The Day She Died

Eleven

Thursday, 6 October

By six o’clock the next morning, when I woke up in the grey light of near-dawn, it all seemed like a dream.

It had started when he put his hand out, feeling for mine, on top of the covers. I’d been lying as far away from him as I could get, but I reached out and grasped his fingers, making my heart rattle high up inside me, really fast, kind of scary.

He took my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles.

“I don’t want to have to go to a church,” he said. For one wild moment I thought he meant a wedding. “Or take whatever minister they dish out at the crem.”

“Was Becky religious?”

“Dunno. We never talked about it. Are you?”

“They tried,” I said. “It didn’t take.”

“I don’t think I could sit through God’s plan and everlasting life and all that. Couldn’t make the kids sit through it.”

“Oh! Are you taking-” I caught my tongue, but not in time.

“Would you?” he said. “Would you not?”

“I really wouldn’t,” I said. “They’re too young.”

“Will you watch them for me then?” he said. “Whenever it ends up being?”

“Course,” I could hardly say no. “And I’ll look up the humanists. That’s the ones you’re after.”

“Cool,” said Gus.

“You won’t be offending anyone, will you?” I said. “Cos you could pick a good bit: let not your heart be troubled. That bit. In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you.”

“Christ, they really did try, didn’t they?” He turned on his side to look at me. “Don’t tell me you know the whole thing off by heart.”

I laughed. “Just the sound bites.”

“But you’re not a big fan?”

“For God so loved the world,” I said, “that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Gus let go of my hand to prop his head up. “That’s exactly what I didn’t want,” he said. “That’s what I just said.”

“I’m agreeing,” I told him. I shuffled round and propped myself up too, even though sitting like that gives me pins and needles in my arm. “That’s why I’m not a fan, is what I’m saying.” He shook his head. “Okay,” I said, “For God so loved the world, right? Pretend you’ve never heard any of it and try to finish the sentence. “For God so loved the world that… ” I waited. “Well?”

“He… ” said Gus, “cured all the diseases and banned evil?”

“Exactly.” I lay back down. “How long would it take you come up with the right answer? From our studio audience of one hundred, zero people chose gave his only begotten son. Might as well say, God so loved the world that he painted butterflies on all the wheeliebins, that whosoever saw the butterflies should not perish. Makes as much sense.”

“Well, sacrificing your only-”

“Makes you a shit dad not a great god. And it’s not like he couldn’t have had another one if he’d wanted to. Only you’re not supposed to focus on that bit.”

“So what… was it nuns, or something?” said Gus. He had put his hand flat on my belly.

“God no. Nuns would have been great. Nuns would have been a party. These were Brethren. My dad skipped off. Couldn’t stand it. Brother swallowed it whole. I just wound them up. Wound her up. My mother.”

“Likes of how?” said Gus. He had curled his hand round my side and was using me as leverage to pull himself closer.

“Didn’t take much,” I said. “When she told me Jesus died for my sins, I’d say ‘Aye, for three days, big whoop!’ That kind of thing.”

“You know who you remind me of?” said Gus. He was hanging right over me. A bit of hair was tickling one of my cheeks.

“No,” I said, thinking please God, not Becky.

“Roobs,” he said, and he leaned down and kissed me quite hard, for quite a long time, with his lips open, until I had to breathe out through my nose and it made that sort of whistling sound. And it was so weird that he would tell me I made him think of his four-year-old daughter and then kiss me like that, that it sort of overshadowed how weird it was that, lying there in him and Becky’s bed, he would kiss me at all. And I’d been wrong about needing to get ready. I think I was so electric already just with the thought of it that when he touched me, I went too far, nearly numb.

“So what do they think of you working for St. Vincey’s now?” he asked, when he broke off. “Or aren’t Brethren funny that way?”

“Brethren are funny every way,” I said. “But they-she-gave up on me years ago.”

He shifted until he was lying on top of me, a smooth move that should have been awkward. He should have grunted and had to sort his arms and legs out. Something anyway. But he did it in one gliding move, like a snake.

“All the more for me,” he said and, when he kissed me this time, there was a rhythm to it, pushing against me and pulling away, and the rest of his body moved to the same pulse, and I kept thinking about how a snake moves through grass until I joined in and then I was part of it too, and it didn’t feel weird anymore.

Of course, he had pyjamas on, and I had kept the new knickers I’d filched from work on under the long t-shirt I’d borrowed from him, so it wasn’t all undulation. There was a bit of wriggling and buttons and that. And then it turned out, of course, that the condoms were on my side, in a drawer, so that was awkward. And after we got all that sorted out, it was actually kind of crap, to be perfectly honest. Pretty basic, completely silent, and nothing to distract me from what I was doing. So between that and the conversation we’d just been having, my mother appeared for the first time in years. Just her face, just behind his shoulder, looking at me like it was all she could do not to retch. And as soon as I’d had that thought, retching was all I could think about, so I held my breath and gritted my teeth, and if he had kept going, I think I would have got up in the morning and left, never seen them again.

