Postscript Page 16

‘Yes.’ I finally agree. ‘But it’s wrong.’

  We drink silently. I sip, searching my head for something wise to say, something that will flick the switch and reverse her thinking. Denise takes a huge mouthful of wine.

  ‘Have you had any offers on the house yet?’ she asks, changing the subject, draining her glass.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you don’t just move in with Gabriel now, while the house is on the market.’

  ‘I’m not moving in with Gabriel.’

  Denise’s eyes widen. ‘You changed your mind?’

  ‘Gabriel’s daughter is moving in with him, and he wants to wait until she adjusts before we take the next step. And before you ask, he thinks the transition could take up to two years.’

  ‘What the fuck?!’ she spits and wine flies from her lip and into my eye. ‘Sorry,’ she says as I wipe it away. She stares at me, aghast. ‘Is he trying to break up with you?’

  ‘He says he’s not, but, I sense the future is bleak.’ I take a slug of wine.

  ‘But he’s the one that wanted you to move in.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He asked you for months.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘This doesn’t make sense!’

  ‘I know.’

  She narrows her eyes suspiciously at me. ‘Has it anything to do with the PS, I Love You Club?’

  I sigh. ‘Yes, no. Maybe. It probably hasn’t helped, all this stuff coming together at the same time.’ I rub my face tiredly.

  ‘Maybe you should take a break from the club, maybe it’s not healthy for you.’

  ‘I can’t, Denise. They’re relying on me. You just met Ginika, what would she do?’

  ‘But things were going so well for you before you got involved in the club.’

  ‘Maybe it’s helped put everything in perspective for me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Holly …’

  ‘I suppose I could go ahead with the sale of the house anyway.’ I look around. ‘I think I’m done with this place. I feel like Gerry checked out of here a long time ago. He’s gone,’ I admit sadly. Then, as quickly as the sadness arrived, it leaves, and a jolt of adrenaline surges through me. I could do this. Gabriel is making his own plans, taking care of his own life, why should I wait for him?

  ‘Fancy moving in with me?’ Denise asks.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  She laughs. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘You’re going back to Tom and you’re going to tell him what you told me. Discuss it like grown-ups. This is only a hiccup.’

  ‘I think I’ll need to do more than hold my breath and wait for it to pass.’

  True, bad advice. I’m through with holding my breath. Change needs action. I drain my glass.

  ‘OK,’ she sighs wearily. ‘I’m going to bed. Can I please sleep in your spare room?’

  ‘You can, but don’t keep me awake with your incessant crying.’

  She smiles sadly.

  ‘I think you’re making a huge mistake,’ I say gently. ‘Please change your mind in the morning.’

  ‘If we’re swapping advice, I know I’m in no position to be handing it out, but you love Gabriel. This club has done something to you, whether you admit it or not. It’s brought Gerry back to you, which should be a nice thing, but I’m not sure if it is. Gerry is gone, Gabriel is here, he’s real. Please don’t let the ghost of Gerry push Gabriel away.’

  24

  ‘Paul, if your wife arrives home …’

  ‘She won’t.’

  ‘But if she does …’

  ‘She won’t. They’re gone for the afternoon.’

  ‘Paul,’ I say firmly. ‘If for whatever reason, she returns, we cannot lie. I will not take part in deceit, this isn’t what I’m here to do. I don’t want her to think I’m some nasty other woman. I’m already Bert’s reflexologist, and that is disturbing enough.’

  He laughs and it breaks the tension. ‘I won’t ask you to lie for me. I know this is difficult for you, and I, all of us, appreciate what you’re doing for us, the sacrifices that you’re making after everything you’ve been through.’

  Which then makes me feel awful. My sacrifices are nothing compared to his.

  ‘So what’s the plan for today? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘We have a lot to do,’ he says, energised. He’s a bundle of energy and ideas, he reminds me of Gerry. They don’t look alike. He’s ten years older. Still so young and yet had ten more years than my husband; the greedy bitter time-comparison monster again.

  ‘I’m only going to write one letter, the letter to them all that explains what I’m doing; the rest, if you don’t mind, is visual.’

  ‘Letters are visual,’ I say, rather defensively.

