The Single Mums' Secrets - Janet Hoggarth Page 0,16
that they have a husband and a “normal” family situation.’
‘I know,’ she groaned. ‘It feels like those do-gooders who flooded in with the initial offerings just wanted to be involved in some way. Like rubbernecking at a fresh traffic accident. My proper friends brought wine. They know I can’t eat in a crisis.’
‘I think the food and party cake were probably for the kids. A distraction from what had happened, so you didn’t have to cook.’
She nodded in agreement, but I knew why she was venting. She had carte blanche to say and do anything now. As a newly ordained widow, she could probably commit a double homicide, sell one of the kids into slavery, perform fellatio on public transport and just pull the grieving wife card to whitewash a prosecution.
‘Last week in the Triangle play park, I was pushing Isaac on the swings and I saw one of the mums from school turn round and head back out again with her two kids. She caught my eye but looked away, and off she trotted.’
‘That’s harsh.’
‘Isn’t it?! What the fricking fuck does she think will happen? Spousal… passing is catching? It’s not the bloody plague.’ Louise burst into tears, shaking her head in anger that she was unravelling. ‘How long will I feel this mental?’
‘Lou! It’s only been eight weeks since Nigel… died.’ I always felt such a faker skipping round the ‘d’ word. ‘Passed’ was my most hated. Passed what? Passed wind? Even though I was aware of its brutal finality, I still thought you should just say it. Passed sounded like the loved one was waiting patiently in the next room with a good book or a glass of wine until you could find time to join them. And while we’re on about misnomers do not say fou fou, lady garden or any of those non-anatomical words. It is a vagina just as a penis is not a schlong. I can just about cope with fanny and willy.
‘I know.’ She snotted into a tissue she’d wrenched from the stylish stainless-steel dispenser on the kitchen counter. ‘It already feels like for ever though. I wish I could press fast forward to when I will be OK.’
Isaac was in the garden pretending to cut the grass with his plastic mower. Nigel would have been pleased – at least someone was giving a toss about the lawn. I was collecting the two older kids after five when they both finished their clubs. I had been popping in to see Louise once or twice a week since the funeral. She was a good cook, but she was barely managing to look after herself. She was even thinner than she had been at the funeral.
I’d noticed the appearance of fish fingers and frozen pizza bites in the freezer over the last few weeks. Also some curly fries that Louise had always preached were kiddie crack, but they tasted so good. She heaved herself up from the bar stool and shuffled over to the coffin-like freezer, pulling out one of its myriad drawers to peruse the ice-encrusted contents.
Her kitchen was vast, like an aircraft hangar with those folding doors that let the outside in and a glassed-roof side return showering the food prep area with natural light. Pendulous copper lights hung from the cathedral-like ceiling and the granite-topped central island shamed the dinky spare room Tom and I had thought was extravagant when we’d first bought our house.
The garden was a hundred foot long and that had been Nigel’s domain. He’d tended the velvety lawn like it had been his mistress and ball games or any kind of excessive running around had been banned. Until now. Last week Louise had rebelliously ordered a goal for the kids off Amazon. Ted, Gemma and Isaac had run with wild abandon all over the damp lawn, churning it up kicking a ball while Louise and I sipped M&S chilled Chablis.
‘I think you’re experiencing the anger phase of grief now,’ I’d said at the time. ‘It’s understandable. Also good to acknowledge Nigel isn’t coming back; embrace a new way of being in the house.’
She’d remained silent and just stared at the kids enjoying themselves the way kids can, even though their world has crumbled around them.
‘James has also been ghosting me on the school run since it happened,’ Louise said with her back to me, still rooting around in the frosty cavernous freezer.
‘James?’
‘The guy I was telling you about…’ Ah, the lame-sounding friend with no benefits.