Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Gilly, Moira and Lou invited her to their WhatsApp group and her phone pulsed daily with messages.
It felt exciting to be included. They talked about everything, from baking disasters, shared for the comedy value (mainly from Gilly), to requests for lifts (mainly from Lou) and those round robin messages of support that you were instructed to send to women you admired and loved (largely from Moira).
In the handful of times they had met up since the match, both at rugby training and in the Trago Lounge for the treat of shop-bought coffee, they had included Nina in the loveliest of ways.
‘So, my daughter is getting married, and I’m supposed to be dieting, but the more I worry about it and think about it, the more I eat!’ Lou reached for a sugar cube for her coffee and the others exchanged knowing smiles. ‘The wedding is six months away, and I have too much to do.’
‘How can we help?’ Moira sipped the foam of her cappuccino.
‘Urgh, you can’t, honey.’ Lou batted away the offer. ‘Apart from all the other things, I have to plan and arrange twenty floral centrepieces and two large displays for the top table. And I haven’t got a clue!’
‘Oh, well, I can help you with that. Flower arranging for my home used to be a big part of my life,’ Nina said.
She startled at the loud laughter that followed. Gilly patted her arm. Nina broke into a smile. She guessed that, for these working women, it was laughable: a preoccupation with the indulgence of flowers. A blush of embarrassment rose to her face.
‘What? It did!’ She chuckled.
The laughter calmed.
‘Nina, that would be lovely, thank you.’
And just like that she was able to help. Feeling useful was the best. She knew the old Nina would have found a thousand reasons not to get involved.
The women listened with interest and empathy to how her life had been turned upside down by the death of her husband.
She never realised how good it felt to have girlfriends to talk to, and who could offer a range of viewpoints that helped her to figure out how she felt.
It was the first time she had confided her situation to anyone other than Tiggy, and whilst it felt odd to be sharing so much with relative strangers, she also felt a little unburdened.
It left her with a feeling of belonging that she hadn’t felt for some years, in fact not since she last lived in Portswood.
She told them how she had lived and what she had lost, keen to stress that what mattered most was not the house or the things, but that she had lost her love and was now alone with her kids, trying to hold everything together.
They had squeezed her fingers, sighed, hugged her, and then immediately started to list all the men they knew who might be able to fix her lonely heart.
‘No, no! Absolutely not. Thank you, but no.’ She shook her head, a little unnerved by the suggestion.
She was focused on the boys and on the slow and sometimes painful process of moving on.
The last thing she wanted to do was throw more change and challenges into the mix.
‘I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, wouldn’t want to.
I really wouldn’t. I’m still trying to reclaim my life.
I went from my dad’s arms into Finn’s, and I think I need to get better at being on my own.
’ With this admission she put a lid on the well-meaning banter.
Moira spoke up. ‘You’ll know when you are ready. Maybe you never will be, like you say, and that’s all right too, but the morning you wake and your husband is not the first thing that fills your head, then you’ll know that your grief has shifted, made space for something or someone else.’
The girls had all clucked their approval at Moira’s words. But Nina knew her grief had already shifted, that it wasn’t just the loss of her husband she mourned. She was still trying to figure out what had been the true foundation of her marriage whilst coming to terms with her loss.
She considered this now as she stood by the French windows of the sitting room, watching the kids abandoning their bikes on the pavement and traipsing in and out of the shop opposite, leaving with sweets sticking out of their mouths or sipping on fizzy drinks.
It made her think of Halloween the previous year.
She and Finn had gone to fetch Declan from his school party; all his classmates were caked in face paint, trying for spooky.
Some had blood dripping from the sides of their mouths, others black-ringed eyes and ill-fitting white plastic Dracula fangs.
Nearly all held plastic cauldrons or pumpkins in which to gather their booty.
Connor had gone to a house party, with strict instructions to be home before eleven.
She and Finn had pulled into the car park; the air was thick with the damp, earthy tang of autumn. The sky was clear, a beautiful shade of indigo with a blanket of stars. She glanced up and marvelled at the infinite celestial display; it felt like anything was possible.
