Page 36 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
I don’t speak. Cannot. David steps in and says something polite to Elizabeth, and she moves away. But I am caught on those words, about Granny Rose’s sacrifices for me and Mum. I never thought. You don’t, as a child, but even as an adult I didn’t put the pieces together and realise that Granny Rose had effectively saved us. And what had I done to repay her? I had walked away.
‘I want to go home,’ I say.
David looks surprised. ‘What about the wake?’
‘I can’t face it. I want to go.’
David pulls the car keys from his pocket and we start to walk away, but then someone calls my name, and it’s Mum. I turn.
‘Are you leaving?’ Mum asks. ‘We’re going to the pub, you know, the Oak, for some sandwiches and drinks. Will you come?’
Mick is standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, and I want to scream at him to let her go. Why can’t he let her go, for one minute?
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I have to go to work.’
It is a lie, and when I look at Mum, I see that we both know this. We stand there for another half a minute or so, and it’s like we’re drinking each other in. I am the one who breaks the spell, who walks away.
I’ve taken the whole day off, and David has too, so we go back to my flat and I open a bottle of red wine.
‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ David asks.
I look at him, and there’s a challenge there. ‘I just said goodbye to my grandmother.’
And David holds both hands up in acquiescence. An hour later, our teeth are stained and we are listening to Queen, Granny Rose’s favourite band, at an unholy volume. I feel untethered. The fact that I’d barely seen Granny Rose these past few years notwithstanding, knowing she was there, in the world, was like an anchor for me, and I didn’t even know until it had come loose. I am telling stories about Granny Rose, and David is listening, nodding, not saying much, which is exactly what I need him to do. When I get up to get another bottle, he follows me into the kitchen and grabs me from behind. He turns me around and pushes me gently up against the fridge. Kisses me, his hands in my hair.
I am surprised at the tug of desire I feel. We haven’t had sex since Granny Rose’s death, and today is the last day I would have expected to want him. But I do. We go through to the bedroom, and David is sweet and complimentary, whispering in my ear how beautiful I am and how mad with lust I make him. For a while, I forget my sadness.
It’s about seven o’clock when Dee gets in. David and I are on the sofa, limbs entwined. I have the beginnings of a headache, from daytime drinking, and I’ve been crying again, and the news is on but neither of us are really watching it.
Dee comes over to give me a hug from behind. Her hair tickles my cheek and it is comforting.
‘Hard day?’ Dee asks.
‘I’ll leave you girls to it,’ David says, dropping a kiss on the top of my head and going through to my bedroom. He’s good like that. Knowing when to stay, when to step away.
‘I didn’t think to miss her,’ I say. ‘All those years when I barely saw her, because I guess I just thought she’d always be there. And now I miss her so much.’
Dee understands about complicated relationships. She has a brother she loves to distraction but can’t be in the same room with, a sister she isn’t all that close to.
‘How was seeing your mum?’ Dee asks.
‘Hard. And kind of good, too. She’s the only one who loved her as much as I did. There were some good years, before Mick came on the scene.’
Dee has heard about Mick, too. About the violence and the fear and the way things were for me growing up. She has things to say about men like that.
‘He was there, then?’
I nod. ‘It was a nice service.’
‘Good hymns? I love a good hymn.’
‘“Abide With Me”, at the end.’
‘“How Great Thou Art”,’ David says, from the doorway.
I hadn’t realised he was standing there.
‘What?’ I ask.
