Page 45 of A Midlife Gamble

'If?'

'You know. If he hadn't been married all those years ago?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ Marianne’s response had been so swift, it had Kay turning to her in surprise.

‘No,’ Marianne said again and shook her head. ‘The fortunate thing about me, Kay, is that I was raised in religion.' She shrugged. ‘We have fatalism running through our veins, like you have blood. So… what happened then, is, I have always thought, what was meant to happen. I’m too old to start thinking another way now, and anyway sometimes it makes life easier.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘For me. I’m only talking about me.’

And for a long moment they looked at each other.

‘Coffee then?’ Marianne said.

‘Yes please.’

A few minuteslater Marianne was back, holding out an enamel mug filled with steaming milky coffee.

‘Just like real cowboys,’ Kay said, as she took the mug. ‘Aren’t you having one?’

‘I am. But I’m also having an interesting talk with Lula. Very interesting actually.' Marianne paused, looked at Kay as if she was about to say something and then with a slight shake of the head and a smile that Kay saw took some effort said, 'Do you mind if I go back and finish it? I thought you might want to sit for a while.’

‘Take your time,’ Kay said. ‘I’m fine. It’s so peaceful here, I’m really fine.’

As Marianne went back inside, Kay shifted her weight, easing off her sneakers and stretching her legs along the cushions of the swing chair, so she faced the desert. Her hands, cupped around her mug, rested on her stomach, her head leaning back against the frame. Yes, this was fine. To sit and swing, to gaze out at the mountains and the desert, to watch for John Wayne kicking clouds of dust on the horizon, was all she wanted to do. She brought her hand to her eyes. Way up against the perfect blue of the sky, the dark shape of a bird made long fluid loops, and across the yard, a shirt, hanging from a makeshift washing line, moved in the breeze. Silence, sacred as a church, brushed against her elbow and lapped at her toes and Kay felt as if she were looking at a painting, an immortal landscape, that, if only for this moment, she was a part of. Relief touched her. She felt it as a hand on her shoulders, a cool palm against her brow, a whisper of permission so persuasive that, hand trembling, she only just managed to get her coffee onto the porch before the tsunami struck. The violence of a grief she had managed to hold back since the first minute, of the first hour, of that very first day when her doctor had asked her to sit, with such a gravity of tone it had turned her legs to water. Because not once had she given it house room. Not like this. Not through all the months and weeks that had followed, in the company of her family, in the company of fellow patients, with professionals or strangers, not even at home, had she found a space safe enough to let it out, a space large enough to accommodate. But this place… Fist at her heart and mucus stuffing her airways, making every breath a struggle, Kay lifted her chin, her eyes taking in the expanse of the horizon from north to south, over every ridge and peak of the distant mountains. This place she knew could bear the weight of her damaged heart. This desert would swallow her tears. Here she was safe and she could cry forever and for everyone. For herself, and all the things she wouldn’t now do. For Alex, and all the children of the world left motherless too soon. For parents who outlived their babies, for last times that she hadn’t understood were last times, for the easy joy of youthful friendship… All of this, plus an infinity of human woes and still, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference. Her tears wouldn’t leave a mark. Here, it was easy and comforting to begin to understand the pitiful insignificance of a human life. Against those mountains formed millennia ago, in amongst this dry red soil which was once blue sea, she was tiny and she was nothing and even if she lived to be a hundred, she would still have been tiny, and she would still have been nothing. The absolute truth of this covered Kay like cool mist. It opened her pores and expanded her lungs so all at once, within the armour of worry and sadness that had locked her in from the beginning, there was suddenly more room to breathe than there had ever been. She tipped her head back, spread her hand wide on her chest and breathed in, really breathed in, Marianne’s words ringing in her ears.What happened, is what was meant to happen.

Something that could only be described as a consolation had her sitting up and blotting her eyes. Every last living thing, she was thinking, as if the idea were entirely new, is temporal. Set against the sublime and ancient lines of the earth before her, every living thing was nothing but a blip, and as she thought this, she also thought it was wrong. Very wrong.

