Close Your Eyes (43 page)

On the morning of the funeral Ruiz had found me lying on the floor between the sofa and a table, having consumed the best part of a bottle of Scotch. My arms shook. My legs shook. My head shook.

Emma saw me. ‘What’s wrong with Daddy?’

‘He fell out of bed,’ Ruiz told her.

‘That’s not his bed.’

‘He’s not feeling very well.’

Charlie got my medication and Ruiz stood me under a cold shower until I thought I was going to drown. Then he gave me the talk about how Julianne had loved me very much and would hate to see me falling apart when I had the girls to look after. To be honest, he said that I didn’t deserve Julianne but then neither did anyone else. She had always been the smartest, funniest, kindest, most loyal person in the room.

They could have filled the church four times over with friends and family and people whose lives Julianne had touched. I cried for many reasons, mostly various forms of self-pity. I cried because I missed her. I cried for Charlie and for Emma. I cried because I was scared of death.

I measure time differently now. There is
before
Julianne and
after
her. Days have turned to weeks and then months. Friends keep telling me to ‘keep busy’ and to ‘keep moving’ and not to become morbid or stop to think. Well, maybe I want to become morbid. Maybe I want to wallow and to remember.

On my sad days, which are most days, I walk miles through familiar neighbourhoods and frayed knots of woodland and along rivers that twist slowly towards the sea. Julianne is with me. I talk to her. She listens. I tell her stories about the girls and try to make sense of what’s befallen them … me … us.

I bear no ill will towards anyone. Having witnessed so much hurt from so many sources, I have begun to wonder if that’s my function – to soak up pain, so that others are given sweeter, happier lives to lead. I know that’s ridiculous and stupidly self-indulgent, but a grieving husband, running on fumes, will tell himself almost anything if it helps. He will sleep and forget, wake and remember – and be shocked by the news all over again.

He will drown and swim, suffocate and breathe. And sometimes, late at night, when he kicks off all the sheets, he will feel a finger trace a message on the palm of his hand.

I … AM … HERE …