One Moment, One Morning (18 page)

‘Just coming up the platform now,’ she says.

‘I’ll try to save you a seat.’

Seconds later Anna is rapping on the window to get her attention; shortly after that Lou is settled next to her in the aisle chair, rucksack on the shelf overhead, mobile and iPod on the table.

Lou turns to her. ‘So how are you?’ Anna appears tired, she observes, and her hair is less immaculate than it was forty-eight hours ago. It is not surprising.

‘I’m all right, I guess. Anyway, before I forget, that money.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Lou brushes the air to indicate it’s OK.

‘No, really, I want to.’ Anna opens her purse – Lou notices it’s quality leather with a chunky brass zip – pulls out a battered note and puts it on the table in front of Lou.

‘Thank you.’ Lou can tell there is no point arguing. She is grateful, not for the cash, but because it has provided an excuse for contact again. Lou likes the idea of having a travelling companion from time to time, and Anna has broken with custom – the unspoken law of commuters is to stick to companionable privacy. The train is not the normal place to get acquainted. ‘How’s, um, Karen, she’s called, isn’t she, your friend?’

‘Crap,’ says Anna.

Lou nods: few other words will do in the circumstance.

Anna sighs. ‘I guess she’s in shock. But it’s such a bloody mess.’ She looks out of the window. Lou can see she is holding back tears.

‘Had she and her husband been together long?’ Lou doesn’t want to seem nosy, but it is not her way to be coolly polite.

‘Nearly twenty years.’

‘So you must have known him well too, then.’

Anna nods and reaches into her bag for a tissue. She dabs the corner of her eyes.

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Lou.

‘Thank you.’ Anna tries to smile.

‘It’s, well, such a horrible thing to have happened to anyone.’

‘They’ve got two children,’ Anna blurts. It’s this that opens the wound: she croaks and the tears fall freely.

‘Oh, Lord,’ Lou winces. For some reason she’d not second-guessed this, though with hindsight it was likely. ‘How old are they?’

‘Molly’s three. Luke’s five. I’m their godmother,’ Anna adds.

Lou feels for her, for them all. She reaches over and puts an arm around Anna’s shoulder. Even though she hardly knows her, it seems appropriate, and badly needed. Anna shifts forward to allow her to do so. The people opposite are vaguely watching, but one has earphones on, so can’t hear; the other is tip-tapping his laptop, and doesn’t seem that interested. Outside the window the Sussex landscape lays itself before them: green fields, rolling Downs, postcard-perfect.

‘I guess they all really need you right now,’ observes Lou. ‘Have you got someone to look after you?’

‘Yes . . .’ Anna nods. ‘I guess.’

Again Lou has the impression Anna’s home life has complications: her reaction is not that of someone with a hundred-per-cent-responsive partner. Lou is quick to recognize the signs and has been there herself in a different guise; her mother is far from supportive of her. But now is not the time to probe too deep.

‘I’m sorry,’ sniffs Anna, relaxing a little.

Lou removes her arm. ‘Please don’t be sorry. As you say, it’s crap.’

Anna continues, ‘It’s just Karen feels so guilty.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘She thinks she should have done more to help. That she could have saved Simon. She believes if she’d given him the kiss of life at once, he would have survived – that sort of thing. I keep telling her it wouldn’t have made any difference, but she won’t listen.’

Lou frowns. ‘There was nothing she could have done, I’m sure. I saw: he died immediately.’

‘I know, that’s what I keep telling her. But you know what it’s like. You always think “if only . . .” And Karen’s especially like that. Often taking on other people’s problems. Feeling responsible for the world.’

‘She sounds a good person,’ observes Lou.

‘She’s lovely.’

‘But I guess all that guilt is not very helpful now.’

‘No.’

Though it’s very common.’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I don’t know that much about grief,’ admits Anna.

Lou makes herself clear. ‘I’ve not lost someone suddenly like your friend has. But my Dad died several years ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, it was a long time back. And, well, since then, I’ve explored it a bit through my work, too.’

‘So what do you do, exactly?’

‘I’m a counsellor. I work with kids who have been excluded from school.’

‘How interesting. Tell me more.’

So Lou does just that. Anna is clearly grateful to have a shift of focus.

*     *     *

The children are at Tracy’s. Karen doesn’t want them to overhear the ins and outs of funeral arrangements, or every phone call she must make to friends, colleagues and family. Moreover, she is trying to maintain some sense, however fragile, of normality for Molly and Luke through this, and Tracy, with her long-standing relationship with both children, seems a good person for them to be with.

So the half of Karen’s mind that was functioning normally put the children in the back of the car, did up the seat belts and drove them at a careful thirty miles an hour to Portslade. They were there, as arranged, at nine o’clock exactly. Karen then drove herself back, locked the car and put the kettle on. It is coming to the boil any second.

Yet Karen is aware of a dichotomy, as if her head has split into two. One side is able to walk, talk, make tea and, yes, drive Molly and Luke to Tracy’s. It is this side that has put on respectable clothes and combed her hair. It is this same side that is seeing to everything that needs seeing to: talking to a vicar she’s never met and emailing people she doesn’t know, using the address book in Outlook Express on Simon’s laptop. Karen recognizes this half of herself – it is the effective administrator for the council, the organized mother who is hardly ever late for Tracy or for Luke’s school, the woman who goes round the supermarket in Hove with the children in a double-seated trolley and a list.

