The First Time Lauren Pailing Died

by Alyson Rudd

They bought a house which was, perhaps coincidentally, just a five-minute walk from Miriam’s home. It was an old rambling affair with an acre of land, a large garage and a separate building in which Lauren painted and sometimes, but not very often, wept for everything she had left behind.

  The light in her paintings was almost always a source of delight to the critics and a source of anguish to her. Lauren wanted to capture something of the intrigue held by a shaft of sunlight but it induced a deep sense of melancholy whenever she tried.

  Simon spent hours on his bikes and could sometimes be seen stood stock-still, oily rag in hand, gazing towards his wife’s studio, wondering why he felt alone even when they made love.

  Rosie kept her hair short and played hockey ferociously to county standard. Toby developed a passion for food and by thirteen would at weekends be the one to prepare the family meal. As Vera and Bob lavished praised on Toby’s culinary talents Lauren recalled the way they had been devoted to Ben as she grew up and she would wonder at how she had rarely suffered any jealousy. The comparison with being an only child was not something she dwelled upon and instead she funnelled the differences into her paintings.

  Simon’s mother slowly wasted away and his father was pounced upon by the newly divorced Sylvia Ainscough, who whisked him off for months at a time for cruises on the Mediterranean.

  The more Miriam knew about Lauren the more convinced she became that her young friend had lived more than one other life. Indeed, Lauren would speak fondly of the Vera who was that bit more attractive than the ones that followed but it seemed to suit Lauren to only think in terms of one extra world and so Miriam did not push the point and instead waited patiently to be shown a painting clearly alluding to a third path.

  Ben married the girlfriend and then left her shortly afterwards, an event that did remarkably little to make waves in the lives of the Pailings or the Millingtons. Rosie went to university in Leeds, then became a sports teacher. Toby attended catering college and flitted from hotel to restaurant to hotel until, in desperation to secure his happiness, his parents and grandparents helped him to buy his own restaurant in Chester which was dutifully frequented by George whenever he had need to eat there.

  Lauren let her hair remain the white type of grey it wanted to be and it suited her. She remembered that Debbie had called her Ghostie Girl but not this Debbie, the one who had moved away to Birmingham and had three grandchildren.

  ‘I’d like to see the world on my bike,’ Simon said one evening. ‘Before I’m too old.’

  ‘You’re too old now,’ Lauren said, but she had sensed the end was coming and this was a nice way to part.

  ‘I might not come back,’ he said. ‘I mean, I might break down in the desert or be murdered in Pakistan. So. Will you tell me now what happened to you?’

  In that moment she felt closer to him than she ever had. All her internal wrestling with another life had taken its toll on her patient, caring husband.

  ‘I would have told you and I only didn’t because I love you and I didn’t want you to think I was mad or that I didn’t love you. It’s a hard thing to explain but if you really can be open-minded…’

  Simon grunted that of course he could.

  ‘When I woke up that day in the garden I truly believe I had just died in another world. There are other worlds, lots of scientists think that is possible and I know it is possible. They run in parallel and I used to, in my other life, even, I think, be able to see them.’

  She paused as she could see he was unnerved.

  ‘I can handle what you are saying,’ he said, ‘but not how calm you are about it.’

  ‘I’ve had a long time to get used to it,’ she said softly, ‘but it hurt at first because I was about to give birth and I never saw the baby. I’ll never know if it was a boy or a girl or if it died with me.’

  ‘So you were married in this other place?’

  ‘Yes, but not instead of to you. I was always here, it’s just that the Lauren from there came here too and we mingled.’

  She paused. She had grown so used to absorbing her other, London life that she needed to let Simon digest the notion that his wife was an amalgam. Lauren ran her fingers through his hair, knowing he had not had the marriage he deserved and yet he had never been bitter, never threatened to leave her.

  ‘You mingled,’ he said flatly, gently pulling her hands away from him.

