Then, through the tears, comes a fresh realization. She betrayed Karen in many ways, being on the same train, a few carriages apart.
What if I’d known Karen and Simon were on board? she thinks. What if we had bumped into each other at the station? Or if by chance we had been in the same carriage, and I’d seen them when I got on? If they were sitting down before I did, I must have walked straight past. If we had been together, I could have helped, altered the course of events, done something. But instead I was here, almost in this very spot, reading my magazine. Oblivious.
She remembers folding over the page with the jacket she wanted to buy on it. How materialistic, how shallow she is.
Lolloping walk, low-slung jeans revealing underpants elastic, giant trainers: Lou sees Aaron a few paces ahead of her. She also smells him. Wafting behind, sweet, sickly, heavy: skunk. They are less than two hundred yards from school; it is not even nine in the morning. Her heart sinks.
Should she catch up with him and confront him, or let it go? He is not on school grounds; strictly, it is beyond her remit. Especially as she is his counsellor, not his teacher, so his relationship with her is unlike his with other members of staff. She doesn’t want to seem pompous or dictatorial and the situation between them is already sticky. Plus she has not got a session scheduled with him today, so his being stoned won’t affect her directly. To ignore it would be far easier. Still, he won’t function properly if he is stoned, and that’s not in Aaron’s interests. Long term, he needs to get back into conventional education – be deemed able to return to a regular school. Skunk before lessons is not the way forward.
So she ups her pace and within seconds is alongside. ‘Aaron, hi.’
He is caught unawares, with no time to jettison the joint. His manner is lazy, nonchalant. ‘Oh, hello, Miss.’ He turns his gaze to her. Eyes sleepy, narrowed, bloodshot. ‘Want some?’ He holds out the reefer with a practised finger and thumb, roach end towards her.
‘No, thanks.’
He stubs it on a concrete lamp post, but instead of throwing it away, slips it into his pocket to finish later, defiant.
Lou takes a deep breath. ‘It’s interesting you’re smoking before school.’
He looks down. Mutters, ‘What’s it to you? You’re not seeing me today.’
‘It’s not me that I’m bothered about. It’s you. I’m wondering why you need to be stoned for lessons.’
He turns to her, smiles, audacious: ‘Makes them more fun, Miss.’
‘But how can you focus when you’re stoned?’
‘Don’t find it a problem.’
‘I think you could concentrate more if you weren’t.’
‘So you’ve been stoned, then?’
She has to hand it to him; once more he is swift, even in this state. ‘Aaron, this isn’t about me, this is about you. Isn’t smoking weed what landed you here in the first place?’
His eyes narrow further. He is angry. ‘You gonna report me, then?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Lou considers it his teachers’ role to instil discipline, not necessarily hers. If she is to gain his confidence, she can’t betray all his misdemeanours.
A few beats’ silence. They continue walking side by side. They are nearly at the school.
Eventually, he breaks it. ‘Strikes me you have your secrets, and I has mine.’
She knows what he’s alluding to; the remark is loaded, threatening. And his argument has a certain logic, impressive for someone who is stoned. Then again, he is adept at functioning through a haze.
‘You know the ground rules,’ she reminds him, as they enter the building. ‘Your relationship with me isn’t about my life. I’m here to help and support you.’
‘If you say so.’ But he grins, confident he has disarmed her, for the moment at least. ‘See ya.’ He turns and heads down the corridor.
Lou mounts the stairs to her room, brow furrowed. However long he and Kyra prolong this dance, even if they intimidate her further, the outcome must be the same – she will not reveal herself to them; they must learn respectful social skills. Nonetheless these incidents have brought one thing home to her. She would like the support of a colleague; she wants the head to know. She’ll have a chat with her as soon as they both have a moment.
* * *
Just after nine o’clock, Anna steps out of the elevator and into the Chelsea marketing agency where she freelances as a writer. Most people will not know anything out of the ordinary has happened, she reminds herself, pushing thoughts of Karen and Simon aside. Probably only her boss, whom she’d phoned the morning before, and Petra, the woman who schedules her workload, will have any idea. And they have their own preoccupations; it will be of passing interest to them, no more.
