by Beth Morrey
‘Wonderful cake,’ said one of the mothers, as she left.
‘I made it myself,’ said Angela, poker-faced.
Later, while Otis opened his presents on the floor, we sat in the kitchen polishing off the last of each Prosecco bottle and bitching about the other mothers.
‘Some terrible parenting going on there,’ drawled Angela, watching Otis crowing as he ripped the wrapping off a Star Wars sticker book. ‘One of them – Tybalt or Gawain or whatever – bit another so hard he drew blood. And his mum looked at the bite mark and said “the trouble with gifted children is they have such energy.”’
I giggled and then checked my watch. ‘I must be going, it’s nearly six and Bobby will be wanting a walk. Shall I help you clear up some more?’ The robot cake’s remains were lodged next to the sink, ruthlessly denuded to bulk out the goody bags.
‘No, don’t worry, there’s not much more to do, and besides, you saved the day today.’
‘Not really. It was Sylvie.’
‘I’ve saved her a slice. It’s bloody good cake.’
‘I made it myself,’ I mimicked.
She winked. ‘Got to get some credit since mine ended up in Mamma Swinton’s Hermès.’
I said goodbye to Otis and wandered home, relishing the brighter nights now we were edging further into spring. As I unlocked the front door, I steeled myself for the usual ecstatic greeting from Bobby, Bruce Bunny hanging out one side of her mouth.
We set off on our walk together, and since it was such a lovely evening I treated her to a quick turn around the park, where she could have a more leisurely sniff, soaking up the new smells of the season. As usual I wished Leo were here to enjoy it with me, and thought how much he would have loved Bobby, grown to adore her as much as I did, her quirks and idiocies, her headlong tilt at life.
As the sun set over the thickening greenery, I chewed over events of the day, chuckling to myself at the thought of Horatio stashing the cake, and my flight into the shady world of French pâtissiers. Then the laughter died in my throat as we turned out of the park and with a sudden, blood-curdling howl Bobby launched herself forward. Across the road I saw a cat, her deadliest enemy, tail flickering as it gazed at us impassively from its vantage point. With another strangled growl, Bobby wrenched back, and, just as she had at Mel’s wedding, slipped her collar and dived out into the road in search of her foe.
It all happened very quickly. The car came out of nowhere, Bobby a blur of brown and amber as she hurtled across the road, snapped up by the flash of scarlet and silver metal as it smashed into her. I stood on the pavement, rooted in shock as I struggled to process what was happening, then gave up, sinking to the ground, gravel grinding into my knees as the car screeched to a halt and the driver got out, circling his vehicle in growing horror to find Bobby’s poor crumpled body. I thought of the robot cake, pristine in its box, then in pieces by the sink. One minute something was intact; the next, shattered. Untied, released, destroyed.
Someone screamed on the other side of the street, and a figure darted forwards to bend over my Bobby. Then I was able to move; no one should touch her but me. I rushed into the road, crouched at her side and cradled her bloody and broken form in my arms, rocking her to sleep like a child, crooning over the silken ears and burying my face in the lustrous mane for one last time. Her eyes were open; those lovely chocolate eyes that melted me, begging for her treats. She was still warm, the warmest thing in my life. My Bobby, the dog I didn’t want, didn’t own, but who was truly mine in a way that no one else ever had been.
‘I love you, I love you, I love you. Please come back.’
I sobbed into her soft neck, but there was no answer, and I could feel the very essence of her gone, a vapour-thread that swirled and faded into the spring breeze.
We stayed like that for a while, the driver stuttering his apologies over our heads while we rocked together, cherry blossom drifting around us like snow. Eventually someone – was it Phillip? Or maybe Simon – appeared and helped me up, promising that he would bring Bobby home to rest. As they led me away, I saw the cat, still sitting there, looking at us, its tail flapping like the stingray under the sand.
Chapter 43
A week after Leo’s diagnosis, we decided to go and watch a firework display.
