Page 64 of A Midlife Marriage

‘I needed somewhere safe,’ she babbled. ‘I didn’t want anyone to find it.’

Helen’s lips twitched. ‘Who was going to find it, Kay?’

Kay shook her head, but the words she was going to say wouldn’t come. Words like,don’t laugh. It isn’t funny.But it was funny, and why shouldn’t Helen laugh? A woman of fifty-two hiding a vibrator because she had been terrified of anyone finding out she owned one? Not just hiding it. No, that wasn’t good enough. She’d had to carry it with her everywhere. As if it were a gun. Or a signed confession to murder. Adding weight where there wasn’t the slightest need. As if life wasn’t heavy enough. It was simply an instrument of pleasure, her pleasure, and wasn’t she allowed to seek and find pleasure in life? In the same way an infant is allowed to burp in public, she was surely permitted to find a way towards pleasure, towards happiness. She looked back at her father. He was watching a point across the room, a square of sunlight reflected on the wood panelling, one small space of light amongst the dark. And now she remembered what he had said, and why, when she had repeated it, so soon after, it had sounded so familiar.‘I don’t want to keep looking back.’

There was only one way, and it was forward, and what should be done when someone dies, was not a leaflet. There wasn’t a prescriptive or a commandment to be followed, there was only life. Messy, embarrassing, imperfect, and most of all, continuous

43

Leaving Kay to regain her composure, Helen pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped outside into a flare of daylight. Libby and Alex should be seated before Caro arrived; she needed to call them in. She raised her hand to her face, shielding her eyes as they recalibrated to accommodate the sunshine, the piercing glint from passing cars, the shimmer of sandstone steps. It was a busy scene, with people coming and going through a side door, hands full of paperwork in pastel colours. This front entrance of the town hall she had just used was obviously reserved for the more important milestones of life, those infrequent occasions when the stroke of a pen recorded a name that might otherwise have gone forever unspoken. The side door, she realised as she watched, was for all the stuff in-between: finding a place to live, registering a vote, gaining a driving licence.

Letting her hand fall, she turned back to the stairs and was immediately drawn to a young couple standing on the top step. The man was tall with a mop of dark hair. He had his hands in his pockets as he listened to the woman talking. They looked so comfortable in each other’s company, heads tipping back asthey laughed, it took Helen a long moment to understand that she was looking at Libby and Alex. When she did, when the realisation had seeped through, the tears that pricked her eyes were sharp as needles.

Libby and Alex, her baby girl and Kay’s baby boy, all grown up.

Of course, they would be comfortable with each other. Libby was closer in age to Alex than she was to her brother. Born six months apart, for the first five years of their lives they had been the best of best friends, sharing birthday parties and beds, paddling naked in the splash pool, falling asleep, heads touching, in their toddler car seats. She still remembered how they always held hands, no matter how short the walk. From the car to the house, the car to the supermarket, the car to nursery school, they would seek each other out and hold hands. So, it should have been a joyous sight, but the feeling she had as she watched was tinged with sadness. It was a merciless proof of how swift it all was, how a decade could pass easy as water through hands. A breeze came gusting up the steps, cold enough for her to pull her wrap tight over her shoulders. She tipped her chin to the sky. The clear blue of earlier had gone, and all she could see now was slate grey. She shivered. The morning had turned colder.

‘I supposeyou’re too big now for a hug!’ she said, as she put her arms around Alex. (It wouldn’t have mattered what he answered, there was no way she was missing out on hugging him). ‘My goodness!’ She took a step back. ‘You just get taller all the time.’

As Alex mumbled an embarrassed response, Libby said, ‘We were just trying to remember the last time we saw each other.’

Smiling, Helen tucked the edge of her wrap in place. She knew exactly when the last time had been, and although she wasn’t entirely surprised that Libby didn’t seem to remember, it was still disappointing. ‘Your eighteenth birthday party, wasn’t it?’ she said, the light stress making it a question, when she wasn’t looking for an answer.

‘I think it must have been,’ Libby looked away, her cheeks colouring.

So, she did remember. Not having wanted Alex there in the first place, Libby had spent the whole evening avoiding him, and Helen had spent a large part of the evening looking out for him. Making sure he had a drink, attempting to engage him in conversation. His buttoned-up silhouette, lonely at the edge of the dance floor was a memory she would never forget. Neither was the comment she had overheard Libby make to a group of her girlfriends. ‘He’s someone my mum knows. She made me invite him.’It had been one of those moments when she hadn’t liked her daughter. When she had found the hubris of a single-minded eighteen-year-old, with skin as unblemished as her grades, a repellent thing.

‘That was a great night,’ Alex said now.

Helen nodded. This was why Kay carried her son’s heart in her hands. If she left it with him, he’d bring it home every day torn to shreds, and he wouldn’t even notice. Not until it was completely broken, not until it was dying. One step lower, she watched Libby lift her face to Alex, saw how she bit down on her lip, how her eyes were glassy with tears. Libby knew; she had her own child now. Finally, she knew.

‘I might have a party,’ Alex said brightly.

Helen laughed. ‘Am I invited?’

‘Of course you are.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, matching his sincerity. Of course, he would invite his mother’s fifty-two-year-old friend. Andsuddenly she was thinking of the time, Kay had told her how, the day after they had watchedLady and the Tramp,Alex had gone into school and told his whole class that he could speak French, ‘Oh la la Pussycat,’ he’d repeated proudly. A story that was as funny as it was terrifying. Because as Kay had explained, if he thinks he can do it, it’s enough: her greatest fear was Alex’s greatest strength.

‘You’re invited too, Libby,’ Alex said. ‘And you can bring your baby.’

‘Oh.’ A spot of pink appeared on each of Libby’s cheeks. ‘I’d love to,’ she said.

Beaming, Alex turned back to Helen. ‘I’m only going to have it, if Mum’s in Cyprus. She hasn’t booked her flight yet. Dad will get there quicker than her at this rate.’

‘Really? Why’s that?’ Helen kept her voice light as a feather. Talk about blood out of a stone! The only thing Kay had given up about the fact that her anonymous admirer, had turned out to be her ex-husband, (Helen’s worst nightmare), was that it had been a lovely evening and she might see him again. If she hadn’t had so much else on her mind, not least keeping tabs on Caro, she’d have taken a trip across, and armed with a bottle of Prosecco, bubbled it out of Kay. She’d always liked Martin, had always thought Kay and him were a perfect match. Their divorce had been such a shock, it had just about ended Helen’s faith in marriage as an institution. If Kay and Martin couldn’t make it, who could? Nobody, it turned out, and thinking this her mind went back to Caro, who had so nearly messed it up before she’d even started. Who had been positive and cheerful every time Helen had phoned. Too positive and too cheerful for Helen’s liking. She took out her phone and glanced at the time. Neither Tomasz nor Caro had arrived.

‘Are you OK, Mum?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You’re shivering,’ Libby said.

‘Am I?’ Helen laughed. ‘It’s just the wind.’

‘What wind?’ Alex said.

Helen laughed again. But as swiftly as it had risen, the breeze had dropped. She hadn’t been shivering because she was cold, she’d shivered in the foresight of something she couldn’t see or hear. Something she could only feel.

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