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You will be all right, he told himself, as he imagined Finn outside some shopping mall, hanging out with boys Theo didn’t recognize, pursing his lips as he pulled on a cigarette. Or, worse, having the audacity to hang out of his rear bedroom window teaching himself to inhale. You will be able to do this.
In bed, he lay awake for a very long time. Whatever way he tried to settle, he couldn’t. On his right side, he had stared at Harriet’s pile of pillows for at least an hour, until he finally tossed them onto the floor. He moved his own two pillows and himself into the centre of the bed, then got up and rearranged the whole thing as it had been. He didn’t want Finn to see that; to see parts of his mother vanishing from the house, from his bed.
From his left side he thought of sex; it was three months since he’d had sex. Harriet and his sex life had been brilliant; so brilliant that even when he’d known there was something wrong, he had convinced himself it didn’t matter. He sighed loudly, thumped his pillow and turned over again, stared at the narrow strip of light under the door from the landing. Beyond the door was his study, then Finn’s room and, further along, Bea’s room. He thought of her, twenty-three years old, almost the same age as Anna. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that he was wide awake and any hope of sleep was gone.
His watch said 01:35 when he threw back the duvet, removed a dressing gown from a hook on the back of the door and moved silently to his study. There, he switched on the light and removed a book from one of the shelves. He settled himself into the reading chair; a recliner that Harriet had bought for him years ago. The book lay open on his lap. His reading glasses lay on top of the book. She was everywhere. The life that was; the one they had together, was everywhere – in the pillows, in the chair, all around. He should move, he thought, before dismissing the idea as a bad one for Finn’s sake. This was his son’s home – he just needed to get a grip.
Downstairs, he boiled the kettle and made himself a coffee, paced the floors of every room before settling in the front living room. He stood on a dining chair and unhooked each curtain slowly, allowing each one to curl into two separate piles on the floor flanking the window. He got down and stood back. That was better. There was, he told himself, as he attempted to fold the piles into something the charity shop would accept, no point at all to them.
Next he climbed the stairs and, after retrieving a suitcase from under the bed, began to pack Harriet’s clothes. He had no idea of what order she would like them in, what way she would have done it, but they had to go. If anything at all was to be gained by a sleepless night, by the conversation he’d had with her yesterday rolling over and over in his head like a worn-out loop, he had to move on from that day in December. And removing her scent from their bedroom seemed like the best start. It only served as a reminder of his failure, of their failure. He slipped her shirts from their hangers one by one, placed them in the case. He removed her jumpers, already folded, put them on top. Trousers were laid, one crease only, the way Harriet liked them. He filled the suitcase quickly, moved his clothes into the empty space, took his aftershave from the en suite and sprayed it all over the inside.
As quietly as he could, memories of many Christmas Eves in his head, he went to the landing and pulled down the loft stairs. From the top of the stairs he removed a large holdall he and Harriet had used on their skiing holidays. He pushed the full suitcase back under the bed, made sure there was enough room for the holdall on the other side – Harriet’s side. Within an hour he had removed all of his wife’s clothes from the wardrobes they shared, from the drawers she used. He placed his hand on the empty hangers, moved them left to right along the hanging rail, spaced them out to try and hide the stripped reality.
At 03:12, he climbed into bed, knowing he had an early practice meeting at the surgery five hours later. He was exhausted as he pulled the duvet over himself one more time. His head throbbed; a steady pulsing beat. He swallowed two paracetamol, then fell into a restless sleep, where one moment he was skiing with Anna and a holdall full of Harriet’s clothes, and the next, a nameless Frenchwoman’s head was smiling at him from Harriet’s pillow.
Five minutes before he needed to leave the next morning, Theo sat fully dressed on his son’s desk chair. He watched as Finn rubbed the sleep from his eyes and growled like a bear as his hand swiped his phone alarm off.
‘Morning, son,’ Theo said.
‘Dad! You scared me!’ Finn sat up straight, shielding his eyes with an angled arm as Theo switched on his bedside light.
‘There’s been more rain overnight; looks cold and wet out there,’ Theo said, before taking a seat again. ‘I have an early meeting so Bea will take you to school. Wrap up warm.’
