Chapter Fifty-Nine #2
She helped to settle him, put some more logs on the fire, switched on lamps, drew the curtains and then after placing a glass of water and a packet of tablets within easy reach, she left him alone.
She seemed to him to be the woman she once was, the woman she’d been before Hugh’s death – capable and caring and quite unlike the shattered woman Nina had described and whom he’d expected to encounter today, the wreck of a woman he’d come to help.
What a joke that was; he was the one who was a wreck and in need of help!
They ate in the sitting room, off trays, and the conversation was mostly about the puppy which Hilary would be collecting in a few days.
‘No doubt you know that it was actually Nina’s idea for me to have a dog,’ she explained, ‘and at first, I resented her suggesting it. Again, you probably know that too, but now that it’s all happening, I can’t remember when I felt so excited about something.
Can you believe I’m even using a word like excited? ’
‘It sounds good, Hilary,’ he said and meant it. ‘I’m pleased for you. And how are you in general? I know about the incident in John Lewis and that—’
‘Please don’t say any more!’ she interrupted him. ‘It’s enough that you know about it.’
Knowing that he had to tread carefully, he said, ‘Have you spoken to anyone about what you did and why?’
‘Not specifically about my compulsion to steal baby clothes, if that’s what you’re asking.
I know why I did it. It’s obvious. The shame of being caught, and of Nina also knowing about it, was enough to bring me to my senses.
I won’t relapse. I know I won’t. What’s more, I’ve given all the things I took to a charity. ’
‘Do you think that turning to Nina was in some way a cry for help?’ he suggested.
‘As dramatic as you make it sound,’ Hilary answered with a small sniff, ‘I suppose that’s what it was.
In my panic after I was caught and was being questioned, Nina, with her calm composure, was the only one who I trusted not to overreact.
Also, her opinion of me was at rock bottom already, so it couldn’t get any worse, could it?
She was extremely good with me. There was no judgement from her, only practical help. ’
‘Hugh would have been proud of her.’
‘Yes,’ Hilary said softly. Then putting her tray and empty plate on the coffee table in front of them, and taking his tray from him as well, she said, ‘And it’s because of Nina that I found the courage to join a support group for parents who are grieving for the death of a child.
It’s not online like the group you joined, but we actually sit in a circle and take it in turns to speak.
That’s if we want to. I don’t always, it’s enough just to listen sometimes.
I have to say, the common denominating factor amongst us, is how angry we all feel.
Someone joked that we should rename it as an anger management group and maybe we should take up boxing classes. ’
Keith smiled his understanding and was about to say that he wouldn’t mind joining that himself, when she said, ‘Well then, I suppose you’re here to talk about the divorce, aren’t you? So shall we get down to it?’
Taken aback, he swallowed and marshalled his thoughts.
Divorce wasn’t the first thing he wanted to bring up; there was something else he needed to say before that.
Originally, he had been in two minds about telling Hilary about his visit to the spiritualist church with Diane, but since it had been such an important turning point for him, he wanted Hilary to know about it.
‘Firstly,’ he began, ‘I want to apologise for walking out on you the way I did. It was brutal how I did it and cowardly that I blamed you for pushing me away, and at a time when you needed me most.’
‘It’s true, I did push you away, but then you had someone to go to, so I didn’t need to push too hard, did I? Would you have gone if there hadn’t been anyone?’
Her extreme reasonableness and the unwavering manner of her gaze was quite unnerving. ‘It’s a fair question,’ he said, ‘and probably the honest answer is no.’
‘Apology accepted,’ she said briskly, sounding as if she were moving on to the next point on the agenda of their meeting.
‘And it seems only fair that I should apologise for my own part in the breakdown of our relationship. That’s something I’ve learnt at the group, how many relationships unravel following the death of a child, no matter the age of that child.
You’d think it would bring couples closer together, wouldn’t you, that we’d be united in grief?
But then you know all this already, don’t you? That was how you were able to move on.’
He sighed. ‘I wish that were true,’ he said. ‘That was my mistake, thinking that I had come to terms with losing Hugh, or at least believing that I had managed my grief. I’ve since realised I’d merely suppressed it and then a few days ago, it all came spewing out.’
And as much as he’d rather forget the incident had ever happened, he told Hilary about Diane’s unexpected interest in spiritualism and how he’d been talked into accompanying her to the church she had become so taken with.
