Cassette #6
Hi Sean.
I don’t think we ever took a photo of us in Kipps wine bar, so I asked Maggie to help me out. Unfortunately, this is all she could come up with.
Don’t worry, by the way. Maggie doesn’t know anything about what’s in these tapes. What you tell and to whom and when you do it is entirely up to you. If you do have a need to share any of this, feel free. I won’t, being dead, object.
So, The Dog and Doublet is what they’re calling Kipps wine bar these days, or so I’m told. I’m pretty sure they changed the façade too, because I don’t remember it looking like that at all. I hope it’s the right place. I secretly suspect that Maggie got this wrong.
Anyway, it’s important because it’s supposed to be Kipps, and Kipps is where we spent some of the best nights I’ve ever had. And because Kipps is where I told you I was pregnant.
I’d spent three weeks arguing with Mum – she wanted me to have an abortion and she had finally (almost) worn me down. She had very nearly convinced me that it was the only sensible option. I was only eighteen, after all. I was too young to have a baby. I had my whole life ahead of me and blah blah blah.
But as far as I was concerned, the main reason was that I didn’t know who the father was.
Even though I never told you that, I suspect it doesn’t come as a complete shock to you. I reckon you must have worked that out.
So that night, we went to Kipps and we got our drinks. I needed some Dutch courage in order to say what I had to say. I was terrified that you would dump me on the spot. I was imagining sleeping on the bench in the bus shelter and going home the very next morning. I could hardly breathe, I was so scared.
You could sense that something was up and you asked me what was wrong. By that point I had a couple of pints of Tennent’s inside me, so I blurted it out. “I’m pregnant,” I said.
I was going to tell you that it might be Phil’s, I honestly was. It was the very next thing that I was going to say. But I didn’t get any further than, “but the thing is…”
Your face slipped into this enormous grin. It wasn’t what I had been expecting at all.
“What?” I asked. I thought you were maybe about to laugh in my face.
“I don’t know,” you said. “That’s just amazing. That’s brilliant!”
And so I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, there and then. I promised myself I’d tell you the next morning, or at the very least before I left.
I asked you, instead, if you thought that I should keep it. I thought you might ask why not, in which case I could explain that things weren’t as simple as they seemed.
But you said, “Of course! Of course you should keep it! We’re going to have a baby!” And then you leaned over the table to kiss me and knocked your pint over.
I was soaked, but we stayed and I spent the evening putting up objections. Where would I live? What would I live on? And you just got drunker and drunker and happier and happier. “I don’t care,” you kept saying. “I don’t care about any of that. We’ll sort it.”
I woke up late the next morning with a terrible hangover. I lay in bed for ages thinking about how I was going to announce my bad news.
But when I came downstairs, you, Alistair and Theresa, who had just moved in, were having one of what you called your “house meetings”.
It had all been decided, you announced. I could stay. We would live together. Alistair and Theresa agreed. “It’ll be like a commune,” Alistair commented. Theresa was looking forward to babysitting, she said.
It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, so I didn’t say a word.
I phoned Mum from that call box at the end of the road and told her the news. I told her that I wasn’t coming to my appointment at the abortion clinic and then I told her I wasn’t coming home at all.
She went all weird and shrieky on me then, and in the end I had to hang up on her.
I don’t think she ever forgave me for that, or not until she met April at any rate.
I’m sure this was hard to hear, my darling. So I apologise again for that. But brace yourself, for there are, I’m afraid, a few more shockers to come.
• • •
The following Saturday, Sean decides to phone Maggie. She has left three messages on his voicemail in the last forty eight hours and he’s pretty certain that if he doesn’t speak to her soon she’ll appear on the doorstep.
As the house is a mess and the freezer is empty again and because he finds himself unable to sum up the energy to fix either, he really doesn’t want her checking up on him right now.
The truth of the matter is that he’s been feeling sadder than usual since last Sunday’s tape, perhaps even what people call depressed.
He has only once or twice had doubts about April’s lineage in the past and nowadays, having parented her since she was born, all logic tells him that it’s immaterial. He loves her, that’s all. He has always loved her and nothing anyone could ever say is going to change that. And yet, and yet… was it not more comfortable feeling certain that he was her biological parent? Because even though he had doubts from time to time, in the end, this is what he had decided to believe, for the simple reason that believing anything else was unbearable.
But now, unless he does a DNA test, he’ll never know. And what possible point could there be in taking a DNA test at this point? What possible advantage could there be in knowing, other than avoiding this, other than avoiding ever having to think about it again.
So he’s angry at Catherine, too. Not for what she might or might not have done when she was eighteen but perhaps for not telling him at the time and definitely for deciding to tell him now. It strikes him as cowardly, actually. Yes, waiting until she’s not even there to hear how he feels about it is cowardly.
“Ah,” Maggie says, when he finally makes the call. “He lives!”
“Yep,” Sean says, pretending to be upbeat. “He lives! How are you?”
“Oh, you know,” Maggie says.
“Not really. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Oh, we’ve been trying to choose where to go on holiday this summer,” Maggie says. “But it seems we can even argue about that.”
