LIDDY
I glanced over the trousers and shirt with a mixture of annoyance and resignation before tossing them back onto the armchair. How am I supposed to go out in this? The trousers are rumpled, no crease left at all, and theyre shiny on the seatnever mind the fact Ive lost five kilos lately, so now they just hang off me like a burlap sack. As for the shirt, dont get me startedit was once sky blue but now its faded to a dreary grey, the cuffs frazzled and the collar limp with shame. Liddy wouldnt have let me go down to the corner shop in such a shirt, let alone to the university to teach my lectures.
Its odd. I never cared much for my clothes, yet somehow always looked impeccably turned outnever just neat, but verging on dapper. Not anymore. Back then, shirts would simply appear, new jackets and ties would migrate into my wardrobe, fashionable shoes lined up perfectly. All it took was a rummage in the wardrobe or a word to Liddy, and by morning, Id be suited for whatever the day demanded.
Ah, Liddy, what did you have to go and do that for? What possessed you to surprise me like this? I never expected this kind of betrayal from her! She was nearly ten years younger, never seriously ill, and that last timeand it didnt seem much at all. Just three days with a mild fever and that ridiculous cough. She wouldnt have gone to the doctor eithernot if she hadnt needed a health certificate before the new school year. She went there with the other teachers, just to tick a box. The place was nothing specialjust the local GP near Wandsworth Commonbut from there, they whisked her straight to hospital, and then it all went out of control, a bad dream ending before New Years.
I knew, rationally, none of this was the GPs fault; still, I found myself hating that building like it had snatched her away. It was childish reasoning, but in my mind, if thats where it all began, thats where the blame lay.
Liddy and I met when I was a second-year PhD candidate, tutoring undergraduate seminars on calculus. Liddy, then a shy, first-year girl, sat quietly in the front row. Funny, really, how she ever caught my eye. Id always preferred bold, lively women, high-spirited and talkative. She was the opposite: a rosy-cheeked slip of a girl with freckles even in winter and plump little fingers stained with ink, nails nervously bitten. And it was those hands that undid mebefore I knew it, I was walking her home, calling round to her grans to make scones, and after that, there was little I could do but marry her.
We spent forty years together. Liddy doubled in size, chopped off her plaits, took up a two-pack-a-day habit, and became school deputy head of mathematics, but I always saw those gentle, childlike, ink-stained hands. No one else would do.
It wasnt all plain sailing. In forty years plenty went wrong. There are a handful of things I still regretone or two big mistakes and my own temporary departures. Liddy had her turn, too, with three years of clandestine meetings with the director of the biscuit factory that sponsored her school. But we had our two girls, our anchors, holding the family together through every storm.
It was never fair, really. We began with nothing, living on top of each other in a tiny flat, then came the girlsjuggling music lessons, ballet, school fêtes, endless childhood illnesses. Now, with a lovely big house and daughters off leading their own independent lives, only rarely bringing the grandchildren round for birthdays, it should have been time for us to relax, rejoice. And then Liddy went and left me with no instructions on how to carry on.
I was so unprepared, I barely registered what had happenedeven at the funeral I acted more like a man at a birthday party than a mourning widower. People noticed and decided I was a cold fish, unworthy of pity. Fools. The truth dawned later, in March, when spring arrived. Thats when the emptiness hit me. I shrivelledlost weight, grew morose, couldnt bear being alone in the house.
The girls might as well have been strangersone off to the Hebrides saving seals and tracking swans, the other swallowed up by her husbands family, wholly devoted to her own little one, no place for a dad in her busy world. I drifted from friend to friend, arriving uninvited, wolfing down food, dozing in chairs, drinking tea and dunking biscuits in silence, waiting until it was too late to stay before tramping back home, ready to repeat the cycle next day. At home, I barely touched food. For forty years Id been the family chef, but cooking for one just seemed pointless.
Naturally, I looked a wreckshabby, gaunt, aged overnight. Eventually, my friends sounded the alarm and plotted to find me a new wife.
Which is why tonight Im off to the theatre with some woman called Annabelle Constance. Itll come to nothing, I know. Even when Liddy was alive I only went to the theatre for her sake. To me, the whole business felt phoney and overwrought, usually second-rate. But Liddys eyes sparkled at the stage, she kept every programme, shed retell the whole play for days afterwards; how could I say no? Now my well-meaning friends keep pressing tickets on me, dragging me through slushy snow to see some dreadful play, forcing me to sit for three hours in a dusty chair, feet aching in unfamiliar shoes, forced to buy warm juice and stale buns in the interval for these dried-up old birdswishing I could just go home and bury my face in a pillow that still smells like Liddy (or maybe thats just my imagination). To refuse friends would be cruel, so I go along with itthough Im not sure why. I do know that living alone, at least for me, is simply impossible. What the point of carrying on is, I cant quite say.
Tonights Annabelle Constance turned out to be a surprisingly smart and attractive womanfifteen years younger than me, petite, well-groomed, and quite witty. A decade ago I might have been rather taken with her. She showed clear interest, toopeppering me with suggestions for our next outing.
The play wasnt bad, at least short and mercifully without interval. After, the usual thing would be to take her to a café, but Annabelle announced her flat was right round the corner, shed made a steak and bake and would love to share her dinner. The whole performance was see-through, but the thought of a homely kitchen was too tempting, so off I went.
She didnt disappoint. Her flat was spotless, cosy, smelling of cinnamon and vanilla. Annabelle nipped into the bedroom and reappeared in a tracksuit, somehow looking even younger and lighter on her feet, buzzing in the kitchen, serving up homemade treats, chatting away with a natural ease. For a moment, I almost thought I could happily stay forever in this gingerbread house, let the past fade into the wallpaper, and begin a new chapter.
I finally dragged myself home well past midnight, with plans for a gallery visit next weekend, a shopping trip to update my wardrobe (cant have you letting me down! she joked), and lunch with Annabelle on Saturday. Shed wanted to take me rambling in the countryside and show off her little cottage, but her daughter needed her to mind the granddaughter for an afternoonso instead we agreed to have lunch at home, and save the trip for Sunday.
Saturday morning, I rushed off to the barbers, took a few years off my appearance, donned a new smart-checked shirt and soft cord jeans like an eager retiree, bought flowers and a bar of chocolate for the granddaughterand set off for Annabelles.
The stairwell already smelt of roast duck and something freshly baked, and I found myself humming as I caught my reflection grinning in the ancient lift mirror.
Annabelle greeted me like a woman welcoming a soldier home from the war, swept me straight to the kitchen. Wheres your granddaughter? I asked. Ill fetch her now, shes sulking in the bedroomabsolute misery guts, Annabelle replied with a laugh.
I busied myself with putting the flowers in a vase, opening a bottle of wine for us and juice for the girl, slicing bread, and setting the table.
Serge, meet my granddaughter Liddy! Annabelle announced.
Peeking around the door, Liddy was all wide, clear eyes, rosy cheeks, and a smattering of freckles on her upturned nose. She eyed me with suspicion and, nervous, began nibbling at a thumbnailher little hand’s nail bitten and ink-stained.
Good Lord, I thought, let me not keel over right hereand hastily excused myself.
