Walking Back to Happiness (35 page)

‘Are you off out?’ Louise felt a swift burst of envy. Juliet’s social life seemed to have picked up lately, between the pet-sitting and the Kelly family inviting her round for meals.

‘No, I’m babysitting next door. Emer and Lorcan are off out to a pool tournament.’

‘And you’re babysitting? Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound so shocked.’

‘They’re not
babies
. We’re just going to watch a DVD and then they’ll bugger off to bed, I hope. Anyway, I just wanted you to know I’d spoken to Michael. In case you were wondering.’

‘Thanks. But I’m not wondering,’ said Louise firmly.

I’m not wondering, she repeated to herself, as she put the phone down.

‘Mummy!’ yelled Peter from the bathroom. ‘Can we have a nice warm towel, please?’

I’m not wondering, she repeated, and headed for the airing cupboard.

Chapter 22

The anniversary of Ben’s death arrived like a dental appointment; Juliet lay in bed, waiting for the numbers to tick over to midnight on her clock radio, then lay there staring at the minutes as the day began to eat itself away.

His mother, Ruth, called at eight o’clock. She sounded as if she’d been up all night waiting for the polite telephone-calling hour to come round.

‘I can’t believe it’s a year,’ she began, and immediately burst into tears. Juliet could barely make out the words.

‘I know,’ she said, moving around the room, getting Minton’s breakfast ready before Coco arrived.

She listened as Ruth remembered what she’d been doing when the phone call came – from Juliet’s dad, who’d silently taken the burden of phoning people from her. She murmured sympathetically while Ruth speculated about what Ben would probably be doing now, whether she’d be a grandmother, whether Ben would have expanded the business and moved nearer them.

Juliet didn’t want to stop Ruth, today of all days, but the wistful fantasies scraped away at her own wobbly self-control. She wanted to point out that Ben
hadn’t
been the most dynamic businessman, and maybe
she
felt devastated that there would be no mini Ben gurgling out from a pram, walking round the park with Minton.

She bit her lip. Juliet didn’t feel like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders today; in fact, a leaden realisation had settled in her stomach that life was going to go on, but with no one to share her jokes or warm her toes in bed when the rain was lashing against the windows.

And even if she did find someone – terrifying though that thought was – they’d never know the teenage her, or the twenty-something with the peachy skin. Her best years had gone, and Ben had taken all the memories with him, leaving her, tired and second-hand, to crawl through the rest of her life.

‘So, you don’t mind if it’s just me and Ray on the bench plaque, do you?’

Juliet had been filling Minton’s water bowl, but now she stood up and concentrated on Ruth’s voice. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘The plaque on the bench. There were only so many characters, and it’s going to say, “In Memory of Benjamin Raymond Falconer, 1979–2010.” New line, “The son who lit up our lives.” New line, “Donated by Ruth and Raymond Falconer.”’

Minton lapped noisily from the bowl and Juliet ignored the splashes of water he was getting everywhere.

‘I thought it was going to be from his friends and family? Wasn’t it bought with the collection money at his funeral? Half for charity, half for a memorial?’

Ruth made a half-tutting, half-sighing noise. ‘I know, Juliet, but Ray and I have organised it, and we’ve put in quite a bit extra ourselves, you know, to get a really good oak bench, so we thought . . .’ She let her voice trail off so she didn’t have to add, ‘We’d be in charge.’

Ben hadn’t moved out of home into a flat with Juliet at nineteen for no reason. Juliet wondered if Ruth had ever forgiven her for that. Whether she thought he’d still be around now if he was in his room in their semi, watching
Top Gear
with his dad and mowing their lawn.

‘He was my husband,’ said Juliet. Her voice was tight with the effort of containing her hurt. ‘He wasn’t
just
a son. He was a friend, and a lover, and . . . and a dog owner.’

‘Juliet, you can marry again,’ Ruth replied dramatically, and Juliet knew she’d been looking forward to saying it for months. ‘I will never have another son. Ever.’ She started crying again, angry, gusting sobs that seemed to chide Juliet for her apparent lack of feeling.