We’d spent days stagnating in the house, Leo in his study and me in the living room, occasionally loitering in the hallway, my hand hovering above the handle of his door, wanting to go in but unsure of what to say when I did. I could hear him moving around in there, shifting papers and books, playing Bach, and sometimes – horrifyingly – weeping. I should have gone in then, but I had no words to comfort him when the void overwhelmed me too. What could I say to my husband of over fifty years who was being ruthlessly shredded by this terrible disease? So I cleaned the kitchen, and made hearty stews whose scents pervaded the house, but didn’t tempt him out.
So much unsaid between us. As I ferociously scrubbed and stirred, the words echoed in my head, fighting to get out. But I knew they wouldn’t come out right, so I swallowed them down as I always had. Hearing the tinny twitch of the letterbox, I marched out to clear up the post, stuff it all away, get rid of it. The local Gazette lay on the doormat and I swept it up, ready to decant into the recycling, but instead found myself sinking into a chair at the kitchen table, idly leafing through it. The bustling, mundane concerns of the community soothed me for a second – someone, somewhere was worrying about school children loitering outside a public swimming pool; someone else was campaigning for extra lighting on an estate; an article about the lack of dog waste bins. Life went on, even if in our world everything had stalled.
A local Residents’ Association had organized a firework display in a nearby square. When we lived in Cambridge, we’d gone to the Midsummer Common event, and I remembered leaning against Leo’s reassuring bulk in the spicy cold, both our breaths mingling as we gazed up. It felt like a heartening image to hold on to, and maybe even one to resurrect. So I took the paper in to him, and found him sitting at his desk, his head in his hands. When he looked up, his expression was as desolate as I’d ever seen it. I wanted to take him in my arms, smooth away the lines of despair and rebuild his shattered self with nuts and bolts to make it secure. Instead I waved the paper in his face and said, ‘we should go to this.’
‘Upwards and onwards,’ he said, like he always did. Except he’d got it the wrong way round. I tried not to wince.
On the night of the display, we walked slowly towards the square, taking care not to slip on the pavement’s carpet of mulched leaves. Eventually Leo took my arm, and I didn’t know whether it was to stop me falling, or to stop himself. ‘Nice night,’ he said.
I looked at the sliver of crescent moon glowing against the black. Like Leo, slowly disappearing until there was only a tiny crack of light left. Soon it would be too late. All the unsaid things between us.
We arrived to find that the whole neighbourhood appeared to have descended, bustling about the square clutching plastic cups of punch. Some had sparklers, bright batons bristling in the darkness as they gesticulated, like a series of mad conductors. I could smell hot dogs, and smoke and bonfire toffee and was grateful for the assault on my senses. The same smells, same traditions, same expectations, year after year. Something to cling to, when everything else was falling from my grasp.
As we had for so many years – as newly-married sweethearts, as harassed young parents surrounded by shrieking children, and now, as an elderly couple sheltering from the storm of diagnosis – we leaned against each other and looked up when the sky began to snap and crackle above us. As always, my mouth fell open and I allowed myself to sink into the primal delight of those bright particular stars that sparked and showered and faded, the accompanying fizz billowing round the square as the crowd oohed and aahed.
And as my heart began to throb in synchrony with the detonations, I felt a demon take root. The fire and immediacy of the moment. So much left unsaid. I found I couldn�
��t bear not to say the most important thing, the thing I’d carried all these years – suddenly it was imperative that the unshareable should be shared, before it was too late. My mouth was already open – all that was left was to say it. Say it. Bertie.
His name bubbled in my throat as I contemplated the act. My legs felt weak. I could feel Leo behind me, looming above, and half-turned to look at him, to see if it was in fact, the moment. His head was thrown back, his eyes fixed on the flickering sky, and he looked so much like the Leo of his youth, the one who walked away, oblivious to the wreckage, that once again I pulled back from the precipice.
