The Dead Wife's Handbook (36 page)

‘Eve?’

Ellie fiddles with the cuff on her cardigan, her eyes focussed intently on a loose thread at which she’s gently tugging.

‘Where do you live?’

‘You know where she lives, Ellie. Stoke Newington. Why are you asking?’

Max’s interjection is abrupt, impatient. I don’t understand what’s occurring between the three of them this evening, but whatever game they’re playing it doesn’t appear to be Happy Families.

‘I just wondered. Do you like your house, Eve?’

Eve smiles at Ellie – an open, trusting smile – and I don’t think she detects any danger in Ellie’s tone yet. But I can see the agitation behind her eyes.

‘Yes, I love my house, Ellie. It’s really cosy. It has a lovely fireplace in the sitting room, where I can have real log fires in the winter, just like you can here, and the bathroom has a gorgeous old Victorian bath in it. And I think you’d like my bedroom – I decorated it with floral wallpaper which is really pretty. You should come and see it sometime.’

I watch Ellie’s face as Eve talks and see an ominously familiar cloud cast a shadow over her innocence. She’s weighing up the pros and cons, assessing the risks, deciding whether the action she’s considering is worthy of the potential ramifications.

‘So, if you like your own house so much, why do you have to come and sleep at our house tonight?’

‘Ellie. Stop that now. I won’t have you being rude to Eve like that.’

Max is frustrated but he’s yet to give way to anger. I can see the petulance and defiance radiating from Ellie’s eyes. In siding with Eve instead of her, Max has thrown down the gauntlet and it looks like a challenge Ellie’s more than ready to accept.

‘I wasn’t being rude. I was only asking a question. If Eve doesn’t like it that’s not my fault.’

Eve opens her mouth to respond, but Max dives in first.

‘You’re being rude and you know full well that you are. If you can’t sit with us nicely and be polite then perhaps you should go to your room.’

‘Perhaps
you
should go to
your
room. With Eve. Isn’t that what you’d rather do?’

There’s a shocked silence while we all absorb the impact of Ellie’s fury. She’s blinking, fast and frequently, a sign I know all too well as the harbinger of tears.

‘That’s enough, Ellie. I want you to apologize to Eve, right now.’

Ellie jumps out of her chair, as though standing to deliver her next round of ammunition will lend credibility to her argument.

‘Why are you being so mean to me? Eve’s suddenly allowed to just turn up at our house and stay the night and do whatever she wants and I’m not even allowed to ask a question about it. Why are you being so unfair?’

Ellie stands staring at Max, her fists clenched and her breath heavy, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Now’s the
moment for Max to prove the point that Ellie so desperately needs validating, to pass the test she’s so clearly setting; that he’s watching her back, that he’ll take her side, that he’ll forgive her her trespasses as she’ll forgive Eve for trespassing against her. For trespassing all over her house, no less.

‘I’m not going to ask you again, Ellie. I want you to apologize to Eve.’

Ellie’s face is crimson with rage now, her bottom lip quivering with restrained anguish, and I want Max to stop, I want him to think, I want him to bury his embarrassment, just for a second, and put our daughter’s needs first. I want to hold him by the shoulders and look him in the eye and remind him that our little girl’s never rude to anyone, that she hardly ever misbehaves, that for her to act out like this tonight she must be unsettled by something. And that it’s more than likely – it’s obvious, isn’t it? – that what she’s upset about is Eve sleeping over. I want to be able to haul Ellie on to my lap and settle her emotional storm and hold Max’s hand and put an end to this rarest of conflicts between the two people I love most in the world.

But it’s not me, in the end, who’s afforded the opportunity to defuse the situation.

‘Really, Max, it’s okay. We’ve all had a long week and we’re all a bit over-tired. Let’s just have a nice evening and forget about it.’

For once, for the first time ever, I find myself willing Max to listen to Eve’s advice. But the look of determination on his face, so perfectly and ironically mirroring that of his opponent, tells me that he has no intention of backing down.

‘It’s not okay. Now, Ellie, for the last time, will you please apologize to both of us for being so rude?’

