Epilogue
It is the fifth of January and Sean has been on holiday for three weeks. All that unused annual leave turned out to be useful in the end.
It’s below zero degrees outside, but the snow, repeatedly forecast over the Christmas period, has never arrived. And that’s just as well, really. With the exception of Christmas Day, which Sean spent with April in London, he’s been doing his best to ignore the whole festive period. And by losing himself in his packing, he has pretty much succeeded.
But now, while cleaning out the loft, he has found that second box of photos, the one Catherine mentioned, and he can’t decide whether to tape the lid down and simply move it, unopened, to the new flat, or whether to open it and investigate the contents.
He makes himself a mug of tea, and sips it while he decides. And then, thinking that it’s likely to become an obsession if he doesn’t look, he removes the lid and tips the contents onto the kitchen table.
The first thing he spots is a letter. It contains the typed results of the DNA test Catherine had mentioned having done. It proves, it says, his paternity of their daughter.
He gently folds this, caresses it and then puts it to one side. He starts to sift through the photos, and here is newborn April looking surprised, and then forward in time to Catherine in the pool in Valencia, and now fast forward again to April proudly leaning on the roof of her first car – a little green Vauxhall Corsa.
Amidst the loose photos is a much older, yellowed album containing photos of Catherine as a baby, then Catherine as a toddler, then Catherine at school.
Sean’s eyes are misting now, so he puts these photos to one side. April, who is due to give birth any day, will love them, he thinks. He then re-stacks the remaining photos in the box and tapes down the lid.
Even though she never has anything much to say, Sean phones April regularly. “What have you been up to?” he asks every time.
“Sitting here feeling huge, mainly,” she always replies. “I’m so over this whole being pregnant lark.”
• • •
The weekend before the move, Sean drives down to Wiltshire to visit his mother.
She’s on a new drug regimen but though Perry claims she has more good days than before, Sean has seen little proof of it so far.
When he arrives at The Cedars, she’s sitting staring into the middle distance and working her mouth, as usual.
Sean kisses her on the cheek and hugs her frail, rigid body. He asks her if she knows who he is, and she says, shortly, “Of course I know who you are,” but then fails to give any further information which might prove this to be so.
Sean sighs deeply and then moves a chair so that he can sit right beside her. “I brought some pictures to show you,” he says, sliding a manila envelope from his bag. “I found them in the loft.”
He starts with photos of his own childhood. Perry and himself in school uniform. A picture of his father fishing, a photo of the house they grew up in… It’s finally a photo of Cynthia, looking youthful and pretty in an evening gown, which provokes the first reaction. She reaches out tremblingly as if to caress the fabric. “Such a pretty dress,” she says.
Sean continues to go through the photos but Cynthia only seems interested in the ball gown, at least until he comes to a photo of himself, aged about five on his mother’s knee. “He fell in the pond,” Cynthia says, causing Sean to pause.
He looks up at her and smiles and says, “Who did? Who fell in the pond?”
“Um?” Cynthia says.
“Who fell in the pond?” Sean asks again.
“Why, Perry did, silly,” his mother replies.
“When did Perry fall in a pond, Mum?”
“The day Edward took that,” Cynthia says, nodding at the photo. “Don’t you remember?”
Sean stares at the photo and struggles to recall the incident. But though he can locate a vague feeling of panic, a sense of urgency that seems to linger in the borders of the image, he’s unable to remember the details. “Not really,” he finally admits.
“After this one,” his mother says quietly, tapping her finger on the photo. “Your father wanted one with both of you. That’s when we realised he was missing.”
“Right,” Sean says, squinting. Perhaps he does remember something. Perhaps he remembers being cast aside urgently; perhaps he remembers watching his mother run away from him through the French windows, heading off to save his brother from the duck pond. Or has he just, this instant, manufactured those images to fit the story? It’s difficult to say. Memory is such a strange thing.
“So, what about this one?” he asks, nervously sliding a square black and white photo from the pack. “Do you remember this one, Mum?”
He holds the photo out and studies his mother’s face and prays for a sign of recognition. “The inseparables,” she says. “It’s what the French call lovebirds, you know. Les Inséparables.”
Sean wide-eyes his mother. “Wow,” he says. “You are with it, today. And this little girl. Do you remember her name?” He points at the little girl in the photo, hiding behind her hair. He wills his mother’s lips to move. He wills them to say “Catherine.”
