Page 80 of Things We Never Said
But still he hesitates, until the grey, depressing daylight fades to utter darkness.
Only then – realising that he’s behind, that he can listen to two tapes, realising that, hell, he can listen to all of the damned tapes if he wants to – does he stride to the kitchen to retrieve the box.
Snapshot #24
120 format, black and white. Two children are playing in a sandpit with buckets and spades. The little boy, in a woolly jumper and jeans, is staring at the camera and smiling broadly. The little girl, wearing dungarees and a sweatshirt, has her face obscured by a mop of unruly hair, which has fallen forwards as she plays.
Sean covers his mouth with his left hand as he studies the photo held by the trembling right.
He knew that this photo would be present – of course he knew. He should have been ready. But he hadn’t expected it here, not in the middle. At the beginning, perhaps. Or at the very end. But not here. Why here? Could this no-longer-understood woman called Catherine have chosen it this way? Had she wanted to twist the knife?
It’s a shock; it’s such a shock that it feels like being stabbed in the heart. Because this image reminds him just how deep and important this thing between them was, this thing that Catherine threw so lightly away, and for what? For a fling with an idiot in a suit?
For their story had not been mere chance, mere science, as Sean has always liked to think. He’s not comfortable with the metaphysical, never has been. But here, in the privacy of his own mind, he admits it, now. Their relationship had also been built, as Maggie would say, on destiny. And that destiny had revolved, repeatedly, around the tatty, out-of-focus, utterly magical photo that Sean is holding in his hand – a photo so profoundly symbolic of their life together, that he can barely see it for tears.
Cassette #24
Hello Sean.
You’re still listening, then? I’m glad about that. Because I’ve still so much I want to tell you. And don’t worry. There are no more lovers in the pipeline. What happened with Jake was awful and terrible and unforgivable, I know. But it was truly a one-off, for whatever that’s worth.
So, the third of April, 1996. Do you know, I can hardly remember any of it?
Oh, I remember bits and bobs. I remember opening the door to the policeman. I thought something had happened to April at first. I was relieved, even, when he said that April was fine.
I remember random words from that conversation, too. ‘In the supermarket’, for instance, and ‘heart attack’, of course. Then everything jumps to Margate General, to that cold green room. I have no memory, for instance, of how we got from one place to the other. You must have driven me, I suppose.
After that, there’s another blank space and then the funeral. April cried and cried and cried until I wanted to shake her. I had no room for her grief. I didn’t even have room for my own.
It had been so unexpected, that was the thing. She was only fifty-one. Which is what trying to live on oven chips, Stella Artois and Silk Cut will do for you, I suppose.
As to how it was organised, how all the little things one has to arrange came to pass, I really don’t have the foggiest. I can only assume that you did all of it.
I remember you as this great presence, this warm, benevolent mass beside me. You were there when the doorbell rang, and you were there when the coffin sank into the floor. And you organised it all, you paid for it all. You must have. And you held us all together. I don’t think I ever even thanked you.
The grief lasted for months. There were different phases and different intensities. There were different styles of grief, from the wailing screaming of that first day through the weak-kneed collapse at the morgue and finally those hopeless, seemingly endless weeks of grinding, grey misery.
Eventually, though I never thought it would happen, the fog started to lift. And as I came out of my grief for Mum, I fell headlong into my love for you. It was as if I had such intensity of feeling back then that I needed somewhere new to put it. And what better place than in you?
I became able to see you for who you were again, and it was like a revelation. You were suddenly this brand-new shiny thing in my life, all over again.
As my needing you faded, my love for you returned, and I became aware, very gradually, that you were on your way out. You were heading for the door. That came as a terrible, terrifying shock to me.
Between Jake and Mum, I’d been gone too long. I had left you on your own and I hadn’t even been aware of the fact. The more I analysed it, the more convinced I became that you had worked out about Jake, you had seen how selfish I was, and you were just waiting for the right time to leave me. You had been, I decided, on the verge of leaving when Mum died. This selflessness was, I came to understand, your final act of kindness before you walked out the door.
For months, every time you sat down to say something to me, my heart leapt into my mouth. Because every single time, I thought you were about to announce our end date.
I was, by then, as in love with you as I had ever been. It’s amazing how imminent loss concentrates the senses. And you’d been so incredible about Mum’s death – so ... empathetic, I suppose, is the word.
Other people expressed sympathy. They said, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. But at least you loved her, right?’ Or they said, ‘I’m so sorry, but it will get better, even if it doesn’t feel like that right now.’ Or, ‘At least you have Sean and April.’ None of that was of any use to me.
You were different, though. You had this ability to join me in the darkness. You would press your forehead to mine and cry with me. You would pull April to your chest and cry with her. And that readiness to go there, to feel the pain, even when it wasn’t your pain, was magnificent. And unique. And, to me, infinitely lovable.
I couldn’t stand the idea of you leaving, I really couldn’t. I used to imagine committing suicide if it came to pass, because a world without you and a world without Mum – a world without either of you – felt like trying to survive on Mars. I imagined it would be like trying to breathe on a planet with no oxygen. Something like that, anyway.
I wanted to get back to you, but there were still walls between us, walls I couldn’t even seem to name – a barrier I had built because of Jake, perhaps, and a wall of grief from losing Mum. And I couldn’t work out how to break through them.
The letter came from the council in June – recorded delivery. By the time we got around to picking the letter up from the Post Office, Mum’s house had to be vacated within ten days.
