What Goes Around... (6 page)

‘The medication,’ he says, ‘put a strain on his heart and the lovemaking…’ I just stare at his face as he tells me. ‘All efforts were made, we did everything we could to save your husband…’ There’s a whooshing sound in my ears and now Luke is holding my hand and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or say, I don’t even know how to cry.

My husband is dead and I simply don’t know how to feel.

Gloria

I look the best I ever have.

Today, on this day in my mid
-fifties, I probably look the best that I have since I was a teenager.

That probably sounds vain but that’s because you don’t know me. I’m not a vain person,
but for now you’ll just have to take my word.

I just can’t stress enough
, how good I look today.

Better than I did on my wedding day
, though that’s not hard because I was three months pregnant and throwing up.

Three kids will soon ruin you
r figure and since I got pregnant with Eleanor I’ve had a constant battle with my weight. Then, just when I started to get my life back, just when they were getting older, and things should be getting easier, just when he was due for a really good promotion and we could think about a holiday, just the two of us, bloody Lucy came along.

Lucy
, with her lovely slim body and long blonde hair.

Lucy
, who had her eye on the prize from the get go.

F
or a very long while after he left, I didn’t care how I looked.

There was too much other stuff going on.

Then there wasn’t even that excuse.

I simply didn’t care.

I let things slide for a very long while.

Way too long in fact. But, I’m slowly getting there. I started losing weight a few months ago and I finally plucked up the courage to ring my son-in-law
, Noel, and I asked him to fix my teeth.

Even though
I never expected to, I met someone at my slimming club.

I recognised him from work and we started chatting and it’s all sort of grown from there. Or rather it’s sort of shrunk from there
, because Paul’s lost a lot of weight too. He’s been going there for nine months now and, to be honest, I don’t know if I’d have said yes to a date if he’d been as big as he once was. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have asked and, if he had, I wouldn’t have said yes, but for my own reasons… you sort of lose your confidence really, well I have.

We’re going ou
t tonight on our first date. I went to the hairdresser’s yesterday and I had my eyebrows and upper lip waxed and I am trying on some clothes that I've bought.

It doesn't get any easier, this dating lark, whatever your age.

My phone rings and I half expect it to be Paul, for him to have come up with an excuse,
to say he’s changed his mind. It would be a relief, I don’t actually want to go, but when I look at the screen I roll my eyes, it’s my eldest daughter Eleanor and I wonder what the drama is this time.

‘Eleanor, slow down!’ I don't understand what Eleanor is trying to tell me, she's at the hospital and
apparently things don't look good. ‘Eleanor, you need to calm down.’ I’m suddenly sick in my stomach because she is due to have the baby in four weeks time. ‘Is Noel with you?’ That makes her cry harder and it is then that a nurse comes on to the line.

‘Mrs Jameson.’ She introduces herself as the nurse in charge and I recognise the Jamaican accent - its Rose. I do a few shifts down in Accident and Emergency now and then but I don’t think that she realises it’s me.

‘Rose, its Gloria! Gloria Jameson…’ The line goes quiet and for a moment I think I've been cut-off.  ‘What’s going on? Is everything
all right with the baby?’ I’m wondering what Eleanor is doing in Emergency, because even though we did our midwifery training together, it’s Emergency where Rose works.

‘Gloria
, you need to come now,’ Rose says gently. ‘Where are your other daughters?’ she asks and I frown. ‘Can one of them come and get you, or are they both still in Australia?’ Then I realise just how wrong I’ve gotten things. Yes, Eleanor is at the hospital but she isn't ringing about herself or the baby, this call really is for me. It’s Eleanor’s father who’s sick - my ex-husband.

‘He collapsed at home…’ Rose continues on. ‘Things don't look good.’

I want the truth. I don't want the safe hospital version, so that I don’t have a heart attack and drop dead, or kill myself driving in. ‘Just tell me Rose,’ I say. ‘I need to know what to tell Bonny and Alice. Just tell me now.’

There’s another pause.
I can hear Eleanor sobbing even louder in the background; I can close my eyes now and picture the scene. I know it from Rose’s voice, I know it already, and I just need to be told.

‘There was nothing we could do for him.’ Rose gives me the truth that I asked for and I can't remember if I said thank you, I can't even remember hanging up the phone. I do remember a surge of annoyance, that all this time on
, he can still mess up my plans at a moment’s notice – because instead of standing in my bedroom and trying to sort out an outfit for tonight, instead of trying on different styles of make up, I’m dashing to the hospital.

I’m dropping everything for him again.

That’s what he does you see.

That’s what he’s always done.

Somehow, even in death – he stops me from finding me.

Lucy

It’s all about them.

Always.

I promise you.

You’ll see.

‘Would you like to see him?’ Rose asks.

Eleanor starts to cry and moan and says no, she can’t face it, but I actually think the nurse was speaking directly to me.

I shake my head.

I’ve never seen a dead body.

Well, I thought mum was dead plenty of times when I found her passed out, but I’ve never seen a real live dead one – excuse the pun.

A real live dead one. I go over that in my head a few times and then Luke speaks. ‘It might be better to, Lucy. Charlotte might want to see him.’

‘She’s not seeing him.’ I’m adamant.

