Three-And-A-Half Heartbeats (25 page)

‘You don’t feel odd about it?’ he asked, cautiously.

Grace rubbed her eyes. ‘Yes, of course I do. Even a bit jealous, if I’m being honest. But would I want to deny her the joys of being a mum? No, of course not. I know how brilliant it will be.’

‘You are one amazing lady, Grace Penderford.’

‘I don’t feel like an amazing lady, I feel like one who’s trying not to drown.’

‘Happy birthday,’ he whispered, still unsure if he should kiss or touch her.

She sighed, grateful that he did neither. ‘Oh God, yes, my birthday. I had quite forgotten. Thanks, Tom. And I really love my frame.’

Grace ran her fingers over the jewelled edge and smiled at the blobs of glue that an enthusiastic Chloe had daubed on the edges. And, just like that, she pictured her working dextrously with her little tongue poking from the side of her mouth. And, just like that, she was back to crying, folded over and inconsolable at her loss.

These tears, however, felt a bit different, tasted different. They’d lost their metallic sour notes and seemed fresher, lighter, almost cathartic.

Sepsis – if you suspect it, say so. Effective treatment in the first hour can double the patient’s chance of survival

Grace opened and closed the cupboards, searching for something to make for supper. Her appetite had improved a little in recent weeks and she had lost a little of the sharp-edged emaciation that had altered her face in the immediate aftermath of Chloe’s death.

‘Do you want me to make something?’ Tom offered as he came into the kitchen.

‘Don’t think there’s much to make anything from.’ She looked over her shoulder at the man she cohabited with and sometimes ate with, but didn’t sleep with; sex and any real physical contact were still too much to contemplate.

‘I think there might be fish fingers in the freezer,’ he said.

‘We had them for lunch the day before yesterday,’ she reminded him, knowing how easy it was to lose track.

‘So we did,’ Tom said. ‘How about we go to the pub?’

‘The pub?’ Grace furrowed her brow. They hadn’t been out socially for a long, long time and to do so felt like a big step. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘Come on, it’ll be nice. We can just go grab a table in the corner, order scampi and chips and walk home afterwards. What do you say?’ He gave a brief smile.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Don’t look so worried. I promise if at any point you feel uncomfortable or want to come home, we can. No questions, we can just pick up and leave. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ She nodded, still far from convinced.

The White Hart was their local. It did a roaring trade in the summer, when the spacious garden heaved with visitors wielding order numbers as they waited for their pub grub, and kids ran amok around the tables, fuelled by bags of crisps and squeezy bottles of fruit juice. But the season hadn’t quite started yet, so it was a little quieter. There was always a cluster of locals around the bar that they knew by sight, and one or two kids from the local sixth form, chancing their arm, ordering pints of beer with Jägermeister chasers, which they then distributed to their mates who were a mere pint’s froth away from being eighteen.

Grace brushed her hair and cleaned her teeth but was still disinclined to put any make-up on. She slipped into her boots and grabbed a cardigan to go over her T-shirt should it get chilly.

She and Tom walked there in amiable silence. Listening to the birdsong as the light dipped. The pub was nearly in sight when, on rounding the corner, she looked up in time to see a flash of pink disappear by the large oak tree on the bend. Grace stared at the tree, quickening her pace until she reached it.

‘Grace?’ He called after her.

She placed her hand on the nodes and cracks of the oak’s gnarly bark, peering behind the trunk.

‘What are you doing?’ Tom asked.

Grace scanned the grass and tumble of weeds that had gathered between the edge of the field and the tree. She ran her hand over the tree trunk before staring up into the thick branches that blocked the sky overhead.

‘Is it just me, Tom, or do you think about her every second of every day?’ She lowered her gaze and studied her husband, waiting for his response.

‘I do.’ He looked at his feet, his hands shoved in his pockets. ‘Every second of every day. And if I wake up in the night, there might be a brief moment when I forget, but then it hits me like a stab to the chest – boom!’ He took his hands from his pockets and flared his splayed fingers as though revealing a magic trick. ‘And there she is, bobbing about in my head, and I want to reach for her, so badly.’

‘Sorry, Tom, I didn’t mean to start the evening off like this. Let’s go inside and have supper, like we used to.’ She slipped her arm through his. Tom patted her hand, glad of the contact.

