The Peas and Carrots Series Boxset 1, page 53
part #1 of Peas and Carrots Series
‘I’m not a good person for her to be around right now. I’m not in a good place.’
‘You’re the only person it’s good for her to be around, Eric. The only person. You are who she needs.’
‘Not like this.’
‘Your worst is better than any of us can do. You see that, don’t you? You have to.’
Eric loosened his grip around the steering wheel and dropped his head with a sigh.
‘You need to do something, Eric. You need to show her that she comes first in all of this.’
‘Of course she does.’
‘Well it doesn’t look like that. Not from where she’s standing. Do something, Eric, please,’ she repeated. ‘Before it’s too late.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Trying isn’t going to cut it this time.’
Only a year ago, stepping into Abi’s bedroom had been like stepping into some fuchsia-invaded candy land. Pink unicorns and teddy bears, pink lampshades, curtains, bedspread, everything had been pink. Everywhere he had turned, Eric had been faced with yet another shade of rose, magenta, or blush. There had been the occasional train set or yellow toy stethoscope to add some variety to the mix, but it had been a little girl’s room. His baby girl’s room. Not anymore. There were still a lot of pink things of course, her ballet clothes and shoes, hung up on the outside of the wardrobe door, her favourite teddies, some of the pictures that Suzy had commissioned from her artistic friends, but the walls and bedspread were purple now. And white curtains hung from the rail. Jeans were currently the clothes in favour, with trainers and a hoodie, not frilly pink dresses.
Abi was lying flat on her bed flicking through the pages of a book. Her eyes lifted now and again with hints of a smile. Eric watched her from the doorway. She looked peaceful, almost happy. If he didn’t speak, he thought, if he just left now then he could keep that image of happy peaceful Abi, and he wouldn’t have to face the truth. He was on the ball of his foot, ready to turn and retreat to his own room, when Abi’s head jerked up.
‘Dad?’ she said. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Abs … I …’
His first two attempts at speech got jammed somewhere around his larynx. On the third attempt, his eyes fell upon the book on the bed and a few words managed to croak their way into existence.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ he said, taking one step into the doorway.
‘Just something Aunty Lyds gave me.’
‘Can I see?’
She shrugged.
Eric moved across to the bed. Just like his room, this one needed airing, and he had no idea when her sheets had last been washed. Hopefully Yvette was on the case. Even when Suzy was the only one working, bed linen was still on her household chore jurisdiction, meaning he had no idea when they would have last been cleaned. Shaking his head clear of dirty laundry, he leaned over Abi’s shoulder to get a better look at what she was studying.
It was as if he had been dunked head first in salt water, with his eyes forced open. Eric gasped, audibly. Painfully. The images around him – the bed, the window, his daughter – all blurred into one peripheral haze. Tears were causing the haze, he realised. Tears that needed to be sucked back down before Abi saw. Tears he had to hide to prove to her that he was strong, that he could do this. But the lack of air was making it harder to do. The lack of oxygen in his lungs, the light-headedness that came with it. He was going to pass out. Or vomit. Or both simultaneously.
‘This was her first day at school. Aunty Lydia told me.’ Abi spoke with her eyes still fixed on the photo. ‘She was so excited. Apparently, she went to bed the night before with her uniform on, just to make sure she wasn’t late. She’s even littler than I am. Look.’
Eric’s heart hammered.
‘Oh yes,’ he heard the words emitted from his lips although he had no idea how he had managed to make them.
‘And then she cried when Granny had to pick her up at the end of the day. She loved school.’
‘Is that so?’ He was trying to hide the quiver in his voice.
‘She was pretty, wasn’t she? She was really, really pretty.’
For the first time Eric looked directly at the photo. The edges had lost all their colour, but it was clear from the foreground that she was standing in front of a house. Her feet were pressed together, the laces tied in perfect bows. It was only when Eric managed to draw his eyes away from the faded images of a pigtailed Suzy, that he realised Abi was looking at him, waiting for an answer.
