7

The first thing Paula noted when she woke was that she was in bed. The next thing was that she was still wearing her day clothes. She opened one eye, then the other, and realised it was dark.

How did she get into bed? Had Joe helped her? She felt a flare of embarrassment, that he’d seen her in such a state.

What time was it?

She rolled across the bed to her side. Lay still for a moment and then had the thought that the entire king-sized mattress was hers alone now. Her throat tightened. A cry escaped. She turned onto her side, brought her knees up and allowed the tears to flow.

Once they subsided she tried to work through how she had got to bed. Last thing she could remember was making some toasted cheese for her and Joe: a classic Gadd family snack, usually made in the small hours, after a rare night out. But she remembered daylight. And some staggering. It was a wonder she hadn’t burned the house down.

Joe must have put her to bed. She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue felt as if it was stuck to the roof of her mouth. ‘Joe,’ she croaked. ‘Joe, are you there?’ Managed some loudness. Nothing came back to her but silence.

Paula sat up in bed, but her head started spinning, so she lay back down again. Had another go and twisted so that her feet came off the side of the bed.

‘Jesus,’ she said out loud. She was old enough to know better. Last time she had that much to drink was … wait, when? She couldn’t even remember.

She stretched out and touched the iPod docking station on her bedside cabinet. A small light came on and she could read the number: 01:23.

Bloody hell, it was the middle of the night.

Getting to her feet, all she could think about was that she needed to moisten her mouth, so she crossed the thick pile of her bedroom carpet to the en-suite bathroom. Feeling the deep cushion of the carpet under her feet prompted the memory of an argument that she and Thomas had when they were in the showroom choosing it. She wanted white; Thomas had said she was clumsy and was bound to spill some nail varnish or red wine on it. She remembered his comments sparking a massive row. The saleswoman had cowered behind her desk, not knowing where to look.

She’d won the argument by reminding him of several of their early dates when he had been the one who spilled stuff. He’d grinned, stepped back and said, ‘Look at you, Miss Memory Bank.’ Which of course became a joke between them. She remembered everything, Thomas would say, while he could barely remember what he had that morning for breakfast.

Porridge. It was always porridge. Half milk, half water and a pinch of salt.

How many arguments had they had over nothing? How many days and weeks had they lost to a solid wall of silence? In the end, she’d won, got the white carpet and had managed to spill both red wine and pink nail varnish on it within the first month.

In the bathroom, she flicked on the mirror light. Then she found a tumbler, filled it with cold water and had a long drink. Filled the glass again and had another.

She drank so fast it made her breathless. She put the glass down, stepped away from the sink and sat on the edge of the corner spa bath. Where she and Thomas had make-up sex after the white-carpet argument. She slumped to the floor, sobs coming again. Every part of this house echoed with memory. How could she escape it? Did she even want to?

She lifted the t-shirt she was wearing to her nose and breathed. There he was. Just a fragrant piece of him.

Oh, Thomas.

She pulled at the underarm, positioned it under her nose, breathing in a lungful of air with the cloth as a filter, and she could almost taste him.

He’d worn this the morning of the day he died, as he went through his daily exercise routine. As work pressures began to mount he couldn’t afford to take time off to go to the gym, so he asked a personal trainer to set out a bodyweight routine for him.

She took another sniff and this time she caught Palmolive soap and sweat. And he was in the room, at the sink, shaving. She screwed her eyes shut against the vision.

For some reason she’d always been certain she’d be the one to go first and was reassured each time the thought occurred, because after the suffocating grief she had experienced after Chris died she was sure she’d never be able to survive anything like that again.

After some time on the floor, she pushed herself to her feet. She should go back to bed, set the alarm and get up at seven-thirty like a normal person.

Instead, feeling wide awake, she headed downstairs to the kitchen, half expecting to find Joe slumped in a corner somewhere, but he was nowhere to be seen. She stood by the coffee machine, with the nagging thought that she shouldn’t have a coffee at this time of night.

Warm mug in hand she wandered through the house like a haunting, her footfall silent in the darkness; the only sound, the swish of cloth when her Lycra-clad thighs slid against each other. That and her breathing. Slow and heavy.

In this way, she visited Thomas in her memory. There, in front of the fireplace in the sitting room, toasting someone – she couldn’t remember who – but his smile was expansive, his body language assured. The king in his castle.

Then, she moved to the dining room, walked round the large table, her fingers lightly trailing across the top of the oak veneer. It was large enough for a dozen people to be seated round it comfortably. When they first bought it they had great intentions, but it was only ever used at Christmas.

