Kate Lawson - Keeping Mum

‘I’m sorry.’

Cass smiled. ‘Thank you. It’s a long time ago now but I still miss him and it’s odd because it’s one of those things a lot of people can’t handle. They can manage divorce, single parents, being abandoned, leaving—all sorts of things—but they can’t handle dying…’ Cass laughed and took a handful of roasted seeds from the little pot in the middle of the table, waving the words away.

‘If you could give us another minute or two,’ said Mike as the waitress made her way to their table, notepad in hand.

Cass glanced down at the menu. What she didn’t tell Mike was that even now she loved Neil more than she knew how to say and missed him every day, and that—without meaning to—she compared every man she had met since against him; and there had been no one who even came close. She understood that memory played tricks with your mind and that, by dying, Neil often appeared as she wanted him to be rather than how he was—but she still missed his voice and the smell of him and the way he made her feel better, and his laugh and…

And although Cass hadn’t planned it that way, and despite several boyfriends, it was hard for someone to walk in the shadow of the dead, someone who never grew old, who never got fat, never farted, whose life was sealed in the vaults of memory and as a result could never go on to shag her best friend or leave her stranded in the rain or ring up to argue about child support or who should have the house.

‘See anything you fancy?’ Cass asked. When she looked up to see how Mike was doing with the menu, she caught him staring at her, which made her redden at the unintentional play on words.

‘I’d like the cauliflower, mushroom and aubergine satay with wild rice,’ said Mike to the waitress.

‘And I’ll have the roast autumn vegetables with cashew couscous. And a glass of apple juice,’ Cass said.

The girl scribbled the order down and Mike handed the menus back. ‘And just a glass of tap water,’ he said. ‘So,’ he continued as the waitress retreated. ‘Maybe I should tell you all about me and my life.’ He made it sound like a treat.

Maybe lunch hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

‘Didn’t we do this at Rocco’s?’ asked Cass, lightly.

‘Not without your mum and Rocco filling in the blanks, remember?’

Cass decided not to say anything, but it was all right because Mike was way ahead of her. Where she’d taken two minutes to give him a précis of her life, from his body language he had obviously got lunch booked for a full-scale rundown of life on planet Mike. Although at least it meant she didn’t have to say anything, Cass thought as she shook out her napkin.

‘Okay well, I’m divorced, I’ve got a son and daughter, Robert and Charlotte , they’re eighteen and sixteen and they live with their mother in Carlisle . I moved down here about three years ago to set up in business with Charles , a friend of mine.’

The way Mike emphasised the names as he talked made Cass wonder if there was going to be a test afterwards.

‘I do some private work—Rocco’s roof, for example, and bigger corporate things with Charles.’

‘Your partner,’ Cass chipped in.

‘Yes, although that’s purely in the business sense, you understand,’ Mike said. And then he smiled to make sure he still had her full attention.

Obviously this was a speech Mike had prepared earlier. Cass settled down to listen. While they ate, Mike talked about his divorce and doing up the derelict chapel and plans he had for the garden, where he’d been on holiday and where he’d like to go, how he liked to work out and play golf and play squash and then, while Cass ordered coffee, Mike talked about good food and girlfriends and by that time it was almost two o’clock and Cass had barely said a word and Mike was still in full flow. Another ten minutes and she suspected her ears would start to bleed.

Cass glanced up at the clock. ‘Much as I’m enjoying your company Mike,’ Cass said, wondering if he did irony, ‘I really need to be getting back to work.’

‘Me too.’ Mike nodded. ‘Oh, is that the time, gosh it’s gone so quickly. Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Well, it’s been lovely.’ And then he added, ‘I was wondering if maybe I could see you again some time? I mean, we seem to be getting along nicely.’

Cass smiled noncommittally. How did you say to someone politely that you would rather push needles in your eyes?

‘Maybe we could have dinner after the concert?’

Maybe Mike was just nervous—maybe he would be all right once she got to know him. Cass picked up her bag. And maybe Elvis would bring the bill. Who was she trying to kid? Mike was good looking and nicely dressed but he was also boring and totally self-obsessed.

Meanwhile the girl, who bore no resemblance to the King, set the bill down on the table between them.

Mike picked it up and before Cass could speak, cast his eye over it, saying, ‘Not bad. What shall we do, shall we just pay half each? You don’t get neighbourly discount by any chance, do you?’ As he spoke, he took a purse from his jacket pocket and started sorting through it for what she had a horrible suspicion would probably be the exact money. If Cass had been harbouring any doubts at all about Mike, the purse and the half-each shot was enough to make her mind up.

‘No,’ she said before picking up her bag. Cass glanced at the bill and dropped her half plus a generous tip onto the side plate. ‘I really have got to be getting back. Thanks…’

As she made her way to the door, Cass was conscious of Mike following close behind, hurrying to catch up like an anxious terrier.

While they had been in the cafe, the day had started to soften into a misty gold autumn afternoon. Despite being barely two o’clock, the daylight was already beginning to fade and the lamps lit in the shop window, protection against the gold grey gloom, welcomed her home—as comforting as any lighthouse.

High Lane had always been one of those good memory places where she and Neil had brought the kids when they were little, walking down the hill first with buggies and later holding their small sticky hands in summer and winter, in shorts and in duffel coats, down to the river and the cafe and the ducks, and then later to lunch on a friend’s narrow boat or walk along the tow path. It had seemed some sort of omen when the shop had come up for sale in the weeks after Neil died.

It had been one of those places that they’d said if they had the money, the chance, the freedom to buy there, then they might just do it. And then there it was and Cass discovered, thanks to Neil’s insurance money, that she did have the chance.

She’d found it so hard being in their old house without Neil, and although friends and family said the feelings would pass and that she should wait before making any big decisions, she’d known they were wrong. All she could see were the kitchen units Neil had put in, the bathroom with the wonky tiles that they’d re-tiled one Christmas when pissed and the garden they’d built and it didn’t bring her comfort, just a constant aching nagging reminder that she had lost her best friend and the person who loved her most in the world.

And so one sunny autumnal afternoon, not unlike this one, she walked down to the shop, looked in through the windows, hands cupped around her face so she could see inside, and knew without a shadow of a doubt Neil would want her to have it. It felt like his final gift to her.

Mike didn’t stand a cat’s chance in hell against memories that powerful. ‘Thanks,’ Cass said as they got to the shop door, realising that she had barely said a word to him on the way home, lost in her own memories. Thanks for what was less clear.