The Impossible Truths of Love, page 16
‘But it’s not right, being cooped up like this. After being stuck in hospital all that time, you’d think she’d be champing at the bit to get out and about. And the fact that she won’t see anyone . . . You must be worried?’
Annie waits for Bill’s reply, blood throbbing in her ears. He has promised her that he will not tell anyone the real reason she had to stay in hospital for as long as she did. They have both sworn not to tell a soul. There has been nothing to suggest that he has broken that confidence but now she fears that perhaps he has, or is about to. So many things have happened over the past few months for which she may never be able to forgive Bill, and she does not know how her heart will bear it if he adds another layer of betrayal.
‘Leave it, Pam. Bill knows what’s best for Annie.’ Alan’s voice is firm, matter of fact.
‘But it’s not normal. You can see that, surely? A couple of weeks of feeling a bit down, that’s normal. But not this. And after what happened before . . . Aren’t you worried the same thing’s happening again?’
Annie’s head feels light and she does not know if it is provoked by fear or anger.
The same thing’s happening again. The words thrum in Annie’s ears and she grips the top of the bannister, her knuckles turning white. This is not the same thing. It is not the same thing at all. She is not grieving a death. She is grieving something different, completely different. And she has been rendered powerless by people who will not listen to her. People who keep telling her that it is residual grief for Danny making her have these thoughts, believe these things. But she knows they are wrong. It is not a fantasy. It is the truth.
She does not wait to hear Bill’s reply, does not want to know what he says on her behalf, as though she is a ventriloquist’s dummy and he the puppeteer. If a doctor is called she will refuse to see them. Nobody can make her. It is not a doctor she needs. Doctors have already proved themselves to be useless, incompetent, unreliable. She does not trust any of them. There is only one thing she needs and they have all proved themselves incapable of giving it to her.
Creeping into the bathroom, she sits on the toilet seat, shuffles her bottom forward so that when the torrent of urine is released it does so silently, hitting the ceramic bowl rather than the water.
Scuttling back into the bedroom she notices how stale the air is, like a box that has been unopened for decades. Climbing into bed, pulling the duvet around her, she hears the cry of the baby downstairs, feels herself flinch in response. Images of the hospital three months ago pierce her thoughts and she scrunches her eyes against them, trying to squeeze them from her mind. And yet she cannot give them up – knows she must not give them up – because she needs them if things are ever to be put right. She knows she will never stop raging at Bill for letting her down, will never stop railing at the doctors and nurses for their catalogue of failures. She will never stop cursing time for not allowing her to rewind it and do things differently. But, above all, she knows she will never forgive herself for failing to fulfil the single most important role any mother has to perform: to safeguard their child, to shield them from danger, and to protect them against every possible harm.
NOW
She has left her mum at home with Denise, drinking tea and watching a Sunday morning cookery programme, having found the remote control in the fridge between a jar of Branston pickle and a halfeaten cucumber. The suburban streets between her parents’ house and Laura’s are still quiet – it is not yet nine thirty – and it is only as Nell walks past the turning towards Laura’s street and on towards the main road, only as she arrives at the twin red-brick pillars and green wrought-iron gates, that she realises where she has come.
The moment she steps inside the cemetery there is an immediate sense of calm. Behind her a bus trundles along the main road, but the graveyard seems to have its own sensory microclimate: restful, peaceful, still.
Walking along the path, the leaves whispering in the breeze overhead, she wanders towards the plot where her grandparents are buried. In the shade of a sycamore tree she finds their shared headstone.
Arthur Ernest Hardy
1915 – 1982
Mabel Winifred Hardy
1918 – 1983
Together in love, life and death
So few words to denote the lives they must have lived, though Nell never knew them. Her eyes cast around the jumble of graves, wondering where her father’s ashes will be interred in a few weeks’ time. She knows he has a double plot reserved for him and her mum, has always imagined it would be close to his parents, but now she is here she realises she does not know exactly where.
