Page 1 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
Prologue
Gracie,
If you have this letter then I am afraid the worst has happened and I’m not here any more. I don’t want to use the d-word so I will paraphrase in the best way possible: my body has literally given up on me. Stupid body. It’s quite a thing to have to write this letter before the event, to stare down this very possibility myself, but I don’t want to be gone and, basically, not have the final word. God, that’s awful to write, eh? I don’t want to be lying on my deathbed and forget to tell you something.
There’s only the one letter. I won’t spring these on you once a year or send Christmas cards from beyond the grave. This is it. I may come back and haunt you, though. Once I cross over to the other side, I’ll enquire about how I can make that happen. Fear not, it won’t be like a horror film. I won’t stand in dark corners and hide under the bed in a freaky haunted doll way. I’ll be a friendly ghost like in a BBC sitcom. I’ll be very benign. I hope I might have the ability to fly through walls. That’ll be handy as I have a feeling you’ll still need me to put the bins out. I’ll just appear when you’re brushing your teeth, give you the occasional fright. Boo! Remember me?
There are so many other things to tell you. I feel I need to give you lists of PIN numbers and passwords. Grace2000 is the password for most of my things. But for my email, it’s monkeyballs1992, which I hope will make you laugh. What else? Make sure you give my clothes away. Don’t keep them because that’s sad. What are you going to do with them? You could wear all of them at the same time and just lie in bed and pretend I’m there. Or make a patchwork blanket out of all my best hoodies. Don’t frame the clothes.
Also, while I have this platform, it’s important for me to say the following. Herbs and spices don’t have expiry dates. Those are best before dates. Don’t hate me but I think you waste a lot of money replacing your paprika every year. When it comes to tea, I also don’t know why you put the milk in first, with the teabag. It’s not the way to do things. It does affect the taste because the water isn’t the right temperature to absorb the tea through the bag. And I haven’t made that up. You called it my strange tea science but it’s truth, which is proven by the fact that my tea was always far more drinkable than yours. There are probably a million other things I need to say that are more important than that but those are the ones which come to mind at this very precise moment.
Next: try not to cry too much when it happens. I mean, cry a bit because if you don’t shed a tear then people will think you’re some sort of psychopath. Just don’t over-cry and I say that with the very best of intentions because, when you over-cry, you don’t use the good tissues and you get that rash around your nose where the skin flakes off. I’ll say it now because, hey, I’m dying, but it’s pretty grim. Maybe put some Vaseline around there to smooth out the edges. Hay-fever season, you look pretty monstrous most of the time. The things you can say to a spouse when you’re dead, right?
I don’t know why I’m joking as this still feels like the unfairest thing in the world, the rudest of interruptions. This has to be the final word as, while my ego would love you to mourn me forever, in black lace, shrouded in pain like Queen Victoria, building shrines in my honour, I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want my wonderful beautiful girl to die too. When the pain has subsided, let people in, date again. Date someone interesting and significantly better looking than me, of course. I’ve looked into single people around our age. At the time of writing this, the following people are single: Henry Cavill, Neymar and Drake. If you’re bringing Drake to your next family Christmas then record the moment your mum meets him for the first time. ‘Your name is Drake? Like a duck?’ I will come back and haunt you if you replace me with someone dull. You don’t go from me to James from the Home Counties who drives a Škoda Fabia, drinks Foster’s and supports Manchester United even though he’s never even been to Manchester.
Promise me you won’t regress, Gracie. That’s what I worry about most. You’ve always been mildly serious about life, and I love that about you. It is wildly endearing. You’ve always had a plan. But I suspect me leaving the mortal realm is not in your plan so my one big fear is that I won’t be there to balance you out. It is why we are so good together: you give me reason and order, you pull my feet back to the ground when I’m off in the clouds, you make sure that all my big dreams and ideas are possible in real-life situations.
Me: I want to go and build a school! I want children to think big! I want to create a system of education for all where no one is left behind!
You: You can’t today, it’s Sunday. You’ll need planning permission first. And willing children.
In return, I hope I added a certain zest and unpredictable quality to proceedings. I love that feeling of yin and yang, of a relationship built on this giant melting pot of qualities and facets. It makes me ache to think what our children would have been like. They’d have been all the best parts of us. I mean, they possibly would have had my weak-ish chin and the boys may have suffered the indignity of a premature receding hairline. Still, they would have had your meticulous nature and my robot dancing skills, meaning they were never destined to fail.
You are so earnest, you put heart and thought into everything you do, every word and action. I teased you about it. I joked about it all because I always thought you took everything too seriously. I guess the final joke’s on me. I should have listened to you when you first told me I needed to check things out. It was my health. It was serious. And all those nonchalant jokes I made about being young enough to fight this, thinking we had forever. I am sorry for all of that. I am sorry I thought we could exist without these things happening to us. I am sorry for not being more you. I am so very sorry.
Urgh, I didn’t want this letter to get sad and philosophical. I wanted it to be droll. Has it made you laugh? I’ve deleted a crapload of clichés already. Life is short. That’s a good one. I was going to have that printed on a wall sticker as a parting gift. I did think long and hard about a suitable parting gift, actually. Maybe something that has a lock of my hair in it. Did you know you could do that? I could weave you a friendship bracelet made of hair. I decided against it. It has a serial-killer quality to it, though it’s useful if you want to go down the voodoo route.
