Nicci French: What to do When Someone Dies

I wanted so badly to break down and cry in his arms, but somehow I couldn’t. Instead Joe cried, tears coursing down his lived-in face, as he told me how wonderful my husband had been, and how lucky he was to have known me. He said I was family to him and that I must lean on him over the next few weeks. He kissed me on both cheeks and held my hands in his and told me very solemnly that I didn’t have to be strong. He scoured the pan I’d burned the rice in, wiped the kitchen table and put out my rubbish bin. He even started trying to clear up some of the mess, lifting piles of paper and putting books on shelves in a frantic, utterly ineffectual way until I told him to stop. Then he left and I continued with my task.

When I had broken the news to someone, I ticked off their name on my piece of paper. Sometimes a child answered or a partner I didn’t know or didn’t know well enough. I didn’t leave a message, I didn’t even say who had called. I did less well on Greg’s part of the list. By the time I got to them, people had started leaving for work. I didn’t phone people’s mobiles. I couldn’t bear the idea of talking to people on trains, of them having to keep their voice down, getting embarrassed about their reactions in front of strangers.

I also got slowed up because by then the phone had started ringing. People I’d talked to had digested the news and thought of things they needed to say, questions they wanted to ask. Friends had rung other friends and some of those friends immediately rang me and if they couldn’t get through, they rang my mobile, which I switched off. Later I discovered that if they couldn’t get through to my mobile, they’d sent me an email. But a lot of them did get through, one expression of grief after another, so that they seemed to merge into a continual howl. After each call, I wrote the name at the bottom of the list so that I wouldn’t call them again by mistake.

One of the calls wasn’t from a friend or relative, but from WPC Darby, one of the women who had broken the news to me. She asked how I was and I didn’t really know what to say. ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said, ‘but did I say anything about identifying the body?’

‘I can’t remember,’ I said.

‘I know it’s a difficult time,’ she said, and there was a pause.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You want me to identify the…’ I stopped. ‘My husband. But you came here. You told me about it. You know already.’

‘It’s a requirement,’ she said. ‘You could always nominate another family member. A brother or a parent.’

‘No,’ I said immediately. The idea was impossible. When Greg had married me, he had become mine. I wasn’t going to let his family reclaim him. ‘I’ll do it. Should I do it today?’

‘If you can.’

‘Where is he?’

I heard a paper rustle.

‘He is in the mortuary of the King George V hospital. Do you know it? Is there someone who can take you?’

I phoned Gwen and she said she would drive me to the hospital, even though I knew it meant she would have to phone in sick. I realized I was still in the clothes I had put on the previous morning. Greg had seen me put them on. Maybe he hadn’t actually seen it. He was too used to me and too busy in the morning to sit and watch me but he had been bustling around when I was getting dressed. I took them all off, another bit of my life with Greg gone, and I stood in the shower under the very hot water, my head lifted into the jet and my eyes closed. I turned the water up hotter still as if it could scorch away what I was feeling. I dressed quickly, glanced in the mirror and saw that I was entirely in black. I took off my sweater and replaced it with a rust-coloured one. Sombre, but not like a Mediterranean widow.

Some people know instinctively how to respond to your moods. Gwen is like that. Greg and I once had a conversation about who of our friends never irritated us and she was the only name we both agreed on. She senses when to stand back and be dispassionate, even critical, when to come close, hug you, show you love and physical affection. Mary and I regularly argued, but Mary argues with most people, almost for the sake of it – you see a contrary gleam come into her eye and you know she’s in one of her itchy, confrontational, emotionally volatile moods and there’s nothing to be done about it except ride out the storm – or leave the room. I usually leave the room. But Gwen, with her soft mop of golden hair, her grey eyes, her quiet clothes, her calm and reflective manner, doesn’t like to raise her voice. At university people who knew her called her ‘the diplomat’, a tag that was both admiring and sometimes slightly resentful, because she seemed to hold back from intimacy. But I had always liked her reserve; it felt like a privilege to be let into her tiny circle of friends. Now, when I answered the door to her, she didn’t open her arms, inviting me to step into them to cry and be comforted. Instead she looked at me with a grave tenderness, putting a hand on my shoulder but letting me decide if I wanted to break down or not. And I didn’t. I wanted, needed, to hold myself together.

As she drove me towards the hospital in King’s Cross, she didn’t speak and allowed me to stay silent. I stared out of the window at passers-by, suddenly fascinated by the idea of people who were doing today what they had planned yesterday. Didn’t they realize it was temporary? It might all seem to be going smoothly, but one day, tomorrow or the day after or in fifty years’ time, the charade will come to an end.

We arrived at the hospital and discovered that we had to pay to park. I got suddenly and pointlessly angry. ‘If we were going to the supermarket instead of to the morgue, we wouldn’t have to pay.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Gwen. ‘I’ve got the change with me.’

‘What about people who come day after day?’ I said. ‘People with dying relatives.’

‘You probably get a discount,’ said Gwen.

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ I said, and then I stopped, aware that I was behaving like those people I see shouting in the street, arguing with voices in their own head.

I experienced the hospital mainly as a succession of smells. Near the front desk there was a coffee shop of the kind you find in every shopping centre and high street. I could hear the hiss of cappuccino being frothed. There was a café as well. As we walked, the aroma of frying bacon gradually gave way to the smell of floor polish, air-freshener, then the sting of cleaning fluids, carbolic and bleach, with an under-smell of something nasty. I hadn’t been able to take in the instructions that the receptionist had given us but Gwen led me along corridors, down in a lift to a basement and another reception, with nobody in attendance.

‘There’s probably a bell or something,’ Gwen said.

There wasn’t. Gwen pulled a face. ‘Hello?’ she called.

There was the sound of footsteps and a man emerged from an office behind the reception desk. He was wearing a green coat, like someone at the counter of a hardware shop. He was very pale, as if he spent all his time down there underground, away from the sun. His stubble stood out plainly. While shaving he had missed a patch under his jaw. I thought of Greg shaving, holding his nose as he did the area beneath his nostrils. The man looked at us inquiringly.

‘My friend is here to identify a body.’

He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘I’m Dr Kyriacou,’ he said. ‘I’m a senior registrar. Are you a relative?’

‘He’s my husband,’ I said. I wasn’t ready to use the past tense yet.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ he said, and for a moment I thought he really was sorry, as sorry as you could be when you expressed it every day, except for weekends and holidays.