Sure enough, a ‘Feeling better?’ is all her entrance prompts from the receptionist. Anna doesn’t correct her. If her colleagues think she has been off sick, it is fine by her.
‘Yes, thanks,’ she says, and pushes open the double doors into the noisy office where she spends her working day.
Anna’s desk is sectioned off from Finance by a shoulder-high partition: through it she can hear the young woman who sits just the other side thumping on her keyboard with a clickity-clack of her nail extensions.
In the Creative Department her colleagues are behaving just as they always do: to her left is Colin, the new boy fresh from college, mumbling to himself, reading radio ad scripts aloud so he can time them with a stopwatch. She can see from the wodge of A4 he is clutching that he has written up several different ideas; he is so keen, his mere existence makes Anna feel guilty. To her right are Bill, an art director, and Ian, another copywriter, talking about last night’s telly. They are more like she is: very experienced at what they do, middle-aged, world-weary, sardonic. She likes them both.
But before she has a chance to indulge in some morning banter, she is collared by Petra.
‘Anna, hi,’ she says briskly. ‘Feeling better?’
So her boss hasn’t even told Petra what was up. Anna doesn’t know whether to read this as discretion or disinterest on his part, but no matter, it makes it easier. If someone is too kind, she might cry again.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she nods, and Petra gives her some letters to draft for an insurance company. Initially stalled by fear that she can’t do the work, Anna forces her brain into gear and, minutes later, starts typing. Within half an hour she is feeling more normal; it is good to focus on the familiar. Eventually she has the strength to step out into the corridor for privacy, and phone Karen.
* * *
Karen is standing in the kitchen, looking out of the French windows but not really seeing anything, while Phyllis is sitting at the breakfast bar, pen in hand. The children are watching Dora the Explorer in the living room: not something Karen would normally advocate at this hour, but today nothing is normal.
She might have managed to put on some clothes – though if someone had asked her to shut her eyes and say what she is wearing she wouldn’t remember – and she might have managed to give the children breakfast, but she has not been able to eat anything. She feels very strange physically. Even though she is not moving, her legs seem light, as though her feet aren’t quite on the floor. She is like one of those figures in a Chagall painting, floating around the room, limbs in limbo, defying gravity. Worse, she keeps having terrifying whooshes of panic that leave her breathless, heart palpitating.
She and Phyllis are struggling to make a list of other friends and relatives they need to tell about Simon. Phyllis is in charge of writing; Karen’s job is to remember names. If only it were that easy. Everything is upside down, not as it should be, including her memory.
Get a grip, she tells herself. People need to know what has happened.
She looks at the clock. ‘I could do some phoning now, I guess. It’s a perfectly reasonable time.’
Phyllis nods. ‘Before you do, though, I was wondering. I think I’d like to go to the undertaker’s and see Simon.’
‘Su
re,’ says Karen. ‘Of course you would.’
Phyllis’s voice cracks. ‘It just doesn’t seem real.’ She starts weeping. ‘My boy.’
Poor Phyllis. Even through her own grief, Karen feels it: the longing of a mother for her son. What would it do to her to lose Luke? Age makes no odds, surely. Karen goes over, puts her hands on the back of her mother-in-law’s shoulders, bowed these days with old age, rests her head on her soft grey pillow of hair. They remain like that a while, quiet save for Phyllis’s tears; the physical connection says it all.
‘Let’s ring them, then,’ suggests Karen, eventually. ‘See when Simon is likely to be released from the post-mortem. I think it was due first thing this morning.’
‘Do you want to come with me?’
Karen hesitates. She wants to grasp every opportunity there is to be with Simon – she would have gone back to the hospital yesterday afternoon if it had not been for Molly and Luke. But that is the point: she has to think of them. ‘I’d better stay here. It would be a bit much for the children.’
‘Whatever you think best. But I would like to say goodbye to him.’
Just then, a small voice interrupts them. ‘Who are you going to say goodbye to?’