It was over in twenty minutes. The fireworks, and my moment of madness. The show ended in a volley of cracks, bangs, and whistles, a chorus of ‘aaahs’ from the crowd and a final barrage of dazzling shots. Leo took my arm again and without a word we began to walk back, as fireworks elsewhere boomed and snapped around us. The lingering terror of the almost-confession and the noise of the rockets made me think of those nights in the cellar with Fa-Fa, thrill and horror, darkness and light, shelter and peril, fiction and reality all merging and swirling together until you didn’t know which was which.
Back home, we stopped at our front gate, savouring the icy stillness of the air and the anticipation of a warm house, but as Leo put out a hand to push our way in, I blurted: ‘I need to tell you something.’
The hand paused in mid-air and in that split second before he turned, I suddenly felt that he knew what was coming. His question hovered unspoken between us but I’d gone over now, so I carried on: ‘There was a baby. Or at least, the start of one.’
His expression in the darkness had the shuttered quality of a house boarded up for the holidays. I stumbled on, ‘In 1956. You left. And I … didn’t realize.’
He took his hand away from the gate, but still didn’t say anything. ‘I was terrified. You know what it was like back then. And I thought I’d never see you again. So I never said. And then you came back …’
His eyes were slits in the dark, slivers of crescent moons. ‘What happened to it?’
I’d gone over the edge but now we were teetering at a deeper abyss. I swallowed. ‘I … we … got rid of it. Mama and I. That summer after we first … I thought you were gone from me forever.’
He pressed his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, trying to process the information.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ he said, his shoulders lifting in a defeated kind of shrug.
‘I’m sorry,’ I faltered. ‘I had to tell you. Before … before it’s too late.’ Crying now, my hands twisting round my scarf. ‘I called him Bertie,’ I whispered. ‘I won’t ever forget. Or forgive myself. But I felt you had to know.’
‘Before I go?’ he returned harshly. ‘Some send-off.’ He passed his hand across his face, as if erasing the memory.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sobbed. ‘But it tore me apart. Doing it. And then not telling you. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us now. I’m sorry. I … I love you.’
The fireworks, raging around us throughout, suddenly ceased, and silence hung in the air, only interrupted by the catch in my breath. Leo’s eyes were closed, then he sighed, and it was like a great oak shaking off the last leaves of autumn. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, finally looking at me. ‘It’s just … such a lot to take in. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want me to say.’
I reached out my hand. ‘I don’t know what I want you to say. I just know I needed to say it.’
The bangs started up again. After a second’s hesitation, he took my hand and held it. ‘It was never fireworks with us, was it, Missy?’ he said, almost to himself. ‘It was always about coming home.’ I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. He squeezed my fingers. ‘Come on, let’s go inside and have a hot drink. I can’t think straight out here.’
We went indoors, stamping our feet and rubbing our arms against the cold as we took off our coats. Leo went off to put the kettle on, and, more for something to do, I went to the living room and started to build up a fire, scrunching newspapers and arranging kindling as if the careful positioning would restore order to everything. It was just catching when Leo came in to the room, holding two steaming mugs, which he set down on the side table by the sofa. Pushing me to one side, he stiffly lowered himself to his knees to attend to the fire, holding out his wrinkled hands to the leaping flames. Ham-fists, just like Fa-Fa.
I stood up, equally stiffly, and went to sit with my drink, watching him as he busied himself with the poker, adding another log. Then he got to his feet, and rubbed his hands together. ‘Let’s have that drink, shall we?’
He joined me on the sofa and we sat for a while in the firelight, sipping our cocoa. Outside the pops and squeals continued but we were snug in our cocoon. Eventually Leo drained his cup, set it down and turned to me expectantly. ‘Well, Missy? What was it you wanted to tell me?’
A volley of shots outside accompanied the blow. I pretended to sip my drink, although it was also finished by then. So much unsaid. Then said. Then unsaid again. The bitterness and shame coursed through me as I stared at the blazing fire, blinking back tears and then turning to Leo with a crooked smile.
