Rosie filled the kettle and flicked it on, while I got two cups out of the cupboard and then opened the fridge and pulled out the plate of eclairs that had been left over from my afternoon booking today. It had been an eightieth birthday party for a lovely man in a nursing home in Acton.
‘Did the party go okay?’ Rosie asked.
I stopped, put the eclairs on the kitchen worktop and rested my head against the wall cupboard, desperately hoping that the coolness of the wood would salve the pain of the memory.
‘It wasn’t my finest moment,’ I replied.
‘Oh God, what happened?’
What happened? I really wasn’t sure. Since Colm’s illness, I’d learned that no one explains how this living grief thing works, or gives any warning of the flashpoints to look out for. No one tells you that you’ll be perfectly fine, going about some daily task and then before you’ve got time to catch yourself, you’ve slid down a wall and you’re helpless to do anything but hold your stomach and roar until the pain subsides. Or that you’ll be driving along and suddenly notice that tears are streaming down your face in a torrent that forces you to pull over and weep, pitifully breaking your heart, until your throat is raw and you can barely breathe.
No one tells you any of that, but I’ve been finding it out by myself, every day, every night, in the six weeks since Colm’s operation.
Today I was ambushed. ‘Turns out the birthday gent was an Elvis fan. I’ve no idea why that matters. But he blew out his candles and the next minutes we were all singing ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. And then ‘Jailhouse Rock’. ‘Viva Las Vegas’ was a spectacle involving his lady friend and some nifty dance moves.’
‘This is all sounding great so far,’ Rosie said hopefully.
‘And then I looked at him, dancing away, singing his heart out, making sure the party was in full swing and I thought… that’s exactly what Colm will be like when he’s that age. Then I realized…’ I stopped to shove the palms of my hands in my eyes to stem the torrent that was stinging once again. ‘… I realized that he won’t be. He’ll never do that. He’ll be gone.’
We’d never grow old together. I wouldn’t bake him a cake when he turned eighty. Or seventy. Or even fifty. We wouldn’t get those years, all those Christmas Days, the summer holidays. He wouldn’t be at Beth’s wedding, and our grandchildren would never know him. He’d be gone. A memory. And every day took us closer to the moment we’d say goodbye.
The pain was so acute it felt physical, the stab of a hot blade of loss, inserted between my ribs and twisting, slowly, making sure every sinew screamed for it to stop.
Rosie wrapped her arms around me and held me until I had to step back. That’s the other thing no one tells you – sympathy makes it worse. I can be holding it together, strong and coping, and then someone is kind, or understanding, or puts a hand on your arm and says they’re sorry and your heart is right back down on the floor, broken in two, bleeding on the pavement.
I exhaled, blowing the pain out, roughly wiping my face, desperate to get some composure back before Colm came home. Today was his last radiotherapy treatment, a cause for celebration, he said.
‘How’s Colm been?’ Rosie asked, back on the task of pouring tea. She brought the two steaming red mugs over to the battered but loved oak table and sat across from me.
‘He’s been Colm,’ I answered truthfully. ‘He doesn’t want to talk about it. Says he’s feeling better every day.’ On the outside, the physical changes would back that theory up. He now looked so much better than he had a month ago. The radiotherapy had taken out a letter-box of hair across the back of his scalp, a loss that the doctors said would be permanent. But that aside, the rest of his hair had grown back and the wound had healed, he’d regained the weight he lost after the op and he was looking more rested and stronger than he had for months.
‘Do you think he’s in denial?’ Rosie asked.
I shook my head, sure that it wasn’t the case. Every spare minute over the last month and a half I had spent researching this tumour and the effects on the patient, both physical and psychological. Denial was a typical reaction. As were anger, fear, depression, sorrow, resentment and rage. Colm had definitely shown flashes of anger. There was no doubt there had been a personality shift towards irritation and intolerance, and I wasn’t sure if that was caused by the operation, the tumour or the medication he was taking. Whatever it was, I could handle it. I was pretty fucking angry too. However, other aspects of his behaviour were less easy to wrap my head around.