It is as she is walking away that she sees it. Not far from her grandparents’ grave is one she has never noticed before. It is not the grave that demands her attention, but the words inscribed on the headstone.
Daniel William Hardy
28 October 1984 – 3 December 1984
Taken from us too soon
We will never stop loving you
A cluster of feelings catch in Nell’s throat. Regret that she never had a chance to know her brother. Guilt that she is here only because he did not survive, that she has taken up his rightful place in the world. Sadness that her parents never felt able to discuss his short life with her.
In a vase beneath the inscription is a bunch of fresh sweet peas in a bloom of colours, their scent carrying on the breeze, and Nell wonders who placed them there, and when. She kneels down, runs her fingers along the indentations of the letters in the granite surface, peels a string of moss from inside one of the numbers. She places her hand flat onto the cool stone surface, as if by touching his headstone she can get closer to the brother she never knew.
Her eyes scan the area one last time, making sure she has not missed her father’s plot, but she cannot see an obvious space.
Across the cemetery is a light coming from the caretaker’s office and Nell makes her way through the twisted avenues of graves towards the small, square redbrick building. The door is ajar and she pushes it fully open, sees a tall, thin man with a wizened face eating a bacon sandwich and reading The Mirror. He looks up as she enters, surprise giving way to a welcoming smile.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m just looking for my father’s plot. His ashes are due to be interred here but I’m not sure where.’ The words feel mechanical in her mouth, as though she is a clockwork doll reciting lines she has been programmed to say.
The man wipes a spot of tomato ketchup from his chin. ‘Take a seat, love. What was your father’s name?’
Nell lowers herself onto the fraying blue chair next to a tall filing cabinet. ‘William Hardy.’ Her throat tightens and she wishes there was a way those two words could convey the man he was, the father he had been, the cavern he is leaving behind.
‘Ah, name rings a bell. I’m sorry for your loss.’ He rummages inside a blue cardboard folder on his desk, pulls out a sheaf of papers attached with a single staple. ‘Here we are. I knew I’d seen it recently.’
Nell watches as his eyes roam down one sheet of paper and then the next.
‘That’s it, I remember now. He’s got a double plot reserved in the far corner of the memorial garden.’
‘The memorial garden? But I thought it was near his parents. They’re not far from the entrance, on the righthand side.’
The caretaker rereads the document before looking across at Nell. ‘No, it’s definitely the memorial garden.’
Nell scans her memory, searching for a recollection of her dad saying where he wanted to be buried, cannot be sure whether she has just always assumed it would be with his parents or whether it had actually been specified. ‘Is that because there isn’t room near the entrance?’
The caretaker shakes his head. ‘I know it looks crowded there but there’s still a bit of space. No, according to this, your dad reserved that plot in the memorial garden – hang on, let me do the maths – over thirty years ago. It’s a lovely spot. I can show you, if you like?’
There is kindness in the caretaker’s voice but Nell is struggling to make sense of what he has said. ‘Over thirty years ago? Are you sure?’
The caretaker nods. ‘That’s what it says here. Headstone won’t be in place for another few weeks, but you’re welcome to take a look at the plot now.’ His tone is gently encouraging and Nell wonders how many similar conversations he has had over the years.
‘Could you point me in the right direction?’
Opening a drawer in his desk, the caretaker takes out a printed map of the cemetery and points at the top righthand corner. ‘This is the memorial garden. If you go to this wall here, on the lefthand side, you’ll see a wooden bench – almost brand new, you won’t miss it. Right in front is where your dad’s headstone will be. Any problems finding it, just pop back and I’ll show you.’
Nell takes the map. ‘Thanks. I’m sure I’ll find it.’
