Page 35 of A Midlife Marriage

Kay smiled. She was standing on the pavement outside her parents’ house, looking at the front border of their garden, at the triumphant crowd of blood-red lilies that filled it. They were vibrant blooms, that nevertheless disappeared every autumn for so long it was possible to forget they had ever existed. But they did, and every summer they came back, and with them memories of the spring her mother had planted them and yes,if you wait long enough the answer will come.

Where had she read that? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was true, because the answer to a question Alex had asked when he was no more than four years old, had finally arrived.

Where do people go when they die?

It had been the kind of fact-seeking missile of question only a small child can ask. She could still see his face, the way his tiny eyebrows had knitted together as she had tried and failed to provide an answer he might understand. But back in those days she had been learning too, how difficult it was going to be for him to negotiate a world that was not black and white. Perhaps,she was thinking now, instead of the muddled response about spirits and heaven she remembered giving, she should have just said, ‘let’s wait, shall we? Let’s wait and see where they go?’Because twenty years later, here surely was the answer. They don’t go anywhere. As long as those lilies bloomed and she was here to remember the planting of them, how could the answer be anything else? Her mother was present: in spirit and in love. As long the wooden egg Alex had given to his grandmother still sat in the front room window (she could see it now), and Alex remembered the gifting of it, her mother hadn’t gone anywhere.

She walked up the short drive, stopping at the porch door to look back at the lilies, and as she looked it felt to Kay that this was the first time she had really noticed them. She couldn’t understand why. They were such a vivid colour. Shaking her head, she opened the door to the empty space where her mother’s wheelchair had been kept, the shelf where her mother’s coat had hung, the rack where her shoes had sat. And suddenly, her head felt too light, her legs loose as straw. Grief was an animal she was only just beginning to learn to live with. It could not be managed, or tamed. If, one day she thought she had it under control, another day it would jump out and claw her legs from under her. Like now. She reached for the handle of the front door, composing herself and, when she was ready pushed it open and stepped into a darkened hallway. ‘I’m here,’ she called. There was no answer; her shoulders slumped. Her father, she guessed, would be in his usual chair by the window, hands locked together, thumbs rubbing away, that bit smaller, that bit more withdrawn. ‘I’m here,’ she said, a little quieter and leaned around the door to the living room. He was in his usual chair, but his hands weren’t locked together. He had his phone at his ear, listening, smiling.

‘Just popping some shopping in.’ She held up a carrier bag.

Glancing over, he raised a hand in greeting and turned back.

Kay frowned. ‘I’ll put it in the kitchen?’

‘Did you really? What an extraordinary woman you are.’

‘I said,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll put it in the kitchen.’ Who was he talking to?

As he turned again, he placed a hand over his phone. ‘You’re early.’

‘Am I?’

‘I’m on the phone.’

‘I can see. And what followed was an extraordinary moment in which Kay stood in the open doorway waiting, until it became clear that her father was waiting too, for her to go. ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ she mouthed and didn’t move.

He nodded. ‘Close the door a bit.’

Stunned, she pulled the door closed and stood looking at it.

‘You’re early.’Craig glanced up. He was leaning against the counter, reading the cooking instructions on a ready meal.

‘So, I hear,’ Kay said and looked at the clock, narrowed her eyes and looked harder. It was five o’clock. She couldn’t make sense of it. Five o’clock was a part of the day that hadn’t really existed for the last thirty years, squashed as it had been between lesson-planning, marking, supermarket runs. It meant at least another two hours before she could sit down withReal Housewives.It meant that she’d reached the end of all the things she had to do today with time to spare. And although this adjustment always took some time at the beginning of the school holidays, the necessary slowing down of her days had been something she’d welcomed. A six-week respite from the hamster wheel. Only now it wasn’t a respite. Now it was forever. She bit down on her lip. All this time. How on earth was she going to fill it?

‘Five.’ She nodded, her chin lifting as she breathed in a familiar rich smell. ‘Who is Dad talking to?’ But she didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Is that what he’s having?’ she said, staring at the packet Craig held. ‘Chicken Tikka? Dad doesn’t eat Indian.’

‘He does now. He asked me to pick it up.’

‘Right then.’ She glanced at the bag she’d just dropped on the kitchen table. It was full of ready meals: fish pie, chicken pie, toad-in-the-hole. Her father’s usual fare.

Craig put the packet down. ‘I don’t know who he’s talking to, but it’s every day now.’

‘Every day?’ Kay looked back along the hallway, but even with elephant ears she wouldn’t have been able to hear. ‘Who is she?’

‘She?’ Craig arched his eyebrows. ‘You know more than me. Have you booked Cyprus?’

‘Not yet.’ And from along the hallway, she heard laugher. ‘Whoever it is, he obviously finds her amusing.’

Ignoring her, Craig took a fork and set about stabbing the plastic covering of the ready meal. ‘So, you haven’t booked Cyprus, and you’re probably bingeing onReal Housewives.’

Kay smiled. ‘My retirement hasn’t even started, Craig. Not officially. Not until September.’

‘And I’m not going to let you become a recluse, Mrs B.’

‘I’m not going to ––’ But again she was interrupted by laughter. She turned to look. ‘You’ve really no idea?’

‘I’ve really no idea.’ He waved the fork. ‘Maybe your father has an admirer. One of the ladies I care for has a new boyfriend. She met him at her husband’s funeral.’

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