Still clutching the phone, Rose told me the truth: ‘Roger sacked him this morning.’
‘Sacked!’ The news was brutal enough to bring the blood rushing into my face. I pressed my hands to my cheeks. ‘Poor Nathan.’ Rose put down the phone. ‘So they got him in the end,’ I said. ‘They always do.’
‘Vistemax is hardly the gulag.’ Rose leant against the sink. ‘And Nathan had a good life with them.’
‘You always did see the best in things and people.’ Still I clung to the inconsequential, and I was curious as to how Rose’s givingness could survive just now. ‘I often wondered if it was a strength or weakness.’
‘I leave you to decide. I don’t think Nathan expected it. Do you?’
‘Nathan did not confide in me’ would have been the truthful answer. ‘He had been there a long time, and he knew the form.’ But, clearly, he had neither known nor cared enough to guard himself against the consequences of Roger’s cynical appraisals. ‘He was in his fifties… and there is a sell-by date for all of us. There was probably somebody else coming up fast, and you know how they operate at Vistemax.’
‘Yes,’ answered Rose, flatly. ‘Funnily enough, I do.’
‘Roger would have dressed it up to Nathan. He would have said, “Change is happening faster than ever and we must harness our energies to keep up.” As sacking formulas go, it does pretty well for most people.’
Rose completed the narrative: ‘By the end of the session, Nathan would have been persuaded into thinking his was a necessary martyrdom. To be desired, even.’
Rose was talking about her own sacking, as I had been talking about mine. ‘No,’ I had to defend him here because I wanted to get it right. ‘He wasn’t that sentimental. He knew his worth. He would have fought. He would have been angry… very angry, so angry his heart couldn’t stand it.’
Rose turned away.
My gaze alighted on objects around the kitchen. A white jug. A wicker shopping basket by the door into which plastic bags had been stuffed.
‘Nathan had his vulnerabilities,’ Rose offered. ‘Everyone does. Roger would have known which button to press.’
The picture assembled of Nathan listening to the delicately phrased insults of the sacking. I knew, I knew, that Roger’s careful cruelty would have smashed into his pride. It was then Nathan must have felt the first intimations that his heart was faltering. Did he register then the choke and stutter of his blood, the pain of the failing muscle, and refuse to call out? God help us, Nathan would rather have died (and did) than ask the man who had just sacked him for help.
‘Peter Shaker’s taking over,’ Rose added.
‘Well, that would have killed Nathan if nothing else.’
Rose’s lips curved in wry amusement. ‘Yes, it probably did.’
Later, I told myself, I will force myself to believe that Roger chose Peter over Nathan for a good reason. After all his years at Vistemax, Nathan deserved that at the very least. Dull Peter and his good-hearted Carolyne in the navy blue suit and gold buttons – both of them, not so long ago, had eaten twice-baked cheese soufflé, then chicken in ginger and bitter cherries in maraschino at our table. On Nathan’s behalf I felt a black killer rage dig in for the duration.
Rose choked, then made a sound like a small animal in distress. She heaved herself round, placed both hands on the edge of the sink and, retching, leant over it. I got up, filled a glass with water and handed it to her.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘One should never drink brandy too fast.’
Now it was my turn to slide a hand round her shoulders and press her into a chair. ‘Rose, are you getting drunk?’
A little colour crept back into her cheeks. ‘Nathan had only been here fifteen minutes or so. He said he wanted to talk over what had happened, and how he was going to manage the changes. He wanted to sound me out.’ She must have registered my instinctive flinch because she added, ‘He would have talked to you, Minty.’
That was unanswerable and none of Rose’s business. ‘Don’t say that.’
She was taken aback and struggled with her answer. ‘After the doctor and the undertakers have been, you must go, Minty.’
‘Undertakers?’
‘Yes, I had to contact them. Nathan can’t stay here.’
I left Rose in the kitchen, and fled back to the cold sitting room, the smell of spring and Nathan. ‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ I demanded of the still figure.
‘You married me because…’ went the stupid, dangerous game we sometimes played in the early days and there was only one rule. All the answers were to be a tease. ‘I married you, Nathan, because you drove a Lexus.’
‘And? What else, Minty? My looks, my wit?’
‘Naturally your serious bank account. And, Nathan, you married me because?’
‘Oh, I married you, Minty, because you were pregnant.’
In his hour of need, Nathan had not defected to Rose because he wished to talk over his options or to block out a new future. He would have done that with me and I would have given him better advice. No. No, Nathan had turned to Rose because he craved her comfort, the long history, her sweetness in his hour of deepest trial, her reassurance.
Behind me, Rose entered the room and closed the window. She had got herself under control and spoke calmly. ‘I opened it to allow his spirit to go. I think… I believe it’s customary.’ She clicked the catch into place, and I had an almost irresistible urge to laugh at the notion. Rose fiddled with the curtain – calico, thickly interlined and evidently expensive – and I imagined Nathan’s spirit forcing his way past it and up into the dark somewhere.
‘When the undertakers arrive, we shall have to take some decisions.’ Rose nerved herself visibly because once this quiet interlude was over a process would begin. ‘When I’ve spoken to Sam and Poppy.’ She turned to me, as if appealing for help with such an appalling task, and I tasted fear at what lay ahead of me too. ‘I dread that. They will be devastated.’
‘Decisions?’
‘All of us must decide what we want. We must try to think of what he would have wanted. Poppy and Sam will have views.’
‘Rose. My decisions, I think.’
She shook her head, and a strand of hair worked loose. ‘That can’t be, Minty. We’re all in this. We’re his family.’
‘And I’m his widow.’
‘How will you tell Felix and Lucas? Will you need help?’ Rose adopted the voice I had sometimes heard in the office when either Sam or Poppy rang up. It was ultra-soothing. I used to think it rather silly and false until, after I’d had the twins, I realized it was a means of staving off panic.
‘No.’ My rejection of the idea was instant. I did not want her softness and comfort stealing my children.
I glanced at my watch. Incredibly I had only been there three-quarters of an hour or so. I wondered who else knew and was, even now, telephoning others, or the florist to order flowers: With deepest sympathy. I wondered if the clocks would stop. Who would cry genuine tears and who would not. I wondered if Nathan had been a tiny bit ready, whether he had thought about his death at all. Or if he was circling up there, cursing.
‘Why don’t we sit with him?’ Rose suggested. ‘He won’t be here for much longer.’
I chose a chair close to the body. Already Nathan was drawing further away, much as his body must have been stiffening. ‘Your children had their childhood with him.’ I was fierce with the unfairness for my boys. ‘Mine won’t.’
Rose sat on the sofa and her eyes met mine. ‘Yes, Minty, there was that.’
After a moment or two, Rose began to talk about the old days when she was married to Nathan. Every year they had gone on holiday to Priac Bay in Cornwall, always to the same cottage. She described the slap of the water on the sides of the clinker fishing-boat, the hiss and heave of the sea, the oily smell and texture of mackerel.