Moments when your life changes: there will always be a before and an after, separated, perhaps, by a knock at the door. I had been interrupted. I was tidying up. I had cleared up yesterday’s newspapers, old envelopes, scraps of paper, left them in the basket by the grate ready to make a fire after supper. I had just got the rice bubbling nicely. My first thought was that it was Greg and he had forgotten his keys, but then I remembered he couldn’t have because he had taken the car that morning. Anyway, he probably wouldn’t knock but shout through the letterbox. A friend, perhaps, or a neighbor, a Jehovah’s Witness, a cold call from a desperate young man trying to sell dusters and clothes-pegs house-to-house. I turned away from the stove and went through the hall to the front door, opened it to a gust of cool air.
Not Greg, not a friend, not a neighbor, not a stranger selling religion or domesticity. Two female police officers stood in front of me. One looked like a schoolgirl, with a block fringe covering her eyebrows and jug ears; one was like her teacher, with a square jaw and graying hair cut mannishly short.
“Yes?” Had I been caught speeding? Littering? But then I saw an expression of uncertainty, even surprise, on both their faces and felt the first small prickle of foreboding in my chest.
“Mrs. Manning?”
“My name’s Eleanor Falkner,” I said, “but I’m married to Greg Manning, so you could say . . .” My words trailed away. “What is it?”
“Can we come in?”
I led them into the small living room.
“You’re the wife of Mr. Gregory Manning?”
“Yes.”
I heard everything, I noticed everything. I saw how the younger one looked up at the older one as she said the words, and I noticed she had a hole in her black tights. The older officer’s mouth opened and closed but didn’t seem synchronized with the words she was speaking so that I had to strain to make sense of them. The smell of risotto reached me from the kitchen, and I remembered that I hadn’t turned the ring off and it would be dry and ruined. Then I remembered, with a stupid dullness, that of course it didn’t matter if it was ruined: nobody would be eating it now. Behind me I heard the wind fling a few dry leaves against the bay window. It was dark outside. Dark and chilly. In a few weeks’ time the clocks would go back. In a couple of months it would be Christmas.
She said, “I am very sorry, your husband has been in a fatal accident.”
“I don’t understand.” Though I did. The words made sense. Fatal accident. My legs felt as if they didn’t know how to hold me up any more.
“Can we get you something? A glass of water, perhaps?”
“You say . . .”
“Your husband’s car left the road,” she said slowly and patiently. Her mouth stretched and shrank.
“Dead?”
“I’m very sorry,” she said. “Sorry for your loss.”
“The car caught fire.” It was the first time the younger woman had spoken. Her face was plump and pale; there was a faint smudge of
mascara under one of her brown eyes. She wears contact lenses, I thought.
“Mrs. Falkner, do you understand what we have said?”
“Yes.”
“There was a passenger in the car.”
“Sorry?”
“He was with someone else. A woman. We thought . . . Well, we had thought it might be you.”
I stared dumbly at her. Did she expect me to produce identification?
“Do you know who that would have been?”
“I was just cooking supper for us. He should have been home by now.”
“Your husband’s passenger.”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my face. “Didn’t she have her bag with her or anything?”
“They couldn’t recover much. Because of the fire.”
I put a hand against my chest and felt my heart beating heavily. “Are you sure it was Greg? There might have been a mistake.”
“He was driving a red Citroën Saxo,” she said. She looked down at her notebook and read out the registration number. “Your husband is the owner of the vehicle?”
“Yes,” I said. It was hard to speak properly. “Perhaps someone from work. He sometimes took them when he went to visit clients. Tania.” I found, as I was speaking, that I couldn’t bring myself to care if Tania was also dead. I knew that later this might disturb me.
“Tania?”
“Tania Lott. From his office.”
“Do you have her home number?”
I thought for a moment. It would be on Greg’s mobile, which was with him. I swallowed hard. “I don’t think so. It might be somewhere. Do you want me to look?”
“We can find out.”
“I don’t want you to think me rude, but I’d like you to go now.”
“Have you got someone you can call? A relative or friend?”
“What?”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I want to be alone,” I said.
