Rhys pulled me close and kissed my forehead. ‘Then I’m very glad you had someone looking out for you while you went through this. I wish it had been me, that you’d felt able to tell me, but I’m glad you found this old chap.’
‘Me too,’ I said solemnly.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was later than I usually visited, so I wasn’t particularly concerned when I didn’t run into Henry at the cemetery that afternoon. I’d been playing catch-up for most of the day, trying to recoup the time I’d lost at the dress fitting that morning. And it wasn’t as if I saw Henry every time I came, although he was there frequently enough for it to feel strange when our paths didn’t cross.
I was probably one of the last visitors of the day and could have had my pick of spaces in the car park, but I swung into the one I’d come to think of as mine. I followed the familiar pathway to my mother’s section of the burial grounds, feeling a little disappointed when I didn’t see a tall silver-haired septuagenarian somewhere nearby. Although in fairness, I couldn’t see anyone else around either.
That didn’t bother me in the way it might once have done. If you’d told teenage me, who’d been an avid fan of horror films and Buffy episodes, that one day I’d find a graveyard a comforting and peaceful place, I’d never have believed you. But there was something special about this one. Perhaps because this was where I was learning to look back on so many memories from my past and see them from a different perspective.
The shift in my viewpoint started small. You would have thought hearing snippets of my childhood recollections would have been boring to Henry, but he was far too polite for that. The story of when I’d told Mum, the night before a school play, that I needed a fairy costume for the next day was hardly riveting, but Henry listened with rapt attention. He grinned broadly when I revealed there’d been a gorgeous sparkly dress on the foot of my bed the following morning, in a fabric very much like my mother’s one and only good dress... a dress I’d actually never seen again after that day.
It was strange how even the things that had once made me cringe now made me smile.
‘She embarrassed the hell out of me by running in both the mothers’ and the fathers’ race on my last junior school sports day.’
Henry chuckled softly at that. ‘Oh, I do like the sound of your mother. What a character she must have been. Tell me, did she win either of them?’
‘Came first in the mums’ race and second in the dads’,’ I said, feeling suddenly guilty, twenty-five years too late, that I’d been so mortified by her actions I hadn’t spoken to her for days.
She’d never been like the other mothers and all I’d ever wanted was to have a normal family like everyone else seemed to, and to fit in.
I was only now starting to realise that I’d spent so much of my youth focusing on every time she hadn’t shown up at a school event or parents’ evening that I hadn’t appreciated how she’d shown up for me in a myriad of other ways.
Of course, there were incidents that still stung, but with the benefit of age, hindsight, and some guiding prompts from a kindly stranger, who’d now become a friend, I realised that neither Mum nor I had been totally right, or totally wrong. I’d been stubborn and unwilling to listen to any viewpoint other than mine... but so hadshe. I gave a sad smile. I’d always thought our similarities were only physical, but as I unlocked the doors to the past, I realised they ran deeper than that.
Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever have made those discoveries alone, without Henry’s quiet influence. Maybe, but he’d undoubtedly made it easier. Which was why it was disappointing to have missed him today, because I wanted to let him know that I was no longer hiding from the truth of losing her. Now that Rhys had been told, everyone important to me knew what had happened.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, crouching down beside her plot. A cool breeze rustled through the surrounding trees and I looked up into their branches, fancifully imagining that she was greeting me too.
It was colder today, and I was glad I’d grabbed the thick-knit cardigan from the back seat of my car. September had slipped into October, and it was inevitable the warm weather we’d enjoyed wouldn’t last much longer. Would I continue to visit the cemetery this often when the seasons changed? I didn’t mind the cold, but I still had issues with storms, and a tendency to panic whenever the TV weather map showed dark grey clouds and lightning bolts. But if I wasn’t going to be trapped indoors every time the weather turned squally, that was something I really needed to address.
‘I finally told Rhys about you,’ I said out loud as I reached for a handful of fallen leaves and twigs that had blown onto Mum’s plot and dropped them into the rubbish bag I’d brought with me. There seemed to be more foliage and scraps of litter to clear away than usual, and as I plucked them from between the peonies I’d planted, I noticed the soil was bone-dry. There’d been no rain for weeks, but thanks to Henry and his regular watering regime, everything had been flourishing. Until now.
I cast my mind back, trying to remember how long it had been since my last visit. It had to be at least five days ago, possibly longer,and now that I thought about it, Henry hadn’t been here then, either. In fact, when was the last time I’d seen him?
Concern prickled down my spine like a rash.
Looking more closely at Mum’s headstone, I noticed there were several weeds poking through the soil. It wasn’t Henry’s responsibility to keep things tidy for me; he was here for his wife, after all. But whenever I’d tried to dissuade him from helping, he’d always assured me it was no trouble.
‘Perhaps he’d just run out of time,’ I suggested to Mum, who had no comment to offer.
I filled the watering can from a nearby tap Henry had discovered, but the niggling feeling that something was wrong refused to leave as I watered the peonies. It was still there when I pulled up the handful of weeds, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Bee’s plot was similarly neglected. Now that would be worrying.
I got to my feet, rubbing the soil and dirt from my hands, and turned my gaze in the direction where Henry always headed when we parted. Shielding my eyes against the last rays of the day, I scanned a seemingly endless horizon of gravestones. Thinking with my feet rather than my head, I strode across the pathway towards the other section of the cemetery. Luckily good sense kicked in before I stepped onto the turf. I’d never accompanied Henry to his wife’s plot and had no idea which block was Bee’s. I could literally search the rows for hours and still not find it.
‘Gates will be closing soon, love,’ declared a voice directly behind me, making me jump out of my skin and taking at least ten years off my life expectancy. I spun around to face its owner.
‘We lock ’em at dusk,’ a ruddy-featured groundsman informed me.
‘Oh, okay. Thank you. I’m just going,’ I said hurriedly.
‘Wouldn’t want you to get accidentally locked in.’
‘No. Absolutely,’ I said, turning to scan the tombstones as though expecting Henry to miraculously pop up from behind one. Although if he had, it would probably have lopped another decade off my life.
‘Lost someone, have you?’ the groundsman asked intuitively.