But the other half of Karen isn’t functioning properly at all, or that’s how it feels. This half is a manic tangle, like one of Molly’s drawings: pens and colours everywhere, directionless, knotted. But whereas her daughter’s pictures are exuberant expressions of fun and life and happiness – or so Karen has always fondly thought – this is a dark, sinister hell of a place, all deep blues, reds, purples and black. It is a crazed muddle of emotions: there is the feeling she can’t shake, that she was responsible, of guilt turning in on itself, impossible to unravel. There is the sense of loss whose force she fears she has yet to feel fully – a gigantic, overwhelming sense of sorrow and gloom. Then, in the very centre of the snarl-up, there’s the bright red of searing pain, excruciating, burning, unrelenting, as if her skull has been sawn off and acid is being poured directly inside, onto the nerves of her grey matter.

Karen tries to keep this hellish half of herself away: to squash and bury these thoughts, beat them into submission. She would rather organize, focus. She succeeds surprisingly well for long periods of time.

She supposes she must be in shock, that she is able to suppress her emotions like this. She has seen Simon’s body, she has told other people, absorbed sympathy, witnessed and shed tears. Yet she feels she can remove herself from the whole experience, sever herself from reality, as if it is not really happening.

She still expects Simon to come back. She keeps thinking she can hear his key in the lock, his call ‘hello!’, his footsteps in the hall. Or that she has caught a glimpse of him, working at his computer, sitting at the kitchen table, watching telly with his feet up on the sofa.

But no.

So, instead, the funeral.

It is to be a church one, she and Phyllis have agreed. Having never discussed with Simon what he’d want, they can only go on instinct, gleaned from what they know of him. They go through the decisions in a daze. Who should be notified? What would be best for him? How can they make these decisions when they have barely accepted his death as reality?

Yet somehow, together, they do.

The initial post-mortem showed that he’d had a
‘total occlusion of his left coronary artery causing infarction and rupture of his left ventricle’
. In other words, it was a heart attack, plain and simple.

‘But it doesn’t really answer our questions,’ says Phyllis. And she is right: what they both really want to know is why is life so unfair – why their Simon? No amount of medical paperwork can resolve that for them.

As for the funeral, Karen briefly suggested a less traditional ritual – this is Brighton, after all – but somehow being buried in the woods or a biodegradable basket – or both – just seems too alternative, too pagan, too plain
daft
for Simon. It is not as if he was a green campaigner or anything. Yes, he helped recycle bottles and paper and tins, though that was hardly difficult as they were collected from the house, and they bought organic vegetables – but that is the sum of his credentials. In reality, Karen cares more about these issues than he does and she wouldn’t want a woven casket, so why should he?

They could have him cremated; he’d probably not mind that – he liked bonfires and barbecues and he built the living-room hearth. But somehow this didn’t seem right to Karen or Phyllis either; the idea of having such a big man reduced to a small pile of dust is too inconsequential, too transient. Simon weighed over sixteen stone, for goodness’ sake.

So, they have agreed. No arguments, no dissension: he will be buried, with a proper headstone, in Brighton cemetery. It has gravitas, people have been buried for centuries, including Simon’s own father, not so long ago. But principally, it is because both Karen and Phyllis want the solidity of a grave. Insofar as Karen can envisage anything at the moment, she can picture visiting it in the future, with the children, and she prefers this notion to any other. Plus she is worried Molly and Luke won’t recall scattering the ashes in years to come. They are so small, and she wants to have somewhere they can go to remember.

There it is, again: the searing pain that comes with imagining the future. With a mental shove she pushes it away. Then she picks up her pen, and begins to write a list of food she needs to buy. People will need something to eat after the funeral, won’t they?

The moment Karen turns off the car engine she can hear the screams.

‘I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
’

Her stomach turns over. Her daughter has not had a full-blown tantrum for months – she and Simon have noted this development with a mixture of pride and relief only the weekend just gone, but immediately she understands what Molly is communicating with such urgency. Often it’s a Mummy Cuddle she yells for; now she wants her father. Such a simple request: how Karen wishes she could grant it – she wishes it more than
anything
.

Molly’s voice is getting louder. ‘
I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
’

Oh, Lord, thinks Karen, heading up the garden path, poor Tracy. If Molly is audible from here, it must be ear-piercing inside the house. She rings on the doorbell.

Tracy opens the door immediately.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Karen. ‘How long has this been going on?’

Tracy raises her eyes to the sky. ‘Since lunch,’ she confesses.

‘Oh, Tracy! You should have called.’ Tracy normally feeds the children at half past twelve.

‘I wanted you to have some time to yourself.’ She runs her fingers through her hair.

‘I know, and thank you – I did get heaps done, but still, you’re a saint, putting up with this for such hours.’

‘
I WANT DADDY CUDDLE! I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
’ Molly is screaming so loud she has not heard that Karen has arrived.

‘Normally I can stop her,’ says Tracy, raising her voice to make herself heard. ‘Or rather, I ignore her, and eventually she runs out of steam, as you know.’

‘
I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
I WANT DADDY CUDDLE!
’

Karen nods. ‘Usually the best way.’

Momentarily Tracy guides Karen into the living room so as not to have to bellow so hard. ‘But today she’s just gone on and on.’

Karen sighs heavily and bites her lip. ‘Where is she?’

‘In the kitchen, under the table.’

Ordinarily, Karen would be hardened to her cries; she’s learnt to let them almost wash over her. But the sound of Molly’s pain is excruciating: ‘. . . DADDY CUDDLE! . . . DADDY CUDDLE!’ Karen relates totally; she is longing for a Daddy cuddle herself.

‘I’m afraid she’s had an accident too.’

‘Oh, no.’ Molly has been using the loo pretty successfully since the previous autumn and hasn’t had any mishaps since before Christmas. ‘Pee, I hope?’

‘Both.’

Karen winces.

‘It’s all right.’ Tracy smiles, but Karen can tell she is worn out.

‘I didn’t even give you a change of clothes,’ she castigates herself. This hasn’t been necessary for a while, so it didn’t occur to her that morning. She has not been thinking remotely straight.