Page 34 of Common People

Max sat with himself, wondering what it all meant. He really hadn’t planned on having a talk like that so early in their new-found relationship, but she had put him on the spot and he had reacted. He really wasn’t sure what was going to happen with Bethan, if anything, but clearly she meant a lot to him, if he was prepared to put her ahead of Emma. Max sat with himself,drowning in a sea of thoughts, of random what-if scenarios, when a waiter suddenly appeared, one large plate in each hand.

‘One margherita di bufalo pizza?’

‘Umm, yes, here please.’

‘And the pasta?’

‘Right there, thanks.’

‘Will there be anything else, sir?’

‘Not right now, no. Thank you.’

‘If you need anything at all, just let me know,’ he replied, before he smiled and walked away. The table was full of food, and Emma was in the ladies’ toilet, presumably crying, and when she returned, they would have to eat together, the complicated knot of their relationship on the table between them. If the waiter really could deliver anything, it would be a time machine to jump to the end of the meal. Although if time travel was possible, that opened up a whole other can of worms about what Max might do with it.

Six months earlier

The idea of going to a group therapy session had come from Max’s manager at work, Rhys Powell, a proud Welshman with a penchant for cardigans, who had lost his sister to cancer. The grief and bereavement group met every Thursday evening, and Rhys had told Max that it had been a life saver for him. Max hadn’t seriously considered attending a grief and bereavement therapy session before, despite being given countless leaflets about it after his parents had died, and despite mentions by Robbie and Emma. However, after the Emma break-up, and the difficult weeks and months that followed, Max knew it was time to try something new. When you hit rock bottom, the only way was up, or at least that’s what Max hoped for.

‘For me, personally, I found the whole thing quite liberating,’ said Rhys one morning over coffee. ‘People with the same experiences, sharing their grief, and the tears, it’s incredible. So powerful. It helped me begin the process of moving on. I did, and I won’t lie to you, Max, but I think it saved me in a way. I was going down a very dark road, but after going to the group therapy sessions, I turned a corner, and I’ve never looked back.’

‘Right,’ replied a sceptical Max, but despite that scepticism, he was going to give it a go.

After losing Emma, he had descended into a depression that had culminated in the morning he woke up on a bench on Clapham Common, a dog sniffing his feet, the owner pulling them away. He had become a drunk. He had twenty missed calls from Robbie on his phone that morning, each one with evergreater degrees of panic and worry. He had cuts and bruises on his body, lost his wallet at some point, and he had wet himself like a child. He had staggered home, where Robbie had taken care of him, but he said that things had to change. Robbie had said the now famous words that had shaken Max.If youse continue down this road, pal, youse gonna end up dead.It was the wake-up call that Max needed.

The meeting was held in a church hall, and as Max nervously approached, he watched all the smokers outside, having a last-minute puff before they went inside. Smoking was something that Max had taken up again after the accident, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out his packet of cigarettes, took one out, and then lit it. He walked across, joining the last remaining smokers. They looked at him, smiled, nodded hello, and he did the same. Was everyone there in as much pain as him? Had they all lost someone too? It was strange because they all looked so normal, so ordinary, and yet they were like him. A middle-aged man in a smart city suit, a woman in her thirties in jeans and black coat, and an older woman, who looked about sixty. After a minute, they all finished their cigarettes, and were about to head inside, when the man in the suit turned to Max.

‘Are you here for the grief and bereavement group?’

‘Umm, yeah,’ replied Max.

‘It’s starting now. I’m Adrian.’

‘Libbie,’ said the woman in jeans and a black coat.

‘Iris,’ said the older woman.

‘Max,’ he replied, finishing up his cigarette, before they all headed into the hall.

The hall was one of those classic old church halls that reminded Max of sitting in assembly when he was at school, cross-legged on the hard wooden floor, listening to the headmaster, bleating on about something. The floors were etched with history and the lack of decor gave it a slightlyinstitutional feel, but at the same time there was a warmth to the room. Parties had been held there for decades, wedding receptions, women’s groups, book clubs, and church meetings. If only the walls could talk, they would share such colourful stories. Against one wall was a table with an old tea urn, and a set of cups, milk, sugar, and then a few plates of generic biscuits. It was so incredibly English, a little old-fashioned, but somehow the perfect setting for the group.

