‘I’m winning already. Where’s yours?’
‘I’m surprised that you’re so quick off the mark. Some of us have to buy soil and seeds. Even though I haven’t planted anything, I’m still winning because all you did was plant beans in cotton wool,’ he says, and doubles over laughing.
‘You wait. I want to be a mother, I will grow these beans with sheer determination alone,’ I say, grinning, loving the sound of the words aloud. I want to be a mother! Gerry is right, such certain words from me are rare, and it’s exciting to be a person who knows what she wants for once. But I am also stubborn and often choose to stick to my side of the argument whether I believe it or not. But not in this case.
Two days later when I go downstairs in the morning, I notice that one of the beans has started to sprout a small root, which is visible against the glass. I grab the jar and race upstairs. I jump on the bed, waking him, annoying him, and bounce up and down with my prospering bean.
He rubs his eyes and stares grumpily at the jar. ‘That’s impossible, how the hell is it growing in cotton wool. Did you mess with it?’
‘No! I’m not a cheat. I watered it.’
Gerry doesn’t like to lose. That evening he returns from work with a packet of sunflower seeds, but he has forgotten to buy a pot and soil.
On the fourth day, when he has only planted the sunflower seeds, my bean root has little tendrils.
Gerry takes to talking to his sunflower seeds, he reads the seeds a book. He tells the seeds jokes. He carries out full-on conversations with the seeds while I laugh. Two more days on, while Gerry’s sunflower seeds are still beneath the soil, my beans sprout shoots. Gerry carries the sunflower seed pot to the bean bags where he plays computer games with his pot, even going so far as to place a controller in front of the pot.
One morning I walk into the bathroom to find the sunflower pot sitting on the toilet seat lid, with an open dirty magazine.
After ten days of this carry on, I call it.
‘OK, admit it: I’ve won.’ My beans have sprouted and grown shoots, and there is a large network of shoots off the main root, with a sturdy stem growing straight upwards and out of the cotton wool.
But of course he won’t give in.
The following morning, he gets out of bed and goes downstairs to make our morning coffee before I do, which is a rare and precious thing, and I know something is up. He starts yelling, frantically, and I think we’ve been burgled. I fall out of bed, stumble downstairs and find him dancing around in his boxers, holding his potted plant with a single two-foot-tall sunflower climbing high.
‘It’s a miracle!’ he says, wide-eyed.
‘You’re a cheat.’
‘I did it!’ he dances around with the sunflower, following me to the kitchen, and points a finger at me accusingly. ‘You thought you could bury me, you didn’t know I was a seed.’
‘Cute,’ I nod. Game over. ‘So now we can have a baby?’
‘Definitely,’ he says, serious. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted.’
On a high from our decision, we drink our morning coffee, him from his Star Wars mug; we’re grinning at each other like lunatics, as though we’ve made the baby already. The post lands on the hallway floor.
Gerry gathers the envelopes and brings them to the kitchen, flicks through them and one takes his interest. He tears it open and I watch him, grinning at my gorgeous husband who wants to make a baby with me in my new house with a staircase that brings you upstairs from downstairs and downstairs from upstairs, feeling like life couldn’t be any more perfect.
I study his face. ‘What is it?’
He hands me the letter. ‘I got the appointment for the MRI.’
I read the letter and when I look up, I can see he’s nervous.
‘These things are standard procedure. It just rules things out.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ he says, kissing me quickly, distracted. ‘Still hate it. I’m going for a shower.’
‘Where? Upstairs? To our shower upstairs?’
He stops at the bottom of the stairs and smiles, but the light has gone out in him. ‘The very one. You take care of Esmerelda. She likes porn and video games.’
‘Esmerelda?’ I look at the sunflower, and laugh. ‘Nice to meet you, Esmerelda.’
Esmerelda doesn’t live much longer; our collective sense of humour stalled somewhat after the results of the MRI. But we don’t know that yet on that morning. That morning we’re busy planning life.
