Lydia
George Williams looked critically at his trousers and shirt, irritation flickering across his face as he tossed them back onto the armchair.
How can I possibly go out like this? The trousers are rumpled, any sign of a crease has vanished, and they shine embarrassingly at the back, not to mention how hes lost a stone or so lately and now they just hang off him. The shirt was even worseonce sky blue, now a faded, indistinct colour, frayed cuffs and a limp collara disgrace! Lydia would never have let him leave for the corner shop dressed like this, let alone give a university lecture. Hed never paid much attention to clothes, but somehow always managed to look not just presentable but quite smart. Not anymore.
He used to take it for granted how shirts would rotate in, suits and jackets appear, ties, caps, and handsome shoeshe only ever had to stick his hand in the wardrobe or tell Lydia he needed to look the part the next day, and it was sorted.
Oh, Lydia, Lydia, what have you done, girl, where have you gone? Hed never expected such betrayal. She was nearly ten years younger, never seriously ill, and there hadnt been any warning signs this time either. Just three days of fever, an annoying cough that lingered. She wouldnt have even gone to the doctor, would have just brewed her herbal teas, but the new school term meant her health book needed updating, so she went to the surgery with the other teachers.
It should have been routine, and the surgery itself was nothing special, but from there Lydia was sent straight to hospital and everything spiralled down like a waking nightmare, which ended, by Christmas, in silence.
Though George understood it all rationally, he grew to detest that local surgery, as if it were their fault Lydia had gone, despite them being the ones to raise the alarm. He felt, almost childishly, that if it started with them, it was their blame to bear.
Hed met Lydia when, as a second-year postgraduate, he was leading first-years through seminars on calculus, and Lydiafresh-faced, rosy from the cold with freckles even in Februarywas one of his students. It was odd that she even caught his attentionhe was used to lively, eye-catching girls, not ones with plump, ink-stained fingers and nervous, chewed nails. Yet it was those hands that undid him.
He was so charmed, he barely noticed as he started walking her home, popping in to help Lydias gran make dumplings, and after that, marriage simply happened. Over the next forty years Lydia doubled in size, chopped her pigtails, smoked two packs a day, and became deputy head of a maths school, but to George, her hands remained those same small, nervous ones, and his heart would ache with longingno one else could replace her.
It certainly hadnt made their life a sweet idyll. Forty years held every manner of storm. George had strayed, some little slips, two real onesyears ago when he left home briefly. Lydia hadnt lagged behind, either, giving George plenty of his own medicine, racing off for a three-year affair with the director of the factory linked with her school. But they had two daughtersanchors that kept their family afloat through each tempest.
It wasnt fair, really: first, they had nothing, living on top of each other, then came the girls, and life was just endless shuttling to music, art, and regular schools, skating classes, and childhood illnesses. Now, finally, the flat was spacious, the girls had their own adult lives, showing their children off only on grand occasions. They could have finally enjoyed themselvesthen Lydia went off and left. And hadnt left a single instruction on how to manage without her.
George never expected such a blow and was slow to realise what had happenedeven at the wake he behaved more as if at an anniversary than a funeral, which people noticed and thought him cold and undeserving of their sympathy. They were wrong. The truth hit him months later, when spring arrived. His spirit plummeted, his appetite left him, and he couldnt bear to stay at home alone.
Becoming closer with his daughters wasnt possible. One travelled constantly on environmental campaignssaving dolphins or counting bird migrationwhile the other was absorbed in her husband’s family, deeply involved with her own child and George clearly outside her design for life. So George took to visiting friends.
Though ‘visiting’ was putting it kindly. Hed turn up at dawn, eat voraciously, nap in their armchair, drink tea in silence, scattering crumbs on his tired shirt and the hosts clean table, until it was simply too rude to stay longer. Then home again, just to repeat it a day or two later.
