It was only decades of training and conditioning and pure English politeness that stopped him from yelling at them. From kicking them out, and barricading the door with his recliner chair, and wailing like those Middle Eastern ladies you see on the news.
He understood now, for the first time, how grief could make you wail like that. How pain could be so pure and so livid that it took on a life of its own, a small, furious animal that wanted to howl at the top of its lungs. To scream and scream and scream until the whole world shattered with the sheer force of its misery.
His own parents had died after long, full lives, and they were never especially close anyway – they were merely the people who visited him at boarding school, and insisted he became a lawyer. It had hurt when they passed on, but nothing had prepared him for this.
For the rawness. The agony. The inability to accept that she was really gone. That it wasn’t some silly trick of hers, that she hadn’t faked it all, and any minute would sit back up, tears of laughter in her magnificent eyes, proclaiming: ‘I well and truly got you that time, sweetie! I completely Reggie Perrin-ed you! Fancy a G&T on the way home?’
But no matter how long he waited, it didn’t happen. She just refused to stop being dead, damn her. And now he is here, in the rain, fishing around in his jacket pocket for his phone and his cigar box. The cigar that she’d bought for him – a limited edition Montecristo that, under normal circumstances, he’d be looking forward to smoking.
He’d enjoy it on the terrace of his small garden, along with a nice glass of ruby port, listening to the night-time sounds of nature all around him, bathing in the starlight.
This, though, is slightly different. There are no sounds of nature, just sirens and screeching tyres and shell-shocked-looking people, standing in small, damp clusters as they wait for taxis. The starlight has been replaced by the flickering yellow signs of the hospital, and the glow of hundreds of tiny lights shining from hundreds of tiny windows. The car headlights are reflected in dark pools of oily rain on the pitted tarmac as they zoom past, and he can hear a horribly loud drunken argument going on somewhere nearby. It is far from idyllic.
He waits until the downpour slows from its previous let’s-all-build-an-Ark levels to a mild drizzle, and pulls out his cigar box. He’s left his cutter at home, so he commits the blasphemous act of simply tearing off the end. He lights it, and takes that first, glorious puff, white smoke billowing out in front of his face in a fragrant cloud. He realises that he is sitting next to a ‘No Smoking’ sign, but nobody else seems to be taking any notice.
The cigar tastes and smells divine. A rare treat. She’d made him promise that he’d do this – that he’d do lots of things, in fact, but especially this. A quiet cigar, all alone, just for her. After a few tipples, she’d often filch one from him, and chug away on it while wiggling her eyebrows at his scandalised expression. Andrea often tried to shock him by doing un-ladylike things, and still somehow managed to remain the classiest woman he’d ever known.
After a few moments of enjoying the aroma and the sweet, woodsy taste in his mouth, Lewis looks up to see a man in a wheelchair parked in front of him. He looks about ninety years old, and only has one leg.
His wizened face is wrapped up in the hood of a fur-lined parka, and closer inspection shows that he isn’t anywhere near ninety – he’s much younger, but prematurely aged by some addiction or another.
Lewis has spent enough time in courts to know that the missing limb is likely to be a related condition, and even in their relatively quiet patch of the country, drugs have ravaged the lives of many. He’d usually make his excuses and leave, overwhelmed by that peculiar mix of sympathy and disgust that men of his age and background tend to feel for the heroin-afflicted.
Andrea, of course, was never overwhelmed by any such thing. She gave money to everyone who asked for it, had enough back copies of theBig Issueto wallpaper her whole cottage, and was ever empathetic with the lost souls of the world.
‘We all have our demons, darling,’ she’d say, passing a fiver to a shabby bloke with a dog on a string, ‘it’s just that some people’s are more obvious than others’.’
He decides he’s not going to budge, not tonight. Not while he’s smoking his magical Montecristo, and still debating whether he should run back into the hospital and take Andrea back home with him. Perhaps he could mummify her and prop her up on the sofa, so he still has someone to talk to. He’s convinced that Andrea mummified would still be better company than most people alive.
‘Smells good,’ says the man, sniffing the air appreciatively. ‘Have you got a spare, mate?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ replies Lewis, shuffling slightly to try and relieve the numbness in his nether regions. ‘This was a gift from a friend.’
‘You must have some good friends,’ his visitor replies, tapping dirt-encrusted fingertips on the arms of his wheelchair. ‘I don’t have any left.’
I wonder why, thinks Lewis, uncharitably, before reminding himself that Andrea could be watching right now. Hovering over his shoulder, a shimmering diamanté wraith telling him that he could afford to be ‘just a tiny bit less of a snob, don’t you think, my love?’
‘I’m not sure I do either,’ Lewis eventually answers. ‘The best one I ever had just died, in there.’
Actual tears well up in the man’s eyes, and Lewis immediately feels like a shit for silently despising him. He has no idea what his story is, or how he ended up here, or what his demons are. He knows nothing about him, and has no right to judge.
‘That’s rubbish, mate. I’m so sorry for you. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. They say that time heals and all … but I’m not so sure. Sometimes time seems to stand still, as far as I can make out. Anyway, good luck to you. I’ll say a little prayer for your friend.’
He gives Lewis an abrupt nod, and starts to wheel himself away, his hands slipping on the wet frames as he turns, the wind blowing his parka off his shaven head.
‘Hang on!’ says Lewis, standing up, and immediately feeling a shooting pain fly right up his spine. Ouch. He recovers, and follows the man in the chair, handing him the cigar. He’s lost his appetite for it now, anyway.
‘Her name was Andrea,’ he adds, as he backs away towards the car park. ‘And I appreciate your prayers. I’m sure she would too.’
The man mutters his thanks and waves at him as he leaves, watching Lewis head towards his car, an old Jag he’s had for donkey’s years. He glances back, and all he can see of his new friend is the orange glow of the cigar tip moving around in the black night, like some kind of aromatic firefly.
He opens the car door, and sinks into the passenger seat in a soggy, crumpled heap.
He’s smoked his cigar. He’s increased his karmic brownie-point count. And now he has to do what he’s been dreading for the last hour. He has to do what Andrea asked him to do. What he promised her he would.
He has to start the process that she hoped would put all her daughters’ broken pieces back together again.
He knows he needs to be strong. To help the girls and, in doing so, help Andrea. But he doesn’t feel capable of putting their pieces back together, when his are all scattered and shattered and shed.
