‘You weren’t there, Gloria. The pain’s too big. I couldn’t bear it, I just couldn’t.’
He heard her breathing, imagined her flowery fresh fragrance. She felt very close, as if he could have put his finger on the cross-hatch of the receiver and been able to feel her bold, soft lips.
‘William’ – her assured voice was back – ‘I love you too. If you don’t know that by now, you’re a world class idiot.’ He couldn’t help but smile. ‘I have a suggestion. Is that allowed?’
‘It won’t change anything.’
‘Couldn’t we, after all that’s happened, just enjoy being in love? Not having to pretend we’re not? Don’t you think we deserve a bit of happiness? We’re young. We can worry about children later.’
‘No!’ He trampled the bubble of joy in his throat. ‘You can’t marry me thinking I’ll change – I won’t. And you want children.’
‘No, William!’ She sounded angry. ‘It’s you I want, you!’
And in the silence that followed, with the cold of the concrete floor seeping through his soles, he dared to believe she was right and let himself fall into her gorgeous, naive love. They were married six months later.
? ? ?
As Gloria rifles through the basket of varnishes the morning after the nightmare, the familiar chunk and rumble of small glass bottles draws a smile from William.
‘This one all right? She holds up a pearlised pink.
‘Yep. Give it your best, she was a beautician. It’s the first thing her daughter will look at.’
‘What’s her name again?’
‘Barbara.’
‘Come on then, Barb.’ Gloria takes the left hand in hers. ‘Let’s get you gorgeous.’
Saturday mornings are William’s favourite. With Robert and Howard playing golf, he and Gloria have the house to themselves. They take time over a cooked breakfast. Gloria tells stories from the hospital where she’s now a psychiatric nurse, often putting a funny spin on things that couldn’t have been much fun at the time. Their best times have always been chatting in a kitchen, with hot drinks and comforting food.
Occasionally, after breakfast, he’ll have a weekend embalming to do. He’s let off washing up then and, once Gloria’s finished in the kitchen, she comes through to help with the cosmetology.
‘I wonder what’ll happen to her business.’ Gloria gives Barbara’s hand a rub before she starts filing the nails.
‘Her daughter ran it with her.’ William sprays the mortuary table with disinfectant. ‘They both lived above the shop. I suppose she’ll just carry on.’
‘Same set-up as us.’ Gloria blows the dust from the filed nails and hooks the fingers over the side of the coffin.
William leans against the wall and watches her. She hasn’t put her own make-up on yet, and her face is pleasantly pale and stark. My wife, he thinks.
‘Do you mind us still living here?’ he asks.
She picks up the nail varnish and looks at him. ‘One day, I’d like a place of our own, of course I would, but each month without us paying rent, we’ve got a bit more in savings. There’s no hurry, Robert and Howard are sweethearts.’ There’s a gentle tick-tick-tick as Gloria shakes the bottle. She laughs. ‘Do you remember just after we were married, and I asked Howard how he’d fallen in love with Robert?’
‘And he went the same colour as the tomato ketchup.’
Gloria laughs again, the gurgly, lush laugh that William wants to record he loves it so much. ‘And Robert leapt up and started washing up, even though we hadn’t finished eating.’
As a child, long before he understood their relationship, William knew, without any displays of physical affection, that Robert and Howard belonged to each other. When Howard put on one of his funny voices – Donald Duck, Popeye, Bugs Bunny – William saw the change in Robert’s eyes, a visible softening. He and Gloria laughed in private that Howard still owned a house a few streets away, still had his mail delivered there, still spent a couple of nights there each week. But it sometimes makes William sad that they feel the need to keep so much of their lives hidden.
‘Stick the radio on, William,’ Gloria says.
He finishes wiping down the table, throws the paper towels in the bin, walks to the radio on the window ledge. It’s the Jackson 5, ‘I’ll Be There’， and Gloria immediately joins in. William waits a moment, then harmonises. The mortuary is the only place he’ll sing. Unlike him, Gloria can move her head to the music without it affecting the careful strokes of nail varnish. The DJ’s banter washes over them for few minutes.