The Light in the Hallway (ARC) Page 20
I loved my wife. I loved her!’ He raised his voice. ‘And
I always will. Always. But be under no illusion that the
last year of her life was thoroughly shit. Just awful and
I never left her side, not once, and before you jump in,
I don’t want a medal and I don’t want thanks – I would
do it a thousand times over, a hundred thousand times
over! But I started to say goodbye to her on the day she
got her last results, when they said there was nothing
they could…’ He let this trail. ‘And I’ve been grieving
for her a little bit since then, because for me she didn’t die 171
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suddenly, on the fifteenth of August at a quarter to eight
in the evening.’ He shook his head. ‘She died a little bit
every day from that point until she finally closed her eyes.
A year, Di. A whole year of absolute hell. And I held her
hand all the way through until the very end. So it might
have only been four months or so since we laid her to
rest, but I lost her a long time before that.’ Nick thought
about the gentle erosion of the woman he loved, phys-
ically, mentally, emotionally, until the pale husk that lay
attached to a tube resembled her little. So much so that
by the time her passing came, his sadness had become
cocooned in unspeakable, shameful relief.
‘I know all that, don’t you think we have suffered
too?’ she railed. ‘You need to put it in context, Nick,
you need to—’
‘No, Di! This is not some competition about who
has suffered the most. We are all hurt, all of us. But this
thing between me and Olly and what happened tonight is
nothing to do with you, and as for context…’ He stopped
and took a breath, tried to control the quaver to his voice
as anger brimmed and threatened to spill the harshest
words that he knew they would both regret. That was not
his way. ‘The context is that I was married to Kerry for
eighteen years. Eighteen years! We went through some
rough times, but we were friends, good friends, and we
talked, we talked about everything, and I know what she
said and I know what she wanted—’
‘What, she wanted you to hang around with Beverly
Clark, snogging her in a loo and upsetting my mum and
Olly, did she?’ It was like she couldn’t help herself, jump-
ing in with her venom poised.
‘No.’ He shook his head, feeling suddenly weary, as if
the whole evening’s events were catching up with him.
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‘But I know she wanted me to be happy when she was
alive and I know she wants me to be happy now she isn’t.
It’s that simple. We always wanted each other to be happy
and I am trying, but it’s not easy – in fact there have been
times when if it wasn’t for Oliver I would have given up.’
He cursed the tears that threatened. ‘Does that make you
feel better? Is that how you would like me to live? So sad, so alone that I can’t stand the thought of getting up each day?
Because that’s the alternative for me, a very real alternative!’
Diane looked at the floor and her tears matched his.
‘No, Nick, that’s not what I want, but I…’
‘But what, Di, spit it out?’ He waited for the next
verbal assault and steeled himself. His feet firmly planted,
his fists coiled.
‘I miss her,’ she squeaked.
‘Well, that makes two of us, but missing her isn’t going
to bring her back and it’s not going to help Olly and it’s
not going to help me. Life goes on, it has to. Tell Oliver
I will see him at home in the morning.’
He turned and walked down the path and he saw
Kerry’s face in his mind. And she was smiling.
* * *
Nick hardly slept, despite his fatigue; his hangover was
brutal, leaving him with the throb of a headache, as well
as the discomfort that came with dehydration and an
uncomfortable desire to vomit. When he lay down the
room spun. He thought it best to sit up and wait for his
symptoms to pass, hoping that would be sooner rather
than later.
‘Never again.’ He looked at Eric across the breakfast
table. His friend, who had spent the night on the couch,
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was in comparison sprightly, drinking tea and eating toast
and honey. Noisily.
‘I’ll push off; I expect Olly’ll be home soon. You
okay?’ Eric asked, as he folded the last of his toast into
his mouth and drained his mug of tea.
‘Not really. I don’t know what to say to him.’ Nick
scratched his stubbled chin.
‘Don’t overthink it and just tell him the truth.’
Eric made it sound so easy.
‘I know when things have hurt me…’
He wondered if Eric was talking about that summer
when his mum had abandoned him.
‘Knowing where I stood, the truth, would have made
everything more bearable. The confusion, the worry was
as bad as what happened.’
Nick nodded.
Treacle barked at the back door and as he let her out,
he heard the front door open and close.
Eric winked at his mate and sidled out along the hall-
way past Oliver, squeezing the boy briefly on the shoulder
and giving them the space they needed.
Nick watched as Oliver stood in the kitchen doorway,
leaning on the frame. He was beyond relieved that he
had come back as requested, unsure what his next move
might have been had he not shown up.
