A 10-part short story about learning in relationship, beginning at part 1/10
Louise steps from the bus into a faceful of salty air. Romford lingers behind her, trading one-liners with the driver. She has mixed feelings about this trip: after a couple of weeks staying with her mum she feels 95% recovered, and she always enjoys Romford's company, but she has a strange sense that this should be a special experience, and is afraid of letting him down. She's not in a settled place but in a weird limbo again: while she was in hospital, her boyfriend called and texted, but didn't visit. She had no energy for arguments; she just accepted the disappointment of facing the end of another relationship with someone with apparently very different values.
As the bus pulls away, Romford shoulders his bag and points the way to the path. They stroll along the blustery cliff for a while. Then, suddenly Louise feels uneasy. At first she dismisses it, but it keeps rising, and eventually the full force of dread and panic surge within her. She veers away from the edge but still feels she will either vomit or pass out. She curls over and sinks to the ground.
Romford drops beside her. "Lou? What's wrong?"
She can't speak for a few seconds, hyperventilating and writhing about as she tries to ease the intolerable discomfort. Her thoughts scramble about, searching frantically for some clue about what's happening to her, what triggered this horrible sensation.
He asks, "Does it feel like the calcium thing again?"
She gasps, "I don't think so. Maybe it's a panic attack?" But what is there to panic about?
He offers her some water and the feeling abates a little. The cold wind also helps. She still feels something is horribly wrong, but maybe not within her. She also feels the post-adrenaline exhaustion.
Romford holds her gently. "I should've known this was a bad place. I shouldn't have brought you here."
"What do you mean?" She's concerned that he looks worse than she feels. He's never seemed superstitious.
"This—" He gestures along the cliff, gulping. "Somewhere here is where my wife died."
She stares at him, gobsmacked, as her hair whips about her face.
"I wasn't going to mention— It's just two years since— And I want to close it and move on. I don't want this place to be a memorial of misery. I—"
She can't not speak anymore. Too much information is flooding her mind and she can't get away from it.
"Rom! How could you not mention it?! Were you just going to nod to your wife as we walked by, then you and I play sandcastles?!" She reels from her own harshness, but the anxiety attack has drained her.
He grips her hand and stares into her eyes. "Lou! Please don't let me ruin this!"
She realises she will have to find strength to unpick this. "Your complications!"
He hangs his head.
She reaches to his bag, still reeling. "What food—?"
He glances up, incredulous. "You want to start on the picnic now?"
"Since you're making this imperative, I need sugar."
He nods and rummages.
Louise sips her lemonade then wedges the bottle between grass tufts. Sitting in the lee of a rock, she feels improved, so maybe she did just need sugar. "What happened?"
Romford keeps gazing out to sea. "I don't know exactly. No-one does. Her body was found in the beach – below here."
She feels the shudder from a strong buffet of wind. It could catch anyone too near the edge. Before her anxiety rises again, she asks something she's always wondered, "Was it an accident?"
"Don't know that either! Nobody saw her."
She waits.
"It wasn't planned – she wasn't a planner anyway; there wasn't a note or anything else suggesting— We hadn't fallen out; actually she had been quite placid. She seemed to have just come here for a walk. But her mood swings— She was impulsive. Once she was here, she might have..."
In a mirror of her action in the botanical hothouse two years earlier, she reaches for his hand. He clasps hers.
"The coroner recorded it as a tragic accident. I think that was right: even if it was a choice, it was in a moment of, well, madness."
Louise leans into him, trying to steady them both.
After some moments staring unseeing, Romford straightens. "This is exactly what I didn't want to happen! Hijacking our day out!"
Louise smirks. "Here you are, trying to be all efficient by achieving two things with one trip, then I keel over and the wheels come off."
"With or without wheels, I'm moving on. I have moved on."
She stands up slowly, shakily, anticipating a head spin or nausea.
He slumps again. "Hang on: I haven't moved on."
She sits again, and watches him, fearful but fascinated.
"I promised myself I would explain… one thing, anyway: you heard me lying to Wendy."
She nods gently: at last his wife has a name. Louise remembers exactly the call he took at their first picnic at the Botanic Gardens. Although not at the forefront of her mind, it's another niggle.
"She was extremely... sensitive, and I needed to manage that. But I also needed to have some time for myself. Her doctor gave me some good advice: he said I was not personally responsible for her; we were all jointly responsible, and part of that responsibility was self-care." He glances across at her to see how Louise is taking this. "Which means looking after my needs and not sacrificing myself to that fucking illness."
She notices his rare moment of vehemence. "A kind of self-preservation?"
He tips his head equivocally. "Maybe there was a better way, but I didn't find it. I have to content myself with knowing that I didn't do anything unreasonable; it was just her illness that would have made it seem unreasonable to her."
She processes for a moment, then says, "Thank you for explaining." She takes a breath. "Is this your first time here?"
"Since Wendy died, yes. I couldn't face it last year. But I knew if you were with me I'd be OK." He presses her hand again. "Thank you."
She reaches to hug him and he holds her a long while without worrying about boundaries this time.
He stands and beams. "Right! Can we please make that sandcastle now?"
She can't help giggling at his habitual clown act.
Constructing the sandcastle is a chilly, subdued affair, but cathartic.
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