Disappeared, page 18
Dilys stopped herself from cackling again to avoid setting off another coughing fit. ‘It’s your own business and I thought you’d tell me once you were ready. Also, I decided you were harmless and there’s always the shotgun in the cupboard under the stairs if I needed it.’ She winked at Cerys.
Cerys had noticed the rusty old gun cupboard under there but never thought much of it. It was common enough in farming. Her own dad had had one.
‘You’ve the blackest humour I’ve ever known,’ she said, smiling faintly no matter how rough she felt inside. Because it was just so Dilys.
‘So, come on then, spit it out. You might not have long before I cark it at this rate.’
Cerys shook her head. ‘There’s not much to tell. I’m running from myself, from the ideas in my own head.’
Dilys eyed her, with that sharpness that saw past failing eyesight like it could get right into your soul – that’s how Cerys always thought of that particular look she was getting now. ‘Tell me who you were then, before you were this woman now.’
‘I’m not really anything now,’ Cerys said. ‘This isn’t real. It’s not me. It’s a place carved out in time.’ She paused. ‘My happy place, but I can’t stay. I don’t belong here.’
‘Go on. And tell me about your children.’
Cerys shrugged. ‘So what do you want to know?’
Dilys shifted in the old chair to make herself more comfortable. ‘Start at the beginning.’
‘I grew up on a hill farm in Gwynedd, a little like this one must have been when you were running it fully. My dad was a true farmer and didn’t have much interest in anything else. My mum and I were close but I couldn’t wait to leave and experience the city as soon as I was eighteen so off I went to university. I did a degree in English Literature but then I met my husband, Gavin …’ She paused for a moment. It was hard to say his name. It stuck on her tongue with disuse and something else.
Resentment, she realised with wonder, because she’d never understood that lived within her until just now.
‘So I never used my degree really. I got married and had children and I kept the home going.’
Like a dusty ornament on the mantelpiece, it had sat there within her, all that knowledge and old passion, doing nothing, largely ignored from year to year.
Resentment brewing all that time and she’d never even known.
‘I was a full-time mother. And I loved my children, loved being their mum, loved everything about it.’ She smiled because honestly she could say their infant days had been the happiest of her life. ‘I focused everything on being the best mum I could be. And I think I did a good job. They’re all off and happy and doing well now.’
Dilys gave her a hard stare. ‘So why are you here and not there?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand it myself. Somewhere in all of it, Gavin and I grew apart, but that happens to lots of couples. We didn’t fight, but we just spent more and more time away from each other.’
‘Your choice or his?’
‘His. He’s always working; that’s the whole focus of his life. I don’t think he really cared whether I was there or not sometimes.’
Dilys nodded. ‘Did you ever ask him?’
‘I tried to talk to him about it but he said he was doing his best for the family and that’s what doing his best looked like. I don’t think I believed him and the longer we were together, the worse I felt about it. But I put up with it. We had a good life in other ways. We didn’t often quarrel and the kids were happy and we were comfortably off. More than most people get, isn’t it? My dad would have given anything for what we had. He had to fight all his life to make enough to put food on the table – no family holidays abroad three times a year for him.’
She paused to think and Dilys waved her hand at her to go on.
‘You already know it started to go really wrong when the kids started to leave home. You know, they’ve been my whole life. I never had a career, just little jobs that didn’t amount to much as they got older. And Gavin’s business was so full-on that I barely had time to think about a career for me. I’m not sure I missed out, really, because I had the kids and they were all that mattered – they were my career. But when they left, I started to think about what I am and what was left for me. It wasn’t too bad when Katie was still at home because, although I could feel this brewing sense of dread building that eventually she’d go too, we were still so close and we did so much together that I kind of pushed the fear to one side. And I ignored the fact that Gavin was just never there.’