Finn slumped back on his pillow. ‘Right.’
‘Finn, I’d like you to sit up, please.’
Something in his tone seemed to make Finn listen. He straightened up, his back against the wooden headboard, his slim pillow bunched behind him. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘Just wanted a word,’ Theo replied as he reached across to Finn’s bedside table and lifted his laptop. Finn’s eyes widened. ‘What?’ he repeated, not before Theo had already noticed something very close to panic in his eyes.
‘I want to show you something.’ Theo spoke as his fingers moved on the keyboard. He kept the laptop on his knee, turned it around to face the screen at Finn. ‘See that?’
His son leaned forward. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘That is something I deal with regularly. That is a smoke-damaged lung. It belongs to a thirty-three-year-old woman with lung cancer.’
Finn was so silent, Theo could hear his breathing. ‘And listen, hear that? That’s you breathing slightly anxiously because you don’t know what to say. That’s your still-healthy lung breathing in and out, doing its job.’ He stood up and passed the laptop back to Finn, placed it on his long limbs stretched out under the duvet. ‘And that, Finn, is your laptop. Unless you want me to take it off you, along with your phone and climbing lessons, you will agree not to smoke again. You are eleven years old. Do you understand me?’
Finn’s expression was one of shock.
Theo walked towards the door. ‘I know things aren’t easy right now. I know you’re probably feeling very confused, but you talk to me, you hear?’ He turned around to a silent son hugging his laptop. ‘And Finn? I mean it about the smoking.’
‘I—’
‘Don’t.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t even attempt to lie to me.’
‘I was just going to point out that I am, in fact, almost twelve.’
Theo chomped on a cheek, wondered when exactly his son had become a smartass. ‘Yes, and if you want to make it to your birthday, you’ll chuck that packet of cigarettes in your third drawer before I get home from work this evening.’
Theo closed the door behind him; tried to ignore the image he had of Finn sticking his tongue out or doing whatever foul gesture it was that ‘almost twelve’-year-olds did to their father when they were pissed off at the world. He checked his wrist and sighed. He was going to be late.
10. Jess (#ulink_0a2130c2-2ebc-5835-81c8-5127e5bc0de9)
Watching Downton Abbey fades in importance as I listen to Max apologize for calling so late on a Sunday. I study him as he speaks. He’s tall, with tight cut hair and brooding, heavy-lidded eyes. On the third finger of his left hand there is the faint tan line of a thick wedding band. He reminds me of someone; an old college tutor of Anna’s whose name I’ve forgotten. As he shifts uncomfortably on our tatty sofa, I wonder what possessed Anna and me to bring it home. Even if we had ever got around to reupholstering it, as planned, it really is too big for one and too small for two.
He’s taking in the room, eyes scanning left and right. They linger on a large black-and-white canvas photo of Anna and Rose that I have on the wall. Pug, delighted at new blood, is pushing a tennis ball along the floor, hoping that Max will take the hint and play with her.
‘How’s Anna’s little girl?’ Max asks.
‘She’s doing well. Considering. She’s a happy child.’
‘That’s good. Does she miss her, I mean obviously … can you tell if she does?’
I’m surprised at his bluntness. There’s something refreshingly honest about it and, rather than disarming me, I’m drawn to him.
‘There’s times – she asks me about Mummy being with the angels.’ I raise a palm in the air. ‘Not my doing. I never told her that. It was something her father told her way too soon. A couple of weeks after … It was much too soon … Anyway, she’s away on holiday with him at the moment.’
I stop talking, not sure why I’m rambling about Sean’s belief in the afterlife.
‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.’ Max suddenly seems nervous, pulling on his shirtsleeve every few seconds.
‘You don’t need a reason. You’re a friend of Anna’s.’
‘I’ve always thought you must have a million questions, about that day.’
‘Did you see what happened?’ I watch as his Adam’s apple reacts to my question.
‘Yes.’ He pulls himself together. ‘A group of us were sitting across the valley, looking through the binoculars to see if we could spot them. They had gone up top, all of them off-piste.’
