The First Last Kiss (53 page)

‘What’s this?’ I ask, and Ryan flaps it as if to say, go on take it.

I look at the heading that has been written and underlined shakily and the painstakingly considered subheads and notes. I know this would have taken a lot of effort and that he did this because he didn’t want to be useless, he didn’t want this entire move to be on my shoulders alone. Because of this, I am fighting back tears before I even read what he has written down.

Ryan’s 1st EVER list of things to do that will stop Molly from having a mental breakdown on moving day

I look back at him and he smiles sheepishly and shrugs. ‘You know Moll, sometimes only writing a list will do. You should try it sometime . . . ’ He winks cheekily and I bend down and kiss him on the lips then hand the list back to him.

‘I reckon it’s time you did the bossing around, Mr Teacher. Just read out what you want me to do first.’

And as I wait for his instruction, totally reliant on my husband for the first time in months, I realize that we’ve both had to re-learn our relationship now that cancer is there between us.

Suddenly I spot that Ryan is clutching the pink flamingo light, which I thought I’d put in a box marked ‘Storage’, but had secretly marked ‘Bin’ in my head.

‘Ry,’ I say warningly, and he looks around the room, whistling innocently. Except he can’t whistle. He just makes a hollow, squeaky sound. ‘What are you doing with that? You’d better not be messing with my system.’

‘I want to take it,’ Ryan says, as if that is answer enough.

‘Oh come on, Ry, you know we don’t have room for junk like that . . . ’ I go to grab it but he sticks it under his sweatshirt.

‘It’s not junk,’ Ryan says fervently.

I laugh. ‘It’s a pink bit of plastic! A hideous piece of pink plastic.’

He shakes his head. ‘No, Molly, it’s not.’ He pauses and takes a deep breath, looking up at me. His eyelids are naked, the eyelashes long gone with his hair. He blinks and I see a single tear leave his right eye and trickle down his cheek.

‘This flamingo, it’s everything I love about our relationship . . . ’

I go to protest indignantly but stop. This is no time for jokes. Finally there is no time for jokes. ‘This flamingo is you, my awkward Molly, trying so hard to stand out all the time, often pulled in two directions, between what you think you should want and what you actually want. Standing on one bloody leg all the time!’ He laughs and I smile in recognition of this observation. He holds it in front of his face so he and the flamingo are staring at each other. ‘And it’s me, a social bird that lives in colonies and needs others to survive! Don’t we, mate?’ Ryan makes the flamingo nod and I giggle. Ry turns to me and grins effusively. ‘Oh and hey, they eat shrimp Molly, that’s why they’re pink! Did you know that? Shrimps, Moll! Like the Shrimpers!’ His eyes are glistening. If anyone were listening to him now they’d think he was mad. But I get it. Finally I get it. He holds the flamingo out to me and I tentatively take it. ‘And they’re bred in Ibiza,’ he says quietly. ‘I saw some fly away that first night I kissed you. This flamingo is the only thing I want to keep because it reminds me of us.’

‘Well, then,’ I say, choking back a tear, ‘the bloody flamingo stays.’ And I pop it in my handbag for safe keeping, so its head sticks out the top ridiculously. Then I look back at Ryan, at my teenage love, my husband. We’ve come such a long way together. And that’s what scares me. It means there isn’t much further to go. Two hours later, we’re all packed up. Ryan is sitting in an armchair as the boys, iPod blaring, gather round him and lift him up, carrying him down the stairs, all singing along loudly and tunelessly to
Shine
by Take That.

That evening, with Ryan comfortably asleep in his newly converted downstairs bedroom after a monumental amount of fussing from Jackie, I’m sitting on the sofa in their house feeling strangely detached. Like I’m here in body but not in spirit. I sink into the sofa and close my eyes as the waves of exhaustion overwhelm my body. I realize I haven’t eaten all day. The boys stopped for a McDonald’s on the way home, but I just wanted to get Ryan here. Back to his home.

I open my eyes as I feel a presence next to me and Dave is looking down at me. He puts a plate of cheese toasties and a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of me. Then he lays a soft, sheepskin blanket over my legs and kisses me on the head and turns on the TV, sitting in his leather chair in the corner of the room clutching his own mug of tea.
Gavin and Stacey
is on and he chuckles softly at something Smithy says.

