‘That’s it,’ I say, pushing myself up, slowly, slowly. ‘That’s the truth of it.’
If I’d found a way to tell any of them, would they have understood? I take them one by one, considering. Dad was a big fan of Arthur’s, and he liked things to be steady and predictable, to go the way he expected. No, he wouldn’t have understood this. Mother? Well, her heart was already broken, so perhaps one more crack wouldn’t have mattered too much? Or perhaps it would. Perhaps it would have been the thing to tip her over. And Bill. My darling Bill. It’s possible that Bill would have understood how I loved her, because he loved her the same way. I imagine him taking hold of both of my hands, and telling me that only one of us could win. That it could only go one way. And he would have been right.
It was a different time. When love was sometimes treated as a crime.
I know I shouldn’t, but I reach out and pick a daffodil, hold it up to the light and take in its simple beauty. I will take it home and put it in a jam jar, and remember.
When people saw Bill and Dot and Arthur and me, they saw two pairs, two couples. And they were almost right. It’s just that the pieces didn’t go exactly where they thought. It wasn’t their fault. It was the only way they knew to put the pieces together. I was the foolish one for going along with it, just because Arthur and I were the only two left. Arthur loved me. Bill and I both loved Dot. And who did Dot love?
I walk away, round to Arthur’s grave. Do I need to tell him, too? Yes. For completeness. Because this is what I’ve always wanted to tell him, the words that have always been stuck. And now he’s dead, and she’s dead, and my tongue is finally loosened, my throat clear.
‘Arthur,’ I say, ‘it’s Mabel.’
My voice is quiet but it’s steady, and I’m proud of that. I’m about to tell him the most important thing I never said. The fact of it should really have killed our marriage before it ever started, but I think, perhaps, the holding inside of it allowed us to survive. As a couple, I mean. I couldn’t have her, but I had him. And that was something. Those six decades we had, they were real. With Dot, I had one kiss and more love than I knew what to do with and an aching want that’s never gone away, not for a single minute. But with Arthur, I had a life.
The afternoon is almost over. Tonight, after eating, I’ll go outside and watch the sun set. Pretend he’s beside me once more.
‘Thank you, for loving me,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you as much as you gave me. It wasn’t in me. But I hope you knew that you deserved it. When you fell in love with me, my heart was already taken. I’ve always thought I should have said that, but perhaps it’s all right that I didn’t. Because we had some happy times, didn’t we? We had more good years than bad. Did you know, that I loved Dot? Not as a friend. As a person. As a lover. Did you believe what Reg Bishop said that day? Sometimes I thought you knew. I’d catch you looking at me with a certain sadness in your eyes and it was as if you were thinking that you never stood a chance. And sometimes I was sure that you didn’t know, that you would never have entered into a life with me if you had. I’m sorry, Arthur. For the wife I never was, never could be. But I’m not sorry I loved her. I’ll never be sorry for that.’
I step backwards, and it’s then that I sense someone behind me. I turn, and there she is. Erin. There are tears running down her face, and she has a small, pull-along suitcase with her, and I want to gather her up and find out what’s wrong.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘I didn’t mean to listen in, it’s just, I was looking for you, and you weren’t at home, and Julie and the others didn’t know where you were, and this was the only other place I could think to look, and…’
I hold up both hands, and she stops speaking abruptly. But it’s like a waterfall being dammed up. I can almost see the pressure building, the words piling up inside.
‘Go on,’ I say, realising that this is what she needs. The permission and the space to speak.
‘I talked to them,’ she says. ‘My parents, and my sister. I told them I’m gay, and I really thought it would be okay, that they’d be able to see that there are all these other things they love about me, and that would help them accept the thing they find difficult, but I was wrong. Jade and Dad, they don’t care much one way or the other, they’d be all right, in time, but not Mum. She thinks it’s evil. She actually used that word, evil. She thinks we’ll all go to hell. She really believes that. Anyway, now it's all out there and she can barely look at me. So I wanted to find you, to ask if I could come back, just until I’ve got something else sorted out, and when I got here, you were talking and I didn’t want to interrupt.’
She stops, like she’s run out of air, or words, or both.
‘Now you know,’ I say.
‘Are you angry with me?’
I’m incredulous. Why would I be angry with her?
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m relieved. Saves me telling you separately. It’s taken a bit out of me, this.’
‘I bet it has,’ she says. ‘Eighty-six years is a long time to keep a secret.’
‘Too long. Far too long.’
She comes up next to me and hooks an arm through mine.
‘Could I come back? Just for a little while?’
I feel a rush of joy at the thought of the return to those days, when I’d wake and know there was someone else in the house, even if she was still fast asleep. When I’d go to sleep to the sound of her pottering about, music on. Having someone to eat meals with, a reason – beyond my own needs – to cook.
‘You can come back for as long as you like,’ I say.
She tilts her head until it’s resting on my shoulder, and we stand there, looking at Arthur’s grave.
‘Was he a good man?’ she asks.
‘One of the best.’
‘You just… didn’t love him. Couldn’t.’
‘Oh, I loved him. There are so many different kinds of love. I couldn’t love him the way he loved me, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t love there, between us.’
‘Like friendship?’ she asks.
And I realise I had it all upside down, all along. Loving my friend with the passion of romantic love, and my husband like a friend.
‘Like friendship,’ I say. ‘Like the best kind of friendship.’
When I’m ready, I pull at her arm gently, and we start walking. Going home. We don’t say much, and I’m glad to have her with me but glad, too, that she’s offering me this space to think. You can’t live in the past, I tell myself, but you can visit. And you can bring bits of it into the present, when you need them. All this time, I’ve thought of every year since Dot left as wasted, but perhaps it isn’t as bleak as all that. There have been pockets of happiness, there has been laughter and a certain kind of love. Raging bliss isn’t the only thing that’s real.
37
‘Oh,’ says Julie. ‘Erin’s back?’
We’re in the front room, and there are noises coming from upstairs. A hairdryer and a female vocalist singing about going back in time and not losing everything.
‘She is,’ I say.