How It Was Read online

  Praise for How It Was

  ‘You will love this – immersive, amazing, remarkable. I cried, and I never cry.’

  Marian Keyes

  ‘Janet Ellis writes with tenderness and wisdom . . . I veered between laughter and a lump in the throat, often on the same page.’

  Erin Kelly

  ‘A wonderful book – so beautifully written, what an incredible piece of storytelling.’

  Emma Kennedy

  ‘It’s a raw read, written with empathy and integrity.’

  Lynne Parker

  ‘Wonderfully evocative, immersive and beautifully written.’

  Kate Eberlen

  ‘I absolutely loved it. These are real, believable, fragile people whose lives the reader becomes totally immersed in.’

  Imogen Parker

  How It Was

  Janet Ellis

  www.tworoadsbooks.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Two Roads

  An imprint of John Murray Press

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Janet Ellis 2019

  The right of Janet Ellis to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The Poem ‘How It Was’ is taken from the collection The Whitsun Weddings © Philip Larkin and is reproduced here with permission from Faber & Faber Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 1 473 62519 8

  Audio Digital Download ISBN 978 1 473 652520 4

  John Murray (Publishers)

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  To Mike and Judy, my Ma and Pa.

  Good people.

  You can see how it was:

  Look at the pictures and the cutlery.

  The music in the piano stool. That vase.

  Philip Larkin, Home is So Sad

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  How does it feel, watching Michael die? Slow. Confining. Sitting for hours in a brightly lit room on an uncomfortable chair makes me heavy with inertia. I feel as if I’m swelling beneath my clothes. No one insists, but I feel I need permission to leave his side, even for a moment. Yes, you go and get yourself a cup of tea, they say. We’ll fetch you if anything happens. But nothing will happen, yet, for a while. He’s stable.

  I haven’t got this washroom to myself: a young woman moves aside as I come in. She’s been drying her hands on reluctant paper towels; a pile of them sits on the wet tiling. She gathers them up. The lid of the rubbish bin opens with a loud clang as she depresses the pedal. I lean over the basin. It’s difficult to see myself clearly past all the notices. One sign would do. You can hardly forget about hygiene in a hospital, can you, there’s scarcely a wall without a sanitiser unit, or instructions on where to find one. I apply my lipstick. I watch my lips part and enjoy the sliding pout that spreads the colour. I could still pleasure a man with this mouth, if I chose to.

  The young woman watches me. She sees what you see: an old woman. She’ll note I’m plainly and practically dressed. A little vain, perhaps: my scarf was obviously tied in front of a mirror. A little selfish, certainly: I am not curious about her, after all. She will never hear me called by my name. She doesn’t know I have scarcely slept in years. She can’t tell how often I have either fled grief or sought love. My scars and wounds and welts are concealed beneath my skin. From time to time, though, they chafe. I catch the young woman’s eye and smile. She doesn’t smile back, she just makes some sort of adjustment with her eyes to let me know she’s seen me. She is probably wondering why I use make-up at all. Some foundation to cover up the cracks, perhaps, but who cares if my lips are bare? Michael would notice if I didn’t make an effort any more. Even now, with the mask over his face, forcing air into his lungs, although he’s pinned to the bed with a relentless web of tubes and wires, he’d still notice.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the girl says. She doesn’t move towards me, but I feel her gaze sharpen.

  I look at her in the mirror, then at myself. I can see why she spoke. Despite the brave red of my lipstick and the careful set of my hair, I’m crying. ‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Might not bother with mascara, though.’

  She turns away. If I’m able to joke, then Death isn’t sitting by anyone’s bed.

  Oh, but it is, I think. Death is stroking Michael’s face. Death is in the voices of the young doctors who attend to him and the older nurses who examine the clipboard at the end of his bed and shake the plastic veins that seep their fluid into his arms. ‘Are you comfortable?’ they say to him. They mean, are you still here? Death is the ventriloquist who impersonates concern. Michael can only nod, the mask denies him speech.

  I am not crying for him. They say when someone has an amputation, they often experience phantom sensations in the lost limb. It troubles them, aching or itching with infuriating accuracy. This is the opposite. Michael is still present. He is visible, but even
if I were to stick pins in the part of me that once cared, I cannot feel anything for him any more. I pity him, of course. I am sorry that he has to wait until his cup of tea has cooled to a tepid, unthreatening temperature before he can drink it. He used to like it hot, sweet and strong. He can only take one or two sips of the milky, bland offering now, before shaking his head and refusing more. Afterwards, inside every cup, there’s a brown ring half an inch above the level of remaining liquid, like a calibration of disappointment. I regret for him the flowered gown he wears. They promised him a plain one but no one, including me, has taken responsibility for exchanging it yet.

