Trouble was, when he retired, I ran out of excuses. Had to admit I was just married to an old curmudgeon. He can’t moan about work anymore, ’cause he doesn’t go. So he sits there, in front of the telly, with his paper, moaning about the telly—what’s on it—and the paper—what’s in it—and Tony Blair. And that weather forecaster—the one with the huge mouth—Sian something or other. He never shuts up. He’s like white noise.”
She looked a little surprised at her own outburst.
“Now listen to me prattling on. You haven’t come all this way to hear me moaning, have you, love?”
She filled the pot with boiling water and carried it over to the kitchen table, with a couple of mugs and a bottle of milk from the fridge.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
Kathleen poured the tea and pushed a mug Jennifer’s way.
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“And your stepdad, your sisters? How are they doing?”
“Mark’s okay, I think. He’s thrown himself into work, as the expression goes, keeping himself busy, I think. Hannah’s better than the rest of us, I reckon. She misses Mum a lot, obviously, but she lived with her, and I think we all underestimated, maybe, how difficult that was for her, for all those months. She is definitely a bit relieved, too, and I don’t blame her for that. Those last bits were pretty ghastly. They’re looking after each other—it’s nice to see. They’re very close. Lisa’s around a lot lately. Mand is in and out of our lives, like she always was, but she seems okay. We’re all okay. You have to be, don’t you?”
Kathleen peered at her closely. “You’re not. And you don’t have to be. I was nearly forty-five years old when my mum died. Practically middle-aged myself. I had my three kids, my own home. Hadn’t lived with her for more than twenty years. I cried like a baby, for months, every chance I got, when she died. Mad, isn’t it? Took me a long time to stop missing her. I still do. I used to tell her everything—even when we didn’t see each other—we’d talk on the phone. Brian would make such a stink about the phone bill. But I told him talking to her was my only hobby and that if he didn’t like it, we could get her to move in, so I could talk to her in person. Funnily enough, he stopped going on about the bill after that. Brian, the kids, work, money—I’d talk to her about everything. Then all of a sudden I couldn’t do it anymore. She never lost her marbles or anything, you see. She wasn’t even that old. Sixty-eight—
that’s nothing these days, is it? It was a major stroke that killed her. Just like that. She was sharp as a tack until the very last and the next day she was gone.”
She put her hand across Jennifer’s on the table. “At least, with your mum, ghastly though it was, you had the chance to say what you wanted to say to her, you know, before it was too late.”
Barbara had been in and out of consciousness for the last four or five days before she died. The morphine pump was keeping
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her pain under control, but it was also making her sleep. Someone sat with her all the time during the day, holding her hand, and at night, Mark shut the door on them all and climbed into bed beside her. No one ever knew, nor should they, what passed between the husband and wife on those long nights. Mark looked exhausted. His hair was too long, and he shaved only when he appeared to remember, which was not daily. His eyes were sunken into dark patches, and they were washed red—the sure sign of a person who cried when he was on his own. The windows were open, and the curtains stirred in the breeze. You could hear life, outside. By mutual agreement they kept the radio on in the room, all the time—very quietly. She liked it, she said. It marked the passage of time.
Mostly it was Radio 4, with
Woman’s Hour
and the
Archers
and
Loose Ends.
Sometimes they changed it to Radio 2 so she could hear Terry Wogan’s breakfast show, if she was still listening. It reminded Jennifer of her childhood, sitting at the kitchen table eating Rice Krispies. Could he really still be doing it after all these years?
The last time Jennifer had spoken to her mum was about thirty-six hours before she died. She was taking the early morning shift. Hannah was at school, and Mark was returning some calls in the study downstairs.
It hadn’t been profound, or deep, or long-lasting. Barbara had opened her eyes and seen Jennifer sitting there. She’d smiled. Radio 2 was playing Haircut 100’s “Fantastic Day.” Because it was—for everyone else out there listening; it was 70 degrees already, cloudless and perfect. They’d been playing happy summer songs all morning. Jennifer had asked if she’d wanted some water, and her mum had given a slight shake of her head. She turned toward the breeze, letting it play across her face. Gesturing at the radio with her hand, she’d smiled again, and said, “Ironic, huh?” Then she’d put her hand back down on the blanket, and Jennifer had covered it with her own. She’d said, “I love you” and acknowledged Jennifer saying it back with the merest nod effort allowed. Then she’d closed her eyes and drifted off again.