But Juliet didn’t want to cry; she was more concerned about Ben’s stuffy bench not even commemorating their relationship.

‘I might not marry again,’ Juliet protested. ‘I won’t find another man like Ben, I know that.’

‘But you can try. My life is over! Juliet, I can’t talk any more now. I’ll be in touch.’ Ruth hung up, and Juliet was relieved.

She stood looking out of the window at the garden, her eyes not seeing the bare branches of the trees, or the ferns turning bronze against the far brick wall.

All she could hear was Ben’s voice in her head, telling her to ignore his mother, the drama queen. That his memorial was all around her, in the garden, in his dog, in their love.

So why am I decorating the house? Juliet asked herself. Why is my life moving on? Is that wrong?

The doorbell rang, and her mother’s voice called through the house. ‘Are you there? Everyone up? We’re here!’

She sounded too cheerful, as if she had to double her efforts today.

Juliet looked down at Minton and nudged him with her foot. He hadn’t run through to greet the door, as he always did.

‘Go on,’ she said to him. ‘I’m fine.’

She went through her day’s routine on autopilot, constantly aware of the time sweeping her nearer and nearer to the hour when Ben died.

Juliet wanted to do something to mark the moment, but she didn’t know what. She was scrabbling to hold on to the last remaining minutes of the year, as if tipping over that threshold would break some kind of final bond she had with him.

She walked the dogs, then came home to an empty house and read the cards from a few friends who’d remembered. It didn’t feel right to prop them on the mantelpiece, or throw them away, so they stayed on the shelf by the door, awkward reminders of awkward emotions. She made supper, fed Minton and talked listlessly to her mother when she came to collect Coco, bearing a huge box of chocolates, all the time feeling as if she had an appointment to go to at a quarter past eight.

As the light was fading, Juliet went into the back garden and looked around the leafy confusion springing out from each side of the lawn. It was embarrassing how little she’d done to it, and she apologised to Ben in her head for the shaggy hedges and overgrown borders.

There were signs, though, of what he’d started. The rose bushes that her dad had pruned by the back door offered up some late velveteen yellow and red flowers, and the herbs had thrived with no attention. As Juliet swept her hand through the mint and lavender and rosemary bushes, the air filled with scent, and for the first time in ages, she felt her nose twitch at the combination of medicinal, sweet fragrances. It had all carried on growing without him, just as she’d managed to keep going. A bit wild, but still growing.

Slowly, thinking of Ben with each plant, Juliet began to make a bouquet of stems, as he’d done for her wedding bouquet.

Rosemary, because she hadn’t forgotten how much he loved her, and never would.

Dead seed heads from her untrimmed lavender, for the lavender bags she’d talked about making for the wardrobes they never bought. Ben, you were right, she thought, sadly: I
didn’t
find time. But maybe I will.

Mint, for the deep-green tiles in the bathroom that was now finished, and was just how he’d have liked it.

Tiger-yellow chrysanthemums for the front sitting room, which was going to be the next project, once she got past today.

The Kellys were all out, and there was an unusual calm hanging over the dusk-shaded garden. It made Juliet feel as if she’d stepped into some sort of time bubble, where she could turn her head and see the house’s original occupant, tending the roses in a crinoline. She wondered if Ben had slipped into that half-lit world now. Maybe one day in the future someone would be picking flowers in the dark and see a handsome blond man strimming the hedge, his long muscles glowing too healthily for a ghost.

Didn’t they say that people with the most passion for life were the ones who imprinted themselves on their surroundings for ever? That would be Ben. In his garden.

Juliet braced herself for the backwash of sadness, but it didn’t come. Instead she felt a sort of peace in herself too, that Ben could choose to wander somewhere he’d been really happy, and maybe it would be here. She wanted him to be happy, wherever he was, because she was finally starting to grasp the fact that he
wasn’t
going to walk through her door again, telling her it had been a mistake. He’d gone.

She reached the end of the lawn, where they’d pointed to the old brick wall and talked about the sweet peas and raspberry canes, and sat down on the damp grass, looking up at the squat white façade, with its sash windows and the date plaque she’d fallen in love with on the first viewing. Someone, in 1845, had sat where she was and thought, Finished.