  If I could carry them, I’d bring in all the photograph albums he so carefully tended. Look, I’d say to the nurses, this is who he was when he didn’t have to endure every breath going into his body as if it were a landed punch. When he wasn’t a pile of hospital notes and his name on a wipe-clean board above his bed.

  The years inside are picked out in gold lettering on the front of each album. Proper corners on all the photos and a layer of crisp tissue between each page. Michael’s neat handwriting records the details of every photograph because, in those days, we knew exactly who those people were. We could recognise every background. We could label which bridge we were crossing then or identify the church that we were admiring. We remembered all those birthday parties and the names of the other careening and gesticulating children. We knew then on which beach we stood, our eyes shielded. Pages of people, many lost now because they’re dead, or they might as well be. Last Christmas, I caught myself hovering over some names in the address book because I couldn’t remember if they were actually or metaphorically gone.

  You know how the victims of a crime struggle to identify their assailant in a line-up, even if they’re definitely there? The police get all the suspects to repeat a phrase, something that was said at the time. As instructed, they intone, ‘Shut up or I’ll kill you,’ or ‘Give it to me,’ but without a rush of adrenalin the words are flabby. ‘I love you,’ the photos in the albums say, without conviction. ‘You’re happy, we’re safe, all is well.’ There’s me, with a swelling belly, and Sarah, half toothless at six, standing by my side outside the cottage. Here’s Eddie, squinting at the camera as he holds out a caterpillar for his father’s attention, its black body curled on his palm. The four of us, all smartly dressed for someone’s wedding. Michael’s second cousin’s, I think. I’d wear that coat now if I still owned it. It was just like something Doris Day would have worn, its spotted lining matching the trim at the cuffs.

  The albums do not continue past a certain time. There were photographs taken afterwards, of course, but they stay in boxes, uncollated. I have carried these heavy books with me, unopened for the most part, for many years. Last night, I prised several pictures free of their mountings. It didn’t take much effort; the glue only whispered a faint protest before it gave up its charge. Several were already detached, floating away from their descriptions. I had a half thought that I’d spend some time putting them back into position, but there will never be an afternoon rainy enough to spare for that task. One was missing entirely, corners and all. Michael’s caption, ‘Marion, Sarah and Eddie’, illustrated only the blank space above. Beside and around it, we celebrated Christmas – caught holding half-unwrapped presents and sitting in front of heaped plates. We smile, all of us, easily, in every one. I plan to show the photographs to Michael. I will remind him of our life, in the time before.

  I will take him the letters, too. I didn’t need to reread them to remember their contents. Like the lyrics of a song you don’t like, they stick in my head on a loop, once I’ve let them in. Whole phrases – ‘it gives me no pleasure to tell you this; and from that date, access is denied; the view is amazing, you’d love it, come!’ – swim up and slide away again, as slippery as eels. Last night was the first time in a long while I’d retrieved them all from the box.

  I laid them out in date order. As usual, I was irritated by their different shapes and sizes. As they always do, the edges of one envelope caught against its neighbour. One cellophane window showed only blank paper, where I’d returned it the wrong way round. I had no doubt I’d do exactly the same again, affronted once more by its contents and unwilling to accept they should be addressed to me. I will leave a note permitting all the letters’ disposal, when someone clears the house after I’m gone. There’s no need to contact anyone mentioned here. Whoever finds these missives will dismiss them, anyway. They’ll appear an inconsequential collection. Dear Mrs Deacon, We have great pleasure in confirming that your daughter Sarah has successfully passed her entrance examination to St Thomas’s School and we look forward to welcoming her; Dear Mrs Deacon, Thank you for volunteering to visit the residents of Hillview, they will be very grateful; Dear Marion, I was rather upset by the tone of your last letter, but Rosalind has persuaded me to forgive you because . . .

  I held each one in turn, as if I laid my fingers against my wrist, anticipating an acceleration of my pulse. There was no reaction. I was calm. I gathered them together and put them with the photographs. A parcel of time.

