IN RETROSPECT

I didn’t want him to die. Let’s make that clear from the get-go, all right? It was never my intention. No, no. I just wanted to… how shall I put it? Get away from him. Or get him away from me. Which is ironic, when you think about it.

Heavens above, I’m not a violent person. Ask anyone who knows me - I expect you already have – and I’ll bet my last Jaffa Cake they said, ‘Moira Blandford, violent? Not in a month of Sundays. That one doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body.’

Mind you, nobody can ever know us truly, can they, deep down inside? Our darkest fears and urges, the parts of ourselves we keep private – and for good reason. Hang on a sec, that sounds as if I’m some sort of evil so-and-so, a danger in the community. I’ll have you know I’m a pillar of respectability. We’ve lived in Terrington Green for, oh, it must be twenty-eight, twenty-nine years. We always enjoyed being by the sea. Fresh air, high cliffs, waves crashing; the drama of it. Tennis club for me, cricket for Douglas, then bowls for him when he hit sixty last year. In the teams too, not just there to socialise and gossip, although there is a fair bit of that. He does his Round Table thing on a Tuesday (I’m not entirely clear what they get up to, I think it’s a boys’ club for drinking mostly but I have the house to myself for the whole evening – bliss) and I go out with the girls on a Thursday afternoon for coffee or a walk along the prom. They try not to talk about their children too much; I appreciate that. Sometimes we go to see a matinée at the Odeon if it’s not too violent. Mind you, these days I struggle a bit with my hearing so that’s a challenge. I try to sit at the end of a row in case I decide to nip out early.

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, the circumstances of the actual... the incident. I thought a bit of background would be helpful, to put things into perspective. Me and Douglas, our lives. And Harry, of course.

Because it’s never as simple as the pure facts, is it? They’re the what but then there’s the why. The complex web of influences, the significant events of someone’s history that blows them hither and yon. You know, someone will say ‘Moira, how can my brother be so different from me? We had the same parents, the same childhood...’ Well, I tell them, the fact is you didn’t have the same parents or childhood. And they look at me as though I’ve lost my Elgins but I explain. Maybe you were wanted and he wasn’t. You were the first born; he was a mistake. You came when they were struggling to make ends meet, he arrived when they were more flush with your mum’s part-time job at the Co-op. Or whatever. D’you see? And of course you were one gender while he was the other.

Another, I should say. It’s not just black and white, is it, nowadays? If you tell me, Moira it’s a grey area I say, ‘No, my friend, it’s all the colours in between.’ He, she, it, they, non-binary, fluid. Or ‘prefer not to say’. What a world, eh? Who’d have predicted that when we were little? I was a girl and never wanted to be anything else. Boys were rough and a bit - no offence - grubby. Mucky and coarse. We were clean and sweet. Pretty colours and soft fabrics. You knew where you were. Where everyone was. Now you’ve got to be so careful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of people identifying as they choose, preferred pronouns and all that. I want to ask, what are your preferred adverbs? Mine are single-mindedly and unapologetically.

Look, the thing is we make choices, don’t we? All of us. I do, you do, Douglas did. And Harry, obviously. We don’t simply drift through life. We make decisions on the daily. Some tiddlers like whether to have jam or marmalade, or which cardigan suits us best – the blue one from M&S or the grey one from the Marie Curie. And some absolute whoppers such as who to marry, whether to try for children or what to do if... well, big decisions.

So let me fill you in about my big decisions. Are you comfy? Not chilly? I could turn up the heating. No?

Douglas and I met at a dance. Young Conservatives. Odd really, given that he later became a Lib Dem councillor. Very respected, he was. But back then it was all we knew. People Like Us were white-collar and voted blue; the other lot were blue collar and voted red. Our parents worked in smart offices, they clocked in at grubby factories. We lived in houses near the park, they had council flats on the Grove End estate. Holidays for us was a B&B, they went to caravan parks. We had battered antique furniture, they bought flatpack stuff. We didn’t drop our aitches or eat with our mouths open; they did. Salt of the earth, I’m sure, but... not PLU. I’m not intolerant, that’s just how things were. It’s different now and all the better for it, I dare say. Social mobility. A cat may look at a king.

