‘Patrick Christopher Sheppard was the best of all men,’ Zoe murmured to herself as she walked along. ‘A loving father, husband and son, who was liked and respected by everyone . . .’ Her throat tightened as she thought of his handsome face; the laugh she’d never hear again, the lips she could no longer kiss. It was one of her ongoing regrets that she hadn’t felt able to give a personal eulogy at Patrick’s funeral.
Others had stepped up: her father-in-law, Derek, had made a stilted speech about his son that didn’t capture any of Patrick’s warmth and love of life – although that was Derek for you, she supposed; a man who wouldn’t recognize human warmth unless his house was on fire. Dan had also spoken during the service, stammering about what a great brother Patrick had been, along with a couple of anecdotes, but he had been whey-faced and uneasy, talking without any real conviction. Zoe had sat there in her new black suit with her head down, anger rising at what a bad job they were both doing. Did she want to hear the opinion of Derek who, according to Patrick, had been such a cold-blooded father he was practically reptilian? No, she did not. Did she want to hear funny stories from Dan, whom she still blamed for Patrick’s death? No, she did not.
And so the service had come to an end without anyone standing up and giving the whole-hearted, loving, sincere tribute that Patrick deserved. Nobody had been able to convey his humour, his charisma, his energy. At the time Zoe could hardly croak out a sentence without breaking down and so she had failed him too, with her silence. Still, between now and the summer, she planned to perfect the most beautiful tribute to her husband and declaim it as she scattered his ashes. It was the least she could do.
‘I knew, as soon as I saw him, he was special,’ she practised aloud. She’d been twenty-five when they met in a grotty pub where Patrick teased her about her karaoke skills, bought her a drink and then proceeded to charm her and make her laugh, pretty much for the next seventeen years straight. At the time she’d been wary of men – she’d had her heart broken a couple of times by previous crappy boyfriends, and was of course scarred by her own philandering dad walking out on the family – but Patrick was different. He was just good. She had trusted him instinctively and her instincts had not let her down.
Today was Monday, the start of a new week, which always seemed particularly tough: seven more dreary and joyless days without her husband, and absolutely nothing to look forward to. Keep going, Zoe. One foot in front of the other, her friend Clare had encouraged on Friday night. Hang in there, my love, her mum had urged on the phone the night before, but it was so bloody hard getting up some mornings. So hard to chivvy the kids into their school uniform and out of the front door, when she felt like staying in bed all day with the covers pulled up over her head.
Zoe was a primary-school teacher although, after Bea was born, she’d switched to working on a supply basis only, finding that juggling her own three children with the thirty in her class, day in, day out, was too much to handle all of a sudden. Since Patrick’s death she had stayed away from the classroom altogether. His life insurance had recently come through – a generous package – which had taken the pressure off financially, thank goodness, but it had also taken away any incentive she might have had to work again. ‘How are you feeling about getting back into teaching?’ Clare had asked the other evening, once the wine had loosened them up. ‘Or is it too soon to ask? Only it might be a distraction, that’s all. It might . . . help?’
Zoe knew the question was meant kindly and that Clare was just trying to haul her back towards normality. The problem was, she couldn’t imagine ever feeling like standing in front of a class of children and talking about phonics or times tables or the Victorians again. The Zoe who put on a nice blouse and skirt every morning, who kissed her husband and children goodbye before heading to work, the Zoe who was able to inspire and educate a class of nine-year-olds . . . that cheerful, carefree woman had vanished. Instead here was this angry, weeping mess of a person who shouted at her kids and forgot things, who couldn’t sleep at night for worrying about what was to become of them all. When she eventually fell asleep, she would dream of Patrick – often that she was diving into the river, trying to rescue him. Sometimes she would spot his body in the water and be heaving with all her might to haul him up to the surface from the murky depths – uselessly, helplessly, because at some point in the nightmare she would realize that he was already dead and she was too late. Other times she would glimpse him drifting away from her, slipping through the reeds and shadows. ‘Wait!’ she’d yell, silver bubbles rising from her mouth as she tried to reach him. ‘Stop!’ But he never did and she could never catch up, however hard she swam in those dreams, however desperately she shouted his name.
She would wake up, panting and gasping for air, as if she too had been submerged under the muddy Thames. And a few seconds later she’d realize that here was another awful day, and the horror of real life would swing into place once more. What happened to you that night? she wanted to cry to him. What actually happened?
‘Maybe,’ she replied to Clare’s question. ‘But not yet. It’s too soon.’
