Tony Parsons - Man And Wife

’Elizabeth!’ he cried.

It was Tex, although he definitely looked more like Graham today.

My mum nonchalantly tossed some organic bacon into her sleek bulging trolley. ’Oh, hello,’ she said, not deigning to call him by his cowboy name, or indeed any name at all. ’How’s the line dancing going?’

Tex exhaled with a grimace on his wrinkled face, rubbing his hip. ’Cracked me femur, Liz. Doing the Hardwood Stomp in Wickford. Had to lay off the old line dancing for a bit.’

He was staring at my mum as if she was Joan Collins on a good day. And it was true – she looked great.

It wasn’t just the big blonde country and western hair, or the weight she had lost. There was a confidence about my mum now, a hard-earned inner force that put a glint in her eye that had never been there before. Being unceremoniously dumped by this little old man was the least of it. She had survived far bigger blows than that.

’Well, you look… lovely,’ Tex said.

’Thanks.’ My mum smiled politely, looking at the wizened old man before her as if she couldn’t quite place him. ’Nice seeing you.’ My mum turned to Pat and me. ’Let’s roll, boys.’

’Maybe, maybe we could have a cup of tea some time,’ Tex stammered. ’If you’re not too busy.’

My mum affected not to have heard. So we left Graham and his lonely can of cat food by the frozen meat counter.

’You could have a cup of tea with him,’ I told my mum, although secretly I was proud of the way she had cut him down to size. ’He’s a harmless old man.’

’But he’s not my man, Harry. I forgot that for a while. Then I remembered. There’s only one man for me. And that’s the way it has always been.’

Pat and I struggled to keep up with her as her blonde head bobbed towards the checkout desk. And I thought – Dolly Parton would be proud of my mum. No matter what horrific surgery she had undergone, there was something inside her that was untouchable.

And as my car was pulling out of the parking lot, we saw Tex waiting for a bus in the drizzling rain. I knew better than to suggest we give him a lift.

My mum stared straight at him without expression, and for just a moment I thought she was going to stick up a finger or two. I knew in my heart she was far too polite for that. But if she had given Graham also-known-as-Tex the finger, I knew it wouldn’t have been the middle one.

It would have been the one right next to it, the third finger left hand, the one where she had never stopped wearing her wedding ring.

There were already three women waiting outside my mum’s house. One of them was in her forties, but the other two were younger than me. They all looked as though they had a world pressing down on them.

My mum let us all into the house. She didn’t have to tell me that these were some of the women that she counselled about breast cancer. They went into the living room with Pat while my mum and I made tea. I could hear the sound of the women laughing at something my boy had said. It felt as though they hadn’t laughed for quite a while.

’See that young one, Harry? She had the same operation as me. Same breast removed too. Scared to look at herself now. Imagine that. Afraid of the mirror. You can’t let that happen. You can’t be scared to look at yourself. They can talk to me. Because their family – the husband, the daughters, the sons – they want to be reassured. They don’t want the truth – they want reassurance. And they don’t have to reassure me. And they don’t have to be ashamed in front of me. Because I’m the same. And what have we got to be ashamed of? It’s not so bad. They’re shy. I’m older than they are, Harry, and I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. It’s made me stronger. It’s given me a funny kind of power. I’m not scared of this world any more. These girls – and I know I’m meant to say women, but they’re girls to me – they can’t tell their husbands how they feel. That’s okay. There’s no such thing as an uncomplicated life. I see that now. I loved your dad more than life itself. But we don’t need to tell everything to the person we’re married to. There’s no shame in that.’

’But maybe their husbands would understand,’ I said. ’You should try to understand each other, shouldn’t you? And if they really love them, then maybe they would understand.’

’Maybe,’ said my mum. ’If they really love them.’

’Can I ask you something? About you and Dad?’

’Go ahead.’

’Does it change? As the years go by, I mean. Should I expect my marriage to be something different from what it was at the start?’

My mother smiled.

’It changes all the time, it never stops changing. When you’re young you say – I love you became I need you. When you’re old it’s

– / need you became I love you. Big difference. And I’m not saying that one is better than the other, although the second one tends to last a bit longer. But you never stop loving each other, Harry. Not if it’s real.’ She took my hands. ’Look, Harry. Talk to her if you want to. Talk to Cyd. Tell her what’s been happening. Talk to your wife if you think it will help.’

’But I don’t know if I can. See, I want her to be proud of me, Mum. The way you were proud of Dad.’ I squeezed her hands. ’And I want you to be proud of me, too.’

’I’m proud of you already,’ said my mum.

Peggy came home, her plaster cast signed by every child on her ward. There was a way to go before she would be well enough to go back to school. But the fracture was mending and we went to bed that night weak with relief. Peggy was healing. And in a way that I couldn’t quite explain, so was I.

’I’ve got something to tell you, Cyd.’

’You don’t have to tell me anything. Just as I don’t have to tell you anything about Luke. Because there’s nothing to tell.’

’But I want to say something. It’s about what happened. How we lost each other for a while.’

’You don’t have to tell me a thing. Just rest your eyes.’ I felt my wife touch my arm in the darkness. ’You’re home now,’ she said.

Life holds hostage all those we love.

That’s why it was so tough for my wife after Peggy came back home. Once you have seen your child in a hospital, you are never truly free again. Never really free the way you were in the past, not once you know how it feels to love a sick child, not once you realise how hard it is out there. Because you are never free from the fear that it could happen again, and next time be even worse.

And it was not just her daughter. There were late-night calls from Texas, where her sisters were worried about their mother, who had been found wandering around a parking lot in downtown Houston with a DVD of Gone With the Wind in her hand, no money in her purse and no memory of how she got there. ’Sounds like the start of old-timer’s disease,’ my mum said, and it was terrifying, one more thing for my wife to worry about.

So when we turned out the light one night and Cyd idly mentioned that she had missed her period, I thought to myself

– stress.

It does strange things to your body.

And when my wife woke up the next morning, running to the bathroom and retching although nothing came up, I thought to myself – poor kid. Worried sick about her daughter, and now worried sick about her mother.

And even then, standing outside the bathroom door, listening to my wife trying to throw up, even then I still didn’t get it. I still didn’t understand that it was happening all over again.

The best thing in the world.

I had seen one of these things before.

In fact, when Gina first found out about Pat, I saw dozens of them. There was nothing much to it. Just a white plastic handle. It looked as though it had something missing, like a toothbrush without the bristles.