The Kindest Thing - [2]

I blushed, a little startled. I hadn’t met any lesbians back then. Well, none that were out anyway, though at school we’d had our suspicions about the chemistry teacher. I drank some of the wine, cold and sharp. I hated blushing but he was kind and didn’t tease me any more.

‘Deborah.’ He said my name again, slowly, like a kiss, all three syllables.

‘It’s freezing out there.’

‘I’ll keep you warm. Look.’ He wore a greatcoat, a big heavy thing in grey, ex-army or something. It practically reached the ground. With his hands in his pockets he spread his arms out, flinging the coat wide open. An invitation.

I swallowed the rest of my wine.

He took my hand. His fingers were cool and long.

Outside, the garden was full of junk, old milk bottles, bakery trays and a broken dining chair, all frosted and glistening. There was just room to stand beside the door. I trembled. It could have been either the cold or the wine or the desire that flushed through my limbs and over my skin.

‘Kiss me,’ I said.

He raised a hand to tuck his hair behind his ear as he bent towards me.

I closed my eyes.

I fell in love.

The day Neil died, when he’d stopped breathing, I lay down beside him on our bed. Hoping, I think, that I might gain some equilibrium, some respite after the horror. Wanting to stay there till the soft June sunshine rolled into night. Keeping a vigil if you like. Not ready to let him go. But I knew I had to phone the ambulance and let Sophie and Adam know that their father was dead.

I kissed Neil again, told him I loved him and got up off the bed. Panic crashed over me. My stomach spasmed and water flooded my mouth. I ran for the bathroom and was violently sick, the vomit forcing its way down my nostrils as well as out of my mouth, scouring my throat. While I washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth, a lump of fear lodged in my stomach. Why had I ever agreed?

Fetching the phone from the hallway, I returned to our room, watching Neil while I made the call. ‘He’s stopped breathing, my husband. I think he’s dead.’ After I’d given my name and the address, I called Adam. His phone went to voicemail. ‘Come home, Adam, as soon as you can.’

Sophie knew straight away. ‘It’s Dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Mum.’ Her voice broke. ‘Is he in hospital?’

‘At home.’

She got back before the ambulance arrived. Found me upstairs sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hand covered her mouth. The room stank. Her eyes flew to her father. ‘He was fine this morning,’ she said.

‘Yes.’ In the scale of things. Better than dead, anyway.

‘Have you tried anything – the breathing space kit?’

I froze, tried to swallow. ‘Sophie, it’s too late. Darling, I’m sorry.’ I walked over to her. She threw her arms around me and squeezed tight, sobbing into my neck. She wasn’t often physically demonstrative. Not with me. With Neil – yes. ‘Oh, Dad,’ she wailed. After a minute or two she pulled away.

‘It’s all right,’ I told her, ‘if you want to sit with him or hold his hand or anything.’

She looked at her father again, then shook her head. She went out of the room. I’d misjudged it, perhaps. She was fifteen and we were constantly second-guessing her reactions. Sophie was always so practical and sensible that it was easy to forget how young she really was. Unlike Adam.

I followed her down. I hated to leave Neil on his own. Sophie was on her phone. She ended the call as I came into the kitchen.

‘You didn’t tell Grandma.’ It sounded like an accusation.

‘Not yet. I thought you and Adam – you’ve told her?’

She nodded. She was being so grown-up. I realized that this was how she would deal with it now. She’d throw herself into the arrangements and help me with the tasks that needed doing and find a way to be useful.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

The doorbell rang. There was an ambulance outside, a man on the step. He checked that he’d come to the right place and signalled for his mate to join him.

‘He’s upstairs,’ I told them. ‘He’s been very ill.’ I led the way and the two men followed. One crossed over to Neil’s side and felt for his pulse. The other distracted me, asking questions: he’d been ill, what with, which hospital was he being seen by, how had he been earlier that day.

‘He is dead,’ his colleague confirmed. I nodded. The door went again. I heard voices. Then Sophie calling me. The ambulance man examining Neil gestured that I could go.

Downstairs there was a young policeman. Sophie had seated him at the kitchen table. He stood up as I entered the room. He was one of those men whose jaw is wider than his forehead, giving him the look of a comic-book hero. He introduced himself as PC Stenner, and explained he was following up on reports of a sudden death.

I sat down opposite him. Sophie was making tea.

‘My husband Neil. He has motor neurone disease. I went to check on him this afternoon, about three o’clock. Anyway, he wasn’t breathing.’

‘Big shock,’ he offered.

‘Just a question of time, really. It’s a terminal illness.’

‘He’s not in hospital?’

‘There’s no treatment.’

His eyes fell for a moment. ‘I see. Well, the coroner will be informed, just a matter of routine. Any sudden death. But, like you say, if it was expected…’ He wrote a few lines in his notebook, then stood and spoke to Sophie. ‘I won’t be needing that cuppa, ta.’