Too soon, as if this was merely a temporary loss. As if she wouldn’t always feel this way. That didn’t seem remotely likely right now, when she felt like half a person, a crumbling wreck of a survivor. At home she was clinging on to her sanity, but all around her chaos threatened to break in. The house was becoming grubbier by the day because she didn’t care enough to hoover and mop. It was so chaotic that Liz, Patrick’s mum, had taken to silently sorting and ironing laundry whenever she popped round. Squirting bleach around the loo now and then. Sliding a casserole or a crumble into the fridge for Zoe to reheat. These acts of kindness only made Zoe feel ashamed, though, as if her mother-in-law was judging her on her slovenliness; the lingering smell of bleach a reprimand that she was failing her family.
If you’d asked her a month ago, Zoe would have said that she was the one who did everything around the house, but it was becoming apparent there were plenty of chores that Patrick had taken care of after all: cutting the front hedge, for instance. Cleaning the compost bin. Managing bills and washing the cars and taking stuff to the tip. One of the brackets on Gabe’s curtain rail had come loose and Zoe hadn’t got round to fixing it yet. It was the sort of job that would have taken her husband five minutes, but she felt nervous about using the drill (which size bit did she need? which colour Rawlplug?). Her car insurance was due for renewal and usually Patrick shopped around to find a good deal for her, but she would have to do that herself this time. As for his car, she supposed she’d have to sell it, but she didn’t even know how to go about such a thing. Sure, she could ask her stepdad or brother, but even that felt like another task to add to her list. The sum of it all was overwhelming. Impossible. Far easier, somehow, to do none of it, to let herself sink further into the mess, until it eventually consumed her.
Recently she had taken to walking for hours at a time while the kids were in school, haunting parks and streets like a mournful ghost, in an attempt to compensate for her intake of crisps (which was getting dangerously out of hand), as well as to escape the messy house. She dragged herself around the Botanic Gardens some days, dimly noticing the narcissi nodding their pearly heads and trying not to think about how many times Patrick had given her daffodils over the years. She’d kept the last bunch he’d bought her for weeks after his death, unable to throw them out. Dan must have binned them, she’d realized the other day, and it was all she could do to stop herself scavenging through the bin, trying to salvage a few brown petals.
Today she had walked as far as Chiswick and abandoned her eulogy attempts as she drifted like a wraith past the shops on the High Road, trying to remember how to act like an ordinary person. Other women knew what to do, she thought dully, pulling her scarf tighter around her throat as she saw clusters of them sitting inside cafés or holding up clothes to show one another in boutiques. Other women jogged together through parks and green spaces, their gleaming trainers pounding along in sync; they pushed grizzling tots in buggies alongside one another and invited each other round for coffee, chat-chat-chat. Zoe could no longer move in these circles with such thoughtless ease, though; she had become an outsider, unwelcome. Turned out that when you lost your husband and all-time love of your life, other people found you awkward company – they were afraid of being too happy or glib in your presence; they felt they had to adopt hushed tones and touch your arm as they tilted their heads to one side. How ARE you? Always the How ARE you?s, eyes wide with concern. It was driving her nuts, frankly.
The worst thing – one of the many worst things – was that she would always be marked out in this way now. Always branded as poor Zoe, poor widowed Zoe. So sad, wasn’t it, have you heard, oh my God, I couldn’t believe it. Do you think it was suicide? I heard a rumour that they had money troubles, you’re kidding, who would have thought it? Oh, she’d heard all the whispers, seen the nudges and glances, however sympathetically people might act to her face.
Ignore them, she reminded herself. Don’t get paranoid on top of everything else. She was outside and in the fresh air – well, as fresh as it got on Turnham Green Road anyway – and she had managed to survive all the way to eleven o’clock this morning without crying. Also – silver lining! – yesterday Dan had reappeared and even though she still hadn’t forgiven him (and probably never would), he was at least offering support, which she had grudgingly accepted. He’d collected a mountain of paperwork and post that had built up, untouched in Patrick’s absence, and had taken the lot away, promising to deal with everything. This was progress, she supposed. A tiny step forward through the misery.
Just as she was daring to feel positive, however, a man walked past her with the same aftershave that Patrick had always worn, and she found herself instantly floored by the familiar scent. The blood drained from her face at the spicy, woody fragrance; the heavenly smell that brought to mind all those nights when he’d worn it: restaurant dinners and parties, nights in the pub, his arms around her. She’d been spraying the cologne onto his pillow every night so that she could hug it, and the bottle was nearly empty. Would it be ridiculous of her to buy more? She just missed him so much. She was lost without him. So lost!
A sob escaped her, then another. Here it came: the desolation, roaring up inside as if it had been lurking beneath the surface the whole time, waiting for her to crack. She put her hands over her eyes and leaned against the nearest shop window, legs shaking. What was she even doing here? So much for hiding in plain sight amongst the yummy mummies of Chiswick – now she had outed herself as a grieving wreck, a woman who fell apart at a single floating waft of Givenchy, tears coursing down her face in public. She didn’t know what to do with herself. There was nowhere to hide and yet she couldn’t pull herself together, she couldn’t stop crying, she—
‘Are you okay? No, you’re not, I can see you’re not. Come inside the shop – come and get your breath back for a moment.’
