The Dead Wife's Handbook (5 page)

‘But if she’s not going to come later then how’s she going to see the flowers?’

Max eyes Ellie intently, as if assessing the avenues of response open to him.

‘Well, some people believe that after you die, some part of you still lives on and that maybe, although we can’t see people who’ve died, they might still be able to see and hear us.’

‘Like ghosts?’

‘Not really like ghosts, no. Because you’re scared of ghosts, aren’t you? Whereas you’d never be scared of Mummy, would you?’

Ellie looks confused. I wonder how long she’s been contemplating these questions, whether they’re only coming to mind now because of the gravestones surrounding her, or whether she’s been bottling up these existential enquiries for the past twelve months.

‘Do you think Mummy can hear us?’

Max hesitates, and I wait to see which path he’ll choose: the path of honesty, a route which he knows will make Ellie even sadder than she already is, or the path of benign reassurance.

‘It would be nice to think so, wouldn’t it? The thing is, sweetheart, we can never really know, so we should keep on talking to her if that makes us feel better, don’t you think?’

Ellie runs her hands absent-mindedly through Max’s hair, her head still nestled against his shoulder, her eyes darting rapidly from one impossible question to the next.

‘Why did my mummy die and other mummies don’t die?’

It’s a question asked in the most plaintive of voices, as if Ellie knows even before Max replies that there’s no comprehensible answer.

‘We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we, sweetheart? Do you remember? Mummy had a poorly heart and that’s why she died. But I don’t know why her heart was poorly when other mummies’ hearts are okay. It was just really, really unlucky.’

Ellie pauses for a second, as if to digest Max’s uncertainty and contemplate her response.

‘Georgia at school, she said that her mummy says mummies don’t die if you’re good because God only punishes bad people. Did Mummy die ’cos I did something bad?’

I’d weep if my anger didn’t intervene. Instead, the shock of other people’s insensitivity continues to astound me, even from an entire lifetime away.

‘Which one’s Georgia? Do I know her?’

The tensing of Max’s jaw betrays the fact that he’s as incensed as I am. I remember Georgia, not because Ellie’s particularly good friends with her, but because her mother was always a domineering force in the playground. The kind of parent who views all other children as impediments to their own child’s success. I never liked her.

‘She’s in my class. She doesn’t sit on my table but she’s in the red team for PE like me.’

‘And she said that to you? When?’

‘The other day when we were doing games.’

‘Well, she’s talking rubbish, angel. I promise you – I promise you with all my heart – that Mummy didn’t die because of anything you did. I know it’s really hard to understand and I can’t promise you that you’ll ever understand it completely, but I can promise you that none of this is your fault. Can you believe that for me, Ellie? Please?’

Max holds Ellie tight in his arms as if only by fusing her body to his can he protect her from the emotional elements.

Ellie pulls away from him.

‘But Georgia said that if I was really good then maybe Mummy would come home.’

Grief and impotence combine to create the Molotov of emotional cocktails. I know I’m dead and yet still it’s incomprehensible to me that I’m powerless to shield Ellie from the toxicity of others’ stupidity.

‘Sweetheart, you have to trust me. Georgia doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Will you promise me that next time Georgia or anyone else says anything about Mummy you come and tell me straight away so that we can talk about it?’

Max is unable to hide his annoyance. Not with Ellie, but with Georgia and her mum and all the other people with their injurious proclamations from whom he can’t protect Ellie, despite his best intentions.

Ellie doesn’t pick up on Max’s frustration. She’s too lost in her own world of confusion.

‘But does that mean Mummy’s really never coming home? Really never? Not even if I brush my teeth every night and every morning and go to bed on time and keep my room really, really tidy?’

Ellie looks at Max pleadingly, willing him not to destroy her most precious of fantasies. I wonder who wishes the most that he didn’t have to: Ellie, Max or me? I also wonder if this is why she’s been so well-behaved these past few months, whether she’s been engaged in a private pact, drawing an invisible correlation between her own good behaviour and the likelihood of my return.

‘Sweetheart, you have no idea how much I want to be able to tell you that Mummy will come back to us one day.
I wish it were true as much as you do. I’m sorry, sweetheart, really I am. But you’ve just got to remember, Mummy loved you so much and you still have lots of people who love you and we’ll always be here for you.’