She could see in her mind’s eyes, those moments when Katie had gone out with friends and Gavin was in the home office with the door shut and she’d open it to ask him if he wanted a cup of tea. He’d say yes without even looking up from the computer screen. And when she brought him his tea, he’d receive it in the same way. Not even a glance. He’d say thank you but he didn’t see her. His staff at the company would get more civility than that. He’d never treat them that way, but she didn’t seem to matter at all. Every single time, it was another tiny cut. But you could bleed out from a thousand cuts just as much from one large wound. And that’s how their marriage had been – a death of a thousand cuts.
‘My mother died. That’s when I really began to struggle. A friend once told me that she never felt she grew up until both her parents were dead. ‘Then there’s nobody for you,’ she said, ‘and you really are on your own.’ When Mum died, I felt it hard. I missed her, being able to pick up the phone and chat. Having her come over and stay, though she hadn’t been able to do that for a few years so I’d go and stay with her every couple of months for a few days. I’d usually pick the school holidays and Katie would come with me. We sold the farm a long time ago and she lived in a little bungalow where she could still see our old hills.’ Her voice caught painfully. ‘And then when she was gone, part of me seemed to go with her. I felt cut adrift and the world started to feel hostile, alien. But I distracted myself with looking after Katie and ploughing everything into my time with her and supporting her through her A levels.’
‘What’s she like?’ Dilys asked.
‘She’s a very caring girl.’ Cerys swallowed hard. ‘Or she was; at least she still is to her friends. I just bore her now. She’s got a whole new life ahead of her. She doesn’t want her dreary mother whinging and holding her back. Of course she doesn’t and, at her age, I did the same thing and flew the coop too.’ A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I hope I didn’t make my mother feel like this. Oh God, I really do hope that.’ She dashed the tear away with her hand before more came and overwhelmed her. ‘Katie gets quite stressed about doing well so she needed me a lot through her A levels. She’s a bright girl but not top-of-the-class clever and she wanted to make sure she got into the university she wanted. She put a lot of pressure on herself and I had to be there for her. So I put everything into that. I had less time for my friends and we sort of drifted a bit.’
She stopped again, remembering that day they’d taken Katie to university. Gavin had taken the day off work.
He was tetchy and irritable and checking his phone the whole morning they were packing up the car. He didn’t let Katie see it thankfully but he didn’t bother to hide it from Cerys and she could feel herself getting more and more anxious. She already wanted to cry before they left. She’d been awake all night, trying not to weep and failing and at 3 a.m. her pillow was wet with regret at losing the last of her babies. So she started the morning red-eyed and exhausted. His inability to forget about work for this one day, which to Cerys felt like the end of her existence, made her want to just lie down and give up. Because what was this all for now?
They drove Katie to university, a good couple of hours away even in excellent traffic. Cerys felt like she was being driven to her own execution. She couldn’t speak. Gavin had the radio on and was chatting to Katie sitting in the back amongst a pile of her belongings that Cerys had lovingly packed for her. Every single object placed in those cases had felt like a stab in the heart but she’d insisted on doing it herself.
Cerys stared out of the window and watched the miles go by and wished that she could drift off into the clouds so she no longer had to face this, the third time, the last time, the worst time.
When they got to the university halls of residence, she knew the drill. Knew they weren’t to stay too long. Knew not to cry all over her daughter. She’d done this before with the boys and she’d done well then. She hadn’t embarrassed them, or even Gavin, and had kept her tears to the privacy of her own room at home where nobody could see.
They helped Katie carry her suitcases in and Gavin set up her TV for her, while Cerys fussed round by the wardrobe, unpacking her clothes. Katie was looking out of the window and watching who was going past while pretending to organise her desk but Cerys could see she was far too excited to really do anything of any practical use. She could hear through the wall that other students were arriving on the corridor too. Gavin popped out to the drive-through take-away nearby to get them all some food and Cerys’s heart began to pound faster and faster because the time was coming when they’d have to leave. Dread rose up inside her like flood water.