“You might want to talk to someone.” The younger woman pulled a leaflet out of her pocket: she must have put it there before they’d left the station together. All prepared. I wondered how many times they did this in a year. They must get used to it, standing on a doorstep in all weathers with an expression of sympathy on their faces. “There are numbers here of counselors who can help you.”
“Thank you.” I took the leaflet she was holding out and put it on the table.
Then she offered me a card.
“You can reach me here if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
“Will you be all right?”
“Yes,” I said, more loudly than I’d meant to. “Excuse me, I think the pan might have boiled dry. I should rescue it. Can you let yourselves out?”
I left the room, with the two women still standing awkwardly in it, and went into the kitchen. I took the pan off the hob and poked at the sticky mess of burnt risotto with a wooden spoon. Greg loved risotto; it was the first meal he had ever cooked me. Risotto with red wine and green salad. I had a sudden clear picture of him sitting at the kitchen table in his shabby home clothes, smiling at me and lifting his glass in greeting, and I spun around, thinking that if I was quick enough I could catch him there.
Sorry for your loss.
Fatal accident.
This is not my world. Something is wrong, askew. It is a Monday evening in October. I am Ellie Falkner, thirty-four years
old and married to Greg Manning. Although two police officers have just come to my door and told me he is dead, I know that can’t be true because it happens in a world meant for other people.
I sat down at the kitchen table and waited. I didn’t know what I was waiting for; perhaps to feel something. People cry when a loved one dies, don’t they? Howl and sob, tears running down their cheeks. There was no doubt that Greg was my loved one, my dear heart, but I had never felt less like crying. My eyes were dry and hot; my throat ached slightly, as if I was coming down with a cold. My stomach ached too, and I put my hand on my belly for a few seconds and closed my eyes. There were crumbs on the surface, from breakfast. Toast and marmalade. Coffee.
What had he said when he left? I couldn’t think. It had been just another Monday morning, gray sky and puddles on the pavement. When had he last kissed me? On the cheek or on the lips? We’d had a stupid argument on the phone that afternoon, just a few hours ago, about what time he was coming home. Had those been our last words? Little bickering phrases before the great silence. For a moment I couldn’t even remember his face, but then it came back to me: his curly hair and his dark eyes and the way he smiles. Smiled. His strong, capable hands, his solid warmth. It had to be a mistake.
I stood up, pulled the phone from its holster on the wall and punched in the number of his mobile. I waited to hear his voice and, after a few minutes, when I didn’t, I put the phone carefully back and went to press my face to the window. There was a cat walking along the garden wall, very delicately. I could see its eyes shining. I watched until it disappeared.
I took a forkful of rice out of the pan and put it into my mouth. It had no taste. Perhaps
I should pour myself a glass of whisky. That was what people did when they were in shock, and I supposed I must be in shock. But I didn’t think we had any whisky in the house. I pulled open the drinks cupboard and gazed at the contents. There was a bottle of gin, a third full; a bottle of Pimm’s, but that was for lazy, hot summer evenings a long way from here, from now; a small bottle of schnapps. I twisted the lid off and took an experimental sip, feeling its burning thread in my throat.
Burst into flames. Burst into flames.
I tried not to see his face on fire, his body consumed. I pressed the palms of my hands into the sockets of my eyes and the smallest sound escaped me. It was so quiet in the house. All the noises came from outside: the wind in the trees, the sound of cars passing, doors slamming, people getting on with their normal lives.
I don’t know how long I stood there like that, but at last I went up the stairs, gripping the banisters and hauling my weight from step to step like an old woman. I was a widow. Who was going to set the video for me, who was going to help me fail to do the crossword on Sunday, who was going to keep me warm at night, to hold me tight and keep me safe? I thought these things, but did not feel them. I stood in our bedroom for several minutes, gazing around me, then sat heavily on the bed—on my side, careful not to disturb Greg’s space. He was reading a travel book: he wanted us to go to India together. There was a bookmark a third of the way through. His dressing-gown—gray and blue stripes—hung on the hook on the door. There were slippers with their heels turned down under the old wooden chair, and on top of it a pair of jeans he’d worn yesterday with an old blue jumper. I went and picked it up, burying my face in the familiar sawdusty smell. Then I
took off my own and pulled Greg’s over my head. There was a bald patch in one elbow and the hem was fraying.