  ‘Shall I stop talking?’ she said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘I strongly believe this happens to everyone but the lives are so similar that people rarely even sense they lived somewhere else. It’s a way of living perhaps until the right age or the time we are supposed to go. Miriam’s friend Gareth is an actuary and he says I will probably live until my early eighties. That’s when I will properly die. I believe. It’s what I believe, Simon, and it is peculiar, it’s madness, so I couldn’t tell you.’

  He sniffed and frowned and sniffed again.

  ‘No more peculiar than most religions,’ he said. But it was too late. He had lost her years ago and now he wanted some time to himself.

  ‘Maybe you’ll miss me,’ she said. ‘I won’t go anywhere. I’ll be here when you get back.’

  ‘I’ve been missing you a long time,’ he said, and walked back out to his garage.

  She watched him disappear behind the huge wooden doors and realised then how much she had taken him for granted. He had been a solid presence when she was fractured and flimsy and lost and now he had found out she was partly married to someone else. His reward for asking her for so little in return was to discover she had never been entirely his. He deserved to travel, he deserved time alone, but the thought of him speeding down dirt roads frustrated by how his romantic life had been half strangled frightened her. This was the mood in which men are reckless and crash, not caring if they live or die.

  Lauren pushed open the doors. She wanted to hold him tightly to tell him she loved him with her all her heart, but she could not say it. Her heart was not all his. She was unfaithful without being unfaithful. She was a translucent sort of wife, a woman who was supposed to be dead.

  He looked up at her, his expression was kind if perplexed.

  ‘I love you more than you know,’ she said, ‘more than I have been able to show you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said but he quickly looked down at his prized motorbike. He would leave soon. She could tell.

  Sometimes she pondered how the only person she could truly relax with, even if she rarely saw him, was George Stanning. She could look George full in the eye.

  Bob

  He was at his happiest playing cricket on the beach. Fortunately, it was something he and Jevin did as often as they could. Even when his shoulder began to ache with the twinges of early arthritis, Bob kept on bowling the tennis ball and Jevin kept on smacking it over his head with Pascal acting as fielder. On warm days Rachel would bring a rug and sit and watch. Sometimes she would act as wicket keeper but only if Suki had tagged along and joined in too. Afterwards they would look as healthy as any family could, all rosy-cheeked and cleansed by the salty sandy air, and Jevin would march to the weekends-only ice-cream van and order everyone’s favourite treat which was in his mind set in stone, and had Suki wanted to try another flavour of ice lolly she was not given the chance.

  As the rain cleared, leaving only a biting wind Jevin, aged seven, appeared with the frisbee he had been given at Christmas.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ he said.

  Rachel rolled her eyes good-naturedly as Bob heaved himself out of his chair.

  ‘It’s too cold for Paz,’ she said but Bob had already wrapped the dog in its little waistcoat and they were off to the shore.

  They were rewarded by an intense silvery sky as the black clouds rolled away to sea, and Jevin loved the way the air was so cold he could almost bite it.

  A woman in her late twenties wearing a bobble hat stood on top of a sand dune and watched as the three of them
leaped about, rarely catching the frisbee but laughing at each attempt.

  Bob eventually felt they were being watched and looked inland. He knew it was Andrea straight away. He waved in acknowledgement but politely, hoping it was clear he did not want her to join them. This was not how it should be done. Not without Rachel. Andrea did not move towards them. She stayed, watching for five more minutes, and then left the beach altogether. She never saw Jevin again and wrote him a final letter in which she told him he had the best possible parents who she knew loved him more than any child could hope to be loved and so her own love for him meant she was happy to leave it be.

  ‘One day,’ she wrote, ‘you might want to search for me. I won’t make it hard for you but please enjoy the life you are blessed with.’

  To Bob and Rachel she simply wrote:

  ‘It has occurred to me that you might wonder when I’ll pop round or start interfering. I want you to know that I won’t. Jevin Grant has a wonderful life and I do not see how me turning up will improve it. I wish all of you every happiness. A.’

