This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You (18 page)

Whereas instead he’d managed to find a country parish which had years of problems stacked up, where the church had to be kept locked and the congregation was unwilling to lift a finger and all the hard-luck stories from miles around still managed to find their way to the vicarage door.

She pictured him being alone when it had happened, laid out on the vestry’s cold stone floor. He’d managed to reach his mobile phone, it seemed, with one side of his body numbed into sudden immobility and a terrible fear clouding his brain, and when he’d fumbled for the redial button her work number had been the first to come up. It was the secretary in her department office who’d called the ambulance. I could hardly hear him, she told Catherine afterwards. It wasn’t even a whisper.

And
stroke
was such a strange word for someone to have given this thing. It was misleading, underhand. Not that she could see much of the violence which had been done to him. There was nothing of the awful drooping grimace she’d seen on others who’d suffered strokes. Perhaps that would come later. For now, he just looked rested. As handsome as ever, in fact. He’d always been a handsome man, his looks seeming only to deepen with age instead of sagging and softening the way hers had done. She had been beautiful once, she thought – he’d told her often enough that she’d believed him, eventually – but that was mostly gone now, her figure rounded, her hair dulled, her skin marked and lined by the years. It felt as though their pairing had grown more uneven over the years, not less. And now there was this.

Because there would be years of this, now. If she stayed. His frailty, his dependence, his doing the things the doctors had told him not to and then looking to her to stop him. Everyone looking to her. People asking her gently how he was, when he would be back at work, whether he was thinking about early retirement. Adding
And how are you?
only as an occasional afterthought.

She heard the low hum and squeak of a floor-polishing machine moving along the corridor. Whoever was watching the television in the main ward turned it up a little to compensate. Somebody leaned through the doorway, apologised, and disappeared. The machines beside Michael’s bed did what they needed to do. His chest rose and fell.

She tried to imagine being somewhere else. Being contacted after the fact by his sister, or a doctor, or even by some other woman. Having to decide whether to visit. Having that choice. She found it impossible to actually picture not being here with him. To picture being with someone else when, as would surely happen again, the telephone call came. Somebody saying,
It’s Michael
. Somebody passing on the news of Michael being in a hospital bed once more, with wires taped to his chest and an oxygen mask across his face. She wondered how that would work, when it came to it. Whether this someone else would give her a lift to the hospital, whether they would wait downstairs or come up with her, whether there would be some residual awkwardness, still, or only concern, affection, love. Would they all be friends, in fact? Is that how these things worked? Would they have, what was it called,
moved on
?

The someone else was the hardest part to imagine. Some other woman. Some other man. It seemed impossible, now.

And what was all this in aid of, anyway. Where was she going with all this. She should just be praying for him to get better. Instead of all this speculation. All this might be and could be. Why was she even allowing herself? Hers wasn’t the sort of life where choices presented themselves, and held equal weight, and remained dangling within reach. Other people had these lives, it appeared. Other people were able to choose not to live with regret.

This would be the most selfish thing she had done, by far. She wasn’t sure, now, whether she would be able to go through with it. But it didn’t need to be anything she was going through with, really. Not initially. She was just going on a retreat. It had been booked for months. Nobody would think badly of her for going. Michael might not even know.

Michael might not know anything again.

She wondered how long his sister would take to get here, and whether Michael would be awake by then. She imagined his sister reading the letter she was going to send once she got there; what her reaction would be, what she would tell Michael. She wondered whether she and her husband would move into the vicarage for a time, or whether they’d persuade Michael to move in with them.

She wondered whether anyone would forgive her for this, whether they would understand. She doubted it. But doubt no longer seemed like a good enough reason for not doing something.

The machines did what they needed to do. His chest rose, and fell.

She tucked his hands back under the sheet and stood up to leave, putting on her coat and picking up her suitcase and pouring him a glass of water from the jug on the bedside locker, in case he was thirsty when he woke up.