One of the things that had kept Max from attending a group session was the idea of sitting around in a circle, and talking about his grief with a bunch of complete strangers because the idea horrified him. How would it help to talk with people he didn’t even know? Yes, he’d met Adrian, Libbie and Iris outside, and they seemed nice enough, but he didn’t want to share his deepest darkest thoughts with them. So, as he walked in, making himself a tea, and grabbing a biscuit, before he chose a chair, sitting to face everyone else in the group, he was already feeling the need to run away. He didn’t belong there.

‘Right everyone, welcome again. I’m Joy,’ said a woman, about fifty, wearing glasses, and dressed like someone who worked in a library. ‘I see we have a few new faces. Welcome to you all. Right, who would like to start today?’ There was a brief moment, and then a hand was raised in the air by an older black woman. ‘Joyce, please go ahead.’

Max watched as Joyce took a moment before she began speaking with a rhythmic Caribbean lilt to her London accent. She was wearing a stunning yellow dress with a matching yellow hat. Her clothes said cheerful and bright, but her face did not.

‘As some of you know, this last week would have been Lucille’s forty-third birthday, and it has been such a difficult week for me. Every time I see her girls, look into their eyes, my grandchildren, all I can see is their mother staring back at me. My beautiful Lucille. It has been two years since she died. Sincethe day I got that phone call that changed my life forever. I still don’t understand why she was taken from us. Two children, a loving husband, and yet the lord decided to take her. I struggle with this, with my faith because I don’t understand. Lucille was a good person, a wonderful mother, a wife, and like me, she was a nurse. She helped people every day, she saved lives, and yet, one drunk driver, and she was taken from us. It’s the hardest thing to understand. I ask the lord every day in my prayers, why was such a sweet person like Lucille taken when there are so many bad people in the world? Why her? Why?’

Joyce was done, and Max could see the pain and sadness etched into every crease on her face. She wasn’t crying, but clearly she was heartbroken at the pain of losing her daughter. The simple act of Lucille dying had defined the rest of her life.

‘I think that’s something we can all relate to, Joyce. Why is always the most difficult thing to understand because there never seems to be a reason. Even when we try to find meaning in death, it can often feel hollow and pointless. Why did my person have to die instead of them?’ replied Joy, before she took a moment and then carried on. ‘Who would like to go next?’

Max didn’t know the protocol for the meetings and if he would be expected to speak, but he knew he wasn’t ready for something like that. Just hearing Joyce talking about her daughter was hard enough, and he already felt a dull ache in his heart. The shared grief of that room was unbearably heavy, and all it did was remind Max of his own loss.

‘I’ll go,’ said a man, raising his hand in the air. It was Adrian from outside. Adrian looked and sounded like your typical city man. He probably worked in finance, and lived in a nice little pile somewhere in South West London. From the outside, it looked like Adrian probably had it all. ‘I’ve been struggling this past week too, which is why I’m here today. I know I’ve missed the last couple of meetings, but it’s been busy at the office andwith life generally. But after the weekend I just can’t seem to stop thinking about her.’ Adrian paused for a moment to collect himself. ‘The weekend would have been our twentieth wedding anniversary. We’d always talked about going back to Paris for our twentieth. We got engaged there. I just, I know it’s been five years since Helen died, since the cancer took her away from me and the boys, but it’s still so hard. I’ll have days, sometimes a week, when I don’t think about her much and then I get this awful guilt, like life is moving on, like I’m moving on, and then it crushes me and I break down. Sorry,’ said Adrian, his head suddenly in his hands.

‘It’s OK, Adrian,’ said Joy. ‘I think so many of us can feel your pain and know exactly what you’re going through. It’s one of the hardest things about losing a loved one. We think that in time we should be over it. Like, the world has moved on, perhaps other relatives, even children, seem to have moved on, and yet we can’t. There’s guilt there too, but the thing is, Adrian and everyone else, there is no time limit on grief. It’s a personal journey and one you need to take at your own pace. In your own time.’