So the YCs it was. I’d gone with my schoolfriend Angela Twining. Poor Angela, she had this stammer. Or is it stutter? Well, she’d set off to say something and get stuck, like a car with its wheel in the mud. Round and round. Bu-bu-bu... I was never sure whether to wait until the tyre got a grip or offer a push. Bu-bu-bird? Bu-bu-butter? Bu-bu-bu-Birmingham? They gave Angela a part in the school play one term, thinking it would cure her, shock her out of it. What a disaster. Total horror for her and the audience. I can never think of Pygmalion without a shudder.

And people can be so unkind. ‘Eliza Doo-doo-doo-little,’ the boys would taunt her. She took it in her stride but it must have stung, mustn’t it? I felt a certain loyalty to Angela for some reason I can’t explain. Like a lady in waiting, taking care to make sure she was all right. Which she generally was. But it gave me a role and I liked that. ‘I’m here with my friend,’ I’d say, speaking for us both. As if we came as a package, two for the price of one. I remember one lad – Gideon something, a farmer’s boy – made a smutty comment about us having a bit of a thing together, me and Angela. Really! Farmers, like teachers, could be red or blue, d’you see?

Douglas was smart, very smart, I do recall that. Nice short hair Brylcreemed down, no sideburns and clean shaven. In fact he had a little snick on his cheek with a bead of dried blood. I teased him about that and he blushed as red as a beetroot. I made him take the hanky from his top pocket, lick it, and give it to me so I could wipe it off. I felt like his mother. Perhaps that was an omen. After that we had a dance. He wasn’t very good but I didn’t mind. We weren’t there for terpsichorean delight.

There was certainly a tingle between us. I let him dance up close and I knew he was staring down my cleavage but I said nothing. Was I flattered? I was. Did my dress show me off to advantage? It did. Truth to tell, I was always proud of my breasts – until I had the one removed four years ago – so he was welcome to admire them. We swapped partners a few times. I paired up with Eric O’Brien, Jeffrey Wormald and Henry Haddon; funny I still have them in my mind all these years later. Not the faces any more, just the names.

Douglas and I had the last dance together. A slow one, of course. Smoochy. His hands wandered where they really shouldn’t have but I said nothing. When it was time to go home – Dad had come to collect me and Angela in the Rover - he moved in for a kiss. I expected him to do it properly with his tongue but he gave me a little peck on the cheek. I had to take charge, show him the ropes without seeming fast. There’s a word for girls like that.

It was a whirlwind courtship. The dance was July, we began dating straight after. It all went tickety-boo and he proposed in the December. On the dodgems at the Christmas Fayre, which I thought wasn’t the most romantic place but he had the ring and gave a little speech. I was a bit ‘whoa, steady the buffs’ but he said I was the girl for him and why wait? So I said yes. Well, what’s a girl to do? We had some candyfloss to celebrate.

Mum said he was quite the catch, what with his dad being Alf Blandford whose building firm had done the new hospital wing by the car auctions. Where the mosque is now. Dad thought Douglas was a fly boy and said there was no rush, I should play the field for a while; he said he wished he had. Mum gave him such a look and plonked his shepherd’s pie down so hard I thought the plate would break. I said I was going to ask Angela to be my bridesmaid. Dad said couldn’t I find someone better? I told him that was unkind.

It didn’t matter what they said, though, It was my choice. That’s the nub of my gist, d’you see? I made my own mind up and acted on it. We are individuals, creatures with self-will. And we have to take responsibility for our actions, as I’m doing now. Whatever the consequences.

The wedding was super-duper. Lovely church service. You should have seen my dress, it was from House of Fraser and had little pink bows down the front. ‘You’re my fairy princess,’ Douglas whispered to me when we were standing at the altar. He was so nervous, poor lamb; nearly dropped the ring. We said our vows, signed the book and there it was: bye-bye Miss Seaton, hello Mrs Blandford. My life, you could say, was sealed at that exact moment. For better or worse.

We went to the Saracen’s Head for a lavish spread of prawn cocktail, chicken and roast potatoes with sprouts and French beans with a choice of desserts. Douglas had two, cheesecake and a rum baba! He said he was watching his figure... get bigger and bigger. I thought that was so witty.