Cynthia works her mouth as she thinks about this for a moment. Then a shadow crosses her features and her eyes start to water. “No,” she says, feebly, “no I don’t. It’s all gone again.”
Sean reaches out and rubs her back. “That’s OK, Mum. You’re doing really well today. And this was ages ago. Years and years ago.”
“Was it?” Cynthia says, sounding confused, sounding frustrated. “It’s so misty, that’s all. Everything’s misty and mixed up. It’s all just… wrong.”
Sean crosses the room and returns with a tissue which he hands to his mother. “That’s normal, Mum,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
“… so cold,” Cynthia says, as she dabs at her eyes with the tissue.
“You’re cold?” Sean asks, glancing over at the radiator which is on full blast. He can feel the heat from here.
“No, in Cornwall,” Cynthia says, irritatedly. “It was summer, I think, but it was freezing the whole time.”
“Gosh, you remember that, do you?” Sean says. “That’s amazing.”
“Silly little dresses,” Cynthia says. “Silly, summer dresses. She was cold all the time, the poor thing.”
“The little girl? My friend?”
Cynthia nods. “They were camping, too. With blankets. Not even sleeping bags. We had a villa, of course, but they were camping. She stayed with us the whole time, really. We dressed her and fed her. It was hardly surprising that she didn’t want to go home.”
Sean covers his mouth with one hand as he moves the photo closer with the other.
“Show me another one,” Cynthia says. “We’ve done that one.”
“OK,” Sean replies. “But just… these dungarees she’s wearing. In the photo. Were they mine?”
“Of course they were yours,” Cynthia replies. “Whose do you think they were? They were too big for her. We had to roll up the bottoms but she still kept tripping over.”
Sean chews his bottom lip as he tremblingly pulls another photo from the envelope. “Is this her, Mum?” he asks, putting a different photo of five-year-old Catherine before her eyes. “Is this the little girl?”
Cynthia frowns at the photo. “Well, how should I know?” she says.
“Please look, Mum,” Sean pleads. “Just for a moment. Just for me. It’s important.”
Cynthia frowns at her son as if he’s perhaps a little crazy, then returns her gaze briefly to the photo. “I don’t know,” she says, in a petulant tone of voice. “It might be her, it might not be her. Why are you asking me all these questions, anyway?”
Sean sighs and lowers the photo. He runs his hand across his face. “Right,” he says, despondently. “Right, it doesn’t matter.”
“A terrible slattern, though. An awful woman. She was drunk most of the time.”
Sean’s eyebrows twitch skywards. “Who was?” he asks urgently, suddenly hopeful again. “The little girl’s mother?”
Cynthia nods. “A very vulgar woman, she was. Always drinking beer and burping. And giving you money for chips all the time. We didn’t want you eating chips. We wanted you to eat proper food.”
“Chips?” Sean repeats, starting to smile.
“Yes, chips. There was a chip-shop near the campsite. A fish and chip shop, actually. But all they ever seemed to eat was chips. Your father wasn’t happy.”
“But we ate a lot of chips? Me and the little girl?”
“Yes. Oh, she was nice enough, I suppose, but the mother, Winnie or Wendy, I think. Yes, that’s right. Wendy. Windy Wendy your father used to call her. She was a horrible, vulgar woman, always drinking and swearing and eating her horrid chips. Imagine growing up with a mother like that! Lord knows what happened to the little girl. The poor little sod.”
• • •
Sean barely makes it to his car before he collapses into tears, before he allows himself to slump onto the steering wheel and weep.
He weeps, first, for his mother, who remembers a fish and chip shop from over forty-five years ago, but can’t remember why she’s in a nursing home today. He weeps for Catherine, who is gone, who he now knows he has loved since he was seven years old. And finally, he weeps the hottest, angriest tears of all for the fact that it’s now too late to tell her that, for the fact that she’ll never ever know the biggest miracle of their lives together.
He had known all along, he now sees. Not for the reasons he thought he knew, but yes, he had known all along. Finding the photo at Catherine’s mother’s house hadn’t been the origin of the thought, he finally understands. It had been merely a convenient peg to hang the thought upon. Because deep down, yes, he had known. He had always known that they were fusional, that they were meant to be together and that their meeting in Dreamland had been somehow more than mere chance.
