THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED

By Richard Banks

It was in 2002 that I lost her. It was all very sudden. One moment she was as right as rain the next she wasn’t. Sepsis they called it. The doctor at the surgery tried to explain it to me, but I was too shook-up to take it in, told me I had done right in phoning 999. Nobody could have done more, he said, but I knew, deep down, that wasn’t so.

         It was around teatime that Mary started to feel unwell. She thought she had caught a chill, was feeling a bit hot and bothered, but nothing, she said, that a couple of aspirins and a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix. At nine she went early to bed but by eleven was still awake and even more unwell.

         “I’m going to call an ambulance,” I said.

         “What, at this time of night?” she said. “Best wait until morning, I’ll be better in the morning.” But half an hour later she was even worse so I dialled 999 and although the paramedics arrived only ten minute later she was gone her hand slowly cooling and become cold in mine.

         “Better than a lingering death,” said Jenny, desperately trying to find something to say that might console me. I agreed - cousin Jimmy was not long dead from Parkinson’s; I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through what he did. Nevertheless, we both knew that Mary had left us too soon and too quickly; no time to say goodbye. After forty years together we should at least have had that.

         And, so it was that me and everyone else said our goodbyes at the funeral. Kenny flew back from New York and Mary’s brother took the train down from Dundee. There were fifty other folk who said they were coming so Jenny booked the large hall at the crematorium and arranged a reception at the WI where Mary was a member.

         The service was to be a celebration of her life, and the good times we shared with her, of which there were many. Jenny said we should all dress in something colourful because her mother had always liked bright colours and hated black. She was right up to a point but, like me, Mary was ‘old school’ about funerals and would have thought it disrespectful not to wear black. So, in the end we agreed that it should be a black suit and tie affair but that everyone coming should wear a red rose. Mary would have liked that being a Lancashire lass - at least she was before she came south to marry me.

         Anyway it all went as well as could be expected. Kenny did the eulogy and Jenny said a prayer and everyone I spoke to tried to say the right things or didn’t because they were too upset or unsure what to say. Their faces told me all I needed to know. Of course they were sad, and after the reception they all went home no doubt glad they weren’t me.

         The kids were great, as I knew they would be. Kenny paid for me to go to the States and spend Christmas with him and his new wife, and Jenny, who only lives a mile away, was in and out several times a week. It was tough to begin with, especially when life settled down into the new norm. I had never done the shopping before beyond driving Mary to the supermarket and loading and unloading the car. Cooking I learned through trial and error. Housework I hated and all the jobs I was use to doing, like decorating the house and keeping the garden trim, seemed utterly pointless. But after a year everything began to fall into place. I paid for a cleaner to come in twice a week and made full use of a long, dry summer to paint the outside of the house.

          Keep busy, take consolation in friends and children, that seemed to be the best way forward, and on a warm March day, in whatever year it was, I saw the first daffodil burst into bloom and realised that the worse was over. I had my memories, my children, two grandchildren and the best kept house and garden in the street. What’s more Spurs were riding high in the league, and as a seventieth birthday present Kenny brought me a subscription to Sky. Blimey - football, cricket and tennis every day of the week!

         But what Jenny got me was even better. I wondered what she was up to rummaging through the junk in the spare room. It was full of stuff I scarcely looked at but couldn’t bear to throw away, including packs and packs of photographs which Mary and I intended putting into albums but never did. But what we didn’t do Jenny did. Not all of them, of course, but enough to fill three books, not only with the original prints but also with ones made better by a photographer who took the best parts of some and made them as clear as clear could be.

         What a story they told: me and Mary before we were married, our engagement, our first holiday together, the wedding at St Jude’s and then the children, Kenny born only seven months after the ceremony - what a furore that caused – and two years later, Jenny. Had we been better off we would have had more kids – at least one - but we weren’t, so we stuck at two and what a grand little family we were. Too hard-up to go on holiday, my first snaps of us were taken in the garden of our maisonette or the local park, but no one was happier than us, we had each other and that mattered more than anything else. Anyway it wasn’t long before I got a promotion that enable us to put down a deposit on a house and, a year later, we put-by enough money to go self catering in Bognor, followed the next year by a B&B in Scarborough and then a hotel in Torquay.

         We were going up in the world and with the kids now at Primary school and better able to travel, we ventured abroad to Madeira. What great times they were, so many wonderful memories, and the album captured so many of them: more holidays, school sports’ days, Kenny in the team photograph before the football final they lost – no photographs after that!

         Jenny, not the sporting type, took to acting and was in the school play; Twelfth Night it was. Didn’t understand a word but by all accounts she did really well and toyed with the idea of becoming an actress until coming back to earth and opting to go to the City & Guilds where she  trained to become a dressmaker. By this time Kenny was at university studying economics. He was not a kid any more and neither was Jenny. There was a certain sadness in that, but also a sense of pride that Mary and I had brought up two children to be so full of promise and keen to get on in life. Inevitably both flew the nest. Within a year of leaving Uni Kenny accepted a job in America, where he still lives, while a few years later Jenny moved into a flat near the London fashion house she worked for. Kenny married and we flew out to San Francisco for the ceremony along with |Jenny and the young man who later became our son-in-law. Briefly reunited we again went our separate ways. Kenny’s job sometimes brought him back to Europe and from time to time would stay with us for a day or two before jetting off again, while Jenny, also busy with her work, was also an infrequent visitor.

