He hung on to his temper but he felt it swelling behind his eyes. Why was Natalia giving him such crap for making sure things were done? Did she see it as her role now that Valerie was gone? He had a sudden vision of Valerie lighting a cigarette and leaping up to grab a bottle of wine from the fridge, crying, ‘For God’s sake, James. Lighten up!’
But it had always been his job to keep everything together, to know that everything was insured, maintained, arranged, booked, working, even though he was completely sick of the role, because Valerie would let everything go to hell while she cantered about –
It hit him like a blow.He would no longer have to worry about Valerie. Not driving or flying, smoking or drinking. It had all finally ceased to matter. A hole opened in his chest and grief flew in to squeeze his heart.
Then the mortician rang for James and the doorbell chimed and the argument had to be postponed.
When James returned from the phone he halted, shock bolting up his spine. Diane.
She wore a straight denim skirt and her plait gleamed like an ornament over the shoulder of a plain navy shirt. Her eyes looked very blue and she gave him a tiny smile. He thought he had never seen anything more reassuring in his life. ‘I came to see if you needed anything.’
Your tranquility, he told her silently. ‘We seem a bit disorganised,’ he said.And they’re not playing nice. I need help with them.
‘I can be useful.’ Diane began by making everybody tea and toast, two slices each, seeming to understand that nobody had eaten that morning – possibly explaining the shortness of tempers – as if to have done so would somehow besmirch Valerie’s memory. At first Harold refused brusquely, but Diane crouched before his chair and took his hands and explained how worried she was about him and he came to the table like a lamb and ate half a slice of toast and drank two cups of tea.
The final slices of toast she put down at an empty place, left the room and returned five minutes later holding Tamzin’s hand as if she were a little girl. Dressed in last night’s clothes Tamzin was silent but at least she was there and some food passed her lips. Everybody ate something, even if not much more than four mouthfuls, and Diane cleared away.
She seemed to have appointed herself general factotum. ‘OK,’ she said, returning to the table. ‘What needs to be done?’
James explained about his appointment with the mortician at four, Harold’s prescription, Natalia’s car.It’s too difficult, he added, with his eyes.
‘I could drop Natalia off to pick up her car while you keep your appointment, so she can fill out the prescription.’ Diane turned to Tamzin. ‘Will you come with me to Pops’s house and pick up some things for him? Your dad thinks he shouldn’t go home alone yet and I expect that we all agree. Alice, will you stay here with Pops while she’s gone?’
And everybody nodded, preparing to perform their allotted tasks without a grumble.
James, when he went out to his car, found Diane right behind him.
‘How are you?’ Her voice was low and sympathetic, and he was ashamed that he wanted her to hold him. Just for a moment.
Instead, he leaned against his car, letting her presence comfort him. ‘It’s a nightmare. I see her everywhere. I feel as if I let her down. I let her die.’
Her eyes brimmed with sympathy. ‘But it’s not true, James. You couldn’t stop her dying – that’s not the same thing as letting her die. Nobody could stop her. Fully trained medical staff with all the gadgets and gear tried and failed.’
‘But I keep wondering if the kids think I let her die.’
‘I’m sure they don’t.’
He touched her hand and she didn’t pull away. ‘The guilt’s incredible.’
‘It always is.’
‘I don’t mean about being alive when she’s dead and the usual survivor’s remorse. I mean because I was thinking about you when she began to struggle for breath.’
She nodded, once, jerkily, and blinked. ‘Bryony’s with Gareth. I feel guilty that I’ve left him to come to see if you needed help. But I had to.’
James was finding everything painfully unreal by the time he got home after keeping his appointment with a kindly mortician and a doctor from the Ackerman in a sterile-looking room that smelled funny and then having to fight rush-hour traffic that seemed intent on siphoning him into lanes he didn’t want to be in. He’d grown so used to the thorn of Valerie piercing his side. But now the thorn had been removed, without anaesthetic, and with no dressing to keep his guts from spilling out.
Emotions were racketing around inside him like bagatelle balls. But he wasn’t certain what the emotions were.
In his kitchen he found Diane sliding a chicken casserole into the oven.
The sight of her in the house he’d shared with his wife for twenty-seven years screwed with his heart. He’d wanted to leave Valerie for this woman. He’d made love to her while his wife lay in traction. He’d planned an affair; even taking a six month lease on a flat where they could meet on the outskirts of Peterborough, a flat that he was now arranging to be sublet because Diane had pulled back.
When Valerie had begun to arch and gasp on her hospital bed had he leapt fast enough for the red button on the wall? In the seconds that seemed hours before the staff burst into the room could he have done something to save her?
Guilt rose in his throat like black bile.
Diane met his eyes and seemed to read his mind.