  Bob reflected that there had been a time when being wished happiness was a hopeless sentiment, but as he read again Andrea’s message he acknowledged that he had found it. He could laugh with his son wholeheartedly. He could stroke Rachel’s cheek without guilt. His daughter was gone but she had enriched his life, a life she would have wanted him to have, and sometimes, when Jevin brought home a good report from school or told a funny story, Bob saw a twinkle in his eyes that had once belonged Lauren.

  Tim

  George was in reception again.

  He remembered Bella’s name. She flushed as she called up to Tim’s office.

  ‘Almost just passing,’ George said as he shook Tim’s hand.

  ‘Good to see you,’ Tim said and he meant it. It was a different sort of connection to Lauren.

  ‘We’ve made some progress in trying to find out what happened to my dad and, given Lauren’s role in that, I just wanted to tell you. I’m even told we might find him; his body, I mean.’

  ‘Lauren would have been so pleased,’ Tim said. ‘Look, when I’m next taking my daughter up to Bob’s house, we must grab a pint or something. If your wife will allow it?’

  ‘Not hitched,’ George said.

  They shook hands again and George smiled at Bella as he left. Tim raised his eyebrows dramatically and mouthed the word ‘single’.

  She jumped up from her chair and ran out into the street.

  ‘George,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘Could you squeeze in time to go for a coffee next time you are passing here?’

  ‘Sure,’ George said, ‘but we’ve already agreed to go for a pint when Tim’s next up North.’

  Bella stared at him vacantly.

  ‘I meant a coffee with me,’ she said, her eyes turned towards the pavement.

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yes, of course, how nice.’ And then he climbed into the taxi wondering what on earth Bella wanted to say that required them to have a coffee. He sighed at his lack of empathy. No doubt Bella wanted to say something about Lauren, perhaps something else that connected her to his father. He really knew so little about her yet she had shaken him from his torpor, made him look properly for Peter. And now, she was gone.

  Peter

  He pulled into his gravelled driveway just before three o’clock. It would be dark within an hour or so but the December light was clear and precise. Peter hoped for a bustling kitchen, to see his children sat at the table struggling with homework, needing his help with a history project, munching on warm mince pies, but he knew it would be quiet. Empty. His children were having childhoods that bore no relation to his. They had a den and stables and fields. His youngest had his books, his maths puzzles. His eldest had an army of friends. They had grandparents with acres and acres of land and a house with turrets. It was falling into disrepair but that only made it more fun for his sons. They had friends with parents with holiday homes and sound-proofed rooms full of drum kits and electric guitars. They had a hundred places to be and no idea their father wanted them to be in the kitchen.

  He walked towards the kettle. He did not want a cup of tea but he wanted some noise. His wife entered silently and leaned against the giant dresser.

  ‘They’re so independent now,’ she said. ‘So busy.’

  There was no regret in her voice. She sounded proud.

  All Peter could summon was an ‘Ah.’

  His wife’s skin shimmered like porcelain. It always had. It was a constant reminder that she was from aristocratic stock. It would not be right, he thought, to conclude that they had drifted apart. They had always been apart. She was so self-assured, so independent, so confident. Their marriage had followed the path dictated by her and all the while she had been courteous and gentle with him. Why me? he had asked in the early days.

  ‘You’re not a knob,’ she had said. Or ‘I like you.’ Or ‘You’re sexy and you don’t know it.’

  Now he was almost scared to ask if they could eat together.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.

  She did not answer, instead she looked past him, out of the window, where one of her horses was silhouetted against the low hill that was part of their land.

  ‘Peter,’ she said and shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, fearful now of the distance.

  ‘You know my parents gave us a year,’ she said. ‘We proved everyone wrong. We were good together, I think.’

  She smiled encouragingly. He had an idea he was supposed to say something witty but his mouth was dry.

  She stopped smiling. ‘No point in dragging things out, though. And no point at all in this being undignified. We will separate smoothly.’

  Peter was not sure now he was hearing her properly. He wanted to rummage in his ears for wax.

  ‘Are you?’ he whispered. ‘Are we…?’

