These Days of Ours (18 page)

‘As you know, Dad was born only three streets away from here.’

That struck Kate in a way it hadn’t when she’d rehearsed. A man with his head full of the Orient had travelled only a few hundred yards.

‘He was a quiet man.’

He couldn’t get a word in edgeways.

‘But he loved to talk about the things that mattered to him.’

Kate paused, grasping for the next thought. Her sleep patterns were haywire. Bereavement had made her physically ill, blocked up and shivering, as if she had a cold. There was the occasional
miraculous hour when she would freewheel, absorbed in some task, but then the smell of a jacket or the pitch of a stranger’s laugh would remind her and she would plummet to the basement
again, mired in grief.

‘Many of you are aware of Dad’s chief passion.’

Heads nodded fondly.

‘He never tired of raising funds for Yulan House. Later, if you come back to the house with us, I’ll play you the beautiful video message the children sent.’

I won’t watch, though
.

It was too much to ask. The children’s sweetly expressed sympathy was unbearable.

Watching television or listening to the news on the radio were just two of the ordinary activities that had become endurance tasks; Kate felt that her father’s death should be in the
headlines. Other people going about their humdrum days astonished and affronted her. How could they all just carry on as if nothing had happened?

‘Dad was a devoted family man, a good friend and neighbour, a loving son and an upstanding member of his community.’

Mum had insisted on that bit. Dad couldn’t stand the neighbours and ‘upstanding’ was the sort of pompous language that made him itch. The gospel quote below his name in the
order of service was also a Mum touch. Kate had lobbied for Shakespeare but Mum had stood firm: no husband of hers was going into the ground a heathen.

She didn’t let him have his way about going to China and now she won’t let him have his way about his own funeral
.

The red nosed priest’s pious way with a prayer used to make Dad giggle. Kate was grateful her father wouldn’t have to endure the funeral tea: quiche as far as the eye could see.

‘Dad would be deeply moved by the way you’ve all reached out to comfort us at this terrible time.’

Terrible time
.

Such platitudes. It described it, yes, but barely scratched the surface. Mum was tight lipped. She wouldn’t talk about him, and said helplessly
Don’t cry, love
whenever Kate
was overcome.

At those moments, Kate was grateful for Becca. Her cousin’s own mourning was, inevitably, over-egged but Becca’s taste for high drama meant she was at ease with Kate’s deep
emotion. She allowed Kate to talk incessantly about the man they’d lost, one minute nostalgic, the next weeping, before returning to baffled anger that such tragedy was permitted to
happen.

‘Come and stay,’ Becca had wheedled. ‘I want to look after you.’

‘I’d love to.’ That was true. ‘But I’m too busy with work and the funeral and everything.’ That wasn’t. She couldn’t stay at Becca’s house
because of Charlie. Because of that kiss.

‘Mum has asked me to personally thank all the family for their kindness. They’re all here today. My husband, Julian. Aunty Marjorie and Uncle Hugh. Becca. And we mustn’t forget
Flo. And Charlie.’

The metallic yowl of feedback ripped through the church. Kate jumped. She couldn’t remember what came next.

We kissed
.

Uninvited, the memory barged in and made itself comfortable.

‘Um . . .’ Kate dug into her small shoulder bag, looking for her notes as she remembered the warmth of Charlie’s lips against her own. The pleasing clash of their faces.

‘Err . . .’ Kate blinked away the unbidden sensual memory. Out of place, wildly inappropriate, it stopped her in her tracks. She took a deep breath, desperate to compose herself when
the folded paper leaped into her hand. ‘Ah. Here we are. Sorry. Bear with me.’

In the ten days since she lost her dad –
only ten? –
Julian had been carefully kind to Kate, wary of her as if she was a fragile, valued object. Kate didn’t like to
admit it but the calamity had shone such a searing light on her life that she could be in no doubt about her priorities.

