weighed up the money I would save against having my own place. It was only six months. I was certain our ‘lovingly restored’ Victorian terrace would be snapped up before then by a couple or a young family. Living here would alleviate the stress of trying to find somewhere else then being tied into a year-long agreement. There was also a weekly cleaner.
‘OK, I’ll take it.’
‘Fabulous stuff. I have a feeling you’ll fit right in. Any problems with any of those lot downstairs and you get on the blower to me, OK? I’ll sort their shit out.’
That had been eight months ago and I had been here just shy of that. The thought of moving to be with Louise and then moving again once the house sold was annoying. When my loose tenancy agreement had come to a close and Tom and I still had no buyer for our house, Jo offered another six months; the flat was taking longer to renovate than she’d anticipated. She was back and forth anyway because all her friends were in the Mews and there were parties and a drinks evenings and BBQs in the summer. It reminded me of halls of residence when I was at medical school in Sheffield back in the nineties.
*
Tom attended the funeral looking heartbreakingly handsome in his navy suit, an unfitting stab in my chest reminding me I wasn’t going home with him afterwards. I mused how I didn’t really feel like that at work (though at first it had been unbearable). These days I could go home to the Mews and not think about him returning to our house we had painted together, picked furniture for, where we’d had sex drunk on the kitchen floor (I’d found a red lentil and a papery garlic skin stuck to my bum afterwards). Why did that not bother me as much as him not taking me home after Nigel’s funeral?
How dare I feel that heartbreak when Louise was imprisoned in the worst day of her life? It felt decidedly selfish, so I crushed it down by smiling at him when I passed his pew as Louise and I walked out of the church and into the withering heat of the afternoon sun.
‘How is she coping?’ Tom politely enquired back at Louise’s house during the wake. He was holding a flimsy paper plate containing two mini sausage rolls, a sizable portion of the crisp mountain, and a cucumber sandwich. I wasn’t hungry. It also felt wrong to be eating in front of Louise when she couldn’t even drink a cup of tea. She had lost about a stone since the accident. She didn’t need to lose a stone, but according to her, Isaac’s baby weight hadn’t shifted in two years. There was no sign of it now. She’d worn a body-skimming Karen Millen navy and red dress she’d not fitted in for years for the funeral.
‘She’s managing. To be honest, I know the next year is going to be harder than today. Right now she has everyone making sure she’s OK. It’s when all that inevitably stops that the shit show comes to town.’ I’d seen so many grief casualties in the surgery, enough to work out people drop you as soon as the funeral is over. It seems you find out who your real friends are in the year afterwards.
‘I suppose you’ve printed out all the leaflets on grief, support groups…?’
‘Yeah, she’s got the lot. And I’ve got some books coming from Amazon. Some for the kids too.’
The house was emptying out as people said their stilted goodbyes. Phil, Nigel’s quietly spoken younger brother, was clearing away smeared glasses without being asked. He was a photographic negative of Nigel on so many levels. I often wondered how two siblings could be such opposites. Mum bustled over almost in a Mother of the Bride cloud of importance, but that badge had already been claimed by Jean, Nigel’s mum, who had wailed throughout the entire funeral in a dramatic Mother of the Deceased fanfare.
I genuinely felt bad for her when it appeared she was going to throw herself on the coffin at the crematorium for the family-only goodbye. I noticed Brendon, Nigel’s dad, put his arm across her to prevent her launching herself when the mustard-coloured curtains opened and the coffin slid towards its infernal ending. Poor Jean.
‘Have either of you seen Louise?’ Mum asked.
‘I’ve worked the room, spoken to everyone and not seen her at all for the last half hour.’
‘Is