Halfway up the stairs, she stuck her head out of the door and looked out onto the balcony in case Joe was there. His seat was empty. He must have taken a taxi home. She carried on up the stairs and into her study. It had two large desks: his and hers. One for Thomas on the off chance he ever did any work at home. It was almost bare. A black leather folder and a fountain pen sat in the middle as if waiting for the owner to use them. She opened the folder in case Thomas had left her something: a note perhaps? But the pad of lined paper inside was pristine. A torn ridge at the top did show that he had used it though, but whatever was on the ripped-out paper was lost to her.

On the left side of the folder was a zipped pocket. She opened it and pulled out a chequebook and – she looked at the date – an expired cheque card. She opened the chequebook and looked at the last stub to be used. Miller’s Garden Centre, and it was dated two years previously. Whenever she could face it, she really should dispose of these.

Her desk, in comparison was an essay in organised chaos. She knew exactly where anything she might need might be in each pile and resisted her cleaner’s efforts at tidying. In fact, she was expressly forbidden to do anything in this room in case she messed up Paula’s system.

Paula sat down, lifted the lid of her laptop and the light from it was sufficient to show her phone sitting to her right. She put a hand on it as if preparing to read any messages or texts, but she couldn’t face anyone’s sympathy right now and pushed it away from her. But as she did, she awoke the screen and noticed that one of the many text notifications was from one of her oldest friends, Shelley Collins. She shook off the notion of speaking to Shelley. She couldn’t face her, or anyone for that matter.

The laptop opened at the documents she’d last been working on. What day might that have been? She shook her head, struggling to recall. Recent days were a blur of painful breaths and sympathetic faces.

The document was from the crematorium. She’d had to fill it in, print it off, and hand it back to them.

Sentences popped out at her again: The container and the body shall be placed in a cremator and cremation commenced no later than seventy-two hours after the service of committal.

With louring curiosity she continued reading.

Cremation of a dead body is carried out at a temperature ranging between 1,400 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense heat helps reduce the body to its basic elements and dried bone fragments.

Then:

The remains will automatically be strewn in the Garden of Remembrance four weeks from the day of cremation. However, if you wish to be present at the dispersal please tick the RETAIN option, which will ensure the remains are not scattered and instead can be collected by the family.

Her heart thumped. Her breath quickened. For heaven’s sake, she’d completed this in the days after Thomas died. What had she indicated she wanted done? How on earth did they expect people to give a considered response to these things at a time like this? Had she said she wanted them scattered? For the life of her she couldn’t remember. And how many days did she have to collect them?

She didn’t even know what day this was.

Bloody hell.

She sat back in the chair. Did she want the ashes home with her? Or should she take them somewhere that was significant to them both and scatter them there.

But where?

When Christopher died, Thomas wanted a burial. He couldn’t articulate why, just that was what he was sure Christopher would have wanted. Paula had agreed, mainly because she didn’t have the strength to argue her case. Anyway, what did it matter? A slow decomposition or rapid incineration? Either way, the inescapable fact remained: Thomas was gone: snuffed out with the bone-crushing pain of seized heart muscle.

She searched her mind for happy memories.

When they were three.

In those days they had little cash – everything was invested back into the business – and had always gone on modest holidays: long weekends to a caravan at Lochgoilhead, Butlin’s down in Ayr, or their favourite place, a bed and breakfast near Ettrick Bay on Bute. At that thought she recalled Christopher on the beach there. His face smudged with a mixture of sand and chocolate, tongue sticking out of the side of his mouth as he concentrated on building a small wall of sand for his little fort on the beach.

She sighed, and tucked the memory away, like placing a photo back in a well-thumbed album.

Then, after Chris died and Thomas lost himself in work, the cash flooded in and he would take her to far-flung places; the Caribbean, the Cote D’Azur, Bali.

They were all lovely, Paula thought, she would go there, enjoy it, but miss the simplicity and familiarity of those beauty spots they’d enjoyed and explored when they were still a family.

Bute was gorgeous. She always felt a lightening when their car drove off that ferry. But the money went to their heads and they took holidays that other people recommended rather than the ones that had always made them happy.

Her mind slipped to the woman from the funeral – whoever she was – and that note she’d slipped into her pocket. ‘I’m not having it,’ she shouted into the room. When would Thomas ever have the time to have an affair? There was nothing she needed to learn about her husband.

She started crying. The tears came from nowhere. One second she was shouting defiance into the world. The next she was hunched over the desk, wheezing with grief – the switch in emotion a seamless transition.

She wiped at her cheek with the pad of her right hand, then, as if to get away from her thoughts, she turned and looked out of the room, across the landing and into their bedroom. From where she was sitting she could see past an open door that led to Thomas’s section of their large walk-in-wardrobe, and the beginning of a row of beautiful suits.

This prompted a memory of Thomas in one of them. Navy, three-piece, worn with a white shirt and a gold-and-blue tie. He was sporting a trim beard, grey hair spiking through the dark, matching the silvering tint at his temples.

