It’s like my brain has got caught and is stuttering, so I go to the back room and sit at the table and look again at the note. Find D.
‘Tell me what you mean, Arthur,’ I say. ‘This isn’t enough.’
In the back room, I open the bottom drawer in the sideboard, the one only he used. Inside, there’s a mess of boxes and papers. A watch his dad gave him. Cufflinks. A box of handkerchiefs he must have got for Christmas one year. What am I looking for? Anything. A clue. It seems unlikely I’ll find it here. I fold the piece of paper and slip it into the pocket of my dressing gown so I can sneak a look at it whenever I want to. Try to forget about it. Know I won’t. Find D. It repeats in my brain like a mantra.
5
For a week, or thereabouts, I don’t get dressed. It’s a rebellion of sorts. Arthur had to be feeling like he was at death’s door to spend a day in bed. When we retired, I remember him saying that it would be easy to slip into bad habits. He meant me; there was no slipping for him.
So I stay in bed. Sometimes I cry, both for the loss of him and for the loss of all those years. For the life I didn’t live. All the lives I didn’t live. We only get to choose one, after all. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I just stare at the wall, or at the empty space in the bed beside me. And all the time, in the back of my mind, on repeat: Find D. If it was some kind of last request, I want to honour it.
Several hours after they took him away, I stripped the bed. And it was only when it was all in the machine, spinning, that I wished I had left it for a while, his particular scent trapped in those sheets. I have to make do with the wardrobe, those carefully hung shirts and jackets. When I get cold in my nightdress, I pull one of his woolly jumpers on, and my slippers. I must look a sight. But there’s no one to see me. I hear post dropping through the door at about eleven every morning, but otherwise it’s quiet.
There’s Olly, of course. I let him out in the garden to do his business and have a run around. For the first couple of days, he sits by the door and whines, but then it seems like he accepts that I’m not going to take him out, and he gives up. He’s grieving too, of course. He keeps going to the end of the sofa where Arthur used to sit. Does he understand? I talk to him, tell him over and over that Arthur’s gone, and he looks at me with those mournful eyes. When I try to pet him, he pulls away.
You hear about couples who’ve been together for a long time dying within days or weeks of one another. Is that what I’m hoping for? I’m not eating much, not looking after myself. We’re out of milk, so I’m drinking my tea black, and the bread has mould on the edges. When I feel particularly hungry, I boil an egg. And I shake dried food into Olly’s bowl for him to fuss over and ignore.
It won’t end well, this. It can’t. The telephone’s been ringing and it’s probably the funeral parlour. They’re storing Arthur’s body and it’s time I started to get things moving with arrangements. But I’m not sure I can face it. There will be so many decisions, about music and readings and prayers, and that’s just the service. I’ll need to choose burial or cremation, pick a coffin or an urn. I can barely decide whether to watch television or read, can’t rouse myself to go to the supermarket for the essentials. I’m not in the right frame of mind to make big decisions. How do other people do this? The answer, of course, is that there are more of them, and they discuss it, spread the load between them. Between the spouse and the children and the siblings and the grandchildren. How sad for him, that there’s only me to do this.
And then, on the eighth or possibly ninth day, I wake up with a thought clanging in my head like an alarm: Enough. Enough wallowing. I’m not ready to die like this, to give up completely. If Arthur is watching, he would hate this. It would make him worry. So I get up and dressed, and I strip the bed for washing. It’s a start. I have to have a sit down, afterwards. But that’s all right. Slow and steady. I sit at the dining table with a cup of tea and my notepad and pen, and I make a list.
‘Can you see me, Arthur? Making a list?’ I say it out loud into the empty room. I can almost hear him chuckle.
1. Get in touch with friends and family
2. Contact the funeral parlour
3. Go to the supermarket
4. Clean the house
5. Find D
Arthur was always trying to get me to write lists. He liked the order and purpose of them. But I used to prefer carrying what I needed to remember in my head. Perhaps I’m becoming more like him, now he’s gone. Taking the best bits of him.
But this list is daunting, when I look at it like that. Only five things, but all of them hard in their own way. And one I can’t even attempt until I know what it means. We used to clean the house together, him with the vacuum and me with the duster. I’ll have to take it bit by bit, one room at a time. It’s clear that the first thing to do is make some telephone calls, so I get the address book and go through it. So many names crossed out. People who’ve died or who we’ve lost touch with. I land on his sister, Mary, and dial her number before I can change my mind.
‘Mary, it’s Mabel,’ I say, when she picks up. ‘Arthur’s wife.’
Saying his name aloud is a shock. It sounds the same and that feels all wrong.
‘Mabel, how are you?’
‘Not so good, I’m afraid. Bad news. Arthur’s passed away.’
How many calls like this have we taken, over the years? Arthur was often the one to answer the telephone, and I’d know from his tone when it was one of these, and I’d try to work out who from the things he said.
‘Oh, Mabel, I’m sorry.’
They weren’t close, Arthur and Mary. She lives up in the North East and I’m sure she’ll come for the funeral, but we haven’t seen much of them over the years. Like everyone else, they were busy with children and then grandchildren. Her and Arthur were the only two left of nine siblings. Just Mary, now. She asks me to give her the details of the funeral when I have them and I realise that this round of calls will lead to a second one. And it’s not until after I’ve hung up that I notice my voice held. I did the first one, which is always the hardest, and I didn’t collapse or break down or say anything I shouldn’t have said. So I take a breath, pick the receiver up again, and dial his cousin Frank. And I go on like that all morning, until I’ve spoken to everyone I can think of. I feel exhausted, but also a bit lighter.
The man who answers the telephone at the funeral parlour sounds relieved that I’ve finally got in touch.
‘We’ve been calling and calling,’ he says.
It’s as if he thinks I’ve done some kind of moonlight flit.
‘Yes, well. I’ve been… adjusting.’
He gives a bit of a grunt. ‘Mrs Beaumont, is there anyone else who can help you with all this? I understand you and Mr Beaumont didn’t have children, but are there any other relatives who are local, or good friends?’
There’s no one, really. And it makes me question whether we got something wrong somewhere along the way.
‘Just me,’ I say, and I make sure my voice is clear and strong.
‘All right. Perhaps you could come into our office on the High Street to talk through everything?’