Chapter Thirty-Two
You’re still not answering your phone and now I’m worried. Is that what you wanted? Well, it worked. Officially worried. H
Text undelivered
As we reach the enormous cast-iron gates of the cemetery I immediately start sweating.
‘This was a bad idea,’ I mutter, turning to River and thrusting the bunch of chamomile into his hands.
‘I don’t actually think it’ll help after all.
Let’s just go back home. Why don’t we try that other suggestion: Get the hell out of your head and get the hell into your body?
We could go to Southend, get on a roller coaster? How about we do that instead?’
‘Because we both agreed that facing your fears could really help you to write again. That’s why we put it on our list – Unravel unresolved emotions, just like the library books suggested. You told me that visiting Josie’s headstone was something you’d been trying to do for years.’
I switch my glasses for prescription sunglasses and kick at the dusty ground, cursing myself and my stupid blabbermouth.
‘I have loads of other unresolved emotions to unravel,’ I try.
‘I once laughed at a hipster trying and failing to walk up an icy hill. He saw me laughing and he looked so hurt. I feel bad about that all the time. Sometimes it stops me sleeping. Ooh, and – this one’s good – I haven’t seen my parents in six months.
I can’t bear to see them so sorrowful. I tried.
I really did. But they just want to talk about Josie, and the guilt I feel when they do is too …
’ I sigh heavily. ‘That definitely needs unravelling. Maybe I could send them a voice note?’
‘Oh Gertie,’ River says softly.
I plonk myself down onto the bench outside the cemetery gates and lower my voice, eyes flicking from side to side in case I’m in hearing range of a single other person.
‘I have another one,’ I say. ‘This goes no further, okay, but – I can’t believe I’m about to say this out loud.
’ I take a deep breath. ‘I pretend to adore Taylor Swift’s music because I’m worried that if I publicly admit my ambivalence, I’ll get cancelled by all of my peers,’ I blurt it out quickly, hands covering my face.
‘She’s clearly an amazing, clever, talented woman but the songs …
I could take or leave them. Gosh. That’s the first time I’ve ever said that to anyone.
Let’s unravel that! I’m sure there’s lots of juice in there. ’
River nods thoughtfully. ‘First of all, hipster trying and failing to walk up an icy hill is objectively hilarious.’
‘Yeah. It really is. He was wearing these dungarees …’
‘Second of all, on behalf of Taylor, how dare you?’
‘You’re a Swiftie?’
‘I’m a man with working ears and a beating heart, ain’t I?’
River sits down on the bench beside me, his voice softening.
‘Thirdly, this – coming here – Josie. This is the big one. You know it is. You told me you’ve been trying to do this for years. You keep on trying, again and again. So it’s clearly important to you.’
My eyes well with tears. ‘It is. I’m desperate to go inside.
I want to be there with her, I do. But …
I’m scared. I’m genuinely fucking scared, River.
’ I use my fist to wipe away the tears that have started to spill over.
‘I know she’s gone, of course I do. But it’s an abstract sort of reality.
A surface-level fact. Josie’s dead! Josie died.
And I can just about handle it if I think about it that way.
’ I meet his gaze. ‘But the moment it seems like I’m actually going to feel the fact that she’s gone?
I … seeing an actual grave? Knowing that she’s …
right there, but also very definitely not.
That’s …’ I press a hand to my heart, which has started fluttering like there’s a tiny bird in there trying desperately to escape.
‘Hang on. My heart’s being weird.’ I rub at my throat which feels suddenly tight.
I start gasping. ‘Can’t breathe. Oh fuck.
River, I can’t breathe properly. I can’t—’
Without a word, River slides across the bench and deftly hooks me towards him, squeezing himself against me tightly, one hand splayed firmly on my upper back, the other gentle on the back of my head.
‘Whatareyoudoing?’ I mumble into his chest.
‘Deep pressure helps when you’re having a panic attack,’ he explains. ‘Keep breathing.’
A panic attack?
‘I’m not dying?’ I choke out.
‘No,’ River says, the deep reassuring sound of him vibrating through me. ‘You’re safe. You’re safe with me. Just breathe. I’ve got you.’
He squeezes me so entirely that I can hear his heart, slow and steady against my ear. I use it as a metronome, breathing in time with it, letting my shoulders drop and my throat loosen. A few minutes later my own heart starts to settle back into its normal rhythm.
As the panic fades away I breath in deeply and find myself wondering how it’s possible that River’s shirts smells so sexy when he’s been using my bog standard ‘cotton fresh’ detergent to wash them.
He must hear me sniffing him because he gently stops the squeeze and sits back. ‘Better?’ he asks, touching his hand lightly to my upper arm.
‘Better,’ I nod. How did you know to do that? The deep pressure thing?’
‘The animal behaviourist Temple Grandin discovered that applying deep pressure to cattle in a squeeze machine helps calm them down prior to being handled, and sometimes before slaughter. She figured out that it works on humans too.’
‘They slaughter humans in your universe?’
River laughs so loudly it makes me jump. ‘Of course not. Those Bedlam books of yours would be a very different genre if we did.’
‘I knew what you meant,’ I say, cheeks reddening because for a moment I totally didn’t.
After a few more moments of silence, River leans forward on the bench, arms resting across his knees.
He sighs. ‘You know, when my mother passed, I didn’t go to the funeral.
’ He swallows, wincing as if it hurts. ‘I went to a bar instead. Got drunk as a skunk. My daddy told me how disappointed Mom would have been in me, especially since her drinking was what put her in the ground. Told me I was an embarrassment to the Oakley name. But even then, I knew that wasn’t true.
