Cath Staincliffe - Trio

Lilian walked silently alongside him into the small room. She was clenching her teeth tight, her hands called into fists, her tongue pressing hard against the roof of her mouth. Holding on.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Gough, there wasn't anything we could do for your husband. We weren’t able to revive him.’

She nodded. Words, just words. Flying past like paper birds.

‘It appears to be a heart attack but we’ll be more sure of that once we’ve carried out a post-mortem. That’s routine in a sudden death like this.’

Death. A feathery word, some owl lurching towards her.

The doctor looked at her. He must have said something. She’d no idea what it had been. She shook her head a fraction.

‘Mrs Gough, had he been ill recently?’

‘No.’ Her voice sounded rusty.

‘Any complaints?’

Only that he’s dead.

‘No,’ she managed, horrified at the mess inside her head.

The doctor talked about forms and hours and releasing the body. He stood up then and she caught on that he had finished.

‘Have you any family in Manchester?’

‘Yes.’ Her sister, Sally. She would ring her as soon as it got light.

Pamela

Pamela watched her mother walk towards her, eyes cast down and her steps a little unsteady. She paused by the bench and held out her hand. Pamela stood up and took it. Mummy’s hand was cold and she held Pamela too tight.

She didn’t say anything until they were back home. Mummy made her a cup of Ovaltine and sat opposite her at the kitchen table. She took her glasses off. It was just getting light. Like when they went on holiday and drove all night and watched the sun rise and the mist come off the fields.

‘Daddy’s not going to get better.’ Mummy’s voice sounded far away even though she was sitting right next to her. ‘He’s… he’s gone to heaven, Pamela.’

It was a lie. He wouldn’t go and leave her. She wanted to be brave but she began to cry. She couldn’t help it. She loved Daddy, she was his best girl and he’d gone away and left her behind. It wasn’t fair. It was stinking awful. She didn’t want God to have him in heaven, she wanted him for herself. Mummy pulled her close and she breathed in the face-powder smell of her. Mummy stroked her hair, saying nothing.

‘Why?’ Pamela cried out. ‘Why?’ She felt her mother shake her head.

There was a horrid feeling in her tummy, a wrong feeling; everything dirty and mean and bad. Why couldn’t it be Grandpa who died? He was old and cranky. Or Granny. Or Mummy. No! She didn’t mean that, really, God she didn’t. But Mummy got tired and bossed her about and Daddy loved Pamela best and now… She’d been bad, the bad thoughts she had sometimes, the times when she was unkind or told a fib. She’d been bad and now Daddy was dead. She should have been good, all the time, like a saint, always good and kind and nice to everybody and then it would never have happened.

Lilian

Lilian rocked Pamela in her arms. Thank God she was here. Thank God.

‘Why?’ Her daughter’s cry echoed her own thoughts, brought a twist of anguish to her guts. Why?

She’d been too greedy. After the miscarriages she should have let it be but she’d pushed. Maybe God didn’t intend for her to be a mother. But she’d gone on and on about it, talked Peter round. Not just about the adoption, either. She’d been the one tempting him to disobey the Church’s ruling on the sanctity of married life.

She looked at the clock. Nearly seven. He’d be getting up now… The room swam. She pressed her face into Pamela’s tangled hair, her tears falling quietly. Would they take Pamela away? Fear coursed through her like acid. They couldn’t. For the love of God after seven years. No. Don’t be silly.

She looked up, her face wet and itchy, Pamela still cradled in her arms, one arm going numb. She stared out of the window. Saw the sky turning pearl-grey, heard the rattle of the milk float and the chatter of a magpie. She watched nextdoor’s cat parade across the garden fence and felt her cheeks grow cold.

She hugged Pamela and brushed her dark hair back from her face and told her to fetch a hanky. When the clock struck eight she rang her sister and had her first practise at saying the words. ‘It’s bad news. Peter’s had a heart attack. He died last night.’

She had expected them to offer something, even though they hadn’t seen much of them in the last few years. Peter had been their son, after all. Pamela was their grand-daughter. So she’d expected a call or perhaps a note in the days after the funeral, discretely volunteering assistance. They knew she had nothing. The house would have to be sold and she’d have to find some sort of job, but these things took time.

The funeral had been miserable, how could it have been anything else? She had got through it like a robot. She’d taken the tranquilizers that the doctor proscribed and they’d made her feel sleepy and disconnected. She was determined to be dignified for Pamela, like Jackie Kennedy had at Jack’s funeral. Composed. Sally had helped her with all the arrangements. Thank God Sally had been there. Practical and efficient, she was the one person Lilian could confide in. She could talk to her about how terrible losing Peter really was. She told her about hearing his voice and smelling his pillow and the strange things she felt compelled to do. The bizarre aspects of grieving.

Sally took Pamela too, on the worst days when Lilian simply needed to weep and thrash about, when she needed to let herself wallow in the pain, dragging up memories to lash herself with, reciting litanies of all they would never share, getting stupid with self-pity. All the things that Lilian hid from her daughter. Sally had Ian, a four-year-old, who Pamela loved to entertain, so it was a good arrangement all round.

Alicia and Bernard Gough had attended their son’s funeral and gone back to the house afterwards. They had accepted commiserations from people and Alicia had been moved to tears several times. Pamela had been wary of them and they had made no special effort to talk to their grand-daughter as far as Lilian could see. She herself hadn’t had the strength to try and find common ground in their suffering, not that day, though she would try later when she was up to it.

The days rolled into weeks and there was no word from them. Then it was Peter’s birthday. She sat in the lounge that afternoon while Pamela was at school and sorted through photographs, careful not to wet them with her tears. She chose three that she wanted to frame for herself and Pamela: a lovely shot of Peter with Pamela at the park, the pair of them sitting on the roundabout, caught laughing at something; and a solo shot of Peter in his tuxedo at a dinner dance, handsome, his black hair gleaming with Brylcreme slapped on to try and tame it. Sally had joked about him having girl’s eyes, because of his long curling lashes. He was smiling and there was a cigarette in one hand. He was beautiful. She also selected a rare shot of the three of them. Pamela had been about five and a half, she’d lost her first teeth, two at the bottom, and her hair was tied up in bunches. They were at the front at Blackpool, Peter with a picnic basket in his hand and each of them with a cornet. She remembered the day, sunny with a stiff breeze. They’d gone back to the boarding house and Pamela had fallen asleep exhausted from a long day playing on the sands. She and Peter had made love in the cramped room, sand and suntan lotion on their skin and the taste of ice cream on their lips.

She sorted more pictures out for Alicia and Bernard. It would be nice for them to have some. She posted them first-class with a short note saying how she was missing him and how they must be too. She heard nothing.