They both turn to see Luke standing at the kitchen door.
‘Your Daddy,’ says Karen, before she has a chance to stop herself.
‘But I thought you said Daddy wasn’t coming back.’
Oh, no, she’s made a mess of it again. ‘Poppet, I’m sorry, he’s not.’
‘So how come Granny is going to talk to him?’
‘She’s going to say goodbye to his body, not Daddy himself.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Daddy’s body has stopped working.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘It’s very sad and we will miss him very much.’ But Luke just appears confused, so Karen continues, ‘You remember how I told you yesterday, he’s a bit like Charlie? Do you remember how Charlie’s body was still here, when he died, and how we buried it in the garden, but Charlie himself was gone?’
‘Are we going to bury Daddy in the garden?’
Karen can’t resist laughing gently. ‘No, honey, we’re not. What we’ll do, because Daddy is a very special person, is have what’s called a funeral in a few days’ time. It is a kind of party, though people will be a bit sad and some of them might cry. That’s when you and I and Molly can say goodbye to Daddy properly.’
‘But I want to talk to Daddy today!’ He stamps his foot. ‘Can’t I go with Granny?’
Karen and Phyllis look at each other. Neither is sure what to say or do.
Phyllis scoops him onto her knee and mutters, her voice low, over his head, ‘Might not be a bad idea, you know, if he wants to. I saw my grandfather when I was not that much older.’
Karen is unsure. On the one hand she wants to protect Luke; on the other she has never been one to cosset her children, and it did help her to spend time with Simon’s body.
What would Simon want? she wonders. Would he want his children to see him in a coffin, all cold and lifeless? She can’t be sure. Yet when his own father died, she recalls the two of them had talked about how much death is hidden these days and she knows Simon thought that a bad thing. He was conscious of his father’s background – he was an Irish Catholic and regular churchgoer – and when he died, Simon and Phyllis had tried to respect his faith as best they could. ‘The tradition is different – it’s more open,’ Simon had said about having the coffin at his parents’ home before the funeral. ‘Dad would have wanted it like this.’ But while Simon might have thought that appropriate for his dad, they were a generation apart. Would he actively choose the same for himself?
Round and round go Karen’s thoughts, spin cycle on overdrive. Nonetheless, she is conscious Luke is standing there, waiting. This is not the time for procrastination.
Perhaps what is best in this situation is whatever Luke wants. She crouches down to his level on Phyllis’s lap, gently grasps his shoulders and looks into his eyes. ‘Luke, sweetie. If you’d like to go and say goodbye to your Daddy, then of course you can go with Granny. But Daddy will look different.’
Luke looks a touch afraid. ‘Different how?’
‘It’s nothing to be scared of or worried about,’ she assures him.
‘You’ll see,’ says Phyllis. ‘He’ll be very still.’
‘Like he’s asleep?’
‘A bit. But stiller even than that.’
He nods, looks up at Phyllis and declares: ‘I’ll come with you.’
Karen is so proud of his bravery she wants to burst.
It is at that moment the phone rings. Karen jumps, and is then relieved: it is Anna.
* * *
There is no need for niceties. ‘How are you today?’ Anna asks.
‘Terrible,’ says Karen, but laughs wryly.
Anna is thankful; it is good to hear Karen laugh.
‘Actually, you caught us trying to decide something,’ she says. ‘Hang on a minute while I just take this outside, I could do with your advice.’
As Anna waits she can hear the French windows sliding open and then shut again.
‘It’s just that Phyllis wants to go and see Simon.’ Karen has dropped her voice.
‘Ah, right.’ Anna frowns, not sure why this is an issue. ‘Is he still in the hospital?’
‘He’s being brought to the undertaker’s – it’s not far from here, towards Hove. They’re moving him after the postmortem this morning.’
‘So she can get herself there, surely? I thought she drove.’
‘Yes, yes, she does. That’s not the problem. It’s just that Luke wants to go.’
