Chapter 4
The Present Day
Lewis is sitting on a traffic bollard, a few feet outside the hospital foyer. It’s not very comfortable, despite his bulk, and he wishes there was somewhere more pleasant to sit. Maybe he’ll donate a bench, he thinks, in memory of Andrea.
The Andrea Barnard Memorial Bench. It would welcome the arses of the cold, the lonely, the ill, the desperate.
She’d absolutely hate it, he decides, and the thought of the look of contempt on her face makes him smile.
If there’s a heaven, she’ll be shaking her fists and uttering dire threats.
‘Something with a bit more class, please, darling,’ she’d say.
‘A nice little tequila bar, perhaps? God knows these poor people need a drink!’
It’s a Friday, so he’d have a nice lie-in the next morning, before taking a brisk constitutional in the valley. Maybe he’d persuade Andrea to come with him. Perhaps, if the weather was good, they’d go for a paddle in the lake with his ancient springer spaniel, Betty.
For Lewis, and for poor old Betty, there will at least be another morning. Another sunrise. Another chance to wonder at the world – not that it looks very impressive when all you can see is a neon-drenched hospital car park and frazzled paramedics on a fag break.
For Andrea, there will be nothing. No more sunrises. No more tequila. No more Antiques Roadshow, unless she’s been shown Downstairs, where she’ll be taunted by scary-looking dolls and ugly pottery for all of eternity.
She’s gone, and he’s struggling to believe it can possibly be true – that somehow the world continues on as normal. There should be a black hole in the sky; a swarm of shooting stars to mark her passing, a murder of crows lined up on the bus stop cawing her name. Not just this … mundane reality.
She made her film, and he had marvelled at her.
At her strength and her resolve and her determination.
He knew how ill she was, how much pain she was in – but you couldn’t tell from that video.
She somehow managed to be loving and firm and even funny.
Quite frankly, it had been the performance of a lifetime.
He’d been the liability, not her, with his shaking hands and constant need to blink tears from his eyes. Pathetic. He was a mess – she was a powerhouse.
Once she’d done it, though (one take, miraculously making it sound spontaneous even though he knew she’d rehearsed it), it seemed like whatever life and energy she had left drained out of her.
It was her last hurrah, and within minutes of filming that one last close-up, her grey head dropped back into the lumps and bumps of the pillow as she fell into a long, staring silence.
There’d been a few sniffles after that, a few quick, breathless questions asking how she’d done, but he knew – he knew that it was all she had left to give, and she’d given it to her daughters. After that, it was silence and morphine all the way to the end.
It was a strange experience, seeing someone die. He wasn’t even sure she’d gone when it finally happened, after several false alarms.
On one occasion, she went what felt like minutes without drawing in a breath, then when he went to check on her, she suddenly opened her eyes and made him scream like a big, fat girl. At least that provoked a laugh – albeit one that ended in a coughing fit.
Almost an hour ago, though, it ended. It all ended.
That glorious life, that wicked sense of humour, that vigorous bundle of vitality.
Sixty-five years of love and laughter and experience – all gone.
One papery hand fell away from the blanket to dangle loosely over the edge of the bed, coral nails vivid against the white sheets, and the other – clutched into his – became limp and lifeless.
He waited, and waited, and waited some more.
Part of him had been desperate for this moment – for her to be put out of her torment.
But part of him felt like he had simply died with her, which wouldn’t have been the world’s biggest tragedy.
He’d wanted to crawl into that bed, pull the sheets over them both, and just stop breathing. Stop existing.
A world without Andrea was, right then, too terrible to even imagine.
Lewis had made a lot of friends during his long, rich life – but none of them had ever come close to Andrea.
She was like a beacon of energy, a rainbow shining into a grey world, a blast of dazzling light scattering away the darkness.
She was his soul mate, his true love without being his lover, his partner in crime.
He’d first encountered her when he moved to the village years ago, and their eyes met over a crowded giant vegetable stand at the annual fete.
