S. K. Tremayne - Just Before I Died

‘Kath.’

My husband’s voice rouses me. How long have I been stood here, lost in pointless thought? ‘Sorry,’ I say, and immediately regret it. Now I’ve apologized, I’m on the defensive. I feel a need to protect myself. This feels like a hostile situation. I am the woman who gets panicked in woods. How can she be allowed to drive?

‘Kath,’ says Adam. ‘This is difficult for everyone, but Tessa is a friend and a professional. You know that. So we thought it was the right way to do this. Cos it’s really important. There are questions you need to be asked. There’s stuff about your accident that you need to hear.’

He comes over and puts a protective arm around my shoulders. And I feel an urge to sink into those arms, forever. My big husband, the National Park Ranger, the guy who rescues drowning tourists from quarries.

But no. Stiffening myself, I ease out of the hug. I mustn’t admit to my stirring feelings of disintegration, my fear of stones and brushes and dead animals. I’ve got to stay sane and sensible. Because, if they take my driving licence away it could permanently fracture my marriage, and really drive me over the edge. A few weeks of reliance on Adam, for transport, left us bickering. What would a year do? We can’t move back to Princetown, we all hate it. And park rangers are obliged to live within the Park. And Lyla has to live in the wilds, she loves it here, she hated it in town.

Without a car each, we’d be screwed.

‘All right,’ I say, forcing a smile. The way my daughter forces a smile, because sometimes she doesn’t know how to smile. ‘I’ll answer questions. I’ve got some of my own, I think.’

‘Good,’ says Adam, backing away. ‘I’ll take Lyla to school.’

The door opens and closes. I hear the rumble of the Land Rover, fading away.

Recalling my manners, I offer Tessa some tea. She nods and says sorry, again, and I feel my hostility melt, somewhat. She is a good friend, or at least one of my few remaining friends, of any kind. She gave us good advice on Lyla. When I was wondering if we should have her assessed, but Adam was more reluctant.

The fat brown teapot is placed on the kitchen table. ‘Can I ask you some general questions first, Kath?’

‘I suppose so. OK.’

‘Would you say you are happy, or were happy, before the … accident? Happy in your life, that kind of thing?’

I look her in the eyes. Startled. ‘You really think that’s a general question?’

She lowers her gaze, apologetically. ‘OK, but this is tricky. Let’s do it the other way round. Let me build a picture first, for both of us.’ She reaches for her fashionable handbag and pulls out a black notebook.

‘You’re taking notes .’ I can’t help bristling. ‘Really? You’re not my doctor, Tessa, you’re my friend. I saw loads of psychiatrists after the accident. What is the point of this? Who are you taking notes for, the police?’

She opens the notebook. Pen in hand. ‘No,’ she says calmly, and pauses. I can hear the moorland rain rattling on the windows. ‘No, not yet, Kath. We all really want to avoid anything like that.’

Again, I am put on the defensive, and simultaneously alarmed. Avoid the police? Why should the police be anywhere near this? That has all been dealt with. Adam handled all that. I was still in hospital. So why has he asked Tessa here to talk about the police?

I don’t know. But I have to believe my husband is doing this for a good reason, acting in my best interests. He must be. Adam has always done what’s best for me, and Lyla.

‘You met Adam when you were very young, isn’t that right?’

I shrug, bemused. Tessa surely knows this backstory almost as well as her own.

‘Tessa, you’re married to my bloody brother. Why do you even need to hear this stuff?’

‘I know some of it, Kath, yes, but—’ she sighs apologetically. ‘I really want to hear it from you. Please let me run with this?’

More mystery. Things are being hidden. In the back of the kitchen cupboard.

Taking a gulp of tea, I sigh. ‘I was seventeen, at a private girls’ school in Totnes.’

‘OK. Go on.’

‘Dan must have told you the story. We bunked off to the pub one day. I was underage, of course, so I was frightened to buy a drink, to break the rules, but then this very good-looking guy came up. It was Adam, he was eighteen. We went on a date the next day, started going steady the day after. He already had a job at the Park, as a trainee, and I went off to uni.’

‘Exeter. Yes.’

Her brisk smile is meant to be reassuring, I am not reassured.

‘I did archaeology, as you know.’

‘You enjoyed it?’

‘Sure. Yes. I really liked it.’

‘And you stuck with Adam?’

‘Yep.’ I smile, faintly, at the memory. ‘Everyone at university was sceptical, everyone scoffed and said Oh it won’t last, you’ll break up by Christmas , but I knew they were wrong, and they were wrong, and it did last, we stayed loyal, we had fun. Adam would come over to my halls of residence.’ I look her in the eyes. ‘Some days we never got up, just stayed in bed. After a few terms we got engaged. And when I graduated we got married. A year after you and Dan.’

Tessa takes more notes. Meanwhile, the January weather is at the windows, listening in, rattling panes. I wonder if the weather can hear my deeper thoughts, the occasional recurring doubts about my marriage, that trouble me from time to time: did I ever really deserve a handsome guy like Adam Redway? I know I brought the education to the marriage, and the faded poshness of the Kinnersleys: that was my side of the marital contract, but I’ve always thought I definitely got the best of the deal. Adam Redway: loyal, rugged, sexy – look at him, 100 per cent man. What did he see in her? I’ve watched women openly ogling my husband all the way through our marriage.

Has he stayed loyal? Does something like infidelity lie underneath this oddness? No. No. I do not believe that. Adam is loyal, and honest, and he loves me.

‘It’s around this time,’ Tessa says, scribbling away, ‘when you went off to uni, that your mother died?’

This is a change of tack. Now I feel vaguely affronted, again. ‘Look. I’m sorry, Tessa, and I don’t want to be rude, you’re always so kind to us, but … Can you please tell me why you’re here?’ I look at the clock on the cooker. ‘I’ve got work to do, too.’

‘Yes, I know, I’m sorry, Kath. I totally understand your confusion and irritation. But …’ She sets down her pen, and meets my gaze. ‘I need to colour in the blanks, and then I’ll tell you. It’s best we do it this way round. So that, you know—’

‘What? What do you have to tell me?’ I’m trying not to freak out. What can be so bad that Adam calls in my sister-in-law who happens to be a psychologist? Why does it need this long preamble, as if I am being prepared for the worst?

Tessa ignores the flush in my cheeks, and puts a pen to her notebook, ready to write. ‘Please, Kath, it’s best this way. Honestly.’

I look at her: the nice shoes from London, the cashmere cardigan. And I yield, wearily. ‘It was my second year at uni. Mum died in an ashram, when she was in India, which was typical of her.’

‘How do you mean, “typical”?’

‘Because Mum was always, like, alternative . Give her a crazy religion, Mum went for it. Reiki, Buddhism, wicca, astrology, shamanism, putting crystals up your bottom. She didn’t believe in things, she believed in everything . I think at one point she was simultaneously vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, breatharian, and oddly fond of ribeye steak. And red wine. She always loved wine.’