Page 30 of The Art of Loving You

Jack.

It was inconceivable that someone could be here and then suddenly not. I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts, let alone voice them.

Sid had taken to calling every morning. ‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ was all I could manage the first time he had rung.

‘You don’t have to speak. Just know I’m here. With you,’ he had said and oddly it was comforting. Sid was the only person I knew who had lost a partner, the only person who came close to even understanding the sharp and sudden loneliness that was ever-present, deep in the pit of my stomach.

I would hold the handset to my ear, no pressure to spill out my feelings, hearing the rattle of Sid’s breath, his occasional cough, the crunch of a Polo mint. It was easier than being face to face with Mum and Alice, seeing the sympathy in their eyes. Sometimes I spoke. Sometimes I didn’t.

‘It isn’t fair,’ I had said this morning.

‘It isn’t, Elizabeth. It really isn’t,’ Sid agreed.

‘Was this … was this how you felt when you lost Norma? This …’ My hand covered my heart, feeling it as I voiced it. ‘This searing pain that never eases.’

‘Grief is a unique experience. My feelings won’t be your feelings, Libby, but … it will diminish, that pain. I promise you.’

‘When?’ I had asked the impossible question.

‘One day, it will hurt a little less, and then a little less after that and—’

‘I don’t want—’

‘It won’t mean you’re forgetting him.’ He read my fears and we’d fallen into our usual silence once more.

I couldn’t settle.

‘You need to get some proper rest, Libby,’ Mum said. ‘I wish you’d change bedrooms. I don’t know how you can sleep in that room, on that mattress.’ She shuddered dramatically.

I couldn’t explain it myself. It sounded horrific to lie on the bed I found Jack in but it was our bed. It still smelled of Jack. The last memory of him alive, of us together, was on that mattress so as much as Alice and Mum offered to burn it, move my belongings to another room, another floor, I just couldn’t.

‘You know you can come and stay with me, or with Alice?’ Mum asked again but if I left here it would feel like I was leaving Jack, leaving us. In this house I remained wrapped in Jack’s things, in Jack’s dreams.

‘I want to stay here, Mum.’

‘At least, let me take you to the doctor, get you something to see you through. The funeral won’t be easy.’

‘I don’t want anything.’ Nothing was easy but Mum insisted. It wasn’t like her to take charge but shock had forced us all into unexpected roles. I wasn’t capable, somebody had to be.

Hours later we were sitting in front of the impossibly young-looking GP, Mum squeezing my hand as he said, ‘I can give you some antidepressants,’ after Mum had explained why we were there. Unshed tears had trapped the words in my throat.

‘Libby needs a good night’s sleep, not to mask her feelings. Grief isn’t an illness, young man, and Jack’s only been gone a week,’ she had said.

‘I appreciate—’

‘Do you?’ she asked him. ‘Have you ever been in love? Have you had your heart broken? Mary Phillips’ grandfather passed and her grandmother followed him days later and she hadn’t a jot wrong with her. It wasn’t like she ate six chocolate éclairs at a time like Mary. Lack of sleep can make you ill. I heard about—’

‘I’ll prescribe two weeks’ worth of sleeping tablets. It isn’t something I encourage. They can be addictive.’ The doctor tapped onto his keyboard before the printer whirred and spat out a prescription which he handed to Mum. We left and I hadn’t even spoken. I touched my face to see if I was still there. To see if I was invisible. It was disappointing to feel the solidity of my cheekbones beneath my fingertips. I wished I could disappear.

Mum drove to the nearest chemist –thechemist – and pulled into a lay-by. I closed my eyes against the sight of the alley, wilting flowers still bound to the lamp-post, the photo of Kenny drooping in the drizzle. I could feel myself shaking, teeth chattering together. The engine thrummed once more and we began to move.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Mum said. ‘I didn’t think. We’ll go to the pharmacy in the big Tesco near the roundabout.’

I didn’t tell her it was okay because it wasn’t.

I didn’t tell her I was fine because I wasn’t.

At the supermarket I waited in the car watching shoppers stream in and out of the automatic doors; a couple pushing a little girl in a trolley, a deflating pink ‘3 today’ helium balloon tied around her wrist; a harassed-looking man shepherding four kids with the same red hair as his, like sheep – this way, this way; a heavily pregnant woman and … Jack. My spine stiffened, heart jolted.

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