‘I didn’t believe in any of it,’ he explained, ‘I’ve never had any time for that kind of thing, you know that, but I went to please Diane. To keep the peace.’
Hilary rolled her eyes at that. ‘It always annoyed me when you did that, did something for the sake of keeping the peace, it was as if you were martyring yourself. So what happened when you went to this spiritualist church?’
He blinked and went on. ‘The church had a visiting medium and my mind had wandered while the woman was supposedly in some kind of trance and then suddenly Diane was whispering that the medium had a message for me from Hugh.’
Hilary stiffened at that, and her expression intensified. ‘And?’ she said sharply.
‘And apparently Hugh was happy, and I wasn’t to worry about him or be sad.
He wanted me to know that he’d been prepared for his death, and it came as a merciful release, and I was to get on with enjoying my life, that I had to look to the future.
Death wasn’t the end, he wanted me to know, only the start of a new and better journey. ’
Visibly distressed and a hand now covering her mouth, Hilary said, ‘What rubbish! Hugh wouldn’t speak like that. He didn’t want to die when he had everything to live for! He wasn’t prepared! He wanted to live!’ Her voice shook and tears filled her eyes.
If he’d been able to, Keith would have leant forwards and reached for her hand, but as it was, he said, ‘That’s basically how I reacted.
But not so politely. I was on my feet and raging like a man possessed.
I completely lost it. I accused the medium of deceiving vulnerable people, of lying and telling people what they wanted to hear.
Then I turned on Diane. I accused her of being complicit in the con, of forcing me to go to that awful place just to convince me that I should get on with enjoying my life with her. ’
He paused and took a shuddery breath. ‘I shouted at her, right there, in front of everyone. She was crying and I didn’t care.
I just kept on yelling at her. Someone tried to stop me and I …
I think I must have shoved him harder than I meant to because he went over and while everyone fussed over him, I escaped. ’
After a lengthy silence, Hilary spoke. ‘What made you react the way you did?’ she asked.
‘It was hearing a stranger talking about Hugh and using him in that cheap manipulative way. I just couldn’t bear it.’ His voice cracked. ‘It broke me. It broke my heart.’
Another silence passed between them while he stared wretchedly into the fire.
‘Was there a moment when you wanted to believe it was Hugh?’
Surprised at the question, Keith looked at Hilary. ‘No!’
‘Are you sure?’
He hesitated before answering. ‘On one level, maybe, that’s what these charlatans rely on, a desperate need for the void to be filled. But to my mind, to believe would be an act of delusion, an act of self-harm.’
‘Yet presumably it gave Diane some sort of comfort?’
‘That’s what I found so hard to accept, that she could be taken in so easily.’
‘What happened after you’d escaped?’
He rubbed a hand over his face, recalling the humiliation. ‘I had to wait outside for Diane to appear. She’d driven us there and I had no way of getting back to her place to pack up my things. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d refused to let me get in the car with her. But she did.’
‘I would have left you there to sort yourself out,’ Hilary muttered.
He smiled faintly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I believe you would have.’
‘Is it over between the two of you?’
He nodded.
‘Where are you staying now?’
‘Would you believe, I’m just up the road at Madingley Hall?’
‘A home from home for you,’ she said, rising to her feet and putting a log on the fire, followed by another. ‘You used to be there all the time before you retired.’
‘Yes,’ he said, thinking of all the conferences he’d attended there during his many years working for ARJ IT Developments PLC, the multinational consulting company based at the Business Park in Cambridge.
He’d always enjoyed his job and had given it his all.
He had never really thought of what life would be like once he retired, but then retirement had coincided with Hugh’s death, and he knew that he’d lost a huge part of himself when those two things had collided and crashed into him.
He’d never spoken at the time how he’d felt about his work life coming to an end; how could he when it was so puny and insignificant compared to losing his son?
‘I’m going to put the kettle on for a cup of tea, would you like one?’ Hilary asked, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Or would you prefer another whisky?’
‘Tea would be great,’ he said, once more overwhelmed with gratitude at her kindness.
She stacked their plates onto one of the trays and carried it to the door but then looked back at him. ‘Tomorrow we should discuss what’s going to happen next. For now, I would suggest you stay here for the night as I don’t see you returning to Madingley Hall in the state you’re in.’
‘Are you sure that’s okay?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t have suggested it if I wasn’t sure.’
‘Thank you,’ he murmured.
‘Then in the morning, we’ll consider your position.’
Somehow, she made the words your position sound both hopeful and hopeless.