Once in a Lifetime (18 page)

‘Is everything all right?’ she asked Carlos now.

No, it’s all brilliant,’ Carlos said. ‘You’re brilliant,’ he added fervently. ‘Just came in to chat.’ He picked up a newspaper from her desk and sat scanning it.

Ingrid smiled. Carlos was brilliant too, but quite mad with his wandering around at high speed.

It was flattering that he admired her professionally, too. She’d never felt that she was an impostor, that one day, she’d be recognised as such and fired. Lots of women did, she knew, millions of them, unsure of their own abilities and convinced that they were in high-paying jobs by mistake and that one day, the mistake would be realised.

Finding out what made people tick was like a drug. Some people got a buzz from sex or drugs: Ingrid got it from finally putting a piece of a mental jigsaw in place, like Archimedes shouting ‘Eureka!’ Earlier, she’d been in one of the endless programme meetings discussing the rest of the week’s output and looking at footage for that night’s show. But this, research into a real person, was what she loved best.

Her mobile phone rang.

She picked it up and saw that it was David’s office number.

‘Hello, love,’ she said cheerfully, expecting to hear that he wouldn’t be home for dinner. She’d asked Mrs Hendron to defrost a free-range chicken and put it in the oven with the timer set to start cooking at six.

‘Ingrid -‘ It wasn’t David, it was Stacey, his right-hand woman.

‘Sorry, Stacey, I thought it was the man himself,’ Ingrid said easily. ‘How are things? Did he forget to tell me he’s due in Ulan Bator tonight and won’t be home?’

Stacey didn’t pick up on the joke. There was no laughter, only silence. With an instinct Ingrid hadn’t known she’d possessed, she understood then that there was something very wrong.

‘What is it, Stacey, what’s wrong?’ she begged.

‘Oh, Ingrid, I don’t know how to tell you this but, I came in and he was at the window and ‘

‘- and?’ Ingrid urged in panic.

‘- He’s dead, Ingrid. I’ve called the ambulance. Dolores is our first-aid specialist in the store, but she says there’s nothing anyone can do. David’s dead.’

Ingrid dropped the phone on to the desk where it banged loudly.

‘What is it?’ Carlos reached over the desk and grabbed her because it looked as if she might faint.

‘David,’ she said blankly. ‘Stacey says he’s dead.’

‘Fuck.’

Carlos helped her into her chair, ran into the corridor and called for help, then went back and picked up the phone she’d dropped.

‘This is Carlos Monroe,’ he said, ‘a colleague of Ingrid’s.

To whom am I speaking?’

Ingrid was vaguely aware of Carlos talking and of someone else coming in and hugging her, and leaving to get a cup of very strong, sweet tea.

‘Brandy would be better,’ said a voice.

‘Brandy gives you heart attacks,’ said someone else. ‘Tea’s the best thing, with sugar.’

‘Whiskey, maybe?’

‘Now’s not the time to be dispensing drinks. Her husband’s just died.’ They sounded exasperated. ‘We should get a doctor, she’s in shock.’

‘Should we drive her to Kenny’s?’

‘No, I don’t think so. She doesn’t need to see his body, not yet.’

His body.

‘Why the hell did you phone her? Why not phone one of us so we could break it to her gently?’ Carlos was demanding on the phone.

Ingrid was conscious of all this conversation and yet she couldn’t have joined in any more than she could lift the cup of tea beside her. She felt other worldly, like she was floating on the ceiling looking down. There but not there. Everything was so unreal. David couldn’t be dead, not her David. She must be having one of those fearful waking dreams; perhaps if she was very quiet, she’d slip back into proper sleep again

and then wake up to a new day, a day where David was lying beside her in the bed.

He couldn’t be taken away from her. He was so much of her life, the man she loved. She couldn’t go on without him.

Didn’t they know that?

‘Ingrid, look at me, please.’

She managed to focus enough to see her assistant Gloria kneeling in front of her. Gloria was so efficient, she’d sort all this out. David wasn’t dead. That was a crazy idea. Nobody who was as full of life as David could possibly be dead.

‘You’ll phone him, won’t you?’ she asked Gloria. ‘Deal with this mess. I don’t know what’s wrong with Stacey, you see.’