His friend Brendan, the best man, gave a speech that was, frankly, a bit near the knuckle and had Mum pursing her lips in that way she did. (‘If that’s the best man, Lord spare us the second best,’ she said.) Dad’s was short and to the point, as if he’d copied it from a book and filled in the relevant names. I was glad when it was over, sitting there being stared at on the top table like some prize at a show. We had dancing to live music. They did songs by Whitney Houston, Wham and Sheena Easton. Brendan tried to dance with Mum to ‘Baggy Trousers’ but she was having none of it. Angela turned him down too so he got her little sister, Felicity, who was twelve, into some dodgy-looking moves. He gave her a very large glass of Mateus Rosé. I doubt she’s recovered yet. When I tossed the bouquet over my shoulder, guess who caught it? Angela. And yet she never did marry. Sad really.

It was Florida for the honeymoon. Florida! Can you imagine? I’d never been to the Isle of Wight, never mind on a plane. Oh, the luxury. Everything was like a dream. I reckon Douglas’ dad must have chipped in because it was five-star treatment all the way. The Hotel Del Rio was right by the ocean and we had the bridal suite, of course. Chocolates on the pillow and champagne in a silver bucket, compliments of the management. Fresh flowers everywhere, even in the bathroom. Which was the size of our living room at home.

It was a magical time. Sunshine and blue skies. Everyone so polite. ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘Congratulations’ and lots of ‘Have a great day’. It felt like being in a film; I expected to bump into Bruce Willis or Julia Roberts in the lift. Or should I say ‘elevator’?!

‘Don’t get too used to this,’ Douglas said. ‘It’s back to reality with a bump next week.’

‘I hope I don’t get a bump that quickly,’ I said. Oh yes, I could be witty too.

Marriage was – well, how can I put it? Not what I expected. I suppose I’d read too many stories in Woman’s Weekly. Or not enough in Cosmopolitan. I had no idea. Nobody tells you, do they? It’s like a great conspiracy. ‘Let her find out for herself; we all had to.’ And then it comes down on you like a ton of muck. If you thought it was going to be all candyfloss and pink bows, young lady, think again.

From the minute I said, ‘I do’ I started to wonder... ‘Do I?’

It was 1985 and I was twenty-one. More of a girl than a woman. I don’t mean physically; everything was – you know – in place. And I wasn’t averse to a bit of slap-and-tickle when the mood was on me. Or ‘how’s-yer-father’ as Douglas called it. The first time he said that I thought it was a real question and replied, ‘He has a touch of bronchitis, actually.’ How he laughed. He never let me forget that. Teased me in front of others. I pretended not to mind.

I was naïve, I don’t deny it. But that’s not a bad thing, is it? Having a curry was exotic for me, VHS tapes were a novelty. As for going to bed with a man, well that was thrilling and daunting in equal parts. To be fair the balance tipped towards the thrill as I got used to the... procedures. I knew what was expected and what was allowed. At first I thought I was supposed to lie still and let it happen, wait until Douglas had performed the act, got himself to the shuddering bit. I’d talked about it with my girlfriends and some of them had already done it. More than once in the case of Molly Andrews and Helen Parker. I’d heard their stories but now this was my own version. Awkward, uncomfortable, confusing. Then less awkward, more comfortable and enjoyable. Exciting. Wonderful. Rip-roaring, breathtaking, bed-shaking and… oh, I found my x-rated g-spot.

Sorry, is this too much detail? I’m trying to explain about the twists and turns of a life that in forty years slips from innocence to... to where we are today. Bear with me.

Conjugal bliss is like a soufflé: it fluffs up but soon sinks down again. Well, my soufflés do. I did an awful lot of cooking for an awful lot of years. Three meals a day, seven days a week for four decades. I can’t be bothered to work it out but just imagine all those meals lined up on a vast trestle table – it would stretch from here to Scarborough.

To be fair, we did go out for a treat once in a while. The Lotus Garden or the Taj Mahal on a Friday night. Douglas liked his foreign flavours. I’d try to surprise him at home with some unusual dishes but he’d always praise my effort, not the achievement.

