Page 82 of The Man Who Didn't Call
‘Meow!’ I call to the cat, but it’s busy plotting the death of some poor shrew.
Chapter Forty-Four
SIX WEEKS LATER
Autumn is here. I can smell it in the air, rough and unprocessed and – I’ve always thought – oddly apologetic. As if it feels slightly embarrassed, dismantling the heady dreams of summer to make way for another cruel slog.
Although, personally, I’ve never minded winter. There’s something exquisitely unworldly about this valley when frost spikes the ground and the trees fling long shadows across the bare earth. I love the sight of smoke twisting out of a lone chimney, the fairy-tale pinch of light in a remote window. I love how my friends brazenly invite themselves over so they can sit in front of my fire and eat the hearty stews they seem to think I cook all the time just because I live in a rural barn.
Strangely, Mum always seems a little happier in the winter, too. I think that’s because it’s more acceptable to stay indoors once the temperatures drop. Summer is fraught with the expectation of increased socializing and outdoor activity, whereas in the winter her small existence needs little explanation or defence.
But today it’s only September and I’m still in shorts as I march up the composty hillside of Siccaridge Wood. Shorts and a jumper I still can’t bring myself to wash and de-bobble, because the last person to wear it was Sarah.
I walk a little bit faster. A mild burn spreads through my calf muscles as I stump on up the hill, too fast to let my feet sink into the layered mulch. I start singing Merry Clayton’s part from ‘Gimme Shelter’. The only people who can hear me singing about rape and murder being just a shot away are the birds, who probably thought I was mad already.
My voice reaches the final section of the song, where Clayton is basically screaming, and I start laughing. Life is not feeling all that tranquil right now, but refusing to think about – well, about unhelpful things – definitely gives me a breather.
The problem is, Jeanne Burrows is not really on board with my plan to block all thoughts of Sarah from my mind. My sessions with her make me feel so much better, so much less alone, and yet she is breaking my balls every week. I didn’t imagine you could break someone’s balls in a deeply kind, gentle, respectful way, but Jeanne seems to be doing just that.
Today’s session, however, was unprecedented.
Just as I reached the end of Rodborough Avenue, where Jeanne lives, I saw none other than Hannah Harrington reversing out of Jeanne’s parking spot. She was concentrating on not hitting a neighbour’s car, so she didn’t notice me, but I got a good look at her. She looked not dissimilar to the last time I saw her: tear-stained, tired, lost.
Of course, I wondered immediately why Hannah was seeing Jeanne, and before I knew it the old fear engine had fired up again. What if it was one of Sarah’s parents who died? Sarah would be distraught. She told me in those letters how guilty she’d felt, all these years, insisting on living thousands of miles away. I decided it was my duty to help her.
‘I want to call Sarah Harrington,’ I announced to Jeanne on arrival. ‘Can I do that here, with you?’
‘Come and sit down,’ she said calmly.Oh brilliant, I imagined her thinking.Here we go.
Within a few minutes I had calmed down and accepted that I had no business calling Sarah Harrington, but it did inevitably lead to a conversation about her. Jeanne asked again if I felt that blocking all thoughts of Sarah was helping me let her go.
‘Yes,’ I said stubbornly. Then: ‘Maybe.’ Then: ‘No.’
We talked about the process of letting go. I told her I was fed up with being so bad at it, but that I didn’t know what else to do. ‘I just want to be happy,’ I muttered. ‘I want to be free.’
Jeanne laughed when I complained that there was not a manual for stopping loving someone. I admitted that that was actually Alan’s joke, and then she threw me a neutral look and said, ‘While we’re talking about setting ourselves free, Eddie, I wonder how you feel about that in relation to your mother? How do you feel when you imagine freedom from your duties to her?’
I was so shocked I had to ask her to repeat herself.
‘How does the idea of lessening some of that burden feel?’ Her tone was friendly. ‘That’s how you described it last week. Let me see . . .’ She peered at her notes. ‘A “nightmarish burden”, you said.’
My face blew warm. I pulled at a loose thread on her sofa, unable to look her in the eye. How dare she bring that up?
‘Eddie, I want to remind you that there is no shame – none at all – in finding it hard. Family carers might feel great love and loyalty towards their relative, but they also experience resentment, despair, loneliness and a whole range of other emotions about which they would not want the patient to know. Sometimes they reach a point where they need to take a break. Or even completely rethink the care arrangement.’
I stared at the floor.Back right off!I wanted to shout.This is my mother you’re talking about!Only nothing came out of my mouth.
‘What are you thinking?’ Jeanne asked.
I don’t get angry very often – I’ve had to learn not to, for Mum’s sake – but suddenly I was furious. Far too angry to appreciate what she was trying to do for me. To be grateful that she had waited weeks before bringing it up. I wanted to pick up the vase of peachy snapdragons on her mantelpiece and throw it at the wall.
‘You have no idea,’ I said, to a counsellor of thirty-seven years’ experience.
If Jeanne was shocked, she didn’t let it show.
‘How dare you?’ I went on, voice rising. ‘How dare you suggest I just run off and abandon her? My mother tried to kill herself four times! Her kitchen looks like a fucking hospital dispensary! She’s the most vulnerable person I know, Jeanne, and she’s mymother. Do you have a mother? Do you care about her?’
It took nearly half an hour for me to apologize and calm down. Jeanne asked kind and respectful questions, and I responded with curt monosyllables, but she kept going. Nudging me, with those clever bloody questions, closer and closer towards an acknowledgement that I was dangerously near to breaking point with Mum. With life. Nudging me towards a grudging acceptance that it might be my own grief that had stopped me admitting this.