‘Go on,’ I urge him. He’s looking at me as if he’s not sure I’m ready to hear. He’s probably right but I press him anyway.
‘We heard it first. We hadn’t heard the boom, that sound you hear when it’s a controlled one. When the snow came, it was as if the whole of the mountaintop just slid downwards.’
I feel an ache in my chest that seems to have started in the centre of my heart and is sending gripping, clawing pains outwards. My hand automatically rests there. Pug is circling my left foot, looking up at me. She whimpers softly.
‘I was watching her ski,’ Max continues. ‘She was a great skier, beautiful to watch. That day she was dressed in an all-in-one red suit.’
The one I bought for her last Christmas. I searched high and low, contacted every ski store in the land until I found the one she’d circled in a magazine. On Christmas morning, she had whooped with the delight of a two-year-old getting their first doll. That was our last Christmas together, the three of us. We—
‘One minute I could see her, then snow, so much of it, and I saw her go. She tried to out-ski it, but I saw her disappear …’
His eyes fill quietly and immediately I envy him. I envy him the ability to cry when I’m left with this constant, searing pain in my heart. He wipes the tears away with his sleeve, looks across the room at me. I avoid his eyes and, afraid that he will judge me some sort of cruel, unfeeling woman, tell him, ‘I haven’t been able to cry. Not since … Not at all. It’s bizarre really, I could cry at Bambi beforehand and now, now …’ I stand. ‘It’s like my tear ducts are permanently blocked.’
‘I can’t stop,’ he says. ‘I was the one who asked her to come on that holiday with us.’
‘You feel guilty.’
He nods aggressively.
I want to tell him that he should, that it’s not my job to assuage his guilt, and that if he had kept his mouth shut that Anna would still be here with me and Rose. Instead, I tap his shoulder reassuringly as I walk across the room to the fridge. I imagine Anna trying to out-ski it. She would have tried. She would have tried hard because my daughter would have wanted to live. Every sinew in her body would have stretched to the max. I pour a large vodka from a bottle, hold it up in his direction. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my manners. Would you like a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ He shakes his head, angles it. ‘Is that her phone?’
I sit down, place my drink on the table beside me. ‘Yes, it is. The police had it, they’ve just sent it to Anna’s father. I can’t help feeling it has been sitting in some evidence locker, ignored all this time. I actually thought she had it on her.’ My voice drifts.
‘I gave it to them,’ he says. ‘She’d asked me to look after it while she skied.’ He shrugs awkwardly. ‘After the accident, I gave it to them, knew they’d be trying to ping it to try and …’ He’s struggling to find a way to say ‘locate her’.
I pick it up again and it’s moments before I realize I’m pressing the diamanté phone cover, my fingertips forced against the ridges, leaving red, circular marks. Her phone. I’ve phoned it, left so many messages for her. I’ve made sure her account remains open, just in case somewhere, on some parallel plane, it might be possible for her to hear my voice, to know she’s loved and missed.
‘Why?’ I ask him suddenly.
‘Sorry?’
‘Why did she give you her phone?’
‘I don’t know. Just before she left, she literally tossed it through the air at me, said, “Look after that for me, will you?” Then she was gone. The signal was dire out on the slopes.’
I’m unable to reply. I try to quell the pointed feeling I can sense in my jaw at the word ‘gone’.
‘She was always on it, constantly thumbing away. I assumed it was texting all the time. I mean, some of it was, but she told me shortly before the accident that she just used it to think into.’
I swallow some alcohol, feel the burn, then say, ‘I’m not sure what you mean?’
‘I’m not sure either; it’s just what she said.’ He shrugs, hesitates a moment. ‘You know, I think one of the reasons I came here is to tell you that she was happy. On the trip? She’d been a little distracted just beforehand, probably just work stuff, but as soon as we got there, she told me it was as if the mountain air had cleared her head. She was happy.’
‘She was?’
‘Yes. The snow was great. On that last day, the fresh fall of powder had us all excited.’ He hesitates. ‘The group weren’t supposed to leave for another thirty minutes and had they waited … I’d injured my foot the day before; the hire boots, they were biting. I didn’t go with them that morning.’