Max squeezes Ellie’s limp body even tighter. She doesn’t seem to have the will to hug him back.

‘But if you couldn’t stop Mummy from dying then how do you know you won’t die too?’

It’s the sixty-four million dollar question and it’s taken a year for her to ask it but now that she has I can’t help worrying that it may have been preying on her mind all this time. I hate to think of her connecting the two, fearing the worst, imagining her own orphanhood. I hate it because I know how terrifying it is. I’m not sure at what age one stops feeling that to lose both parents would be the most painful of abandonments. I don’t think I’d quite got there by the time I died, even as a grown woman with a child of my own.

‘I’m not going anywhere, angel, I promise.’

‘But how do you know?’

‘I just know, sweetheart. There’s no way I’m leaving you, not for a very long time.’

Sometimes lying to your children is the only option. The kindest option. Or the selfish option, the one which allows you to keep the grief-stricken wolves from your family’s door just a little longer.

‘If Mummy’s really never coming home again then will I ever get a new mummy? Like Tom got after his mummy moved to Australia?’

Ellie’s question jolts every fibre of my defunct being in a single, debilitating instant.

Tell her, Max, please tell her no.

‘Sweetheart, people only ever have one mummy. And yours loved you very, very much. No one can ever replace her, and we’ll never forget her, will we?’

Ellie shakes her head vigorously. There are tears in her eyes. Mine too.

Perhaps Max was right; perhaps it was selfish of him to bring her. Selfish of us both to want her company here today.

I probably should have known better, shouldn’t I? I was three years older than Ellie when my dad died but my memories are still sharp enough for me to recall those feelings of confusion and fear and doubt. So perhaps I should have known that Ellie’s presence here today would reignite the emotional flames, that it would rekindle the unanswerable questions, that it would reprise the endless whys.

Sometimes I wonder whether it’s a help or a hindrance that I’ve been through the same experience as Ellie, whether it renders my empathy more poignant or simply more comprehensible. I think perhaps I was luckier than her in many ways because at least I had someone to blame. I could direct all my anger towards the middle-aged drunk who got into his car that Saturday afternoon after a liquid lunch in the local pub and, moments later, failed to stop at the red light of the pedestrian crossing that my dad just happened to be walking over at that very moment. Ellie doesn’t have that. I can’t imagine what she’ll do with her blame, once she’s old enough for the anger and the resentment to kick in. Perhaps there’s some way Max can mitigate against her ever having those feelings. I hope there is. I don’t want her ever to know that rage.

Max puts Ellie back on her feet and gently wipes away her tears. He leans a hand against my headstone. I almost believe I can feel his tear-stained fingers on my face.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

Max is speaking brightly now, clearly wanting to change the tone of this visit. Would that he could, or else Ellie may never want to return.

‘Why don’t you tell Mummy what you’ve been doing at school today?’

Ellie looks relieved to have some guidance but not altogether convinced about the suggestion on offer.

‘But how do we know if Mummy can hear us?’

‘Well, we don’t. But I’d like to hear about your day anyway.’

Ellie holds on to Max’s hand as she begins to talk, her words directed in turn between the daddy by her side and the headstone in front of her.

‘Well, today we had PE and Miss Collins was telling us about Sports Day and me and Megan want to do the race where you tie your legs together but Miss Collins says she’s going to put all our names in a hat.’

‘That’s the three-legged race, isn’t it munchkin?’

‘Yes, the three-legs race. And then we did Art and Miss Collins told us to draw a picture of our favourite animal so I did a white rabbit but then there was nothing for me to colour in so I coloured him pink.’

White rabbits. Max was reading her
Alice in Wonderland
at bedtime last week. She was mesmerized by it, her fascination with rabbit holes and magic potions and returns from another world perhaps provoking some of her questions today.

‘And why don’t you tell Mummy about the spelling test you did this morning? You did so well, didn’t you angel?’

‘Well, we had to learn ten words and Daddy tested me every day after dinner for a whole week and when we had to do them in class I got them all right. Miss Collins gave me a gold star and a smiley face sticker for my jumper. See?’

