When All Is Said(6)

The review went on for what felt like hours. And all the time, I swirled my drink and tried to drown you out. Rosaleen’s family arrived then and off you all went on the tour again. That was enough for me. I left. Drunk as a fool, I drove home to sit in the dark.

To my utter surprise, though, I enjoyed your wedding, when it finally arrived. I suppose it was seeing you so happy, and Sadie too. I felt proud watching you take to the floor with Rosaleen for the first dance. And when we all joined you, me with Rosaleen’s mother and Sadie with the father, I caught your mother’s smile and laugh as she floated past. Later in the night, she even convinced me to have another look at that honeymoon suite.

‘Isn’t it just magnificent, Maurice? What I wouldn’t have given for this when we were married. Couldn’t you just see us now, Lord and Lady Muck?’

I danced her around the bedroom, nearly crashing into the dressing table, falling on to the bed. The drink had gotten the better of us. But my kiss was one of honest sobriety. Full of the love she had unleashed in me and gone on unleashing for all our years together. Not that we were the perfect couple. But we were good, you know. Solid and steady. At least that’s how it felt for me. I never asked her, mind.

‘I’ll book us in. Someday, I promise, we’ll have the honeymoon suite just for us,’ I said, lying on the bed, looking at her. I fully believed my words. I wonder did she? And here I am now, two years too fecking late.

She died in her sleep. She always said that when it was her turn to go, she’d like it to be that way. Just like her sister before her, there had been no sign of any illness, no complaint. She’d pecked me on the cheek the previous night, before turning over with her halo of curlers tied up in my old handkerchief. The woman had dead straight hair that she wound to within an inch of its life every night. All that bother, I used to think, as I watched her from the bed and her at the dressing table – what was so wrong with those silky lengths that I only ever glimpsed for a second? But, do you know something? I’d give my last breath right now to see her at that mirror one more time. I’d watch each twist and turn of her hand with complete admiration, appreciating every stroke.

That morning, I was in the kitchen with the radio on and my shaving already done before I realised I hadn’t heard the shuffle of her slippers or her usual humming. By the time I’d put the kettle on and still hadn’t seen her, I knew something was up. And so I let the newsreader’s voice trail after me as I made my way back down the corridor. Mick Wallace and his tax evasion. The image of that man’s white, wispy hair and pink shirt froze in my brain when I stood at our door and realised she was still in the bed where I’d left her.

Mick fucking Wallace.

I touched her face and felt the coldness of her passing. My knees buckled instantly. Collapsed at the edge of our bed, I looked at her face only inches away. Contented, it was. Not a care. Still a red glow to her cheeks, or am I imagining that? My fingertips felt the softness of the lines around her eyes, then found her hand under the blankets. I held it between my own, trying to warm it. Holding it to my cheek, rubbing it. It’s not that I thought I could bring her back to life or anything, it’s just … I don’t know, it’s just what I did. I didn’t want her to be cold, I suppose. She hated being cold. It’s one of the only things I remember about her passing and the funeral – that quiet time with me and her alone, no one else. Don’t ask me what happened after, who came or who said what, it’s all a blur. I just sat in my chair in the sitting room, still holding her hand in my mind – my Sadie.

I phoned you, of course. At least that’s what you told me when I admitted months after I couldn’t remember. I should’ve been alright for you when you and Rosaleen and the children arrived to say your goodbyes. I remember seeing your arms rise to hug me as I stood at the front door and them falling back by your side when you saw my face. You offered me your hand, instead. You clasped mine tightly, and my eyes concentrated on the two of them locked together until you let go. You touched my shoulder then, as you moved past into the hall. I can feel it there still, the only signifier that you were more than just another acquaintance who’d come to pay his respects. The shame of it. I wish now I’d wrapped my arms around you and cried on your shoulder and given you the chance to do the same. But no, I didn’t have the room for your grief as well as my own, it seemed.

What’s more, I shouldn’t have let you go home to New Jersey fretting about me. But I couldn’t rise to it, could barely rise at all for that matter. If I managed to get out of the bed, it was just to make it to my chair in the front room. There I sat with Sadie, walking through our lives together, until a cup of tea appeared in front of me, wrenching me back to my unwanted widowerhood. And I know you wouldn’t have returned to the States so soon after only for Robert convincing you that he’d look in on me and ring at the first sign of any problem.

You all came home again the following Christmas. We were to go to your in-laws, Rosaleen’s family, for the dinner. Good people, not that I made much of an effort with them over the years. I refused to go at the last minute.

‘Too much to keep an eye on,’ I said.

I knew they were only the half hour out the road but I couldn’t leave Sadie, not the first Christmas, it didn’t feel right. So you sent Rosaleen and the children on and stayed behind with me. Can’t even remember what we ate. Soup from the press, maybe. They came back a couple of hours later with two black plastic bags full of the kids’ presents and two tin-foil-covered plates of Christmas dinner.