45. Grief and yearning – 2002
‘This move is very inconvenient. Your presence would have been helpful.’ Anton took his suitcase out of the boot. Ursula could tell by the way he wrenched at it that he was more than a notch above irritated.
‘I’ll be sure to pass on your sentiments to Mum and Solly.’ Years ago, he’d have given her a pained smile and asked if she was teasing him. All she got today was a blank look and a short sigh. ‘It’s only a fortnight. Your team will give you all the support you need.’
‘I’ll call when I get to Stockholm. Keep your phone on.’
‘Don’t I always?’
She waited until he was out of sight before getting back into the Volvo, the family car for a family that almost was.
Every time she sat in it she was reminded of that fact and she hated every square inch of it.
Their son would have been nineteen now. At university, probably.
She allowed herself a moment to let the grief settle.
It never went away. Not really. But some days it was more active than others.
Although lately she was beginning to ask herself if it really was grief she was experiencing and not just a plain old yearning for the things she couldn’t have. Maybe the two were the same thing.
She drove home, swapped cars and went on to her mum’s flat.
She and Solly were moving to Eastbourne today.
Cass was going with them. After two years of sleeping in Ursula’s old room, she was moving into her own place near them.
Although he didn’t know it, the move had been planned to coincide with Anton’s trip.
It had been fairly easy keeping Cass’s return a secret which just went to show how separate their lives had become.
The removals men were closing up the van as she arrived. Solly and Cass went shortly after them, leaving Ursula and her mum to have a quiet moment alone in their old home.
‘I’ll miss this place. It meant such a lot to have somewhere of our own,’ said her mum.
‘I’ll miss it too. Will you have a sewing room in the new house?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. I’ve left everything with Andi for now. I didn’t think Anton would want them cluttering up his nice, neat house.’
‘True. Are you ready to go?’
‘I think so.’ She pressed her palm against the door as she locked it up for the last time. ‘Goodbye, old friend.’
Ursula touched the door too. That feeling was upon her again. Grief and yearning.
Her mum was watching her. ‘You’ll be all right without me here, won’t you, love?’
Ursula’s face creased into a frowny smile. ‘Of course I will.’
‘You’ve got to keep fighting, Ursula. Keep some control. Small acts–’
‘Of defiance. Yes, I know.’ She rolled her eyes. She might have cried if she hadn’t given that up long ago.
After a chaotic but lovely week in Eastbourne, Ursula was on the way home.
Anton wasn’t due back for another six days and the thought of all that freedom gave her a happy buzz.
She’d promised to call in on Andi first so she took a detour to the north of the city.
It could have waited for another day but Andi had mentioned Pablo would be out and any opportunity to miss him was one to be seized upon.
To her dismay it was Pab who answered the door. Zak was on his shoulders and Jet was hanging onto his leg. ‘Say hello to Auntie Ursula, kids.’
‘Hello Auntie Ursula,’ they said, almost together.
Ursula fixed a smile on to hide the anxiety that came every time he was around. ‘I’ve brought presents. Who wants a present from the seaside?’
The kids screamed with delight. Pablo put Zak down. ‘All right, calm down. If they’re full of E numbers, Ursula, you are dead.’
‘No E numbers, just things that make a lot of noise.’ She gave the children a bag each. It was a mistake because they ran off with their prizes, leaving her alone with Pablo.
He leaned in, too closely as always, and closed the door behind her. ‘In that case, I am definitely going to kill you.’
She stiffened, despite willing herself not to. ‘I thought you were out today.’
The kids were calling her and she tried to follow them but he moved so that she couldn’t get past. ‘Change of plan. Couldn’t miss seeing you, could I?’
‘Is Andi here?’ No matter how much she tried to force a smile this time, it wouldn’t come.
‘She’s gone to get wine. Apparently you’re staying tonight.’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Try telling her that.’ He was right up close to her now. There was hardly a breath between them.
The front door swung open and they both turned to see Andi, her eyes flitting from Pablo to Ursula, and back to Pablo again.
