Page 39 of The Lucky Escape

He gave me a half-smile. ‘Nothing stronger. The wine is good. Although I am in danger of being slightly tipsy.’

‘Go steady,’ I said. ‘Last time we got drunk we hatched this little plan, and look at you now. Halfway around the world withme.’

Patrick looked down at the toothpick he was flipping between his fingers. ‘We were married almost three years,’ he continued, and I could tell he’d really been building up to telling me. I moved my chair so that instead of facing outward I could be opposite him, resting my elbows on the table and giving him my fullest attention. ‘I loved her very much. She died two years ago, and it’s the worst thing I’ve ever lived through. Dreadful. And it was so dreadful I decided that I could either feel miserable for the next seventy years or somehow try to enjoy myself, as a sort of tribute to her. Mala. Her name was Mala. She was twenty-seven when she died, and …’

‘That’s too young,’ I sympathized. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘She was the most annoying person you’ve ever met,’ he remarked, his eyes contemplative and wistful. ‘She was bossy and headstrong and came from this huge Asian family that were always in our business, always having opinions on how everything should be done and the rule was that she could slag them off as much as she wanted but the one time – honestly,once– that I said something about them she didn’tspeak to me for a week. She was so stubborn. She left stubble in the bath after shaving her legs and watched so much reality TV – I’d come downstairs of a morning and the bloody real housewives of wherever would be on and that’s how she’d start her day. I hated it. She couldn’t cook and was incapable of properly closing a kitchen cabinet and would sing these songs from Bollywood movies constantly. She was always talking, or singing, or watching other people talk or sing. There was nothing ever quiet about her. And I loved it. She drove me absolutely potty, totally round the bend, but she was my favourite person in the whole world and absolutely irreplaceable. And then … yeah. She died.’

He took a breath after speaking, as if the words tumbling out one after another had worn him out. He had tears in his eyes. He took another mouthful of his wine. ‘I really am drunker than I thought,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ I replied. ‘I don’t even know how you’re functioning. That’s such an unfair, crap hand to be dealt.’

‘It was a car crash. An old woman who had no business still having a licence crashed into her on a dual carriageway.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said. ‘Thank you for trusting me with this.’

He nodded. ‘I wanted to tell you before we flew out here. I wanted to tell you the moment you said you were hurting, because I wanted to let you know you’re not alone. But I didn’t. I don’t know why. I suppose you made out I was so full of life that I didn’t want to let you down. It can all be a bit fake-it-until-you-make-it. Anything to get through the day, sometimes.’

I’d had no idea at the amount of pain that lay behind his cheeky-chappy exterior. He did such a good job of deflecting that.

‘Patrick, you can talk to me about it whenever you want. Mala sounds like she was an incredible woman, and I cannot imagine how much you miss her.’

‘I do miss her,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t think it will ever go away, how much I miss her. I’ll never get married again. But I also know my life has to go on. Does that make sense? I need to find a way to miss her, and also feel my own life is worth living.’

His words hit my gut. I needed exactly the same attitude, but I didn’t want to say as much because comparing my very-much-alive ex to his wife who had died didn’t seem right. But it made sense: if you miss somebody, miss them. If you miss what you had with somebody, that’s okay. Nobody had framed it that way to me before: that we can feel more than one thing at once. Sadness and hope. Regret and pride. Shame and longing. Despair, but also a pull to keep on.

‘I think I needed to tell you because I know we laughed at my being mistaken for your husband at the departure lounge, but it feels disloyal to Mala somehow. I am her husband. Or was. I actually only stopped wearing my ring a few weeks ago. I put it in my bedside drawer the day before I saw you at bootcamp, as it goes.’

‘Going forward we’ll make it crystal clear to everyone that you’re Mr Hummingbird and I am Ms Wiig,’ I pledged. ‘I promise, okay?’

‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Not that she’s coming back of course. But if I can be so woo-woo as to say that energetically, it doesn’t feel great?’

I reached out a hand to his. ‘Patrick, I am so pleased you recognized me that day at Barry’s. I’m so pleased to know you again now. We’ll have fun this trip, okay? It’ll be good for both of us. No obligations, nobody telling us how to feelor justifying ourselves – just doing what we want to do, when we want to do it, even if that thing is different from what the other person wants to do. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ he granted.

Our eyes drifted out to the vineyard again, companionable silence coming with it.

‘Annie?’

‘Mmmmm?’

‘That was the perfect reaction. Thank you.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said. ‘Mala must have felt so loved by you.’

‘I did my best,’ he replied, sorrowfully. ‘Most days I still can’t believe she’s actually gone.’

18

I hated that I wasn’t sure how to navigate our conversation after Patrick had told me about Mala, and I hated that he knew it, and so was demonstrably more chipper than he’d ever been, like he was communicating that it was okay for us to continue to have a good time. I played along because I didn’t want to give the impression that I saw him differently now, even though I did. Of course I did. His wife had died. I replayed every conversation we’d had, looking for the clues. All that talk of seizing the day, and knowing what loss was like. I thought he’d been dumped!

I knew he was a good guy, but the only conclusion that I could draw was that he was an even stronger, kinder man than I’d first realized. To get up every day missing somebody that way – to be robbed of a life with someone, but still find ways to bring goodness to the world, to make people smile or to be helpful. It was staggering, really. I knew I couldn’t make the death of his partner some sort of quirky backstory for him, or a personality trait, but it did make me double down on my admiration. I couldn’t help it.

‘And how does the type of flask impact the flavour?’ Patrick was asking the winemaker, who looked delighted to delve into a detailed and informative answer for him. Patrick nodded, wineglass in hand, his mint green polo shirt contrasting with the deep ruby red in his glass and the golden halo of his hair. He looked as if he was posing for a painting to be done only in the brightest of colours.

‘Annie,’ he summoned. ‘Have you tried this one? I think I’m going to get some bottles to take home.’ I rushed to be by his side.

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