‘Anna’s a fresh-powder fiend. She’d have been itching to get going.’
He nods and I can tell from his expression he’s probably regretting the visit. What to say to the mother of the woman you possibly had feelings for; who left to go skiing with friends and never returned while you rested your leg nearby. And had she just left at the allotted time, not got overexcited by fresh-powder fall, they’d probably all be in the pub next to the office, mulling over their shared Dropbox of photos, downing beers. What to say? I can’t help him.
He stands. ‘I should probably go. I’m glad you’ve got the phone. There’ll be pictures.’
I look at my glass, just one mouthful gone. ‘I’ll drop you at the station.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Please. Stay. I don’t want to put you out. Here, take this.’ He presses a business card into my hand, one with a handwritten personal email address. ‘If there’s ever anything you want to ask, I don’t know, anything … just call?’
Outside, I can hear the wind has risen. From the front room, the chimney hoots an owl-like sound. The rain, which had trickled twenty minutes earlier, now slaps against the kitchen window.
I crumple the card into my pocket. ‘I’ll drop you at the station. It’s starting to blow a gale out there.’
He doesn’t argue. Before I leave, I plug Anna’s phone in to charge.
‘Stay, Pug. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’
Pug trails behind us and I can hear her cry through the closed front door.
Vodka has a way of sliding down the throat. It’s like a pleasant burning sensation as it flames its way to my hungry gut. I have waited for the phone to half-charge before entering the four-digit code that I know will open it. Incorrect PIN. I try her birthday, my birthday – all incorrect. I frown at it, baffled, sure that it had always been Rose’s birthday.
I’m almost ready to throw it in temper when there’s another ring at the front door which makes me jump. Pug jerks in her sleep but doesn’t wake and I automatically look at my watch – 9:08. It’s late. I pad through the hall, as quietly as possible, and peer through the peephole, then open it so quickly that I almost hit myself in the face.
‘Nanny!’ she cries and leaps into my arms.
Sean has no choice but to let go of her hand.
‘What? Hello, gorgeous girl!’ I hug her so tight, I feel and hear her gasp.
Sean remains on the porch. ‘She wanted to come home,’ he says simply.
Rose jumps down, takes my hand and is looking back to her father. ‘Come in, Daddy. Nanny will make you a cup of tea.’
He bends down, opens his arms for a hug. ‘No, love, I won’t stay. We talked about this, remember? I explained that if you came home I still had to go back. Your grandma and granddad are waiting for me.’
She nods, releases my hand and goes to hug him. ‘Okay,’ she says.
I tell her to bring her rucksack up to her room and she obliges, practically skipping up the stairs as Sean slides her small suitcase over the threshold.
‘What happened?’ I ask, when I think she’s out of earshot.
‘She just never settled.’ He shrugs. ‘As soon as she got there, she was crying to come back. She was crying for Anna, crying for … home.’
I sigh. I have never told her Anna is dead because as far as I’m concerned she’s not. I have just nodded along with her father-inspired talk of angels.
‘And I guess she thinks of this as her home,’ he says.
I bristle. ‘This is her home, Sean. She has lived here all her life, almost all of it here with her mother.’
‘And you,’ he says, and I can’t help but think I hear a trace of resentment.
‘And me.’
‘Now’s not the time,’ he seems to hold his breath for a moment, ‘but we do need to talk about ongoing arrangements.’
My blood freezes. ‘Arrangements?’
‘As I said, now’s not the time.’ His breath hits the cold air outside in vapours.
I glance up the stairs. ‘Now’s perfect, Sean.’
‘I’m not happy with Rose living here full time.’ His hands are parked in both of his low-slung pockets. I immediately think back to Anna’s accident and how I leaned on him a lot more than usual for childcare. He, in turn, leaned on his parents.
Pulling the door closed between him and the stairs, I leave a gap wide enough to see and speak through. Somehow the best words that can come out seem to find themselves spoken. ‘Rose seems to be quite happy. Isn’t that what matters? In the circumstances.’
‘She does. I see that, but I’m her father and I need to do what’s best for her in the long run.’
