Unravelling the swiss roll

I stood in the morgue with a female police officer beside me. The lighting was dim, and the air smelt unpleasantly of chemicals and effluent. In front of us, my husband, Mick, lay wrapped in a white quilted body bag. Or at least, the man lying before us resembled Mick, but whatever was the essence of Mick was gone, literally leaving a corpse. Only his head was visible, his lips were slightly parted, and there was a slight trace of dried blood on this man’s bottom lip. In recent years, I had used electric clippers to trim my husband’s hair. Now, I ran my fingers over the person’s skull, noting that the regrowth on the head was quite fluffy, and thinking to myself ‘I’ll need to cut that again.’ The next thought hit me like a blow to the stomach, making me nauseous, and double over as if in physical pain. ‘I’ll never need to cut his hair again.’  

Over the next few hours, the reality of my husband’s death gradually seeped into my consciousness. At times, I could be rational and calm, at others a sobbing mess, and sometimes completely mad. It was during one of these latter episodes that, the idea came to me that, if I mentally retraced my steps backwards from identifying Mick in the morgue, I would be able to undo the day’s events, and rewrite what had happened. It would be like when you are a child, and are given a slice of swiss roll, you carefully unfurl it, until it becomes a flat piece of sponge, which can then be rerolled.

And so I systematically began to think backwards. I travelled in the back of a police car to the hospital. My friend Esme was with me. She had hurried to my home, after I telephoned her, and told her what had happened. Before that, I had sat in the dining room with two police officers. I had my telephone and address book, and I was ringing people who needed to be immediately notified of Mick’s death: his brothers and parents, my parents. Prior to that, I was driving when my daughter rang me on my mobile ‘phone, and said ‘Mum, can you come home. The police are here.’ She sounded scared, so I told her to put them on to me. As she handed over the ‘phone, my thoughts were racing. ‘Whatever he’s done we can sort it. I’ve got some money to bail him out.’ I don’t know why I thought such a thing. Mick was no angel, but he certainly wasn’t a criminal either. A male voice came on the line and asked where I was. I replied and he told me to come home immediately. I argued, saying.

‘Where’s Mick? If he’s in hospital I’m going straight there.’

‘No, I’m sorry Mrs Jones, he’s dead.’ The maternal part of my brain registered that, my daughter would have heard this, and I must be with her, to look after her. ‘I’m coming. I’ll be about twenty minutes.’ As I turned the ‘phone off, I wanted to rush to the nearest house, knock and say ‘Help me. My husband’s dead.’ Another part of my brain told me. ‘No-one can help you with this. Just get home.’ And so I drove home. I drove through a grey mist with only the traffic signs shining vividly through the murkiness. In reality, it was a beautiful summer’s evening, but the thick fog was there for me, I swear it.

There was a police car outside my house. I parked carefully behind Mick’s car, thinking as I did so. ‘That’ll have to be sold.’ Don’t judge me, it was a passing thought, and I was not rational. I unlocked the front door, and my daughter’s boyfriend was sitting on the stairs opposite the front door with his head in his hands. As I walked into the living room, my daughter and two uniformed police officers were there. I said. ‘Can someone make me a cup of tea, please.’

Before going out, I had rung my daughter and asked her to come home. I’d explained ‘Dad’s not home and not answering his mobile. I’m worried that he’s broken down or something. I’m going to drive his route to work, in case he needs help. Can you come home, be here if he gets home or rings.’ I knew by this time, something in my gut told me that Mick was dead, I felt it. It was three hours later than he usually would arrive home. After one hour, I’d rung his mobile ‘phone. Twice I rang, receiving no answer. The third time when I rang, I was told that, this number was not available. His ‘phone had been turned off. Frantically, I searched through our paperwork for his office’s number. We had strict rules about not disturbing each other whilst we were working, and anyway, each had a mobile ‘phone if we needed to contact each other urgently. I found and called his office number, and a disembodied voice told me that, the office was closed for the day.

Before this, whilst I waited for him, I sat in my upstairs study, typing on my laptop. I noticed that he was a little late, about half an hour after his usual time; I heard his bike roar up the road, and stop. The rear gate rattled as he unlocked it. It always did this, when he opened it to wheel the bike into the back garden. I saved and closed my document, waiting for his customary shout of ‘Remember me.’ That was the joke which, he made when he was late, but the greeting never came. ‘I bet he’s fiddling with that bloody bike.’ I thought. I looked down into the garden, he was not there. Then, out of the front bedroom window, to where he would usually leave the bike whilst he opened the back gate. He wasn’t there either.

The sceptics of you will say that, the gate opening was the sound of the wind rattling it. In contradiction, I will tell you that, it was the stillest evening possible, not even a hint of a breeze. You will also say that, it was another motorbike, which I heard travelling towards our house. Possibly, but a few months later, as I walked through a neighbouring town, I heard the bike again. When I looked up, it was another rider on the same make and model of bike as Mick’s. So was it a coincidence and another motorcyclist on the same type of bike travelled down our street that evening? I don’t believe so. I know that, Mick came home that evening.

I’d had a lovely day. I’d met four friends from university, and we had a picnic in the park. We’d sat on grass made crispy from a long dry spell, basking in the golden sunshine, idly gossiping and people watching. On my way home, I’d stopped off at the supermarket, and debated whether to treat Mick to a chocolate heart or a box of wine. The wine won through – he was a practical man!

Did my mental unravelling of the day’s events work? Did it provide the opportunity to change things? No, of course it didn’t, it was merely the madness of grief. Death is an ending. The finish of the deceased’s life on this earth, but the dead continue to live on in the memories of those they’ve left behind. They remain part of their loved one’s lives. They are thought about and talked about, they do not truly die, until the last person has the final thought about them.  Death is also a beginning. It is the start of life without them. For me, a new chapter began, filled with dreadful unfamiliar experiences – a funeral, inquest, loneliness. It was a nightmare existence, with me moving through it, resembling a hollow chocolate Father Christmas version of myself. Over time, slowly, the sadness changed to something different. I emerged from that dark period, like a mole burrowing its way out of a deep hole, blinking in the unaccustomed glare. I had become stronger, more independent, spurred on to live life differently. It was a different future to the one I’d envisaged, but nonetheless it was a future. Sometimes, I sensed Mick walking beside me, saying ‘My brave little wife.’, because I know that he came home that night. The accident interrupted his journey, making him slightly later than usual, but he got back on his bike and came back to me, the person who loved him so deeply.