Soufflés. Yes, the s-e-x sank down and became a less frequent occurrence, on a par with cutting my toenails and about as stimulating. Douglas didn’t approve of my enthusiasm. He told me to ‘ssh’ if I talked during a session of what he called ‘coitus’, to be more lady-like. That was me told.

Naturally a sheath was involved. Douglas stressed that we couldn’t risk a slip-up. It wasn’t financially viable. His plan was to wait until he got promotion to manager at his dad’s firm. I said I could bring some money in but Douglas didn’t want me to work, said it would be a reflection on him that he couldn’t keep me. Keep me! As if I was some creature who shouldn’t be let out in public. It took years – years – for him to agree I could volunteer at the library. Well, it made sense; I had an ‘O’ level. And I loved the books. So many characters to meet, voices to hear, worlds to explore. I’d have two or three on the go at once. History, romance, autobiographies of Hollywood stars. So glamorous. I think Douglas was jealous that I was more interested in spending time with fiction than our reality. He started to tut when I picked one up, trying to distract me with the telly: Hale and Pace or Britain’s Got Talent. (‘If it has, it’s not on this programme,’ I said. That narked him and I regretted it.)

The years ticked by. Books, cooking, gardening, a couple of afternoons a week at the library. More cooking. I’m not saying I was unhappy, nothing so definite. But on a scale of 1 to 10 with the top end being bliss, let’s say around 4. Or 3. We moved to Terrington proper and then here, Terrington Green. A pretty village by the seaside and it had its own Post Office – until they shut it down the other year – corner shop, dry cleaner, Boots the Chemist and two pubs. Not that we’d go there apart from the odd special occasion like the Queen’s jubilee. Or her other jubilee. There was a street party, the most pathetic thing you ever saw with half a dozen picnic tables and neighbours I’d never seen before waving plastic flags and trying to have fun in the drizzle. Dear oh dear. The coronation was no better. I think I could go off the whole royal thing now she’s gone; it’s not the same.

One day he came home from work; Douglas, I mean. I served up pork chops with new potatoes and tinned peas and as he wiped his mouth on the napkin he announced: ‘Moira, my dear, I believe the time has come.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, ‘What time is that?’

‘Time for us to add to our family.’ He must have seen my confusion. ‘To try for a baby.’

‘Oh, Douglas!’ was all I could manage.

‘I’ve been looking at our finances and, with promotion to area manager around the corner, it’s my considered opinion that we are now in a solid enough position to take on that extra economic burden.’

Burden. He said that. Could he have been less romantic?

So we did. We tried. I was back to lying there waiting for him to ‘juice me up’ as he put it. A vessel for his deposit. Careful not to get too involved and risk his disapproval. Well, it wasn’t about pleasure now, just the mechanical process of creating a pregnancy.

We tried and we kept on trying. We worked out the patterns when our efforts were most likely to catch on and did it on the right days, fitting our lives around it. I came to dread those nights, I can tell you. It felt like a chore, a visit to the dentist but without anaesthetic. He would deliver the goods with a ‘Here we go, then’ or ‘That’s the ticket’ spoken drily at the moment of release, as if he was passing me the cruet. And he was polite to a fault. ‘How was it, my dear?’ Or ‘Was that all right?’

‘Just right,’ I’d say. Or, ‘Lovely, thank you.’

Every month I’d have to confess to Douglas that my bleeding had started. He’d sigh and his shoulders would drop. This wasn’t following the blueprint. He had the bank balance, where was the burden? I swear he looked at me as if I was letting the side down. Never said so but there was such disapproval in his eyes. One morning after divulging the usual bad news, I suggested we see Doctor Orman, get ourselves checked out. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he snapped and slammed the door on his way to work. I remember thinking that day as I washed up our plates: ‘This is not the life I want.’ I felt trapped.

It took month after month after desperate month until it finally happened. I was late. I waited a couple of days to tell him in case I was wrong. But I did the home test – I’d had a box of the Predictor things unused in the bathroom cabinet for ages – and yes, it was positive. I’d fallen pregnant at last.

‘Aha,’ said Douglas, ‘Well done, old girl.’

As the weeks passed I got used to the idea that it was going to happen. I wasn’t excited but I was intrigued, curious. Ready and willing. I began to knit socks.