  The smell of hospitals is the same as it ever was. I cried when they walked Michael on to the ward, flattened on a gurney as if he were already laid out. But it was Eddie I saw, small and narrow in the middle of the bed, his eyes closed as if they would never open again. Michael was staring up at a rushing ceiling, blinking under intermittent spotlights. One of the orderlies put his hand on my sleeve, not quite meeting my eye. They can’t get too involved, can they? I should know that, if anyone does. You’d be tangled up in the family’s fears and anger if you got to know them, you can’t risk anything beyond the immediate, brisk comforting that goes with care. When I worked in a hospital, the relatives were rarely more than an impediment. Their outdoor clothes always looked lumpen beside my neat uniform and the patient’s flimsy bedclothes. They’d shrug off their bulky coats as soon as they could, the wards were always kept very warm. There was never anywhere to hang anything, and the bed was off-limits. You were constantly handing scarves and hats that had slipped free from chairs or laps back to their owners.

  I go back to Michael’s bedside, carrying a polystyrene beaker of coffee I don’t want. Someone has changed the date on the whiteboard above his bed to read: 10 October. Eventually, soon, the last date recorded for him will be wiped away and someone else’s countdown will begin. I pick up the carrier bag. He dozes; the skin around his mouth and nose is swollen with the mask’s constriction. When they remove it, it leaves a deep indentation on his skin. The rush of returning blood is painful and makes him wince. They’ve moved him to a room on his own now. That’s because they know they’ll get it back soon. This is how it ends, I think. This room will be the last one he sees. Through the window, behind a venetian blind that rises unevenly to one side like a lifted hem, there’s a petticoat glimpse of rooftops, aerials and chimneys. His hands on the counterpane are yellow and dry. You wouldn’t ask him to remove the lid of a jar now, or circle your fingers round his, stroking them, to promise love, later.

  I feel suddenly nervous about speaking to him. His closed eyes and inert body exude an authority I don’t recognise. The room squeaks and buzzes with the machines that measure and support him. ‘Michael,’ I say aloud. He opens his eyes with some effort, as though the remaining number of times he’ll be able to look at me are now rationed and he’s reluctant to use one up if there’s no point. ‘I brought some things to show you.’ I slide my hand into the bag without looking at the contents, choosing at random. It’s a picture taken in the garden of the old house. An inflatable pool takes up a great deal of the little lawn. Sarah stands up in it, her ruched swimsuit snug over her pot belly. She is about, what, nine or ten? Legs apart, unselfconscious, her two front teeth slightly too large for her face. Eddie sits beside her, leaning on the inflated rim, his hand making an indentation that isn’t large enough to displace any water. I am sitting on the grass beside them, looking at Michael holding the camera. We
are all smiling. ‘Eddie was only three,’ I say. ‘He could almost have swum in it, couldn’t he?’ His name reverberates for a moment.

  ‘It rained, do you remember?’ I say. Great, fat drops had begun to fall into the pool out of what had seemed to be a clear sky. Sarah had looked at me nervously. She’d have expected me to react with a brisk change of mood, hurrying them into the house, gathering their clothes and toys. But, that day, the rain itself had some warmth in it and the loud plink as it hit the water made Eddie laugh. Sarah had sat down too, sending waves over the side. When I didn’t admonish them, they wallowed in the disorder, splashing me and paddling their hands in the spreading, muddy lagoon that surrounded their rubber island. ‘We all got soaked,’ I say. ‘You stood in the doorway with towels, waiting for us to stop our game and we kept saying, Not yet, not yet.’ The happy people in the picture in my hand hold my gaze. The rain has yet to fall, but when it does, they will not mind.

  The venetian blinds let in lines of light, they lie flat and seemingly solid on Michael’s blanket. The image catches me sharply, as if I’d run headlong into a hidden spike. It picks open the scar of a memory and prods at the open wound. Where else was there a shaft of sunlight like this, drawn on a bedspread? I’d actually thought it was a solid thing that day, a scrap of fabric, perhaps, but when I’d tried to pick it up, I’d dissolved it with my shadow. I’d laughed, standing alone in Sarah’s room. Sarah’s bedroom, yes – that was where I was. A weekday. There was still a nursery china nameplate on the door, a picture of a little Peter Rabbit saluting her name although at fourteen she was far too old for it. She’d made her bed before she left for school because, if she didn’t, if she’d left the sheets and blankets runkled, she knew it made me cross. I seemed to feel a thousand tiny aggravations then. My anger was constantly simmering, easily brought to a spitting boil by some transgression or other. Her unmade bedclothes carried the warmth of her, long after she’d left the room. I disliked touching them. Recently, and unexpectedly, there was something in her physical presence that made me squeamish.