         It might have continued so, especially when Jenny and Harry finally got round to tying the knot. Then suddenly it was all change and Jenny phoned us to say that we were to become grandparents. It was not what two career minded wannabes were intending but they decided to keep their ‘little surprise’ and reorganise their lives in a way that kept their dreams alive. They sold their flat in north London and bought a semi only a mile away where Jenny set-up an on-line business selling dresses that she not only made but designed. Harry, who worked for Nat-West, commuted into London before becoming Chief Clerk of a branch he could drive to in less than an hour. And, of course, Mary and I were nearby and able to look after baby John when needed, which I suspect was all part of their cunning plan. Unlike those of Baldwick in Blackadder it worked a treat and the years that followed, in which a second child, Emma, was born were among the happiest of our lives. Far from being put upon grandparents we took to the role with a relish that gave new purpose to our lives. Even more photographs! Many, of course, were of the grandchildren but I always made sure that there were plenty of Mary. Despite having the best daughter and grandchildren in the world no one was more important to me than her.

         Apart from myself, who was largely behind the camera, Kenny’s residence abroad meant that there were less photographs of him than seemed fair; something I did my best to put right when in 2014, on my eightieth birthday, I flew out to see him again, this time with Jenny, Harry and the grand-kids. What a fine time we had staying with him and wife number three in their holiday home in Martha’s Vineyard. I liked number three, a sweet girl, twenty years younger than himself with an odd sort of name I could never get my tongue around. Was there, I wondered, the possibility of another grandchild? Three years later they divorced and when wife number four came along it became obvious, even to me, that Kenny was more interested in acquiring wives than children. Well, it takes all sorts. At least he wasn’t short of a bob or two, and having no children of his own became increasingly generous with his money giving much of it to charity and setting-up trusts for his nephew and niece, who, I suspect, will have further reasons to be grateful to their uncle.

         So, I suppose, that pretty much brings the story up to date. It’s the big nine-o tomorrow. How fortunate I am to have lived so long and not be too much of a burden on my children. My only regret is in losing Mary when I did.  Could I have done more? I will always regret not calling out the para-medics sooner. Would it have made any difference? People tell me no, but they’re just being kind. Nobody knows for sure, but at least the album has kept her memory alive. In the first two books Mary features on nearly every page.

         They say you should never dwell on the past, but when so many good things have happened it’s hard not to. It’s amazing how many recollections a photograph can conjure: Kenny, age eight, in his new trousers, the one’s he chose himself which a week later he put his knee through playing football; Jenny’s magic cottage birthday cake which Mary stayed up half the night icing so it would be a surprise on the day. We didn’t have the money to buy one, as some parents did, but none of Jenny’s friends had a better cake, of that I’m sure.

         There was a time when the past seemed as solid and real as the present, but not now. It started a year ago when I was looking at this photograph of Mary and me with friends at this posh London restaurant. There was Bob and Hazel, Steve and Anna, ourselves of course and this woman sitting by herself because her husband was taking the photograph. He was George but what was her name? She was no stranger, I knew her face alright, but her name had gone and despite many hours of trying to remember it I never did. She was the first one in the album to become a memory forgotten. Since then there have been others, far too many, and the album has become an unwanted test of memory which I fail only too often. Gradually the number of people I am able to put a name to have become less and less. Worst still I have almost forgotten the faces. Did I ever know these people? Logic tells me that once I did; if not, why on earth are they in the album!

         Even photographs of Kenny began to look unfamiliar although thankfully when he turned-up unexpectedly, with Jenny and the kids, it was only too obvious, even to me, who he was. Even so, I faltered once or twice with his name and everyone went a bit quiet, although nothing was said - at least not while I was around. Since then the number of people who I once knew and can still recognise have dwindled to close family. Mary would always be in my thoughts; how could I forget her, but one night in the early hours of the morning I wasn’t so sure. Only by getting out of bed, there and then, and finding her in the album could I be sure she was still in my head. So, that’s what I did. There were six weddings in the album, six faces that could have been hers and six faces that could have been mine. I had lost her a second time, disappeared without a trace, except for a feeling that I had loved someone very special and that our time together was the happiest of my life.

                                                *****

          Some days are better than others. This one has started well. Could I be getting better? But no, there is no cure, only moments of clarity that can last for minutes, sometimes longer, but never long enough. If I don’t try to force them, if I just let it happen, a few precious memories may return tomorrow, if not tomorrow then sometime soon. Just one more time, I plead - let me always have that hope.

 

Copyright Richard Banks