And all I can think is, I’m home.

3.48 p.m.

I walk out into my small overgrown garden that so badly needs some tender loving care. I want to say my goodbyes to it properly. I’ve never been the green-fingered type. Most living things seem to wilt under my watch, but one thing I planted seems to thrive year after year. It’s standing tall and pink through the desperately neglected flowerbeds, waving at me in the breeze as if to remind me not to leave it behind.

‘I can’t believe I nearly forgot the bloody flamingo!’ I roll my eyes heavenward and shake my head, overwhelmed by the urge to laugh. I bend down, groaning a little at the exertion, and it looks at me disconcertingly knowingly and for a moment I can see Ryan doing the same.

‘Yes, I
know
I have to get fit,’ I say to it. ‘But I’ve got an excuse . . . I have!’ I think of the Jammie Dodger addiction. OK, not
that
much of an excuse.

Oh
great
. If I was making a list (which I’m not) of signs of the onset of madness I could add talking to a pink plastic flamingo.

And who knew this pink beacon of freakishness would be the only thing left standing of my worldly possessions, lording it over every other memory from the past twenty-odd years of my life. I smile because it feels like some kind of sick joke. Which it probably is.

‘Come on, you,’ I say, tucking it under my arm. ‘I’ve got just the home for you . . . ’

Mum and Dad help me pack the luggage, a very disgruntled Harry and Sally in their cat box and the flamingo into the car. Our goodbye is short, not without emotion, but we hold it together in true Carter style. Mainly because we know it won’t be long till we see each other again.

Ten minutes later I pull up outside. I walk up the path nervously, just like I did the first time all those years ago. I knock on the door and wait for her to answer. I see her silhouette in the glass and I inhale sharply before she opens it. I suddenly realize that I haven’t felt able to exhale in her presence for the past five years.

‘Molly,’ she says quietly, and then stares at me without saying any more. I stand awkwardly on the step for a moment, clutching the flamingo for dear life. She looks so old. So unlike the woman I first met all those years ago. She is no longer perfectly turned out like she used to be. The lurid pink lips and nails are still there, as is the blown-out hair and bright, fashionable clothes, but the most striking thing about her is her coat of grief. It’s there for everyone to see, no matter what else she’s wearing. It’s in the deep lines on her face, her watery blue eyes, it’s there in her subdued smile and her anxiously wringing hands. The abundant jewellery has been replaced by a simple gold locket that I know contains a picture of her two sons.

Unlike me, she is thin – too thin. She has shrunk in stature, size and confidence. Her voice is quieter and her gestures more restrained. Her blonde hair is now the heavy grey of a January day. It matches the clouds in her eyes.

She studies me for a moment in the unflinching way that she always has done, penetrating right through me as she looks up and down, pausing deliberately on my swollen stomach before looking up and into my eyes. I feel self-conscious suddenly, like my pregnant belly is flaunting the fact that I have somehow – despite it all – moved on. I fight the urge to look away. Sometimes I can see him so clearly in her face I can’t bear to look. How hard must it be for her to look in the mirror? Perhaps she doesn’t. I know I didn’t for a long time. What must it be like for her?

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ she says at last.

‘Nor was I,’ I reply honestly. It’s strange when I think that for weeks I couldn’t leave this house. I could barely get out of bed. I became the patient, someone for Jackie to nurse and look after, and I enjoyed it. We both did, I think. But then, slowly, really, really slowly, I craved space and I moved back home, to my home, to my mum and dad, finally moving into my little house two years after Ryan died.

‘I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye,’ I say simply.

She nods briskly and turns her back on me. ‘Come in,’ she says. I follow, ever the dutiful daughter-in-law. ‘Cup of tea?’ she offers over her shoulder.

‘Please,’ I reply, automatically remembering how this quickly became the only thing we were comfortable doing together. We must have drunk gallons of tea in each other’s company in those early weeks. The act of making and drinking it disguised the awkwardness of our new relationship; that of grieving mother and widow.

