Page 15 of Things We Never Said
He lowers the needle into the groove and settles on the sofa with envelope number five in one hand and a Marlboro Light in the other. He’ll listen to the first side and then he’ll play Catherine’s message.
Snapshot #5
Kodak disc format, colour. A faded, low-quality, grainy image. A very young woman with a frizzy permstandson Margate seafront. A man in Doc Martens, bleacher jeans and a green US military bomber jacket is beside her with his arm around her shoulders. He’s raising one finger at the person taking the photo, half smiling, half sneering. Behind the couple, in better focus than the couple themselves, are the rusted remains of Margate Pier.
As he listens to Pink Floyd, Sean studies the photo, but his mind remains a blank. Catherine looks very young to him and he’s not sure he ever saw her with a perm. He has no recollection of the photo being taken and no idea who the skinhead is either. In the end, curiosity gets the better of him so he stands up, lifts the needle from the record and presses play on the Dictaphone instead.
Cassette #5
Hi Sean.
It’s me again. So, today you get to meet Phil.
As I explained on my first tape, the aim of all of this is not in any way to sanctify your memories of me but to create a realistic record of who I really was, warts and all. Hopefully that will make it easier for you to let go – to move on, as they say. But that means that not all of this is going to be pleasant, so if you need a drink before listening to the rest of this one, be my guest.
This is Phil. You actually met him once, though I doubt very much you’ll remember it. We were walking along the seafront on our way to pick April up from Mum’s – she was about three, I think – and a guy on a motorbike pulled up to say hello to me. I told him that you were my husband and without saying another word he roared off, so I don’t think you even saw his face. As I recall, you asked me who he was, and I replied that he was ‘just a school friend’. But that was a lie, so I’m sorry about that.
The truth is that I was going out with Phil until I met you. I’d actually come from Phil’s flat, from Phil’s bed, that morning I met you in Dreamland.
Now, this may sound horrible and cruel, but from the second I met you, he was nothing to me.
Phil was a drunk. He was a waster who lived on benefits he shouldn’t really have been getting, and the sale of knock-off gear that an acquaintance of his somehow came by. Things fell off the backs of lorries a lot back then, in Margate.
I’d love to be able to list all the reasons I was going out with Phil, but I don’t really have a clue. I’d love to be able to tell you he had his good points, but I don’t think he really did.
He was, like I said, a heavy drinker, a heavy smoker and a petty thief. The sex was OK, I suppose, though only, really, because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. But it was very rough and ready, and at the time I liked that, or at least I thought I did. Compared to Phil, you were so unbelievably wonderful in every way that it’s really difficult for me to justify, even to myself, that I was with him, except perhaps to say that he was like a younger version of every guy Mum ever dated. So in a way, it was all I knew.
I only ever saw Phil once after you left that Monday. I spent one evening with him, just to be sure. We ate fish and chips together, then had ‘goodbye’ sex, after which I provoked, as far as I can remember, an argument. And then I stormed out, feeling all smug and pleased with myself.
I was only eighteen. Please forgive me.
Sean spends the week feeling jealous. He’s fully aware that it’s absurd to be feeling jealous of one’s late wife’s ex-boyfriend from thirty-five years ago, but he can’t help himself. It’s just as well that Catherine didn’t provide Phil’s surname, Sean reckons, because otherwise he might have been tempted to hunt him down.
On Thursday lunchtime, Sean accepts an invitation to a pub with three colleagues from Nicholson-Wallace, and it’s the first social interaction he’s had since Catherine died where the major subject of conversation isn’t how he’s coping. This is a sublime relief, and for one precious hour, he’s almost able to forget that the rest of his life has stopped.
They are just finishing their drinks when Jenny, the company secretary, asks him what he has planned for the weekend.
‘Um, nothing really,’ Sean replies.
Jenny stares at him, nods gently and smiles understandingly. A wave of sadness sweeps over Sean.Nothing planned, ever again, he thinks, dramatically.
‘Um, why don’t you come out with Mike and me, then?’ Jenny asks. ‘We’re going to that place in Bourn for a curry. It’s supposed to be amazing.’
Sean starts to feel embarrassed. He can see what Jenny’s doing. He can picture how Jenny sees him. Because though Sean and Catherine have eaten with Jenny and Mike before, without Catherine it becomes a whole different thing – it becomes an act of kindness towards him, an act of sacrifice. Just imagining it makes him squirm.
‘Um, thanks,’ Sean says. ‘But not this weekend. I’ve ... some ... um, things to do at the house. But thanks. Now, I really do need to get back and finish off these bloody balconies.’
Jenny nods gently and flashes a knowing look at Steve and Jim.
‘You should go,’ Jim says. ‘It’ll do you good to get out.’
‘Yes,’ Steve says. ‘I think so, too.’
‘Not this time,’ Sean says, standing so fast he almost knocks his chair over. ‘See you back at the office, then.’
Stupid!Sean admonishes himself as he crosses the car park.What’s so difficult about a bloody curry with Jenny and Mike?
But despite his attempts at convincing himself, the vision of him sitting opposite concerned Jenny and matey Mike remains tooth-achingly uncomfortable.
