One moment, one lapse in concentration, and it was all over. It was my fault. She had just stepped off the kerb and I called out "See this evening." She turned, smiled; there was a screech of tyres as a bus pulling in to stop hit her. The love of my life was dead.
I met Clare when I was tutoring in English literature and she a student. I don't know if there is such a thing as love a first sight but it seemed like to me. Six months after first meeting her we were married; she was eighteen and I twenty four. Three years of marriage and we were about to start trying to have our first child, and suddenly it was all over, and I blamed myself for calling out to her.
* * * * * * * *
It almost seemed that tragedy hung over her family. There was some parallel between my meeting and marriage with Clare, and my mother-in-law's meeting with her future husband. She had been a young nurse when she met David, a surgeon. They too quickly married and six months later Ruth, my mother-in-law, gave birth to Clare.
Ruth had also been eighteen when she got married; the difference was that David had been forty three. They had ten years of marriage and then David died of meningococcal disease while on a visit to Asia.
Ruth was in her mid thirties when I first met her and I could not help but admire her. She was a tall woman, and from what I could see she was entirely unspoiled by motherhood. I had seen many women lose their attractiveness after they had become mothers, but not her.
She had long lidded dark eyes, long lustrous dark hair, and she was slender, but looked far from delicate. On the few occasions I saw her dressed in shorts and T-shirt she gave the impression of being very athletic. Her bearing was very upright and dignified and a little awe inspiring, and she seemed to carry her large breasts with pride and they reminded me of a sailing ship in full sail.
Her face was long rather than wide with a nose of the Grecian type, mouth a little too wide but with full lips, and come to think of it, Ruth was an older version of Clare, or should it be that Clare was a younger version of Ruth?
Despite her impressive appearance Ruth proved to be a very warm and welcoming mother-in-law and I got very fond of her. Eccentrically it was Ruth who, instead of resorting to an uncle or a male family friend, insisted on that archaic part of the wedding ceremony of giving the bride away, and with equal insistence gave the bride away herself, much to the chagrin of the parson.
If I was devastated by Clare's death Ruth was stoical. Perhaps her previous experience of loss, or maybe her training as a nurse enabled her to weather the tragedies of life better than I.
It may sound weak, but it was Ruth who saw me though the early days of my grief. She stayed with me in the house Clare and I had occupied and saw to most of the details of organizing the funeral. She stayed on with me until I got back to work, and it was just as well she did because otherwise the house would have descended into a chaotic mess.
Ruth had a very active life of her own, her church and charitable work taking up much of her time, and so when she felt that I could cope she left. Thereafter she kept in touch by phone with intermittent visits, and we even had the occasional lunch or dinner together. It seemed that she was determined to stay in touch with me and I was happy to stay in touch with her.
We had the common bond of a shared tragedy but I think it would have been better for Ruth if Clare and I had been able to produce a grandchild, especially a granddaughter who resembled Clare, but of course that was not the case.
And so over the coming year I gradually recovered from the bitter blow that Clare's death had inflicted on me, or at least I thought I'd recovered.
* * * * * * * *
It is odd how we can bury somewhere inside us even some of life's most powerful traumas. We think they've gone away until some event brings them to the surface. Anniversaries can be the occasion of such resurfacing of the hidden emotional wounds.
I think that Ruth understood this better than me because two days before the anniversary of Clare's death Ruth announced that she would come and stay with me for a few days. She gave no reason for this visit, but I guessed that she thought it would be better if we shared the anniversary of Clare's death.
Clare had been cremated, and so on the anniversary day we went together to where there was a bronze memorial plaque and sat there for a while holding hands and remembering, and I was surprised that I felt so little emotion at that time. We returned home and went through some memorabilia: wedding photographs, Clare and I on our honeymoon, that holiday we took at...and so on.
In the evening we went to a restaurant that had been a favourite of Clare's for dinner. Afterwards we returned home and there seemed little else to say or do, and so we had our showers and went to bed. It had all seemed so bland.
I dozed off fairly quickly and for the first time in a while I dreamed of Clare and me making love. I was jolted awake by a loud knocking at the front door and still under the influence of the dream I leapt out of bed. It was Clare; her death had only been a nightmare I'd been having.
I ran to the front door calling out, "I'm coming Clare...I'm coming...wait for me..."
I flung open the front door, and of course, no one was there. It was then the full force of my grief hit me, even more powerfully than at any time since her death. I drifted into the lounge not sure where I was going, and sat down on the divan. Then the tears came and I wept for my lost love and the desolate years ahead.
How long I stayed like that I'm not sure but a felt an arm round me and a voice said, "I heard you calling out Peter."
"I thought Clare was there, knocking on the front door. I must be going mad, Ruth."
"No Peter you're not going mad, the same sort of things used to happen to me after David died. Once I even thought I saw him sitting at his desk in the study and went to put my arms round him."
She smiled wanly and said, "Of course, no one as there. It's all part of grieving and letting go."
"There's something I don't believe I'll ever let go of," I said.
"What's that?"
"If I hadn't called out to her as she stepped off the kerb and distracted her she might still be alive, I feel so guilty."
Ruth drew me closer to her and I could smell the fragrance of her subtle perfume.
"I do have my own guilt about that she said."
"You?"
"Yes, do you remember, I was to join you and Clare at lunch that day, and afterwards Clare and I were going shopping together. I didn't make the lunch because I got hung up in a meeting. If I'd been there it might have been different.
That was one of the eternal "might have beens" and I had nothing to say about that. In my misery I went on, "It's all the things that might have been that never will be. Did you know that we were going to try and have a child?"
"Yes, I knew, Clare told me."
It's...it's things like...like that..."
"That hurt the most; what might have been? Yes, I know about that too Peter, but it's no use trying to hang on. Ever since the funeral you've been suppressing your grief, but it had to come out some time, and I'm glad I'm here now that it has come out, because I can help you."
I tried to respond but before I could she drew my head down to her lap so that I lay looking up at her.