‘I don’t. I think it’s more complicated than that. You know, over the years it’s not always been easy to handle the way Colm shrugs stuff off. Doesn’t let it touch him. Just sails through life on an even keel, blocking out anything that is in the least bit uncomfortable. It’s always driven me crazy.’ I wasn’t sure I was explaining it well, but Rosie had known Colm for as long as I had, so she’d been a spectator to his determination to meander through life avoiding pain and staying far away from anyone else’s heartache. Once upon a time, that’s how I handled life too. Before responsibilities and necessities made me grow up.
I kept going, needing to talk, ‘When sad things happen, it’s like he shrugs it off, doesn’t let it stick to him. Oh the fucking irony that the saddest thing of all has happened to him. And that’s how he’s dealing with it now. It’s in a box in his mind, and he’s not for opening it. Compartmentalized. Move along people, nothing to see here. Everything’s under control. I’d almost wish he raged or made a plan or cried or did something that let me communicate with him, work through it, but he doesn’t want that. He just wants normality.’
I lifted an éclair, realized I didn’t have the stomach for it and put it back on the plate.
‘So I just get up every morning, slap a smile on my face, and get through the day. Pretending there’s nothing wrong, when it couldn’t be more so. Inside, everything is screaming at me. What’s going to happen to him? How could we possibly live without him? Will he hurt? Will he need special care? How will Beth cope with losing him? What impact will this have on the rest of her life? How will we tell the boys? How can we help them deal with the grief? And this one’s way down the list, but how will I support us on my own in my negative-fucking-equity house with our outstanding business loan and credit card debt that could take down a small nation? How will we pay the mortgage and the bills? I just want to make everything okay. But most of all, I just want him to live, to be here. I want to fix this, Rosie, but I can’t.’
That summed it up. I couldn’t fix this. Early in our relationship, I’d slipped into the fixer role, become the person who organized, planned, solved problems, sorted out everything in this family and yet here was the biggest problem we’d ever faced and I was powerless to resolve it.
Rosie’s face was etched with concern. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Just… love him. Every day. And hope. Maybe drink a lot of wine, too.’ I said, desperately trying to add a light-hearted moment. God, I was getting as bad as Colm, joking when completely inappropriate. Fourteen years and he was finally rubbing off on me.
‘Anyway,’ I said, shoulders back, gasping for a breath of normal air. ‘Enough about the sadness. I need to go collect Beth soon, but first I want to know, when are you going to tell me about you?’ I asked, with mock reproach.
‘Tell you what?’ She actually looked worried.
‘What’s happening with Jack? Are you going to move in together?’
She lowered her eyes as she shrugged. ‘Urgh, I don’t know. I really don’t. It just doesn’t feel… right. I think maybe I’m not the settling-down type.’
If I wasn’t sitting in the middle of a bench, I may well have fallen off my seat.
All Rosie had ever wanted was to meet the right guy, get married, raise a family in a white house with a picket fence and have adequate pension provisions. She’d craved that her whole life, but now she wasn’t ready? It didn’t make sense. This was like a mid-life crisis in reverse.
I held my mug to my chest, warmed by the heat.
‘Right, what’s going on?’ I demanded, intrigued.
‘Nothing,’ she protested, laughing. ‘Can’t a girl be independent and reject a guy’s proposal?’
‘Of course! But it’s just that you’ve always wanted to do the whole marriage and babies thing.’
‘Maybe once…’ she said. I didn’t have time to probe deeper, as at that moment, Lulu and Colm arrived, bursting through the back door with a sledgehammer of energy and hilarity.
For the millionth time, I thought how lucky Colm and I were to have Lulu. In truth, she may not be much of a wife, but she was a great friend and she was throwing herself into her new role as Colm’s chauffeur with real gusto. She was cheering him up, making him laugh, and was there every time he – or I – needed her.
‘Ta -da!’ Beth exclaimed, bursting out with jazz hands from behind Colm’s legs.
‘Baby!’ I greeted her, holding my arms wide open and bracing myself for the incoming charge as she rushed towards me. My favourite moment of every day, no question.
