Lying in Wait(26)

Without saying anything at all, Laurence picked up the turkey and put it in the swing-top bin, forsaking the sandwiches and stews. He went to the cloakroom to call for an ambulance and returned with a brimming glass of brandy for me. He mopped the floor and then moved Andrew carefully on to it and put one of the kitchen cushions behind his head. He wiped the grease from the side of Andrew’s face and his hair with a tea towel. I wanted to close his eyes, but there was a kind of empty innocence in them and I needed Laurence to see that. He went to ring Andrew’s brother, Finn, who could relay the news to their mother, Eleanor.

Perhaps because it was Christmas Day, the ambulance took an hour to arrive, or maybe it was because Laurence had told them that Andrew was already dead and therefore it was not an emergency. Eleanor, Finn and his wife, Rosie, were there by then. Finn was shocked but stoic about his younger brother’s passing. They were not close.

Rosie swung into action, making phone calls and filling glasses while Eleanor just cried silently in Andrew’s leather armchair. I resented her sitting there. Andrew was her baby. Eleanor and I tolerated each other most of the time, but she never pulled her punches. Her role as the family matriarch entitled her to say whatever she wanted, and it was usually critical. She could never refrain from commenting about Laurence’s weight. Andrew usually visited his mother alone, and when she came to visit us I sat on my hands and bit my tongue. In our grief on this saddest of days, we did not make any attempt to comfort each other.

I think I went into shock after that. Finn and Laurence found my tablets and fed them to me. I was put to bed and woke up hours later, screaming for Andrew. Laurence came and sat with me, rubbing my arm, assuring me that everything was going to be OK and that he would look after me now. It seemed so stupid to me, a little boy saying he was in charge. The pain of this loss was so much worse than all of the miscarriages.

In the few days before the funeral, I stayed in bed, leaving all the arrangements to Finn and Rosie and my son. I lived in a tranquillized haze. There was some fuss over the clothes that Andrew was to be laid out in. Laurence had chosen Andrew’s favourite mustard-coloured corduroy slacks and burgundy cardigan, and Eleanor was horrified that he wasn’t in his best suit. I was beyond caring.

The funeral happened without my input. I felt as if I were underwater in a swimming pool and everything was happening above my head, beyond the surface of the water. I watched, absorbed, but could not engage. I stood in a receiving line, shaking hands with hundreds of people: politicians, broadcasters, coroners and lawyers. Laurence, by my side, kept me upright and supplied me with tissues. My emotions broke through when I watched Laurence carrying the coffin that contained his father’s corpse. I began to scream, and everyone stood away from me in horror until Rosie and one of her sons hustled me out of the church into the waiting black Mercedes. She found some pills in my bag and I was glad to take them. Eleanor got into the car and told me that I must conduct myself with dignity, and I wanted to slap her, but the pills began to work so I looked out of the window on the way to the graveyard, watching people carrying shopping bags, waiting at bus stops, chatting over hedges, as if nothing had happened. When the coffin was later lowered into the ground, Laurence held firmly on to my arm.

Back at Avalon, Rosie and her brood handed out sandwiches to the forty or fifty people who milled around our reception rooms. I recognized two or three of the women from some outings I had endured in the distant past, and I wondered who had invited them all. The wives of Andrew’s former colleagues filled our freezer with stupid, useless casseroles and pies, all labelled neatly. They marvelled at the size of our home. A few boys from Laurence’s old school came, and that girl Helen was there, clinging on to Laurence every chance she got, but Laurence was taking care of me. A wizened priest wanted me to pray with him, but I couldn’t bear to be in the room with him, and Laurence led him away towards Eleanor, who was more accepting of his condolences.

In the wake of Andrew’s death, I found it impossible to climb out of the fog. I spent most of my days in bed, and when I ventured downstairs I stared at the television, trying to ignore the empty armchair beside me. I simply could not stop crying. Laurence would bring food on a tray and feed me like I was a baby, and I would eat mechanically, without tasting.

When my mother-in-law and Finn and Andrew’s friends telephoned to see how I was coping, I did not go to the phone but asked Laurence to take messages. I let the condolence cards pile up without opening them. I swallowed tranquillizers to blot out the pain, but really they just took the edge off it and stopped the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm me. I was forty-eight years old. Laurence was all I had now – my boy who was growing up way too fast. And I was terrified he would not want to be my baby for much longer.

After Laurence was born, I had nine miscarriages. They devastated me, every one of them, the pain and the loss and ultimately the fear. I carried one as far as four months, and we really thought we were safe then. I’d never held on longer than ten weeks before that. It was the glorious summer of 1977. We celebrated by having dinner in our favourite restaurant, Andrew, Laurence and I. And then, right after our dinner plates were removed, I felt that dreadful and familiar tearing in my womb and I doubled over in agony. Within seconds, pools of blood seeped on to the velvet-upholstered seat beneath me. Andrew realized quickly what was happening and carried me out to the car, leaving a dribbled trail of my insides on their plush carpet as we went. Fourteen-year-old Laurence was white-faced and crying, but even he knew. ‘Is it the baby, Mum? Is it?’