The news came as a complete shock. He was here one minute, gone the next. An aneurysm, the doctor said. My mother looked pale and faint as the doctor sat her down on the sofa whilst he explained to me what had happened to my father. He'd collapsed on the stairs and died instantaneously. The man, absent for much of my life, was gone for good.
At the time, my mother had been working from home, so she'd been the one to find him. I'd rushed home from work the moment I'd taken the call from the doctor; he didn't want my mother to be left alone. I was only fifteen minutes away, so I was soon at her side. She seemed paralysed by the enormity of it all. I wanted to be useful; after all, I was twenty-five years of age, a grown-up. I knew what I had to do, so I set about phoning relations; not that there were many of them to phone.
After I'd spoken to my mum's sister and a couple of distant cousins, I asked her about any friends that ought to be informed. She knew of no one; it brought home to us just how little we knew of my father's life. We did know where he worked, or at least we thought we did. I got in touch with the company, only to be told that he had changed his employer over three years ago. They gave me a number to ring; I spoke to a sympathetic lady in the personnel department of the civil engineering firm that he worked for. That was it, there was no one else to tell, so I made Mum a cup of sweet tea. She didn't take sugar usually, but what the hell, I was just trying to help. She drank it without protest.
The following day, she was a little more like herself; we went to see an undertaker and were relieved at just how much he could take off our hands. Then we visited the Registrar's office to record the death. A flurry of correspondence, to banks and Government departments and agencies, over the next few days, brought an end to what it had been in our power to do, leaving us with three weeks to wait before the funeral.
We entered a period where neither of us wanted to speak about or dwell on his death. We had both gone back to work. In the evenings, the only times we came close to discussing him, was to sort out practicalities like what should be done with his clothes. It was as though neither of us felt any great sense of loss, but nor did we want to be the first one to say as much.
That's not to say that my father's death left no impact on us. My mother looked drawn and tired, but I also sensed that she was relieved. He had worked away so much of the time that their marriage seemed to have stumbled along on a stop-start basis. There always seemed to be an important job that kept him away for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas every other year. He would come home after a few days or weeks away, collect his mail and laundry and be off again on another highly important and unavoidable job.
I'd never had much of a relationship with him. I felt guilty that I didn't feel anything much at all.
About a week after he died, I plucked up the courage to ask my mother if she missed him, "How can you miss someone who was hardly ever here?" was her reply. She was exaggerating, but I took her point. It said all I needed to know about her lack of feelings for him. How long ago had she fallen out of love with him, I wondered. I felt sorry for her; she was forty-seven years old, married for twenty-six years, and what had she to show for it? A big fat nothing, oh, and me I suppose. I felt a surge of affection for her, I wanted to protect her, to show her that she was loved.
It was whilst I was admitting to myself the truth of what my mother had just said, that the doorbell rang. I was halfway upstairs at the time, so I shouted that I would answer it and made my way back downstairs to the front door. Standing there was a glamorous, but faintly troubled looking, woman of about my mother's age. I have to admit that she looked attractive in her skirt suit and heels, I noticed that her legs were particularly nice; I tended to notice these things quite a lot.
"Does Mrs. Rebecca Fields live at this address?" she asked with a slight tremor in her voice.
"Yes, who shall I say is calling?"
"Mrs. Fields"
"Yes, that's right, she's here now. I'll get her for you. I didn't catch your name."
"No, I mean I'm Mrs. Fields, Mrs. Madeline Fields."
"Oh, I see. Right, well, that's a coincidence..."
My mother appeared in the hallway. "Who is it Cal?"
"Ah, right, this lady is asking for you, she's Mrs. Fields as well."
"Mrs. Rebecca Fields?" asked the shapely woman.
"Yes, That's right. Can I help you?"
"Can we talk in private? I have something important to tell you."
"Well, yes, I suppose so, come in please, we'll go through into the lounge."
"Is this your son?"
"Yes, this is Callum."
"Hi," I was trying to be friendly and thinking about just how friendly I'd like to get with her.
"I think he should hear what I have to say as well."
"Very well, please come through, do sit down," said my mother.
"No thank you, I'll stand. This is going to be quite a shock to you both."
We all stood facing each other. The visitor looked apprehensive but seemed determined to deliver her important news, whatever it was. She paused a moment to collect herself and I paused to admire the outline of her thighs in her tight skirt, her flat stomach and her nice breasts.
"As I've just told your son, my name is Madeline Fields, Mrs. Madeline Fields, or so I thought until this morning."
"I see, I think, or do I?" said my mother.
"Has your husband died recently?"
