‘He’s not your Jamie anymore, but that Jamie, yes. Sophie’s dad, Jamie!’
The memory made her cringe.
Home ...it hadn’t felt like home for quite a while.
‘Not too often. We’re all – all busy. You know how it is.’
‘I do indeed.’ He spoke with the suggestion of laughter, indicating he got it; a busy man, no doubt. ‘So you used to work forGallow and Fitch?’ he asked with an impressed tone.
There were very few who lived in the capital who were unaware of the successful chain of luxury estate agents. She’d spy their classy logo everywhere and did so with a gripping feeling of hurt in her gut. She had, over the last couple of years, slowed down, working a bit less and socialising a bit more. It was all about that work–life balance.
‘I ... I used to be a partner, actually. One of the founding partners. The Fitch bit, my ... my married name.’
Damn!There it was again, that desire to cry, the shame, the loss, the grief, the rejection, just as acute at times when the topic caught her unawares, as if it had happened yesterday.
‘Oh? What happened?’
‘It’s rather complicated.’ She swallowed her distress, and smiled, doing her best to change the course of the conversation. ‘It’s very good of you to drive me all this way, Victor. Thank you.’
‘My pleasure. This beast likes nothing more than a good run.’ He patted the steering wheel. ‘And I shall visit the cathedral, have a gander at the Magna Carta and find a café that knows how to fry an egg and make a decent mug of tea.’
‘Sounds like bliss.’
‘They’re weird things, aren’t they, funerals?’ he mused.
‘Uh-huh.’ And just the mention of it, the imagining of her dad in a coffin and recalling his final words, spoken down the phone when she had called without any idea that this chat would be their very last:‘Night night, darling. Sweet dreams ...’
Enough for her to feel a pull of tears far stronger than her ability to keep them at bay.
It would forever be a great sadness to her that in his final years, he hadn’t looked at her with the same beam of delight, the instant bright-eyed wonder whenever he saw her, his golden girl. It had dulled, as if she had let him down, badly. This coupled with the fact that as she did her best to avoid running into her sister, went home less, engaged less; she had missed so many opportunities to see him, to be with him, believing she had more time. And all because she wanted to avoid seeing Remy. Remy, who lived close by and got to pop in whenever she liked.
She hadn’t been lying. Itwasrather complicated.
Reaching into her bag for a tissue, she did her best to blot under her mascara, not wanting it to smudge. A little embarrassed, a little awkward, as Victor was not yet someone she knew well enough to sob in front of.
Not at all.
Sensing her discomfort, he pressed a button on the steering wheel and the sound of Chris Martin singing ‘Fix You’filled the car.
It was kind of him, but only made her cry harder.
Remy
Remy took a seat on the sofa, finding it very odd, being in her mum and dad’s house, without her dad in it. Sorrow hovered in the air like a fine mist. Two weeks after his passing, there was no wailing, no tears, no chest beating in a rage of grief, nothing like that. It was more a sneaky, silent anguish that left a cold residue on every surface, inhaled with every breath. The lamps were on, yet each room was in shadow.
When she was in the cottage or helping Midge at work, she could kid herself that her dad was pottering in the garden, rattling tins, looking in jars, as he hunted for something in his shed, or oiling wheels and widgets, as he was wont to do, but there somewhere, mumbling about the recycling or the weather, in the place he had been since she was born.
To be here, to see his shoes paired up by the radiator, his favourite mug in the cupboard, his pyjamas in the laundry hamper in the bathroom, his wristwatch on the nest of tables by his chair, the chair with the slight dent in the cushion, where he rested his head every day at approximately 3 p.m. for his afternoon nap, all of it left her feeling empty, bereft, and unbelievably sad. The sight of these redundant items helped her understand the finality of his passing, knowing he would never have need of them again. To throw them away felt rude –histhings! She wondered how long it was prudent to hold on to them, knowing it could do her mother no good to stare at them day after day, yet the thought of seeing them discarded was just as hard.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’
‘I’m about as okay as I was when you asked me less than five minutes ago.’ Ruthie took a slow breath, her gnarled fingersrunning back and forth over the lace edge of the handkerchief that was scrunched in her palm.
Remy felt flustered, aware of the repetition, the banal question that felt like a safe and necessary thing to ask. Constantly checking, still looking for the opportunity to fix something, to make it better. How she wished for a different answer from her mum.
How am I?
... Well, I’d like a cup of tea.