Once the tears have faded, he sits, feeling numb, and stares blankly at the misty windscreen.
The final riddle of his life with Catherine has been resolved and, perhaps only now can he truly say that he knew her. He’s overcome by a momentary wave of gratitude for that simple, yet majestic privilege. He’d been right when he’d told Catherine that no one ever knew anyone else – not really. And she had heard him and saved that gift of knowing until the very end. And it’s a huge gift, perhaps the biggest gift of all.
He’s just drying his eyes on the car-cloth when his mobile, in the door-pocket, buzzes.
He sniffs as he glances at the screen for the first time today. “Missed calls: 8” it reads. “Incoming call: Ronan.”
• • •
When Sean arrives at the hospital, the first person he sees is Maggie.
She’s standing out in the cold sunshine sipping coffee from a plastic cup. “Sean!” she exclaims. “God, they finally got through to you, did they?”
“Yes,” Sean says. “Bloody phone was on silent. And how did you manage to get here before me?”
Maggie shrugs. “My phone wasn’t on silent,” she says. “Go up and meet him. He’s beautiful. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“He’s here? It’s all over?”
“Yes, all over bar the shouting,” Maggie says. “He’s got a good voice on him for shouting, too. You’ll see. Go!”
Sean glances at the doorway before looking back at Maggie. “Where is it?”
“Third floor,” Maggie says. “Then down the long corridor, turn right where it goes from green to blue, and then room twenty-nine. If you go up the stairs in the corner there, you won’t have to pass by reception. She’s not the fastest receptionist in the world…”
Sean crosses the lobby, pushes open the door, and then sprints up the staircase. By the time he reaches April’s room, his heart is racing.
“Dad!” April exclaims, as he bursts through the door. “You made it!”
Ronan is lounging on the bed beside April, and in her arms, swaddled in a white blanket, is her tiny, newborn child.
Sean freezes at the threshold and stares, in shock, at the scene. Memories of lying next to Catherine on a similar hospital bed momentarily flood his mind.
“Well, come on,” April says. “Come and meet Jake.”
“I’m so sorry I missed all of this,” Sean says, crossing the room. “I was visiting your gran down in Wiltshire.”
“I know,” April says. “Ronan told me. But it doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
“I did try to call you,” Ronan says. “But there was never any answer.”
“Sorry,” Sean replies. “Bloody phone was on silent,” then, addressing April, “Did you say, Jake? I thought it was going to be Jack.”
“Oh, I know you’re not keen, and we’ll change it if you’re really dead set against. But we both really like it, don’t we?” She glances at Ronan who nods, shrugs and smiles simultaneously.
Sean crouches down at the bedside and reaches out to gently stroke the baby’s tiny ear. “Jake’s fine,” he says softly. “I’ll get over it. I already did, actually.”
Baby Jake blows a bubble of spittle and half-cries, half gurgles as he tries to reach for Sean’s finger, but April moves him away. “Sorry Dad, but could you wash your hands, do you think? Because this baby sucks everything.”
“Sure,” Sean says. “Of course. I won’t be a tick.”
By the time Sean gets back from the bathroom, Maggie has returned. “Isn’t he beautiful?” she says when Sean re-enters the room.
“He is,” Sean agrees. “And he looks exactly like his mother did when she was born.”
“Hopefully I wasn’t quite as blotchy,” April says.
“You were exactly as blotchy,” Sean tells her. “But don’t worry, it soon goes away.”
“Thank God for that,” April says. “So does he really look like me? Or is that just something everyone feels they have to say?”
“No, he really does,” Sean tells her. “You had that same expression on your face. Like you were permanently surprised.” He looks from the baby to April and their eyes meet for a moment too long. April sighs and bites her bottom lip and Sean’s eyes begin to water, and he knows that they have had the same thought at the same moment – he can sense that they are both missing the same person at the same time. He can feel that they are standing side by side in that moment, peering together into the void of Catherine’s absence. Sean swipes at his watery eyes and manages to force a smile and wink at his daughter.
“Have you held him, yet?” Maggie asks, breaking the tension.
Sean clears his throat. “No,” he says. “No, I haven’t.”
Less than ten minutes later a nurse appears, to bustle them from the room. “Rules is rules,” she says. “I don’t know how you even got in. You can come back at visiting time, but right now, you need to be O.U.T. out!”
In the corridor, Sean lingers, momentarily unsure what to do for the next three hours.
