Country Wives (18 page)

He chatted about something and nothing all the way home, and she wished she could take on some of the burden of trying to keep normality between them but she couldn’t. She bet that girl in the photograph would have coped wonderfully well. No crippling embarrassment for her, oh no! She’d simply have sparkled a little, and the difficult moment would have slipped away. When they reached her house, Kate made to get out, happy to be escaping, but Dan insisted he open her door for her and wouldn’t leave until she was safely inside.

“Goodnight and thanks for the lift.”

“My pleasure, Kate.”

Kate went in to find Mia worried. “He said he’d be back about six and it’s nearly eight. Do you think your dad’s all right?”

T
hey waited until half past nine, growing more and more anxious as the minutes passed. Kate adopted the role of placid acceptance that Gerry could have met someone, or broken down, or gone for a drink, or got held up at the office, or was taking someone out for a meal to help push some deal through, but at bottom, as the seconds ticked away, she had begun to grow exceedingly anxious. “After all, Mia, he’s been late before.”

“But before, he’s always rung and let me know. He knows how I worry.”

“Well, don’t. He’ll be here.” With relief Kate remembered his meetings. “I know. It’ll be a model railway meeting, and he’s forgotten to say.”

Mia looked relieved. “Of course! They’re always on a Thursday and it’s Thursday. Honestly, I am stupid.” She stood up and cheerfully began to fill the kettle. “He’ll be ready for this. You know how he talks himself to a standstill when he goes.” She glanced at the clock. “He’ll be in any minute now, you’ll see.”

Kate occupied herself writing a letter to a school friend, but
she’d written four sides and her father still hadn’t come home. She felt as though a cannonball had replaced her heart. A terrible feeling of desolation came over her.

Mia asked her whom she was writing to, and she couldn’t answer. Looking down at the letter, she hadn’t the vaguest idea to whom it was addressed. Had she a screw loose? Was this how it affected you? Unable to answer the simplest question? Kate looked up at Mia and saw reflected in her eyes the fright she herself felt. “I …”

Mia took advantage of Kate’s pause to say, “You feel like I do? There really is something wrong, isn’t there?”

“Of course there isn’t. Honestly, Mia, if you haven’t got something to worry about, you find something. You know Dad; he’ll be fine.”

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“Well, I am. Honestly. I am. He’s probably going to come rolling home in a taxi.”

“Kate! Gerry’s never the worse for drink.”

“Actually that’s not quite true, is it? I can remember the time he went to that reunion …”

“That was different.”

“And when he won Salesman of the Year. Remember that? How you laughed.”

“Well, that was different too. He deserved to get drunk. He wouldn’t drink and drive, though, would he? He’s strict about that, Gerry is. Isn’t he?”

“Very.” Kate looked down at her letter and hadn’t the heart to write anymore. She closed the writing pad and pushed it away. “Look, we’re both of us being ridiculous. Make the tea. I bet he’s here before you’ve poured it.”

But he wasn’t, and Kate had eaten two chocolate biscuits and drunk two cups of tea, and still he hadn’t arrived. They heard a
car and looked at each other, embarrassed at having been so concerned. But it wasn’t Gerry; it was Lance from next door on late shift.

“If we ring the police, they’ll think we’re crackers. After all, it’s only eleven. They’ll laugh and be tempted to say he’s having a night out on the town.”

Mia was shocked. “Gerry! A night out on the tiles!”

“Yes, but they don’t know Dad, do they, like we do? They don’t know he doesn’t. Plenty of men do, you see.”

Determined to be reasonable, Mia said, “When it gets to midnight, I’m ringing the police. You go to bed.”

“I shan’t.”

“Did you hear me? You go to bed.”

“I shan’t. It’s my dad.”

“It’s my husband. Go to bed.”

“You only want me to go so I won’t see how worried you are. Well, we’ll share it. I’m not a child.”

“No.”

That cannonball in her chest had grown larger. Mia was quite right; her dad would have let them know if he could. He knew how Mia worried. So why couldn’t he let them know? “We are fools. I’ll ring his mobile.”

“Of course. We are idiots. He’s never without it.”