A woman was talking to her, her face quite close, although Zoe’s eyes were too full of tears to really see anything. An arm slipped around her back, then she was gently led through the shop door. ‘Just a minute, let me . . .’ said the woman, and Zoe was dimly aware of her closing the door behind them and flipping a sign to Closed. They were in a small homewares boutique, full of beautiful cushions and throws as well as shelves of vases and ceramics, the sort of place she would never dare bring her children for fear of expensive accidents.
The woman who had rescued her guided her towards a rather lovely pink velvet armchair with elegant wooden legs. ‘Sit down,’ she encouraged.
Zoe sat. ‘I’m sorry,’ she gulped, mortified that this was happening. She put her head in her hands, still trembling with emotions, and tried desperately to pull herself together. ‘God, I’m so embarrassed and sorry,’ she managed to say.
‘You’re fine, don’t worry – just have a moment,’ the woman said, grabbing a box of tissues from behind the counter. ‘Here, take these. Can I make you a coffee? Peppermint tea?’
‘No, thank you,’ sniffled Zoe, hiccupping as she tried to force her breathing under control. She’d always teased Patrick for being a hypochondriac – Call an ambulance! My husband has a cold! – but if she’d had any clue that he was actually going to die on her, she’d have tended to him far more lovingly. Why hadn’t she cared for him more, when she had the chance? Why had she ever been mean to him, argued with him?
‘A biscuit, then? You look very pale, if you don’t mind me saying. Mind you, don’t we all, after this horrible winter. Here, take one, you’ll be doing me a favour. I’ll only eat them all otherwise,’ said the woman, waving a packet of chocolate digestives under Zoe’s nose. She was wearing a short, loud patchwork skirt, Zoe noticed, with a silky black top and a chunky copper necklace that clinked like tiny cymbals whenever she moved.
The smell of the digestives was surprisingly uplifting. Zoe was ravenous after the walk, she realized; and, come to think of it, had forgotten to eat breakfast in all the palaver of the Monday-morning school rush earlier. ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a biscuit and nibbling the edge. Sugary crumbs exploded in her mouth and she took another bite, resisting the urge to cram the whole thing in at once. It was delicious and made her feel the tiniest bit more able to function. ‘Sorry,’ she said again, aware of how peculiar her behaviour must appear. ‘I lost my husband recently. Or, rather, he died – I haven’t just mislaid him somewhere.’ She grimaced, risking a look up at the other woman, braced for a wary what-have-I-got-myself-into? expression on her face.
But her rescuer gazed back with compassion instead, her chocolate-brown eyes sincere. She was younger than Zoe, mid-thirties at a guess, and pretty, with long chestnut hair and freckles. ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘How awful. I’m so sorry. You must be going through hell.’
Zoe had to press her lips together because there was so much sympathy in the other woman’s voice that she could hardly bear it. Also because ‘hell’ just about summed up her life these days. ‘I am,’ she admitted shakily. ‘It’s been the worst thing ever. And I smelled my husband’s aftershave on another man just now and . . .’ She could feel her face rushing with hot colour. ‘I know it sounds silly, but it caught me off-guard. Little things keep doing that.’
‘I bet they do,’ said the woman. ‘It must take ages to process a loss like that.’ She waggled the biscuit packet temptingly again. ‘Have another,’ she urged. Then, as Zoe dipped her hand obediently into the crinkling wrapper, she said, ‘Do you want to talk or would you rather sit and get your breath back? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, obviously, but I could call someone to pick you up if that would help?’
Calling someone and drawing any more attention to her tearful breakdown was the last thing Zoe wanted. The idea alone was enough to propel her to her feet, knees still wobbly, but determined to hold fast. Forget the biscuits, it was time to go. A customer was at the shop door now, peering through the glass as if wondering what was going on inside and Zoe’s cheeks burned. ‘It’s fine,’ she said, which wasn’t true but never mind. ‘Anyway, I’d better . . .’ She gestured towards the street outside, real life waiting for her re-entry. ‘I’ll leave you to it. But thank you.’ She forced her mouth to smile and walked quickly towards the door. Nothing to see here – I am absolutely fine. One hundred per cent okay; do not ask another question.
‘No problem,’ said the woman from behind her, but Zoe didn’t turn back. Keep walking, keep walking, she ordered herself and her body obeyed, taking her out through the door again and into the street, quickly past the shop window, where the woman was probably still staring worriedly at her, and away. Anywhere. Just away, and fast.
‘I’ve lost the plot,’ she said to herself, not sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘Were you watching that, Patrick? I’ve totally lost the plot without you.’