Ellie’s face disintegrates. Hot tears erupt like lava from the angriest of volcanoes, burning her cheeks with righteous protest, her eyes scorched with humiliation. She has little option but to storm out of the room and up the stairs, where she slams her bedroom door with a thud of fury.

Neither Max nor Eve speak. I watch the anger drain from Max’s face as the first, tentative signs of guilt dare to make themselves known in the lines on his forehead. Eve fiddles with the pendant hanging around her neck, watching him earnestly as though awaiting an indication of what’s supposed to happen next. Max appears to be in no hurry to break the silence.

‘I’m sorry, Max. It looks like you were right. I honestly thought she’d be okay with it. I’d never have suggested it if I didn’t.’

Max turns towards her with a momentary look of confusion, as though he’d forgotten she was still in the room.

‘Well, I don’t take any pleasure in being right on this one.’

He averts his gaze again and I detect a fleeting disturbance on Eve’s face – whether hurt or irritation or fear or indignation I can’t tell – as Max leaves her stranded in another loaded silence.

After what seems like ages to me, and probably even longer to Eve, Max leans across and takes Eve’s hand in his.

‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. It was my call at the end of the day. I should have listened to my instincts on it
rather than be swayed by the fact that Ellie seemed fine when I asked her about it.’

Eve puts her hand on top of Max’s, her face awash with contrition.

‘I’m sorry too. It’s really disappointing. I so wanted tonight to go well.’

‘I know you did. I did too. But maybe we were just a bit naive on this one.’

He’s gallantly used the plural even though all three of us know there’s a singular cause for tonight’s emotional fiasco.

‘I have to go and check on Ellie now.’

They finally look one another in the eye and there’s a heartbeat of tension before Eve replies.

‘I know you do. It’s fine. Really. I’ll clear up down here.’

Max makes his way up the stairs and into Ellie’s room where he finds her, face down, sobbing unremittingly into her fluffy dog pillow. He sits on the bed next to her and places a placatory hand on her shoulder. Ellie shrugs him off with a violent rejection that I’ve no doubt surprises us all.

‘Don’t touch me! I don’t want you to touch me! Leave me alone.’

Max looks perplexed. I don’t think he’d allowed himself to see before quite how upset she was.

‘Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on? I’m sorry I got cross with you. I just didn’t like you being rude like that. It’s not like you. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?’

He ventures a second attempt at physical contact, this time stroking her back, gently, tentatively, an action Ellie is usually unable to resist.

‘Get off me! I don’t want you to hug me. I don’t want you to touch me. I want Mummy. I just want my mummy.’

She’s hysterical now, tears streaming down her face, her voice choking on angry sobs. I’ve never seen her like this before, never seen her so distressed, never heard her so distraught. And I’ve never wanted anything so much as to take her in my arms, to stroke her hair and kiss her forehead and give her back the security she so desperately craves. It’s the only expectation a child has of their mother, the unconditional love and care and reassurance that should be every child’s birthright, and it’s the one thing I’m failing to give her when she needs it most.

Max, I can see, is fighting back the tears too. He’s been hit by a tsunami of grief for which he was, today, completely unprepared. His only hope this evening had been the cosy domesticity of sleeping, for the first time, under the same roof as the daughter he adores and the woman he’s now in love with.

‘Hey there, munchkin. Can you try and take a deep breath and let it out really slowly for me? I know you miss Mummy, and I know lots of things are really, really hard for you, but please try and remember that I’m here for you and so is Eve and we’re both going to look after you.’

Ellie suddenly sits bolt upright as if physically assaulted by Max’s words and she struggles to articulate herself amidst the crying.

‘I don’t want her to look after me. I don’t even want her here. I hate her. She doesn’t know how to look after children. She doesn’t even have any children of her own.’

She’s shouting now and there’s not even a sliver of doubt that Eve would be able to hear her outburst downstairs.

‘Ellie, sweetheart, you have to try and calm down. I know you’re upset, I can see you’re angry, but I can only help make it better if you let me.’

‘I don’t want you to make anything better. I hate you. I wish Mummy was here. I wish Mummy was here and you weren’t. I just want Mummy back.’

Ellie’s crying so hard now I’m worried she’s going to make herself sick. I’m desperate to be with her, to be the mother she needs, to be able to hold her and kiss her and let her know just how much I love her.