He sprang into action, grabbing the shopping bags off her. ‘I was just telling Ursula she’s staying the night.’
‘Yeah, I thought you might want some company.’ Andi smiled but she wasn’t entirely happy. Ursula could tell.
‘I’m all right. Really.’ She had no desire whatsoever to spend the night under the same roof as Pab. But then she caught a look in Andi’s eyes and she realised the suggestion hadn’t been for her benefit. ‘Okay, why not?’
‘Great. Pab’s going to the pub later, so it’ll be just you and me.’
That at least, was something to be grateful for.
He stuck around for an uncomfortable dinner and then left.
Ursula put the kids to bed while Andi cleared up.
She read them a story and stayed with them until they fell asleep.
When she got back downstairs, Andi handed her a glass of wine and they settled on the sofa.
Ursula was expecting her to ask about that moment in the hall but she said something else: ‘I think Pab’s having an affair. ’
It didn’t come as a complete shock. In fact, she’d have been surprised if it was the first time. Not that she was ever going to say that to Andi. ‘What makes you think that?’
‘You can read the signs, can’t you?’
Yes, you could. It was the disinterest in you and anything related to you.
The door closing for certain phone calls.
The extra time taken in the bathroom. Coming home smelling freshly showered but with the smell of stale sex lingering on his underpants.
All pieces of the same puzzle. ‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I don’t know.’ A tear slid out of Andi’s right eye and ran down her cheek. ‘Do you think he’s going to leave me?’
‘I don’t know, mate. I’m not close enough to him. Have you asked him?’
The tear had reached Andi’s jawline now and she swept it away with the back of her hand. ‘I’m scared of what the answer will be.’
‘Anton’s having an affair. Well, he’s having sex with someone other than me.’
‘Anton? But he’s so–’
‘Boring?’
‘Fixated on you. Are you sure?’
Ursula shrugged. ‘I can read the signs too. And he’s not very good at hiding them. Although that might be deliberate.’
Andi looked shocked. She was probably used to Pab doing all he could to hide his cheating. It must be hard to understand why Anton was going out of his way to make it obvious. ‘Do you think he’s trying to make you jealous?’
‘Maybe. It’s a punishment for something. Well, it would be if I cared.’
‘Urs, are you saying you don’t love him anymore?’
‘I’m not certain I ever really did love him.
I thought I did, but I was so young and na?ve.
’ It was the first time she’d admitted that to anyone, including herself, but it was another of those things she’d been considering lately.
And she couldn’t help thinking it had a lot to do with grief and yearning. Particularly yearning.
‘Will you leave him then?’
‘Where would I go? Anyway, I can’t.’
‘Yes you can. Hey, we could run away together with the kids. We’ll leave those two bastards behind.’
Ursula laughed. ‘Okay. Let me know when you get to that point.’
‘You said he’s punishing you for something. Can you tell me what?’
‘He thinks I’m in love with someone else.’
‘It’s not, it’s not Pab, is it?’
‘What?’ Her mouth fell open. It was the shock of what she’d just heard, what Andi was accusing her of. ‘Absolutely not. How could you even think I’d do that to you? I don’t even like… I have never felt that way about Pab. Never. And I never will.’
‘Sorry. It’s just that he talks about you a lot. And when you said… I’m sorry. I was way out of order. Of course you wouldn’t do that.’
Ursula was too angry to answer. If she hadn’t had so much wine, she’d have got in her car and left.
But she was stuck here with her supposed best friend.
She’d like to have told Andi what she really thought of Pablo, and that far from screwing him, she wouldn’t touch the creep with a ten-foot barge pole.
But she knew if she did say those things she’d regret it when she sobered up.
So she ignored her indignation and put her arm around Andi.
‘We’ve both had too much to drink. Perhaps we should call it a night and go to bed. ’
Andi made up a sofa bed in the lounge for her and said goodnight. Ursula pulled the quilt up to her neck. She was still angry but the drive from Eastbourne and the wine had worn her out and she went straight to sleep.