  ‘I want to give the kids a sense of who I am, my humour, the sound of my voice—’

  ‘If you write the letters well …’ I begin.

  ‘Yes, defender of all letters written ever,’ he teases, ‘but my kids can’t read yet. I want to do something a little more modern, more in tune with what the kids are drawn to, and they love TV.’

  I’m surprisingly disappointed, but I drop it. Not everybody cherishes letters as I do and I suppose Paul is right, his young children, born in this generation, would probably prefer to see and hear their dad. It’s another lesson that this process needs to be shaped exactly as the person wishes, for the people they love; bespoke messages from the once living to the still living.

  ‘First things first.’ He leads me through the kitchen to a conservatory. ‘A piano lesson.’

  The conservatory overlooks the back garden. A children’s playhouse, swing set, lopsided goalposts, bikes, scattered toys. A doll abandoned in the soil, the head of a Lego man stuck between the cracks of the patio. The barbecue is covered up, unused since the winter, garden furniture needs to be sanded and painted. Colourful birdhouses nailed to the fence. A fairy door by the foot of a tree. The setting paints the picture of their daily life. I can imagine the activity, the mayhem, the laughter and screams. The conservatory feels like it belongs in another home. There aren’t any toys, nothing that would link it to the surroundings of the rest of the house. It’s an oasis. A light grey marble tiled floor. Light grey walls, a sheepskin rug. A chandelier hangs from the centre of the ceiling, low and hovering just above the piano. And that’s it, no other furniture.

  Paul is displaying it grandly, proudly.

  ‘This,’ he grins, ‘was my first baby before the monsters were born. I put it in here for the acoustics. Do you play?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Started when I was five. Practised every morning from eight to eight thirty before I went to school. It was the bane of my life until I left school, started college and then realised being a piano player at parties is a babe magnet.’

  We laugh.

  ‘Or at least, the centre of all entertainment.’ He starts playing. It’s jazz. Free. Fun.

  ‘“I’ve Got the World on a String”,’ he tells me, still playing.

  He gets lost in his own world, playing along, head down, shoulders up. No despair, just joy. He stops suddenly, and we’re plummeted into silence.

  I stand up quickly and go to his side. ‘Are you OK?’

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘Paul, are you OK?’ I look him in the eye. Headaches, nausea, vomiting, double vision, seizures. I know what Paul experiences. I’ve seen it. But he can’t be experiencing it now; the tumour is gone. He’s in remission, he beat it. This is all precautionary. Of all the people I am spending time with, Paul has the most cause for optimism.

  ‘It’s back,’ he says, choked up.

  ‘What?’ I ask. I know exactly what he means, but my brain can’t compute it.

  ‘I had a five-hour seizure. Doctor said it’s back with a bang.’

  ‘Oh Paul, I’m so … sorry.’ It’s too weak, the words are not enough. ‘Fuck.’

  He smiles sadly. ‘Yeah. Fuck.’ He rubs his face tiredly and I give him a mom
ent, my mind racing. ‘So what do you think?’ he asks, looking me in the eye. ‘About the piano lesson?’

  What do I think? I think I’m unsure about whether to push him more. I think I’m afraid something will happen to him, in my presence, and I’m afraid of that happening and I don’t know how I’d explain that to his wife. I think that instead of him spending time with me here, he should be with his wife and children, making actual memories, not ones for the future.

  ‘I think … that you’re right. This works much better on camera than in a letter.’

  He smiles, relieved.

  I place my hand on his shoulder and squeeze encouragingly. ‘Let’s show your babies exactly who you are.’

  I hold my phone up and begin recording. He looks straight into the camera and the energy is back, a playful look in his eyes.

  ‘Casper, Eva, it’s me, Daddy! And today, I’m going to teach you both how to play the piano.’

  I smile and watch, zoom in on his fingers as he teaches the scales, trying not to laugh as he jokes and makes deliberate mistakes. I am not in the room. I am not here. This is a man, speaking to his children, from his grave.

  After basic scales and ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’, we move to the kitchen.

  He opens the fridge and removes two cakes. One is chocolate for Casper and the other is sponge with pink icing, for Eva. He rummages through a shopping bag and retrieves a pink candle; a number three.

