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‘I didn’t say I was.’
‘No, you didn’t say it. But I felt it.’
There was a pause. Part of Jago wanted to get up and leave. He didn’t want to rake over his emotions. He just wanted to get on with living. Work. Eat. Sleep. But he’d drifted away from so many of his friends back in London, there had been no one to talk things over with. Not wanting to burden his mother, who was also grieving, he’d bottled it all up. He found he couldn’t sleep now, and his work ethic had disappeared with it. He’d attempted making an angel inspired by Honor Martin and had only got so far. Instead, he’d made a tiny pendant. Letting his hair fall over his face to hide it, he said, ‘My friends in London–’
‘Go on.’
‘Most were still in the going out having a good time, spending money, sleeping around phase. The others had coupled up, had small children. I was in neither camp. No one else I knew had gone through what I had. They all had living parents.’ Now he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop. The words tumbled out. He wasn’t sure he was making much sense. Verity sat very still, listening. Her job he supposed, and she was good at it.
‘Overnight I became the head of the family. With a mother who was in bits and a sister not quite eight and not understanding why her daddy hadn’t come home. It made me grow up. Grow up properly, I mean.’ He risked a glance at Verity. ‘Plus, I was also dealing with my marriage ending. Working and living together in lockdown had just about finished Rose and I off.’
‘You’ve had a lot to deal with, Jago.’ Verity’s voice was quietly sympathetic. ‘Three of the biggest stresses in life.’
‘Maybe. With Dad…’ he took a breath to calm himself. ‘With Dad dying, friends of mine, good friends of mine, just didn’t get it. One even saw me coming and crossed the street to get away.’ He still couldn’t believe Aaron had done that. It had felt cruel and unnecessary, and it still hurt.
‘It’s a common response, Jago. People don’t know how to respond to a grieving person. They don’t know what to say. If they express their condolences, they worry they’ll remind the person of what happened and won’t be able to deal with the emotions brought up. If they don’t say anything it feels callous. Grief is a tricky journey to navigate and not just for the bereaved.’
‘You’re telling me.Idon’t know how to deal with it. But I could have done with being taken out for a beer, or something. They just ignored me.’ He frowned at his trainer, noticing a scuff mark. ‘Mum had some good friends, work colleagues, they saw her through the worst of the beginning. Merryn seems to be okay but I worry about what’s going on underneath.’
‘Children can respond very differently to loss. Sometimes they can be horribly practical, almost matter of fact.’
‘Yes.’ Jago gave a grim smile. ‘Merryn went through a phase of asking questions about theprocess. What would happen at the crem, what the ashes would be like. It felt callous.’
‘She was trying to make sense of it all and young children don’t always have a social filter. They don’t know what questions shouldn’t be asked.’
‘So what do I do, Verity? How do I get through this? I can’t sleep, I’m struggling to work.’
Verity put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Give yourself time. You haven’t begun to grieve yet. I suspect you’ve been too busy looking after everyone else.’
‘I’m so angry.’ He glared at St Winifred who was smiling benevolently down, frozen in stained glass and time. ‘I want to get back to myself. Back to how I was.’
Verity remained silent.
‘But I won’t ever be that person again, will I?’
‘Possibly not. But you might become a different person. Maybe an even better one.’
‘And how can a god exist if he let such an awful thing happen to us?’
‘Ah. One of the biggest questions in faith.’ Verity pulled the cuffs of her sweater over her hands to warm them.
‘And what’s the answer?’
‘I can’t give you anything pat, except to trust in God.’
‘And how have you managed that?’ Jago asked bitterly.
‘I haven’t always. When I was first married, I had a baby who died. I asked all the questions that are running through your head now.’
Jago turned to look properly at her. She was a slight woman with dusty salt-and-pepper brown hair. She reminded him of a sparrow, drab but quietly busy. Except she had a glow. The sort of glow which comes from someone sure of her place in the world and what she believed in. He had no desire to go down that route, he didn’t want to find God, but he envied her certainty.
She smiled but he saw the pain. ‘I had some of my blackest times. I berated God, I raged at Him, asking all the questions you are now. Eventually, after some time, He answered. I opened my mind and my heart and listened and heard.’ She paused, her lips twisting. ‘But that was me. That was my path through the grief. It’s different for everyone. It’ll be very different for you.’
He grimaced.
‘And I’m sorry if that’s not very comforting, not what you want to hear, but you’ve made the first step in your grief by coming here.’ When he began to protest she chuckled. ‘I don’t mean to find God, although I’d be delighted if it was a by-product. I mean that you were so willing to open your heart to me, another human being and a stranger.’
‘I don’t have another option.’