I wandered into the small room next door to our bedroom, which, for the time being, served as a junk room, although we had plans for it. It was full of boxes of books and stray objects we’d never got around to unpacking, though we had moved to this house well over a year ago, as well as an old-fashioned bath with claw feet and cracked brass taps that I had picked up from a reclamation center and had planned to install in our bathroom once I had done something about the taps. We had got stuck carrying it up the stairs, I remembered, unable to go backward or forward and giggling helplessly, while his mother had shouted useless instructions at us from the hallway.
His mother. I had to call his mother and father. I had to tell them that their eldest son was dead. I felt breathless and had to lean against the door jamb. How do you break that kind of news? I returned to the bedroom and sat on the bed once more, picking up the phone that was on my bedside table. For a moment, I couldn’t remember their number, and when I did, I found it hard to press the buttons. My fingers weren’t working properly.
I hoped she wouldn’t answer, but she did. Her high voice sounded aggrieved to be called at this late hour.
“Kitty.” I pressed the receiver to my ear and closed my eyes. “It’s me, Ellie.”
“Ellie, how—”
“I’ve got some bad news,” I said. And then, before she could draw breath to say anything: “Greg’s dead.” There was complete silence from the other end, as if she had hung up. “Kitty?”
“Hello,” she said. Her voice had dwindled; she sounded very far away. “I don’t quite understand.”
“Greg’s dead,” I persisted. “He died in a car crash. I’ve only just heard.”
“Excuse me,” she said. “Can you hold on a moment?”
I waited and then another voice came on the line, in a kind of gruff, no-nonsense bark. “Ellie. Paul here. What’s this?”
I repeated what I’d said. The words were becoming more and more unreal.
Paul Manning gave a short, nervous cough. “Dead, you say?” In the background I could hear sobbing.
“Yes.”
“But he’s only thirty-eight.”
“It was a road accident.”
“A crash?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if they told me; maybe they did. It was hard to take everything in.”
He asked me more questions, detailed questions, none of which I could answer. It was as if information would give him some kind of control.
Then I dialed my parents’ number. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Even though you may not be close to them, that’s the right order. His parents, then my parents. Chief mourners. But there was no reply and I remembered that Monday was quiz night at the pub. They would stay until closing time. I depressed the button and sat for a few seconds listening to the dial tone in my ear. The alarm clock on Greg’s side of the bed told me it was thirteen minutes past nine. Hours to go before morning came. What was I supposed to do until then? Should I start calling people, telling them the news in descending order of importance? That was what you did when a baby was born—but was it the same when a husband had died? And who should I tell first? Then it came to me.
I found her home number in Greg’s old address book. The phone rang several times, four, five, six. It was like a terrible game. Answer the phone and you’re still alive. Don’t answer and you’re dead. Or perhaps just out.
“Hello.”
“Oh.” For a moment I couldn’t speak. “Is that Tania?” I asked, although I knew it was.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“It’s Ellie.”
“Ellie. Hi.”
She waited, probably expecting an invitation. I took a deep breath and said the nonsense words again. “Greg’s dead. In an accident.” I cut into the expressions of horror that came down the line. “I rang you because, well, I thought you might have been with him. In the car.”
“Me? What do you mean?”
“He had a passenger. A woman. And I assumed, you know, that it was someone from the office, so I thought . . .”
“Two of them died?”
“Yes.”
“Christ.”
“Yes.”
“Ellie, how awful. God, I can’t get my head around this. I’m so incredibly . . .”
“Do you know who it could have been, Tania?”
“No.”
“He didn’t leave with anyone?” I asked. “Or go to meet anyone?”
“No. He left about half past five. And I know he’d said earlier he was going to get home in good time for once.”
“He said he was coming straight home?”
“I assumed that. But, Ellie . . .”
“What?”
“It might not mean what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“Nothing. Listen, if there’s anything, anything at all, I can do, you only have to—”
“Thanks,” I said, and put the phone down on her.
What was I thinking? What might it not mean? I didn’t know. I only knew it was cold outside, and that time moved sluggishly on, and there was nothing I could do to make it go faster. I crept downstairs and sat on the sofa in the living room, Greg’s jersey pulled down over my knees. I waited for it to be morning.
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