time though. Nope. I’m definitely not complaining about the sex thing this time because the sex thing now is . . . good. Apart from my bad back. And the friction marks on Jen’s.

  I smirk as I wash up the glasses, put the wine bottle in the recycling and make a strong cup of coffee. Even with the bad back and a thumping headache, this is the best I have felt for months. I reach for the first-aid box but we’re out of painkillers. I turn to the kettle and notice a packet of Lemsips; they’ll have to do. I tear open a sachet and make one for Jen too. I open the lounge curtains while I wait for the kettle to boil, and return the cushions to the sofas. Beneath a cushion is one of Jen’s notepads. It’s open on a page that says ‘Oscar’s birthday’. It’s hard to explain how this can mean so much. To see her neat handwriting listing things that she needs to buy, things she needs to do: ‘Book a clown’.

  A clown? We normally just do a bog-standard soft play ball-pit-type place. A tug at the pit of my stomach reminds me how hard she is trying, how hard it must be for her to get back to how things used to be. I close the notebook and put it into the kitchen drawer, then head upstairs and wake her with a trail of kisses along her shoulder blade.

  ‘Ugh,’ she replies.

  ‘I’ve made you a Lemsip.’

  ‘Lemsip?’ she questions groggily, then laughs.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I question.

  ‘It’s . . . nothing. I think I’m still a bit drunk.’

  ‘We’re out of painkillers,’ I say by way of explanation.

  She starts laughing again and sighs in a ‘you had to be there’ way. ‘Can I have coffee first?’

  ‘Dadddddyyyyy!’ Hailey’s voice shrieks up the stairs, making us both flinch. ‘Why are your pants hanging from the light?’

  Jen throws her arm over her eyes and chuckles.

  ‘I’ll go.’ I kiss her and run downstairs where Oscar is jumping up and down on the sofa, singing to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’: ‘Daddy’s pants, Daddy’s pants, why I wonder why-they’re-on-the-light.’

  ‘That doesn’t even rhyme.’ Hailey’s glasses are removed and cleaned seriously; she returns her gaze to the pants in question.

  ‘There was a spider.’ My explanation is lame, agreed, but it’s the best I can do after a few hours’ sleep, a bad back and a hangover.

  ‘So why didn’t you use a towel or something?’ Hailey’s eyebrows meet as she stares at my boxers.

  ‘I panicked.’

  ‘But you’re not scared of spiders.’

  I reach up and pull down my underwear. ‘We’d been watching a scary movie.’

  ‘Mummy doesn’t like scary movies.’

  ‘Who wants pancakes and chocolate spread for breakfast?’ Jen grins from the doorway. Oscar punches the air; Hailey’s eyes widen but are then replaced with a wary expression. I think of the last time she cooked with Jen and see that my daughter is thinking the very same.

  Jen picks up on this and bends down in front of Hailey, tucking her hair behind her ears, and tracing the ‘H’ with her finger. ‘Do you know that the doctors in Greece think I might have had that nasty bug before I went on holiday? That it was making me act a bit strange?’ Hailey pulls at the edges of her dressing gown. ‘But I’m all better now, sweetheart, I promise.’

  Hailey throws her arms around Jen’s neck and kisses her cheek. Jen glances up at me and stares over my shoulder.

  My heart doesn’t stop but
it feels like it does: that look in Jen’s eyes is back; it’s a second but it’s there.

  Hailey skips into the kitchen with Oscar in tow. Jen stands, still staring past me, and I want to cry out loud, I can’t go back there. She passes me; I turn to watch, even though I’d rather not see her gaze go back to how it used to be.

  I’m trying to think of the word that explains how I feel when I notice what she is actually doing: that she isn’t looking at her dead sister, she’s not acting like the woman who pretended to be my wife for a few months . . . because Jen is reaching up to where, hanging from the corner of the dining-table edge, is her bra. She hooks her fingers through the material and launches it in my direction like a catapult.

  ‘It must have been one hell of a spider,’ she whispers, leaning in and kissing the corner of my mouth.

  Relief. That’s the only word I can think of . . . but it’s not the right word. I wonder if there even is a word that can explain how, for a moment, I thought my life was going to be turned upside down, only to realise that it is in fact stable and safe. If I live the rest of my life without a glimmer of anything out of the ordinary, I will die a very happy man.

  Chapter Seventy

  Jennifer

  I sit opposite Dr Popescu and take a deep breath. I’m about to lie to him, tell him that the medication has worked, that Kerry has gone, but before I can, he begins.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you a little bit about some research I’ve been doing into complicated grief, if I may?’