‘Maybe I won’t be able to get pregnant again. Or maybe I will, but I’ll keep having miscarriages.’
‘I’m no expert,’ he says, feeling woefully inadequate, ‘but I’m pretty sure lots of women have miscarriages and then have healthy babies.’ He stands and slides his jacket on, then pulls her coat off the chair and drapes it over her shoulders. ‘I think you should try and be positive, for your own sake.’
‘Easier said than done.’ Gloria gets up.
‘Another quick wander in the gallery before we go home?’ William stands up. ‘If we go in the opposite direction, we can do a loop and have one last look at Ophelia before we go.’
‘Is that what you normally do?’ There’s a slight smile on her face.
‘Yes.’ He smiles back.
Even though he’s on edge, he feels a lifting, a lightening at the delicate colours and textures of the Millais, the seeming miracle of transparent, colourless water rendered so perfectly. By paint! It’s a relief to be standing there without the need to speak. Eventually, Gloria says quietly but clearly, ‘I never loved him.’
Grateful that she’s looking at the painting and not him, grateful that he can reply to the painting and not Gloria, he asks, ‘Why did you go out with him?’
‘He was funny. Charming. We had a laugh.’ She pauses and turns to him, but he keeps his gaze on the painting. ‘And he asked.’
After a few minutes without either of them moving, she says quietly, ‘I’m not sorry Ray’s buggered off. But I am sorry I’ve lost my baby.’
And that’s enough. He feels softened, yet bold enough to put his arm through hers. ‘Uncle Robert said on the phone last night that they’re booking tickets for the Ladies’ Dinner Dance in Nottingham. It’s the annual posh do for the Midlands Chapter of embalmers, don’t know why they call it that.’ He’s talking faster and faster, suddenly desperate that she comes. ‘It’s on 22nd October, the day after I graduate. Want to come? It’ll be something to look forward to.’
‘Yes.’ She puts her head on one side and smiles. ‘Why not?’
44
NOVEMBER 1970, SUTTON COLDFIELD
The pile of tiny coffins reaches to the ceiling. He has to stand on a chair. His slurry-coated hands slip on the wood; he can’t get enough purchase to pull it down. On tiptoe, he manages to hook one finger over the coffin’s edge. His ankles wobble as he pulls it towards him. As the white casket tilts downwards, it knocks him back and a child’s body flops out onto his chest. He hits the ground and the crushed skull nestles under his chin, the dried, bloodied hair scritch-scratching his throat. A woman kneels down, looks at the body draped over him, and starts to scream. He sits up.
The screaming continues; he feels the hot rush in and out of his lungs, Gloria’s hand on his back.
‘All right,’ Gloria whispers, sitting up too with her arm across his back, her head on his shoulder. ‘Shhh. I’m here.’ It’s him doing the screaming.
‘Sorry.’ He feels the sweat on his forehead.
She lies down and pulls him next to her, lays his head to her chest. ‘Try to sleep.’ Gloria’s breathing starts to deepen and he tries to enjoy the gentle rise and fall of her. But of course, he won’t go back to sleep. He hates that so many of her nights are disturbed like this – have been since the very beginning of their marriage.
He’s only twenty-three and already married three years. He still marvels at being loved by her. The joy of it can make him want to shout out loud. On his own, in the mortuary, he’ll find himself smiling at the very thought of her, at something funny she said at breakfast, or a kindness shown to him, or Robert, or Howard. But on nights like tonight, it’s guilt he feels, and before he can stop himself, his mind takes him back to the cold, dank phone box in the cheerless dusk after the Aberfan funerals. He said goodbye to her, resolved to forgo his own happiness for the sake of hers. He often tries to resist the memory, to walk himself out of that phone box and the conversation they’re about to have. But it’s so powerful it usually holds him hostage, like tonight, until it’s run its course.
‘Are you finished?’ she’d said.
‘Yes.’ And there was indeed a sense of being finished, his clouded breath suspended above the heavy mouthpiece.
‘Just so I’m clear’ – Gloria spoke a little louder now, as if talking herself back into being – ‘you’re saying that because of what happened to those poor children, you don’t want any of your own?’