It was a terrible shock when I lost it. I could feel something wasn’t right and I bled on the toilet alone. I had to tell Douglas that evening. He tried to be sympathetic but I knew he thought it was my fault. Had I been doing too much gardening, cleaning over-energetically? All I could think was, thank goodness it’s early, before the twelve-week scan. I hadn’t told people yet, not even mum. Douglas wasn’t the kind of man to show his own upset or listen to mine. So we carried on with our days as if it hadn’t happened. Work, meals, chit-chat, television. And our nights, a sad gulf of mattress between us. Grief is painful enough but so much harder when it’s bottled up inside.

It took a long time before we were ready to try again. Before I was ready. He was all for carrying on as before, like – I don’t know – falling off your bike, rubbing your knee and getting back in the saddle.

But we did. The right days, the polite coupling, the wait for my period. Next month the same. And the next and the next.

Then a second time the urine test was positive. And a second time I miscarried. This time it was later so we’d already announced the news to our families and friends.

It’s one thing to say ‘I’m pregnant.’ It’s quite another to tell them, ‘I’m not pregnant any more.’ The look on their faces was awful. Sad, embarrassed. I felt terrible for inflicting that discomfort.

I was pretty sure I couldn’t face it again. I rebuffed any approach Douglas made in that department. Suggesting ‘an early night’ was his way of asking for it. ‘Not yet,’ I’d tell him. ‘I’ll let you know when.’ He was patient but I could sense him waiting, waiting. We were getting on, late thirties. He must have wondered if fatherhood would elude him.

I joined the tennis club and focused my energy there. It was a lifeline; somewhere to run around, have some larks. And I enjoyed being competitive. I can’t deny it. It was so jolly to be involved in games and matches again, like at school. Serving an ace, deep groundstrokes, smashing a winning volley away. I even made it into the ladies’ second team. I tell you, Angela Twining and I were a formidable partnership. Her stutter was never an issue when she shouted, ‘Mine!’ She’s a lefty too, so we had that advantage. She always used to ask, ‘Is Douglas with you today?’ He rarely was. He said tennis was poncey. But the truth was he didn’t like the fact that I was better than him. The away matches were best, being off home turf and visiting local towns. And, oh, the laughs. It was fun, not something I could say about life at home.

Don’t get me wrong. Douglas wasn’t a bad man. Not an unkind husband. But domestic life had deteriorated into a dreary routine of mundane activities that can’t have delighted him any more than me.

Then came the miracle. A dramatic word but that’s how it felt.

I reluctantly allowed Douglas access to me again because it was his birthday; it seemed only fair. Not from any desire on my part. I’d long stopped seeing him as ‘sexy’. Handsome in his way, objectively I could see that - the bone structure, height, build and so on. But the sight of him naked after a shower didn’t make my heart beat faster. His bare chest was just a bare chest, his thing was just another thing. Well, it was the only one I’d ever seen so I had nothing to compare it to. No, wait – there was one in a film we were watching on TV one night. Some French affair with subtitles. This actor climbed out of a swimming pool and there it was, all flopping about. No shame, no embarrassment. I’d have been quite happy to watch it for a bit longer – the film I mean - but Douglas grabbed the remote and changed over to Newsnight. ‘Good grief,’ he said, ‘Nobody needs that in their living room midweek!’

I digress. I gave him the extra birthday present and he seemed content. Not as chuffed as by the Arran sweater I got him but appreciative nonetheless. He thanked me, courteous as always. ‘You’re welcome,’ I said and it felt like the wrong dialogue to use around a love-making session.

Love? Is that the word? Well, it’s the big question, isn’t it? Where is the line between that and affection? Or friendship. Or rubbing along together. Or barely tolerating each other’s idiosyncrasies and the marriage hanging by a thread? It’s a rhetorical question.

The miracle wasn’t simply that my period was late and the test was positive. It was that I got through the scan. It started to show. He started to. We found out the sex by mistake. I didn’t want to know but some silly nurse let it slip and I pretended not to mind.