Gloria was not one of life’s touchy-feely people. She didn’t hug people hello or kiss their cheeks twice or three times. But now, she took Ingrid’s hands in hers and held on tightly, comfortingly. ‘Ingrid, there’s no mess, no mistake. We’ve spoken to Stacey. The ambulance men are there now and there’s nothing they can do. They don’t know what happened, probably a heart attack.’

It was like letting a glass drop on her kitchen floor: instantly, it would shatter noisily sending shards everywhere. Gloria’s words made it past the hope that Ingrid had constructed in her mind. It was going to be fine, David couldn’t be gone…

That hope smashed.

David was not coming back. She would never see him again.

Ingrid held on to Gloria’s hands for comfort, but there was none. She couldn’t cry. Instead, she closed her eyes and swayed rhythmically back and forth, keening silently. Nobody in Ingrid’s office said a word. There was nothing they could say.

When Gloria had cleared everyone out, she pushed another cup of tea over to Ingrid.

‘Please drink some of this one,’ she said. ‘You’re in shock.’

Obediently, Ingrid picked it up and drank. She usually liked sweet tea but this tasted metallic and strange. She grimaced.

‘Keep drinking,’ Gloria said.

‘It’s awful.’

‘Shock,’ Gloria replied.

‘Shock makes tea taste horrible?’

‘Shock makes everything horrible. Ingrid, we have a few things to do. What do you want to do first? I mean, we have to tell the children ‘

The organising part of Ingrid’s mind flexed into motion, like a well-exercised muscle that had been honed over years of work. It was a relief to feel it, a relief to move away from the absolute pain of knowing that David was dead. ‘The children, I have to tell them. And David’s aunt, and my sisters.

The children … I can reach Molly so easily, but Ethan, it’s going to be harder to find him.’

It was as if her mind was protecting her by making her think of other people: if she had to focus on her beloved children and what their father’s death meant to them, then she didn’t need to focus on how awful it was for her.

‘I’ll phone Molly, then, shall I?’ Gloria was ready to do it.

‘Or do you want to tell one of her friends first, so there’s someone with her?’

Ingrid wanted to hold up her hand to halt it all, because if Gloria made that call, then it would be true.

‘No, she needs to know now, she’d want that,’ Ingrid said bleakly. ‘I should tell her in person.’

The idea of telling Molly was shattering. Ingrid buried her face in her hands for a few moments, trying to calm herself.

‘Ingrid, you’re not in any state to go to Molly’s office.

Phone her,’ said Gloria. ‘Perhaps there’s someone there you can tell first, who can bring her here …?’

Ingrid shook her head. ‘It has to be Natalie - Molly’s best friend. She works in Kenny’s, in the cafe.’

If Ingrid herself couldn’t be with Molly, then Natalie would be the next best thing.

‘Should I phone her first?’

‘No. Molly first.’

She let Gloria scroll down through her numbers to find Molly’s and click ‘dial’.

She took the phone from Gloria and thought of all the things only a parent was supposed to do. Take your child to their first day at school, comfort them when they were teased, hug them when they had their hearts broken. Telling them their father was dead shouldn’t be on the list.

‘Hi, Mum, how are you?’ Molly’s voice was happy and Ingrid winced.

‘Molly, love -‘ she began.

‘Mum. What’s wrong? You sound strange.’

‘It’s your dad,’ Ingrid said. ‘We think it was a heart attack.’

‘What - How is he?’

Ingrid covered her eyes with her hand. ‘He’s dead, my love.

I’m so sorry.’

Natalie had burned herself on the coffee machine’s milk frother again.

‘Bloody machine,’ she said, reaching up into the first-aid cabinet to get the burn spray. She’d done exactly the same thing last week and steam burns were so painful.

‘I think that thing doesn’t like you,’ said Hugh, the cafe manager, who’d rushed up to see if everything was all right.

‘I could hit it next time I pass.’

Natalie grinned at him. Hugh, according to everyone else in the cafe, fancied her and was always hovering around her, big hang-dog eyes staring with longing. Natalie didn’t believe a word of it. Hugh was interested in films and so was she: that was all. And his big love was sci-fi television shows. He’d been to three conventions in the past year already and was booked for a whole week for the Science Fest in Killarney in April. He swore he didn’t dress up, but Natalie didn’t entirely believe him. Hugh reminded her of the kids she used to go to Special Education with: sweet, vulnerable, and used to being laughed at.

