After Dan’s death, Peter tried to persuade me to go away with him, but I couldn’t. He was kind, wanting to be close to me, but I avoided him. I couldn’t have sex any more; I didn’t dare allow myself to feel, either physically or mentally.
So I went back to part-time work at the hospital and was soon offered a full-time job as personal assistant to three consultants in the ophthalmology department. I joined the tennis club, although I hadn’t played tennis for years; I went to art classes. Friends were kind and asked us out a lot. I entertained them in return, denying the emptiness of the house when they left. It was all a dream.
Peter couldn’t bear my coldness, you see; it’s perfectly understandable. He had to escape, I understand that now. I don’t blame him at all for staying away and then preferring to be with someone else. I never blamed him. I was numb to it. But the beautiful house, Dan and Fleur’s house, became unbearable. The river. The boat. The bedrooms were always tidy. There was nothing to do. No one to shop or cook for, no washing, ironing. I was an empty shell within an empty shell and in the end the house was sold; the boat was sold. I moved to where I am now and Peter remarried just afterwards. I sent him a card saying I would never again be as happy as I had been with him and the kids. And I was sorry. At least I did that.
You know, for a while I thought I’d cracked it, that I was doing really well. I was so busy. I never stopped. But then inevitably the exhaustion set in, so much so that I can remember the night I came back from work and sat in the chair, quiet, empty, but I not having to do anything. I didn’t have to talk or be jolly or anything. I just sat there and I remember thinking, This is your home. You are safe here. I was too tired to run away any more. Even if it meant being alone for ever. That’s how it felt, a strange kind of relief. From trying. So, home became a cave in which I could hide. In the end, home became a kind of escape and I went out less and less as feelings of panic connected with the outside became increasingly hard to control. Friends assumed that I was ‘all right now’, as I seemed more content to be at home. At work, I was as bright and breezy as ever, I’m sure that’s true. Everyone knew, of course, but nothing was ever said. And the rawness disappeared and I thought about Dan and Fleur as if they belonged to another life, dispassionately.
When people asked me if I had any children, I always hesitated. If I said no, I was killing them off once more, denying them. If I told the truth: ‘I had two children but they were both killed in a car accident,’ the general responses of, ‘Oh! I’m so sorry,’ or, ‘How dreadful!’ were as vacuous as would be my retort of, ‘Yes, pretty dreadful, really,’ and so I avoided the questions at all costs.
For a time, I got into the habit of lying. Making up a complete life history for them both, based, of course, on what I guessed might well have been the truth, had they lived. That was rather fun; it brought them alive, made them people again. It was the only opportunity I had of referring to them, because those who knew never mentioned them. It was as if they had never existed. But with others? Strangers? How far would I be able to take the lies? It was all right pretending about such things as O levels and A levels; I might even get away with the university bit. ‘Oh! reading theology at Leeds,’ but then what? What about girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands, wives, children? Could I be the fictitious grandmother I would like to be? Already at dinner parties I sat and listened as the chatting guests flaunted their various children. Masses of photographs passed round, school plays and choirs, sports medals and exam successes, holidays, parties and general get-togethers accompanied by detailed explanations of their ‘funny little ways’. I had nothing to say. Nothing at all. And nobody seemed to notice.