  ‘For Eva,’ he says, pushing it into the centre of the cake. He looks at it for a moment and I can’t even imagine the depths of his thoughts. Perhaps he’s making his own wish. Then he lights it.

  I press record and zoom in on his face, half-hidden beneath the cake held up in his hands. He starts to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. He closes his eyes, makes his wish, then blows the candle out. When he opens them, his eyes are misty. ‘PS. I love you, baby.’

  I end the recording.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say quietly, not wanting to ruin his moment.

  He takes the phone from me and reviews his work and while he’s doing that I look inside the shopping bag.

  ‘Paul? How many candles do you have in here?’

  He doesn’t answer. I turn the bag upside down and everything spills on to the marble countertop.

  ‘OK,’ he says, after watching the recording back. ‘Maybe zoom in on me and the cake more, I don’t want too much of the background.’ When he looks up, he sees my face, then the contents of the bag on the counter. Pink and blue numbered candles fill the countertop. I see 4, 5, 6 – all the way to ten. I see an 18, 21, 30. All the years he’s prepared himself to miss. He shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other, embarrassed. ‘Too weird?’

  ‘No.’ I gather myself. ‘Not at all. But we’re going to need a lot more time to get through this. And we’re going to have to mix things up a little. We can’t have them looking at you in the same shirt every year. Can you get some different tops? And fancy dress. I bet you guys have lots of fancy dress, let’s make this fun.’

  He smiles, grateful.

  Despite the battle Paul faces, a battle he’s had to fight once already, I find that spending time with him feels productive. With Gerry I felt so powerless, we were at the whim of every doctor’s decision, following appointments, schedules and treatments to a T, not knowing enough about it ourselves to be able to make clear decisions or take different options. I felt powerless. Now, while I’m obviously still powerless against Paul’s tumour, at least I feel that I can do something for him. We have a goal and we’re getting somewhere. Perhaps this is how Gerry felt while writing the letters for me. While everything else was uncertain, or out of his control, he had this one thing under control. At the same time I was fighting for him to live, he was making preparations for after his death. I wonder when that began, what moment he submitted to the knowledge, or did it begin as a ‘just in case’ as it did with Paul.

  Spending time with Paul is the ideal remedy to the personal web of confusion I find myself in, because I’m able to discuss these thoughts with him. He wants to know, he wants to hear. The club need me, they want me, and when I tell them stories about Gerry and rehash memories of his letters, I don’t need to check myself mid-sentence, I don’t have to apologise or stop myself as I do with family and friends if I feel I’m going on, or trapped in a time warp, or moving backwards. The club want to hear about Gerry and the letters, they want to hear about my life with Gerry, they want to hear about how I miss him and of how I remember him. And as they listen, perhaps in their minds they replace him with their own image, and me with their loved ones, envisioning what it will all be like when they’re gone. It’s my safe place to discuss him, it’s my place to bring him alive again.

  I can quite happily immerse myself in this world.

  25

  After a two-hour hospital wait that gives me another insight into my PS, I Love You Club members’ lives and how hospital visits, waits, check-ups, tests, results, are so much a part of their lives, I lie back on the hospital bed and watch the nurse draw a line in marker on my cast. Six weeks after shackling me, they’re happy with the healing of my ankle revealed in the X-rays. She positions the blade at the start of the guideline, applies gentle pressure and moves the cutter smoothly along the line. Slowly she pulls back the cast, revealing my pale skin, red and sore in places where it reacted to the plaster. Some of my skin comes away with the cast, it looks raw, as if it has been burned.

  I wince.

  The nurse looks at me, a pained expression. ‘Sorry.’

  My ankle, shin and calf is distraught, paler in places where it is not flaming red with burns, and it’s skinnier than my right leg. It has faced a trauma, is fragile in comparison to the rest of me. It will catch up. I’m relieved.

  I feel like an onion, another layer gone. I sting, I am raw, but I feel unshackled and unpeeled.

