Double Exposure
November 2009
Her husband’s heart was too generous, Julia knew; a tenner slipped into the hands of mendacious siblings, teaching his daughters to drive in his precious Vauxhall, treating her to a new frock for a dinner and dance. And sure enough, by sixty, his heart was spent and stopped.
This was their first encounter with bereavement. But Julia could not share her daughters’ keening. The girls barely recognised their mother. Her diminutive body was usually a dynamo, keeping pace with the men on the farm, never defaulting on domestic duties, rolling up her sleeves at any perceived slight to her kids.
Now their mother spoke only in morsels. Nodded assent to funeral arrangements. Moved slowly as if in acute physical pain. Grief turned her brown eyes into a mourning black, which spread like a port wine stain over her face.
Mike’s funeral was the full stop to Julia giving into grief. She set about reassembling herself. At first, she carried her sorrow like a great weight. But managed to push through. She chivvied herself to return to work, grading and packing fruit. A job that required concentration to the exclusion of all thought. Here she was surrounded by no nonsense women who after an initial hug and a ‘Sorry for your loss dear’ didn’t dwell.
Everything was halved now. Meals for one, although she frequently prepared too much. Washing for one, no more muddy work jeans, oily shirts. And of course, food shopping for one. She pushed the trolley bearing diminished contents up and down the aisles, stopped her hands from automatically picking up his favourite biscuits.
Evenings, she distracted herself with domestic chores. Now after dusting and hoovering she could achieve the stately home accord she had craved, with no male presence to disrupt. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she thought grimly.
The TV and radio were Julia’s friends. She flooded the house with their sounds. Sometimes her interest pricked its’ ears, other times the noise just routed silence. Late afternoons, she could not kick the habit of looking at the clock for 6 pm, his home time. Then the weight of grief got the better of her and she would drop into a chair.
At night, Julia still defaulted to her side of the bed. Extinguishing the light, she would look across at the darkness that replaced the reassuring outline of his back. Then her secret tears flowed freely. Prior to his funeral, she had spent nights ticking off the hours until daylight. Now, however, a day’s labour brought the blessing of sleep.
Weekends, she began to tackle the garden– ‘Putting it to bed for winter,’ her husband used to say. Pruning, cutting back, mowing, then sitting on a garden chair, mug of tea in hand, she would try to visualise new flower beds. Mike was never one for flowers. She knew too that she must take over the vegetable patch she had inherited from him.
Gradually, Julia began too to be a mother again. At first, she struggled to give her girls’ natter her full attention. Managed occasionally to raise the ghost of a smile. Forced herself to offer solutions to their problems.
It was during the early days of this adjustment to her life that one Saturday at the sink she suddenly felt rather than saw her husband beside her. It was his familiar station as she washed while he dried the crockery, often regarding the garden through the window. That she did not see him physically did not diminish the certainty of his presence. After 30 plus years living together, they had developed an extra- preceptory sense of the other’s proximity. Julia knew when Mike’s car drew up outside the usual home time. Despite her back to the door, absorbed in her crafting, she did not jump when he entered the sitting room slipper shod. Now she smiled, basking in the peace that filled the kitchen like sunlight. Then he was gone. Quickly as a child pricking a bubble.
Julia didn’t ‘cry. It was not like losing him again. Although he was no longer present, the sense of peace stayed with her for many hours. She poured herself a glass of wine and sat by the lounge window, thinking of him now, without her thoughts feeling as if they were being dragged over broken glass.
This singular exchange could not, Julia knew, be explained to others, not even her daughters. It defied words. Its supernatural shading did not concern her having been brought up by an Irish mother, who could have filled a book with her superstitions. But she knew that in the cold light of other people’s prejudice, the authenticity of the encounter would be challenged; explained away as imagination, normalised as a dream, dismissed as an hallucination. So, she remained silent, keeping this last intimate exchange between her husband and herself private, believing it to be a ‘Goodbye’ of sorts.
December 2014
After his terminal prognosis, Bonnie’s husband retreated to his bed and into himself as he marshalled all his strength to make a last stand against the cancer that had invaded his body.
Bonnie understood that at 41, anger also kept him alive. The unfairness of this disease stealing his prime. A sportsman all his life, his body had been his ally, giving him an unwavering energy for his two passions, soccer and cricket.
For weeks, his body inched towards its endgame. Nourished only by morphine. Each evening the nurse clocked off, Bonnie took up her vigil by his bedside, unable to muster energy to read or sew, she watched him battle on. At these times she mentally beseeched him to ‘just let go,’ release them all from this limbo. She wanted to spare her young daughter, who with horrified eyes, watched the dad who once made her laugh with his clowning, translated into this living effigy.
Finally, one evening, the GP hearing the tell-tale struggle for breath, the snake’s tail rattle in the throat and administered pethidine’s helping hand. Bonnie’s sign of relief echoing the last breath that left his body.
At 36, the status of widow attached itself to her as it had her mother Julia at 58. Her father’s sudden death had ambushed her mother. Dealt a knockout punch. But she had been afforded time to mourn fully, free from the nag of financial complications. Her father had been responsible, had policies for life and funeral costs. His affairs were tidy. Julia had continued to work during her marriage, so the only adjustment to her life was learning to live with his absence.