‘I was just coming to get you!’ I told her, puzzled. Had I arranged something else? God, I was so tired this was like being back in those days after she was born and I was so sleep-deprived I would find my hairbrush in the freezer.
Colm tossed his jacket on a chair. ‘Yeah, we were literally passing the school, so we thought we’d pop in and collect her a little early. Teacher said it was fine. I told her we had an emergency situation.’
‘What emergency situation?’ He looked fine. They were laughing. Please don’t let that be an act. Please don’t let there be something else wrong. Come on, nothing else.
Colm shrugged and scooped Beth off the floor. ‘I needed to see my girl! That was the emergency!’
‘It was only a white lie, mummy. Our secret. Just can’t tell Mrs Rodgers.’
I decided these were exceptional times. Taking your child out of school early and lying to teachers? Not acceptable in normal circumstances. Colm, happy, upbeat, after his last day of radiotherapy, picking his daughter up early to celebrate? Go right ahead, savour every moment, because there was no knowing how many more days they’d have like this.
Lulu flicked the kettle on, then slid into a chair next to Rosie. Meanwhile, Beth jumped on my knee and I hugged her tightly.
‘How was your day, honey?
Fantaaaaaaaaastic!’ she raved. ‘The very best ever!’
‘Oooh and why’s that then?’ I asked her, tickling her stomach and making her squeal with delight.
‘Can’t tell you,’ she said, before creasing into an adorable fit of the giggles.
‘Pardon? Of course you can. You can tell your mamma anything.’
‘Can’t,’ she said.
‘Can.’
‘Cant.’
‘We could be here all night, baby.’
That moved her off message, and she turned to Colm, eyes wild and pleading.
‘Can I tell her daddy? Can I?’ she begged. ‘Auntie Lu, let me tell her please!’
‘What are you all so buzzed up about? What’s going on?’
‘We’re going to Disney World! We’re going to see Mickey Mouse! And Minnie. And I’m going to be a Princess!’
‘We are?’ I kept the smile on my face, while raising a questioning eye to Colm.
He said, ‘You know, I decided we needed a fantastic holiday. A holiday of a lifetime. Give us some great memories to look back on.’
The smile stayed put while the shot of pain ransacked my guts. I got it. Oh God, I got it. Memories. For Beth. He wanted our daughter to have a lifetime of knowing her daddy took her to Disney.
The pain in my guts reshaped into a ball of steel wool and lodged in my throat.
‘Thought we could book it online tonight,’ Colm was saying now.
‘Of course we can.’ I managed to force out, before reality dawned. In cartoons, some people had an angel on one should and a devil on the other. I had a small disapproving accountant sitting on both of mine, and right now they were just about having heart attacks.
I silently argued with the accountants’ silent disapproval. Disney. Paris. A couple of days. I’d find the money. I’d cut back on costs, work a couple of extra shifts, maybe try to sell some of the stuff that was cluttering up the back shed. I’d find a way.
‘Good idea,’ I enthused, let’s do it! After Auntie Lulu and Auntie Rosie have had a cup of tea, I’ll get right on it.’
‘Yaaaayyyyy!’ Beth cheered.
‘I can’t wait to tell Marcy. She’s always wanted to go there.’
‘But, honey, Marcy went to Disney last summer.’
Beth stuck out her bottom lip, suddenly serious, as if she had great knowledge to impart. ‘No, mummy. Marcy went to France. Daddy says we’re going to Florida. For two weeks!’
Keep breathing. Keep smiling. Keep breathing. Keep smiling.
My gaze went back to Colm. ‘Really?’ Still breathing. Still smiling. It was like every thought I was having was getting stuck on a repetitive loop, playing again and again until my brain managed to absorb it.
‘Yeah, well I thought we may as well do it properly. What do ya reckon?’
I reckoned he’d already told Beth. I reckoned he needed this. I reckoned he hadn’t thought any of this through. I reckoned that even if it killed me, I’d find a way to make this happen because he wanted it and that was all that mattered.
‘Well…’ I could see he was bracing himself for objections, while Beth was watching my face expectantly. ‘I reckon it’s the best idea you’ve ever had.’