Nicci French: What to do When Someone Dies

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 – grey 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 round 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 centre 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 backwards or forwards 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 dialled 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 dialling 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.

The sound of the newspaper and then, a few minutes later, a bundle of post being pushed through the letterbox and hitting the mat was a reminder that the world was outside, trying to get in. Soon there would be things to do, duties to fulfil, responsibilities, observances. But first I phoned Tania again. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I wanted to catch you before you went to work.’