In contrast, Bonnie was also mourning the passing of a lifestyle. She knew that her husband had spoiled her in material ways. There was always a new piece of jewellery for Christmas and birthdays. Unlike her mum, she had never enjoyed work. So, when Ned suggested she give up after the marriage, it was like a small lottery win. And for 15 years, she embraced domesticity with the relish of a 1950s housewife in an advert for soap powder.
But of course, there was a price to pay. Undoubtedly, Ned had a knack for making money. His brain was fecund with clever ideas. But he became bored quickly, usually as the project was just taking off. He was dilatory at paying bills. Generally, he had the means, but some cricket match would distract him from making out a cheque. Screaming second and third reminder letters with bright red font as if written in blood, would simply slip his mind.
Whilst he was incommunicado on the farm somewhere, or playing mid-week soccer, the sound of the bailiff’s business-like rap would echo through the house heavy with threat. It was only Bonnie’s beauty mixed with a mild dose of flirtation that saw them off. Over time, they became almost apologetic, having got the measure of her husband. ‘Us again, Mrs S’ they would say trying to make light, ‘I’ll get on it’ she would sigh then swich on her most bewitching smile. Each party knowing it has a ritual they must perform in order to get Ned to pay up.
Her husband always ran to his own mean time. When he finally pitched up at dusk, his dinner would be chilling on the table. Their rows would be epic then. Resulting in a cheque being written. But his financial dilatoriness remained incurable.
Now his legacy was monetary chaos. He had died mid project. Bonnie had read the signs that his illness was something more sinister than the ‘indigestion’ the GP had dismissed for a year.
Despite vomiting after meals and stomach pains like a knife in the guts, Ned began a new and ambitious business venture. He ignored Bonnie’s pleas for caution. The new project acted as a distraction for him from the whispers in his head that questioned his symptoms.
When he died, her mourning for him was marred by anger at his financial irresponsibility. He had gambled on a future and lost. Placing his wife and daughter’s own future in jeopardy. The outside world was hammering on her front door but there was no one to chivvy for a cheque now, and a beautiful smile would no longer appease.
Inevitably, their cottage would have to be sold off and a flat found. She must close down the botched business, pay off creditors. Her daughter must be wrenched from her private school and thrown to the wolves of the local comprehensive.
But weeks watching cancer strip the flesh off the man she loved in spite of everything, meant Bonnie’s reserves of energy were near bankrupt too.
One afternoon, she looked up from the lists that bred lists on her desk. She went over to the French windows. Loneliness overwhelmed her. Bonnie found herself missing the intrinsic Ned. The better qualities she loved him for. His wit, his optimism, and above all his genius for getting himself out of scrapes.
And without any preamble, Bonnie suddenly knew he was standing behind her. There was no physical contact, no arms encircling her waist, or cheeky smoothing of her breasts, nevertheless, she knew with absolute certainty he was there.
She was not alarmed because, having died only weeks before, his presence was still so familiar to her. All her anger at him was shed momentarily in the intense intimacy of the moment.
Then he was gone. She tried to conjure him back like a medium. But she felt the space beside her was entirely empty.
In bed that night when worries kept her awake like noisy neighbours, she tried to make sense of the encounter. It had been uncanny without being unnerving. Like many people in her precarious position, she was inclined to invest it with psychic properties. Hoping that it promised better days ahead.
But the further away from the incident the fast current of her life carried her, the less she believed that. Bonnie certainly never shared it with anyone, not from tender feelings of a last intimate exchange between husband and wife, but rather she believed friends and relatives would either challenge her mental health or explain it away as the product of an exhausted brain.
Christmas Day 2014
Christmas that year was a muted affair. Bonnie went through the motions for her young daughter. A tree was erected, the familiar decorations hung. But all the family rituals without Ned lacked their usual zest.
A death so close to Christmas can render the day grotesque with its emphasis on family and universal joy. But Bonnie’s family navigated a way through. Her sister’s two kids, usually very vocal, had clearly been told to mute their exuberance.
At the dining table they kept the conversation light but not frivolous. Initially her sister and brother-in-law tended to swerve away from any references to Ned until Bonnie told them ‘It’s OK to talk about him’. This permission, aided by the wine, allowed the group to visibly relax.
Later that evening when her sister’s family had decamped to their own home, Bonnie and her mother flopped down into armchairs. Julia sipped at a large amber sherry whilst Bonnie had poured herself a generous treacle hued brandy. Lit only by the sparkling lights of the Christmas tree, the semi darkness of the room seemed to fold itself around them.
This was a rare moment in their relationship. The two women alone with nothing to do but sip their drinks. Conversation flitted between them. ‘I wonder what a collective noun for widows would be?’ Julia suddenly said. Her daughter considered ‘A wallow?’ They both giggled. Quite naturally, they began to compare notes on the status they had in common, more specifically the experience of being a young widow. Elderly widows were plentiful, they agreed. These women found a camaraderie in outliving their men. Clusters of them meeting at the bingo or church functions.