They’d both been staring at the same collection of ridiculously large marrows, and they both had the same raised eyebrows and ‘oo-er missus’ expressions, straight from a Carry On movie.
That had led to coffee. Coffee had led to a night in the pub. And a night in the pub had led to an unshakeable friendship, based on a rude sense of humour, a love of banter, and, if he was entirely honest, on mutual loneliness.
And now she was gone, and he was sitting with a concrete bollard up his bum, and it was dark and cold and rainy.
The height of the inglorious English summer.
He’d left his mac on the back seat of his car, his tweed jacket was soaked through, and he knew his shirt would be plastered to his skin in ways that were far from flattering.
She’d be thoroughly shocked at him showing off his man boobs in such an unbecoming way, he was sure.
His fingers were shaking and his carefully combed hair was wet and flat to his skull, letting all the bald patches peek out.
Somehow, though, he just didn’t seem able to care.
All his life, he’d done the right thing – been properly turned out, played his part, done what was expected of him.
Now, he wouldn’t be bothered if he was naked, covered in woad and speaking in tongues.
Everything felt heavy, and useless, and empty. Especially him.
None of it felt real yet. He’d done some paperwork, accepted sweet tea and sympathy from kind nurses who never really knew her, and been forced to eat some over-buttered toast. Eventually, after ‘giving him some time’, they gently suggested he needed to leave the room.
It was only decades of training and conditioning and pure English politeness that stopped him from yelling at them. From kicking them out, and barricading the door with his recliner chair, and wailing like those Middle Eastern ladies you see on the news.
He understood now, for the first time, how grief could make you wail like that.
How pain could be so pure and so livid that it took on a life of its own, a small, furious animal that wanted to howl at the top of its lungs.
To scream and scream and scream until the whole world shattered with the sheer force of its misery.
His own parents had died after long, full lives, and they were never especially close anyway – they were merely the people who visited him at boarding school, and insisted he became a lawyer. It had hurt when they passed on, but nothing had prepared him for this.
For the rawness. The agony. The inability to accept that she was really gone.
That it wasn’t some silly trick of hers, that she hadn’t faked it all, and any minute would sit back up, tears of laughter in her magnificent eyes, proclaiming: ‘I well and truly got you that time, sweetie! I completely Reggie Perrin-ed you! Fancy a G&T on the way home?’
But no matter how long he waited, it didn’t happen.
She just refused to stop being dead, damn her.
And now he is here, in the rain, fishing around in his jacket pocket for his phone and his cigar box.
The cigar that she’d bought for him – a limited edition Montecristo that, under normal circumstances, he’d be looking forward to smoking.
He’d enjoy it on the terrace of his small garden, along with a nice glass of ruby port, listening to the night-time sounds of nature all around him, bathing in the starlight.
This, though, is slightly different. There are no sounds of nature, just sirens and screeching tyres and shell-shocked-looking people, standing in small, damp clusters as they wait for taxis.
The starlight has been replaced by the flickering yellow signs of the hospital, and the glow of hundreds of tiny lights shining from hundreds of tiny windows.
The car headlights are reflected in dark pools of oily rain on the pitted tarmac as they zoom past, and he can hear a horribly loud drunken argument going on somewhere nearby. It is far from idyllic.
He waits until the downpour slows from its previous let’s-all-build-an-Ark levels to a mild drizzle, and pulls out his cigar box.
He’s left his cutter at home, so he commits the blasphemous act of simply tearing off the end.
He lights it, and takes that first, glorious puff, white smoke billowing out in front of his face in a fragrant cloud.
He realises that he is sitting next to a ‘No Smoking’ sign, but nobody else seems to be taking any notice.
The cigar tastes and smells divine. A rare treat.
She’d made him promise that he’d do this – that he’d do lots of things, in fact, but especially this.
A quiet cigar, all alone, just for her. After a few tipples, she’d often filch one from him, and chug away on it while wiggling her eyebrows at his scandalised expression.
Andrea often tried to shock him by doing un-ladylike things, and still somehow managed to remain the classiest woman he’d ever known.
