‘See a counsellor,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Talk to a counsellor, one of the people the consultant told us about, or someone at the MND Association. Talk to them.’
‘I won’t change my mind.’
‘But you will talk to someone?’
He dipped his head. ‘And?’
‘Then if you still feel the same…’ I couldn’t continue. Dread stole into my heart, the shriek of fear chittered in my ears, claws of panic scrabbled at my scalp. I felt my nose swell and tears start. He slid his hand across the table. I held it. His grasp was weak but it was there. I wiped my face and moved around to hug him.
And then, after a while, I washed and dressed and went to discuss floor tiles with a ceramics company in Cheshire, having just agreed to kill my husband.
Depression swallowed me in the months after my mother’s death. Martin made most of the arrangements and I recall very little of the funeral, other than it was a suitably bleak affair. The March wind nipped at our wrists and ankles and a squall of hail greeted us at the hillside grave. My great-aunt nodded with approval towards the valley. ‘She’s got a grand view.’ My mother was joining my father in the same plot. Twenty-four years he had waited for her. Twenty-four years she had slept in their marriage bed alone. I stood dry-eyed throughout, my back aching with pregnancy and the chill.
A few weeks later Martin and I met up at her house to sort out her things. He had already made a start, boxing up crockery and linen, emptying the fridge. There was a pile in the lounge of any items we might want to keep: paintings, ornaments, clocks and mirrors. All I was interested in were the photographs, the two heavy albums and the box of loose prints. I gestured to them. ‘We could share them out?’
‘You take them for now,’ Martin said. ‘I’ve a couple at home as it is. We don’t need to do that yet. But I thought – her clothes?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the stairs. ‘Anything decent can go to the charity shop. I don’t know if there’s anything you’d wear.’
Not bloody likely. I smiled, nodded, immensely grateful that Martin was here to do this with me.
‘I’ll have a look.’ I wriggled out of the chair. Six months pregnant with Sophie, I felt enormous.
Reaching my mother’s bedroom door, I was assailed by a lurch of fear, sulphur in my nostrils, tendrils on my neck. A trick of grief. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. No corpse, no zombie, no chattering whispers. Just the still-life of her room: the rose-coloured duvet cover, the small chintz bedside lamp and old mahogany wardrobe. On her dressing-table was her brush, grey hairs still tangled there, her makeup, jewellery box, the Yardley perfume she wore on special occasions, her hand cream. A school photograph of Martin and me. We must have been five and six. Daddy would still have been alive. Was she happy then? Did she laugh and make jokes? Did she play with us? Games and make-believe? Tickling, hide and seek? Fishing for memories, all I came up with was the well-worn one of her singing while my father played the piano. A number from a musical, ‘Baubles, Bangles and Beads’. She had been happy then, I thought, with him, but when he had gone we weren’t enough.
‘It’s not fair.’ I spoke aloud, frustration tight in my throat. ‘It’s not bloody fair.’
I yanked open the drawers and began to sling her things into the bin-bags Martin had provided. Underwear for the tip, scarves and jumpers for charity, throwing them in any-old-how, trying to convince myself that I was simply being efficient. I flung open the wardrobe doors and stared at the contents. Her woollen camel coat, a polyester jacket, dresses in navy and cream and burgundy, blouses, the faint floral smell of her hand cream and perfume.
Once my father’s things would have hung at one side of the space. How long had she waited to do this with them, packing away all trace of him? She’d kept nothing. Why not? Hadn’t she wanted reminders of the shape and smell of him? Was it anger, at losing him, at being cheated of a future together that had made her erase him as she had? The same anger that chilled her heart and smothered her love of life?
I hauled the coat out of the wardrobe and put it on. It dwarfed me, the cuffs covering my hands, the waist hanging by my hips. I stuffed my hands into the pockets but they were empty. What had I expected? A secret note? Clues to our past, to her innermost thoughts? Even while I ridiculed the notion, I rifled through the shoeboxes at the bottom of the wardrobe, then the bedside cabinet. And came away empty-handed.
I was numb, chilled through. I slid the rest of the garments from their hangers in the wardrobe and laid them one on top of another on the bed then rolled them lengthwise into a bolster. Climbing on the bed, I nestled into the bulk of the bundle. I spoke to her, muttering and carping at first, trying to voice the cold anger inside me. And then, halting, by way of apology. Because I hadn’t loved her enough – I hadn’t loved her as a daughter should. I had failed her. I spoke to her through slow, hot tears and shuddering breath, my nose thick and my lips dry. Swimming upstream after my mother. Never catching up.
In time, the sensation of being submerged, of weight and incapacity, and the waves of panic grew worse. At two and a half, Adam was lively and incessantly active, and the demands of looking after him became harder. Neil did all he could, but he was at school every day. My emotions were so close to the surface that I could no longer bear to watch the news or read the papers. I also became fearful that something would happen to the baby and I was dreading the labour. Reluctantly, I mentioned some of this to the midwife who was visiting me at home in preparation for the birth. She strongly advised me to see my GP. Andy Frame prescribed anti-depressants. He told me that while there might be some side-effects there was little risk of harm to the baby. There would be great benefits in treating the depression and he said he would be very concerned about the consequences if I didn’t take them.
The pills gave me a slightly giddy feeling, the world became gauzy and my capacity to cry at the slightest prompt diminished. Still my limbs felt leaden, my self soiled and raw and scared.
Believing it would help me to confront my sadness rather than try and escape it, I spent hours poring over the family photographs. I wasn’t considering them from a professional point of view – I had no interest in the focus of the shadows, the composition or contrast or depth of field – but hunting for understanding, for memory and meaning.
My father rarely appeared. Too often behind the camera. There was solace in the thought that I had inherited that skill from him. That I, too, had adopted that role. Among the portraits there were several black and white still-lifes and landscapes: a wrought-iron balcony in fierce light, the shadows inky against the smooth rendered wall, stormclouds above a winter field of stubble, a basket of fir cones and, my favourite, a yacht cutting through a glimmering ocean. He had written on the back, in neat print, White Sail – Whitby, ’61.
Peering at the family groups I scouted for signs of love and affection. Felt relief when I found my mother’s smile, her hand on my shoulder. Near the bottom of the pile of loose snaps there was a small, square picture, which must have been taken on the box camera they had then. A man in dark dungarees holds a wallpaper brush, his head flung back in laughter. Beside him on a step-ladder stands a small child, her face creased in glee. My father and me. Did my mother take it? Or a friend calling by? What was so funny? I love the picture. I crave memories to match it.
Sophie was born four months after my mother’s death and I was still depressed. The contractions started before dawn and I sat by the lounge window, rocking when the pain came, and watched the pale February sun climb the sky before rousing Neil. We called the midwife and Neil took Adam to his mother’s – luckily she had the day off – and returned to find me pacing the bedroom, restless and out of sorts. The labour was so different from Adam’s, quicker and more violent. After only four hours in the first stage, I was ready to push, the overpowering urge forcing me to the floor, clinging to one corner of the bedstead, the midwife hastily rearranging the plastic sheets, and the doctor arriving as the head crowned.