‘Is that Dec?’ Finn had nodded towards a side door from where a group of little ghouls and a Frankenstein emerged. She squinted into the darkness, and there was Declan, clutching a fistful of sweets. Nina waved at him and he responded with a happy smile.
‘Sweet mother of Betsy!’ Finn had gasped. ‘What on earth is that boy wearing?’ Declan ambled up the path in a pale pink rubbery costume with a tail at the back, and a rounded top for a hat.
‘Nina! Your son is dressed as a sperm!’
‘He is not!’ Nina laughed. ‘And might I remind you that he is your son too.’
‘Not dressed like that he isn’t!’ Finn howled.
They tried to contain their laughter as he drew closer to the car. Finn lowered the window.
‘Hey, buddy! What are you dressed up as, Dec?’ he shouted across the grass.
‘I’m an amoeba!’
‘See, he’s an amoeba,’ Nina said, giggling.
‘Nina, I swear to God, he may think he’s an amoeba, but the kid is dressed as a sperm!’ Her husband guffawed. Nina elbowed Finn hard in the ribs, knowing they had precisely three seconds to gain control and present a composed face to Declan.
She gave a little chuckle now, thinking how long she had avoided Finn’s gaze for fear of reigniting the laughter that hovered.
‘You look like you’re miles away.’ Tiggy came from the bathroom and filled the space next to her at the window.
‘I was.’
‘So, tell me again,’ Tiggy said, tucking her hair behind her ear. ‘You are taking a trip back to Bath?’
‘Not Bath, exactly, but I’ve decided to rent a van and drive out to Saltford, to Mr Firth’s place.
I got a deal on the van, so I can do it when I get paid at the end of July.
’ She had worked out that if she economised on food and the bus fare to work in the following weeks, she could just about afford it.
It would be cheaper and easier to make the trip, rather than try to buy the desk Connor needed and replace their summer clothes.
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Thanks, Tiggy, but it’s a long way and it’ll rob you of a day.
’ She smiled at her sister and thought of how she had turned up at Finn’s funeral, offering help and love, asking nothing in return despite the expense of making the trip, and having taken time off work.
Nina had taken that act for granted and knew that if she could go back in time, she would run towards Tiggy, throw her arms around her and hold her close.
‘Of course.’ Tiggy shrugged, as if it were a fait accompli.
‘Mr Firth is a good man. Finn trusted him and he has said if I need anything in the future then just to shout. He’s already been really kind. Finn did him a favour, sorted out some building work for him, and in return he has let us store our stuff at his farm.’
‘Gosh, that sounds like Finn might have been thinking ahead, if you ask me.’
Nina didn’t have time to speak before her body folded, as if punched in the gut.
It still caught her off guard sometimes, how raw the emotions still were, this time brought on by the simple statement, a suggestion from the mouth of someone whose opinion she trusted, that Finn might have taken his own life.
‘God! I’m sorry!’ Tiggy reached for her. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, I just spoke without thinking. Shit, I’m sorry, Nina. Are you okay?’
‘I find it so hard to think about. The fact that he might be dead because he wanted to die. . .’ She paused.
‘Just the idea that he not only chose not to be with us, but that he did so, leaving us in this mess . . .’ She ran her hands over her face.
The thought did not get any easier to contend with, no matter how often she wrangled with it.
‘I wasn’t suggesting that. I . . .’ Tiggy floundered.
Nina straightened and tried to catch her breath.
‘I know, Tiggy, I know. But it still feels sometimes like I’m running up an escalator that’s heading down and I can’t get anywhere.
I am tired. And yes, the fact that he might have been thinking ahead, making decisions or, God forbid, planning, makes the possibility that he left us by choice seem more likely.
And it seems the sole effort of that pre-planning that I can detect was to set up some storage, when we have been reduced to the bones of our arse, and that makes me so angry! ’ She clenched her fists.
Tiggy stood back at the rare outburst. ‘You let it out, girl!’