Grace found a quiet table by the fireplace in the corner and sidled onto the padded bench along the wall. She clenched her hands and placed them on the sticky tabletop in front of her. Tom navigated his way to the bar and nodded at a neighbour while waiting to be served. Grace saw a man to his right lean close into his companion and whisper, holding his half-empty pint against his chest, obscuring the logo on his rugby shirt; he let his gaze flick in her direction. His companion arched his neck slowly as if taking in a panoramic view, swept her with his eyes and looked away instantly.

Yes, it’s me. I’m her mum…
She picked up a beer mat and read about the Red Squirrel range of beers; anything for a distraction.

‘Here you go.’ Tom placed a large glass of red in front of her and slurped the top from his ale. ‘Cheers!’ He smiled, speaking jovially.

‘Cheers.’ She nodded.

He took up the seat opposite and the two sat, quietly thinking of what to say. Both sipped their drinks, glad of the prop. It was Grace who found her voice first.

‘I told someone quite recently that we’ve become bent out of shape.’

‘Like a car, you mean? That’s been bashed?’ He smiled nervously.

‘Kind of. But more like we used to be smooth…’ She ran her palms slowly against each other. ‘Sliding together to form a whole, but now we’re spiky, different, and we can’t fit together, because we’re so changed.’ She held his eye, her tone steady.

‘Who did you say that to?’ he asked, interested.

‘To Huw, the man who owned Gael Ffydd, where The Old Sheep Shed is. I spoke to him a lot. It’s a special place.’ She flicked the edge of the beer mat between her thumb and forefinger. ‘It really helped, actually, having him to talk to.’

Tom downed his pint. ‘Well, that’s good to know.’ His anger flared. ‘You couldn’t talk to me, but you were okay sharing details of our life with a fucking stranger.’

‘Please don’t be angry, Tom. I needed someone to talk to and he was there.’

‘Good for him. No wonder you were reluctant to come home. I could tell.’ He nodded, his teeth gritted.

‘I came home early!’ she reminded him.

‘Only because I drove all the way to bloody Wales to get you.’

Grace stared at her wine, feeling as if all eyes and ears in the room were tuned into their discussion. She instinctively ran her finger over the neat pink scar on her forehead.

‘It wasn’t like that. It was more about the place than him. It’s so peaceful, beautiful; it was as if I could breathe, start over. I felt calm, better than that, I felt the beginnings of happiness, I could see it.’

‘Lucky you.’ He stood and went to the bar.

‘Yep, that’s me – lucky.’

Tom returned. He hadn’t bought her another drink. Grace wanted to get this topic straight, wanted to be able to talk about Gael Ffydd without it turning into a row.

‘I think it was
because
he was a stranger that I found it easier to talk to him. And he understood. He lost his wife.’

‘How convenient – single, then?’ Tom snorted.

‘Tom! How can you say that? He gave me good advice because he’s grieving for her and knew what I was going through.’

‘No, Grace, he didn’t know what you were going through.
I
knew what you were going through because I’m Chloe’s dad, remember? Or was that easier to forget too?’

Grace shook her head and picked up her cardigan.

‘Did you sleep with him?’ Tom asked, his voice low, eyes steady.

‘No!’ She stared at her husband, mightily relieved that she could at least answer that question honestly, acutely aware of how, if she had, it would have cleaved her and Tom even further apart, would have hurt him still more at a time when he was just beginning to show signs of healing. For that she would never have forgiven herself.

She stood, unwilling to have this argument in public. She rested her cardigan on her shoulders, wearing it like a little cape.

‘Don’t go, Grace, please! I’ve ordered scampi and chips.’

She glowered at him and whispered, ‘You can shove your scampi and chips up your arse.’ Then she squeezed through the gap between the table and the wall and made her way to the exit.

Stomping along the lane, Grace had only made it a few hundred yards when Tom called out behind her. ‘Grace! Wait up!’

She duly stopped and watched him trot towards her.

‘Did you just say shove the scampi and chips up my arse?’ he asked with the twitch of a smile to his mouth.

‘Yes.’ She nodded, feeling her face bloom with supressed laughter.

‘Up my arse?’ he repeated, giggling.

‘I couldn’t think what else to say!’ She laughed too, covering her mouth.