But he stopped.

“What?” he said, pulling right up until his arms were straight and looking down at me.

“Ghosts,” I told him. “Sorry.”

He drew carefully away from me, shifted over until he was just to the side and lay down with one arm and one leg still over my body.

“Did some guy hurt you, Jessie?” he said. “Is the… can I say the word?”

“Feathers?”

“Is that a bed thing?”

“Not the way you mean,” I said. “No guy ever hurt me, no.”

Inside

She sipped the water like it was Highland Park, forty years old, rolling it round her mouth. She was good at making things last. So much counselling, so many hours of therapy, so good at tricking her own brain into choking off at the neck whatever her body was going through. So she sipped and savoured and delayed the precious moment when she would finish the first one. Great excitement then. Now she had a bottle she could use for something. Make something. Change something. And she had cardboard too. And the wrappers from the muesli bars. Oh, she had plenty to keep her busy. And she could do sit-ups and yoga. She could make up poetry and set it to music. She could think of fruits beginning… apple, banana, citron, damson. Dances beginning… American Smooth, Black Bottom, Cha-cha-cha, Dashing White Sergeant, Eightsome Reel, Foxtrot, Gay Gordons, Hesitation Waltz. And try to do the steps. Until she stumbled on the toilet and turned her ankle.

After that she curled up in a ball and cried for a while. Roared and screamed and wailed. That had a name in some kind of therapy too.

At six o’clock in the morning, he was flat on his back, covers at his waist, bare chest rising and falling, slow and steady. I turned away and swung my legs down, trying to make my movements as small as they could be. I had just transferred my weight to my feet, just clenched my bum to lift it off the bed, when he laid his warm hand on me.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“I need a pee.” The hand was gone, but I could still feel the tingle of it, a perfect print of it, all five fingers and the palm, and it made me think of glitter scattered over glue. I scrabbled on the floor for the t-shirt and yesterday’s knickers. “Plus the kids,” I said. “D’you want a cup of tea?”

“Coffee,” he said and turned over, until he was lying face down with his arms under his pillow. He had old acne scars on his back, flat purple patches all over his shoulder blades, a few down as far as the dip in his waist.

“I’m glad to see you don’t have a hairy back,” I said.

He grunted, could have been a laugh. “Yet,” he said. “Dave was like a gorilla by the time he was seventy, and I take after him.” I pulled the t-shirt on over my head. “Would you love me if I turned into a seventy-year-old gorilla?” Like it was really happening, not just a day dream at all.

“Sure,” I said. “If you wax it.” And I left the room before he said any more.

“No school today, Ruby-duby-doo,” he said when he finally appeared. I had the kids up, washed, and eating toast and jam in the kitchen. He was wearing those canvas trousers and a work shirt again, no tweedy suit today, but he’d shaved and his hair was pulled back from his forehead, the top half in a ponytail that hung down over the curtain of the bottom half. That hairdo that was just for girls until the Italian footballers started doing it. “Cheers for the coffee, Jessie,” he said, putting the cup in the sink.

“Am I not getting back?” said Ruby in a tiny little voice.

“Hm?” said Gus. He’d forgotten, as much as he had on his mind.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “Miss Colquhoun said she’d miss you so much she might come out on Saturday and see you. She’ll be sad every day until you’re back again.”

“But this is Jessie’s day off,” said Gus, “and you get to stay here with her.”

“No,” said Ruby.

“You’ve got to, Roobs,” he said. “Daddy needs the car.”

“Did Mummy take her car to heaven?” she said. I glanced at Gus. Where was Becky’s car? Still at the bottom of the drop? Police station? Junkyard?

“Yes,” I said.

“Stupid,” said Ruby. “In heaven, you can fly.”

“Do you want some toast?” I said to Gus. “Listen, if you tell me where the van keys are, I’ll do some bits of shopping or whatever.”

“The van’s not really… you can’t get both kids’ seats in it.”

“Could you use it and I’ll take the car?” I asked him.

“Does Mummy need her car to come and visit us?” said Ruby.

“Mummy coming!” Dillon said.

“Do we actually need any shopping?” said Gus.

“Fine,” I said. “No problem. I’ll stay here till you’re back. Be great fun, eh kids? You can show me the best bits of the beach.”

“When the shop’s open’s the best bit,” said Ruby. She gave her toast crust a look of distilled hatred and dropped it on the floor. “Mummy cuts them off, by the way.”

“Bet Mummy doesn’t drop them on the floor, though,” I said.

“Didn’t,” said Gus. “Mummy’s gone, Roobs.”

“A puppy would eat them up,” Ruby said.

“Yeay!” said Dillon. “Puppy-dog! Woof-woof.”

