Page 88 of Things We Never Said
You came out to the shelter to pick me up one Thursday evening, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The first thing I thought of was Jake’s MG. It was even the same colour. So if my initial reaction was a bit off, that will be why. My back had been hurting all day too, and the second thing I noticed was how difficult it was to clamber in and out of. That made me feel not younger, as intended, but older. And then you asked me, for some reason, if I wanted to drive out to Brampton Wood and I said no but couldn’t explain why. You seemed put out by that and suggested dinner in Grantchester instead, and I spent the whole drive out there wondering if you had somehow found out about what had happened with Jake; if this was all some elaborate scheme to take the mickey, or to be more like him, or just, perhaps, to let me know that you knew.
So we didn’t get off to the best start with the car, did we?
You were as excited as a three-year-old with a brand-new tricycle, so I did my very best to be enthusiastic. I just don’t think I was very convincing. I was too busy trying to decode the subtext; too busy fighting my own guilt, no doubt.
It was a cool, damp September evening, but you insisted on having the top down and the music on – you were playing Van Morrison – and by the time we got to the Rupert Brooke my neck was so stiff that I could barely turn my head.
We went through a difficult patch after that, and it was largely to do with the car, though I’m sure, if we had seen a shrink, it would have turned out to be symbolic of something much bigger. You believed, I think, that I had invented my back pain as some kind of protest about the car, and to counter this I did my best to pretend that I loved the damned thing, even when I could barely lever myself out of it. We ended up acting out this dodgy drama of half-lies and unspoken truths, all revolving around the subject of my back and that stupid, stupid sports car.
The pinnacle of this idiocy was, of course, the trip to Edinburgh. Even the question, when you asked me, was a trick one.
‘How do you fancy a romantic weekend in Edinburgh?’ you asked. ‘Or will it be too hard on your back?’
There was no way I could say no to that, was there?
By the time we got there, I was virtually paralysed. I literally couldn’t move for pain and you had to lever me from the passenger seat and almost carry me, whimpering, to the hotel room. The hotel organised for a doctor to visit and he prescribed some very strong painkillers that left me feeling woolly and stoned, but which still didn’t completely dull the pain. And then on Sunday night, like a piece of clunky origami, you folded me back into the car, and drove me back home. I took a double (entirely prohibited) dose of painkillers for that, along with a double dose of Scotch at the hotel bar, and I’m happy to say that I don’t remember a thing.
I was never quite sure whether you thought that I was actually lying about being in pain just to piss you off about the car, or if you thought that the pain was real but psychosomatic. Either way, it amounted to pretty much the same thing. You were annoyed with me and, knowing that it was unreasonable, you did your best to hide it. And because you knew it was unreasonable, you lied, and denied being angry, the only time I ever tried to discuss it with you. Isn’t that amazing, though? Isn’t it incredible that as well as we knew each other after thirty-something years together, there were still things we simply couldn’t discuss.
Your anger didn’t fade either, did it? As you ferried me back and forth to Addenbrooke’s for X-rays and CAT scans and God knows what else, none of which came up with anything, it was all just grist to the mill. It was all proof that, other than car-envy, there was nothing really wrong with me after all.
You know the way they say that dogs and cats can smell cancer on people? Well, I’ve often wondered whether we don’t have the same gift. I’ve often wondered whether on some subconscious level you’d realised that I was dying – whether that was the reason you felt so angry. And whether that was the real reason you felt so desperate for us to go whizzing around in a sports car while we still could.
Eventually, about a year after you’d bought it, you gave in to the inevitable and swapped the MLC for something you were actually able to lift me in and out of, and around the same time, in desperation, I tried yoga with Maggie, which actually seemed to ease my pain, for a while.
I’m sure that even this coincidence you saw as some kind of victory lap on my behalf. My brief little pain-free celebration that I’d finally made you get rid of your beloved car.
So, secretly, you stayed resentful towards me, and I towards you for not believing me. And it wasn’t until the real cause of the pain was found that the whole problem went away. Though I have to say that, in the end, I think I preferred it when we didn’t know, even if that did mean we were angry with each other. Because even when we were angry I loved you. The loving never stopped.
Sean is eating a tuna sandwich in the landscaped gardens of Nicholson-Wallace. It’s nearly the beginning of October, but it’s a beautiful sunny day. An Indian summer, everyone keeps saying, and every time someone mentions it, Sean resolves to look it up and find out where the term comes from, before promptly forgetting all about it.
He’s just picking up the second half of his sandwich when his phone, in his pocket, starts to vibrate.
‘Hello, Little Daughter,’ he says, on answering.
‘I’ve told you to stop calling me that,’ April says. ‘I’m going by a new handle now. I’m calling myself The Blob. I’m on my break so I can’t talk for long, but I was just wondering if there was any news on the flat front?’
Sean laughs. ‘You must have a sixth sense or something,’ he says. ‘I just upped my offer, like, a minute ago.’
‘They refused you then?’
‘They did. But I did go in a bit low so I was kind of expecting it.’
‘And what about this time? If they refuse, are you going to carry on haggling or is that it?’
‘I was just debating that,’ Sean says, watching a robin eyeing his crumbs from the far corner of the bench, ‘and I think I’ve decided to stop. To sort of leave it in the hands of the gods. I could go higher, but things would start to get tight. And I’m a bit too old, I think, to be worrying about how to pay the electricity bill.’
‘Sounds fair,’ April says. ‘But I hope you get it.’
‘Do you really?’
‘Yes. I think it would be great.’
‘Well, good. Let’s cross everything. And how’s the baby?’
‘Oh, kicking like crazy. He’s all elbows and knees at the moment. I think he’s practising to be a gymnast.’
