The Hollow Heart (The Heartfelt Series) (5 page)

It was a fabulously bright
May day. It had rained earlier, so everything looked freshly washed, the sun
was quickly warming the tarmac and there were spots of glimmering heat haze as
George headed north along the M1 towards home and a well-earned weekend. He was
trying to put a particularly hellish morning behind him, having endured a
series of very tense meetings with civil servants and academics, relating to a
report he was working on, followed by a barrage of emails from locals opposed
to a new Chesterford planning application.

He was longing for home. The relatively new home he shared
with his gorgeous fiancé and their adorable West Highland terrier. The home
that smelled of fresh paint and Chinese takeaways, and stood curtain-less
before the world, yet wrapped itself around him in a comfort blanket of chaos,
clutter and love. As he turned the music up, his mobile rang; he answered
speaking into his ‘hands free’ microphone beside the sun visor above the
windscreen. No answer. The new-fangled instrument was always playing up. He
checked his phone, it displayed the discreet code that was the Prime Minister.
He grabbed it, punching the answer button.

He did not see, in the split second it took the car in front
to slam on its brakes, the lurch of the juggernaut with a foreign number plate,
as it tried to avoid a pheasant wandering in the slow lane. But he heard the
slam, like the boom of a cannon, as the car in front plummeted into the
undercarriage of the truck and, hauling at the wheel to avoid it, he swerved
towards a coach that should not have been in the fast lane at all.

He registered the spin of the car as the phone, flying out
of his hand, smacked the dashboard, bouncing back, cracking against his brow
bone, just before a large four-wheel drive hit him side on, pushing him into
the rear of the coach. The steel frame of his ancient vehicle groaned
piteously. George gripped the wheel and, holding his breath, rammed his foot
against the accelerator, impulse telling him to get out of this as fast as he
could. He hit the crash barrier as the 4x4 ploughed into the driver’s door, and
the coach slammed on its brakes forcing the passenger side of George’s beloved
car to be concertinaed inwards. He clung to the steering wheel, rigid as he
gripped, holding on, determined not to let go.

All movement stopped, it was dark, the air about him filled
with the thickest silence. George desperately searched for his voice inside his
crushed chest, he could not move, or see anything, he was starting to panic and
then he found, deep within, a tiny voice. His joy knew no bounds, he could say
his words, just a few words, he would wait, hang on until someone was there to
hear them.

He did not know how long he had been holding on, but just as
the darkness was merging to grey and there was brightness in the distance, he
heard something beside him, the clunk of machinery, a shout. He groped around
inside his chest for breath and found just enough to say his words, as loudly
as he could.

“Tell my darling girl, always with her, I’ll always be with
her.” Then the light ahead turned from glowing golden to searing white and
George was free. He released the steering wheel, slumping backwards, a tiny
slash of red on his brow, the slightest smile on his white lips.

The paramedic at his side pronounced him dead at the scene,
he was sure George had felt nothing, it was instantaneous, over. Later, when he
was told that the body in the unrecognisable classic car had been an MP, quite
well-known, he remembered he had said something, he was sure of it. Something
about my darling girl but he decided not to repeat this, it had been a
nightmare of a day, the worst he had seen in nearly ten years in the job, what
good would it do? The man had died, along with the others, just another
statistic, a wasteful, senseless end.

Paul spotted the
RTA
report as it flashed up on a computer screen in the newsroom. He was passing
through on his way to deliver Marianne a sludge-coloured coffee from the
machine. He stopped dead in his tracks at her office door when he heard her
repeat the words ‘classic car’ in a deadpan voice. She had been toying with
wording for the wedding invitation on her laptop. It was to be a small,
informal affair, with jazz, real ale and a fish and chip supper. She dropped
the phone, accidently hitting the delete key.

Now, sometimes she woke in
the middle of the night, thinking she could feel his fingers in her hair, his
breath on her cheek, as he whispered his special goodnight. But George had
gone. His darling girl seemed to miss him more as time passed, not less.