Ellie leans towards my gravestone and pulls her bottle-green sticker-adorned jumper towards it, as if showing her trophies to a living being rather than an inanimate lump of granite.

I’m here, sweetheart, and I’m so, so proud of you.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell Mummy?’

‘Erm … I don’t think so.’

‘Well then, how about we play a game?’

Ellie’s eyes light up. Max sits down, cross-legged, on the grass in front of my headstone and pulls Ellie on to his lap.

‘Why don’t we play a game where we each have to say something we love best about Mummy. Listen, I’ll go first. I love Mummy’s meringues, the ones with all the gooey cream in the middle and the strawberries on top and the special raspberry sauce round the edge.’

Ellie thinks for a few seconds, brow furrowed with concentration, as though it’s critically important that she recalls the best possible memory.

‘I love Mummy’s roast potatoes.’

It’s true. She did always love my roast potatoes. Max keeps trying to recreate them but he always forgets the drizzle of lemon juice. Everything else he remembers – the onion, the garlic, the fresh rosemary, the salt and pepper –
but never the fresh lemon. Ellie keeps gently reminding him of his omission, telling him that they’re ‘almost perfect, just not quite’, as if painfully, unconsciously aware of the necessary encouragement she’s giving Max for his unexpected, new-found role in their lives.

‘I love Mummy’s singing and how she makes up words when she doesn’t know the lyrics so she ends up singing a lot of gibberish.’

‘Gibberish. That’s funny.’

Ellie giggles infectiously and then goes quiet for a second, seemingly lost in her own world of memories.

‘I love Mummy reading me bedtime stories and doing the silly voices of all the people in the book.’

‘Yes, Mummy’s story voices are the best. You’re good at story voices too, sweetheart. Mummy always said you’d be a good actress, didn’t she? Oh, I’ve thought of another one. I love Mummy’s hair when she’s just washed it and it goes all curly and bouncy.’

‘And I love Mummy painting my nails. Especially when she does my fingers and my toes all matching. Pink and red are best. They smell nice too. Can you paint my nails when we get home, Daddy?’

‘I can try but I think you might be better off asking Granny to do it for you later. You know one of the things I love best about Mummy? Her laugh and the way her eyes go all crinkly when she smiles. Although she never liked me saying that. She thought I meant she looked old and had wrinkles. But Mummy never had wrinkles, did she, munchkin?’

‘No. Mummy was the most beautiful mummy in the whole world ever.’

If there are a million ways to break a heart, then hearing myself relegated to the past tense has to be one of the most painful. And listening to the people I love best honouring the simplest quotidian pleasures of our shared lives one of the most bittersweet.

I wipe away the tears that are blurring my view, only to discover that they’re not alone in obscuring the scene before me.

As the white mist gathers, I leave Max and Ellie sitting in front of my headstone embracing one another with memories, while the last of the day’s sunshine begins to fade, casting my inscription into shadow.

Chapter 4

Max’s dad is watching
Channel 4 News
as Max’s mum comes down the stairs from where she’s been tucking Ellie into bed after an early dinner. It had been right of Joan and Ralph to invite themselves over tonight. I’d been unsure when Joan had suggested it last week, wondering whether it might be important for Max and Ellie to be allowed time on their own together today. But after their trip to the cemetery earlier, I think they both needed the kind of oxygenation that only fresh company could provide. Anything else and they’d have been in danger of becoming locked together in a hermetically sealed world of mourning.

Joan brought over a home-made lasagne, one of Ellie’s favourites. She brings them supper two or three nights a week usually, not to eat with Max and Ellie but simply by way of culinary support. We could never have envisaged when we moved to Acton eight years ago, pregnant and craving stability, just how important Joan and Ralph’s proximity would eventually become. I’d been ambivalent about returning to Max’s childhood suburb, fearful of the ramifications of living quite so close to my in-laws and nervous that it would forever feel like we were camping in their back garden rather than establishing grown-up lives of our own. And I had, in all honesty, been concerned about the message it would send to Joan, the
mother who could never quite believe that Max and his brother weren’t in need of her daily involvement in their lives any more.