them.
Immediately I knew that Iâd said the wrong thing. I could feel their intake of breath. I wished Iâd fibbed and said something about this yearâs theme being loss and hope or some such nonsense, even if I knew Iâd never go through with it and would have had to pretend in a few months that all the soloists Iâd invited were mysteriously busy this year. But I didnât think fast enough and as soon as the words left my mouth I knew that I was in for it and Operation âBuck Up Papaâ was moving up a gear.
I waited for a week but nothing happened, apart from the usual calls from Clara on her car phone during the school run with the children shrieking in the back about forgotten swimming kits and unfinished homework. Clara always called me when she was occupied with something else as though proving to us all just how many things she could juggle at once. I wished sheâd call less often when she actually had a moment to talk.
There were messages on the answer phone from Lucy who, Iâm certain, timed her calls for when she knew Iâd be out or in the shower. She wished me to know that she was concerned but would prefer not to actually speak to me when the conversation was both predictable and uncomfortable.
Lucy: âHow are you today?â
Me: âIâve been better.â
Lucy: âDid you manage to play at all?â
Me: âNo.â
I would have preferred to leave messages on my answer phone and avoid me too.
I spent the week as usual, drifting through loose and identical days, dreary except for grief. At night I couldnât sleep. Iâd lie awake in the small hours, aware of every creak and click of wood and the cold space beside me. During the days I was so tired. A weariness settled in my bones, as if theyâd been boiled too long and softened into marrow. Even though Iâd potter quietly through the afternoon and be careful not to nap, not for a minute â come night-time, there I was, lying awake in the dark, listening to the hum and rattle of the house.
Memories drifted through my mind unsummoned and Iâd be forced to watch, passive and powerless to staunch them. All I wanted was dull and dreamless sleep but instead Iâd see Edie trying to pin up her hair before a concert, hands shaking so badly that I had to help. She suffered from terrible stage fright throughout her career, but no one ever knew apart from me. Sleep receded from me, and I found myself holding a trembling ghost of Edie in the wings of the Royal Albert Hall, her dress slick with sweat. A stagehand appeared and politely enquired as to whether she was all right, to which she replied, âAbsolutely fine,â and promptly vomited in the fire bucket.
I remembered how Edie used to disappear off on her snow walks in the night and, half awake, Iâd try to fool myself that sheâd just gone for a wander through the gardens, perhaps asfar as the hill. But Edie went walkabout only on the wintriest of nights, and inevitably the next thing Iâd hear was the warble of a chiffchaff or Iâd inhale the treacherous scent of jasmine through the open window, and Iâd know it was summer and I wasnât even permitted the respite of pretence. Iâd lapse into an exhausted doze shortly before dawn, wondering whether this was to be the rest of my existence: an endless replay of our marriage, the repeats slowly losing their clarity and colour.
Before Edie died, Iâd never lived alone. Even when she took a trip without me, the housekeeper would live in while she was gone â Iâm of the generation where men are considered useless, helpless creatures unable to boil an egg without assistance. Iâd achieved the age of seventy-odd, having spent hardly a night in the house on my own. But when Edie died, I couldnât bear the thought of a stranger sleeping there. I feared an outsider would drive away the last pieces of her. I didnât want
Back in the Saddle (v5.0)