Chapter Nine #2
Rosie spent the rest of the day planting bulbs in the areas she had already weeded.
Her spare cash was being put towards the tool store, but there had been some bargain bags of mixed bulbs for sale at one of the market stalls and they would provide a splash of colour in the spring.
According to the label, each bag included daffodils, crocuses, narcissi and snowdrops.
She couldn’t wait for the warmer weather to arrive and see them burst out of their cocoons into a blaze of colour. Since James’ death she had felt like one of those dormant bulbs. Dry and dusty and buried in darkness, but hopefully carrying everything they needed inside them for survival.
Nature was so clever. Unlike people, seedlings knew when to get started; bulbs understood that warming temperatures were the signal to start throwing up new leaves.
She had gone through the motions of getting rid of James’ clothes, even selling or giving away his Beatles collection, but she still felt like she was stuck in limbo, waiting for some change to signpost the way forward, telling her when to move on again.
But maybe she needed to do that herself rather than wait for some outward sign?
As she sat at her sewing table later that evening pinning a paper pattern onto the dismantled prom dress for Emma, she tried to think about setting herself some goals. She wasn’t usually good at seizing opportunities, but she’d taken on the garden – that surely counted as a positive step?
Gardening was one of her mother’s tried and tested methods of emotional detachment but would that provide fulfilment for the next few decades?
When she’d been at college, she had so many plans for her future – where had they gone?
Come to think about it, where had that person gone?
She probably needed to move somewhere else, painful as that would be, and not moulder here drowning in memories, but right now she wanted some of those memories to fortify her like a strong drink, to feel that James was helping her along the way.
Rosie put down the box of pins she was holding and marched over to the boxes in the corner that contained all James’ personal stuff.
Now was as good a time as any. She pulled out his home laptop and switched it on.
After a few minutes she realised the battery was dead.
Another rummage produced a charger and she plugged it in and then sat on the floor watching the screen, waiting for something to happen.
As the computer came to life, Rosie felt a small flutter of anxiety.
It was like getting a chance to look back on the life they had together, that had been dramatically curtailed without any warning or preparation, and which until now she hadn’t felt ready to revisit.
Like taking a last, deep breath before diving off the board into unknown waters.
She knew his password – ticket2Ride – and watched as the applications loaded in one by one.
She smiled at James’ choice of wallpaper – The Beatles’ famous Abbey Road album cover with that parked Volkswagen Beetle in shot.
She recalled James telling her it turned out to belong to someone who lived in the block of flats, who suddenly found he owned a world-famous car.
She tried to imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and find that you were accidentally famous.
(Unlike Connor who had woken up to find himself accidentally infamous.)
She clicked on the emails folder, and her heart gave a judder as she saw the date on the last email.
It was sent on the thirteenth of July last year, the day he died.
Literally an hour before he died. It seemed wrong somehow that it wasn’t even from someone interesting, it was just one of those junk emails that James deleted religiously at the end of each day.
Her eye continued down the list: unlike her inbox which ran to thousands of emails, James filed his carefully, and the left-hand toolbar contained the list of folders into which he categorised his life.
There were email folders for all sorts of things including their online shopping, their joint bank account, his work, holidays, his membership of a professional engineering body, The Beatles (obviously), insurance for the house.
There were also various individually named folders which Rosie recognised as either a family member or one of his friends.
She selected one at random from a folder called Rob.
He was an old university friend of James and had been their best man at the wedding.
He was more of a bloke’s bloke really and although he’d been perfectly charming in his own way, she’d heard very little from him since James died.
The email was dated some months before James died and was something to do with meeting up for a drink with a group of their old university pals.
Rosie closed the email and selected a folder with a name she didn’t recognise.
Jack could easily have been a colleague from work, or someone from the bridge club he used to attend, but she was intrigued.
There was only one sub-folder entitled Obsolete.
She clicked on it and another folder opened entitled Private.
Even more curious now she double clicked again.
There weren’t a huge number of emails but the most recent one was dated a few weeks before he died.
This was also about meeting up, but it was almost terse in its language.
It simply said: Monday, usual place, usual time?
She was already hovering over the “X” to close the email as she saw the two letters underneath: Jx.
What the heck was that? Either someone had a surname beginning with X, or… Rosie closed it down swiftly but was unable to close down her thoughts in the same manner. Who signed off emails like that? Was it a typo? A kiss? She selected another one at random, which read:
Yesterday was wonderful. Miss you already. Jx
The email was dated five months before he died.
She licked her dry lips as she tried to make sense of what she was reading.
She opened another email. It referred to a meal out somewhere and a thank you for a present.
What present? What was her husband buying this person?
And how did he meet him? Or was it a her?
Her heart rate quickened as a jumble of questions spun round in her head.
Why had she not been aware of this person?
Was it a secret double life? Was it some sort of affair?
She tried hard to think of plausible alternatives.
Her legs were stiff from kneeling on the floor but she remained where she was, desperately searching for a rational explanation; now she was questioning everything.
James had always told her if he was away on business, or he was meeting up with friends.
But what if that was all a lie? There was an email dated eighteenth November – the day after James returned from his conference.
The week that, until last year, had been the worst week of her life. Rosie opened it.
Really enjoyed a proper break instead of sneaking around hotel rooms. Must find another excuse to go back again soon!
At the bottom of the email was a corporate logo for a company called Elliott James & Partners. Who the hell were they?
Rosie opened up the internet browser and found their website. It only took a few minutes to find the answer on their News page, where she read the words Working in partnership with Harcourt Civil Engineering. James’ employer.
The stiffness in her limbs had become a burning sensation, but she continued to sit immobile, staring at the screen.
Her brain had stalled, unable to process anything.
James wasn’t even at a conference! He was sneaking off with someone else for a holiday – a bloody holiday!
– while she was crying in Emma’s arms mourning the loss of her baby.
A quick look at the sitemap brought up a people page where, about halfway down the screen she saw the name Jacqueline Foukes, Customer Liaison Manager.
‘You bastard!’ she yelled. ‘You heartless bastard!’
She slammed down the lid and slowly got to her feet.
Anger pulsed through her body with nowhere to direct it.
The person she wanted to be angry with was dead and hadn’t been clever enough to delete the evidence.
Or maybe he kept the emails to remember special occasions, and had looked at them the way she had wanted to look at his.
She pressed her fingers against her temples in an attempt to subdue the throbbing in her head, but it didn’t work. Why had James done this? When did he meet this person? And what had he been thinking when he’d trotted out all those lies to her?
As Rosie lay in bed staring into the darkness, the how, why, whens chased each other round her head until it felt as though she was grieving for him all over again. Part of her wanted to find this woman, but it wouldn’t change anything. James would still be dead and she would still be angry.