Simon's Choice (25 page)

Melissa laughed. “Slow down. I’m only a little bit pregnant. A few weeks. I’ve been feeling a bit sick. I got a test when I was in that pharmacy yesterday. I had a hell of a time explaining what I wanted. She would insist on trying to give me a pessary for thrush. I only did the test this morning, and I was waiting for the perfect moment. Do you know, it really is very difficult piddling on that little stick? I wasn’t sure I’d managed it. Anyway - didn’t you hear me? What about names …? Stop it Simon, I’m not an invalid!”

Simon half lifted Melissa off the wall. “Let’s go get a big supper for my soon to be very big girl and my littler girl. We know the names, don’t we? I thought we were decided. It’s not like we haven’t talked about it enough times.”

Melissa and Simon hooked arms and leaned against each other. They began to walk leisurely back towards the town square and the bistros that circled it.

“Ben for a boy, Sarah for a girl.” Melissa slipped a hand into Simon’s back trouser pocket. “Does this mean I can’t have mussels? I thought we’d go to that one on the corner with the shellfish …”

Simon stopped and turned his wife towards him, dropping a lingering kiss on her forehead. “We’ll pretend you’re not pregnant tonight. Champagne and mussels, to celebrate the conception of Sarah. Or Ben. Or Ben …” Simon added hurriedly as Melissa began to interrupt. “But I’m telling you it’s a girl. My two girls – Melissa and Sarah.”

* * *

Simon stared into the freezing, quickly flowing water of the Calder. The low evening sun caught an oil slick on the polluted water, the iridescence beautiful yet sordid.

“Don’t do it!” A group of young men walked by laughing. “Don’t jump!” They guffawed, patting each other on the back as they continued past, congratulating themselves on their wit.

Jumping was neither an appealing nor practical option. The bridge was low, the water shallow and Simon had no intention of getting wet. No, jumping off this bridge would be merely embarrassing. The wall served only as a place to sit and think.

Jumping off the Harpenden Viaduct, now there was an unequivocally fatal leap. The Victorian stone supports plunged seventy-eight feet to the valley below. The disused railway was now grassed over, visited only by the occasional dog walker. Porridge and Simon had crossed it a number of times. Once, with Sarah, they had taken a picnic.

Would one just step off, wondered Simon, or attempt more of a dive? How long would it take, he wondered? How many seconds of flailing in the air before the final crunch? Too long. Plenty of time to think. Plenty of time to change his mind. The sensation of falling was not one Simon wished as his last.

Porridge nudged him with his nose.

“You bored, Podge?” Simon glanced down at his dog and swung his legs back over the wall, his feet once again on
terra firma
. “I suppose we’d better make a move.”

Simon and Porridge turned to walk back towards the village. Simon stopped. “Change of plan – come on boy.”

Turning, Simon clipped Porridge’s lead on and walked up the hill, in the opposite direction of home, towards St Matthews.

He needed a quiet place to think.

Chapter 29

Simon sat in a pew at the back of the empty church. Porridge settled himself in the aisle with a sigh. Simon took out his mobile and laid it on the oaken pew beside him. Being contactable was a high priority now.

Simon pitied Melissa, even felt a little love for her, but knew that he would never be able to once again embrace her as his wife. Perhaps it had been this way for a long time, Simon thought sadly. More recently he had loved Melissa only as Sarah’s mother, not as his wife.

He wondered if he and Melissa would have had more in common if they had been less affluent. Their comfortable situation had allowed them both to have separate hobbies and independence from each other. They had drifted apart, love often only declared in material tokens, gestures they had thought meaningful at the time, but perhaps were not. The one thing they had in common was Sarah. And soon Sarah would be gone.

Melissa had apologized - she had even asked him to come home - but they both knew there was no point. No Sarah, no Team Bailey.

He had frozen her out, Melissa said. Pushed her away at the very moment she needed him close.