We tried to unite, we really did. We kept trying because it didn’t make any sense for Jackie and me to turn away from one another when we needed each other the most. I mean, she was my surrogate mother, a woman so warm and loving and unencumbered by the awkwardness of my own, that when I first met her I remember joking to Ryan that I fell in love with her. As a wife I wanted to be the most important woman in Ryan’s life. But, understandably, as his mother, so did Jackie. It became a silent battle between us – one so subtle and nuanced that Ryan didn’t even realize what was happening. Nor did we. We put down our swords when he was diagnosed with cancer and nursed him together. We thought we’d be able to share our pain, help each other through it, but at times we just seemed to make it worse for each other. Jackie resented me for taking Ryan away from her. I resented her for never really letting him go. We both wanted him, but afterwards, what we were left with was each other. And it wasn’t good enough.

Now I look at this woman, this
mother
, and I am filled with shame. She gave birth to my husband, she carried him and she will carry her grief for the rest of her life. I want to hug her, to say I’m sorry and that I miss her. But I know it will be no comfort. It’s not me she wants. She’d swap a million hugs from me for just one more with her son.

As I walk through the hall to the kitchen I force myself to face what I couldn’t for so long. That he is here. He was always here. I remember going back to our London flat after he died to collect all our stuff, wondering why I couldn’t feel him there. I wanted to be flooded with memories of our life together. I lay in bed begging him to make me feel like he was still with me. But he didn’t come. Even when I bought the little Victorian semi – the house by the sea he’d always dreamed of coming back to – and filled it with our stuff, he wasn’t there. But being by the sea in Leigh felt right. It was the place we’d fallen in love – and the place he’d
always
loved. Because I realized that this town was his first love as much as I was.

Now here, here in this glorious house with sea views, on an expensive street in a desirable seaside town, in the house his dad built, in the place he grew up, here is where I see him. My Ryan. He smiles at me from every wall and mantelpiece, the kitchen dresser, the table where he’d spend hours marking, the annual school photographs all the way up the stairs. He’s there on the sofa in the lounge, where we hung out together as newlyweds, and where he lay for those few weeks before Charlie advised us it was time to go to the hospice. He’s in the garden, where he used to play football with his brother before cancer struck – and after, where he’d sit when he wanted to breathe the fresh sea air that he loved so much. He called it his special medicine. ‘Better than any amount of chemo they’ve given me, Molly.’ He’d smile and he’d hold my hand tightly, tilt his head back, close his eyes and breathe in and out, in and out. And I did what I always did – I counted each one. I wished I could count on forever but I knew that, just like our kisses, as the number of his breaths increased, so the number we had left decreased.

I walk into the kitchen, still clutching the flamingo, and there she is. Jackie’s back is to me and she is filling our mugs with boiling water. I know she’s crying because I can see her shoulders shaking. I walk over to her and put my arm around her. Her body is taut.

‘I’m so sorry, Jackie’, I say.

‘I still miss him so much, Molly,’ and she folds into my arms, sobbing, like a baby.

‘I know, I know,’ I whisper. ‘I wish I could make it better and I feel so guilty, Jackie. For not being a comfort to you. For still being here, for reminding you . . . ’

‘Don’t!’ She grabs my arm so tightly it hurts. ‘Don’t ever feel that, darlin’! Ryan would be so . . . bleeding . . . furious if he heard you say that. And as for this . . . ’ she presses her hand softly against my stomach, ‘ . . . I
am
happy for you, darlin’. You’ll be such a wonderful mother. It is the best thing in the world.’ She pauses and looks at me. ‘Do you have a picture?’ she says quietly. I nod and pull my purse out of my bag uncertainly, open it and carefully remove the grainy black-and-white scan of my baby that I took down from my wall earlier.

She takes it and I’m mortified when she sobs again. ‘He would have made a wonderful dad,’ she wails, and I clutch her hands.

‘Don’t Jackie . . . I don’t want this to cause you any more pain.’ I take the scan, hug her, and moments pass, and a lot of other things pass. We’re holding each other but we’re both letting go at the same time. ‘Jackie,’ I say at last, ‘there’s something I think you should have.’

Her brow wrinkles as I hand her the flamingo, and she holds it and looks up at me and smiles, but she also looks confused and hurt.

‘But I gave this to you, darlin’, it’s yours. Yours and Ryan’s . . . ’

I put my hand over hers before she can hand it back. And we both clutch that ugly pink plastic light, and with my hand still over hers, I begin to speak.