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That had been it.
Jennifer had gone home that afternoon, for some clean clothes. The nurse said she didn’t think it was going to happen then, although she thought it would be soon. She’d come back that night and slept next door in the guest room with Lisa. Mark had kept Hannah home from school the next morning when she got up. He must have had a feeling. They were all there, except Amanda. Mum had died at lunchtime the next day, her breathing shifting slightly, catching in her throat once, and then gently stopping. They hadn’t even been sure, until the nurse said so, that it was finally over. It didn’t seem possible that you could die so quietly.
The nurse said it was often that way. Mark had finally switched off the radio.
Jennifer had cried then, and she started to cry now. She couldn’t hold it in. Her eyes filled with tears, and her shoulders began to shake, racking her with huge, desperate sobs. She knew Kathleen had never seen her cry before, nothing more than a little misting around the eyes brought on by something on the telly, and was afraid she would be discomfited. This was ugly, uncontrolled crying. But Kathleen threw her arms around her daughter-in-law, murmuring words of comfort as though she were a child, and let her cry for long minutes against her body, stroking her hair and telling her it would be all right.
“You poor, poor girl,” she said at last, when Jennifer’s sobs had qui-etened, and she was blowing her nose, rubbing at her eyes.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be daft. You have to cry on someone.”
“I shouldn’t be in this state. She’s been dead for months. I shouldn’t still be falling apart over it, like some kid who never grew up and grew away. I’m supposed to be stronger than this.”
“Do you know, that’s half your trouble, if you ask me, Jen.” Her voice was gentle. “You make these rules for yourself, and they’re . . . they’re just impossible. You spend the whole time beating yourself up for not
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being perfect. And you don’t realize how great you are. Crying for your mum doesn’t mean you’re not strong. It doesn’t mean you’re not coping.
And anyway, who put a time limit on grief? Did you expect to wake up one morning and be over it? That isn’t going to happen, honey. That’s not how it works. Loving someone, and losing them—it isn’t neat.”
“It’s just that I’m so unhappy, Kathleen.”
“About your mum?”
She paused. “About everything.”
“About Stephen?” She didn’t sound shocked.
“Yes, about Stephen. And I need to talk to someone about it, and I needed to talk to my mum, and she tried, she tried to get me to talk to her, but I wouldn’t. And I don’t have anyone else. I don’t talk to my friends about stuff like this. I never have. It’s not who I am. I have my sisters, but I can’t. I can’t talk to them. They all think I’m the one who’s got it all sussed. I’m the one who is happily married.” She was as much wailing as talking. Kathleen fetched a box of tissues from the windowsill and handed her a couple. Jennifer blew her nose.
“And would it be the end of the world if you told them you hadn’t?
That you weren’t. Are they such a resounding success?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because it seems to me, unless they’re blind and dumb, they must already know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious to me that the two of you are having your problems.”
“It is?” Jennifer’s voice rose with incredulity.
Kathleen smiled sympathetically. “Of course it is. Do you think the rest of us are blind? You can cut the air with a knife around here when the two of you are together. I didn’t see you touch each other once when you were here before Christmas. I was ashamed of him, when he let his dad lay into you like that, at the table, without standing up for you.”
“You never said anything.”
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“What could I say? People don’t want you sticking your nose in it. You wait until people come to you.”
“Has Stephen come to you?”
“No. Stephen hasn’t said a word. Stupid boy. But you have.”
Jennifer thought she might cry again.
“I don’t know what to do. We’re just not getting on at all.”