The burger and fries were like cardboard. Normally she enjoyed a good old bit of junk food – a definite guilty pleasure now and again that her hips couldn’t take any more. When she’d turned forty, the weight had piled on too easily like it had for her mother and she needed to take care, and it got worse again when she hit fifty. Didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy a treat usually though, just had to be careful there weren’t too many.
This wasn’t a treat. This was like the condemned man’s last meal on death row. She’d raised these children, and her success as a mother was how well she prepared them to fly, to soar on their own wings. But what happened to her when they were gone?
All too soon, the food was finished by everyone except her and she stuffed hers back into the bag to take to the bin on the way out. It just wouldn’t go down her throat. Katie was almost bouncing on the spot to get them gone now as she could see other students saying goodbye to their own parents and faux-casually making their way to the communal areas to begin making new friends. She was dying to get started herself.
Cerys was surplus to requirements now. Gavin nodded at her, signalling as he had with the other two before her. ‘Well, time to be on our way. Let you get settled in.’
Katie faltered for a split second and then rallied again. She hugged her father. ‘Bye, Dad, thanks for driving me down. Love you.’ He hugged her back as if letting her go was the most normal thing in the world and, in that moment, Cerys hated him for it.
Katie turned to her mum and again her resolve faltered for a moment. She wrapped her arms round Cerys, who hugged her back with a ferocity she hadn’t known she would let loose, but neither could she keep it in check. Nor could she stop the tears from coming. It wasn’t like with the boys. That had been hard but this was far worse – her little girl, and her baby. Her last chick. ‘Mum, don’t – I love you and I’ll see you soon. I’ll be fine,’ Katie said.
Her daughter wanted her not to do this but she couldn’t stop herself, not for anything. All she’d learned with the boys and she still couldn’t hold it together for Katie. It was as if all that pain had lingered and concentrated into this final loss. It wasn’t that she loved Katie any more than the boys, but they were closer, had always spent more time together.
Gavin patted her on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Cerys, let’s go. Don’t worry, Katie. Your mum will be fine.’
Oh, famous last words, Gavin. Look how that had worked out.
But she’d gone along with it and hidden her face on the way out so that she didn’t shame Katie by being led weeping to the car. Gavin had told Katie to get along to the kitchen, where the others were gathering to mingle, and not to worry about coming and waving them off.
He hadn’t known what to say to Cerys as they got into the car. A half-lifetime of never bothering to say anything of importance to her meant that, when he needed to, he didn’t have a clue how to make it right. He glanced over at her a few times as they drove off and awkwardly patted her knee when they stopped at a set of traffic lights. ‘She’ll be fine. Don’t be upsetting yourself.’
He was so stupid. But what did he know? His life hadn’t just ended. He still had a purpose, things that made him important. Whereas she was a nothing now, a no-matter to anyone.
She stared out of the window into the gathering dusk as they travelled home and the silent tears continued to fall down her cheeks. How could the emptiness inside her brew up such a river? The tears wouldn’t stop coming.
‘When I got home, I left him to it and just locked myself in the bedroom and howled,’ she told Dilys. ‘An awful state I was in. I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t hear, to be honest. I think he knocked on the door a couple of times and tried to get me to open it but I could barely hear him and I didn’t care anyway.’
‘Men are sometimes very stupid,’ Dilys said in a very Dilys way.
Cerys nodded. ‘You know what hurt most though? She hardly came home. I could tell when she called that she couldn’t wait to be off again with her friends. And she’d go off to stay at their parents’ houses at weekends, not bring them home to us. After that day, she really did leave, both physically and in her heart. I think it was that that killed me – the woman I was, I mean.’
‘So then what?’
‘That’s when the blackness came, like I told you before. I just carried on. And on. Until one day, I made Gavin speak to me and the things he said … I hated him. I hated me, and being like that, but then I really hated him. I even think I hated Katie and Alex and Matt for leaving me like this right then. And I hated life – it just hurt too much to stand any more. So I got into the car that night and I drove up to the hills where my dad’s old farm was. It’s all been broken up and sold off now. I ran the car right out into the hills and I torched it. Then I sat out on the hills and waited to die. That’s where I wanted to do it, in the home I’d happily run from all those years ago.’