‘What was that?’ Eric asked attempting, yet failing, to swallow back the tears as they escaped down his cheek. ‘Sorry, yes. She was beautiful. The most beautiful. Can I?’ he said, indicating the space on the bed next to Abi.
Abi nodded mutedly.
She shuffled across, keeping the book firmly in her grip as she moved and made just enough space for Eric to lie down beside her, belly on the bed sheet. As he struggled to find a comfortable position, he remembered this was how Suzy read books with Abi at night. Eric preferred to sit up and avoid getting cricks in his back and neck, but the girls could lie belly down for hours, flicking through page after page, laughing at the rhymes they had memorised by heart.
‘You look like her,’ Eric said quietly, scanning his eyes up and down the page of photographs.
‘You think?’
‘Most definitely. Look, you have the same shape mouth, and eyes.’
A sad and slanted smile creased its way across Abi’s lip and a thin glaze began to glisten in her eyes. She blinked it away with far more grace than Eric.
‘There are some baby photos too. Do you want to see those?’
The pummelling in Eric’s chest continued. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I do.’
Abi flicked back a few pages to the front.
‘This one’s my favourite. I love the costume. I think Granny picked it out.’
‘I agree,’ Eric said, marvelling at the choice of feathers and sequins for a six-month-old baby. ‘But who’s the fat little boy?’
Abi thumped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s Aunty Lyds.’
‘Eek,’ Eric said. A small chuckle expanded in the air between them, only to evaporate before it had had a chance to really sound. Abi was still looking at him, Eric realised, waiting for answers he didn’t have to questions he didn’t want her to ask.
‘I think I like this one best,’ he said, creating a diversion from the silence and pointing to a small, black and white image of a baby. She was chubby and round, maybe three months old, and laid in a rocking chair wearing only a nappy. ‘That one really looks like you.’
‘Really?’
‘Definitely.’
He had meant it as another passing comment, but the more Eric studied the photograph, the more he realised it was true.
‘Look,’ he pointed. ‘She’s got the same dimples that you had. And the same big ears.’
‘I don’t have big ears,’ Abi protested, clamping her hands to the sides of her face.
‘You did when you were a baby.’
‘Let’s see,’ Abi said.
She flicked from the page of the smiling baby towards the back of the book. The corners of the pages, Eric noticed, were already well thumbed, with water marks and fingerprints littered across the paper.
‘Are there photographs of you in here too?’
‘Uh-huh,’ Abi said. ‘And you. And Granny and Grandad. There’s everybody.’
‘And Aunty Lydia made it for you?’
‘Yes.’ An ache rose through Eric’s sternum. This was what he was meant to have done. Not Lydia. This was his job, but it hadn’t even crossed his mind. He had been too busy worrying about himself.
‘Oh,’ said Abi, her face crestfallen as she landed on another page. ‘I really did have big ears.’
Eric reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, tickling her skin a little as he did.
‘Yup, you were my little Dumbo,’ he said. ‘And look, dimples too. You two could have been twins.’
Abi’s eyes returned to the photo. ‘I did look like her.’
The sadness in her voice echoed in the room around them, and it was only as her face fell, and the ache once more began to spread, that Eric realised he had been smiling.
‘I miss her,’ Abi said as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I miss her and my heart hurts.’
‘I know,’ Eric said, unable to control his own surge of tears. ‘I miss her too.’
‘Will it get better? Will it stop hurting?’
‘I hope so,’ Eric said. ‘I really hope so.’
Chapter 3
EVENTUALLY THE TEARS stopped. It wasn’t that he wanted to stop crying, merely that he had run out of tears for now. His eyes and head and every part of him had been cried dry. Still, he lay there, cradling his daughter while she released her insatiable supply of heartache. Only when she was almost asleep, exhausted from all the pain, did she finally stop crying.
A light knock rapped on the door and brought them both back to the present.
‘I’m sorry,’ Yvette said, looking genuinely apologetic as she spoke. ‘But it’s gone one. I thought you might want to think about making a move.’
