After He Died Read online

  She tried to assess what time it was. A slice of streetlight showed through a gap in her curtains. It would probably be nearly time for him to get up and get ready for work.

  After Christopher’s death, work – the business – had become the channel for Thomas’s grief. While she’d thrown herself into charity work, he’d spent hour upon hour working on deals. And to be fair it worked, and he was soon expanding into bigger premises and sites in London and Manchester.

  Sure, she suspected that there were some dodgy dealings going on; who grows quite so rapidly in such a short space of time without blurring the lines a little? But she trusted Thomas not to get into anything too tricky. And if she was honest, she had allowed the riches it brought her to blinker her. She had developed a tremendous ability to buy stuff – and then, when she was bloated with all kinds of nothing, she would sell it and raise cash for charity.

  The money continued to flood in. They moved to a bigger house in the city. Then an even bigger one.

  All of this room – she looked around herself – a tangible representation of the emotional space that had grown between them.

  She twisted on the bed and faced his side. She reached a hand out and stroked the sheet where he only recently lay. Imagined her hand resting on his naked hip; the skin there smooth and hairless in contrast to the matting of hair that covered almost everywhere else.

  Once again, an image of her son popped into her head. The ache of missing him ever present.

  Enough, she thought. Sat up and kicked her feet off the bed. She was being morose.

  She got to her feet, picked a silk dressing gown from a chair at the side of the bed, drew it around herself and went through to the spare bedroom, where Thomas sometimes slept when he came in late from a business meeting. He always said he didn’t want to disturb her, which was fine. He would only reek of cigarettes and whisky. Fumble at her as if prompted by memories of better times, and then turn onto his back and snore like a road drill was stuck in his throat. She sat on a small leather armchair that was tucked into a corner, looked over at the pristine, empty bed, and felt a shock to see that her husband wasn’t there. He wasn’t working late. He was never going to work late again.

  Grief sucked the air from her lungs. She gasped with the pain of it. How had she managed to get through the funeral?

  How was she going to get through the rest of her life?

  Pulling her knees to her chest she thought about the day. All those people, and how many of them did she really know? How many of them really knew Thomas?

  Then, from somewhere, an image of the young woman in the wide-brimmed hat. Her brief hug as she slipped something into her pocket.

  She had been so caught up in the day she hadn’t even bothered to check what the girl had given her.

  Her jacket. She’d just allowed it to fall to the floor in the hall. Since when had she become so careless about her belongings? The suit had cost her more than four hundred pounds and she’d let it fall to the floor like a rag…

  She got to her feet, walked down the stairs and along the hall. There was enough of a glow from the street outside for her to see what she was doing without switching on the hall light.

  There, a black slump of cashmere on the carpet. She bent forwards and picked it up. Patted it down to locate the pocket then slid her hand inside and pulled out the small envelope. Tucking her jacket under her left arm, she examined the contents.

  It was a small piece of unlined paper, the upper edge ragged as if it had been torn out of a notebook. And there in careful, feminine, curled handwriting, three short sentences. Sentences that could have the power to change her life.

  Your husband was not the man you thought he was. Call this number. You need to know the truth.

  4

  It was a warm, sunny day when they brought baby Christopher home from the hospital. Despite the warmth, she’d put him in a padded blue suit that was several sizes too big, his pudgy pink face almost lost in the cushion of it.

  They were terrified: this tiny human was completely reliant on them and they had no clue what to do. Thomas only admitted this later. At the time he projected confidence. It’s a baby, he said. Millions are born every year. If other people can manage, so can we.

  She was weepy, her body adjusting to the trauma and the blessing of childbirth, while her mind fought to come to terms with the enormity of it all. This was her baby. What if she got it all wrong?

  Christopher started wailing the minute they walked in the door. Paula tried to shush him, placing a hand on the down that covered his soft skull. Already she’d forgotten everything the nurses had shown her.

  ‘The wee soul’s probably roasting inside that suit,’ Thomas said with a calm that caught her in a contradiction – she felt simultaneously soothed by it, and worried. Thomas was already showing capability here; could she match it?

  ‘And he’s probably needing a wee feed, honey. You up for it?’

  ‘But…’ She’d fed him several times already, but in the hospital with a capable and caring nurse on hand.

  ‘C’mon up to his bedroom…’ And Thomas gently took her hand. With the other he was holding the baby in his car seat as if it was something he’d been doing every day for the last year.

  They’d bought a huge wing-backed chair especially for the nursery. In the latter days of her pregnancy Paula had fantasised about spending dreamy afternoons there, feeding her child, a radio playing Mozart or something in the background – she’d read an article that said the sound of it could raise a child’s IQ.

  Now they were going to do it for real. ‘What if…?’

  Thomas stretched over and kissed her. ‘You’re going to be the best mother this little boy could ever dream of,’ he smiled. ‘I have no doubt in my mind of that, Mrs Gadd.’

  With trembling legs she allowed herself to be guided up to the room and onto the chair. She settled herself on the inflated ring Thomas had jokingly bought her – In case you need stitches, honey, he’d said. Now she was hugely grateful for that moment of thoughtfulness. Thomas made for the changing table, lifted Christopher – still wailing – onto it and took him out of his padded suit.