After a few moments of enjoying the aroma and the sweet, woodsy taste in his mouth, Lewis looks up to see a man in a wheelchair parked in front of him. He looks about ninety years old, and only has one leg.
His wizened face is wrapped up in the hood of a fur-lined parka, and closer inspection shows that he isn’t anywhere near ninety – he’s much younger, but prematurely aged by some addiction or another.
Lewis has spent enough time in courts to know that the missing limb is likely to be a related condition, and even in their relatively quiet patch of the country, drugs have ravaged the lives of many.
He’d usually make his excuses and leave, overwhelmed by that peculiar mix of sympathy and disgust that men of his age and background tend to feel for the heroin-afflicted.
Andrea, of course, was never overwhelmed by any such thing. She gave money to everyone who asked for it, had enough back copies of the Big Issue to wallpaper her whole cottage, and was ever empathetic with the lost souls of the world.
‘We all have our demons, darling,’ she’d say, passing a fiver to a shabby bloke with a dog on a string, ‘it’s just that some people’s are more obvious than others’.’
He decides he’s not going to budge, not tonight.
Not while he’s smoking his magical Montecristo, and still debating whether he should run back into the hospital and take Andrea back home with him.
Perhaps he could mummify her and prop her up on the sofa, so he still has someone to talk to.
He’s convinced that Andrea mummified would still be better company than most people alive.
‘Smells good,’ says the man, sniffing the air appreciatively. ‘Have you got a spare, mate?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ replies Lewis, shuffling slightly to try and relieve the numbness in his nether regions. ‘This was a gift from a friend.’
‘You must have some good friends,’ his visitor replies, tapping dirt-encrusted fingertips on the arms of his wheelchair. ‘I don’t have any left.’
I wonder why, thinks Lewis, uncharitably, before reminding himself that Andrea could be watching right now. Hovering over his shoulder, a shimmering diamanté wraith telling him that he could afford to be ‘just a tiny bit less of a snob, don’t you think, my love?’
‘I’m not sure I do either,’ Lewis eventually answers. ‘The best one I ever had just died, in there.’
Actual tears well up in the man’s eyes, and Lewis immediately feels like a shit for silently despising him. He has no idea what his story is, or how he ended up here, or what his demons are. He knows nothing about him, and has no right to judge.
‘That’s rubbish, mate. I’m so sorry for you. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. They say that time heals and all … but I’m not so sure. Sometimes time seems to stand still, as far as I can make out. Anyway, good luck to you. I’ll say a little prayer for your friend.’
He gives Lewis an abrupt nod, and starts to wheel himself away, his hands slipping on the wet frames as he turns, the wind blowing his parka off his shaven head.
‘Hang on!’ says Lewis, standing up, and immediately feeling a shooting pain fly right up his spine. Ouch. He recovers, and follows the man in the chair, handing him the cigar. He’s lost his appetite for it now, anyway.
‘Her name was Andrea,’ he adds, as he backs away towards the car park. ‘And I appreciate your prayers. I’m sure she would too.’
The man mutters his thanks and waves at him as he leaves, watching Lewis head towards his car, an old Jag he’s had for donkey’s years. He glances back, and all he can see of his new friend is the orange glow of the cigar tip moving around in the black night, like some kind of aromatic firefly.
He opens the car door, and sinks into the passenger seat in a soggy, crumpled heap.
He’s smoked his cigar. He’s increased his karmic brownie-point count. And now he has to do what he’s been dreading for the last hour. He has to do what Andrea asked him to do. What he promised her he would.
He has to start the process that she hoped would put all her daughters’ broken pieces back together again.
He knows he needs to be strong. To help the girls and, in doing so, help Andrea. But he doesn’t feel capable of putting their pieces back together, when his are all scattered and shattered and shed.
He feels like Humpty Dumpty, and has no idea how he is going to find the strength to do what he needs to do.
Call Rosehip and Popcorn, and tell them that their mother is dead.