9
‘Paula?’
Paula’s head shoots up, a bewildered expression on her face. ‘I’m sorry, what was the question?’
The man sitting across from her peers over grandfatherly glasses that seem deliberately chosen to soften a sharp face. He gives her a small smile through thin lips. ‘I was asking what you’ve found hardest since you lost John?’
Paula tries to hide a smile. Lost.Lost!So many people have described his death like that. As if he’s gone on a long walk in the woods without Google Maps on his phone.
Paula knows exactly where he is. He’s in plot fifty-three of a grave site, about twenty miles from here. It’s near a church, but it isn’t technically a church graveyard, more of a field. The official church graveyard has long since run out of space thanks to too many ancient graves with leaning stones, featuring inscriptions and engravings you can no longer read. So John’s ashes are buried in the grave-field next door. Sort of like an overflow car park for the deceased.
‘Um,’ she hedges, sensing impatience from her children, sitting either side of her. ‘I suppose . . .’ – she searches forsomething that will satisfy the counsellor – ‘sleeping! Yes, sleeping. Sleeping is very hard since I . . .lostJohn.’
The counsellor nods gravely as Tilly reaches for her mother’s hand, squeezing it with sympathy.
It’s true enough that Paula’s found sleeping difficult. But she’s always found sleeping quite difficult. If she really had to put a pin in the hardest part of all this, it would probably be making decisions. Were they always so impossible? Just trying to get dressed in the morning feels painful. Jeans feel inappropriate for a widow, as do leggings. A dress feels too frisky for a cloudy Tuesday morning of mourning, while skirts feel too formal. Today, Paula’s opted for a dark blue blouse, with some cropped, tan trousers, but it took her nearly two hours to decide. She ummed and ahhed for an age over a knitted cardigan, but ended up leaving it by the front door. She regrets that now.
Even before all this, when she wasn’t addled with confusing grief, Paula found choices quite burdensome. Even an everyday mundane choice of what to watch on telly had to fall to John.
John would’ve known the answer about the cardi. He was very good with decisions.
‘A lot of people find that, Paula.’ The counsellor is nodding kindly. ‘And grief can look different for everyone. You’ve stopped working, am I right? How has that been?’
‘Just temporarily!’ she says quickly, thinking with horror of last week’s aborted attempt at returning to the care home. She remembers Gary’s face as he told her to go. It was so humiliating. ‘I’m just on leave, just taking a little bit of time. I don’t know when I’ll go back. But I will.’
‘They don’t mind?’
Paula shakes her head. ‘No, no!’ she says quickly. ‘They’ve been very nice. They said to just let them know when I’m ready to return.’ She thinks again of Gary and his horror. His reference to her bringing with her amedia circus.
‘Sometimes getting back to your usual routine can be a comfort,’ the counsellor nods wisely. ‘But there’s no right or wrong, Paula, so you should absolutely take your time with it. There’s no rush, especially . . .’ – he looks awkward but it’s clear he knows. He reads the papers – ‘given that you have some . . . er, financial security now. You have options. Take a beat to decide what you want.’
Paula doesn’t answer and he widens his gaze to include Tilly and Seb, asking her children what they’ve most been struggling with. Paula desperately tries to focus on their answers.
And fails.
After all, how on earth is a person supposed to concentrate on their dead husband, or on family grief counselling with a therapist called Gerald, when a stranger just accused you of murdering said dead husband?
Fancy that woman accusing her of such a thing! It’s absurd.
Paula replays Friday’s incident in her head, mentally re-watching Teddy as she moved around her kitchen in her tiny six-thousand-pound skirt. She sees her nice hair swishing around those monster-sized sunglasses, as she oh-so-casually talked about Paula killing John.
Paula wonders what she should’ve done differently in the moment. Of course, she tried very hard to deny it. She tried to tell Teddy she didn’t do it and never would. She explained how much she loved John – dearly loved him! – but the woman wasn’t having any of it. She kept smirking dryly and winking, if you can imagine such a thing.
And what about the woman’s own confession? About her missing husband? Could she really have murdered someone and buried them under the patio? It’s impossible to picture that glamorous woman with the confusing American accent in her expensive skirt, holding a spade, covered in blood and dirt. Apart from anything else, it sounds like an awful lot of hard work. Since John died, Paula has been worrying a lot about mowing the grass in her garden. She can’t imagine how she’d cope if she needed to dig a big hole for a body.
And why on earth would Teddy tell Paula?
After the woman left, Paula had attempted to do the right thing. For once, she’d made a quick decision, picking up the phone and calling the non-emergency police line. 999 felt too dramatic and Paula isn’t the dramatic sort.
‘Hello, can I take your name?’ the woman began.
‘Oh! Yes, my name is Paula and I’m—’
‘Hello, Paula, can I ask where you’re calling from, why you’re calling, and whether this is regarding you or someone else?’
‘Yes, of course!’ she’d paused then, before adding, ‘I’ve forgotten the questions, I’m afraid.’
‘OK, Paula, where are you calling from?’