“Coffee?” Maggie suggests. “There’s a Costa opposite. And I could do with some food to tell the truth. I think I might faint otherwise.”
“Sure,” Sean says. “That’s a great idea.”
The second they are seated, Maggie sinks her teeth into her sandwich, groans with pleasure and then asks, through crumbs, “So how does it feel, Grandpa?”
Sean snorts. “Grandpa,” he repeats. “It feels lovely. A bit sad, too, actually. A bit bitter-sweet, you know?”
“Without Catherine here to share it…” Maggie says, understandingly, “it’s bound to be.”
By way of reply, Sean simply blinks slowly and nods.
“Yes,” Maggie says. “That must be hard. That must be really hard.”
“But they’re all fine,” Sean says, forcing an up-beat tone. “That’s the main thing. April, Ronan, Jake. They’re their own little family now.” He shakes his head as if he can hardly believe it’s true.
“April said you didn’t much like Jake. As a name, I mean.”
Sean sighs and peers into Maggie’s eyes. He wonders if she knows the reason why. But the regard that meets his own seems innocent enough. Innocent, naive, warm…
“Did you ever finish those tapes?” Maggie asks, as if she’s been listening to his thoughts.
“Yes,” Sean says. “Yes, I did, actually.”
“Were there any more revelations?”
Sean laughs. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, there were quite a few.”
Maggie nods. She waits for a moment for Sean to continue, but then visibly realising that he isn’t going to, she says, hesitantly, “Right. Well… good. That you finished them, I mean.”
“You know…” Sean starts.
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “It’s just a silly thing Catherine said.”
“No, go on.”
Sean shakes his head. “Really!” he says. “Best not.”
Maggie tuts and rolls her eyes. “You’re such a tease. You always were.”
“A tease?”
“Yes, a tease. You know it drives me insane when people start to tell me something and then change their minds. I’ll now drive myself mad for weeks trying to guess what it was you were going to say.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“OK, then,” Sean says. “You asked for it. There was one revelation, as you call them, that involved you, actually.”
“Me?” Maggie says. “Oh, you mean the supposed affair I had with you? You already told me about that.”
“No, she changed her mind about that, actually. She didn’t think we’d had an affair after all. Not in the end.”
“Oh,” Maggie says, softly. “Well, that’s a relief. I hated the idea that she’d… you know… thought that the whole time.”
“But she did think that you might be in love with me,” Sean says, letting the words rush out before he can change his mind.
Maggie frowns at Sean deeply, then opens her mouth to reply before closing it again and glancing towards the door of the cafe instead. Finally, she looks back and says, in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice, “Well, it makes sense, I suppose. Seeing as she thought we had an affair and everything.”
“Yes, but like I said, she changed her mind about that. She just thought it was some sort of unrequited love thing between us, I think. Something we’d never dared talk about. Or even thought about, even.”
“Really?” Maggie says. She blushes and looks down at her cup and saucer for a moment. She fiddles with her teaspoon. “I’m… I’m not sure quite what to say to that.”
“Nothing, I suppose,” Sean says with fake disinterest. “I mean there’s nothing to say, really, is there? Especially if it’s not true. Especially if she got that wrong, I mean.”
“No,” Maggie says, averting her gaze by glancing back at the door again. A young woman is struggling her way through it with a pushchair. Maggie jumps up and crosses the café to help her.
“So!” she says, when she finally returns.
“So,” Sean repeats.
Maggie looks at him coyly.
“Did Catherine get that wrong?” Sean asks.
“Um?” Maggie says. “Oh… Well, of course she did.”
“Oh, OK,” Sean says, flatly.
“Morphine,” Maggie says, nodding knowingly. “That’s what’s on those tapes, Sean. I told you. Morphine.”
“Right,” Sean says, pulling a face. “Actually, don’t… please. Don’t, you know… reduce them to that.”
“No,” Maggie says. “No, I’m sorry.”
“There was a lot of stuff on those tapes and some of it may have been a bit… a bit wide of the mark, perhaps. But there was also a great deal of truth on them. They were quite amazing, actually.”
“I’m sure,” Maggie says. “I didn’t mean anything.”
Sean shakes his head sadly and sighs.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Sean. It’s just, well, that came out of left field, that’s all.”