Instead, I thought about what I want for you when I’m not here. I don’t want you to sit still. You won’t be alone. You’ve never been alone with all your sisters around but remember to let people in too. You are hard to penetrate (and not like that, that bit was easy and that was an awful joke, sorry) but allow people in so they can help you with this. Keep moving. You do get into the habit of sitting still, of making plans, and with those plans come lists and spreadsheets and it all gets a bit static, you know? You must move on.
So, this is my way of making sure that you do. You must, Gracie. You must promise me this one thing.
Enclosed with this letter is a round-the-world ticket. It allows for five stops and, to narrow down the infinite choice of possibility (because I know you’ll pick places based on their tourist theft rates and currency values against the pound), I’ve selected those stops for you. All these destinations are countries I visited during my travels after university. Those three years when I was a selfish prick and left you to go travelling. Our limbo period. I know those places, they know me. I’ve attached lists of names and numbers of people to look up and some recommendations for things to do. I’ve also made the ticket completely non-refundable. I did this to ensure you go because you’ll make excuses not to go. If I’ve spent money on this then you will feel fiscal guilt so this will force you to make this trip.
Travel, Grace. Just keep moving. Raise a glass or five to me in different continents. After we left university and we had all those years in relationship limbo, I don’t think you ever understood why I went, why I left you. Hopefully, this fills in the gaps. At worst, you’ll be distracted from the fact that cancer came and made me its bitch. At best, you’ll move in the right direction, you’ll see a sunset or learn a new language and understand that the world is still new, it’s still turning, how this life malarkey isn’t totally awful even though I’m not here.
I will always regret the things we never did together. We never got to live in Paris above a bakery where a man called Jean-Luc would keep us in fresh croissants. We never rode a tandem. I probably never held you enough or sang enough songs about how much I fucking adored you. But no regrets. Just to have had you in my orbit for what time we had was perfection. I keep thinking back to the time when we first met. It was that dodgy nightclub in Bristol, do you remember? I was so drunk. It was a Dynamite Boogaloo night and I knew all the words to every song and you looked at me like I was mental while I was doing my strange disco jogging moves. When I told you my name was Tom, you asked me which one. Everyone’s called Tom. Major Tom, I said. And you asked why and then I told you my dad used to sing me that Bowie song all the time. And you didn’t sing the song back to me like most do. You apologised because you noticed that I’d spoken in the past tense. That’s what my Grace does. She’s there for the details. And I don’t remember half of what I’m supposed to in life but, man, that memory is etched into me.
I’m happy I have that memory of you in that shit club, your purple eyeshadow, your bra straps on show and your face gleaming with kindness. That is enough for me. It was always enough. What we’ve had was everything. Yet for you, this is not the end, not the past tense. You have a future so you must keep on. You must live for me. To not do so would be breaking my already broken heart.
I need to say my last words now, eh? My Grace, I could write books. I could write letters of no end that just describe all the words and feelings that line my brain. You know me. Teaching made me a wordy bastard. I am so scared. So scared to leave you, but I’ll stop here. I used to tell you every day that you were magnificent and you are. It’s been a pleasure, an honour and a gift to be your husband, to have loved you, to have been loved by you.
I love you so very much, Grace Callaghan. That I do.
Major Tom x
1
About Three Years Later
Gracie, I don’t know if this internet will work so I’ll make this short and sweet. I am in Ghana. Actual Ghana. Not that there’s a fake Ghana but it’s mental. The city literally beats with life. On the trip over here I seemed to make friends with everyone who sat on the bus. I seem to have a gift for it, don’t I? I just make friends everywhere I go. Everyone is smiling and interested in me, my life, they welcome me into their homes.
I adore it. I adore you.
Love you, T x
Carrie Cantello has a Harry-Potter-themed front room. I don’t know how old Carrie is but I’d put her around the late thirties mark. This wizard stuff is kind of everywhere, from the stuffed, boss-eyed owl that looks at me from the bookshelves to the monogrammed throws. There’s a framed picture of the whole family on a themed ride at Universal Studios where they’re all wearing matching Harry specs. I’d really like to look in the cupboard under her stairs. Crap, she’s also got Harry Potter mugs. Carrie, I feel like you need some sort of intervention. I bet you wear a cape to bed. Please let there be Potter-themed sex where she utters fake sex spells and talks about her husband’s wand.Penum Erecto. Don’t laugh, Grace. The husband has re-entered the room. Don’t think about his wand.
‘Ross, I said biscuits,’ Carrie barks at him. She definitely orders him around the bedroom, doesn’t she? I bet she refers to it as her golden snatch. Do. Not. Laugh. I bite on my lip and pretend I’m deep in concentration writing down the numbers.Join the Parent Teacher Association.Surround yourself with people. Get out there, Grace,Emma said.Are you on the PTA?I asked my dear sister.No. My one’s run by power women nut jobs. They’re not all like that, she told me.
