11 September
‘Ah, Peter, do come in,’ said Molly, genuinely delighted to see him, though she’d had a feeling somehow that he would be back among them. He and Laurie both. ‘You’re the first to arrive.’ Her eyes went from his face to the bunch of flowers he was carrying in one hand.
‘I know. I came extra early to explain about last week,’ said Pete.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘These are for you, to apologise,’ he said, holding the flowers out towards her. ‘I’m not the messing around type usually.’
Molly chuckled. ‘Oh bless you, that really isn’t necessary at all. But thank you, I shan’t refuse them as I do love flowers. It wasn’t the first time and it certainly won’t be the last that someone decides not to come again. Talking things through this way isn’t for everyone. But more often than not, some—’
Molly’s words were cut off as the doorbell gave a merry jangle and in walked Laurie, wearing roughly the same sheepish expression as Pete had.
‘Oh, I was hoping I’d be here before anyone else,’ she said. She was carrying a gold ballotine of chocolates with a pink ribbon tied around it. ‘Molly, I’m so sorry about last week. These are handmade truffles—’
Molly shushed her with a flappy hand gesture. ‘Take a seat, dear Laurie and think no more about it. Actually don’t take a seat, have first choice of the cakes. There are only three slices of the passion fruit left and I think Mr Singh has his eye on one of them. You really didn’t have to bring chocolates. My, it’s like Christmas. But I never look a gift horse in the mouth, so thank you. Both.’
Right on cue, Pavitar Singh emerged from the back room tying up his apron, which featured the wording Old Doctors Never Die, they Simply Lose their Patience and Molly crossed his path as she took the chocolates and flowers into the back room.
‘I think you beat me with the handmade truffles,’ said Pete to Laurie in a low, conspiratorial voice.
‘It’s a very small box, a gesture,’ said Laurie, playing down her gift. ‘There will probably be about two in it when Molly opens it up.’
‘She can’t eat flowers though.’
‘Chocolates don’t look so good in a vase.’
They both smiled at each other. They both thought what nice smiles the other had.
The doorbell rang and in walked Sharon. She looked delighted to see them.
‘Oh, how lovely that you came back. We all hoped you would.’
Maurice greeted them with much the same expression when he entered not long afterwards. ‘Splendid,’ he said, making a point of shaking both Pete and Laurie by the hand. ‘You’ve done the right thing, not giving up too soon. You’ll see.’
‘Without wishing to draw attention to you too much,’ said Molly to Pete and Laurie, when they were all present and settled with tea and cake, ‘may I use the example of you missing last week’s session to illustrate a point. Grief is often a dance of two steps forward and three steps back. Sometimes, when you feel as if you make some headway and you take four steps forwards, guess what happens?’
‘Ten steps backwards,’ answered Sharon with a grimace. ‘Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.’
‘It’s like swimming in the sea, isn’t it?’ put in Maurice. ‘Just when you get used to the warm waters, there can be a sudden cold swirl that hits you for six and you have no idea where it’s come from. Especially the sea in Morecambe.’
‘Perfectly put, Maurice. Grief is very complicated,’ said Molly. ‘Your mind and your body are attempting to process what has happened to you and none of it fits into a grid or a timetable. But structure in your life can help enormously. Having things in your diary to look forward to, to plough your energies into rather than just reliving your moments of sadness. This is a game of small steps, not giant leaps. I remember when my husband died, I felt as if nothing around me was real for a while. Somewhere between this world and a dream. And not a nice dream at that. Thanks to people like Pavitar’ – Molly motioned towards him – ‘who decided that a morning walk would be beneficial, and a theatre or cinema trip once a week and friends who laid down stepping stones for me, I found that a pleasurable routine helped me enormously. Not just the daily grind of meeting our basic needs; that is existing – not living. Grief can be a stubborn shellfish to dislodge.’
‘Like a barnacle,’ said Maurice. ‘They might not cause harm per se to ships but they do hinder their movement in the sea.’
‘Just like a barnacle,’ said Molly with a warm Molly smile in his direction.
Maurice beamed at everyone as if he was five and teacher had just commended him in front of the whole class. He couldn’t have looked more chuffed if Molly had presented him with a gold star to stick in a notepad.
‘I feel the opposite,’ piped up Yvonne. ‘I feel as if I’ve been in a bad dream for years and have just woken up to find out that everything’s more than all right.’
‘Shock,’ said Sharon. ‘Like Molly says, you’re all over the pigging place.’
Yvonne didn’t look that convinced.
