Postscript(86)

‘I can understand that. To move forward with this, I think it would be advisable to have a clearer strategy. Find a structure for the club; you need rules, you need guidelines. For yourself, and for them. You need to be in control of how you help these people,’ she says firmly. ‘Not just for them, but for yourself. I can’t imagine what it was like this year, helping four people through this journey on your own. It must have been overwhelming.’

My defences fall. ‘Well yes.’

She sits back, and says with a smile, ‘Before you help more people, make sure you’re in a secure position yourself.’

I leave her office feeling like I’ve been squashed. I’m deflated, but I also feel reflective; have I made mistakes with Paul, Bert, Joy and Ginika? Have I counselled them badly? Did I damage them or their loved ones? The journey certainly wasn’t perfect but I think I did a damn good job. My motivations couldn’t have been more honest either. I’m not looking for a cent from anyone. I’m doing this for those who I believe will benefit, but I’m also, without a doubt, doing this for me.

A car beeps loudly as I veer out of the cycle lane. It gives me such a fright, I pull over and stop. I lay my bike on the ground and walk away, as though it’s a ticking bomb, my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t concentrating; I was almost hit again.

‘Are you OK, love?’ A woman standing at the bus stop, who witnessed the entire thing, asks.

‘Yes, thanks, just catching my breath,’ I reply, sitting in a chair outside a café, feeling shaken.

I can become defensive about my role in the club this year, and never fix a thing and run it and myself into the ground, or I can be realistic and take advice. Maria Costas is right. My personal life came out of it battered and bruised and I can’t afford to do that again.

The ghost of Gerry back in my life, or the real Gabriel?

I choose Gabriel.





37


‘In here,’ Gabriel calls, as I enter the house. Our bedroom is the first right off the corridor as soon as you step into the house, Ava’s is on the left, both look out over the tiny front garden, which is paved, with no planting, overlooking a busy main road. I wonder if Richard could get his hands on the front garden, start bringing it to life. The bedroom door is wide open and Gabriel is lying on our bed.

‘Why are you in here?’

‘The TV’s too loud,’ he says. ‘I brought my music in here but I’ve nowhere to put it with all the clothes and shoes, and make-up and perfume, and bras and tampons that have moved in.’ He pretends to cry. ‘It’s like I don’t know who I am any more.’

‘Poor Gabriel,’ I laugh, climbing onto the bed and on top of him.

‘I’ll get over it,’ he says, kissing me. ‘How did it go with the therapist? I’d say it’s like quicksand in there. Did she get stuck?’ He screws my temple with his finger and whispers in my ear. ‘Maria, are you in there? Should I send for help?’

I roll off him. ‘She’s not on board.’

‘That’s OK, you can try something else,’ he says optimistically. ‘Contact cancer charities. Tell them you’ve got a beneficial service to offer.’

‘Yeah,’ I agree, flatly. ‘Or I could just not do it. I don’t need to do it.’

‘Holly, snap out of it. You didn’t need that therapist to get started, you don’t need her now to continue. You know, at times like this I think it would be helpful for you to stop and close your eyes and think …’ He squeezes his eyes shut, with a smile threatening to form on his lips, ‘… What would Gerry do?’

I laugh.

‘I do it sometimes,’ he says, a mocking tone. ‘You should try it.’ He closes his eyes, and whispers, ‘What would Gerry do? What would Gerry do?’ All of a sudden his eyes fly open.

‘Well? Did it work?’ I chuckle, needing his good humour.

‘Yes, thank you,’ he says, saluting the sky. ‘He says he’d do …’ He flips me onto my back and lands on top of me. ‘This.’

I yelp out of fright and dissolve into laughter. I smile and run my fingers across his face. ‘You should always just do what Gabriel would do. That’s what I want.’

‘Yeah?’

I examine him. Though he’d been speaking in a playful tone, perhaps Ginika had been right about Gabriel’s jealousy of Gerry.

‘You’re not competing against him,’ I say.

‘I was, but you can never win against a ghost,’ he says. ‘So he and I had a chat, and I told him that, with all due respect, he and I have a common goal, i.e. loving you, so he needs to take a step back and trust me. Too many chefs and all that.’

‘That sounds a bit weird. But lovely.’

He laughs, and kisses me gently.

‘Gross,’ Ava says, and we stop kissing immediately and look to the door to find her watching us, her face all twisted in disgust. She closes our door, and the TV gets louder in the other room.

Gabriel rolls off me and pretends to cry again.

The meeting with Maria Costas was important. I went there looking for new members of the PS, I Love You Club but I left with a larger idea, a broader perspective of how I should be approaching this. She was right: I need to set boundaries for myself, so that I don’t allow every single person’s story to live in my heart and affect my life. I can’t have every member in my home three times a week, and I can’t spend full days traipsing across the city on treasure hunts. I can’t miss Sunday roasts and I can’t take time off work. The year of the meltdown, as Ciara calls it, is over.