She was probably right, Simon realized. All the time he spent avoiding the issue, promising himself that
everything would be alright
, he had been harboring a secret rage of his own. His wife had engendered a latent hatred in him that he had not known how to express, confused and terrified by his feelings as he had been. It was if he blamed Melissa, a sentiment he knew to be ridiculous. He couldn't help it. It was as if he had subconsciously thought her not mother
enough
. That if she had not been the bitch that whelped Sarah, then Sarah might not have been faulty.

It was cruel and it was medically unfounded, but that was how it was.

He hoped that Melissa would manage to make something of her life, recover from what was so clearly destroying her, as it was destroying him. But he knew that he would not be a part of that future, not when every sight of her made him feel faintly disgusted.

Even his parents felt less important now. “Life must go on, lad,” his father had said on the telephone the day before.
Life must go on
. Simon had only just managed to quell his fury. The distaste he felt for his wife, he found, had also tarnished his relationship with his parents. Their worry for him, their hand-wringing parental concern, was smothering and unwanted. Simon had barely the emotional energy to get through his day, let alone the ability to articulate his despair to his parents. It was wearing having to worry about
their
worry. It was deeply selfish, he knew, but he could not help it.

Life must go on.
Must It?
thought Simon. There seemed so little left.

“I know that Labrador …” A familiar voice sounded from behind him. “That you, Simon? Or has somebody stolen Porridge?”

“Duncan – I’m sorry, were you wanting to lock up? I was just, having a think. You know. It was quiet.”

“Of course. I’m delighted you’re here. I had been meaning to speak to you, as it happens.” Duncan, the genial vicar slid into the pew beside Simon. “You don’t mind do you? I can leave you alone if you’d prefer.”

“No, it’s fine.” Simon forced a small smile, though really he would have appreciated his previous solitude.

“I wondered how you were getting on. How is Sarah?”

Simon gave a little sigh. “Close to the end.”

Duncan nodded. “I see. How are you bearing up? I haven’t seen you for sometime.”

“I’m alright, I suppose. How is one supposed to be? I’m going through the motions. I’m still making myself have a shave. I suppose that’s something.” Simon gave another tight smile. Describing grief was exhausting.

“You know, Simon, it is an unhappy part of my job that I have dealings with a lot of people who are grieving. I know it’s difficult to talk about. Tiresome, actually. When my own mother died I grew quite sick of reassuring people that I was okay. I most certainly wasn’t, but one felt one had a duty to put their minds at rest. Quite ridiculous.”

Simon looked at his friend. His interest peaked only slightly in his lethargy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that your mother had died. Yes, it is rather repetitive. Though I realize that people mean well.”

Duncan chuckled. “Oh, I’m not sure that they do.”

Simon raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Don’t get me wrong. They
think
they do. And they most certainly don’t mean any harm. No, what I find is they’re normally reassuring themselves that there is nothing they can do. Grief is distressing; people seem worried it might be catching. They ask if you are alright, when of course the answer is that you are not. You say yes anyway, as they know you will, and then they feel absolved of duty. Don’t blame them. You’ve probably done the same thing yourself.”

“Did you feel angry when your mother died?” Simon watched a last ray of the evening sun as it shone through a stained glass window, creating a dapple on the stone aisle ahead. “I feel so damned angry at the moment. With everyone. Everything. Did you get over it?”

“I certainly did feel angry, though mostly with myself. Yes. I did get over it. Though it took me most of forty years. I was only sixteen when she died. It was my fault, actually. Hello, Porridge. Have you come for a stroke?”

“Your fault? I’m sure it wasn’t.” Simon trotted out the platitude almost without thought.

“Oh, it was. I had been smoking in the sitting room after a party. I didn’t put the butt out properly. My father, brother and I escaped. Mother did not.”

Simon’s jaw dropped. “God. I mean – I'm so sorry. How awful. How bloody awful.” He looked away awkwardly.

The two men sat in companionable silence. Some time passed until Simon spoke. “Do you believe in Heaven, Duncan?”

“I do.”

“Fluffy clouds and pearly gates?”

“No. I very much doubt it. But I’m sure that our souls go on and that somewhere we meet our maker.”

