somewhere, there would be all the photos that David would be taking of them with Chloe and the baby, photos that didn’t include me.
The last photo will be one of those, somewhere on David’s computer. I have lots of the early ones, the ones in the packets, that catch her as a toddler dressed in appalling cardigans given to her by the aunties; chubby arms, chubby chins. Who would have thought she would turn into such a straight, slender girl?
I sit at the kitchen table, nursing my tea. Here is my girl at six months, in a red rugby shirt, grinning at someone out of the picture. Here she is aged four, her hair in a severe pageboy style, her stomach still protruding plumply from a vest. She is waving garden shears at the lens but I can’t identify the garden behind her – certainly not ours. It has flowers in it.
And here she is more recently, in a selection of prints that David took at her ninth birthday party – he gave me the CD as well as prints of the six best shots. I took her and three friends bowling and David joined us halfway through. Rees was allowed one friend. We all went for pizza afterwards. The photo I am holding is a large, glossy print of Betty with Willow and Priya and Elinor, her three best friends. The bowling alley – a hideously dark and noisy place – is in the background. They are all shouting at the lens, eyes wide, slightly mad with the noise and chaos of it. Betty and Willow are clutching each other in one of those wild, loving hugs that girls of that age indulge in, when they still believe that they will live together when they are grown-up. Willow wanted to be a vet. Betty was going to be a detective. They were going to solve mysterious animal disappearances together. Betty’s hair is untidy. Willow is grinning and holding a hand up, pointing at her own face. She is showing off her new glasses, of which she was inordinately proud. They are beautiful, and drunk on the joy of the party and their passionately mutual friendship: the past was something they had yet to acquire and the future was pizza and ice cream down the road, ten minutes away. Their lives were no more than the glorious, abundant present. They had four months to live.
*
Julie drives me over to Sally’s house on Friday. I have sent a message via David that I don’t feel able to come to the crematorium so soon after Betty’s funeral but that I would like to come to the house – a message comes back, that is fine. Julie takes the boys to nursery as usual, drives to the crematorium, then comes back to get me.
‘How did it go?’ I say, as I climb into the passenger seat and fasten my seatbelt.
She shakes her head. Her face looks drawn. For the first time, I wonder about the cost of all this tragedy to her and people like her in our lives, people who take it upon themselves to carry on as normal, who feel guilty for being too upset, but whose lives are also diminished, thrown awry by what has happened. We do not speak for the rest of the drive. We park the car in the street that neighbours Sally’s – her road is full. As she locks her car door, Julie says, ‘I’ll get the boys at the usual time and take Rees back to ours. You stay as long as you want.’
I brace myself as we mount the stone steps up to Sally’s front door but it is opened by a relative I do not know, a middle- aged man who says, as if by rote, ‘Thank you for coming.’ To my relief, there is no acknowledgement of my special status. Once we are inside, a teenage girl takes our coats over her arm. Her understanding of what is happening is unsophisticated. She gives us a bright smile before turning sharply and trotting up the stairs, to put the coats in a bedroom. Sally’s house is a mirror image of our house, the same Victorian terrace but the other way around and much smarter, coloured glass everywhere and stripped floors, endless framed photos of her children over every wall. From the hallway, I can see down into the kitchen, which they had
The last photo will be one of those, somewhere on David’s computer. I have lots of the early ones, the ones in the packets, that catch her as a toddler dressed in appalling cardigans given to her by the aunties; chubby arms, chubby chins. Who would have thought she would turn into such a straight, slender girl?
I sit at the kitchen table, nursing my tea. Here is my girl at six months, in a red rugby shirt, grinning at someone out of the picture. Here she is aged four, her hair in a severe pageboy style, her stomach still protruding plumply from a vest. She is waving garden shears at the lens but I can’t identify the garden behind her – certainly not ours. It has flowers in it.
And here she is more recently, in a selection of prints that David took at her ninth birthday party – he gave me the CD as well as prints of the six best shots. I took her and three friends bowling and David joined us halfway through. Rees was allowed one friend. We all went for pizza afterwards. The photo I am holding is a large, glossy print of Betty with Willow and Priya and Elinor, her three best friends. The bowling alley – a hideously dark and noisy place – is in the background. They are all shouting at the lens, eyes wide, slightly mad with the noise and chaos of it. Betty and Willow are clutching each other in one of those wild, loving hugs that girls of that age indulge in, when they still believe that they will live together when they are grown-up. Willow wanted to be a vet. Betty was going to be a detective. They were going to solve mysterious animal disappearances together. Betty’s hair is untidy. Willow is grinning and holding a hand up, pointing at her own face. She is showing off her new glasses, of which she was inordinately proud. They are beautiful, and drunk on the joy of the party and their passionately mutual friendship: the past was something they had yet to acquire and the future was pizza and ice cream down the road, ten minutes away. Their lives were no more than the glorious, abundant present. They had four months to live.
*
Julie drives me over to Sally’s house on Friday. I have sent a message via David that I don’t feel able to come to the crematorium so soon after Betty’s funeral but that I would like to come to the house – a message comes back, that is fine. Julie takes the boys to nursery as usual, drives to the crematorium, then comes back to get me.
‘How did it go?’ I say, as I climb into the passenger seat and fasten my seatbelt.
She shakes her head. Her face looks drawn. For the first time, I wonder about the cost of all this tragedy to her and people like her in our lives, people who take it upon themselves to carry on as normal, who feel guilty for being too upset, but whose lives are also diminished, thrown awry by what has happened. We do not speak for the rest of the drive. We park the car in the street that neighbours Sally’s – her road is full. As she locks her car door, Julie says, ‘I’ll get the boys at the usual time and take Rees back to ours. You stay as long as you want.’
I brace myself as we mount the stone steps up to Sally’s front door but it is opened by a relative I do not know, a middle- aged man who says, as if by rote, ‘Thank you for coming.’ To my relief, there is no acknowledgement of my special status. Once we are inside, a teenage girl takes our coats over her arm. Her understanding of what is happening is unsophisticated. She gives us a bright smile before turning sharply and trotting up the stairs, to put the coats in a bedroom. Sally’s house is a mirror image of our house, the same Victorian terrace but the other way around and much smarter, coloured glass everywhere and stripped floors, endless framed photos of her children over every wall. From the hallway, I can see down into the kitchen, which they had
Similar Books