Gerry runs up our new staircase and then I hear the shower water running.
He’s twenty-seven years old.
I finish my walk through my rooms at the door to my bedroom. I scan the room. It’s not the same at all. New bed, new headboard, new curtains, new paint. New large strong protective lump beneath the duvet. Gabriel stirs, and a hand reaches out for me in the bed. It feels around. He lifts his head from the pillow, scans the room and finds me at the door.
‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘I was getting some water.’
He looks at my hands, which are glass-of-water free; he can’t be fooled. I climb into bed and kiss him. He lifts his arm and I turn my back to him and reverse into his warm body. He closes his arm around me and I’m instantly cocooned. He can protect me from the past that’s chasing me, build a bubble around me where memories and emotional backtracking can’t penetrate me. But what happens when he lets go, when the streaming light of morning stirs him, and the safety of slumber slithers away revealing truth? Much as I want to, I can’t hide in him forever.
12
Gabriel and I rise early to get ready for work. It’s dark, the house is cold and damp, impossible to heat as it needs a new central heating system, and we’re both tired. We don’t speak very much, we shuffle around the tiny kitchen, bumping into each other while we try to make our coffees ourselves, just the way we like it, and our own porridge. I make mine with milk, Gabriel prefers his with water. Blueberries on mine. Honey on his. Gabriel is too drained by recent family events in his life and frankly I’m too exhausted to listen to the new drama created by Ava, his sixteen-year-old daughter, the source of his pleasure and pain. A self-confessed bad husband and bad dad, he has spent the last few years trying to reconnect with his daughter. He has been doing all the chasing. His daughter is his world, he is her self-appointed moon, and she knows it: the faster she spins the greater her gravitational pull. My brain is slowly whirring as it warms up for the day. Neither of us are morning people, we keep to ourselves, together.
I lean against the countertop, waiting for the first sip of coffee to help fuel my brain and I collect my thoughts to tell him about the PS, I Love You Club. It’s a good time because it’s a bad time. We both have to leave the house in a few minutes or we’ll be late for work, and so it will leave little room for discussion or argument. It will give me a sense of his mood so I can prepare myself for a longer discussion later. I try to practise an intro line that doesn’t sound rehearsed.
‘Why is this in here?’ Gabriel asks, looking in the cupboard at the coffee mugs.
I already know what he’s talking about but I feign ignorance. ‘Hmm?’ I turn around and see the cracked Star Wars mug. ‘Oh yeah. I broke it.’
‘I can see that,’ he says, looking at it for longer than necessary.
Weirded out by his interest, I concentrate on blowing on my coffee and warming my hands on my mug.
The cupboard closes, thankfully, but he looks at me. For too long. ‘Would you like me to fix the mug?’
I wasn’t expecting that. ‘Oh sweetheart, that’s so thoughtful of you, thank you. But no, it’s OK. I’ll throw it out eventually.’
Pause for everything that should be said.
‘OK.’
Pause again for all that won’t be said.
I should tell him about the PS, I Love You Club. That I’ve met them. That I’m absolutely not going to help them. I should really tell him, now. He’s waiting for something.
‘Holly,’ he says, ‘i
f you’re having second thoughts about moving in with me, please just say it.’
‘What?’ I reply, stunned, not expecting that. ‘Absolutely not. No second thoughts at all. Why would you say that?’
He seems relieved, then confused. ‘Because I feel that you’re … I don’t know, holding back. You’re distracted. It took you so long to put it on the market, for one.’
‘I have absolutely no doubts about living with you,’ I say firmly, and I mean it. ‘I’m sorry I was slow to get it moving.’
Yesterday I’d planned to wait in the local café while the house was being shown. But I wanted to know who was in my home, so I watched through the windows, feeling like a spy and saw figures in the living room. It was so odd to see strangers in my own home, wandering around my rooms, assessing how they could change the foundations of my life and alter them to suit theirs. Knock down walls, wipe traces of me away, the proof of my existence a stain on their new beginning. But it made me sure that I was ready to do the same.