Eric manoeuvred himself up to sitting and noticed the damp patches spread across the now crumpled paisley shirt. It would dry, he thought.
‘We’ll just be a couple more minutes,’ he said, motioning to Abi with a nod. ‘Is that okay?’
‘We’ll be downstairs,’ Yvette said.
Abi rubbed her eyes, then took the book and placed it onto her nightstand. She swung her legs over the bed, preparing to leave. Eric caught her by the hand.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I have something for you.’
She turned back and tilted her head expectantly.
Now that he had said the words, Eric knew he couldn’t go back, although his rattling pulse implied he desperately wanted to. He dug his hand into his pocket and clenched it around the small, cold item inside. It wasn’t meant to be like this, he thought. This isn’t how things like this were supposed to be passed on. But nothing about this was the way it was meant to be. Lydia’s words were on replay around his skull. Do something, Eric. Show her she comes first. Do something, Eric.
‘Do you know how I proposed to your mum?’ Eric asked, picking Abi up by the waist and shuffling her into a position which faced him. ‘Did we ever tell you that?’
Abi twitched her nose and considered the question.
‘Wasn’t it on a ferrous wheel?’
‘A Ferris wheel, yes,’ Eric said. ‘Your mum loved Christmas, and I thought that would be a great place to ask her to marry me. On a Ferris wheel, high above the city where she could look out over all the pretty Christmas lights.’
‘And she said yes.’
‘She did,’ Eric said. ‘But you missed a step.’
Abi straighten her back and leaned a little closer.
‘When you ask someone to marry you, you have to give them a ring.’
‘Like a wedding ring?’
‘Exactly like a wedding ring. Only you give it to someone before you marry them, so you call it an engagement ring.’
‘An engagement ring,’ Abi’s head nodded as she whispered the word, her brow furrowing as if searching for a hidden memory. ‘There’s a photo of it in the book,’ she said, reaching across for the thickly bound leather folder. ‘Aunty Lydia said it was the biggest diamond she had ever seen. She said it was another word too. Ostend, ostend—,’
Eric gritted his teeth and said nothing. Abi found the page she was looking for.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’
Eric’s stomach lurched. It was a photo of the pair of them, taken outside in a pub garden. The image was a close-up on their faces but with their hands twisted together and resting on the table in front of him. Suzy’s eyes were scrunched closed, head tilted back, and mouth wide open in a laugh. Eric gazed adoringly at her.
Summer ‘05, it said beneath it. The year before they married. Something dense began clogging Eric’s windpipe and obstructing his breathing.
‘Daddy, are you okay?’
Eric shook his head, then changed it rapidly into a nod, remembering the whole purpose of this conversation.
‘Well that was the ring we got after I proposed,’ Eric said, trying not to let his eyes get drawn down to the multitude of smiling photos he so desperately wanted to weep through. ‘I let your mum help me choose that one. But the one I gave her when I asked her was different.’
The story was true. Eric had known he wanted to marry Suzy after the first month, possibly even the first date, which took place in a smoke-filled London bar, where a Duran Duran cover band were playing, and the menu was limited to chips, beer, and Babycham. He knew the chances of anyone of her calibre ever looking in his direction again was as close to zero as odds got, and he wanted to make sure there was a ring on her finger and a walk down the aisle before she realised how much better she could do. But trying to pick out a ring had been a nightmare.
He tried contacting Yvette and Philip, to ask for permission and discuss the possibly of using one of Suzy’s grandmother’s heirloom rings to propose with, but getting hold of the pair of them when they were on a cruise ship was about as easy as finding a torch and working batteries during a power cut. That, combined with Lydia’s assurance that Yvette was not going to hand over those rings until she was six feet under, had forced him to try another route. He considered using his mother’s, but the dated style would have never been right for Suzy. Friends had given widely differing opinions as to what she would want, but he knew Suzy; she’d never say she didn’t like anything. She’d have accepted whatever he gave her graciously and lovingly. The last thing he wanted was for her to be spending the next fifty years walking around with a ring she thought looked like a gumball machine gift on her hand. With that thought in mind, Eric went directly to the nearest gumball machine.