At home, George hardly cookeddespite having been head cook for forty years. He simply couldn’t be bothered to prepare proper food for just himself. He visibly withered, his friends noticed, and decided drastic action was neededa new wife would sort him out.
And so today, once again, he had to meet with a certain Mrs. Ann Carter for the theatre. It would come to nothing, he was sure. Hed gone to the theatre with Lydia, for her sake, but it always felt artificial and boring, sometimes hopelessly amateurish. Yet Lydia had been so radiant, keeping the playbills and retelling scenes so enthrallingly he could never refuse her.
Now, his friends, thinking themselves saviours, kept pressing tickets into his hands and marching him off across slushy pavements to tiresome plays, stuck for hours in his old shoes, stifled by strangers’ perfumes, longing only to escape home and bury his face in a pillow that stillmaybe only in memorysmelled of Lydia. But he couldnt bring himself to offend his friends, and anyway, he knew in his soul that life alone was impossible, at least for him, even if he couldnt quite say why he should carry on at all.
This Ann Carter was, it turned out, a rather spry, attractive woman. George honestly thought, had this been ten years before, he might have courted her enthusiastically. Fifteen years his junior, petite, stylish, clevercharming, really.
Next to her, George felt twice as old and shabby. But she was clearly keen to carry things further, peppering him with suggestions for the coming weekend.
Tonights play, mercifully, was short and continuous. Still, afterwards, café protocol dictated he offer supper, seeing as the theatres bar wouldnt suffice. But luck was with him: Ann cheerfully insisted she lived nearby, her roast and apple pie had turned out beautifully today, and shed be delighted to share dinner with him. The invitation could hardly have been more clearly premeditated, but George, starved for the warmth of a real kitchen, was glad to accept without even feigning reluctance.
At her flat, everything impressed himthe neat, sweetly-scented rooms, the aroma of cinnamon and vanilla, Ann herself briefly disappearing to change into a tracksuit that made her look still younger, bustling about the kitchen, serving up delightful home-cooked dishes, and chatting with effortless grace. For a moment, George almost wished he could stay here forever, safe in this gingerbread house, that the past wouldnt haunt him in the late hours, and that a new chapter might finally begin, fresh and unburdened.
Reluctantly, George left well past midnight. They had plans, an exhibit tomorrow at the Private Collections Museum, then shopping for a new wardrobeso as not to disgrace his companionand a home lunch with Ann on Saturday. She would have preferred a countryside walk and to show off her cottage, but her daughter needed her to collect her granddaughter from school for a few hours, so they opted for lunch at home with the little one; the cottage would wait for Sunday.
On Saturday, George nipped to the barber, instantly feeling five years younger. He then dressed with a new sense of style, donning a checkered shirt and soft corduroy jeans, bought flowers and some chocolate for Anns granddaughter, and set off.
Even in the stairwell the smell of roast duck and something baking was mouth-watering, and George caught himself humming a tune, smiling at his reflection in the lifts old mirror.
Ann greeted him warmly, almost tenderly, and ushered him straight to the kitchen. “Wheres your granddaughter?” George asked.
“Ill call her now,” Ann replied, laughing. “Shes being shydidnt want to come out, hiding in the bedroom.”
George busied himself arranging the flowers in a vase, opening a bottle of wine and some juice for the girl, slicing bread, and taking his seat.
“Come and meet George, dear! This is my granddaughter, Lydia,” Ann called.
He looked up into wide, clear eyes, pink cheeks, and a scattering of freckles on an upturned nose. Lydia studied him warily, nervously biting her thumb nail.
Lets hope I dont drop dead right this moment, George thought, abruptly excusing himself and stepping out.
What George learned, in that quiet hallway, was that the essence of those we love slip quietly into the lives of others long after theyre gonea glimmer in a daughters smile, a nervous gesture in a granddaughter’s hand. Grief, though heavy, eventually gives way to memories, and those memories make new bonds possible. Lifes rich pattern continues, subtle and unexpected, if only we let it.