But the mobile rang and rang. So Dad had been separated from his phone. Why? She left a text message for him. “He’ll have left it in his car, and he’ll be in the meeting, or the pub. Let’s stop worrying. Dad knows how to take care of himself. Always has.”

Mia thought a moment and then replied, “Of course you’re right. Well, I’m off to bed. We’ll look silly if we both sit up and he rolls in, fit as a fiddle and wondering what the fuss is about. You use the bathroom first. I’ll tidy up.”

But Mia didn’t go to bed. She sat downstairs, desperately
trying to read the novel that had been recommended by a neighbor. It was the story of a woman who’d had more crises in her life than seemed possible, but she was rising above it all and triumphing in the end. Losing three husbands in an assortment of incidents which stretched the imagination to its limits became more than Mia could believe, so she snapped the book shut thirty pages before the end and decided to read no more. By now it was half past one. She heard a step on the stairs. “Kate?”

“You said you were going to bed.”

“Well, I got reading. It’s a load of rubbish, though, so I’m off to bed now.”

“Can’t sleep for wondering.”

“You’ll be cold. Go and get your dressing gown, and we’ll have a cup of Ovaltine or something.”

“I’m all right. I’ll make it.”

They sat until two o’clock, avoiding conversation and especially avoiding looking each other in the eye.

Mia got up to wash the mugs. “I’ll ring first thing in the morning.”

“Who will you ring?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hospitals?”

Mia nodded.

“Police?”

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

“Shall I?”

“No. I’m his wife.” Mia took a deep breath and confessed to her fears: “It’s a nightmare I’m not brave enough to face.”

“We’ll face it together. You and me.”

Mia turned from the sink and gave her half a smile. “Let’s be honest with each other: something must have happened to him.”

“Of course it hasn’t. What is it they say? ‘No news is good news.’ ”

“That’s right. He’ll be parked up somewhere because he’s realized he’s too tired to drive. He’s fallen asleep in his car by mistake, hasn’t he?”

Kate had too much common sense to have any truck with ghosts or psychic something or others, but the moment Mia said that, it triggered the idea in her mind that somewhere he was doing just that, except he wasn’t asleep. He was dead. She shuddered.

“I said you’d be cold. Go on, go back to bed. You’ve work tomorrow.”

D
AWN
found the two of them sleeping with their heads resting on their arms on the kitchen table. Kate woke, panicking, puzzled why she was sitting in the kitchen and not in bed. Dad! She got up, stiff with cold. She stretched and felt her bones creak. Dad! How could she have
slept?
Guilt sidled through her veins. “Mia, are you awake? We’ve slept in.”

“Ring up. Please.”

“I’ll have a drink of water first; I’m so dry.” As she put down the empty glass on the draining board, the doorbell rang.

Mia, still fully dressed, stalked like an automaton down the narrow hall. Kate stood in the kitchen thinking,
It’ll be the milkman wanting his money. It must be. Please let it be the milkman wanting his money. Please. It’s Friday, so it must be him
. She heard Mia invite whoever it was inside. So it wasn’t the milkman. She went to stand in the kitchen doorway and, looking down the hallway, saw two police officers; and just before she fainted, she heard one of them say, “Mrs. Howard? … found … on the hard shoulder … sitting in the car … Unfortunately, he’d passed away … Apparently natural causes. I’m so very sorry.”

•   •   •

T
HE
whole ghastly shrieking nightmare put the two of them into a permanent state of shock. Mia formally identified him, and once his body was released after the postmortem, they rigidly went through the process of organizing the funeral.

Every night when she went to bed, Kate felt as though she were lying at least a foot above the mattress. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t rest. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t smile. Couldn’t anything. Every part of her was paralyzed by the suddenness of his going. The whole of her life was on hold. Her car was still at the garage. She wasn’t going in to the practice. Not to see him ever again. She couldn’t accept it, couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t talk to anyone at all. Not even Mia. And what
she
was going through Kate could only guess, for she remained stoically getting on with life as though Gerry would walk in through the door each evening and hadn’t died of a heart attack after he’d pulled onto the hard shoulder, apparently not feeling well.

Kate dragged herself through the funeral, and when it came to the time for his nearest and dearest to toss earth onto the coffin, that appalling, flesh-crawling act, Mia did her duty, but Kate shook her head, her mind shying away from the finality of doing that very dreadful thing.