‘It’s a mood ring,’ he told Abi. ‘The same ring I gave your mum, and it cost one pound.’
‘A mood ring?’
‘Yup, it means it changes colour when you’re feeling happy or sad.’
Eric slipped his hand out of his pocket and opened his palm. The cheap metal was as thin and bendy as it had been all those years ago, although by some apparent miracle, still silver in colour. The round stone stuck out from the middle like a bubble blown from a bubble wand, with similar shades of blue and purple swirling on the top.
Abi stared transfixed.
‘Is that it? Is that the mood ring?’
‘That’s the mood ring,’ Eric said, trying to force down the frog in his throat. ‘This is the ring I gave to your mummy when I asked her to marry me.’
Abi reached out her hand to touch it. Eric stopped her. He took her hand gently, holding her by the fingers.
‘It’s yours now,’ he said slipping it onto her middle finger and squeezing the metal tight. ‘You need to make sure you take care of it, you understand?’
Abi nodded. Silent tears tumbled down her cheeks as she continued to gaze at the stone.
‘It’s turning red,’ she said. ‘What do you think that means? What mood do you think that means?’
Eric drifted back to the memories where those same words drifted from Suzy’s lips.
‘It must mean we’re in love, don’t you think? Either that or I’m cross that you got me a cheap metal ring?’ Suzy had said.
Eric laughed. ‘It’s love. Red has to be love.’ And then he had kissed his future wife.
‘I think red is what it shows when you’re feeling strong,’ Eric said. ‘When you’re feeling brave.’
Abi stared at the stone a little longer before shaking her head. ‘I think red is what it shows when your heart hurts,’ she said.
The funeral went by in a haze of thanking. With Abi gripping his hand, Eric was jostled from one place to another. He thanked people for coming, for their thoughts and prayers, for their kind words. He thanked them for sending cards, for sending flowers, for sending wishes. Every other word that came out of his mouth was thank you, and every moment of it he felt like an absolute fraud. There was only one noticeable absence from the mourners; Philip, Suzy’s father, although in truth Eric was relieved. He had enough drama of his own to deal with. When the service began, he fixed his eyes on the casket in front of him.
‘Pack your bag, Eric. This is it.’ The words went over and over on replay in his head. The last words his wife had said to him before she sped off in reverse without even a glance to the road behind her. He remembered something someone said to him when Yvette and Philip had separated. ‘It would have been better if they’d died,’ people had said. They didn’t have a clue.
A kaleidoscope of emotions turned continually within him as he sat in the front seat and listened to Lydia, then Yvette, then a couple more friends talk about his wife. Not that he had a wife anymore. He was a widower. Alone. His heart went from numb to soul-searing agony and from disbelief to complete destitution a hundred times over. And then it was his time to stand up. His time to speak.
As Eric took to the lectern, his hands shook. His knees trembled, and his mouth and throat turned so dry that his tongue stuck to the back of his teeth. With a single piece of paper in his hand, he stared out at the mourners in front of him. If he had his way, he would pull this whole place down he thought, and make sure he was at the centre when it happened.
He coughed twice to clear his throat.
‘Suzy hadn’t planned her funeral,’ he said. ‘I guess she thought … we all thought she would have a lot longer left with us.’ A lump floated upwards in his throat. He swallowed it back down. ‘So, with that in mind. I thought I would like to read something we had read at our wedding instead. I know some of you were there, but many of you weren’t. This is what we wanted to be. This was how it started.’ He glanced down at the paper in his hand. Reading the poem had been Yvette’s idea. At the time of agreeing Eric hadn’t really thought about what it meant, only that doing this, doing as Yvette said, would be one less thing for him to have to think about. She had printed him the paper too. Eric realised, as his eyes scanned down the lines of black ink, that he had probably not seen the poem since his wedding day.