Tom reached out and held her arm as he bent backwards, letting out a huge guffaw, which spilled from him. ‘I told the landlord you’d lost your appetite, but what I wanted to say was, “We no longer require our scampi and chips, you can put them up your arse!”‘ He laughed until he cried, wheezing and puffing as he clung to his wife, who was similarly affected.

‘I’m sorry, Tom!’ she said as she snickered.

‘I’m sorry too.’ Her threw his arm around her shoulders and the two continued along the lane, laughing and shouting ‘Arse!’ as they did so.

To laugh without feeling immediately guilty or sad was new for both of them and they quickly realised it was special, something precious to be protected and nurtured.

Grace flicked the lamp on in the sitting room and flopped down on the soft sofa. Tom sat down too and did as he had done a million times before, placed her feet on his lap and sank back against the cushions.

‘Why was it a special place?’ he asked, as though they were mid conversation.

She considered her response. ‘I think because I didn’t have to do anything. Didn’t feel the pressure of work or having to do chores around the house, didn’t have to worry about avoiding people who knew me, who knew Chloe. I felt freer and that gave me space to think, to try and get my head straight.’ She paused and wiggled her toes inside his warm palm; that always felt so good. ‘But it wasn’t only that. There’s something about the actual place. It has a different feel from anywhere I’ve ever been, a different pace; even the light is unusual. It’s quite magical.’

‘It certainly looked it,’ Tom whispered.

‘Yes, yes of course!’ She’d forgotten that he’d been there for one night and had seen for himself the sweep of the valley, the green fields sloping down to meet the River Wye.

‘It is, Tom, it really is. I would love to show you more of it; I’d love you to feel how I felt. It was as if I was connected to nature in a way that I haven’t been before. I had no interest in watching telly or anything like that; I was more than happy to sit and look at the landscape. And I did, for hours. I was a stranger there, but I felt… welcome.’ She smiled.

‘What are we going to do, Grace?’ he asked earnestly.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully.

‘Do you still love me?’

‘I don’t know.’ Again the truth left her lips. It felt now like there was no point in anything other than honesty. ‘I want everything to be like it was before, but I know it can’t be, and it seems like the best solution might be to make everything different, new job, new start, new house…’

‘New husband?’

‘I don’t know.’

The two sat in silence, both trying to navigate this difficult path, unsure not only of what steps to take but also of their destination.

‘I think you’re right, we have bent out of shape. But fundamentally, we are still Chloe’s mum and dad, and as long as we don’t ever forget that, we can keep part of her here.’

‘I feel her, Tom.’ Grace placed her hand on her chest.

‘Me too.’ He smiled. ‘Maybe that is the answer, love – to move, change your job, start over. Although I don’t know how I’d feel about leaving here, where I see her everywhere.’

Grace nodded. ‘I see her everywhere, whether she’s been there or not. I saw her in Wales—’

‘With the single, grieving bloke who helped you,’ he sniped.

‘Yes, even there.’ Grace pictured her little pink mac and her wellington boots disappearing behind the tree. ‘His name is Huw and I don’t want you to be off about him, Tom, because he helped me make sense of things. He was the reason I felt able to come home.’

He considered this. ‘I guess anyone that helped you return to me can’t be all bad.’

She smiled. ‘I thought I might have had feelings for him—’

‘Jesus Christ, Grace!’ He interrupted her, throwing his head back on the cushions and gazing upwards.

‘No! Don’t shout! Please.’ She raised her palm. ‘But I think it was because I was so low. I was just happy to have someone to lean on for a bit, and he is kind, and as I said, has been through it, sort of.’

‘I honestly don’t know whether I want to shake his hand or punch him in the face.’ Tom sniffed.

‘Punching someone is never the answer…’
She smiled again. ‘As I said, nothing happened, not really. He was just a very good friend to me. He was what I needed at that time and I know how that sounds and I know how that must make you feel, but if we’re going to go forward, we have to be straight with each other. There’s no point in holding back, is there?’ She looked at her husband.

‘I guess not,’ he replied levelly.

‘You know, Tom, most people go through their whole lives hoping that the worst thing doesn’t happen, but it has happened to us and if we can survive it, I think we’ll be stronger than anyone because we’ll have plummeted to the lowest depths and to come back up after that takes something really special.’