The Dead Wife's Handbook (39 page)

‘Well, angel, it’s just a feeling I have but you see, Mummy taught me so much about relationships and love and family. In fact, she taught me almost everything I know. It was Mummy who taught me how to be a good husband and how to be a good dad. So I suppose I feel that since it was Mummy who helped me learn all of that, she wouldn’t want it to go to waste forever. And Eve moving in with us would be a way to make sure that didn’t happen.’

I’m struck by a tempest of shame. I feel like a chastened schoolgirl who’s just been awarded a prize after a morning’s misbehaviour. I had no idea Max imbued me with credit for something I feel in no way worthy of, especially not now, especially not since I’ve been gone.

‘So what do you think, sweetheart? Have you got other worries about what might happen if Eve moved in?’

Ellie nods her head slowly, the vivacity of her bouncing curls at odds with the consternation on her face.

‘What is it? Can you tell me?’

Ellie seems unsure of her answer to the question, as though she’s contemplating the advantages of disclosure over concealment.

‘It’s what you said a minute ago about all the memories of Mummy at home. Everyone’s always telling me that I have all the nice times with Mummy to remember her by. But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I can hardly remember anything at all. And then I get scared in case one day I
totally forget her. So what if Eve moves in and brings all her memories with her and makes loads of new memories and they rub out all the memories that I do have left of Mummy?’

Ellie is clenching and releasing both her fists repeatedly, as though voicing her confession out loud somehow makes it all the more distressing.

Max crouches down to her level and takes her left hand in his right.

‘Oh, sweetheart. I think you’ll be surprised, as time goes by, just how many memories of Mummy come back to you when you least expect it. That’s the thing about remembering; it doesn’t always happen to order, but I promise you that there is so much more stored away up there than you realize right now.’

He pulls Ellie into his arms, kissing the top of her head as though to magic her memories back to life.

‘Do you know, the other day I was having a shower and I suddenly remembered the time that Mummy and I went on holiday to South America – it was years ago, before you were even born. I remembered that we’d been on a beach when all of a sudden it had started to rain, not cold rain like here but hot, tropical rain. I remembered us running around the beach getting all wet, laughing at how silly we were being. I hadn’t thought about that afternoon for ages, and I have no idea why it popped into my head last week, but those unexpected memories will find their way to you too, in just the same way. I promise.’

I smile to myself. I haven’t thought about that South American downpour for years either. Funny, those events that at the time feel like they’ll stay in the forefront of
your memory forever, so special and unique they are and yet, like the millions of experiences we amass in however long or short our lives, they disappear into hiding for years, decades even, to be remembered at the most unlikely and unpredictable moments. It was a magical afternoon, on that beach in Brazil. We were the only people there. What Max has rightly neglected to relate is that we stripped naked and ran around on the sand, laughing at our own unexpected childishness. I remember us drinking rain directly from the sky as we stood in the ocean with water up to our waists, splashing one another’s bare skin before having rushed, impetuous sex, right there on the beach. It was so out of character for both of us, that almost-public display of private affection, and all the more special for its rarity.

‘It’s funny, Dad, ’cos earlier on when we were walking in here, I thought I remembered being here before when I was little but then I wasn’t sure if it was a real memory or whether I was just making it up in my head.’

It was real, my darling girl, I promise you it was real. And nothing could make me happier than knowing there’s a fragment of it in your mind still, waiting to be mined, sifted and polished, ready to radiate multiple reminiscences whenever you need it.

‘That’s not just in your head, munchkin. We came here when you were about a year old and it was one of the most humid London days I can ever remember. You got very cross because you were hot and sticky and so Mummy bought a bottle of water and we sat in the shade and she dabbed cold water all around your face and neck to cool
you down. And shall I tell you something else about that day?’

‘What?’