But outside of war time, young widows were anomalous. Divorcees were commonplace and created a sisterhood against a common enemy ‘men.’ But to state ‘I’m a widow’ seemed to wrong foot, drawing an uncomfortable ‘Oh sorry’ followed by an awkward silence. ‘It’s as if death is contagious,’ Bonnie remarked.
Julia, of course, had a head start on her daughter and could write a handbook on how to survive the hazards of being widowed prematurely. She now wanted to prepare Bonnie for the challenges this shift in status might present.
‘Have you noticed any changes in the way your married friends treat you?’ she began.
Thinking about it, Bonnie realised no help had been offered from friends or their husbands. And invitations had dried up. All of which she had put down to them being tactful.
‘You’re a double threat now,’ warned her mother. ‘Young and attractive.’
Bonnie lifted her head up from where it was nestled on the back of the chair. ‘You mean I am suddenly the merry widow?’
‘Or black widow’ the women said in concert and burst out laughing.
‘Mind you,’ Julia added, sloughing off her shoes and shifting herself to curl up in the ample chair like a cat, ‘girlfriends may have reason to be suspicious, not of us, but their men.’ She swirled her sherry round in its glass as if weighing up whether she should expand more. ‘After your dad’s death, I had a fair few husbands generously offer to fulfil my ‘needs’ as I now had no husband.’
Bonnie stared at her mother in horror. ‘Oh mum, you poor thing,’ she cried. ‘Bloody opportunists.’ Anger flared up inside her at the thought of her mother, usually so reticent about sex, having to fend off these predatory propositions.
Julia, with the distance of time was able to shake her head, smile, and pour herself another sherry. ‘Sex was the last thing on my mind in those early months and later, well, difficult to find another man like Mike.’
An image of him popped into both their minds. Oblivious to his Clark Gable looks. Happy go lucky. First port of call for anyone in trouble.
‘Dad was a good man,’ Bonnie said softly.
Her mother looked across at her. ‘So was Ned in his way.’
Bonnie remained silent; tears threatened to overflow her eyes. She blinked hard to contain them.
Witnessing her daughter struggle through the chaos in the wake of Ned’s demise, Julia found it hard to forgive him. He was chronically irresponsible, selfish even. But observing his savage death, the theft of his life at 40, she was still able to pan his bad qualities for gold.
Now she carefully chose her words, so that it wouldn’t seem she was advocating on his behalf. ‘I know you have every reason to dislike him at the moment, but I can see that despite his many faults, he did love you’
Her mother’s words served to engender a seedling hope in Bonnie that with time, when she had finally tidied up after her husband, she would find her way back to the best of Ned.
She recalled again that uncanny last encounter with him where there had been no recriminations, just the old feeling of intimacy. The atmosphere of this Christmas evening seemed to encourage revelations. Bonnie found herself wanting to share the strange experience with her mother.
‘Something odd happened not long after Ned died – a few weeks later, perhaps.’ She was unclear of dates since time had become so scrambled. Julia knew instantly what her daughter was struggling to reveal.
Having come to terms with her own experience, she now believed in the reality of the incident as faithfully as she believed in God. So, in a matter-of-fact fashion, Julia was able to provide the words for her, ‘Ned came back, just briefly.’ Silence as her daughter regarded her like an uncanny clairvoyant.
Her mother continued ‘The same thing happened to me. I didn’t see him, just knew that for a short while Mike was there.’
Once again, her mother had unlocked secrets that caused her daughter to view with wonder this woman whom she would have sworn she knew thoroughly, but who now displayed such a propensity for surprise.
Comparing notes, they found a mirrored experience. It was a certainty of their husband’s presence. A recognition of the familiar.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Bonnie asked. Her mother smiled. ‘For the same reason you didn’t tell me.’
They agreed that when it came to revealing the event to a wider circle of family and friends, fear of censure had silenced them both. However, the more they discussed the occurrence between themselves, it was clear it that their interpretations differed.
‘What do you think it means?’ Bonnie asked her mother, still unsure how to view the matter.
‘I think,’ Julia answered carefully, ‘we are meant to invest it with our own meaning.’ She gave a wry smile to her atheist daughter, as she explained that for her it was proof of an afterlife.
‘You’re on your own there.’ Bonnie grinned.
But Julia had uttered her belief so emphatically, that her daughter envied her conviction.
Bonnie was different though. She was not a particularly spiritual person. If anything, believed death was a dead end. The fact that each woman had experienced the same occurrence years apart certainly gave it credibility. She could not simply dismiss the event. Not able to believe it had a religious dimension she found she could file it away in her mind as extra-mundane, one of life’s experiences that could not be explained.
Both women agreed instinctively to keep the occurrence between themselves. Shielding it from sceptical family members and friend’s daft interpretations. Knowing it was beyond the comprehension of anyone who had not been touched by its strangeness. Handled by too many, the event would be devalued, soiled until it was rendered inauthentic.
‘I do wonder, though,’ said Julia thoughtfully, as she stretched her legs that had become cramped in the intensity of their discussion, ‘whether other women, and men for that matter, have experienced something similar?’