‘Cup of tea?’ He pointed at the kettle.
‘No.’ Oliver shook his head, hardly able to look Nick
in the eye.
‘Sit down, Olly.’
‘No. I don’t want to. I came to get my stuff and to tell
you I’m going back to Uni early. Today in fact. I don’t
want to be here.’
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‘No! Please don’t do that! I think that would be a
mistake. I know you’re hurt and I understand why, but
leaving without giving us the chance to patch things up,
without talking it through is I think the wrong thing
to do.’
‘I don’t really care what you think!’ The wobble to his
voice and the mist in his eyes suggested the very opposite.
‘I thought I would apologise to you about last night,
but I’ve been thinking about it and I don’t think it’s about
apologising,’
‘Well, you’d be wrong!’ Oliver fired; his fists inside
his jacket pockets jabbed forward.
Nick kept his calm. ‘What I mean is. I want to say I’m
sorry for putting you in that position, but I don’t want
to apologise for my actions, because life goes on, Olly.’
‘I was with my mates!’ His son continued to rant as
if he hadn’t heard Nick’s words. Maybe he hadn’t, too
wrapped up in his own thoughts and the words that
were battering his lips to escape. ‘Someone said there
was a party and we all jus
t piled in and we were having
a laugh and then I opened the door and there you were!’
He jerked his head like someone shaking a snow globe,
trying to reset the image.
Nick again replayed the moment Oliver had realised
it was him and the look of absolute sadness on his face.
He hated it and wished he could erase the memory.
‘I can imagine how—’
‘No! No you can’t imagine, Dad, not even a little
bit! I miss my mum.’ His bottom lip trembled. ‘I miss
her so much and Christmas has been shit. Treacle ate the
bloody turkey and you can’t do the decorations and it’s
all been rubbish!’
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Nick felt his spirits sink even lower. Not only did he
not know how to fix this, but the things Oliver referred
to, sources of humour before New Year’s Eve, were now
in this new light further failures with which his boy could
taunt him, reminders that despite his words, he was still
getting things very wrong.
‘I know you miss her,’ he said softly.
‘Is that woman your girlfriend?’ Oliver spat, ignoring his dad’s words, driven by his own agenda.
Nick looked away. ‘No.’
‘So, what, that was the first time you’d met her?’ he
asked with a back note of sarcasm.
‘No.’ Nick now held his son’s eye line. ‘We work
together and have done for years. She knew your mum,
of course, and she has been very kind to me. I’d say we
are friends and last night was—’
‘Don’t tell me last night was a mistake, just because
you were drunk.’ Oliver sneered.
‘No, Olly, I was going to say that last night was a bit
like a beginning.’
‘So you want her to be your girlfriend?’
Nick swallowed, his mouth sticky dry with nerves;
he remembered Eric’s advice about honesty. ‘I don’t
know. I honestly don’t know. I’ve never been in this
position before and I’m trying to figure it all out as
I go along. I know that it felt nice to be wanted and
nice that there is the smallest possibility that I can be
happy again.’
‘But…’ Oliver walked forward and leant on the table,
as if this might help his point, ‘but…’ He shook his head,
as if the words just wouldn’t come.
‘I know it’s a lot…’
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‘No, Dad, you don’t know! You keep saying you know
how it is for me but you don’t, you think you do, but
you really don’t!’
‘So tell me.’
‘I’m … I’m not ready.’
‘Not ready to tell me?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘No. I’m not ready for you to
move on like that.’
Nick felt his heart flex for the words so bravely spoken.
‘Okay. Okay, Olly. I understand. But there is nothing
you need to be ready for. Beverly and I are friends, and if and when anything else happens it’ll be a slow process so
that by the time we have to think about it or talk about
it then things will feel differently. Even if right now it
feels like they never will.’
Oliver seemed to consider this and his tone when he
spoke was a little softer. ‘I don’t want another woman
to be in Mum’s kitchen. In Mum’s house.’ He shook his
head. ‘That’s the thing I don’t want the most.’
‘And I understand that too.’
‘Has she been here?’ Again his eyes seemed to glint
at the terrible possibility.
‘Once, maybe, but only briefly. She popped in.’
He watched Oliver’s jaw muscles tighten. ‘I want to
go and see Tasha.’
‘Please don’t go, Olly – stay here and let the dust settle.