She reached down for the coffee, lifted the mug to her lips and sipped. And this time she really did think she could smell it. A smoky, nutty smell that she filled her lungs with, and held, as the kernel at the heart of her thoughts revealed itself. Love was not a blip. Love, and only love, continues, handed down, generation after generation. How else to explain the fact that although her mother’s presence on this earth was more fragile by the day, the love Kay had for her was as vibrantly alive as that golden-winged butterfly. It informed the way she lived her own life, showing itself in inherited mannerisms and nuances of voice. For as long as she lived, her mother would. As she thought this, she sat very still and the world hushed and time, accommodating her, stood still, opening up a vista wide enough for her finally to understand that she wasn’t leaving Alex. She never would leave Alex. Because just like her mother before her, she’d planted her love inside him, deep enough, nourished and cared for it long enough that it wouldn’t die with her, and she knew this now like she knew the sun in the sky above. As long as Alex lived, she would remain with him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, to the desert and the mountains and the red red soil, and forever after would remain convinced that she had been answered, that the sagebrush had lifted its leaves and kissed a whispered response across the earth.

20

‘It started out quite flat, so that was fine,’ Caro said, excitement rushing her words. ‘And I remember crossing this river bed and actually thinking how calm I was. I mean there were boulders, but they weren’t worrying me, which was amazing given the state I was in before we left. I don’t know if you saw…’ She turned to Kay. ‘I was terrified to be honest, but by the time we had gotten to this part, I knew Jangles would manage, and then… Then we stopped at this outcrop to take in the view, and it was just breath taking. Absolutely breath taking!’ Smiling with the memory, Caro leaned forward and poked at the fire with a long stick, two spots of happy-pink glowing on each cheek, a million stars glowing in the sky above. ‘Didn’t you think, Helen?’

Glancing up, Helen gave a short non-committal movement of the head that might have been a nod of agreement. She was sitting on a fold-out chair, on the other side of the campfire from Kay and Caro, thinking about the stars above and what it would be like to fulfil that long-held dream of sleeping under them. The attempt at a nod was the best she could do. She wasn’t even sure what Caro had just said, because she was trying not to listen. The fresh air out on the trail had swept her mind clean and the rhythmic sway of her horse had been a soothing balm. So much so that it was hard for her to remember a time when she had experienced such profound peace of mind. In her garden on a sunny afternoon dead-heading roses, or trimming back clematis? That was peaceful. Pushing Ben in his pram, just as it had been when Libby and Jack were tiny, was peaceful, but wasn’t there so much more to experience? Other trails to meander along? All this had absorbed her, keeping the rumble of overheard conversation at bay, allowing her to concentrate on what life might look like if she ever got beyond a divorce that at times seemed as unreachable as the stars above. If she ever left a job that required nothing more than treading water. Because if this trip had shown her anything, it was just how closed down and walled in her life still was.

‘What struck me, was the silence!’ Caro’s enthusiastic voice dropped into her thoughts like a stone in water. She was still standing, holding the stick upright in one hand, her glass of wine in the other. ‘Sooo peaceful,’ she said. ‘I wish you had come, Kay.’

‘I’m glad I didn’t.’

‘Really?’

Kay smiled. ‘I needed a little space, Caro.’ Turning to wave her arm at the expanse of black desert that encircled them, she added. ‘It’s quite easy to find that here.’

And this time, Helen’s nod of agreement was real. Looking up, she watched as Kay pulled the blanket that covered her knees higher up her lap. In the melée of emotion she’d been operating under, she had, on occasion, forgotten about Kay. And that was unforgivable. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. ‘Are you warm enough?’

‘I’m fine,’ Kay said. ‘How could I not be? This place is magnificent.’

‘It is, isn’t it!’ Caro said. She threw her arms out and tipped her head back and turned to the desert. ‘And the stars! Just look at them!’ Above, in a clear black sky, infinite galaxies encompassed the night. Silver pin after silver pin, clustered together in milky wisps, or scattered singly like a string of broken pearls. ‘It’s just astonishing,’ she said, ‘how it takes so long for the light to reach us. Some of these stars are already dead, but there they are! Shining away like that. Isn’t that sad?’ And shaking her head, she turned back to the campfire and sat down, her eyes bright, her face glowing. ‘Anyway, by the time we were on the way back, I think I knew.’

‘Knew what?’ Kay let her head drop to one side as she smiled. ‘What are we talking about?’

Helen didn’t say anything.

Caro sat back on her stool. Her back was upright, the stick and the wine glass clasped between both hands. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘it’s just so obvious that things happen for a reason. You needed to stay, Kay. And I needed to go. I was meant to go on that ride. I did it, you see!’

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