‘So everything’s OK?’ Gabriel asks again.
‘Yes,’ I say brightly.
‘OK,’ he says, kissing me. ‘Sorry, I misread. Ava’s got me over-analysing everything.’
I close my eyes and hate myself for the deceit. I feel like I’m cheating on him with thoughts of my dead husband.
‘Tonight at my place?’ he asks, finally.
‘Yes, perfect,’ I say, overly relieved.
I’ll tell him then. I just don’t know what exactly I’m telling him.
It’s the end of the day and I’m carrying my bicycle through the shop, from the storage room to the front door, when Gabriel calls. I can instantly tell from his tone that something is not right.
‘I’m sorry, I’ve to cancel tonight,’ he says, sighing. There’s shouting and banging in the background. ‘Shut up!’ he yells loudly, away from the mouthpiece but it’s enough to give me a fright. I rarely see Gabriel angry. Grumpy and irritated, yes, but rage isn’t something he exhibits often and never at me; he is usually measured, or keeps it to himself and lets rip on the days that we are not together. A proficiency in self-containment is a finesse you adopt after big relationship number one, a trickle-down strength.
‘Sorry,’ he returns to the phone.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Ava. She’s having problems with her mum. She came to me. Kate chased her here. They’ve decided this is the destination to argue their points.’
There is a screech from Kate, and a holler from Ava. And a door bangs.
‘Jesus,’ I say, eyes widening.
‘I think it will be a long night.’
‘Oh, Gabriel. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too. But I’m glad she came to me. This is what I’ve wanted.’
I end the call. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I say quietly to my phone.
‘Who’s wishing for what?’ Ciara asks. She’s been hovering behind me, eavesdropping. I tuck my phone into my backpack.
‘Nobody and nothing.’
‘Stay with us for dinner?’ she asks. ‘Vegan chili con carne, if you can stomach the lack of the taste of tortured animal?’
‘I’m barbecuing steak!’ Mathew yells from the back room.
‘Tempting.’ I smile. ‘Thanks, but I’ll go home. I have to start decluttering anyway before I move, so this is a good opportunity.’
‘Is everything OK between you and Gabriel? Did you tell him yet?’
‘Everything is fine, I haven’t told him, but I will soon.’ I shudder at the thought of the conversation. ‘Why am I so nervous about it?’
‘Because …’ she sighs. ‘You don’t want him to say no.’
Her words strike me, because they’re true.
Helmet on, visor on, I mount my bike and prepare to escape, not from the shop but from my head.
I began cycling after Gerry’s death. Before, I could barely drag myself to the gym, though my more youthful body was better at coping with lack of exercise. Now I thrive on the exercise. I need it. It doesn’t help me to think, it makes me stop thinking. Everything I could find to stop thinking was and is a gift. Pushing myself to the absolute maximum gives me a release I can’t get anywhere else. Motion is lotion. I like that I can choose a different route each time, even when going to the same destination. I don’t need to rely on traffic to get me there on time. My journey isn’t dependent on anyone but myself, I am the author of my own destiny. I see statues and streets I never noticed when I was in a car, I observe the way the light hits buildings in a way I never did before. I can take stock of everything, feel the wind in my hair, the rain and sun on my skin. It’s the kind of movement that helps me notice things, not one that stalls my mind and traps everything in there.
I feel free.
There is so much about me that Gerry wouldn’t recognise. I am older than Gerry ever was, I know things that he never knew, that he will never know. And it’s the little things that stop me in my tracks. He never lived to hear the word ‘hangry’. Every time I hear the word I think of him, he would have loved it when his belly was full and hated it when it was empty. The invention of things he would appreciate. New phones. New technologies. New political leaders, new wars. Cronuts. New Star Wars movies. His football team winning the FA Cup. When he died, he gave me his thirst for knowledge of the things he loved, and in the early years after his death I wanted to discover them for him. I was always looking for new ways to connect with him, as if I was the middle person between his life and death. I don’t do those things any more.