I don’t want you leaving while things feel awkward. I’m
your dad and you’re my boy. At the end of the day I’ve
got your back. It’s you and me against the world, the
Bairstow Boys!’ He smiled. ‘We need to go kick a ball
at the Rec, take Treacle to walk off some of that turkey,
go see some football, all the things we have always done
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and some of them hard to do when your mum was so
sick. Please don’t go, Olly; stay here and let me burn you
some bacon.’
Oliver allowed a small smile to form at the edges of
his mouth. ‘You could save time and just dump it straight
in the sink.’
‘I could that.’ He smiled at his son.
The front door rattled; Eric must have left it ajar. Nick
sighed, expecting to see his mum walk into the kitchen
with the obligatory loaf of bread and pint of milk she
always felt he needed, along with a running commentary
on the weather, as if he lived on a different continent with
a different climate, and a comment on how much Oliver
had grown since she saw him two days ago. He felt more
than a flicker of irritation. What he and Oliver needed
right now was time alone.
‘Hello!’ the voice called. ‘Oh, is this a bad time?’
Nick stared at Beverly, who walked slowly in and
stood by Oliver’s side, her manner hesitant.
‘You are fucking kidding me!’ Oliver turned on his
heel and raced up the stairs.
‘Oliver!’ Nick called after him, wanting to tell him it
was not okay to talk to Beverly like that and to yet again
try to smother the relit flames of his rage.
‘Should I. . .’ Beverly stood awkwardly, her face pale,
eyes averted, as she pointed to the front door through
which she had just walked.
‘I think so.’ Nick more or less ignored her, preoccupied
as he was with his son who thumped around overhead in
his bedroom, no doubt packing and preparing to run from
the house in which he did not want another woman to
tread, whilst a woman who had trod the path to the gate
now walked away as quickly as she had arrived.
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‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’ Nick said to
the ether, pacing, as Treacle barked at the back door to
be let in.
* * *
Dora, he noted, had aged. He thought this every time he
saw her. The bungalow was to the untrained eye full of
clutter, the windowsills, shelves and surfaces jam packed
with trinkets, ornaments and knick-knacks. But it wasn’t
clutter, not to her or those in the know, those aware
that each item was a thing most precious to her, chosen
specifically from a much bigger collection, salvaged if
you like when she and her husband downsized from the
Victorian villa that overlooked the Rec. The villa had
been Dora’s parents’ home and one where she and Bill had
raised their two daughters and built memories over thirty
years of marriage, only leaving when Bill’s Alzheimer’s
and failing health meant the stairs were a danger and the
proximity to the main road a constant concern for a wife
whose husband liked to wander off. Not to mention how
his care had stretched their finances almost to the break-
ing point. Ironically, within weeks of moving into their
new home, Bill had slipped away after a ferocious bout
of pneumonia, which Dora had at the time referred to as
God’s gift, loving him too much to watch him decline
further. No one mentioned how the upheaval of the move
was all now a little unnecessary; hindsight, he knew, was
a wonderful thing and sometimes a cruel mirror.
‘Come in, Nick. How’s Olly?’
He exhaled his air-filled cheeks, where to start…
‘He’s gone back to Uni in a bit of a strop. Left earlier
today and wouldn’t even let me run him to the coach
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station.’ He spoke lightly, hoping to mask the utter deso-
lation he felt when he recalled how his son had spoken
to him and the hurried manner in which he had left. He
looked at her and shook his head, as if unsure what to
add to this.
‘Come and have a cup of tea.’
He welcomed the thought of this cure-all and followed
her into the tiny, but functional kitchen.
‘He’s got a lot on his plate, Nick. Even if he smiles
and tells you everything is great. He hides his hurt and
it’s not surprising that it comes to the surface every now
and then; trouble is when it does, it erupts with all the
other hurts that lie beneath it, backed up for God knows
how long and it seems you, as the person he loves the
most, get both barrels.’
‘Lucky me.’
‘Yes, lucky you.’ She looked him in the eye without
a trace of humour. ‘He’s a wonderful boy and this will
pass. Everything does,’ she added matter-of-factly.
‘I just wanted to say thank you for letting me know
he was at Diane’s last night. I was going out of my
mind. I knew the longer I didn’t see him, the worse that
interaction would be, or that’s what I thought anyway.
Right now I don’t think things could be much worse.’
He huffed.
‘Oh, trust me, they could, love.’ She smiled at him
briefly, a sad smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, and
he was reminded that the very worst thing had happened
to her: she had lost her daughter. He let her words settle.
‘I’m sorry if I dropped you in it with Di; she didn’t
seem happy to see me.’
Dora gave a snort of ironic laughter. ‘She’s not happy
to see anyone.’
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