Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
ANNA
I wasn’t with Gray when he died, because Laurel was.
I had more or less made peace with the idea that I might not be there, and explained as best I could to the children that when they said goodbye to their father in the evenings, it might be for the last time.
Each night, when Gray was in the hospice, I’d sit by their beds and talk to them, sharing memories of their father I’d never told them about before.
They listened to the stories and smiled, perhaps realising that I needed to tell them as much as they needed to hear them.
Sometimes they added stories of their own: Remember when Dad made brownies for the school bake sale and they were still raw inside and I had to pretend they were a special gourmet recipe?
Remember when Augustus was a kitten and got stuck up the tree in Orla’s garden and Dad climbed up to get him and then he was too scared to get back down, and we thought we’d have to call a fire engine to rescue them both?
When I woke up on Wednesday, I didn’t know that it would be the last day.
I got the children off to school and drove to the hospice.
Gray was in his room, awake; Laurel was nowhere to be seen.
Our agreement might be an unspoken one, but we were both abiding by it.
She had the nights and snatches of the days when I was with the children; the rest of the time was mine.
But I was almost sure I could detect her presence in the room. I caught a hint of the scent of her shampoo, there was a plate by the bed with toast crumbs on it, the top was off the canister of mints I had bought and the vinyl seat of the chair felt warm when I sat on it.
I put my hand on the sheet where it covered Gray’s knee.
‘Hello, you. You look like you slept well. The kids are at school, but they’ll be along later to see you.
They’re starting to wind down for the summer holidays now.
We’ve still got those two weeks in Portugal booked – do you remember?
We decided not to cancel until we were sure what would happen.
I don’t know whether we’ll end up going.
The children might need a break, but they might prefer to stay home. I’ll play it by ear, don’t you think?’
I chatted on for a while, but he didn’t respond.
I could hear him breathing steadily and evenly.
Occasionally his closed eyes flickered, and I wondered if he was dreaming – those wild morphine dreams again.
I picked up his phone, found one of his favourite podcasts and began to play it with the volume turned down low.
Watching his sleeping face, I tried to memorise every detail of the man I’d loved for twenty years. There would be a time soon when I would see it and it would no longer be the face of a living, breathing man. Everything that made him Gray – his desires, his memories, his secrets – would be gone.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with the craving for a proper cigarette – not my vape but the real thing. How many times had Gray and I smoked together, guiltily enjoying the pungent, deadly hit of nicotine, the plumes of our exhales mingling together?
Too many times to count – the first of which was the day we met.
It was in the summer of 2003, at my cousin Lucy’s wedding.
I was twenty-three, too young for many of my friends to be getting married just yet, so Lucy’s wedding felt like a distraction from my normal social life.
She was eight years older than me; I’d be attending with my younger sisters and my mum and dad.
Cathy and Sarah had been jealous, I remembered, because I was a bridesmaid and they weren’t.
They watched enviously as I walked up the aisle clutching a corner of Lucy’s train through a sea of flowers and hats.
My uncle handed Lucy over to her groom, and I took my seat in the front row.
Almost immediately, I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard Cathy whisper, ‘Look at him. Hot.’
I followed her discreetly pointing finger and saw the guy who was filming the wedding video: a stocky blond man, wearing a leather jacket in spite of the heat, moving around the room as swiftly and lithely as a tomcat, so intently focused on his work that he might have been filming on Oscar-contender movie rather than a provincial wedding.
‘I saw him first,’ I whispered back.
Then the ceremony got under way and we couldn’t say anything more until it was over, and after that we were whisked away for photographs and canapés.
But I kept an eye on the video guy, and when there was a break in the proceedings I saw him slip away, so I slipped too.
I found him in the rose garden, smoking a cigarette.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Got a light?’
I had one in my bag, but he didn’t need to know that. He offered me his packet of fags, and I took one, leaning in for him to light it for me.
‘Not sure you should be fraternising with the help,’ he said, ‘being a bridesmaid and all.’
‘But I’m the help too,’ I assured him. ‘I’m the bride’s cousin, by the way. My name’s Anna.’
‘Gray,’ he said.
‘Great name.’ I smiled.
‘It’s more of a nickname, actually. So are these all your family?’
I laughed. ‘Not all of them. Come on – there are lots of us, but not two hundred. My mum and dad are here, though, and my two sisters, and my granny and grandpa. And there are other cousins about – there are fourteen of us altogether.’
‘Wow.’ His deep brown eyes widened with something like longing. ‘What’s that like?’
I laughed. ‘Carnage, mostly. You should see our family Christmases.’
‘I’d like to. Let me know if you ever have room for waifs and strays.’
‘There’s so many of us we probably wouldn’t notice a gate-crasher,’ I joked.
By the end of the night, he’d taken my number. The following Monday he called me, and on the Friday night we went out. He took me to a fancy cocktail bar in Soho, where a client of his was apparently a member and had swung him a guest pass.
And that December, he did join my family for Christmas – not as a gate-crasher but as my boyfriend.
I remembered his face on that day too, when he’d walked into the crowded room and seen all the assembled faces, not the same but similar, heard the laughter and chatter, smelled the roasting turkey and the woodsmoke from the fireplace.
‘You’re lucky, Anna,’ he said. ‘So lucky to be part of this.’
‘You are too, now,’ I told him.
It was six months after that that he asked me to marry him, and less than a year later we found the house on Damask Square and started our own family.
Later that day, I returned to Gray’s bedside with the children. They talked to him, telling him about their day at school.
Lulu glanced at her phone. Barney’s stomach rumbled – he hadn’t wanted the sandwich I’d offered him after school. Normally he would have been at his cricket practice, and Lulu would have been at her dance class, but instead we were all here, in this limbo that we longed to end but dreaded ending.
At last I said, ‘I suppose we should get home.’
But then Gray opened his eyes.
‘Hello, darling,’ I said. ‘Lulu and Barney are here with me.’
‘Hi, Dad,’ Lulu said, forcing a smile even though I could tell she wanted to cry.
‘How are you feeling?’ Barney asked, as if part of him was still expecting that miracle.
‘I love you,’ Gray said. He sounded as if his mouth was dry.
‘We love you too, Dad,’ Lulu croaked, gripping his hand, tears suddenly streaming down her face.
‘Dad – we’re here,’ Barney said, and I knew what he meant was, Please stay with us.
I stood up and went to the window, looking out over the grass and up to the sky rather than at my husband and children.
I could hear the faint rustle of the pillowcase as Gray turned his head to look first at one of them and then at the other.
I could hear Lulu’s sobs and Barney sniffing.
Then I turned back and leaned over the bed, my arms around their shoulders, the three of us huddled close over Gray as if the four of us were squeezing in for a family selfie.
There’d be no more of those. I didn’t want there to be. I didn’t want my children to remember their father like this.
‘Take care of them, Anna,’ Gray murmured.
‘I will,’ I said. ‘I promise you I always will.’
‘Take care,’ he said again, his voice almost a croak now, ‘of your mum. Like I did.’
‘We will, Dad,’ Lulu whispered.
‘Promise,’ Barney said.
Gray said one more word. ‘Mum.’
As his eyes closed, I saw tears beginning to trickle down his cheeks.
I didn’t want the children to see that – I wanted them to remember this as a calm time, a peaceful time.
I didn’t want them tormented by the memory of him in pain or distress.
I stroked his face, brushing away the tears with my fingers until they stopped flowing.
When his breathing had settled and he was quiet again, I said, ‘I think we should go home.’
I said goodbye to Gray and told him again that I loved him, and waited while Barney and Lulu did the same. None of us knew for sure, but I think we all felt in our hearts that it would be the last time.