Three months, four months. All going smoothly. Five, six months, seven. Just as it should be. All the right symptoms: sickness, cravings, dizziness, skin blotches. ‘Perfectly normal, Mrs Blandford.’ I didn’t believe a word of it. Eight nerve-wracking months. I still couldn’t trust it, not after the previous misfortunes. I was braced for the ultrasound to reveal there was no heartbeat, or some ghastly problem that meant it – he – wouldn’t survive. You know the sort of thing: brain defect, spina bifida, Downs. Not that we called it that, back then. Well, the risks were greater with my age. I was getting on, nearly forty. A geriatric mother they call you; honestly.

Douglas was a right fuss-pot. ‘Sit down, Moira. Put your feet up, love. Don’t exert yourself.’ He even paid for a cleaner to come in twice a week. Said the baby budget would cover it. Wendy Telfer was a treasure. She’d had six of her own and sailed through every time so she was a voice of calm. Wendy would settle me on the sofa and rub my bare tummy with a flannel dipped in milk. She firmly believed it would help. I didn’t argue.

I think it was only in the final couple of weeks, clomping around the house like a cartoon creature, that I started to believe it really might happen. Even then there was a voice in my head that kept whispering that I wasn’t worthy of motherhood; it was only for other women. I tried to shout it down. But it was right, wasn’t it?

Contractions on the Thursday, dash to the hospital Douglas’ dad had helped build. Nine hours of labour with pain the like of which you can’t imagine and then one last push on the Friday and... my miracle baby. Ours, I should say.

Harry Matthew Alfred.

I agreed that Douglas could be there for the birth. I think it traumatised him. He had no idea it would be so messy. Blood and screaming, sweat and stitching. He kept getting in the way and patting my hand saying, ‘There, there.’ Worse than useless. He meant well. But something broke that day, a connection between us which had been under stress just... dissolved.

Harry was born with a frown and I rarely saw him without one. We did our best for him, of course we did. But he was troubled. Cried for hours on end and nothing comforted him. Douglas would get cross with Harry for screaming and cross with me for not getting him settled. I was supposed to perform magic. He didn’t get involved, never changed him, hardly held him. Talked a lot about the things they’d do together when he was older – fishing, football, bricklaying – but it was always ‘one day’, not right now.

He was bright, our boy. Good with words, puzzles, could catch a ball and hit it. I said he could be a doctor; Douglas said no, he’d go into the family building firm and run it one day. I smiled and let him think that.

Always a loner, though. Played in his room or by himself in the garden. Didn’t have many friends and the few he did have moved on. He was invited to birthday parties but never wanted one of his own. Douglas called him an alien. ‘If I hadn’t seen him pop out with my own eyes, I’d put money on him coming from another planet.’ And he’d laugh. I said, ‘That’s not very nice, Douglas.’ Harry is our DNA, I’d think. A mixture of you and me; we can’t pass the responsibility to anyone else. But then you wonder: is it how we bring him up that dictates the sort of little chap he is or is that already imprinted, a sort of factory setting?

Suddenly you know loads of other mums at the school gate and have all these conversations about the kids. Timmy’s done this... Helen’s said that... Bobby painted this picture... Claire made these... blah blah blah. And Harry? What could I say? Harry hasn’t done much. Harry hasn’t said much. He’s alone and quiet and always frowning. What I didn’t say, and couldn’t say was, ‘I’m worried about Harry. I’m really, really worried.’

He lost his way as a teenager. If he had a way to lose. I know all children go through a grotty phase but it was more than that. He was already distant and now he became aggressive. He and Douglas would have huge rows, shouting and snarling like animals. About being out late or not slouching or playing loud music or... oh, nothing that mattered in the greater scheme. Harry would back off with a sort of sneer, muttering, ‘You’ll never understand.’ But there was something else, under the surface. As if he was thinking, ‘I’ll show you.’ Or is that me embroidering it with hindsight, in retrospect?

I tried to intervene, moderate. But my miracle son drove me crazy too. I’d serve up dinner and he wouldn’t come down until it was cold. So Douglas and I sat there, me sighing, him muttering, glaring at the empty chair. Harry let his hair grow long, so long. Said it was allowed at school but I doubt that. Not just long but filthy. Lank and matted. I bought him shampoos and conditioner and all sorts but they stayed unopened in the bathroom. One day he appeared in this plastic Alice band holding the mane back. Well, you can imagine, Douglas hit the roof. ‘You look like a girl! Shall we call you Harriet now? Eh, eh?’ I don’t think that’s what was going on in Harry’s head. If it was, we could have talked about it. But he never let us in.