The Remains

Friskney

Are believed to still be intact. Are understood to be within an area of approximately seventeen square miles. Are believed to have been concealed. Are either partially or completely buried. Are likely to be without clothes or jewellery or other possessions. May not be suitable for visual identification. Will be treated as a critical evidential scene. Have been the subject of much intrusive and unhelpful press speculation. Continue to be a key focus of questioning. Will be located using a combination of aerial surveillance and ground-penetrating radar. May be beautifully preserved, tanned and creased and oiled, by the action of the rich peated ground. May be laid in a resting position with legs together and hands folded and head turned gently to one side. Are of course still a concern to everyone in the department. May be intact. Have continued to be a topic of periodic speculation from time to time over the years. May be crammed into a box or bag or case. May need to be identified by recourse to dental records. May be wholly or partially lost due to action by animal or animals. May be wrapped in a silken winding sheet and buried with jewellery and other possessions pressed neatly into the folded hands. Must be in a location known to person or persons as yet unidentified. Could well be recoverable given the relinquishing of certain key details known to person or persons unknown. May have been visited from time to time by the perpetrator or individuals known to the perpetrator. Are either partial or complete. May ultimately need to be recovered using a team from the forensic archaeology department. Are not currently a priority in this challenging period of strained resources. Have yet to be found. Continue to be the subject of an open case file. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have been destroyed by water. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have been destroyed by earth. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Will not give you what you need. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have no further purpose to serve. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have been destroyed by fire. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Will not bring her back. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have gone. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Are gone. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Is gone. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Are gone. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Is gone. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be found. Have yet to be.

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The Cleaning

Holbeach

He had no idea where to begin. So much had been ruined. He stood in the hallway and felt the carpet sinking wetly beneath his boots. The smell was rising, already. She peered in from the front path, her arms folded, saying she didn’t even think she wanted to come in. He waited. What did she know. She had no idea.

‘There’s nothing in there, is there? What if something’s got in?’

Of course there was nothing in there. The building had been checked and secured. But she wouldn’t come in until he’d looked. So he turned away from the door and walked through the hall into the kitchen, the playroom, the lounge. He went upstairs, keeping close to the wall as they’d been warned to, and into the bathroom and each of the bedrooms in turn. He stood at the window of the children’s bedroom, at the back. The other gardens were piled high with rotten carpets and sofas and beds. It was weeks since the waters had finally receded. It felt strange to be looking out on solid ground. He remembered the last time he’d been here, holed up with the children, waiting for the boats to come, trying to make a game of it. He looked at one of the girl’s paintings, tacked to the wall. She’d painted it a few days before the storms had come. It showed the three of them eating their dinner, him and the girl and the boy. It was spotted with mould and curled almost in half. It would have to go. All these things would have to go. He walked through to the front bedroom and looked down at her. She was stepping from foot to foot, her hands clasped together. He opened the window, and she looked up, sharply.

‘Is it okay? Is it clear? Should I come in?’

He told her it was fine. He told her to come in. She had no idea. She hadn’t even been there. She thought she knew what it had been like, but really she didn’t. The children hadn’t told her anything. She hadn’t asked. She just thought she knew. He came down the stairs just as she stepped into the hallway. Her hand went up to her face, to cover the smell. Her feet sank into the sodden carpet. Somewhere around the top of her head, a thick black smear marked where the water had risen to. Above it, the wallpaper’s stripes looked almost fresh. Below it, they were blurred and streaked with mud.

‘It’ll be okay though, won’t it? We can get this all cleaned up. We’ll be all right, won’t we?’

She didn’t seem to know what she was talking about. She wasn’t even looking. Everything was ruined. Everything was completely and totally ruined. The carpets and the floorboards would have to come out. The plaster would have to be knocked off the walls, the wiring redone. It would take months. It would be easier to walk away. Just like she had done. He still didn’t know why she’d come back. He didn’t know what she wanted from him now, from any of them. He wondered if it was the going away she felt bad about, or just the timing of it. He wondered if she realised how much the children associated her going away with what had happened. He watched her rubbing at the wall, and looking at the muck which came away on her fingers. She sniffed at it. Bloody hell. What was she doing. She took a picture down from the wall, wiped the glass clear to look at it, and threw it out on the front lawn. He went out to the car to get some tools and some gloves. He looked at the picture. When he came back into the house she was standing in the lounge, holding up one end of the rotten sofa, waiting for him to take the other end. She had no idea.

The Last Ditch

Kexby

Notes for discussion points to be raised at next house-meeting, re: early preparation measures needing to be actioned asap:
endnote i