  As if any sudden movement might break something, Thomas cradled their son in the crook of his arm and made his way across the room to where Paula sat on the chair.

  ‘Ready, honey?’ he asked, and looked pointedly down at the front of her blouse.

  ‘Oh. Right.’ She looked up at him; at their red-faced child in his arms.

  ‘If you just…’ He motioned with his free hand. Following his instruction, she unbuttoned her blouse and fidgeted with her nursing bra to allow her child access to her milk.

  Then he handed the baby down to her and … it was as if she’d been doing this all her life. Christopher’s hot little mouth tugging at her nipple, drinking furiously. She felt a tingling trickle as the milk flowed, and a sudden calm. Thomas crouched at her feet looking up, watching them both in wonderment, his cheeks wet with tears.

  Your husband was not the man you thought he was.

  Exhausted, Paula fell to the floor, her mind unable to grasp what she had just read. Her husband; the man she was with for three decades was up to … what? A young, pretty woman had given her this. Was Thomas having an affair?

  Nonsense. She threw the note away from her.

  Thomas was a lot of things, but a philanderer? Sure, they’d grown apart the last few years, but he was always truthful with her, or so it felt. Her Thomas? Having an affair?

  The ground tilted.

  But why else would that young woman go to all that trouble? Attending his funeral, slipping a note into her pocket? She tried to think of all the things those three sentences might be about, but that was all she could come up with. They’d been having an affair. That was it, surely. And then her mind began to run away from her. Perhaps she’d had a child with him?

  She could see a desperate mother going through those actions at a funeral if it meant getting something
for her offspring.

  If only the drugs weren’t cloaking everything in a heavy veil, she might be able to make sense of all of this.

  In a few hours the sun would rise and the streetlights would be switched off. People would go about their day, locked into the hamster wheels of their own thoughts. Mindless people working for stuff they didn’t really need but wanted with a desire that was unholy, probably viewing everything through the lens of a smartphone, because only then could it exist.

  And how much she wanted to be one of them. Not to have this ache.

  Nobody does anything real anymore, she thought. Strength is nothing more than a display: an act. Nobody wants to be vulnerable. Nobody wants you to be vulnerable. Your son and husband die and nobody really cares. The world shifts but stays the same and your home, your anchor, isn’t where you left it.

  She was still there, back against the wall, buttocks numb and cold from the wooden floor, hours later when the light shifted from artificial to natural. The world was waking up to another day and she was here, weak, exhausted, and unsure of whom and what to grieve for.

  At some point Paula made it through to the sofa in her front living room. There she curled up on the soft leather, bolstered by a small mountain of fat cushions and was feeling herself drift into something approaching sleep when there was a knock at the door.

  She groaned. Felt the weight of her fatigue. She considered answering it but ignored the impulse and turned to face the back of the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest.

  The knock sounded again. Firm and loud. The caller was obviously confident that she would grant them entry.

  She heard the squeak of the small brass hinge of the letter box and a male voice.

  ‘Paula? Sorry, doll. It’s only me.’

  Kevin Farrell. Her husband’s business partner.

  She sat up. Groaned again. He was the last person she wanted to see, but he was always coming round, and she was sure he’d persist until she answered the door.

  Fixing her robe, she mustered up the energy to get to her feet and pad through to the hall.

  ‘Paula?’ Farrell’s voice sounded from the letter box.

  She paused before answering, looking in the hall mirror to check if she was decent. She was about to fluff up her hair, then thought: to hell with it, the widow does not care. She pulled the door open.

  ‘Hey, Paula,’ Farrell said, his eyes roaming. Enough of his reaction leaked into his expression, just momentarily, for Paula to see that he read the state she was in and felt sorry for her. ‘How are you today, sweetheart?’

  ‘Mmmm…’ was all she could manage. She’d always found his attempts at being sociable cloying – so false in their sweetness that she could barely resist running her tongue over her teeth. He’d gone to school with Thomas, but she never could quite work out how he and her husband were friends.

  His face was full and round like a football, the skin dotted with acne scars. His hair was already almost white and, regardless of how new his suit might be, he always managed to make it look like he’d just come off a twenty-hour flight.

  ‘The kettle on?’ he asked. ‘Thought you might like some company.’ He held up a small brown bag. ‘Got some croissants from that posh place down Hyndland Road. I thought you might want a late breakfast.’ He took a step inside the door and Paula felt a flare of irritation at his presumption. Then gave in. She didn’t have the energy to back it up. Besides, although it was the last thing she wanted, she supposed company would be good for her.

  The note she’d been reading the previous night still lay on the floor. She bent down and picked it up before he could get a look at it.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Just some kind of flyer,’ she said as she tucked it into the pocket of her dressing gown.

  ‘Always someone trying to sell something, eh?’ He brushed past her and she trailed after him like a pup in its new home.

  In the kitchen Kevin said, ‘Ah, right, you guys got that new coffee machine. Cool.’ He walked towards it. ‘Easy to work, is it?’ He pushed at a button and the machine whirred into life.