“Can we get one, Dad? Can you look in the paper at the resky dogs? Maybe there’s a resky dog?”

“I’m off,” said Gus. “See you tonight.”

I followed him from the kitchen through the living room to the front door.

“Tonight?” I said. “You think it’ll take all day?” I could have chewed off my tongue when I saw the look on his face, everything falling blank.

“How long should I give it?” he said. “Persuading them to do a post-mortem, I mean. Before I call it quits?”

“I’m sorry. I just hope they’re okay with me as long as that. I hope nothing happens that I can’t handle. Cos I don’t think they could take more bad stuff, you know.”

He smiled. “Them?” he said. “They’ll be fine. I hope you’re okay. Don’t let Ruby walk all over you.”

“Okay.” I leaned in to the hug he was offering. Easy, affectionate, not a trace of new, awkward feelings. I might as well have been handing him his packed lunch and reminding him we were having the Joneses over for bridge that night. Christ, I was even holding a tea towel.

“What’s a resky dog?” I said.

“Rescue,” said Gus. “For God’s sake, don’t read the adverts out the paper to her.”

I nodded. “How does she even know about them?” I asked.

“God knows,” said Gus and was gone. I wandered back through to the kitchen and put the tea towel over the rack. I’d babysit. I’d have another go at the milk stain on the couch-I’d noticed the sour smell, even stronger, as I passed through-but I wasn’t giving it Calamity Jane’s cabin all day long. Suddenly, playing houses-playing mummies and daddies-didn’t sit that easy. It was like I was in a dream and I kept waking up for a minute and seeing that it made no sense at all, but before I could shake it off I was asleep again.

“So who told you about rescue puppies, Ruby-two-shoes?” I said.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. “Mummy,” she said. “Come on, Dill. Let’s go and play.”

I unstrapped Dillon and set him down, let them wander off with jammy hands and crumbs in the folds of their clothes. I wiped the table and the high-chair tray, shook the crumbs out the back door for the birds, thinking about a woman who would tend a garden and look for a puppy while she was planning to kill herself. A woman who would let herself get pregnant two more times after a depression that crushed her. Someone who would end her life instead of getting out of a marriage she was sick of.

But she’d left a note.

And who knows how it would feel to be married to someone that didn’t love you. Even a great guy like Gus. Or a moody bastard like Gus, who hated you asking anything he wasn’t ready to tell you. Which one was he, when you got right down to it, really?

I stared out of the kitchen window, thinking of how he had told me he didn’t want to bring the novelty pen through the room, even in a bag. That’s who he was. And how could living with a guy like that be bad? I could just see one corner of the grey plastic lid. It was still in there. I felt a pulse starting to thump in my neck. Stupid bi-

Then I stopped myself. Instead of that, I told myself: it’s hidden away and it can’t float out. It can’t hurt you. And for the first time in your life, you’ve got someone to help you. Someone even willing to give his kids a talking-to about it. So don’t waste his efforts and freak yourself out, eh?

But I could feel the misery unrolling over me like fog. Gus had been great, but it wouldn’t last. He’d get sick of me like everyone always did. There’d be some day, some advert on the telly, or some fancy-dress costume, some daft comedy that suddenly had a slow-motion pillow fight where you could see them hit people’s face and they’d have them stuck to their eyelashes and be spitting them out of their mouths, and I’d lose it. And Gus would have had a long day or a bit of bad news or be stressed like last night (Did you switch that bloody monitor off when you were touching it?) and he’d wish that just for once I would give it a rest, and he’d roll his eyes or crack a joke and this lovely, impossible bubble would burst and then there’d be nothing.

Unless. I could feel the blood draining out of my face and my hands turned cold. Unless I made the most of this miracle-having someone who cared-and tried again. There was a novelty pen, in a bag, in the wheeliebin, ten feet from where I was standing. I could open the lid and find out if the bag was see-through. If it was, I could look at what was inside and count to a hundred. And then tonight I could tell Gus what I’d done, and instead of so what I’d get a great big cheer.

And if the bag wasn’t see-through, then at least I tried.

I’d walk on the beach and I wouldn’t avoid the sticks and seaweed at the high tide line, which is where they always were. I wouldn’t look at them, like some OCD freak, and I wouldn’t look away from them either. I’d act like a normal person. And I’d tell Gus later how brave I’d been.

“I’m just nipping out the back, kids,” I shouted. My voice was warbly with adrenalin; I sounded like a pigeon. There was no answer. I stepped outside into the porch and then outside again to where the wheelie stood against the wall, next to the wood store. I gripped the lip with both hands and breathed in and out.

“Gus King cares about you,” I said out loud. “Sick timing, but it’s true. You’re not alone anymore. It’s all going to be okay.”

I lifted the lid with my eyes screwed tight shut, then leaned over the rim and opened them.