They would laugh, quite unable to imagine it.
‘You had to do it with one hand, and what, the other hand on the wheel?’
‘Yes, pretty much ... and there was nothing to help you park–no camera, no sensor, no beeps ...’
‘How did you manage?’
‘We just did!’
‘Vauxhall Corsa!’ she said out loud, before realising she had done so.
‘You all right?’
Elio gave her a tight-mouthed smile that smacked of concern.
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll take it easy. No rush.’
He linked arms with her, and they set off from the car park at a slow pace. It suited her, and she was grateful for it. He was smart enough to know not to rush her, with her milky eyes, and not to steer her, as that could lead to unsteadiness. She thanked goodness for her comfy shoes. He seemed happy to meander with her, seekingout the flatter surfaces of the path, avoiding the little tufts of grass and weeds that had sprung in the gaps between the stones.
It was a winter-blue-sky day, and the air was crisp, the kind of weather that was invigorating, restorative and happy-making, if she ignored the chill that tore through her shoulder like a knife, slicing through her very flesh, cutting her to the bone. That darned shoulder that had insisted, year on year, on reminding her of that terrible night a long, long time ago.
It was funny the way time worked.
How she would have loved to hold so many other thoughts with the same clarity. Like the first time Midge had kissed her or one of the nights they had laughed until they cried. The births of her three beautiful babies – so many things. They were still all there, of course, in the crevices of her memory, but were now a little worn, a little fuzzy, a little faded. Precious things, pasted into the honeycomb of her mind which she liked, on occasion, to dust off and recollect.
‘You okay, Nan?’ Elio pulled her arm tightly, checking on her again, as was his habit.
She nodded. Not trusting herself to speak, as her emotions hovered very near the surface. Cemeteries did that to her. Wandering as they did in this expansive wood, a garden of remembrance where all her loved ones had plaques, all reunited beneath a tree. Their ashes interned under the spreading protection of the beautiful flowering red dogwood.
It was an odd thing that she’d not fully understood when she was younger, how the first death takes all of your thoughts, engrossing you with the novelty of loss, and the first painful realisation of infinite separation that is very hard to fathom.
Her lovely dad had been the first, of course.
I don’t like a fuss ...this the phrase she still heard from his mouth as he smiled at her in her mind, andMore money than sense ...whenever she splashed out or left the lights on.
Her mum, the most marvellous, meddling matriarch, Ruthie Brett, had lasted another nine years without her beloved Dennis. She’d become quieter, as if without him to corral, the family no longer at home to fuss over, she had lost a lot of her purpose. This, too, Remy now better understood.
Hello, love, it’s me, it’s Mum ...This her phrase, uttered every single time she called, no matter that Remy explained, each and every time,Yes, I know, Mum, your name comes up on the ...It used to irritate her, but my goodness how she would love to receive a call from her now. The death of her mum had somehow diluted the grief of losing her dad, and so it went on, as if experience taught her how to cope, how to better handle the devastation. How to carry on.
Tony’s was a grave she had never and would never visit. Too far away.Hiswords in her head:Turn this one up!Before they would sing along or dance or nod their heads to the glorious sounds of their youth. And just to think of it meant she smelled the White Musk that had been their signature scent and heard ‘Geno’chanted in the background. Still she loved him, her wonderful, life-long friend who had succumbed to cancer aged sixty-eight. Too young.
Yet now, at this juncture in her life, when her bones creaked, her joints were inflamed, her skin too loose for her bones, her teeth weak, eyes myopic, feet sore, blood pressure high and her bladder no more than a slack and useless thing that contained nothing with great effect, it was somehow strangely fitting, for him, the beautiful boy, to be so preserved in his prime, in her thoughts, anyway. She knew he would have liked that.
Raul had remarried quickly, couldn’t bear to be alone, he said, and this too she understood. He and Scott still sent her a beautiful Christmas card. One of only a handful she received now, knowing it was very out of fashion, the waste of paper and the cost of postage, when a personalised digital card could be sent so easily.Still she remembered the Christmases of the 1970s, when her mum would fasten sharp, garish tinsel in loops along the tops of the walls and hang card after card on them to create their festive bunting. Remy could see her now, reaching up, as she stood on the sofa in her tights, with a paisley orange-and-yellow apron tied around her waist,The Harry Secombe Showon the telly. They had looked wonderful, all those cards, and the walls seemed quite dull when she took them all down before Twelfth Night.
It was, however, Midge she missed the most.
Midge, her darling, her marine ...
Just the thought of him was enough for her to feel the sharp needle of loss pierce her heart and for her tears to start falling. The loss of him, her greatest love, her very best thing, the hardest thing she had ever faced. Now living half a life without him, the man who had made her whole. He who had given her absolutely everything. Midge’s death, eight years ago, meant her parents, Tony, all of them, were relegated in the grief scale.
Eight years ...it was a wonder to her that she had survived at all.
The ache to feel his presence, to stand inside the arc of his arms, to see his face smiling at her in the way that he used to, to hear his voice,my beautiful girl,to sit next to him on the sofa, to know the comfort of his warm skin in a cold bed, all of it.
Yes, she missed him the most.