‘Just after Mummy had managed to calm you, we were sitting on the grass under a tree in the gardens and we were trying to teach you how to kiss. Mummy kept saying, “Can you give me a kiss, Ellie?” and then she and I would kiss each other to show you how it was done. And on about the fifteenth time of Mummy asking you, all of a sudden you crawled over to her and planted the biggest, wettest kiss on her lips. It was the first time you’d ever done it. We were so happy, we kept asking you to do it again and again, and you were so pleased with yourself for learning something new and making us laugh so much that you carried on, kissing each of us in turn, for about five wonderful minutes. It was one of the sweetest things you’d ever done and Mummy and I were so excited.’

He’s right. I’d forgotten but that’s exactly the story of Ellie’s first kisses. She was adorable that day. Every time she succeeded in another kiss we’d clap and she’d giggle infectiously and there was nothing but delight in that repetition for any of us. It made the whole humid trip worthwhile.

Ellie is smiling now, her anxiety evaporating in the recounting of a single memory.

‘Is that true, Dad? Is that really what happened?’

‘As true as you and I standing here right now, making very little progress on seeing this humongous big palace.’

Ellie giggles and the two of them resume their tour with a renewed sense of purpose.

They’re in a dark, oak-panelled room now, where Max puts a hand on our daughter’s shoulder and stops her, literally, in her tracks.

‘Do you know the best method I have for remembering Mummy when I most want to?’

‘What?’

‘Whenever I want to think about Mummy, all I have to do is look at you.’

Max ushers Ellie over to the far side of the room where a large, ancient, gilt-framed mirror is hanging on the wall. He positions her in front of it and stands behind her, his hands on her shoulders, the two of them studying the pair of reflections staring back at them. I think of the centuries’ worth of people who’ve stood exactly there, examining their own image, and wonder what stories that mirror must hold.

‘Whenever you want to get a sense of Mummy in the world, all you have to do is look in the mirror, sweetheart. You’re the spitting image of her; you’ve got the same curly hair that bounces happily even when you’re sad, the same dark brown eyes that hold the promise of all the secrets of the world, the same warm smile that makes everyone want to be friends with you. You look just like her. And it’s more than that, it’s not just your looks. You have lots of her mannerisms too, and I don’t know if you learnt them from her when you were little or whether you’ve inherited them, but they always make me smile. Like the way you roll your eyes – without even being aware of it – when someone says something you think is silly. Or the way you flap your hands in the air when you’re really excited. And the frown your face gives off when you’re
angry is exactly like Mummy’s, which is why I sometimes can’t help laughing when you’re cross.’

I gaze at Ellie’s reflection and I see for the first time that Max is right. I don’t understand how I hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe it’s because she’s grown up so much over the past couple of years or perhaps it’s because we see ourselves so differently from how others see us. But studying Ellie’s face right now is like looking at a photograph of myself at that age. He’s right about the mannerisms too. Max used to laugh at my ‘flappy hand syndrome’ and was forever warning me to be careful of my uncontrollable eye-rolling for fear it would get me in trouble one day. I’d never recognized either trait in Ellie until this moment.

Ellie is giggling at herself in the mirror now, possibly embarrassed by the scrutiny under which she’s been placed, possibly from the pleasure of this latest discovery.

‘Am I really like her, Dad?’

‘I promise you, munchkin. You’re like two very pretty peas in a pod.’

Ellie’s grin widens, creating the faintest of dimples in her flushed cheeks.

‘What other ways am I like Mummy?’

‘Okay, let me think. There’s the fact that you’re both incredibly impatient and can’t understand why you ever have to wait for anything. There’s the way you both walk – I always loved Mummy’s walk, the way she sort of jiggled her hips as she moved, and you do exactly the same thing. Even the way you scoop all the icing off the top of a cup-cake and eat that first before devouring the rest – that’s exactly what Mummy used to do too. And there are loads of other similarities as well. You love cooking, just like
Mummy, but you hate Maths and so did she. You like lakes and mountains and big open spaces which Mummy always loved too. And you’re really interested in talking to people and they like talking to you as well, which is a very special quality that you definitely get from Mummy. Honestly, angel, there are a million ways you’re like her.’

Ellie slips her hand into Max’s as they continue their immersive tour of the past.