Jack touched her shoulder as he squeezed into the pew beside
her. George’s sister, Catherine, stood shoulder to shoulder with Marianne,
Catherine’s husband, Frank, beside her. Catherine took Marianne’s hand,
Marianne tried to focus, beneath the broad-brimmed hat, almond eyes stared at
her, eyes that looked just like George’s, except these eyes were dead, eyes
with the lights switched off.

The service passed over her quite gently. Frank’s address to
the packed assembly was warm and anecdotal, even raising the odd appropriate
titter. A chief whip in the Conservative Party spoke of George’s generous and,
indeed, selfless dedication to duty. One of George’s oldest friends and a
leading light in the Jewish community, together with a Muslim colleague, read
funeral prayers from their respective Holy Books. The Reverend Pollock
concluded by asking everyone to pray for George’s soul and his family, sister
Catherine, brother-in-law Frank and especially his fiancé Marianne.

Marianne looked up at the mention of her name,
half-remembering why she was at a large, formal gathering without George. In
her head she was in the newsroom, it was noisy, anxious voices, bad accident on
the M1, six-car smash, fatalities, juggernaut, school bus, vintage car.
Silence. The opening bars of
Stairway to Heaven
started up. It was
George’s funeral.

She was going to be without George for the rest of her life.
She felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if she had been stabbed with a knitting
needle. She let out a strangled squeak and her knees buckled. Paul, in the pew
behind, steadied her. Jack propped his hand in the small of her back. Together,
they eased her back into her seat.

“Oh Marianne,” Catherine whispered, squeezing her hand.
Marianne sat perfectly still, white-faced and dry-eyed.

“Oh George,” she said, desolate at the realisation of what
had happened. She felt as if the life had been sucked out of her and a
cavernous vacuum remained. “Poor George,” she shook her head, clearing it of
images. “How can I tell Monty? How will he know?” She started to sob, quietly.

The three months since
George’s funeral flashed by, yet Marianne seemed to be dragging body and soul
through treacle in slow motion. Unsure how she had arrived there, she found
herself sitting in the gloom, in the garden of the home they had shared. She
had been thrilled to discover a rundown town house at the end of a Georgian
terrace and, once George agreed it was perfect, they moved in and immediately
started work, adding a gracious new garden room to the gable end of the house.
She was sitting under the oak tree looking back at the large hole in the wall
the builder had made for the French doors, still covered in thick polythene. It
had been knocked-through the week George had died. It had been like that ever
since. It was the beginning of September, George had died in May.

Early autumn draped the garden like a shroud. She watched
motionless as Monty’s constantly wagging tail and white bottom disappeared
under piles of leaves hunting for anything he could chase, catch and
obliterate. Even as dusk was settling, she could see the garden was badly in
need of attention. A bit like herself she surmised, delicately wiping a drop of
snot off the end of her nose. Monty, sensing the mood withdrew from the pile of
debris and busied himself at his mistress’s slippered feet, pushing at her
ankles with his damp nose.

“Oh Monty stop!” she said grumpily, and then looking into
his soft brown eyes, felt immediately guilty and swept him up in her arms,
half-squeezing the life out of him. She buried her face in the spot between his
ears, sniffing deeply. He still smelled like a puppy, like the very first time
she had laid eyes on him. Monty wriggled in her arms and she smelled him again.
The garden gate made a dry, rusting squeak as it pushed open.

“How long have you been sitting out here?” called Paul, as
Monty jumped from her lap to greet him. It was quite dark, she could hardly
make him out as he strode up the path towards her, Monty trotting merrily at
his heels.

“Not sure,” she answered, standing, smoothing her skirt. A
couple of sheets of paper fluttered to the ground. He stooped to pick them up,
she had already started back to the house.

Once inside the newly refurbished kitchen, she automatically
flicked on the kettle. Paul, reaching for mugs hanging from the dresser,
noticed how strained she looked under the electric light. She pulled a fleece
from the back of a chair onto her shoulders, aimlessly opening and closing
cupboard doors.