  Paula pushed past him, lifted a mug from a cupboard and placed it in front of the spout. ‘Here, let’s not drown the kitchen in coffee.’

  She looked at him. Squinted at a recollection. ‘You weren’t at the funeral yesterday, Kevin. How come?’ She handed him the filled mug, not bothering to ask about milk. Today he would have to take it how he got it.

  ‘Shit excuse, I know…’ He accepted the mug and took a sip. Then he placed it back on the worktop surface before holding both of his hands out, palms up. It occurred to Paula that he looked as if he really didn’t care how she might feel about his answer. ‘I’m allergic. Hate funerals. I’ve never been to one. Not even my mother’s.’ Then he gave her a smile that had a whiff of apology pushed through it.

  Paula often wondered if Kevin had tried to learn how to behave with other people from a book. He clearly didn’t really care if Paula was upset that he hadn’t been there.

  ‘’Sides, I said cheerio to Tommy in my own way.’ There. A flash of sadness. A suggestion that there was a little more to this man than had met her eyes over the years.

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ said Paula, and caught Kevin glancing at the opening of her robe. ‘What do you want, Kevin?’ She pulled her robe tight and held it at the throat. ‘I barely resemble a human this morning.’

  ‘Just wanted to see how my wee pal was doing. Offer you my support. I’m happy to listen if you want to talk…’ His face formed an expression of sympathy, like a stranger had just taken possession of his brain for a moment.

  ‘Jesus, Kevin, did you just google how to behave around the bereaved? I prefer it when you do your remote-human thing.’

  ‘That’s harsh.’ He looked offended, and Paula felt a rush of conscience.

  ‘Please get to the point, Kev. Why are you really here?’

  ‘A man can’t check on his friend’s widow?’ He held his arms out. But it was there. Paula’s mind wasn’t too addled by grief that she couldn’t see there was something other than Thomas’s death that was bothering him. There was a tightness in his face, an edge to his apparent concern, and he shuffled from one foot to the other.

  She put her hand in her pocket, felt the corner of the note and considered showing it to him. But she quickly decided against that. Perhaps his evident nervousness was transmitting itself to her.

  ‘Mind if I ask you something, Kev?’ She needed to ask, even though she was pretty sure he wouldn’t tell her.

  ‘Sure. Anything.’ His expression was open, but there was an underlying apprehension in his tone. Farrell might be grieving, in his own way, but there was something else there.

  ‘Was Thomas having an affair?’

  5

  Kevin took a big slug of coffee, as if it was his first drink of the day. He put the drink down on the work surface and tapped the brown bag containing the croissants. ‘Remember to eat,’ he said and walked out of the kitchen.

  Paula followed him, thinking: What the hell? That was it? Why bother visiting?

  Farrell reached the door, pulled it open and turned to her before stepping outside. ‘Put any thoughts of Tommy having an affair out of your head, Paula. He didn’t have it in him.’ Then, obviously trying to look as if the question had just popped into his head, ‘Had any visitors this morning?’

  ‘Visitors?’ Paula repeated and gave a small laugh. ‘Nobody really knows what to say to a widow.’

  He turned to her and opened his mouth as if to say something else. Then his head slumped as if he’d lost whatever battle was going on his mind. ‘I’ll give you a couple of days,’ he said, turned and left.

  She shut the door behind him and leaned against the cool of the wood.

  A couple of days for what? Why had Kevin even bothered to show up here? She reviewed his behaviour from the moment she’d opened the door to him. It was as if he’d come to ask her something and then backed of
f before he did.

  Her head throbbed. She turned, leaned forwards, placing her palms over her cheeks, and rested her forehead on the wood. She’d heard Kevin assert that Thomas wouldn’t have had an affair with a sense of relief. But then, there was that note. What would drive a woman to do something like that? Who would hijack a funeral, for God’s sake?

  But why was she so quick to wonder about Thomas’s fidelity? Yes, they’d drifted apart since Christopher died, but why would her mind instantly go there? She searched her memory for indications that Thomas might have been unfaithful over the years and came up with nothing. There were lots of time away with work, but no lipstick on his collar, no lingering perfumes on his return. She crossed her arms as if warding off any uncomfortable facts that might back up her new suspicions.

  The door vibrated against her head as someone on the other side knocked.

  Who could it be now? Had Kevin come back already? Her pulse was a throb at the side of her throat and she registered the worry that was now thrumming through her body.

  She reached for the handle and pulled the door open, aware as she did so that her robe was gaping again.

  ‘Hi Paula,’ it was Father Joe. ‘Have I…’ He had the good taste not to look as Paula hastily fixed herself. ‘Have I called at a bad time?’

  She closed her eyes. Shook her head.

  ‘Go away,’ she said.

  ‘But you said to come over,’ Joe said. Was that a slight slur in his voice? Paula wondered. ‘And I bring gifts.’ He held up a bottle that was already half empty. ‘Or, should I say, gift. But you’ve tonic in the house, right?’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ Paula said, and realised as soon as the words were out of her mouth that they were redundant. It was as obvious as the dog collar around his neck.