  Her eyes widened for a moment before narrowing ominously.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not very good at this sort of thing but the lawyers will sort everything. Perhaps you could take a flat in town in the short term. I’ll make myself scarce on Saturdays so you can see the children, take George to rugby, that sort of thing.’

  She looked again through the window at the horse and Peter thought, But she always makes herself scarce on Saturdays anyway. He had questions but no desire to air them, to let his own ears hear them, and she left the room, left the house and walked towards the stables. Her stables.

  Tim

  A farmer had died and his land was eventually taken on by his neighbour, who had always coveted it, and the inspection had yielded a ditch and in the ditch had been found a skeleton. Tim read about it online and knew immediately they were the bones of Peter Stanning.

  George rang the doorbell and Vera answered, her hair in a bun to hide how thin it had become.

  ‘Oh, George, how lovely, do come in. Amber and Tim are here too.’

  George knew they would be.

  ‘Awkward this,’ he said, ‘and please say if it’s, you know…’

  They all looked at him encouragingly.

  ‘I’ve always wanted a proper funeral for Dad and we’re keeping it small but I wonder if you would attend. It’s at the same church as… and that might be difficult for you, so, really, I quite understand if it’s asking too much.’

  Bob stood and cleared his throat.

  ‘It would be an honour, and I liked your father very much. And we go to the church all the time to place flowers so it’s not upsetting for us at all, George.’

  ‘Thank you,’ George said, standing a little straighter.

  ‘So, Amber, how’s school?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ she said. ‘Too many exams, though.’

  Tim groaned comically and asked his daughter if she would be OK to attend the funeral.

  Amber had inherited her mother’s sense of fair play and said she would certainly be there.

  It was April and the new vicar felt sprightly and pleased to have a
funeral that was less emotional than most. He spoke of how proud Peter would have been of his family and Mrs Stanning was astonished to find tears rolling down her cheeks.

  She too had needed to say goodbye to him. Her boredom of their marriage had never been so debilitating that she would have wanted him dead. She had wanted him, really, to find happiness with someone else, to do more than work so hard. She had wanted him to be a friend not a ghost. The worst part for her was that she would have taken back her words that final day and stayed with Peter if she had known he was going to vanish. She knew she had sounded cold but that was because she had not wanted to lose her nerve. She no longer loved him but she was fond enough of him, fond enough to save him.

  Mrs Stanning knew she would be relieved the day they found him but she was not prepared for the sharp sting of fresh mourning. He was dead, really dead, and it was properly a tragedy because he was too young. She wondered briefly why it all felt so final. She had been to other funerals and wondered about spirituality and afterlives, but not here. This was the end for her Peter. Ah, my Peter, she thought, I’m sorry.

  George sighed. He had what he wanted. He was saying goodbye to his father. It had been so hard to sit his mother down in front of Dylan Stenson all those years ago. It had felt he were choosing his father over her, telling her he loved him more than her.

  He had asked her if she wanted him to stay with her and the investigator or leave the room. You might as well stay, she had said, as Mr Stenson would tell him everything she said anyway.

  Dylan Stenson had been right. There had been a conversation and that conversation had propelled his father out of the door. His father had not seen it coming, his wife’s disenchantment, he would have left in a daze, confused, perhaps angry. It was dark, he would have stumbled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ his mother had said, her skin glowing dimly like porcelain, ‘and I can’t be sure but he might have been unwell. I remember he looked a little grey in the face.’

  George had wept later that night, imagining his dad being ill, dying alone in a place so quiet and remote that no one had ever found his body. He hoped that he had dropped dead in his tracks with no time to suffer but George would never know. Not even his mother could shed light on that but she had divulged that when he disappeared Peter Stanning would have been unhappy. Far from hating his mother, it allowed him to forgive her. She had not wanted him to know his father might have died of a broken heart and that was why she had remained silent for so long. Over the ensuing years George had wondered, if his mother had wanted a divorce, why she had not started a new life, and gradually he understood that she had been defined if not by grief then by guilt. If anything, he loved her more, and now as her tears fell as the vicar spoke, George sensed they would all feel able to start again.