She snorted her giggle and wiped her eyes and nose on the sleeve of her cotton blouse.
It was some comfort that three years after his death, he still had the power to make her laugh.
Chapter Four
Enya pottered in the kitchen, wiping the surfaces and topping up Pickle’s water, the fact that Aiden hadn’t texted to say he’d arrived safely occupying her thoughts. She wasn’t sure if he’d said he would, not that it mattered; either way, her mind raced at all the unpalatable possibilities that might have befallen him. This alone enough for her to feel the initial flicker of concern and for her anxiety to spike.
She popped out into the back garden and took deep breaths, eyes closed, face tilted towards the sun, and it worked, as her breathing returned to its normal rhythm and her pulse slowed. The most amusing of her worries, with hindsight, was that Aiden had got on the wrong flight,unlikely, had found himself in a strange country where he’d promptly lost his passport, wallet and phone,highlyunlikely. And was right now being held against his will in some godforsaken hell-hole of a prison and was only allowed one phone call, but all of his contacts were in his phone, which of course he had lost. Thisextremelyunlikely as he knew their landline off by heart, it hadn’t changed for the last couple of decades. But what if he’d had a bang on the head?
And so it went, the minutes ticking by and her catastrophising over the most bonkers of scenarios. Her mind was put at ease when a message finally arrived from Holly a little before bedtime. Fivewords that saw her muscles soften and her breathing restored to a natural rhythm.
Spoke To Aiden, Arrived Safely! X
She was thankful in that moment for Holly Hudson and her considerate nature, and not exactly miffed that he hadn’t thought to text his mother, but certainly aware of it. It was a simple fact of parenting she had had to accept over time, that just because her son occupied most of her waking thoughts and her every decision was based on his well-being, the same could not be said in reverse. This of course was absolutely correct, not that it made it any easier to swallow at moments like this. If Jonathan were here, he’d placate her.
‘You know bad news travels fastest. No need to worry. He’s fine, probably sleeping...’
She knew she had the capacity to get into a bit of a tizz over the little things. It had always amazed her late husband how the world could, in his words, ‘be going to hell in a handcart’, yet she’d still be overly concerned with the worry that, post-apocalypse, who would water her plants, unplug the lamps and gather the junk mail from the back of the door, knowing it to be a terrible trip hazard in an emergency.
My goodness, she missed him! Not always, not every second, and not in the way she had at first. Gone was the excruciating needle of loss that had sat in her heart, and how thankful she was for that. It had been exhausting and distracting to be so consumed by sorrow. What she now experienced was different, altered, one of the phases of grief no doubt, yet no easier to live with despite her understanding. It was a sensation she could only describe as pure anger, which left her feeling spent. She was furious, in fact, that hehad got sick and left her here to battle on without him. Something he swore he would never do.
‘It’s you and me, Enya B, us against the world!’
And she had believed him.
One of the things she hated most about being a widow was the wordwidow. To use it had a strange effect on whomever she was talking to, as they either brushed it off with embarrassment, as if it were of no consequence, too awkward a topic to linger on, or they wrung their hands and crinkled their brow as they sought words of condolence that were usually pithy and clichéd. Prior to the demise of her husband, her own mental image of a widow was someone elderly, clad in black and fumbling with prayer beads as they sat on a stool outside their south-eastern European home in the sunshine, crisping the skin on the back of their liver-spotted hands.
Enya didn’t own anything black, was inept at all things remotely bead related, wasn’t that big on prayer, and her pale skin meant she was like a gecko in the sun, seeking out all possible shade.Widow!It was farcical! She shopped in Oliver Bonas, ate melting brie with spelt crackers, and did Pilates; she was most definitely not widow material.
It all felt monstrously unfair, and she was sure would have been slightly more palatable if she had been an ailing octogenarian, the natural order of things, even. But she had been fifty-two when Jonathan died. An odd, in-between age, really. She was decades away from going to bed at 8 p.m., celebrating a small tin of soup as if it were a decent dinner and being on first-name terms with the doctor’s receptionist. Although she did favour a trip to a garden centre over the pub and had started to cut snippets out of magazines that she thought might be useful.
Maybe it was a slippery slope.