She explained then, to her mother-in-law, as best as she could, what had been happening. The deterioration, the distance. A couple of times she was afraid she’d said too much—Stephen was Kathleen’s son—but she held her hand up and told her she knew he could be a swine. “I’m not blind to his faults, any more than I am to his father’s,” she said. The more Jennifer talked, the more hopeless she felt. There were so many things, so many instances. They added up to a bleak picture. When she’d finished, she sat at the table, ashamed, and waited for Kathleen’s verdict.
Waited for help. Or rescue.
“I don’t have answers, my love. I can’t tell you what to do. Sounds to me like you’ve got yourselves into a real mess.”
She stood up and put the kettle on again. Jennifer knew she was buying herself time, thinking of the right thing to say. She stared out of the window and hoped that Brian wouldn’t come home early. It was bad enough that she’d broken down this way in front of Kathleen. She couldn’t bear Brian seeing her like this.
When Kathleen sat down again, with fresh mugs of tea, she seemed to have decided. She lay both her hands on the table, and spread the fingers wide apart, and then looked at them while she talked.
“I can only think of three things to tell you, Jennifer. The first is that I love you. Like you were my own daughter. That’s by the by, but I wanted to let you know that. You can come to me, now or at any time in the future, whatever happens, and I will still feel that way. Okay?” Jennifer smiled gratefully.
“The second thing is that I really truly believe that my son loves you.
I remember the day he came home from that wedding, the one where he
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met you. He came in through the door, whistling like a madman, and he looked so bloody pleased with himself. And he said, ‘I’ve met the girl I’m going to marry.’ I don’t know what you wore, or what you said, or how you did it, but you cast a spell on him that first time the two of you met, and I don’t think it’s worn off. He loves you. I never saw him half so keen on anyone else, and I can’t imagine him being again. Why in God’s name he’s let himself reach the point where he won’t tell you, or show you, or make you feel it, I haven’t a clue. I’d like to shake him, believe me I would.
“But the third thing is this. I’m not being disloyal saying this. It is what I truly believe. I settled for his dad. I settled for him the day I married him, and I’ve been settling for him all these years since. My marriage has been at best satisfactory, and at worst, a sentence. I can count the days of pure happiness we’ve had together on the fingers of one hand.
I haven’t been unhappy so much as just not very happy. And allowing that to happen has been the biggest mistake and is the greatest regret of my life.
“Your mum got out of a bad marriage. I’ve stayed in mine, because it wasn’t bad enough. And look what she got! She got Mark, and your sister. She got a new life. And, from everything I ever saw of her, it was a bloody marvelous one. Look at me—I’ve got Brian. It’s too late for me.
I’ve built a life around him. It largely excludes him, to be honest. I’m not tearing my hair out with misery—that’s not what I’m saying. We’re okay. I’ve got my kids, and my grandchildren, and my health, and my home. I’m better off than most. But there are days when I think I’ve been a fool. I think what a waste it’s been.
“Don’t be like that, Jennifer. If there are things that you can change, that you two can fix, to make it like it was before, or better, then do it, do it fast. Life is too short, my darling, to live that way.
“And if you can’t see a way to fix them, then move on. He’s my son, and I love him, but this applies to both of you. You’d be better off apart, with new chances to be happy, than together with none.
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“I didn’t know your mum all that well, more’s the pity, but I’m pretty sure she’d have been telling you the same thing, if you’d given her the chance to. I truly am.”
Barbara’s Journal
This one is called . . .
T he Days T hat You Were Bor n
It’s a few months since I started doing this. Told you I’d be sketchy, at best. I read the last bit and took my own advice—I’ve been sucking it dry. Yes, there’s been the treatment, but I’m not going to, not ever, write about that. Bad enough having to do it, without reliving it in print. In between the treatments (enough said) there’s been holidays to take, friends to drink wine with, daughters to lie in the garden with, swinging on the seat, Mark to love . . . but I’m back now . . . I have more stuff to tell you. . . .
I know we used to talk about this all the time when you were small, but we stopped when you grew up, and I don’t know if you all remember the stories, so I’m writing them down. They’re part of your blueprint, and I want you to have them. Do you remember the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, about birth days? I always felt like she (Was she a she? Who wrote Mother Goose? Who the hell knows.