“It’s fine,” Sean says. “Really. And it’s not you. It’s just… regret. You know, there were so many things we never said to each other. So many opportunities wasted. And by the time Catherine put everything out there in the open, well, it was too late, really.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late for us to say the things we needed to say, I suppose.”
Maggie nods. She reaches across the table for Sean’s wrist. “Right,” she says. “Well, that’s just human, isn’t it? We all have lots of things we should have said or could have said. Life’s all about what might have happened if, isn’t it? Because there are so many possibilities, aren’t there? So many different paths. But you only get to choose one.”
Suddenly self-conscious, she pulls her hand sharply back. “That was me comforting you, by the way,” she says, in a professorial tone of voice. “Not me being in love with you. Not that at all. Just to be clear.”
“Just to be clear,” Sean repeats, grinning.
From that point on, the conversation becomes stilted, so they quickly finish their drinks and pull their coats back on.
Outside in the street, they hug rigidly and head off in different directions, Maggie towards the railway station and Sean towards the hospital. He has decided to move the car from the outrageously expensive hospital car park and find a hotel room nearby. He suddenly feels incredibly tired. There’s been too much emotion for one day, and all he wants to do is find the nearest bed and collapse in it.
As he reaches the car, he hunts for the car keys in his pocket but finds, instead, the lump of rose quartz April gave him. He caresses it fondly, releases it and then pulls his keys from the other pocket. On hearing the clip-clop of heels behind him, he pauses and turns.
“Sean!”
“Maggie,” Sean says, smiling lopsidedly. “Sorry, did you want a lift somewhere, or…?”
“No,” Maggie says, bending to put her hands on her knees and panting. “So unfit!” she says, then breathlessly, “No, I wanted to ask you something.”
“You did?”
“Yes, what you asked me in the cafe,” Maggie says, straightening.
“Yes?”
“Was there a reason?”
“I’m sorry? Was there a reason for what?”
“Oh, don’t be obtuse, Sean. Was there a reason why you told me that? Of all the things that were on the tapes, that’s the thing you chose to tell me. Why was that?”
“Oh,” Sean says. “Right. Sorry. Um, I suppose it was just because it implicated you, really.”
“It implicated me?” Maggie repeats.
“Well, yes. It was about you.”
“OK. Right. So, I suppose the question is, did it implicate you, Sean?”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“Oh, forget it,” Maggie says. “This is pointless.”
She starts to walk away, but Sean calls her back.
“Maggie!” he says. “Wait.” When she turns to face him again, he gestures with open palms and says, “What is all this? I don’t understand.”
Maggie laughs. “I don’t either,” she says. “Maybe it’s just another one of those missed opportunities we were talking about.”
“Missed opportunities?” Sean repeats.
“Perhaps. Look. God, this is so difficult… But, what the hell… The question is, I suppose, what would it change, Sean?”
“What would what change?”
“What would it change if I’d said ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’?”
Sean’s features shift to a mixture of confusion and embarrassment. ‘Why?” he says. “Is that something you think you might have said?”
“Just… answer the question, Sean,” Maggie says irritatedly. “What would it have changed if that were the case?”
“What, you mean, if… if you’d said you were, a bit…”
“Yes,” Maggie interrupts. “Please stop making this so bloody difficult, would you? What would it change if, theoretically speaking, I’d admitted to… I don’t know… to… perhaps… liking you, let’s say, more than I should.”
“More than you should?” Sean repeats.
“Yes.”
“Theoretically?” Sean says, through laughter.
“Yes, theoretically. And don’t laugh at me. This isn’t easy, Sean.”
“No,” Sean says, forcing a circumspect expression. “No, not laughing at all, here, Mags. Um. Well, speaking theoretically,” he continues, “I suppose…” He rolls his eyes skywards, desperately searching for inspiration, for clarity. “I mean, I’m not ready. I’m not ready for anything.”
“Well, no, obviously you’re not.”
“But later, perhaps, somewhere down the line… If that were to be true, I mean, if you did like me, more than you should, then perhaps that might change things.”
“Right.”
“That might change quite a lot of things, I suppose.”
Maggie narrows her eyes. “Do you mean in a good way. Or a bad way?”
Sean shrugs. “In a good way, I think. Yeah. I mean, like I say, I’m not ready, right now, for anything. But, potentially. Theoretically. In the long run. Yes, it might change things. It might change things in a very good way indeed.”
THE END