‘I got it wrong. I got it all wrong. When Arthur said we should get married, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. But that didn’t mean it was the right choice, did it? I knew in my bones it wasn’t, and yet, you held my hand, Mother, and said it was lovely to have something to look forward to, after Bill, and who was I to take that away?’
Dot, that cigarette, that closeness. She leaned closer still, and the cigarette was forgotten, and all I wanted to do was touch her soft skin. She kissed my cheek, and it felt like a test. She was waiting to see if I would pull away, if I would be shocked, horrified. But I was burning. I felt dizzy and a bit drunk, and like I’d just been born. Her lips, so close to mine. She curled her hand around my waist and I thought I would die, there and then, from wanting her. And then her lips were on mine and she tasted of honey and smoke, milk and that particular rain you get in April. And I knew with a clarity that shocked me I didn’t want to live a single day, a single minute, without her. I wanted to hand her my body and my heart and ask her to carry them, to keep them safe. But she was pulling away, just as I was reaching forward. Hungry, so hungry.
And then her hands were pushing me, her head was dipped, and I saw what she’d seen. A man, out walking. I couldn’t smile at him when he wished us a good afternoon. I no longer lived in the same world he occupied. When he was gone, surely we would return to it. To that raging bliss. She looked at me, her eyes full of questions, and I tried to answer them all with mine. Yes, yes, always.
‘Do you know who that was?’ she asked.
‘No.’ I’d barely glanced at him.
‘Reg Bishop,’ she said. ‘Bill knows him. Do you think he saw?’
I didn’t know, didn’t care, really. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We should go back,’ she said. ‘There’s so much to do.’
Back. To the house my brother haunted. To our friendship. To a time before we’d touched fire and survived.
‘Dot,’ I said.
It was a plea, and she knew it. But she pretended it was something else.
‘Yes?’
I could have asked her a hundred things. To stay, to kiss me again, to be my everything for all time, but she was pretending that we hadn’t just set our lives on fire, and I was hurt.
‘We’ll go back,’ I said, and I set off without looking at her. Walked ahead of her all the way back to the house, where Mother was making bread and the kitchen was full of yeast and flour and tears. The window open to let the sunshine in and the grief out.
When Dot said she had to get home, I followed her to the door, my mouth full of questions. Did you love him? Would you have married him? And what am I, to you? I didn’t let them out. Couldn’t.
The next day, when I called round, her mother said she wasn’t well, couldn’t see me. The next time I saw her was at the funeral. Her the grieving widow, though she wasn’t. Me the grieving sister. We stood side by side and we did not touch. She wore a simple black dress, her blonde hair pulled back off her face, her lips bare. We had giggled at times, over thoughts of being brides, but we had never imagined this. Standing in the weak spring sun while damp shovelfuls of earth thumped onto a coffin containing a man we loved.
All day long, I willed her to look at me, to give me some sort of sign. To let me know whether what had happened on that hillside under that oak tree was about the madness of grief, or something else. But she kept moving, always off to talk to someone or get another drink. She avoided me so studiously. And that was an answer in itself, I suppose.
36
At the wake, at our house, the drinks flowed. I felt light-headed and sore with sadness. The sandwiches Mother and I had made that morning went mostly untouched, their edges hardening. But the empty bottles piled up, clinking. After hours of avoidance, Dot took me by the hand and led me outside.
‘I can’t breathe in there,’ she said.
I didn’t know how to be around her any more, after years of natural friendship. Had we broken something? But no, it felt like mending. Like transcending. I couldn’t look at her, not at her face. I fixed my eyes on her right arm.
‘The other day,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what happened. I…’
I didn’t let her finish, since I was certain she was about to minimise it. I gathered my courage, every last drop of it, and leaned in to kiss her lips. But she pulled away, as I thought she might, and we both turned, feeling eyes on us, and saw Reg Bishop standing a couple of metres away, lighting a cigarette. He raised one eyebrow.
‘Ladies,’ he said.
That single word, a threat. We went inside without speaking, and for the rest of the afternoon the tension pulsed from Dot, and I was forced to accept that she cared more than I did about what people thought.
There were only a few people left when Reg made his move. He was sloppy drunk and draping his arm around every woman there, and I froze when he approached Dot and me and came in between us, flinging an arm around each of our shoulders.
‘These two,’ he said, ‘have quite the friendship, don’t they?’
The stragglers carried on with their own conversations, but I saw Arthur look up and over to where we were standing.
‘In fact, it seems to me like they might be more than just friends. Twice, now, these past few days, I’ve caught them in rather compromising positions.’
‘How dare you?’ Arthur asked, stepping forward. ‘This is a wake, in case you’d forgotten. And Dot and Mabel are grieving, comforting one another. Don’t you dare imply there’s something seedy going on.’
Reg guffawed and looked at me, then at Dot, then finally at Arthur.
‘I know you’ve got a soft spot for this one,’ he said, squeezing my shoulder, ‘but sometimes you need to see what’s in front of your face.’
I shook him off, walked over to where Arthur was standing, a few feet away. A couple of other people had turned to look, by then, sensing an argument brewing.
‘Can you ask him to leave?’ I asked Arthur, quietly.
‘I’ll tell him,’ he said.
I watched Arthur showing Reg to the door. If you hadn’t heard any of what had passed, you wouldn’t have known there was any ill-feeling between them. When he returned, he adjusted his tie and cleared his throat, and I nodded my thanks, and the matter was closed.
In the months that followed, Dot pulled away from me. Slowly, so slowly I knew I’d look like I was being needy if I mentioned it to anyone. But I saw what she was doing. That day had changed everything, and the easiest thing to do was to pretend it had never happened. I cried myself to sleep for months, never really knowing whether it was him or her that I was crying for.
And then I woke up a little, from my grief, and Arthur saw that small crack opening, and filled it with love. Asked me to marry him. There was no one else, was there? Or at least, no other conceivable option. I said yes. When I told her, I genuinely thought she’d see that I was clinging to that time, when the four of us were together, in the only way I knew. Doing the only thing I could. But she left, instead.
I am still on the ground, the soft earth pliant beneath my knees, the solid gravestones in front of me, reminding me that some things don’t change.