After they’d all gone, Mia said, “I shall sell his car. I don’t want that Beetle thing. And we shall move out of here. I can’t stay here, not with him gone. It’s always been his house, not mine. This nineteen thirties stuff he had such a passion for isn’t my passion at all.”

“I’ve always thought you loved it. But I want to stay here. We could always sell the furniture and buy some new. Redecorate.”

“We shan’t. And his train set—that’ll have to go.”

“Mia, let’s move slowly. We’ll feel better in a while; then we can decide. Christmas isn’t the time for selling up anyway. Let’s wait till spring.”

“Don’t think I’ll change my mind because I shan’t. I think
we’ll go away for Christmas. Can’t have it here, just the two of us. Disaster, that would be. We’ll join a house party or something, where it’s all organized. Together. No one need know we’ve just lost your dad. There’s sure to be a cancellation somewhere, and I don’t care where. Then we’ll sell the house when we get back and make a new start. You and me. Just you and me. By ourselves.”

They were sitting in the front room on the hard green sofa with its hard arms, drinking a bottle of wine from Mia’s store in the cellar. This sofa had been part of Kate’s life ever since she could remember. Could she manage without it? She doubted she could, but apparently Mia could.

Arranged on the mantelpiece were the sympathy cards. Not a single one from a blood relative. All of them were from the practice or Mia’s art class or the Model Railway Society or Dad’s office or the gallery where Mia occasionally had an exhibition. So now she, Kate Howard, had no living relative. Only Mia, and she looked as though she was going to make life a living hell with all her unexpected ideas. What worried Kate was that Mia had never cried, not once, whereas Kate herself had wept buckets.

“Another top-up?”

Kate shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m going to bed.”

“If you want to sleep in our room for company, that’s all right with me.”

Kate shook her head. “No, thanks. Nice of you to offer, but … well, we’ve got to get used to it, haven’t we?”

“I’m afraid so.” She took a sip from her glass. “I thought we’d live into old age together, but we shan’t, not now. He’s been my anchor since the day I met him. I know we were not really alike, in temperament and interests, but we complemented each other, as you might say. I shall miss him.”

“Of course you will.”

“So will you.”

“Even if he was an old curmudgeon sometimes. But now you remember only the best bits, don’t you?”

Mia didn’t look at her. “Oh yes. That’s human nature.” She twirled her wineglass by the stem. “You’ve to get on with things, you know. If he is looking down at us, think of the pleasure he’ll have when you get into college. He’ll be marching all over heaven telling even the Angel Gabriel what you’ve achieved.”

“Now he’s gone, there’s no one living with the same blood in their veins as I have. No one at all. Except my mother, and she doesn’t count. But I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

“We’ll manage, you and me, very well. A flat, a modern flat is what I want. Minimalism. That’s what I shall go for.”

“Mia!”

“He wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t your dad.”

Kate wasn’t too sure about that. She was certain he’d like the idea of their living on in his nineteen-thirties world, but if it pleased Mia, then … She wandered upstairs to bed, settling herself for sleep, feeling akin to an empty shell, utterly without life inside her, but at the last moment before she slept, she remembered Dan’s words as he stood beside her at the graveside, gripping her arm to comfort her. “Take heart, Kate. Stick by Mia and fulfill your dad’s ambitions for you. That’s the best gift you can give him now.”

T
WO
days after the funeral, Kate had her first day at work. She arrived home at half past four, exhausted by keeping up the pretense of being able to cope, no problem. Mia had made a cup of tea, and they sat together in the kitchen making desultory conversation. Mia had obviously made an attempt to begin painting again, but had not got far. She noticed Kate looking at her materials laid out at the end of the table with the brushes
clean of paint and the paint rag still pristine. “I’ll clear it away. I haven’t the heart … to paint right now.”

“Never mind, it’ll happen when you’re ready.”

“I’m not going to answer the sympathy cards. What can you say but ‘thanks’? There isn’t another thing to say.”

“No, there isn’t, is there?”

“I’ve booked us away for Christmas. Two cancellations. North Devon, Ilfracombe, not too far to go. Father Christmas and all that jazz. But it’ll be easier than staying here.”

“I’m not going to the staff do.”