Julian was a distinct and clear entity, on his own, near the edge of her mind. Surely, as her husband, he should be centre-front. He should loom large.

Kate matched Julian’s reserve with her own. There were no cross words, no confrontations but the no man’s land between them had grown darker and wider.

Bereavement could tear couples apart: that hadn’t happened. But neither had it brought them closer. Instead they’d retreated into caricatures of themselves.

Desperately unfolding the piece of paper, Kate wondered at its blankness. It wasn’t her notes, it was the envelope Charlie had handed back to her. Somebody in the congregation cleared
their throat as she stared at the untidy handwritten
Kate.

‘I made some notes, but I’m just going to speak from the heart.’

Charlie’s head was bowed over Flo, who sat in his lap, subdued by all the sad faces around her. The depth of his grief surprised everybody except Kate.

Indulgent and protective with Kate, Becca was impatient with Charlie. ‘He needs,’ she’d said, ‘to stop moping and get back to writing his bestseller.’

Charlie never described his novel in those terms.

‘It’s easy to speak from the heart, as my heart is very full.’

The angry car horn that had prised Kate and Charlie apart on the hospital bench hadn’t been Julian’s. Kate had almost fainted with relief.

Charlie’s face had stayed close to hers. Intent, transformed, made urgent.

In her head, clear as a bell, she’d heard a line that he’d written.
Not everything that looks like love is love
.

Poised and still, they’d regarded each other.

Don’t speak first
, Kate had counselled herself.

‘Sorry.’ Charlie had seemed to snap out of a trance. He’d looked away and Kate was lonely without him: she’d felt suspended and supported by his gaze.

‘No,
I’m
sorry,’ she’d said, passing a hand over her face.

‘What was I thinking? I mean your dad’s just . . .’ Charlie had stood up, then sat heavily down again. Close to her but very deliberately not touching her, he’d stared at
his lap, unable to say any more.

Eventually, on a sigh, Kate had said, ‘Becca . . .’

His face contorting, Charlie had let out an agonised huff, then nodded.

Loyalty can be a rare commodity but with Kate it was a strong, twisting, blood red thing. She couldn’t betray Becca and she couldn’t behave in a way that was incompatible with the
fierce protectiveness she felt towards Flo.

There they had sat, prim, until Julian turned up.

Kate hadn’t felt prim. Despite the cataclysmic nature of the night’s events, despite her churning sadness, she’d wanted to claw Charlie’s clothes from his body and feel
his skin against her skin, cooking that special lovers’ alchemy.

Accustomed to regarding her sexuality as a sleepy, querulous creature, she had barely recognised the all consuming lust that took hold of her and shook her, from her hairline to her shoes.

A church pulpit is not the most appropriate place for such memories.

‘My wonderful dad took a long time to die. I’ve heard some of you say that he was brave and that’s certainly true. But he was often frightened. Children don’t usually get
to be around their parents’ fear. Because they love us, they keep it from us. It was a privilege for me to know Dad well enough for him to share his fears with me before he went. Sitting with
him, watching him sleep, I used to wonder where I’d put the love after he went. Now I know.’

Kate paused.

‘I can put it in the same place. In many ways Dad’s still here. I was so close to him, and our communication was so crystalline that I can hear what he’d say in most
situations. So I still badger the poor man for advice.’

The congregation laughed at that, a small, relieved explosion.

Mum laughed along with them. Kate noticed her hat was askew. A beam of sunshine, stained gold by the stained glass, spotlit Mum. Kate saw her in stark relief.

And she was just a person. A woman trying to get by like the rest of us. More than that, she was a woman who must surely have coveted the easy affinity between her husband and her daughter.

Undoubtedly, it was chilly to be the odd one out in a set of three, never getting the joke, pulling in a different direction. It must have been as chilly as this chapel.

In the midst of Kate’s epiphany, a hypothesis intruded. It would be harder to lose Mum than Dad.
Because I don’t know her.
Not in the profound meaning of the word. A meaning
Kate now appreciated.