‘She might want to,’ Rose
says. She’s actually nice, a big woman and she’s sort of comforting. She puts her arm around me and talks for a while, tells me that it might help Charlotte accept things, that maybe if I see him on my own first…

‘I can’t.’

I’m scared to go in there.

‘I can come
in with you.’ Luke offers.

I shake my head but then I change my mind. I have to make things easier for Charlotte.

It’s funny that a curtain can block out so much noise, or maybe I just can’t hear the world outside when I step in there.

They’ve got a sheet over him and it’s up to his chest and there are all these tubes sticking out of him. To be honest, the first thing that I notice is that his hair’s a mess and that annoys me, he always looks after his appearance, he’s always smart. I mean, couldn’t they find a comb?

‘Can you take the tubes out?’

‘We can’t,
’ Rose tells me, because it’s a coroner’s case.

‘He had a heart attack,
’ I frown.

But they can’t say that for sure apparently and there’s this sweat beading on my forehead as I’m told that it’s for the corone
r to determine. I insist that no, we don’t need a coroner. I tell her again that we don’t and somewhere in this conversation I hear the word inquest – she doesn’t say that there’s going to be one, that’s for the coroner to decide apparently. Just hearing the word, inquest, my insides are screaming, my skin is crawling and I realise what the policeman wanted to speak with
her
for – for details. I can see me standing there, or sitting on some court bench with his family beside me, with journalists there, and Gloria, and neighbours, and a piece written up in the local paper and everyone finding out…

‘Why don’t you talk to him, Lucy?’ Rose says.

Because, I have absolutely nothing to say.

I look down and I can see the teeth marks around a bruise high on his chest and I rearrange the sheet. His eyes are closed and I want to open them, to look into them like I did this morning.

To be the only girl in his world again.

But I can’t.

I’m not.

I think of that slut, I think of Gloria, I think of his daughters.

I realise, for the first time fully, that I never have, nor will I ever be, the only girl in his world.

I hear this strange breathing behind me, sort of rapid intakes of air and I realise it’s the sound of a grown man crying. I step aside and Luke says something to him while I still don’t have the words.

As I said, Luke’s not just a colleague.

The two of them are more
like father and son. Yes, they’re friends and colleagues, but they’re more. I know this must be really hard for Luke, awful actually, but I can’t think about others now.

I can’t, because Charlotte’s here and I somehow have to find those words.

Thank God for Jess and Luke.

Jess has already told her that he’s very sick, she’s prepared her really – but actually telling Charlotte that her dad is dead is the hardest thing I hope I ever live to do.

I sort of kneel down and Jess is cuddling her and Luke’s hand is on my shoulder. I tell her as best I can and I watch her face and I can’t stand the pain I’m inflicting but I don’t have any choice.

She screams.

She sits there and screams and I shall never, ever forget that sound.

I don’t know exactly what I say. I do know I try to comfort her and then some still, silent voice inside of me, tells me that I can’t. Oh, I can say the right things and I can cuddle her but I can’t make this better, I can’t take her pain away.

This is her grief.

And it is separate to mine.

All I can do is be there.

She stops screaming and she’s sobbing and I sit beside her and wrap an arm around her skinny shoulders and take her cold hand in mine and hold onto it and I cannot stand her pain.

She doesn’t want to see him.

I’m glad of that.

She can see him at the funeral home if she chooses but not here, not so soon.

You do know best, Lucy.

You can do this.

I tell myself that, over and over again but I don’t really believe it.

Then his mum and his brother arrive and the ridiculous thing is that it’s as if they expect me to host this strange gathering. It’s as if I’m supposed to bring them up to speed when they arrive, to answer their questions, to stand up when the old mum comes in. It’s as if I’m supposed to know what happened and what’s going on. That it’s for me to make things better, smooth things over, console, comfort, be strong, break down, grieve, cry….

Except, I can’t.

I don’t stand, I don’t speak, I don’t cry, I just sit there numb. I’m not sure if I’m holding Charlotte’s hand or if she’s holding mine and I don’t know why we’re here. I just really want to go home.

Then, as promised, because it’s
always
about them, Eleanor starts.

She’s one of the Original Jameson Girls.

And they’re all from the same mould.

It’s always,
always
about them, and even if it isn’t at first, then they make it so.

Every time.

‘How far apart are the pains.’

Rose, who has been so lovely to Charlotte
, is now kneeling down beside Eleanor and she’s got her hand on her tummy. I’m not watching, I can just sort of see it in my peripheral vision and it’s scaring Charlotte. Can’t they take her to a cubicle or up to maternity; does she have to sit groaning and carrying on here?

Oh, that’s right – she’s an Original Jameson.

And I’m sick of them.

‘I want to go home.’ I sort of slur it out to Jess, but we’re waiting for an interim certificate, whatever that is, and then joy of joys Jess tells me that my mum is on the way.

That, I so do not need.

But worse, far worse than that, I hear Eleanor tell the nurse, so too is Gloria.

Gloria

I don’t know how I feel.

I just get in the car and drive. I want to get there but there’s a diversion that’s been set up at the roundabout and I keep getting taken back to the same point. The hospital’s not far away, but I can’t get there and now the traffic lights are red and I sit there and wait for the green arrow.

I’ve thought about this day.

Not often.