‘It’s your call, but I am happy to be here longer. We don’t need to talk if you don’t feel like it. I can get on with things, make a list of what needs to be done and not be in your way.’
I went into the hall and opened the travel case I’d brought back from the hospital. I’d been putting off looking at it and it had been sitting there untouched since the day Michael died. I retrieved the plastic bag that the ward nurse had given me. It contained Michael’s wedding ring, his watch, his mobile and his wallet. There was also a copy of Private Eye, a few clothes, clean pyjamas and the jeans and jumper I’d taken in for him ready for his return. He wouldn’t be needing those now.
I wondered what he was wearing now in the funeral home and who, which of the nurses, had been with him when he died? Who was it? Yaz? Or someone else? Was he aware of what was happening? Did Yaz or the consultant tell me? They had but I hadn’t taken it in, only that he’d gone. I think the consultant said it was sudden, I think he did. Michael hadn’t suffered. Could I go back and ask them to go over it all again? I decided not to. It wouldn’t bring him back.
A fresh wave of grief erupted. When alone, I’d cried until there were no more tears and I felt physically sick, but then something would catch me, a reminder of the man I’d spent so many years with – his shaving kit in the bathroom, a jumper over the back of a chair, the brand of tea he liked, his coffee mug – and I’d be off again, unable to contain the torrent deep inside.
In the past, Michael and I had shared everything – books, TV shows, newspaper articles, new recipes, new restaurants; any new experience we had was told to the other. We’d even talked about how death was a taboo subject in our society although it was going to happen to all of us. We joked that we’d send each other signs from the beyond. If Michael could, he would want to tell me how it was. How’s he going to do that now then? I wondered. And how could it be that my husband went to the hospital but all that came back was a plastic bag containing a few personal items? It felt unspeakingly cruel, so final. He had been a big man in every respect, a larger-than-life character with a hundred interests and opinions, my best friend and lover. How could someone so vibrant, so present, be now in the past?
I went back into the kitchen. ‘Do you believe in life after death, Pip?’
She shrugged. ‘I’d like to think that the soul lives on, but I guess we’ll never know for definite until it happens to us.’
‘My friend Jo, the one who had a heart attack, she was on about having a near-death experience, leaving her body and watching everyone down below attending to her physical body while she floated about on the hospital ceiling.’
‘Sounds a bit wild.’
‘Does, doesn’t it? I’m not sure what to think of it. But if the spirit does live on, people should be allowed to send one text after they die, don’t you think?’
‘Except you don’t get to take your mobile, or anything else for that matter. And what would you say? Arrived safely, then an emoji with angel wings? But I agree, it would be good to get some sort of message.’
‘Jo’s experience sounds like wishful thinking to me.’
‘That’s what I thought … OK, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone and you must promise not to laugh.’
‘I won’t.’
‘After my father died, I was very distressed that I wasn’t there to say one last goodbye, plus I wished there was some way of knowing that he was OK. I remember confiding all this to a friend. Ask for a feather, she advised me, and told me about the white feather theory.’
‘The white feather theory?’
‘Is that people who have died send them to let you know that they’re OK.’
I burst out laughing. ‘A feather? Sorry but … you believed her?’
‘Not at the time. We were on a beach in Dorset and, just to appease her, I opened my arms up to the sky and said, “OK Dad, send me a feather to let me know you’re all right.” I thought the idea was crazy, we see so many feathers every day, on the pavement, in the garden, they can’t always be signs from the spirit world. Anyway, John and I had a laugh about it as we drove home, but when we got back to the house, there – lying on the mat inside the porch at the front door – was a large white feather with a black marking in the shape of a W at the lower end of it. I took it inside and wept. My father’s name was William, and in all the thirty years we had lived there, I can’t recall ever having picked up a feather from inside the porch, never mind such a large one. Since then, often when I am upset about something, white feathers appear in the strangest places. Before a job interview that I was stressing about, I found one in the glove compartment of my car. Another time, I was worried about a medical test that John was having and I found a feather in the fruit bowl. It was reassuring finding them, like Dad saying: hey, I’m still looking out for you. And now you will think I am mad, grasping at straws … or, rather, feathers.’ Philippa shook her head and sighed. ‘You definitely think I’m mad, I can tell. Apart from John, you’re the first person I’ve told that story about my father.’
‘Why not? You never know.’ I gave her a hug. I didn’t think
