Derek and Verity

Her husband's death had been a relief for both of them. The pain he had suffered should never have been suffered by one person alone. It made no sense. So, his sudden, if expected, death was the only thing left for God to wreak. Not that she really believed in God. But she prayed, if there were one, that He believed in her.

Thus, there was relief. And there was sorrow, of course. And there was fear. And, thankfully, hope.

Sorrow never to see his dear complaining face again. The bedroom would never again echo with his spoken thoughts nor its atmosphere be heavy with his unspoken ones. Fear that he may return in a pain far worse than his mortal body ever suffered. She couldn't take this fear too seriously, but there it was, neverthless. And, finally, hope that a new life would open for her, one outside the house, one with people who were healthy.

But, first she had to empty his wardrobe of the suits. She had rejected the no doubt well-intentioned offers of distant relations to stay with her through this difficult period of easing into widowhood. One frothy-sounding lady, in particular, whose blood links with her late husband were mysterious at best, said that she'd remove every sign of Derek from the house, whilst Verity took a cruise somewhere.

Verity shrugged over the telephone. Derek had not left her sufficiently wealthy for such self-indulgence. Also, someone would have to demolish the house itself for Derek even to begin to fade. No, she'd face up to it.

And his wardrobe was perhaps the only task that needed more courage than she felt she possessed.

Derek should return from the dead to perform this last rite, this last duty for his beloved widow, she even thought. Take down the suits collected over the decades (the demob one onwards, some rarely worn having fallen out of favour, others ripe with a mothball bouquet and some more recent ones jaundiced with his careless body-letting) - each one to be folded up and placed in a neat pile on their bed, meticulously preventing the hangers from rattling against each other, though there would always be a couple of jerks that gently clunk-clicked together...

No, she had to do it on her own.

She opened the door on its grating slider. It had never been true, the hang of that door, even when Derek had first constructed it. He had never been good with his hands, poor dear.

The suits hung in surly ranks. Hardly moving. The aroma more heady than she expected. It was the smell of Derek. Not exactly the smell of what he had been, but what he still was or, even, what he had become.

She shrugged inside. No point in dwelling on such matters. Derek had to go to the dustbin - nothing else for it.

She gathered them in one fell swoop, uncaring as to the resultant clatter of bent-skewer hangers.

The brown, grey and black twills and tweeds crumpled upon the bed, under the force of her throw, like several anorexic ghosts out for a jolly tumble at the seaside.

The stale sighs of expelled sleeve and trouser-leg air became, to her ears, one deep misgiven groan of haunting silence.

There were a few items bundled into the darkest corner of the wardrobe, things she'd never seen before. Ruffles and fancies and powdered wigs and fol-de-rols and flippancies, more fitting for that strange lady on the telephone whose help she'd spurned.

Like all mysteries, Verity did not bother to fathom it. These were merely the cast-offs of a past that she now was confident could never haunt her for long. Unexplained. Like the love she'd always have for Derek, even if she was soon to forget how deep it went down inside her.

There would probably be two dustbinfuls before she finished.

This time the smile was real.

(published 'Eos' 1992)