Was I dreaming? I didn’t think so; this had happened, surely. Were I asleep, it would be a nightmare…
Debs takes down the pictures of the little yellow hippos. She packs away the cuddly Barney toy, the Elmo from Sesame Street and the two-foot-long Doggie Daddy.
I don’t like to watch.
I don’t know what to say.
She seems so composed. There’s an ‘at work’ look about her. I feel it’s wrong. There should be some emotion, surely. But what do I know? I’m a man. This is women’s business.
There’re two boxes on the floor, one pink, one blue. ‘We’ll get one of each,’ she told me only a week ago in another of our jaunts to John Lewis. ‘You never know!’
Now she uses them to pack all this stuff away. She takes down the little blue dresses, the hand-knitted cardigans we seemed to get so many of. The news was such a joy to everyone.
‘Debs is carrying,’ Hod said. He bear-hugged me. ‘God, that’s smashing.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know… we’re made up.’
Of course we were made up. It took us ten years to get to this level. Ten years to get over the thing we would sooner never think about. We just never realised the two events — one so sad and one so happy — could be intertwined. How could they be?
I watch Debs fold more little clothes. The little booties look like Christmas tree decorations. One box is full. She puts the little empty picture frames on top of it, turns to me, says, ‘Can you take that down to the garage?’
I nod, lift up the box.
I want to speak now. I hear a voice prodding me: Say something to her, say something to her. This behaviour isn’t natural; she’s in shock.
But I say nothing.
I take the box away. In the doorway, I turn. She’s almost filled the second box; a little yellow bath, no bigger than our kitchen basin, is being filled up too.
I walk away.
In the garage I can’t bear to look at what I’ve carried down there. I shove it up against a stack of old tyres. It looks so out of place with the mower and power tools sitting nearby. I’ll take it to the charity shop, I tell myself. I want to go straight away, get the next box, fill the car. But I don’t. I stay in the garage. I stay in the garage and smoke a succession of cigarettes. Lighting each new one with the tip of the last. Only when the pack runs out do I go back inside.
The place is quiet. Eerily so.
The television is on low, Antiques Roadshow ’s familiar tune playing. I walk into the room, hoping to see Debs. But she’s not there.
I go through to the kitchen. It’s empty. The bedroom too.
I know the only place left is the spare room, but I don’t want to go back in there. She’ll have packed up the place. Stripped the walls and cupboards. It will be a different room now. It’s not that I want to remember it how it was, how we set it up. No, I want to forget that. I want to forget it all. Pretend it was never there in the first place.
But I can’t.
I hear Debs crying and I know I have to go to her.
I try to edge the door open but there’s something wrong. The door’s blocked.
‘Debs, what’s up, sweetheart?’ I push the door again, but it’s still blocked. ‘Debs, babes, I can’t get in…’ I push harder. In panic, I wonder what she’s done to herself.
The door gives way and I see her lying on the floor.
I rush to her side. She’s tipped out all the stuff from the boxes. All the stuff she so carefully packed.
‘Debs, what is it? What’s wrong?’ It’s a stupid thing to say, I know it. But what else can I say? There’s no instruction manual for this kind of thing.
I kneel by her side and place a hand on her back. She trembles. I remember the time she trembled on our wedding day and it sends a shard of ice into my heart.
‘Debs, please… don’t do this.’
She’s completely lost to me. I wonder: Does she even know I’m here?
I try to rub her back, calm her. She still trembles and then she turns over and curls up like a small child. She looks so helpless, so frail. I feel every shiver that passes through her.
‘Please, don’t do this to yourself, Debs.’ I stroke her head. Her hair is shiny and smooth. It seems unreal to me, like the whole world has become now.
She shakes some more, cries hysterically. Her face becomes a mass of red, her cheeks look fit to explode. I try to stop her convulsing but I can’t.
I know no one can.
I do all I can do. I lie down beside her on the floor and hold her. Just hold her. I hold her tight. As she cries and cries into my chest she repeats the same word over and over again: ‘Why?’
I know there is no answer.
‘Why?’
I wish I knew.
‘Why?’
Yes, God… why?