I thought there was nothing worse than to watch your child suffer and be powerless to intervene, to help, to remedy. Now I understand that it’s immeasurably worse to know you’re the cause of the very pain you’re unable to relieve.

Max takes decisive action, pulling Ellie into his arms and holding her so tightly, so securely, that she couldn’t escape the love of his embrace even if she tried. He begins to hum, ever so gently, one of the lullabies I used to sing to Ellie at bedtime when she was small. Over and over he repeats the same few lines until slowly, gradually, her defences soften and, sobbing still, she allows her body to relax into Max’s arms. Eventually, amidst heartbreaking whimpers and the last remnants of tears, she lifts her head from where it’s buried in his chest.

‘That’s Mummy’s song.’

‘I know, angel. But I don’t think she’ll mind me borrowing it just this once, do you?’

Ellie’s short, shallow breaths begin to relax as she looks up thoughtfully at Max, her face still stained with the tears and temporary blemishes of her breakdown.

Max continues singing my favourite bedtime song, ‘Goodnite, Sweetheart, Goodnite,’ rocking Ellie back and forth in his arms where she’s still curled up in his lap. After a few bars, Ellie joins in and I’m amazed she can still remember the words. It’s been over two years since I last sang it to her.

The two of them sit together, singing the song that’s reminiscent of so many nights with Ellie huddled in my own arms, of evenings bathing her before bed, of reading to her in her pyjamas, of singing to her until she slept. Invisible, inaudible, I hover above them and begin to sing too, the three of us joined together by the same tune from opposite sides of the life divide.

We sing the chorus over and over, the only few lines that any of us know, the song which spoke to Ellie back then of a night’s separation but whose resonance now is so much more profound, so much more poignant.

‘Daddy, I’m sorry I was horrible to you earlier.’

‘There’s absolutely no need to apologize, angel. I’m sorry I made you so sad.’

Ellie takes Max’s hand in hers and fiddles absentmindedly with the ring on his fourth finger.

‘It’s just … this is our family and I like it just being me and you.’

Ellie’s whispered the words as though there may be danger attached to voicing them too loudly.

Max strokes her forehead and holds her even tighter.

‘Angel, our family will always be me and you at heart. And Mummy. Other people may come and go, some of them may even stay – one day I hope you’ll get married and have children of your own – but the three of us will
always be special to each other. Because this is the first family you ever knew and no one can ever change that.’

‘Not even if someone else starts sleeping here a lot?’

‘Not even once you’re big and grown-up and want to go and live somewhere without your daddy hanging around any more. Sweetheart, you’re always going to be my number one priority. No one will ever, ever be more important to me.’

Ellie allows a pulse of silence to pass.

‘Not even Eve?’

Max holds Ellie’s face in his hands and looks at her with the intensity of someone determined to communicate the strength of their feeling.

‘No one, angel. I promise. Eve wants to be friends with you because she knows how much I love you and she’d like to know for herself just how special you are. That’s all.’

Ellie yawns and rubs her eyes and Max helps her into her pyjamas, before she summons the energy to haul her limbs under the duvet and into bed.

‘Daddy, will you stay with me till I fall asleep?’

‘Of course I will, munchkin.’

‘You promise not to leave? Even though Eve’s downstairs, all by herself?’

‘Sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere, I promise you.’

Ellie holds his hand in hers and closes her eyes. It’s less than a minute before the depth of her breathing indicates that she is, already, fast asleep. Max extricates himself from her embrace and tiptoes silently from the room.

I stay with her, watching over my slumbering angel in wonderment. It’s two years since I witnessed this and it
remains, unequivocally, the most beautiful sight in the world. Her eyelids flutter with dreams I hope are happy, and her nose occasionally twitches as it always has done in the early stages of sleep. She’s so peaceful now it’s hard to imagine that just minutes ago she was so distraught. Hard to imagine, too, all that she’s had to endure and all she has yet to contend with.

I’m full of love for her, but it’s a love of regret and longing and absence. The bittersweet love of a mother unable to perform that most instinctive, that most primordial, that most critical of tasks: to protect their child from all of life’s harm through the sheer power of maternal presence.