Page 18 of The Perfect Son
Another hero moment. How could I forget?
He bounced off the sofa and caught his face on the corner of the coffee table, and he was wailing and hiccuping and bleeding all over the place. I called you at work all screechy and panicked, dithering over whether to phone an ambulance.
He didn’t even need stitches, Tessie.
The plaster was huge though. A big white square with four sticky corners covering his eyebrow and half of his forehead. When the day came to take it off he wouldn’t let me near it, wriggling and writhing at the slightest suggestion of teasing the plaster away. You plonked him in the bath and played Mr. Submarine Tickle Toes, and then right when he was giggling and slapping his hands on the surface of the water, right when his eyes were shut, you whipped the plaster off. Jamie didn’t even stop splashing.
That’s how I took my first antidepressant. I popped out a pill from its plastic casing and washed it back with a mouthful of water before I could question right or wrong or ask you what to do.
I had a shower and washed my hair. Lathered it with shampoo three times over. I put on jeans and a bra, a T-shirt and a jumper. I’m going to Tesco to buy food today. Not the oven chips, fish fingers, and pizzas—the dregs of the freezer—that we’ve been living on for the last month, but the real kind—onions, mince, mushrooms, tomatoes. I’m going to make a pot of Bolognese for Jamie and me, so we can have spaghetti one night and penne the next, then lasagna with the leftovers.
I’m going to try harder.
That’s my girl, Tessie.
—
The supermarket on the outskirts of Colchester is busy. Busier than I expected for a Thursday morning. I find a space in the third row ofthe car park, and a trolley without a dodgy wheel. The air has a biting chill to it that stings the skin on my face, but somehow I feel warmer than I have done for weeks.
As I step through the automatic doors I weave around an elderly couple on their way out.I’m OK,I think. I’m slipping back into the old routine just like I slipped on my jeans this morning. I can do this.
Of course you can, Tessie.
I glance at the paper in my hand, the scribbled list I tore out from the notebook Shelley gave me. It’s the first time I’ve used it, and seeing the clean lined page feels nice somehow. Shame to waste it on a shopping list, but I’m not sure what else to do with it. I don’t need to write a letter to you every night when speaking to you feels so normal.
Shelley texted me earlier, just at the right moment when I was feeling so tired after cleaning up the milk and was wobbling over whether I’d make it to Tesco or not. It wasn’t anything meaningful, just a—Hi Tess, it’s Shelley. Just checking in. Call me anytime—but it helped. She signed off with a smiley emoji, and I felt her calm confidence in the air around me.
Somehow Shelley’s text felt different from the well-meaning messages my Chelmsford friends have sent, as if Shelley knew just what to say at just the right moment. I replied with a thanks and a thumbs-up, then jumped into the car before I lost my nerve again.
I catch the earthy smell of roasted coffee beans drifting from the café and move toward the fruit and veg.I can do this,I tell myself.
It’s the chocolate aisle where things start to go wrong. There’s a display of chocolate Easter eggs, an entire row of every kind imaginable. I know Easter is still weeks away, but I also know that by the time it creeps up on me I’ll be so wrapped up in thinking about Jamie’s birthday that I’ll end up doing a mad rush to the supermarket the day before and all the best eggs will be gone.
So I scoop up a Hot Wheels egg for Jamie. It has two racing cars as well as the chocolate, and a bright orange piece of track that will fit to the parts he already has. I add a Dairy Milk egg for me and some packs of mini eggs in case Jamie wants to do an egg hunt again this year. I lean against the trolley, pushing it forward and reaching for your favorite—KitKat Chunky. There’s two this year. One has a mug with it, and one doesn’t. It’s only when I’m holding them both in my hands, wondering which one you’ll prefer, that I remember you don’t need an Easter egg. You’re gone.
I drop the egg boxes, like a saucepan hot from the stove, and hurry away to the next aisle. Cleaning products line the shelves, but it’s not them that I’m looking at, it’s you, standing at the other end of the aisle, dropping a tube of black bin bags into a basket. Even from behind I know it’s you. The edges of your brown hair are sticking out from under a woolly hat. I don’t recognize the clothes—gray jeans and a navy jumper—but I would recognize your posture, your walk, anywhere, Mark.
And even though I know it isn’t you, I still shout out as you disappear around the corner. I still sprint down the aisle with the trolley in front of me.
I find myself in the central walkway that cuts between the aisles, and suddenly there are too many people, too many shoppers and children in pushchairs, and I can’t see you anymore. I race down pasta and world foods; jams and tins; the frozen section. I dart through the clothes, electrical, the shampoos; I scour the tills, but you’re nowhere and then I can’t breathe.
My legs weaken. My cheeks flush. Of course it wasn’t you. I know that. My hands shake as I dig through my bag in search of my phone. I have to call you, just to hear your voice. Six words on a recordedmessage—“Hey, it’s Mark. Leave a message.” I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
I have to hear your voice.
There’s a silence, then it rings. Except the voicemail doesn’t pick up. Instead, someone answers. “Hello?”
“Mark?” A tornado is spinning in my head. You answered your phone.
“Tess.”
“Mark... I—”
“Tess, it’s Ian.” His words are rushed, but the moment Ian says his name I register the clipped tone of his voice, the one you always teased him about.
“Ian? But I phoned Mark’s mobile.”
“I spoke to someone in human resources at Mark’s office and they agreed to have his mobile number redirected to my phone. Just in case anyone called who didn’t know about Mark’s death.”