It’s funny how I’d never seen those parts of myself in Ellie before. I’d thought the imprint I left on Ellie was purely genetic, an invisible code which, when mixed with Max’s, would produce an entirely unique formula. I’d thought that mannerisms couldn’t be inherited and that she and I hadn’t been given long enough together for anything like that to be learnt. I’d thought that tastes and aversions were individual, not preferences to be bestowed through the generations. I’d thought that there was no trace of me left, not of my personality nor my idiosyncrasies nor even my foibles. But now I can see that there are vestiges of me alive in Ellie and perhaps they’ll be alive in her children too and perhaps that, after all, is one of the great gifts of parenthood.

Max and Ellie have moved into the Tudor kitchens now, Ellie marvelling at the enormous fireplace and the antiquated utensils.

‘Dad, if Eve moved in wouldn’t it mean that you and her would be together all the time and I’d be on my own?’

Max gazes at her intently as though he can’t imagine why she’d ever even suggest it.

‘Angel, I’ll never leave you by yourself – not even for an evening – unless you’re okay with it. The only change that
would happen if Eve moved in is that she’d be there to help with your Maths homework every night and the three of us could watch TV together whenever we wanted and you really could have French toast for breakfast every weekend. I think it might be quite cosy, don’t you?’

Ellie’s eyes narrow in contemplation.

‘But you and I would still get to play
MasterChef
and we’d still sometimes just snuggle on the sofa on our own with a movie and you’d still let me stay up late at the weekends, wouldn’t you?’

‘Absolutely, angel. Nothing at all between you and I would change.’

Ellie looks up at Max with an intensity that seems to contain so much of her own turbulent history.

‘Okay, Dad. I don’t think I mind if Eve wants to come and live with us, as long as you promise we can still do stuff on our own together, just the two of us.’

Max raises Ellie into his arms and kisses the top of her nose.

‘Sweetheart, there’ll always be time for you and I to have fun on our own together. You’re my super-special girl and I wouldn’t want anything or anyone to come in between us, ever.’

They hug one another, as oblivious to the other visitors wandering around them as those strangers are to the momentous decision that’s just been made.

‘So when will she move in? Will it be next weekend?’

‘No, not quite so soon I don’t think, angel. I thought it would be nice for you and me to have a bit more time by ourselves first and Eve will have lots to organize at her own house. So how about we ask her if she wants to come
in a couple of months’ time, at the beginning of December? That way we could all be together for Christmas, if you think you might like that?’

‘Okay, Dad. ’Cos we wouldn’t want her to be all by herself at Christmas, would we?’

My husband and daughter embrace one another in a centuries-old kitchen, and as I watch them I think about the decision Max and Ellie have reached today and the conversation by which they’ve journeyed there. I wonder whether the greatest test going forward is not whether I can bear the torment of Eve taking my place at home but whether the existing memories, the inherited characteristics, the shared experiences of a different cast can survive such a fundamental change in personnel.

As Max and Ellie leave the ancient kitchens and head down a passageway to wherever their odyssey will take them next, a door swings shut behind them and the clouds rapidly accumulate underneath me. In a matter of seconds, both the present and the past have vanished and I’m back alone in the whiteness.

I’m not lonely though. I’m not distraught or depressed or indignant as I so often am when my access ends. Today I think of Ellie and her flapping hands and her rolling eyes and her fingers swiping the chocolate icing from the top of a cupcake and I know, for the first time, that even though I’m here a little part of me remains down there, with her.

Chapter 29

Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ is blasting from oversized speakers. The room – a plain, 1960s, square brick hall – is decorated with balloons and streamers and banners. People are dancing but there’s no one I recognize. For a second I fear there’s been a mistake in my access, that I’ve been delivered to the wrong event, that I’m gatecrashing a stranger’s party from beyond the grave. I spin round, hoping to see at least one familiar face, but this group looks significantly younger than my peers.

I’m about to take myself off to hover in the corner in the hope that something or someone will clock the mistake and get me out of here when I notice the banner above the door: ‘Happy 40th Max’.