I outlived my husband, and now I’ve outgrown him. The beauty and challenge of long-term relationships is that you change and shift at different times in different directions, side by side under the same roof. Most often, these changes are subtle and you’re subconsciously adapting all the time to the constant but gentle shifting of another human being that you’re so connected to; like two shape-shifters battling to coincide, for better or worse. Remain who you are while they alter, or change with them. Inspire them to go in another direction, gently push, pull, mould, tear at, nurture. Wait.
If Gerry were alive, he might have adapted his form to accept and make space in his heart and mind for the woman I am today. But over the past seven years my shape has shifted without having to assent to the energy of another. If Gerry were to return and meet this woman seven years on, he would not recognise me. He would possibly not love me. I don’t even know if this Holly would have the patience for Gerry. But despite the fact I know me now and I like me, I’ll be forever sorry that Gerry didn’t get to meet this me.
The following day Gabriel and I sit outside in a café. The weather is warmer but we’re still bundled up in the May sun.
‘What happened last night?’
‘Ava was suspended from school for two days.’
‘What for?’
‘Smoking cannabis on school grounds. One more suspension and she’ll be expelled.’
‘Hopefully that will scare her off. The most trouble I ever got into was for kissing Gerry on school grounds,’ I say with a smile.
He watches me. He usually never minds if I bring Gerry up, so perhaps I’m being paranoid. ‘You were a good girl,’ he says, eventually.
‘I was. Were you like Ava at school?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. I was hoping I’d see something of myself in her, but this isn’t the part I was hoping for,’ he says, rubbing his beard tiredly. ‘But at least she’s finally coming to me.’
‘Hmm,’ I say dubiously, and immediately wish I hadn’t.
‘What does that mean?’
I question Ava’s timing. She didn’t want anything to do with her dad until she started getting in trouble. As the arguments with her mother and step-dad increase, the more often Gabriel finds her on his doorstep. And he’s gentler with her. So eager to please her, to be back in her life.
‘I don’t want her exploiting your good nature, that’s all.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He’s a hun
ky chunk of anger today.
‘It means … what it means, Gabriel. Back down.’
I wait a minute to change the subject.
‘OK, I know you’ve noticed that I’ve been distracted recently and I have to talk to you about it.’
I have his full attention. ‘The PS, I Love You Club,’ he says.
‘You know about it?’
‘You changed the moment you saw the card. I wish I hadn’t opened the damn envelope,’ he says, and I can hear the irritation beneath his words.
‘Oh.’ His mood and tone is making this more difficult.
‘So you found out what it is,’ he says, pressing me.
‘Yeah. It’s a real club. There are four members who are battling illnesses, some terminal. What I said on the podcast about Gerry’s letters gave them hope, and it gave them an idea. They want to write their own “PS, I Love You” letters.’
‘That’s a bit fucked up, isn’t it?’
I bristle. Payback for my comment about Ava, I’m guessing.
‘I met with them.’
He leans forward, it feels intimidating, charged. ‘When?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘Cheers for telling me.’
‘I’m telling you now. I needed to figure it out in my own head first. Plus I was worried you’d react like this.’
‘I’m reacting like this because you took so long telling me.’
Round and round in circles we go.
‘They want me to help them with their letters. Guide them.’
He looks at me. Crystal blue eyes searing into me. I hold his stare.
‘I was going to ask you what you’d think of me doing that, but I think I can guess.’
He downs his coffee and sits back in his chair. ‘I thought the podcast was a bad idea, and I think this is a bad idea.’ He seems ready to move.
‘Are you in a rush? Can we talk about it? I need to talk it through. It clearly makes you angry, so tell me why you think it’s a bad idea.’
‘Because you’ve moved on and you shouldn’t go back. I think that watching people die may take you back, to a time when you’ve told me you were so desperately unhappy you could barely get out of bed.’
Postscript Page 8