‘Will I spray the sore bit for you?’ Hugh asked solicitously.

Natalie’s grin faltered a little. ‘Er, no, thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s best to do it yourself, don’t you think?’

‘Natalie!’ roared Siobhain. ‘Phone call for you in the office.’

Natalie sprayed another blast of burn spray on her hand before looking at Hugh to see his expression. He didn’t look irritated at this interruption into the working day, the way he might if another member of staff had a phone call. In fact, he still looked slightly dopey as he gazed at her. Natalie shoved the first-aid kit away, smiled and rushed off to the office.

Everyone was right: Hugh did fancy her. She had a sudden mental vision of Hugh in a Star Trek outfit and shuddered.

She needed to mention that she had a date coming up with a gorgeous man named Rory. It was best to let him down gently, because he was sweet.

‘Hello?’

‘Is that Natalie?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’ Natalie examined the steam burn. She was tired, that was why she’d burned herself. She’d been up late working and even though Michelle, chief barista, was of the opinion that any muppet could operate the coffee machines, Natalie knew that staring into space with exhaustion while you made cappuccino was a sure-fire way to disaster.

‘… Molly’s father … Ingrid would love you to go to her.

Talk to someone in the director’s office, they’ll organise a cab for you …’

‘What?’ Natalie hadn’t been paying attention.

‘Molly’s father, David Kenny, is dead, Natalie. I work for her mother and she wondered if you could go to Molly. She’s very upset.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Natalie. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘None of us do, but unfortunately it’s true.’

Shock made people confused, Ingrid knew this. She’d read about the physical effects on the body and how the stress hormone,

cortisol, flooded the nervous system and had an instant impact, raising the heart rate and blood pressure. Like so many things she knew, Ingrid had read about it in a dispassionate, removed way for a piece on the negative effects of stress on human beings.

She remembered interviewing a politician who’d been widowed a year previously when his wife died after a long battle with cancer. At the time, Ingrid had agonised over her questions, wanting to ask the right ones, wanting to understand his pain without making it worse for the sake of her interview. She’d thought she’d done it.

‘You must miss her a great deal,’ she’d said, half-question, half-statement. Enough of a question for a professional politician to answer. That, coupled with Ingrid’s own empathy and charisma as she leaned towards him, had the desired effect.

No offence had been taken, no frisson that she’d gone too , far into a private grief.

‘I do,’ the politician had said quietly. ‘She was with me all my adult life and now she’s gone. It’s fine when I’m out of the house, but when I step back inside my own front door…’ Ingrid had let the pause last, waiting him out. In television, the pauses were often what made the best moments.

‘- it’s like she’s only just gone. I can almost believe she’s going to come out of the kitchen to greet me.’

The memory of that electric television moment was like a slap in the face as Ingrid stood behind Gloria in the hall and heard the dogs scrabbling around behind the kitchen door, trying to get to her.

Ingrid had thought she’d been as gentle as possible with that man on her show but now, in her own cold hall with her own husband dead, she felt the politician’s naked pain again and wanted to phone him and apologise.

‘I know now, she’d have said. I understand. I didn’t before, but I do now. I’m sorry I asked you all that.

He’d been in absolute agony and she hadn’t understood. It was as if the world was divided into two camps: those in pain and those not, and the ones in pain could recognise it in each other’s hollow-eyed and numb faces. In the right camp, you knew the people there understood. But among the untouched, the ones who hadn’t lost everything, then you were utterly isolated. If she rang that politician up, he’d understand and he might tell her what to do next.

‘Right,’ said Gloria, dropping Ingrid’s keys on to the hall table.

Once you were widowed, you weren’t allowed to open your own door. Gloria had taken her house keys and opened the door for her, as well as turning off the alarm.

‘Right,’ Gloria said again. ‘Tea - we could make tea. A nice cup would help.’

Decision made, she walked towards the kitchen, opened the door and unleashed two delighted dogs who at once began leaping up with excitement.

Seeing their eager dogginess made Ingrid want to weep. She’d left them this morning and everything had been fine, normal.