It felt like she’d only just shut her eyes when the creak of the door forced them open again.
The light from the hall framed Pab’s silhouette in the doorway.
She lay completely still while he stayed there watching her.
He was swaying a little. Drunk, probably.
It was a good fifteen minutes before the door closed and the room was back in darkness.
Even so, she waited a beat or two before breathing, in case her eyes were playing tricks on her and he still was in the room.
Finally sure he was gone, she tried to relax enough to doze back off.
But then she remembered something Andi had said: ‘He talks about you a lot,’ and there was no chance in hell she was going to sleep again in this house.
Pab was still in bed when she got up and Andi was behaving as if nothing had happened last night. Ursula took the hint and didn’t mention it either, but she left as soon as she was washed and dressed.
She only stayed at home long enough to dump her case and get changed, and then she was straight out to the allotments. Marcie and Gordon were on their plot when she got there. ‘We’re not stopping long,’ said Gordon. ‘Just come to get the week’s veg before the rain comes in.’
‘Oh I haven’t seen the forecast. Is it going to be bad?’
‘Bad enough.’
She made a start on pulling up her own vegetables for the week ahead, before it got too unpleasant.
The air hung heavily around her and she could feel the nearness of the rain.
She ought to go home, but where was home?
Certainly not that prison she lived in. She couldn’t even go to her mum’s anymore.
And now that Andi’s house was off-limits, this was the only place she could think of that felt anything like it.
The first spots came down. Marcie and Gordon packed up their things and waved goodbye.
Ursula carried on until it was too wet to do anything other than retreat to the shed.
She put the camping stove on and warmed her hands while she waited for the kettle to boil.
Great globs of sleety rain fell from the broody sky and lashed at the window.
There wasn’t another soul around. But then she saw a tall, broad figure coming through the gate and along the path.
She opened the door and called to him: ‘Samuel.’
He ran to her. His big frame crowding her in the small shed. ‘We are two mad fools to come out in this.’
Mad or lonely. She opened up a fold out chair. ‘Here, take a seat. I’m making coffee.’ She made his strong, sweet and milky, the way he liked it.
He wrapped his long, thick fingers around the mug. ‘I don’t think we’ll get a lot done today, Ursula.’
‘Did you forget to check the forecast as well?’
‘No. I knew it was going to be bad, but it was here or church. What about you?’
‘Here or home. Or my friend’s home. But that’s not too welcoming right now.’
‘You want to tell me?’ It’s not like we got anything else to do.’
And that was the cue she needed to tell him all about Pablo and Andi. ‘I don’t know why she stands him. She could do much better.’
‘Maybe she don’t want to.’
‘Yeah, that would be it. He’s like a drug to her. But I’m no better. My marriage is hardly the best example.’
‘Ursula, my friend, I wish I could take it away from you.’
‘Take what?’’
‘The sadness. I see it weighing you down and I wish I could take that burden from you.’
Was it really that obvious? She concentrated on the coffee swirling around the inside her mug.
‘I lost a baby. A boy. A miscarriage they call it, don’t they?
I always think that sounds like he was some kind of easily forgotten malfunction.
I’ve tried to leave him in the past, but…
Perhaps if we’d had more children he would have been easier to let go. ’
Samuel held her hand. She felt a sensation in her breast that made her breathless. ‘Priscilla and me, we lost a son. He died when he was three. I would never let him go’.
‘I didn’t realise. It must have been so hard for you both.’
‘We dealt with it in our own ways. Priscilla went to church. My way was different. I’m not a great talker when it comes to my boy, but I feel it.
When I’m watching the sun go down, I know he’s with me.
I got four kids alive but he’s as real as them.
Just because your boy didn’t get born, there is nothing wrong in keeping him with you.
Never forget that, Ursula. And if that Spanish fella comes bothering you again, you tell me. Me and Clyde will see to him.’