  ‘Hello?’ I call, stepping into the narrow entrance hall, varied art on the walls and a long rug lining the original floorboards. I make my way slowly over the rug wearing a new walking boot to help with the weight placement on my weakened ankle. Though not completely free, I’m grateful to be without the crutches and cast. I breathe in the air of the house I had almost considered my home. Gabriel, not long in from work, wearing his work combats and bomber jacket, is sitting in an armchair tapping away on his phone, and looks up at me, surprised.

  ‘Holly,’ he stands. ‘I just texted you. How did it go?’ He looks down at my foot.

  ‘I have to wear this for a few weeks, then I’m as good as new.’

  He comes to me and hugs me. My phone vibrates in my pocket.

  ‘That’s from me,’ he says.

  ‘Is Ava here?’ I pull away, and look around.

  ‘No, not yet, she’s moving in on Friday, after school.’ He breathes out anxiously.

  ‘You’ll be great.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Can we talk?’ I ask, moving to the couch.

  He looks at me nervously, then sits.

  My heart is pounding.

  I swallow hard. ‘I don’t blame you for the decision you made about Ava – for as long as I’ve known you, you’ve told me about wanting to be in her life more – but I can’t do this any more. I can’t do us any more.’ My voice is quivering and I pause to watch his face, see how he’s taking it. He’s utterly shocked, he’s examining me, eyes searing into mine. I’m confused as to why he didn’t see this coming, and have to look away in order to continue. I look down at my fingers, grasping each other so tightly, they’re white at the knuckles.

  ‘I made a deal with myself some time ago to stop waiting for life to happen. I don’t want to put things off for some time in the future, I want to be in it now. I think we’ve run our course, I think we’re finished, Gabriel.’ My voice wobbles, but I’m so sure of all the words coming out of my mouth, I’ve said them to myself over and over. It’s the right thing to do. We’ve lost our way. Some people fight to find their way back together, but not us. We served our purpose.<
br />
  ‘Holly,’ he whispers. ‘I don’t want to break up with you. I told you that.’

  ‘No, but you paused us, and …’ My mind wavers and I shake out the niggling thoughts of how we could work and stick instead to what I have decided. ‘You’ve other commitments. I know how important it is to you to be a good dad, it’s what you’ve talked about from the moment I met you. Now’s your chance. But I can’t sit around waiting while you do it. And there are things that I want to do in my life that you don’t agree with and I can’t do those things if I have to constantly apologise for them or pretend they’re not happening.’

  He covers his face with his hands, and turns away from me.

  I wasn’t expecting tears. I place my hand on his back and lean over to study his face.

  He looks up then, with a forced smile and wipes his eyes. ‘Sorry, I just … I’m surprised … Are you sure? I mean, you’ve really thought about this? Is this what you want?’

  I nod.

  ‘Should I try to change your mind … could I even convince you?’

  I shake my head. I fight the ugly tears that want to fall, and the lump in my throat that’s crushing through my skin.

  I hate goodbyes, but hating them is never a justification to stay.

  26

  At home, I shower, relieved to finally be able to wash my entire body. I hiss as the water hits my raw skin and stings. I begin what will become my daily ritual: massaging oils and cream into my skin and gently moving it around, straightening and bending, trying to get used to the new freedom. I still feel incapacitated without the cast, I don’t trust my leg to take my full weight without the boot for support. I will be gentle and patient until my muscles regain their tone, trying to be as kind to myself as I would be to others. And when my chest aches with the hurt of losing Gabriel, and the hurt that I’ve caused him, I think of what he has gained, remind myself that he has Ava. And of course I think of what I have gained this year: my new friends from the club and what, and who, they have brought back into my life.

  I never felt that Gabriel and I were forever. I was younger when I met Gerry and perhaps naïvely believed that he and I were soul mates, that he was the one, but when he died, I stopped thinking like that. I’ve come to believe that at different times of our lives we are drawn to certain people for various reasons, mainly because that version of ourselves is connected to that version of them at that particular time. If you stick at it, work at it, you can grow in different directions together. Sometimes you get pulled apart, but I believe there is the right person, the one, for all the different versions of yourself. Gabriel and I lived in the now. Gerry and I aimed for forever. We got a fraction of forever. And an enjoyable now and a fraction of forever is always better than nothing at all.