I knew that the most important thing to my mom had always been that I was happy.
Sure, she’d have scolded me for getting drunk and missing her funeral, but she’d have understood it.
She’d have understood that that was the only way I knew how to deal with my grief in that moment.
I might not have had the honour of meeting your Josie, but from the way you talk about her?
The stories you tell me? I get the impression that she would understand why you hadn’t visited her yet.
And she might have given you shit for it, but at the end of it all, she’d just want you to be well and happy.
Whatever that looks like for you. Not her. Not your parents. Not Henry. Just you.’
I nod slowly. ‘She did want that. To the point of bossiness, actually.’ I laugh quietly.
‘Whenever we were ordering pizza, she’d ask me what toppings we should get.
I’d always say, “I don’t mind, whatever you think is best.” God, it used to wind her up.
She’d say, “But what do you actually want, Gertie? ‘Cos if you don’t pick something I’m gonna get plain tuna with an extra helping of tuna. ”’ I turn to him. ‘I hate tuna.’
‘So what do you actually want to do right now?’ River asks me, green eyes imploring. ‘Because if you need to leave, we should leave. We’ll figure something else out.’
‘I want to talk to my sister,’ I say with a shaky breath. ‘I’m just not sure I’ve got the courage.’
River stands up from the bench and holds his big calloused hand out towards me. ‘I know you’ve got the courage, Gertie. But I also happen to have a little extra of my own, if you’d like to borrow it? You know, just for back-up?’
I take his hand.
*
Kneeling on the parched ground at the foot of her headstone, I run my thumb over the engraving of the J on the cream marble.
‘And according to Facebook, Auntie Mags is still in a battle with her next-door neighbour about the planning permission for the orangery. I actually think she secretly enjoys the drama of it, to be honest with you. Righteous indignation is a hell of a drug. Oh, and I finally watched Con Air! You were right – it was an all-timer. I don’t know why I kept putting it off.
But I do not agree that Sean Connery is hot.
I’m sorry, but no way. His voice is weird.
What else, what else to tell you? There’s so much! ’
I take off my sunglasses and place them onto the grass beside me.
On the other side of the cemetery I spot River stopping to read every memorial before moving on to the next.
I’ve been sitting at Josie’s headstone for half an hour now.
I can feel the top of my head burning in the harsh glare of the sun.
I press my hands into the warm dry earth.
‘I’m sorry,’ I blurt out eventually. ‘I’m sorry for calling you a self-satisfied bitch.
I was so annoyed at you that day. And while you were sometimes – let’s be honest – a bit of a bitch, you were never, ever self-satisfied.
Which must have taken incredible willpower considering you were the best person on planet earth.
’ I pluck a strand of grass from the ground and run it through my finger and thumb, twisting it up into a little ball.
‘I’m sorry that we argued. I’m sorry I didn’t stop you from getting in your car when you were angry and distracted.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to turn up here. Just … I’m sorry.’
I get an image of her face, sharp discerning eyes twinkling with humour. I know exactly what her reply to my apology would be.
If you say sorry one more time, I’m going to wallop you.
‘Sorry for saying sorry,’ I murmur with a laugh, using the heel of my hand to wipe my cheek.
‘And just in case me snotting all over you didn’t make it clear enough – I miss you.
God, I miss you, Jo. I miss you singing jingles in the mornings and never needing a coffee to get going.
I miss us getting the giggles over things no one else in the world would possibly find funny.
I miss listening in to other people’s conversations in cafés with you, especially if there was a hint of drama.
I miss how pumped up you got when you saw a dog with an underbite, and how you always said thank you to the bus driver, even though that’s not the done thing in London.
I miss how every single experience in life, from a party, to queuing at the supermarket, to watching the regional news on a Tuesday night felt more exciting when you were there.
Like the fact that you had chosen to be there made the whole thing worthwhile.
I miss you looking at me like I made you feel that way too.
I miss you showing me how to be braver. Leading the way, believing in me enough for the both of us.
’ My breath hitches. I look down at her name etched in the stone and my bottom lip trembles.
Josie Bickerstaff
Beloved Daughter, Sister, Friend
‘Fuck.’ I stifle a sob. ‘I’m going to try to do that for myself now.
Be braver. Give it some oomph. I’ve been testing it out a little recently and you were right.
Being brave is really hard. But every time I do it, I feel a tiny bit more like myself.
Just like you said I would. I want to be the Gertie you saw in me.
I’m going to be the Gertie you saw in me.
I promise. No more burrowing away. No more settling for the sake of peace.
I hope you get to see me trying, Jo. Wherever you are. ’
As the tears stream down my increasingly sunburnt face, I close my eyes and allow myself to fully long for my sister. To sit with my grief. Give it space. Let it roam into every corner of me.
Ouch.
I manage about thirty seconds before I have to shove the feeling away.
Thirty seconds is something.
Thirty seconds is a start.
I climb to my feet, brushing the brittle grass off my knees and peering up at the sun from beneath my hand.
‘I should go,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I’m getting crispy.
Plus, River’s waiting. I’ll tell you all about River next week.
I’d say you wouldn’t believe it, but I know you probably would have.
The word “impossible” was never in your vocabulary.
All right then.’ I lift my hand in a wave.
‘I love you, Jo. And I miss you. See you soon.’
I lean the chamomile bunch neatly at the foot of her grave. And as I head back towards River a warm, pleasing sensation dances lightly through my chest.
I think it’s relief.