She wasn’t sure how to ‘be’ much of the time. Being a wife had kept her mentally and physically busy. Plus, it wasn’t a one-sidedthing, her husband had been there for her too. Cooking, cleaning and caring for her other half was not a chore but rather a pleasant preoccupation. Similarly, considering what to cook, where to clean and when to care for him had kept her cogs turning.
In the last year or so of Jonathan’s life, she had been fully immersed in nursing him, keeping up with the interminable regimen of pill swallowing, pillow plumping, the application of unctions, the ferrying to the loo, the ferrying back to the bed. A round trip that was a marathon, but with far less cheering, not much of a fanfare when they returned to the mattress on to which they both collapsed, and certainly no medal. Fetching drinks, ice cubes and morsels of food with which she tried and failed to tempt him to eat, the washing of his ailing body, and laundry... laundry after laundry after laundry. It wasn’t so much the chore itself that felled her, but what it represented. A never-ending pile that at the end of a long day, or in the wee small hours, had the power to make her weep.
Now she was free, had been for some time, and yet it wasn’t a freedom she had yearned for, quite the opposite. She had found comfort in her coupledom, just as she had in being a busy mum. She liked the routine and took enjoyment from the thousand small things Jonathan did to make her life better. Like picking her up if she was out walking in the rain. He would, if an unexpected downpour struck, drive her known routes until he found her, and always placed a bin liner and a towel on the passenger seat to save the upholstery from her wet bum. He willingly ran her reading glasses up the stairs if she settled down to read pre-sleep and had left them in the kitchen, understanding she might not want to leave the cosy spot. He used to hand her a cup of tea on a cold, dark morning and never baulked at having to de-spider the bath when the need arose. He was handy to have around, company. He was her background noise and without him her life seemed quiet. Theirshared love and history made for a most companionable life; one she would have been happy to live untilherfinal days.
Single was a term that she felt dismissed her twenty-four years of marriage, as if it had just been a phase. She didn’t feel single; in fact, she still felt very much connected to her husband, ex-husband, dead husband. Even this terminology foxed her. Too young to hang up her hope and enthusiasm for the future and too old to know how to pluck a different life from the peg and wear that. It felt a lot like treading water, paddling around waiting for... she wasn’t sure what, exactly.
Maybe this was at the root of her restlessness, the thought that she might simply idle forever, waiting and watching the clock, hoping to slip into a new identity and for it to fit her perfectly. Afraid of being forgotten, or worse, redundant.
Thank goodness for Aiden, who in the wake of his father’s death had looked her in the eye and said, ‘I’m so glad I’ve got you, Mum, no matter what happens I’ve always got you, haven’t I?’
She had felt the swell of connection in her chest; to be so needed was the tonic she thrived on. ‘Yes, of course, my love, always...’
It had grated every nerve in her body when family, friends and even well-intentioned strangers told her with confidence,‘Life goes on...’or‘It will get easier...’It wasn’t her way to let irritation surface or let the big things knock her off course. Case in point being the time they were on a long-saved-for Caribbean holiday and a hurricane hit – Jonathan had told her to grab what was vital and to meet him in the lobby, while he, passports and credit cards in hand, went off to find out the plan. Enya had done as instructed and arrived in her bathrobe, clutching her pale-blue silk wedged espadrilles. They were her most coveted item and were indeed vital to her wardrobe. He had stared at her, mouth agape, when he realised she’d abandoned their laptop, phones and chargers – all still sitting on the bed, but as long as her shoes were safe... She told him that in the event of futurehurricanes or any other epic disasters in which they found themselves while travelling, he needed to be much more specific.
Yes, her forte was internally panicking over the little things. Often in the early hours. The trouble was, she didn’t always recognise they were the little things, allowing even tiny paper cuts of worry to grow in magnitude, before miraculously resolving to put it all out of her head and let peace reign, twelve minutes before her alarm went off.
How she loved those twelve minutes.
An outwardly calm, peaceful, largely unflustered woman, she therefore found it difficult to admit that as those platitudes about ‘life’ and ‘time’ were offered without any semblance of understanding as to just how her whole world had been dismantled, she had felt the urge to wallop the mealy mouth that said such things.
This fleeting desire for violence was rare. Thankfully.
She smiled now at the thought of Jenny explaining how she had wanted to punch Blake Dunlop in the mouth. Maybe they were more alike than she thought.