Thinking that the more they talk about Maggie and Dave, the less he’ll have to talk about himself, Sean asks, “So what are the options?”
“Well, I want to go to Portugal.”
“Ooh, nice,” Sean says. “I can’t see why anyone would argue with that.”
“Well, thank you! Maybe I should just go with you.”
“So what’s Dave’s objection?” Sean asks, ignoring that comment.
“Oh, Dave says the sea’s too cold. On account of it being the Atlantic or something. He says it’ll be boiling hot on the beach but we won’t be able to dip a toe in the sea without having a heart attack.”
“Ah,” Sean says. “Well, there might be a little truth in that. This is for when?”
“June or July.”
“Then yeah… the sea could be pretty chilly.”
“Damn you both,” Maggie says. “It’s cheap as chips. And the hotel’s gorgeous. And there’s a bloody pool anyway. And I don’t want to spend a thousand pounds going to Bali.”
“Oh, that’s an altogether different proposition,” Sean comments.
“Tell me about it.”
“Very nice! Bali’s stunning, so I hear.”
“Yes. But it’s a day to get there and a day to get back and it’s way over my budget.”
“Maybe you could settle for somewhere halfway?” Sean offers.
“Maybe,” Maggie says, doubtfully. “Where would that be? I’m rubbish at geography.”
“Um, Israel, I reckon,” Sean says. “Or Saudi Arabia. Dubai maybe?”
“Oh, faaabulous,” Maggie says, sarcastically. “I’ll get my burka dry cleaned.”
“Israel’s quite trendy at the moment,” Sean says, “surprising as that may seem. A couple of people from the office have been there recently. And no burka necessary.”
“You know I spent all winter collecting for the poor Palestinians, right?” Maggie says.
“Ah, of course. Sorry, forgot. Egypt then? That’s a bit closer than halfway. Or Greece. Or Turkey.”
“Actually, Turkey might do it. That’s gotta be fairly cheap, right? I don’t think I’ll ever be going to Greece again. Not after last time.”
“Ah, no. Sorry. I forgot about our Grecian extravaganza.”
“I didn’t. Would Turkey have warmer water, then?”
“Than Portugal? Oh, definitely. It’s the Med, isn’t it.”
“Great, well, if Monsieur deigns to calm down, I’ll suggest it. Unless you want to go with me? To Portugal? What do you think?”
“I… think that wouldn’t do your relationship with Dave much good,” Sean says.
Maggie sighs. “No, you’re probably right. So how are you, honey?”
“I’m OK.”
“We don’t seem to be seeing much of you.”
“No?”
“No. Are you still not feeling… you know… up to being sociable?”
“I guess I’m not really. No.”
“Well, I’ll give you a few more weeks, but then we’ll come round and kidnap you for a night out if need be. We can’t have you sitting at home for the rest of your life.”
Sean pulls a face at the phone. “I’m not sitting at home. I’m at work all day every day, Mags. But I’ll, um, let you know when I feel up to being kidnapped, OK?”
“Have you finished that box, yet?”
“Catherine’s recordings?”
“Yeah.”
“No, they’re one a week. I told you,” Sean says.
“Oh, yes. Of course. How many were there again?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Twenty-nine weeks? Gosh, that’s…”
“Almost seven months. Yes.”
“I hope they’re nice, Sean. I mean, I hope they’re doing you good. Because I do worry if that’s really healthy for someone in your position.”
Forgetting momentarily that he’s on the phone and that Maggie can’t see him, Sean shrugs. “I don’t know really,” he says. “Some are a bit… Actually, I’m sorry Mags, but I don’t think I want to talk about them at the moment.”
“Of course. I can understand that,” Maggie replies. “But just remember that… Look, this is difficult to say, but she’s gone, Sean.”
“I know that.”
“I just mean that it’s your life. So open them as fast or as slowly as you need to. Do whatever’s best for you.”
“Right,” Sean says, feeling vaguely irked – he feels as if Maggie might be dissing his dead wife and that’s not really OK. “Um, there’s someone at the door, Mags,” Sean lies. “The postman, I think. So I’ll have to go, OK?”
“OK, honey. Look after yourself. And remember we all love you, OK?”
“Thanks,” Sean says. “Bye Mags.”
He hangs up the phone and then blows noisily through pursed lips. “Well, that’s that done,” he mutters.
He makes himself a cup of coffee and sits and stares at the box of envelopes. He thinks about what Maggie said and allows himself to wonder if it is healthy.
Because she’s right, of course. Catherine isn’t here. And only he can decide what works best for him.
The thing is that he can’t decide what works best for him. Because though there’s a certain appeal to bingeing on the tapes, to getting it all over with, the image of him sitting with that pile of opened envelopes, the idea that there would be no more to look forward to and no more surprises to be afraid of, is terrifying to him.
In a way, of course, the tapes are keeping Catherine alive. As long as she remains unpredictable, as long as he doesn’t know what she’s going to say next, it’s as if she hasn’t, entirely, ceased to exist.
For want of a better idea, he decides that, for now, he’ll stick to the plan.