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Her mother worried about money. She was alarmed by the cost of everything, even the price of the inscription inside the rings. Once, when we were ordering the cake and the favors out of a catalog, she inadvertently let off a little worried squeal. Mrs. Wilkens didn’t know that her husband was loaded. She didn’t find out until he died two years later. Mr. and Mrs. Wilkens and little Susie Wilkens went to Portpatrick for their fortnight’s rainy holiday every year and used his old undershirts for dusters. The old bastard had almost three-quarters of a million sitting in different accounts and the same again in a low-risk shares portfolio. The money came from way back, and he’d always kept it quiet. Double lives seem to be something of a theme in her family.
Susie was furious with her mother for never questioning him, never finding out. Her mother said that the money was her husband’s business; it wasn’t her concern. No matter what happened in the family, Susie got furious with her mother. The family cat died, blame Mrs. Wilkens; Aunt Trisha broke her foot, blame Mrs. Wilkens; father lied to his family consistently during his thirty-seven-year marriage, blame Mrs. Wilkens. She had a lot more respect for my mum, who I think is a bit of a bully.
Surprise killed Mrs. Wilkens. She was fine when her husband died, but finding out about the money upset her desperately. She had always assumed they were on the verge of poverty and had fetished watery baked beans and walking everywhere into a kind of fiscal piety. She found herself facing a massive windfall when she was just too old to change her values. Her psyche sort of short-circuited, and six months after her husband’s will was settled, she had a series of heart attacks. We were with her in the hospital at the end. She looked so surprised. I’m sure she saw his bank statement during her final seizure.
Looking at our wedding pictures has made me feel quite happy, as if I were back in that time when everything made sense. There were good times, I’m sure of that, before we forgot one another and got caught up in endlessly meeting work and domestic obligations. Susie didn’t always keep secrets from me. Sometimes we got Saskia, the old na
Once we went to the Pecorino for di
Looking at the wedding photographs has made me miss her. My breastbone aches, but not, I realize, for her now. I miss her then. The verdict and the difficult phone call have left me exhausted at the thought of seeing her. I’m supposed to be going out to visit her in two days’ time, and I don’t want to. I’m angry at Susan-now for ruining my relationship with the Susie I thought she was. I won’t be able to face her if I go into the visiting hall with this attitude. I need to remember her as she was before.
Memories to Consider Previsit
1. Honeymoon: the hot nights and days. Sleeping on the balcony. Having drunk sex in the grassy hills behind the beach on the way home from a nightclub.
Neither of us really wanted to go to a nightclub; we only went to feel young, and then we got fed up because there was nowhere to sit down. It was just a boring disco, lots of bam-bam-bam music we didn’t recognize, and then, within the space of fifteen minutes, everyone there became incredibly drunk. People were shagging on the banquettes: girls with miniskirts up around their waists, tits out, guys half-coming, one guy finishing himself off in the cubicle in the toilet.
Susie was drunk and thought it was fu
2. The first summer in this house, the day the kitchen arrived. We got the suppliers to fit it, and they did it all in one day. It cost extra and they were rude and sulky, but they were quick. Afterward, sitting with the French windows open, looking out into the garden, sipping wine (cheap wine- not nice, as I remember, but it added to the pastoral picture). Looking out past our perfect kitchen units and beechwood worktop, thinking how lucky we were, to have each other and everything else anyone could possibly want.
3. The day Margie arrived. No, that’s a bit of a scary blur actually.
4. Just before Margie arrived. Lying in bed next to Susie, who was gigantic and propped up on a pillow, talking about the sound of the river in Otago Street and how she wished she had taped it and could play it now to calm herself. She was scared and couldn’t get comfortable.
When she told Dr. Mackay at the Queen Mother’s Maternity that she was frightened, he said it was too late to back out now, ho ho ho. Susie gave him a rocket. What a stupid thing to say to patients; did he think it helped? What was he thinking, saying things like that to women? I think he gave her an elective caesarean because of it. She was jumpy until she got out of the hospital. There was never any question: she wouldn’t do it again. Even though we both know how hard it is to be an only child, she wasn’t going through that again. She couldn’t wait to get back to work.
5. The best night we ever had: there are so many nights it’s hard to say what the best night was.
Best for being madly into each other: the first time in Corfu. One night in the first weeks when we went for di
Her best night for telling other people about: the night I proposed. New Year’s Eve and I was working as a resident in the emergency room at the Western. She missed a party and came to meet me for the bells. We sat on a bench in front of Glasgow Uni, high on Gilmorehill, watching the fireworks go off in the city below, and I took her hand and asked her to marry me. She laughed and said we’d already decided to get married, but I wanted to ask her properly. She liked it. She’s very conventional, deep down. When she tells the story to other people, when her dad told the story during his speech at the wedding, they didn’t mention her laughing at me.
6. Best sex: the night in Corfu on the beach. Definitely.