Heading back out into the cemetery, she follows the path down a lefthand fork. There is a moment’s disorientation as she enters the memorial garden, upright headstones being replaced with polished plaques lying flush with the earth. It does not take her long to find the bench the caretaker referred to: it is clean and fresh in light ash, and the brass plate on it tells her that it is dedicated to a woman called Eleanor Lively, who died only this year, and Nell wonders, as she sits down, whether Eleanor lived her life according to her name.
Across the memorial garden are row upon row of plaques in dark marble or granite, each with a slender vase attached to the top, some filled with fresh flowers, others noticeably empty. In front of her, on the end of a row, is a small square of grass, the empty plot where, she assumes, her father’s ashes will be interred.
She looks around the garden with its welltended flowerbeds skating the perimeter, fallen magnolia blossom carpeting the grass, the closely cropped lawn in between rows of plaques. Nell wonders what made her father choose this as his final resting place rather than next door with his parents, with Danny. It doesn’t make any sense that he should have buried his son with his parents and yet chosen a different location for himself.
She wonders whether he visited this exact spot, picked out the precise patch of earth as his own. She tries to imagine him making enquiries, seeking out availability, submitting his application, but something closes in her mind, like curtains being pulled shut against her thoughts.
The sun heats her scalp even though it is still early. Her eyes meander across the inscriptions chiselled into shiny black surfaces: short, elliptical epitaphs to encapsulate lives lived, leaving so much unsaid.
Ruth Charlotte Hazelmere
Devoted Wife to Ted, Loving Mother to Sarah and Martin.
You will never be forgotten.
Thomas James Marsh
July 1949 – December 1991
Husband, Father, Brother, Son. We will miss you, always.
Amy Imogen Whitworth
Two years on earth but forever in our hearts.
Sleep peacefully, angel.
Edith Edna Collins
1893 – 1992
Beloved member of church and community.
Nell reads the abbreviated biographies of those with whom her father will share his final resting place, wishing that tears would fall to articulate the depth of her loss, but it is as though her grief has been locked in a box and she does not know where to find the key.
From the back pocket of her jeans, her phone vibrates and she pulls it out, sees Josh’s name, swipes a finger across the screen to answer it.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, how are you doing?’
Nell looks around the memorial garden, wonders what the honest answer is to Josh’s question. ‘I’m okay. I’m at the cemetery, where my dad’s headstone’s going to be.’
There is the thinnest sliver of a pause and Nell can hear Josh’s sympathy in his intake of breath. ‘God, I’m sorry. That must be hard.’
Nell nods before remembering he cannot see her. ‘I think . . . I just needed to see it.’
Neither of them says anything for a moment and it is almost as if Nell can sense the processing of Josh’s thoughts before he begins to speak.
‘Are you sure you’re okay? I’m worried about you. I know how much you’re grieving, and I can only imagine how hard it must be, having to move your mum into a home. But it feels like you’re bottling it all up, and I think it might do you good to talk about it.’
Nell shifts to the far end of the bench, beneath the shade of a horse chestnut tree, wonders what she is actually doing there, why she has come. ‘I’m fine, honestly. I’m sorry if I’m a bit distracted.’
‘You don’t need to apologise. You’re allowed to be distracted, the amount you’re going through. I just feel . . . Maybe I’m totally off the mark here, but it feels as though there’s something you’re not telling me, something you’re holding back on.’
Nell picks at a thin smear of dirt on the thigh of her jeans, thinks about everything that has happened over the past thirtysix hours. A part of her cannot believe it has been less than two days since she arrived at her mum’s, time during which her understanding of her family’s history has shifted onto a different axis. And yet, even as she tries to make sense of all that has happened, she knows she is not yet ready to share it: to try to articulate it to someone else – even to Josh – would be to acknowledge a dissonance in her family she is not yet able to comprehend.
‘I’m not. I know my head’s all over the place, but I just need to get through this weekend, that’s all.’
‘You’re back tonight though, aren’t you? How about I come over, cook us both dinner? We can talk or we can just veg in front of the TV. Whatever you want.’