Ten ‘O’ levels he got. I was so proud of him. Douglas quibbled with some of his grades and said he should have studied more instead of ‘blasting out heavy metal and squeezing his spots’. Not to his face, thank the Lord, just to me. But still... there was no call for that.

Douglas bought him a new bike. I think secretly he was bursting with pride too but didn’t know how to say it. It was a smart, expensive one, 10 speed, bright blue with lights and everything. But it stayed in the garage untouched, gathering cobwebs and getting in the way. Cycling wasn’t Harry’s thing. It’s what Douglas wanted his thing to be.

Maths, Chemistry and Art were the ‘A’ levels he chose. Douglas was sniffy about the art. ‘What use is that in the job market?’ I pointed out that if Harry was going to go into Blandford & Son he’d hardly need qualifications for the interview, would he? Which shut him up. Although I didn’t want him to choose that path, get swallowed up there. Privately I didn’t think he would. It turns out I was right.

June 10th it was, at 4.27, that I took the call. It was a Friday afternoon because I was just unpacking a big shop for the weekend. I thought it was a prank, someone playing a trick.

‘Mrs Blandford, you need to come into school at once.’

Why? How could they need me unless..?

‘Is Harry all right? Has something happened?’ I imagined a disciplinary thing; he’d broken some rule. Sworn at a teacher, or it was about his hair. But her voice had an edge.

‘If you could get here as soon as possible.’

‘Is he all right? Tell me.’

‘I’m very sorry. There’s been a... an accident.’

It wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate. A cool-headed decision to end his own life.

People say ‘it’s all a blur’. I wish it was. If only it would fuzz around the edges and soften focus. But so much is engraved on my mind, burned into my retinas, visible in horrific detail. Inescapable.

He left a note. Sorry for doing this... Sorry to hurt you... Sorry I couldn’t tell you... Sorry there was no other way... One huge apology. But I’m the one who needs to apologise to him every day for letting him down. He was a miracle and I didn’t value him enough. I wasted him. Guilt has been my constant companion ever since but Douglas is consumed with fury. ‘How could he do that to us? We gave him everything. Our lives are ruined now. We’ll never get over this. It’s so selfish! How could he?’

How many ways did we fail him? Fail to address the concerns behind that frown. His loneliness and isolation. What if he’d had a brother or sister? What if we knew more about how to be good parents? What if I hadn’t teased him that time? What if Douglas hadn’t been dismissive? And what if on that day, when he’d decided, had got the rope from the theatre props cupboard and gone up into the attic of the arts block... What if, when he was writing that note, he’d had a moment’s doubt and called me? Called anyone. But he was determined. He knew his own mind, as the coroner said at the inquest.

His funeral was rather beautiful. Generous words by the headmaster and a sweet poem from a Sixth Form girl. Hymns I couldn’t sing. All Things Bright and Beautiful. Not any more, I thought. So many school blazers. So many children crying. And they are still children at that age, aren’t they? I didn’t cry. Before and since but not then.

That was over a year ago. Fourteen months and six days. We got through the anniversary somehow. A long walk, both struggling to speak. Me in the depths of misery, Douglas still furious with Harry. We had a row about something trivial – the best way to cook rice I think. We went from bickering and sarcastic sniping to a full-blown shouting match there in the street. People watched us. I thought, that’s it. This is over. We can never have a life together now.

We did, for a while. But something fundamental had shifted. A block of ice sheared off a glacier, crashing into the sea. I began to see my husband, Douglas Blandford, as he was, not making excuses or compromising with ‘that’s just his way’ or ‘he means well.’ No. Every slurp at the table. Every night-time snore or daytime snort. Each occasion a finger was rammed up a nostril or flatulence was brazenly exhibited as an achievement. Those petty comments about my weight or criticism of my clothes. Every rant about immigration or the NHS. I witnessed them for what they were: infuriating and boorish, the product of a closed mind and a heart incapable of love.