“We don’t seem to have any biscuits…”

“You never seem to have anything these days.” As soon as he
said the words, he regretted them. She gripped the back of the chair, he passed
her a tissue; she ignored it.

“Sorry,” he offered. She turned blank eyes on him, saying
nothing.

“You don’t fancy Ronan’s leaving do tonight then?”

She had completely forgotten they had been invited to a
drinks party for Ronan O’Keefe, a star turn in the Art Department, off to
pastures new. Ronan and Marianne had joined the Chesterford Chronicle on the
same day.

 “I just don’t feel…” She sat down heavily.

“That’s okay. No problem. Wish you’d phoned though.”

Paul had been saying okay, no problem, for quite a while but
he considered that the time had come to suggest ever so gently, Marianne should
start to get back into the swing of things.

In fairness, her work could not be faulted. She had the odd
day when she just could not function, so either stayed in bed with a hot water
bottle and daytime telly or took Monty for a punishing walk, drank the best
part of a bottle of whiskey, and crashed. But generally, since George’s death,
Marianne had pulled on a semblance of a suit, dragged a comb through her hair,
made a stab at the makeup and turned up at the office, still managing to meet
her deadlines with a more than half decent piece of work.

Socially though, it had been far more difficult. Apart from
a couple of drinks with Paul and a quick supper at Jack and Isabelle’s, she had
stubbornly refused to prise herself out of number seventy four Oakwood Avenue.

Even her close friend Sophie, who was totally disorganised
and generally hopeless at the best of times, had tried to encourage her to
attend to the ever growing pile of cards and letters on the hall table. But the
suggestion Marianne respond to her phone messages, personal emails or texts was
met with the same blank look. Why? The world beyond her automated performance
in the newsroom, did not register, did not concern her or matter.

Paul pushed a mug of tea in front of her. He pulled out the
sheaves of paper he had gathered from beside the bench, placing them on the
table before her.

“Anything important?” he asked. She ignored the tea.

“Catherine phoned. Wanted to know why I hadn’t been in
touch, only picked the message up because she kept asking me through that bloody
machine. Wanted to know when I was going to collect my things. I didn’t know
what she was on about. She asked me if I had heard from Snelgrove and
Marshall.”

Paul looked quizzical.

“You know George’s lawyer. Catherine became quite insistent.
I rummaged through the pile on the table, found the letter and, well, you see,
George has left me everything; his half of his parents’ estate, even his half
of his mother’s jewellery.” She twisted the ruby and diamond band George had
selected from his mother’s treasure trove to be her engagement ring. He had
presented it on New Year’s Eve, the day they ‘officially’ announced their
engagement. It was too big so Marianne had padded it out with tape until it
could be properly sized, so determined was she to wear it on the night.

“Wow,” Paul put his cup down. “Good old George. How does
Catherine feel about it?”

“Couldn’t be nicer, I called her back and apologised for
being so lax. She laughed, said George knew I didn’t have a mercenary bone in
my body, she said that’s obviously why he wanted to take care of me.”

“Well he’s certainly done that. You’ll probably never have
to work again, well not really hard anyway.”

“But how organised, so sorted. He’d dotted all the i’s,
crossed all the t’s. Not entirely George. I said to Catherine, ‘He didn’t know
he was going to be killed in a car crash on the bloody M1’.” She stopped. The
room was completely silent, apart from the ticking Grandfather clock in the
hall. “But he did know he was going to die from a congenital heart condition,
runs in the family, she said he’d known it was on the cards for some time. He’d
only told Catherine.”

“And me,” Paul pulled his chair closer to her, “he wanted to
assure me you’d be okay.”

Her eyes flickered. She turned to look at him, pink spots of
fury rapidly dotting her cheekbones.

“He told you? Why on earth would he tell you?” she spat,
“why was I the last to know? Why wasn’t I told what he was going through? The
selfish bastard!” She threw the mug across the room, smashing it against the
polished chrome range. Paul flinched, then found his voice.

“You know why. He loved you, literally loved you more than
life itself. He’d have told you at some stage, but not until he had to. That
was George. Why spoil things before they were going to be spoiled anyway?”