‘Nothing, my darling,’ I said, taking another fake sip. ‘Nothing at all.’
Chapter 44
Phillip brought Bobby home to me and we buried her in the garden by my roses. Denzil dug the grave, and we stood in a circle as she was laid to rest. Sylvie brought a small cypress tree, and we planted it above her though neither she nor I would ever sit in its shade.
Angela brought Otis as she wanted him to know about death, but I couldn’t bear to see his pinched little face as he watched us shovelling earth over the small mound. So I just looked down at a worm burrowing through the overturned soil, and thought about cutting the crusts off the sandwiches I would serve later.
Bobby would have enjoyed her small wake, wandering around nosing for crumbs. I gave my few guests ham sandwiches and sausage rolls, because they were her favourite, and we talked about what a wonderful dog she had been, which she would also have enjoyed, head on one side, listening out for her name.
The worst moment came when Felicity arrived. Angela had rung to tell her the news, and my grief was now spiked with guilt because I was forced yet again to accept that Bobby was not my dog, that I’d been in loco parentis and failed in my duties. I was worried she would be angry with me, but as we stared at each other in my hallway, her cheeks streaked with mascara as they had been the first and only other time I’d seen her, I realized that she was holding out her hands, and after a second I took them, though I feared what she said next would break me.
‘Millicent, I’m so sorry.’
Angela appeared from the kitchen, but seeing us there put a finger to her lips and pointed in the direction of the living room. We sat on my sofa, and in a prim little voice, I told her what had happened. She wasn’t as thin as I remembered, and she’d lost the dead-eyed look she’d had in the café. I suppose I’d gained it.
I couldn’t bear that she was so grateful. She kept thanking me for taking Bobby in, like it was a huge burden; like I’d done her a favour rather than the other way round.
‘The other thing I wanted to thank you for,’ she said, after Angela had tiptoed in with cups of tea, ‘is what you said to Adrian.’ She looked at my bracelet of pearls as she spoke, but I was embarrassed rather than gratified; the Missy who had confronted her husband was a wholly different woman from the stiff, formal creature who sat opposite her now. I felt shamed by the pearls – to think that I, an eighty-year-old grandmother, stood in the street and bared my breast to all and sundry. The very idea was vulgar and nonsensical. She talked about how empowered she’d been by the story, while I cringed and wondered if I should put more sausage rolls in the Aga.
Then, as she sat, twisting a tissue round her fingers, I found myself saying, in a broken whisper that seemed to come from someone else: ‘I talked to her.’
F
ix leaned forward to hear better. ‘Sorry?’
‘I talked to her. Bobby. Bob. We talked … I told her everything. She listened to me. She understood.’
She took my hands in hers again. ‘Oh Millicent. The best dogs do.’
I’d let my tea go cold; when I took a sip, it made me choke, which brought on a coughing fit, and the tears I was working so hard to contain fell freely as I hacked and retched, bringing Angela back in to find out what all the noise was. She led Fix away to meet others who had known and loved Bobby, leaving me to compose myself.
When they’d gone, I sat for a while thinking about Leo and the latest letter that had arrived that morning, and then when I was done thinking about that I got up and went back to the kitchen, where Angela and Sylvie were tidying up. I put the unheated sausage rolls in the fridge and wrapped some leftover ham sandwiches in foil, thinking they’d do for dinner later. One of Otis’s most recent pictures fell off the fridge door as I closed it – a drawing of Bobby and me standing outside our house. With a child’s disregard for perspective, the dog was as tall as the second-floor windows. Would she always loom as large in whatever life I had left? He still drew me with long hair.
Angela and Sylvie left, with hugs and promises I barely listened to, so anxious was I to have the place to myself again. As soon as they’d gone, I went back to the kitchen and dug out the sherry bottle, hearing the tick tick tick of the clock, and the silence behind it. I poured myself a glass, and then another and another.