He wanted to clear Harry’s things away, make his bedroom a study. What, wipe out the evidence of his life? He said it was time. It will never be time. Told me it made no sense to preserve the room as it was. I said I want it to be ready in case he comes back. He called me mad. Of course I’m mad! How can I be sane after this?

I withdrew. Even more than before. We became strangers sharing a house. Sometimes, when Douglas was in a deep sleep I’d go to Harry’s room and curl up under his duvet, remembering his birth or one day when we’d laughed and cuddled together. How can a memory be heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time?

Some days I go for whole minutes when he’s not there in my mind. I’ve started to play tennis again and that helps, for a while. I’m slower than I was. Angela isn’t there, her sciatica is too bad. I garden. And I have my books. Occasionally I can get to a point of respecting Harry’s decision, almost of accepting it. But I will never, ever, understand it.

I’m sorry if I’ve gone on for too long but I wanted to explain the background to it all. I want my actions to be understood and this is the best way I know to make things clear. Although, as I say, nobody can ever truly get inside someone else’s head.

So here we are. Bang up to date. Just about. Shall I supply the final piece of the jigsaw?

Last Sunday we’d agreed to take a stroll together up on Cartwell Bluff. It was a bright day and neither of us could claim we had anything important to do. On the rare occasions that we speak more than pleasantries he’s been making vague efforts to repair our relationship. The odd gift of flowers from the garage or compliment on my ‘new’ skirt that I’ve had for months. Doesn’t he know it’s too little and far too late? I do.

So we walk along the lower path and then climb onto the cliff top and head towards Sparrow Gap. I go ahead of Douglas and he follows. I’m dictating the pace. I feel powerful and it’s an odd sensation. He wants connection with me and I’m shutting him out. My end of the seesaw is up; his is down. He talks; I don’t reply. I’m not even listening. There is no point, no purpose. To us, to him, to me. There was no point to Harry’s life.

I stop and turn round. There, high up above the beach, the sun is strong in my eyes. I have to squint to focus on his face. It strikes me how rodent-like his features are. Not handsome like his father. He looks pathetic.

‘Douglas,’ I say to him, calm and genuinely curious, ‘Tell me something. Why did you marry me?’

It’s a long time until he replies, as if he’s weighing up how truthful to be. I can wait.

‘Because Angela Twining turned me down.’

I nod. It makes sense. Even then I don’t hate him. I’ve never hated him. Nothing that defined. Indifference is closer. He’s an inconvenience. I simply want him away from me. I want to be rid of the irritation of him, the inconvenience. He is a hindrance; superfluous.

‘I’m sorry, Moira.’ He steps towards me, arms raised as if to offer comfort. No, no. I won’t allow that. I simply want him gone.

And so I push him. Hard enough for him to stumble back. Towards the edge. He attempts to get his balance but he can’t; the ground is wet. There must have been a shower earlier before we woke from dismal sleep; the autumn sun is bright but it lacks strength to dry the grass. His foot slips. A seagull screeches above, as if it’s mocking him. I’m not laughing, not feeling much. Apart from ‘Leave me alone.’ And thinking, where is Moira Seaton now? Can I go back and try again? Back to the dodgems and say, ‘No, thank you, Douglas. I don’t want to spend my life with you.’ I feel weary with the massive weight of disappointment.

There’s a second or two as he teeters on the brink when I could step forward, offer a hand and haul him back to safety. But I don’t. I watch him swaying like a drunk, arms flailing, reaching out for support. His eyes are fixed on mine, a look of incomprehension, then realisation. How could I? He doesn’t know me. He never did.

No, I didn’t want him to die. Let’s be clear. In that moment, I didn’t care one way or the other.

‘Lucky to survive’ it said in the Chronicle. They even did a bit on local telly with that blonde reporter standing down on the beach looking up at the cliff, all melodramatic, hair blowing. Three hundred and sixty feet apparently. They got his age wrong. Wanted to interview me. I sent them packing.

So, he’s lucky is he? And what about me? When he comes out of hospital I’ll have to look after him. They’ve already said he’ll never walk again. Won’t be able to feed himself, wash and all the rest. So I’m to be a full-time carer, his live-in nurse. For what, twenty years? Twenty-five? I thought it was a rotten deal before. But now... What future is that? What kind of living hell, for both of us?

—-ooo0ooo—-