His handsome face was tight with anger. Then, like a row of index cards sliding through her mind in order, the facts presented themselves. They were out at a dinner celebrating an anniversary. He had been withdrawn all evening, his mood worsening as each course arrived. She’d challenged him.

‘I’m fine,’ he’d stated.

‘Well, tell your face that,’ she replied.

Without another word he jumped to his feet and all but fled from the room.

She gave him a couple of minutes, then throwing her napkin onto the table, she apologised to her fellow diners and followed him.

He was at the door to the gents’, towering over a young man, giving him the hair-dryer treatment. At first she thought he might be one of the waiters, but he was wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt. Who was he? Rather than charging in, which was what she would have normally done, something made her stop before she got too close. The poor guy was terrified, all but melting under her husband’s fury.

Paula took a step back, retreated just around the corner, and listened. It was difficult to make out exactly what was being said. The young man said, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’ Or something like that. He said he was sorry, over and over again, like he hoped it might be a good luck charm. But with each ‘sorry’, Thomas appeared more and more angry. Finally, Paula heard, ‘Do it, or you’re fucking dead, son.’ And then a noise as if someone had fallen.

Without thought, she rounded the corner asking, ‘What the hell is going on here?’

The kid, because now she was closer she could see he was no more than a boy, scrambled to his feet, turned and fled.

‘Mind your own business, wife,’ Thomas replied.

‘Wife?’ Paula got in his face. ‘Wife? Who do you think you’re talking to?’ This was so out of character it was like a department-store Santa spitting into the face of a child. Thomas was often short with her, but being this dismissive made her feel like another man had taken over his body.

‘Leave me the fuck alone,’ he shouted, turned, pushed the door open and walked into the gents’.

Paula considered joining him, but decided not to. Whatever was stewing in his mind obviously needed release.

When he came back out of the toilet about ten minutes later, he was back to normal. She made several attempts to discuss what had gone on, but he rebuffed each of them. His good cheer now so hard and forced, it was difficult for Paula to speak.

‘The boy spilled soup on my suit,’ he said. ‘It’s sorted. Stop going on about it.’

From the distance of time, Paula now reviewed that evening. Was it anything more than a bad day? For the life of her she couldn’t remember any spill that evening. What had really happened? Her memory was fogged, but she would never forget the raw look of fear on that boy’s face.

She slumped till her head fell onto her desk. The wood cool and smooth, and a solid reminder that she was still in the world.

That moment in the restaurant was so remote from his normal behaviour. What had prompted the memory now? A stranger’s assertion that she didn’t really know her husband?

Paula located her mobile, then all but ran through to her bedroom, found her dressing gown on the floor beside her bed, rummaged for the pocket and found the note. She read the number and dialled as she trod back through to the study. As she sat down in front of her laptop the phone was answered.

‘Yes?’ A young woman said, wariness a low note in a voice worn with sleep.

‘It’s Paula Gadd here.’

‘Right.’ She was awake now. And even in that single syllable Paula heard hesitancy warring with … what? Relief?

‘Okay. I’ll hear you out. I want to know what you’ve got to say. Could you come to my house?’

And suddenly the need to find out surged up through Paula’s chest. The need to see this woman face to face; hear what she had to say. Watch her as she said it.

‘Now, please?’

‘But it’s the middle of the…’

Fair enough, thought Paula. She was being unreasonable. ‘First thing in the morning then? Eight?’

She gave the address, then cut the connection without saying another word. Worry was a cold coiling through her stomach reaching up towards her heart. Thomas was a good man. A loyal man. The alternative was too ugly to contemplate.

Shaking her head against her ruminations a movement across her computer screen drew her attention.

The mouse arrow was moving as if of its own accord. She looked down. She hadn’t touched anything, but it was definitely moving to programmes on the main screen. She watched open-mouthed. What on earth was happening here?

Microsoft Word, spreadsheets, and then her internet connection were being opened. Google filled her screen. One bank after another filled the search bar. Then it settled for the Bank of Scotland, as if it recognised a regular connection.

What on earth…?

The shock of this realisation pulled her from her inertia. She must be being hacked remotely as she watched. Who could even do that? And why?

She closed the lid. Then realised that wouldn’t be enough to stop whoever it was. Panicked, she turned the laptop on its side. Fiddling with the catches, her fingers refusing to obey her quickly enough, she finally managed to pop the battery out of its bed. She stared at the laptop for a moment, realising she was panting and that her heart was racing.

Her phone rang out loud into the room. She jumped. As her heartbeat thumped in her ears she answered it without even checking who it was.

‘Hello?’ she said, trying to keep her voice level.

Nothing. There was no response.

Wait. There. The slight sound of someone breathing.

‘Go away,’ she screamed into the phone. With trembling fingers she cut the connection.

What in God’s name was happening?