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
