Walking Away
They had to walk some distance before either of them could speak and even then, ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Marnie.
‘No.’
‘Should we have stayed with them, do you think?’
‘I asked that and they said no, and look …’
They turned back and saw other figures arriving, an ambulance on the road below, a Land Rover too, pitching unsteadily on the low slopes as it climbed over rough ground. They watched for a moment, then turned and walked on. ‘What was it like?’
They all seemed in a state of shock. No one was crying. That would come, and for the moment they were too dazed, too numb to do anything but stand there and wait. He was ashamed to realise that he couldn’t remember their names, but Brian’s daughter-in-law, the only one who seemed able to speak, had told him that it had happened very quickly, that Brian had sat down and then lain down and they’d all laughed at him at first, at his hangover. Come on, Dad, keep up! But then they realised he was already gone. They did what they could but … ‘I’m very sorry,’ Michael had said. ‘He seemed like a very nice man.’ And his daughter-in-law had said thank you, and yes, he really was, and please don’t wait, people are coming to help, we’re fine, you’re kind, it was nice to meet you both, nothing you can do.
For a moment, running towards them, he had thought he might save the day. He was trained for these things, he had strategies and procedures, but like Marnie, he’d seen the pale hand, its palm upwards, fingers slightly curled and, shamefully, he realised that the instinct to comfort and assist was no match for a compulsion to get very far away and to demote these people, whom he had spent time with, whom last night he might have called friends, back to strangers. Perhaps the daughter-in-law had sensed this: ‘Really, there’s nothing to do here.’ Brian’s two sons stood immobile a few feet apart, eyes set on the ground, as if they didn’t want to be disturbed. He’d looked to Barbara, but she had turned her back and was staring towards the east, to the horizon, calm for now, though you could sense the rumble of terrible grief rolling towards her. ‘Really, thank you, but you can go,’ said the older son, so he’d nodded, turned and now here they were, walking away.
They didn’t speak much for the rest of the morning. The day had become vicious and bleached out, the promise of the morning discarded, the beauty of the scenery dishonest. To remark on the view as if it were some consolation would have been trite and so they descended through boggy ground to a lane then a river, the Swale.
‘I realise,’ she said, ‘that I’ve never seen that before,’ she said. ‘Have you?’
‘No. No, both parents still alive. Dad’s frailer now, a cancer scare, but he’s all right.’
‘How’s your mother?’
‘Healthy. She has her piano, her church. I don’t see them as often as I should.’
‘Who does?’
‘Yours?’
‘They don’t move much but they’re alive. I phone them, but when I’m doing something else. I’ve got to clean the fridge, best phone Mum.’
‘That’s what I do.’
‘Even so, I can’t imagine …’ She tilted her head back to the hill. ‘I dread that. Just dread it. Are you close?’
‘To my dad? No, but I don’t think he minds. He’s … traditional. We don’t really talk like that.’
‘Like what?’
He looked for the word. ‘Normally.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘A little. I tried once or twice, to talk about, I don’t know, love or emotions, almost like a dare and you could see the panic in his eyes. Don’t ever do that again. Dad’s closer to Natasha if anything, adores her. I mean it was embarrassing, how moony he used to get, all tongue-tied. The only time I’ve seen him cry was on our wedding day. He hated her moving out, they both did, but we don’t talk about it. And my mum’s quite religious, conservative, so she didn’t understand and, I don’t know, it’s a mess.’ They were at the valley floor now, a wide, lush plain, the Swale a broad black ribbon draped along its length. He asked suddenly, ‘Do you worry about being alone?’
‘In life? In general or when I die?’
‘Both.’
‘I am alone. ’S all right. A lot of the time I quite like it. No one to please but myself. I work, I read. And I’ve dreaded someone coming home, so compared to that, it’s bliss.’
‘Did you dread it?’
‘By the end I did.’ She shrugged. ‘I realise that this sounds like I’m putting on a brave face, but we make too big a deal about being alone. People aren’t meant to spend their whole adult lives with one other person. In fact, very few do. Well, not very few, but your parents, mine, they’re not the majority. And lots of people live without a life partner. I don’t know why this perfectly common thing’s thought of as odd or sad.’
‘No, I know. But living alone for the rest of your life, being alone when you die, d’you think about that?’
‘No, course not.’ They walked on. ‘Every now and then.’