“What about our loved ones? Those who have died before us?”

“Yes, I think we see them again. Perhaps not in this physical form, but I think our souls meet again.”

Simon bit his cheek in his habitual tic. “So what about hell? If heaven exists, is there a hell?”

Duncan frowned. “I certainly don’t think children go to hell.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Simon said.

“Okay.” Duncan paused. “My church, strictly speaking, believes in hell as a physical place. I can’t believe that. I don’t think there is a flaming place below, if that is what you are asking. I suspect that those who led a truly wicked life have greatly troubled souls and that those souls suffer for their wickedness in an afterlife. More than that, I don’t know. And trust me, Simon,” the kindly priest put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, “I’ve given it a lot of thought.”

Simon took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “What about suicides? Do people who commit suicide go to heaven, Duncan? Or do they go to hell?”

Duncan took his hand off Simon’s shoulder and turned to look at the younger man. Simon steadily returned his gaze.

“I think, Simon, that it might depend on the case. Generally though, suicide is considered a rather selfish act.”

“Jesus committed suicide, did he not?”

Duncan looked up at the great stained glass window that stood over the altar of the church. It depicted Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. “Jesus’ death was an act of martyrdom, not suicide.”

“What’s the difference?”

Duncan spoke slowly. “Well, a suicide is normally an act of desperation. It’s a selfish act, one in which the person is running away from something. A martyrdom is when a person allows their life to be taken for the greater good of others. One is selfish, one is selfless.”

“What if you wish to die
for
somebody else? What if you have made a promise?” Simon tipped his head back, looking unseeingly at the ceiling arched high above. “Then surely you would go to heaven.”

“Would that death cause more joy in the world, or more pain? What about those left behind? In the event that others are hurt, then no, Simon. I’m not sure that the death would warrant a place in heaven.” Duncan bent down and stroked the Labrador that lay at his feet again. His voice was soft when he spoke again. “Should I be worried about you, Simon?”

Simon shook his head. “Don’t worry about me.” He stood up. “I’m just in a peculiar mood. Thanks for talking to me, Duncan. I appreciate it. Come on, Porridge, it’s getting late and we’re walking back.”

Duncan stood as well, walking into the aisle and patting Porridge as Simon passed. “It never goes away, Simon. I’m not going to pretend that it does. But it becomes easier to cope. Day by day. You don’t forget, but you do learn to get on with your life. I know it doesn’t seem that way at the moment but…”

“I know. Life goes on.”

* * *

Duncan stood in the doorway of the church and watched his troubled parishioner wander up the road, his shoulders hunched, his head down.

He wished that he could call Melissa, but he knew that he mustn’t. Simon had chosen to speak to him, to ask him questions grounded in faith. Duncan had to respect his privacy.

Grief was a terrible thing, he mused. He turned back into the church, locking the heavy doors behind him. He had been intending to go straight home, to the shepherd’s pie and wifely warmth that awaited him across the road, but he decided to make a prayer first. A prayer that God would guide Simon, protect him from himself and grant him the power to see how needed he was on earth.

He’d call in on Simon the next day. Try to talk more with him. Remind him of the pain he’d cause his parents if he ended his life. Remind him that the last thing Sarah would want would be for her father to die. He had dealt with the suicidal before – sometimes successfully, twice sadly not.

No matter what, Duncan thought sadly, ultimately, it was Simon’s choice.

Chapter 30

STAY FOR GO FOR

Melissa Sarah

Mum and Dad Me?

Porridge

It was noon the day after Simon visited St Matthews. He was trying once again to finish an unpalatable Sainsbury’s egg sandwich before his afternoon flurry of patients began. His Stay For/Go For list lay before him. He had added ‘Me?’ to the ‘Go For’ side, but had since crossed it out.

What
did
he want? He wanted his daughter to be happy. If not here with him, at least to be happy
somewhere
. He stared at the list. That Sarah would simply cease to be was not a possibility he could face. It was too final, too blunt. Therefore, he had to believe that she would go on to another place. The only theological option he knew of was heaven.