‘Luke?’ Anna struggles to keep up. Somehow she can’t picture little Luke at Simon’s side. Instinctively she wants to safeguard him from the trauma. Seeing Simon was gruelling enough for her, let alone a five-year-old.
Karen explains, ‘He overheard us talking about Phyllis going, and now he wants to go to say goodbye too.’
‘Ah.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Gosh, Karen, they’re your children, I really don’t know. What about Molly?’
‘I was thinking she and I would stay here.’
‘Hmm, I’m not sure about that.’ Anna calls on all her emotional understanding. Gradually, she comes up with what she feels is the right solution. ‘If you’re going to give Luke that opportunity, I think maybe you ought to give it to Molly too.’
‘But she’s only three, don’t you think that it would be a bit much for her?’
Then Anna remembers. ‘Actually, that nice nurse yesterday suggested to me that you took them to see him. If they want to go.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, she did. I’m so sorry, I should have mentioned it.’ Anna feels guilty: she’s failed Karen again.
‘Oh, don’t worry. We were all of a dither yesterday. Well, we’re all of a dither today too . . .’
‘You could always ring her and ask her, but she did say that, yes.’ Anna stops, then adds, ‘It’s not as if Simon’s all bashed up or anything, is it? He’s not been in an accident or anything, in which case I’d say not; it might upset them to see him like that. But he looks at peace, really.’
‘Yes, he does. . . Mm, maybe you’re right. . . I wouldn’t want to force her, though . . .’
‘No, of course.’
‘I know what I’ll do. I’ll ask her too.’
‘That sounds very sensible,’ agrees Anna. ‘I’m sure you’ll put it in a way that she understands, so see what she says. But my guess is that in years to come she might be thankful.’
Goodness me, she thinks, putting down the phone a few minutes later. Who am I to encourage such openness? I keep half of my domestic life under cover. None of my colleagues know much about my troubles, do they? Imagine what Bill and Ian would say if I revealed what Steve is capable of when he’s drunk. They’d be horrified, surely.
Anna sighs. Bottling all this stuff up isn’t good. In the wa
ke of Simon’s death it seems even unhealthier. She returns to her desk and her letters, attempting to put her thoughts on hold once more. Still, they are there, eating away at her. Secrets. Lies. Simon lived with such straightforward honesty that his departure casts an uncomfortable light on how much she keeps under wraps.
She is not sure how much longer she can carry on like this, now she’s seeing things from a different perspective.
‘Is that you, Lou?’
Blast. Lou was going to call, yet her mother has gazumped her. She feigns enthusiasm. ‘Yes, Mum, hi!’
‘I thought you were going to ring me last night.’
Barely a sentence spoken and Lou is made to feel bad. ‘Sorry, yes, I know – I, er . . . I had to phone a friend before I got back to you. I did mention that I had to cancel something if I was to come.’ Ha! Fight guilt with guilt, Lou: that is the tactic.
But her mother seems interested only in whether Lou is doing what she wants. ‘So you are coming, then?’
‘Yes, yes, I am.’
‘On the Thursday?’
Aargh! ‘No. I’ll come on Saturday morning.’
‘Oh, really? Not sooner?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ she says abruptly. This is a lie; she could go on Friday after tennis, but can’t face the prospect of that long with her mother. ‘I’m not going to a party on Saturday night as it is.’ This bit is true, and to salvage some of her plans is only reasonable. She is damned if she’s going to surrender to her mother completely.
‘That’s good, darling, thank you.’ Lou’s mother has clearly picked up on her tone, and realized this is the most she’s going to get. ‘Uncle Pat and Auntie Audrey will be so pleased to see you.’
Yeah, right, thinks Lou, furiously twiddling the phone cable to contain her irritation. She decides to cut her mother short. ‘Is that all, Mum? It’s just I’ve a couple of other calls to make and I only have a few minutes before my next student.’
‘Oh, OK.’ Her mother sounds disappointed, but Lou ignores her. Do as you would be done by, after all.
‘Bye, then!’ Lou is ludicrously upbeat, and puts the phone down. She can’t resist kicking her filing cabinet, though, once she’s in the clear.