‘But you didn’t die obviously,’ Dilys said, quirking an eyebrow.
‘No, I didn’t. The weather turned that night, and something shifted inside me too so I got up and walked out of there. I don’t know why. I walked until I got to a village, then a bus to the coast. I saw the sea and it was as cold and grey and dead as me so I thought I’d maybe walk into it and let it take me. That was the only thing I could think of when I was left in that state. Not dead but just not wanting to live any more and face all the mess behind me. I was all over the place. I was supposed to be dead and I wasn’t but I couldn’t go back. It would hurt too much. You know, Dilys, I never thought I’d say this to you because it’s not my business to and one woman’s pain can’t compare to another’s, but there’s a blessing in never having a child. You don’t have to suffer when they go and they no longer want you in their life. When you don’t matter any more. When they’ve bled you dry and left you with nothing and you’re alone.’
Dilys shrugged. ‘What you never have, you never miss? Maybe, but the longing hurts something terrible too. You’re right – women shouldn’t compete over their pain. It’s enough that we hurt. Anyway, you are about to tell me that you aren’t drowned.’
Cerys smiled despite it all, just at the Dilysness of Dilys. ‘I’m not. I was walking down the road, deciding where to do it, just where to walk into the sea and let it carry me off until I just went under. They say drowning is painless, and I didn’t want more pain. I just wanted it all to stop. So I was trying to see a quiet point where I could do it and whether the tide was right, whether it really would work this time because I didn’t want to get it wrong again. I couldn’t afford to. And then as I walked along the sea front, thinking about how and where to make it happen, I passed a food van. There was a young woman sitting there with her child and he dropped all his food on the floor and she just burst into tears, so I stopped to help.’
‘Lily.’
‘Yes. And she needed help. I was only supposed to get her somewhere to stay, and we were headed to Beaumaris and I thought there’s plenty of sea there for me to do it. Another day wouldn’t hurt.’
‘But then she still needed you.’ Dilys nodded in understanding. ‘Or maybe you needed her. But anyway here you are. You have a family back there though. What do they think has happened to you?’
‘I don’t know. I imagine the car was found. I didn’t leave a note and I haven’t been in touch with them since.’ She looked away from Dilys’s sharp gaze. ‘I can’t. I don’t know what to say to them.’
‘Part of you wants to punish them,’ said Dilys. ‘Don’t deny it, either to me or yourself. It’s true. Accept that as part of you. It’s part of your pain.’
‘Is it?’
‘Bit like an animal in a snare. You’ll bite out of pain. It’s not something to feel guilty about – it just is. They hurt you, you lash out back.’
‘But I love my children.’
‘And that’s why they could hurt you so much. Doesn’t mean you can’t be angry with them too. Even if you don’t admit it to yourself and let it fester inside.’ She sniffed, and shifted again in her chair, trying to find an easier position. ‘Now you have a phone call to make. Use the landline in there. Shut the door if you don’t want me to hear, but you need to do it.’
She shook her head. ‘Later, when I know what to say. I’ll do it later, I promise. I’m just not ready yet.’
‘You mind you do! And you can stay here, you know. You can always stay here, for as long or as short as you need. For good if that suits. If it’s this life you want.’
She was choked up by the offer and nodded her thanks. That was okay – Dilys understood.
But later, she still couldn’t find the words for that phone call. By the time Dilys mumbled and grumbled her way off to bed, Cerys was still brooding over it. It had to be done. It had been months now and it was never supposed to be that way. It wasn’t fair to anyone. She didn’t want to punish them, not now – even if Dilys was right about that. She simply didn’t know what she wanted now or who she was and she wasn’t ready yet to face any of that. The blackness was still too close, as if it squatted on the edge, waiting to overwhelm her if she made a wrong move. It would laugh as it pulled her back into itself.