‘I used to work with a woman who turned to a very strange quarter for help after her husband passed,’ said Maurice, shaking his head. ‘She was always a twinset and pearls type but suddenly she started wearing those hippy dresses and flower garlands in her hair and glitter on her face and believed she could see gnomes and pixies and little folk in the woods. She’d lie in meadows and paddle in streams in attempts to absorb their energy.’
‘Eh?’ asked Sharon. ‘Little folk as in Enid Blyton books?’
‘Precisely. “Guardians of nature” she called them. She even met up with a much younger man on the internet who’d had his ears and nose altered so he looked like a pixie. And I do recall she changed her name by deed poll to Littleseed Thistledown.’
‘Sounds like she’s away with the fairies to me,’ Pete said with a grumble of disbelief.
There was a tumbleweed few moments of silence in which Pete wished he’d kept his mouth shut and then everyone erupted into a burst of self-feeding laughter. They couldn’t stop. Maurice especially, there were tears racing down his cheeks by the time he got hold of himself. Even Mr Singh behind the counter was wiping his eyes with a tea towel. Attempting to bring them to order, Molly said, ‘Well, it’s horses for courses. Whatever works.’
‘It worked very well for Pauli— . . . er, Littleseed,’ said Maurice, after blowing his nose on a very large handkerchief embroidered with his initials. ‘I have to say, I scoffed a little less when I bumped into her and her purple hair in the Coop last year. She looked rejuvenated and not at all concerned about the attention her wings were drawing.’
Laurie was consumed by a fresh wave of hilarity. She hadn’t bargained on laughing like this at a group to help negotiate a passage through the grief process. She set everyone else off and they swam happily around in a communal pool of mirth for a while, exercising laughter muscles that most of them hadn’t used so much in a long time.
The rest of the meeting had both feet planted firmly in rather more gravitas, but still humour danced around them all with light fairy footsteps. There were ways to discuss what they were trying to traverse without being bogged down by concrete blocks of gloom. They talked about the small kindnesses they had received from people which meant so much more than intended and what they all had done with the deceased’s belongings. Sharon hadn’t managed to throw out Billy’s toys or bed yet because she wasn’t ready to let them go, but if she ever did get another dog, she’d buy him new things, she said. They reflected on how hard it was to part with their loved ones’ effects, as if objects had been bound to them with emotions, as if disposing of them was somehow symbolic of disposing of their loved ones and so guilt kept them from doing it. Pete told them that his wife’s sisters had taken a lot of her things to use and everyone agreed that was a smashing solution. Laurie didn’t say that her fiancé’s best friend had taken his entertainment collection and used the opportunity to try and take her too. At least she didn’t on this occasion.
Laurie left the meeting feeling glad she had rejoined the little fold of seven. Pat Morrison had been right on that, which lent a credibility to everything else she had said. She felt someone at her shoulder as she neared her car and turned round to find Pete.
‘Think you’ll be back next week?’ he asked.
‘Definitely. Especially if you’re going to give out lines like the fairy one.’
She chuckled, a sweet airy sound like the bell above the teashop door, Pete thought. A laugh that would have suited a fairy.
He shook his head. ‘I really shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Oh you should, you so should.’
‘Making fun of the woman like that was bad form. Who am I to cast scorn on anything that works for someone in the same situation as we are?’
It was obvious he felt genuinely bad about it, which endeared him to Laurie. What would he have made of the news that her direction in life was presently being dictated by vibes she’d implanted in a crystal ball and a spent match, she wondered.
‘I’m sure that you’re just one of many sceptics, but if the lady is going into supermarkets wearing a large pair of wings, then she must have developed a wonderful resilience,’ replied Laurie, taking her goldfish of keys out of her bag.
‘She must indeed,’ said Pete. ‘It’s obviously good for her mental elf.’ He immediately apologised, even though Laurie burst into a fresh peal of laughter. ‘Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist.’
‘Will you be back next week?’ said Laurie, recovering.
‘I will,’ came the reply. ‘I’ll take any help on offer. I might even—’ he cut off his words. ‘No, I can’t say that.’
‘Have your ears fashioned into points?’ Laurie supplied.
‘Oh, don’t. I’ve infected you,’ said Pete.
‘You have a good week,’ said Laurie, zapping her car open. ‘Hope you get gnome safely.’
‘Stop now,’ said Pete. ‘We’re like naughty kids.’ He smiled at her. ‘Hope you get home safely too.’
He gave her a quick wave when she set off and thought, as he followed her out of the car park, that it was people who formed the guide rope out of grief. The company of those with generous hearts, like Molly and Mr Singh who led where they had once followed, because they could. There was real magic in kindness.