Have I grown up at long last?

Kate promised herself to hug her mother later, no matter how much the all-elbows woman protested. What if Mum’s refusal to talk about Dad was not because she would not, but because she
could
not?

The black coat didn’t quite fit. Mum stealthily undid a button. She was a woman who was misunderstood by her partner, a woman mired in a mismatch of a marriage.

If Kate was honest – the surroundings demanded it – she could relate to that.

‘Dad believed in me. Which is a big deal for a girl child. He encouraged and supported me. Not only me. There are other people who’ll miss his loyalty.’

Missed calls from Charlie were piled up in Kate’s phone. She had let them ring out, needing to absorb and digest what had happened between the two of them before she could face him. Bent
out of shape by the loss of her father, Kate didn’t know whether or not to trust the serpent hiss of her subconscious that his kiss had been fuelled by pity.

Her toes curled in her red boots.

‘
Love
was the last thing Dad said. I’ve thought a lot about love since that night. It’s not a decision you make. It doesn’t have to be logical. It’s often
inconvenient and messy and unapologetic about what it asks of you.’

Unsure where she was going with this, Kate sensed puzzlement from the older funeral guests at this departure from standard eulogy fare.

Kate couldn’t look at Charlie. She wouldn’t look at Julian. She felt them both resonate, like tuning forks.

‘Searching for the meaning of life has become a cliché, but Dad contemplated life deeply during his final months. He could no longer bear artifice. He said, more than once, that I
needed to work out what I truly wanted in order to live honestly.’

Kate found Julian’s eye. He stood and slipped away, head down, out into the cold morning.

Nobody noticed him leave. All eyes were on Kate, waiting for her to carry on.

I’m sick of loss.

Kate had lost Charlie, her dad, and now Julian had been swallowed up by the bitter brightness outside. She’d been aware as she spoke how he would interpret her words. The night before, she
and Julian had talked more bluntly, more freely than ever before. Her sadness had stripped her so she couldn’t pretend any more; he had matched her, truth for truth. They’d faced what
they had and, more crucially, what they lacked.

It felt correct for Julian to leave, but that didn’t stop her wanting to tear after him, to gabble that they could fix things. She stayed silent until the feeling receded. Not completely.
Just enough for her to carry on.

‘A little late I’m taking his advice. I’m working out what I really want. Thank you, Dad.’

Thank you. And goodbye.

The plastic carrier bags bit into Kate’s fingers as she emerged from the tube station into the rat-coloured evening.

Glad that Becca was staying over after one of her intermittent assaults on London’s boutiques, Kate foresaw a muted evening of food and wine and conversation. Weighing down the bags were
two bottles of what a magazine article had assured her was a ‘cheeky lovable red’ and some toothsome treats. The Atkins Diet was working wonders on her behind but wreaking havoc with
her head; Kate would have happily sold her body on a street corner for a bowl of spaghetti. Tonight there would be lasagne and cake and, hopefully, recovery from the hour she’d spent pelting
around the gym with her personal trainer.

She’d have to fend off Becca’s insinuations. ‘But
everybody
,’ Becca had insisted, ‘has an affair with their personal trainer. It’s the law.’

Already anticipating the shower’s rain on her sore limbs, Kate called out ‘Becca!’ as she kicked shut the front door. The panelled hallway was painted in a duck egg tone it had
taken Kate an age to source. The air was soft, like talc. It was always tranquil in Ludwig House.

‘Where are you?’ Kate pushed at the drawing room door and her home exploded into light and colour and shouts of ‘Surprise!’ Cameras flashed. Women catcalled. Emerging
from the melee, Becca yelled ‘Happy divorce!’ and stripped Kate of her plastic bags, replacing them with a champagne flute.

I Am What I Am
struck up on the CD player and the women began to dance with pagan abandon.