Page 8 of If I Could Say Goodbye
Kerry’s looks turned heads no matter where she went, but you could pass Nessa in the street without a second glance; you could sit opposite her on a train every day and not notice that she was the woman who’d been sitting in the same place the day before. She is opposite to Kerry in every way: dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, quiet voice, unassuming stature . . . alive. But when they were together, Nessa became someone different. You would notice the couple sitting opposite you on the train; you would notice the chemistry between them; it fizzed and flowed and ignited the light behind her eyes.
Her daughter, Erica, is slipping her hand inside hers. Erica is a tiny little thing, her long, brown hair is plaited neatly and rests on the back of the army-green coat that is a size too big for her, and they are walking away.
‘Nessa!’ I shout. She reacts by slowing her pace just a fraction, but then continues walking. My heart is pounding and my breath catches. Hailey is skipping towards me. Her shoes are on the wrong feet and her hair has escaped the clutches of one of her pigtail bobbles.
‘Mummy?’ She sticks her finger up her nose – a trait she has inherited from her father.
‘Hello, lovely,’ I reply, landing a hasty kiss on the top of her head. I crane my neck to avoid the heads and umbrellas that are blooming up into the drizzle.
‘She doesn’t want to talk to you,’Kerry whispers, unwrapping a fruit salad sweet from its wrapper, just as she had when we actually had this conversation last year. I had arrived unannounced at their flat and Nessa had been working late.‘Ness is in one of her moods, look, she’s scratching the back of her head. She always scratches the back of her head when she is in a grump.’ I can smell the artificially sweetened candy, even though I haven’t had any for months.
‘Mummy?’ Hailey asks as I try to hurry them along. Erica has let go of Nessa’s hand and is running ahead of her.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Why are we walking so fast?’
‘I thought I saw your Aunty Kerry’s friend, Nessa. Oscar, has Erica come back to school?’
‘Yes, and she lost golden time because she didn’t finish her work. Mummy?’ Oscar asks, his feet skipping along to keep up with my strides.
‘Yes, poppet?’ I ask as Nessa disappears through the gates.
‘Did you know your skirt is stuck in your knickers? They are blue and spotty.’
I release the hem of my skirt, walk through the gates, and scan the street, looking over my shoulder. Kerry is in between the school gates, dancing and ‘Singing in the Rain’, twirling her ladybug-style umbrella while exclaiming how wonderful a feeling it is to be happy again. She jumps up and kicks her heels together.‘She’ll talk to you when she’s ready!’
My memory replaces ‘he’s ready’ with ‘she’s ready’ because in reality the day Kerry was dancing in the rain was after Ed and I had our first fight. ‘He’ll talk to you when he’s ready,’ she’d said . . . and he did.
‘Mummy?’ Oscar’s voice is becoming more urgent. ‘You’re hurting my arm!’ I look down to where my hand is gripping my son, pulling him along.
I blink.
Mascara is stinging my eyes. ‘Sorry, I—’ Taking my hand away from him, I glance towards the road, where I can see Nessa looking in the opposite direction. ‘Nessa!’ I shout again, spotting her about to cross the road. She turns to glance at me over her shoulder, but the moment my voice leaves my mouth I try to pull it back, retrieve it like an excited dog on a lead, because behind her, Erica is running into the road.
Air holds tight in my lungs; the sound of the car horn and the squeal of brakes taking me away to the day that Kerry died. Kerry stops singing and instead, I see her as I do so often in my dreams, flying backwards, feet and arms in front, blue eyes, red coat, red boots and the scream of horns.
A sob is clutched in my throat; I bite down on my lip and force myself to swallow it; inside my ears I can hear the rhythmic beat of my heart, becoming louder as it quickens its pace, forcing the blood around my body, battling to get oxygen to my organs so I stay standing, stay breathing, stay alive.
Brakes are applied, expletives are launched out of the driver’s window; Nessa catches them and slings them back.
‘Can we go now?’ Hailey’s voice claps, waking me from my thoughts.
I look down at my children. They have gone from dry to saturated in what feels like seconds.
‘Mummy? Can we go now?’ Hailey repeats. Her voice is questioning, unsure and wary.
‘Yes.’ I clear my throat. ‘Let’s go.’
The kitchen is warm, clean and the task of making a simple cup of coffee should be reassuring, but I’ve just sent my cup flying off the counter.
In a flurry of activity, Ed and I begin grabbing dishcloths and pulling kitchen cleaning products away from their uniformed line inside the cupboard; tea towels are shaken free of the neat creases applied on a Sunday afternoon.
‘Shit!’ I shout as I crouch down, spraying the tiles with something that claims it smells of lemons but instead smells of something clinical and toxic.
Ed flinches as the word is expelled from my mouth.
‘What?’ I ask him; it’s not as if I’ve never sworn before.