She hears the generosity in his voice, the care in his suggestion, and a part of her wants to reach out, grab it with both hands, immerse herself in it and not emerge until the darkness has passed, like a creature hibernating for winter. But there is the knowledge that if she were to see Josh, facetoface, she would not be able to conceal from him the sea of confusion she is swimming in, would not be able to hold on any longer to the secret of what her dad said to her in the hospital that night. And it is still too raw, too unsettling to share with him.
‘That’s a really nice thought, but I think I’ll be late back, and I’ll be shattered when I am. I won’t be good for much except collapsing into bed.’ She laughs but it sounds strained, as though the noise is being dragged from her throat.
There is a pause on the other end of the line. ‘Just know that I’m here for you. You don’t need to shut me out.’
Words snap from Nell’s lips before she has a chance to stop them. ‘For God’s sake, stop saying I’m shutting you out. I’m not. I’ve just got a lot on, that’s all.’ The line goes quiet and heat throbs in Nell’s cheeks. ‘Josh, I’m sorry—’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Not, it’s not—’
‘It is. I hear you. Why don’t you get through this weekend and give me a call when your head’s a bit clearer?’
‘I really am sorry—’
‘Stop apologising. I get it. Honestly, I understand. Look, I’d better go. Jamie’s just turned up and we’re supposed to be meeting the uni gang for a game of football. I’ll text you later, okay?’
There isn’t time for Nell to apologise again before she hears a muffled greeting from somewhere inside Josh’s flat, and the line goes dead.
Hugging her knees to her chest, she berates herself for her snappiness, her secrecy, for her inability to confide in Josh. She wishes she could explain, tell him it is not about him, that there is no one to whom she could convey the fears that are taking shape in her head. Fears that may be something or nothing, but which to voice out loud would be to give them a legitimacy – a weight, a significance – she is not yet ready to acknowledge.
Her phone bleeps with a text message and she scrabbles to answer it, assumes it will be Josh, clearing the air. But instead it is Laura asking what time she is popping round.
Looking at the time, Nell sees it is gone ten o’clock already. She has been at the cemetery longer than she realised. Taking one last glance at the plot into which both her parents’ ashes will one day be interred, she carries herself away from the bench and out of the memorial garden, towards the exit, aware that she cannot delay any longer the conversation with her sister she knows she must have.
THEN
Annie does not hear the click of the front door, her thoughts too focussed on what is in front of her, her ears not paying attention to the world around her while her eyes are doing so much work. It is only when she hears his voice behind her that she realises she is not alone.
‘What are you doing?’
Whipping her head around, she leans forward instinctively, spreads her arms across the table to cover up the pieces of paper she has been studying all morning, but there are too many for her to conceal.
Bill walks around to the side of the table and she sees the changing expression on his face as he looks down, notices what is laid out there. He picks up one piece of paper, then another, deep indentations forming at the bridge of his nose as his eyes survey the photographs, studying one and then the next. She sees the cloud pass across his face, the ridges of crows’ feet deepening at the edges of his eyes.
‘What’s all this?’
Annie follows his gaze to the collection of newspaper cuttings on the table in front of her. It is only now, looking at them with Bill, that she registers how many there are, sprawled across the elm wood table, does not know whether it is shame or indignation causing her cheeks to blaze.
‘Annie?’
She shakes her head, begins gathering up the pieces of newspaper, scooping them into her arms, trying to shuffle them into a pile, but they are all different shapes, different sizes, and they will not form a neat group. Some are getting bent at the corner, others creased along the middle, and her hands tremble as she tries to coax them into an orderly stack.
Bill pulls out the chair next to her, sits down, tries to place a hand on top of hers, but Annie shakes him off. She needs to finish the task, needs to get all the cuttings back into the pale green cardboard folder, where they belong. They have been out too long already, have been seen by more eyes than they should. It is as though he has already stolen some of their secrets from her.