That’s my house, she thought, and corrected herself immediately.
Our house.

The words hung in her head. No, my house, she decided, quietly. My grouting. My fuse box. We didn’t start any of the plans we made.
I
have. On my own. The house it’s turning into is mine. And if I think of it as ours, it means there’s always going to be someone missing.

Besides which, those magnificent plans, and the lack of movement on them, had been the tiny thorn that had started the bad feeling between her and Ben, the little resentments that had festered into something bigger under the skin of their happiness, and then finally erupted into the only serious argument they’d ever had.

Now the wash of sadness came, but instead of pushing away the memories of those final words she’d said to the love of her life, Juliet faced it. If she couldn’t face it today, when was she going to?

She felt something warm pressing against her leg and she saw Minton had woken up and run out looking for her. His eyes were worried and he licked at her hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, fondling his ears. ‘Today of all days. How mean of me to make you think I’d abandoned you too.’

Minton rubbed his head against her leg and rolled over, his tail tucked between his back legs. The submission broke Juliet’s heart and she tickled his tummy, trying to cheer him up.

Then she picked up her bunch of stems and got to her feet. The wet grass had soaked through her jeans, and now a fine mist of rain had started to fall. She registered that it was cold, but a sudden determination had gripped her and she barely noticed.

‘Come on, Minton,’ she said. ‘We’re going out for a walk.’

Juliet put Minton’s lead on and stepped out of the porch into the fresh evening air.

It was still raining lightly, and she pulled up the hood of her jacket, setting off down their residential street. At the end, she took a deep breath and turned the opposite way to her normal route, down the road that had once had the blacksmith, and the bakery, now the Old Forge, and the Old Bakery (Flats A, B and C). For the last year, she’d avoided walking this way, unable to see any of the landmarks without seeing Ben too.

I don’t know where I’m going, she thought, masochistically. I don’t know exactly where Ben died, because
I wasn’t there
.

The still image of Ben collapsing in the empty street, surrounded by blank windows and silence, went through Juliet’s heart like a knife, as it always did. It hurt even more now, because after a year of being properly alone herself, she knew what panic he must have felt, flailing like a drowning man for attention and finding nothing.

Although he hadn’t been entirely alone. He’d had Minton with him.

Juliet’s stomach lurched and she glanced down at the little terrier, trotting along at her heel as if they were just out for a bonus night-time walk. The streetlights were making his creamy coat yellow, like unsalted butter, and she had a flashback to the nights they’d spent in Tesco’s car park, Minton chasing his light-up ball under the twenty-four-hour security lights while she threw it robotically and cried at the same time. That seemed a different lifetime now too.

They passed the big detached villa, and the painted terrace of cottages, and each time she looked to see if Minton was reacting. It was irrational, she knew, but part of her hoped he’d understand, and show her where she should direct her grief. How far down the street Ben had stormed, still stinging with anger after their row, before he’d suffered his massive, unexpected heart attack.

The ambulance man told her later that Minton had waited with Ben, barking and barking and barking, until eventually someone had come out of their house to see what the hell was going on with the bloody dog. With extraordinary bad luck, Ben had collapsed outside one of the few houses in Rosehill that belonged to someone he didn’t know, and because he’d stormed out of the house in just his football kit, with no ID, no phone, nothing, they had no way of knowing who he was.

If only Ben had put Minton’s collar on, as she was always nagging him to do, they could have phoned her immediately. She could have got there in time. Instead, she had to wait until . . .

Juliet stopped and closed her eyes to stop the image forming, but it formed anyway.

Minton, on her doorstep, alone, his tail wagging side to side in that scared, submissive fashion that told her something was wrong. She thought he’d been kicked, to begin with, he looked in so much pain.

Oh God, her first reaction had been crossness; the last dregs of her anger at Ben had been directed at poor little faithful Minton. She’d shouted at him for running off without his collar.

And then the knock on the door, the out-of-breath paramedic who’d run after Minton as he’d hared off up the road, trying to keep the white dog in sight. His expression, when she’d opened the door with her scared, exhausted dog under one arm, her face still tense and tear-streaked from the argument.