She begins to run off but stops, turns and runs back to me, throwing her arms around my neck. ‘Thank you, Daddy, my heart feels a bit less broken now.’
I swallow the lump in my throat as she kisses my cheek, her skinny legs poking out of her denim shorts, ears sticking out and pigtails swinging unevenly.
What I didn’t think I would be is Haven’t-a-clue-what-is-going-on-with my-kids Dad.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jennifer
Ed has taken the kids out for the day; the house feels empty and cold despite the sun blazing through the windows.
Kerry is pointing the controller at the TV and flicking through the channels. Friends appears. ‘Ooh, it’s “The One Where Jen Sees Ghosts”.’
I blink.
The screen returns to black, the red stand-by lights glinting in the bottom right corner. Nessa’s number flashes on my phone.
‘Hello?’
She sniffs. ‘It’s me. Can you, can you come round? I’ve done something stupid.’
‘What kind of stupid?’ My voice sounds urgent and abrupt.
‘It’s her things, Kerry’s things, they’re just everywhere! Can you just, I can’t—’ She is crying as I grab my keys.
‘It’s OK, I’ll be there in a minute, just sit tight, I’m coming.’
I turn off the engine and look towards the house where strewn across the front lawn are clothes – Kerry’s clothes. As I step out of the car, I avoid one of Kerry’s boots, a handbag and a black belt with silver studs on which I remember being part of her eighties fancy-dress outfit. It looks like a tornado has hit.
‘Doesn’t look like we’re in Kansas no more.’ Kerry is holding up the black dress she wore to one of the film premieres they went to last year. It was off-the-shoulder with a long split up the thigh.
The gnome, who continues to peek at me from over the fence, is looking undecided about his feelings towards the pink bra that hangs limply from his fishing rod. Kerry’s red dressing gown is hunched in the middle of the lawn. The curtain next door twitches, quickly followed by an anxious-looking lady – the gnome collector, I presume.
Nessa’s body is crouching down against the front door, her body wracked with sobs.
‘Oh, Nessa,’ I say. ‘Come on, up we get.’
I hold on to her elbow tightly and guide her towards the house, where the front door hangs open.
‘One step after the other, that’s it,’ I say under my breath, ignoring the footsteps along the path behind where I can hear the gossip being launched behind mouths covered with appalled hands.
My sister’s widow follows me into the kitchen and folds herself into a chair, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them as I make a coffee. Ed is ringing my phone; I ignore it, turning the phone to silent. The coffee swirls as I add the sugar and pass it towards Nessa’s shaking hands.
‘I thought I could handle it, sorting out her things. I can’t afford to keep them in storage, so . . .’ Nessa looks into her cup as she talks. ‘But when I started going through her stuff, I just felt so angry with her. She shouldn’t be dead.’
‘I should be,’ I say.
‘God, Jen, no, I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s OK. It feels good to be able to say it. I should have died, Ness, it should have been me.’
I should have died.
Every time this phrase enters my head, it seems to get stronger. At first it was just a flutter, the words a faint, soft, slate-grey pencil mark, looping handwriting that I could barely see, almost transparent: a blur; a thought that could be missed, written on a scrap of paper that could be discarded without a second glance. But that faint grey pencil has been sharpened, and these words are finding more definition.
‘I know it should have been me, it was me that rang her and suggested we go to the jeweller’s that day, it was my decision to stop and look at my phone screen. I should be dead.’ The words are like chocolates in my mouth: they melt and soothe; each one has a different taste. I devour them, pass them to Nessa to try. ‘Do you picture me dying? Pretend that it was me, not her?’
She hesitates, then nods.
‘How do I die?’ I ask her, these words exploding like popping candy.
‘You get hit, not her.’
I lean forward, eager for more. ‘I think about death all the time. I picture how I’m going to die.’
‘Me too.’ Nessa drains her coffee.
‘What am I wearing? When I picture dying, I’m always wearing green.’
She puts the cup on the kitchen table in front of her and turns to meet my eyes. ‘You’re wearing jeans, your leather jacket and those grey Converse that you’re always wearing. I see one of them lying beside the road.’
I grin at this, at this little detail. I’m not going mad. Everyone pictures death one way or another.
‘And?’ I ask, eager for more.
‘Kerry and I come and see you in the chapel of rest and she tells you we’re getting married. She looks beautiful when she’s in mourning. She wears dark blue, not black, and the sapphire earrings you bought her for Christmas.’ Her face collapses inwards when she says this. ‘I threw them out of the window!’ Her chair scrapes back and she rushes outside.
Nessa shields her eyes from the sun, stepping uncertainly into the garden, muttering ‘Jesus Christ’ as she bends down and picks up a pair of Kerry’s sunglasses.
‘They were my bloody favourite, Ness!’ Kerry stands next to Nessa with her hands on her hips.
‘They were her favourite,’ I say.
‘I know. I always thought they covered up too much of her face,’ Nessa replies.
‘Uh-oh.’ Kerry pulls her heel backwards, as though she’s stretching before a race.
‘I’ll clear this up.’ I ignore Kerry. ‘Why don’t you get some rest?’
Nessa looks like it’s taking all her concentration to keep upright. She gives me a grateful nod and goes back inside.
I begin to retrieve the items of clothing that hang from the bushes and trees like fairy lights at Christmas, apologising to the gnome for his disappointing catch.
‘You don’t have to look so pleased about picking up my undies, you know.’ Kerry is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the lawn, peeling grass into strips. I reach down at the sapphire glinting in the summer sun. I picture Kerry wearing them, wearing blue, telling my coffin that she is about to get married, and smile.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ed
Jen isn’t here.
‘Mummy! We’re home.’
Even as Oscar shouts the words, I know that Jen isn’t here. I throw down my backpack and carry the shopping into the kitchen as the kids put their shoes in the correct shoe boxes, put their sun hats on the pegs in the porch. They’re tidy kids, much tidier than I was as a child. I suppose that’s Jen’s influence on them.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ Hailey asks quietly. ‘There isn’t any apple juice and something smells in the fridge.’
‘I bought orange juice,’ I reply, pulling it out of the bag.
‘But I don’t like orange juice.’ Her eyebrows furrow.