gonna be one long drag,’ Penny murmurs as she ventures downstairs because she’s been doing nothing upstairs for ages. She rotates all the scatter cushions from resting like squares on the two large sofas to perching like rhombs. She changes the angle of the many framed photographs on the mantelpiece so that they all seem to be standing in line to the right. She chooses two large art books from the shelves to replace the current photography books on the coffee table. She sits beside them and laughs hysterically. So many places to sit, so much time. Too much time. She decides the scatter cushions look ridiculous and they should live up to their name so she chucks them around the sofas until she feels they’ve found their natural grouping. Still she doesn’t fancy sitting there. She gazes at Bob’s chair and her laughter is stilled by a sigh that seems to start in the pit of her gut and expels every molecule of breath in her body.
‘You know, I always thought you were ugly and nothing but,’ she says. ‘I mean, my cooker may be ugly but I like it. But you, you I never liked. If I’d had my way I’d’ve sent you back just as soon as you arrived.’ She looks out of the window. More snow. ‘Think what I could’ve had here without you taking up all the space. You’re the ugliest chair in the world. With some things, you can appreciate that form simply follows function. My summer sandals for example. If they were pretty I’ll bet you they wouldn’t be comfortable. But look at you – you’re ugly and you don’t even look like you’d be comfortable.’
There’s someone at the door. A rattle of friendly knocks followed by a ring of the bell.
‘Penny? Penny honey – you home?’
It’s Marcia and she’s gonna let herself in anyway.
‘Pen? It’s me. I’ve brought soup. Snow’s said to be bad tomorrow. You in here?’
‘In here,’ Penny’s voice filters through to the kitchen where Marcia has put the soup on the stove. She goes through to the sitting-room to find Penny.
‘Hey you.’
‘Hullo, Marcia.’
‘You sitting in the dark on the coffee table for a reason? You want me to get some lights on in here?’
‘Sure. I didn’t see it’s gotten dark. I’ve been sitting here, Lord knows how long, cussing Bob’s chair.’
‘Cussing Bob’s chair,’ Marcia says sagely. ‘Well, you never did like that thing.’
‘If the first sign of madness is talking to oneself, then talking to a chair must make me insane. But hell, it’s ugly.’
‘Ah – but is it comfortable?’
Suddenly Penny finds she’s laughing again. Marcia seems taken aback. ‘You know something, I don’t know! I never even sat on it! I never tried!’
Marcia’s eyebrows, tweezered into supercilious arches, shoot heavenwards. ‘In thirty years, you never sat on it once?’
‘Not once.’
The notion is simultaneously idiotic and rather amazing. ‘Was that out of pure stubbornness?’
‘A little,’ Penny smiles forlornly, ‘but then you see, Bob was usually sitting there himself.’
Marcia sits down alongside Penny and places a hand gently on her arm. They gaze over to the chair, both trying to privately conjure Bob – any image of him, at any point over the years – sitting in his chair. Marcia finds she can do so with ease; for Penny it’s impossible.
When is his face going to come back to me? Why can’t I remember how tall he was? Which way did he position his legs when he sat in that chair?
‘Did you ever see Bob sit anyplace other?’ Penny remarks wistfully.
‘You know what,’ Marcia marvels gently, ‘no I did not.’
‘For thirty years I’ve been complaining about it – I told Bob over and again that it was a clumpy, ugly thing, out of keeping with all our other furniture. But he wouldn’t consider looking at an alternative. He’d sit there, relaxed as you like, while I cussed.’ Penny gives just a little laugh. ‘I can throw it out now,’ she says, with dull triumph, ‘I can dump it outside. I can have it chopped up for the fire.’
‘Oh don’t chop it up, my dear,’ Marcia takes Penny at her word. ‘Perhaps the refuge – they might find a good home for it?’
‘Perhaps,’ says Penny. Then she frowns. ‘You know something, crazy as it sounds, I couldn’t bear to. All these years I’ve been hating it. But just now, this instant, I love it. It’s just where it’s always been. And here it shall stay. I’ll give it a good home – right here. How insane is that?’
‘Honey, are you doing OK?’ Marcia asks tenderly, giving Penny’s arm a squeeze of wordless sympathy and concern.
‘No. I’m not,’ Penny states confidently, sucking in her bottom lip so hard her face looks turtle-like and inappropriately comic.
‘It’s been less than a month,’ Marcia almost doesn’t want to remind her.
‘Twenty-four days,’ Penny shrugs.
‘Honey,’ Marcia tries to soothe though she feels impotent in the presence of such pain.
‘What am I going to do without him?’ Penny asks. ‘What else do I have?’
Suddenly, Marcia is acutely aware of the fact that her own husband is just fine. Just down the street and just fine. It’s almost embarrassing. She feels guilty. And she’s horribly aware that next week, she’ll be swanning off to their winter home in Florida. ‘Why don’t we all go to Boca for the winter?’ she says. ‘I mean, Mickey and I are planning to leave next week but there’s so much room for you too. Oh say you’ll come. Stay as long as you fancy. I’d love it. It would be good, Penny.’
‘I’ll be fine here,’ Penny says, surprising herself at how decisive she sounds. ‘This is my home.’
‘You know you can just call whenever? Come whenever?’ Marcia says. She looks out of the window. ‘I’d better go – it’s snowing hard now. You eat that soup. I’ll call you later. I’ll see myself out.’
‘Thanks for stopping by,’ Penny says and she’s ready for Marcia to go. She wants to be on her own, free to grieve, free to drift into a space where just perhaps she might feel Bob still. A semi-dreamland.
She listens to the muffled sound of Marcia’s car driving through the fresh snow and away. She turns the lights out in the sitting-room and stands in the darkness quietly. The snow sends silver glances into the room. The moonlight silhouettes the hills as a lumbering but benign presence. Penny wishes she hadn’t rubbished clairvoyance and the concept of the Spirit. Because just say it is for real, say it really does exist – has she jinxed herself by being a cynic most of her life? Are you there? Can I sense you? Is that you I can hear? How was your day, honey? Can I fix you a drink? You sit yourself down in your chair. That goddam ugly chair. Let me fetch you a Scotch. Then you can tell me about your day.
‘I never even sat in that chair.’
Penny goes to it and sits down. She has no idea whether the chair is comfortable or not. It is as close as she can now get to being with Bob again. She sleeps.
Cat sat at the table, in the furnished flat she and Ben were renting, tracing a pattern someone else had gouged into the wood at some point. Some previous tenant with little respect, she assumed with distaste. As she ran her finger over it, she considered perhaps it wasn’t wilful carving, it might even be as old as the table – a slip of the original carpenter’s chisel? It was a nice piece of old farmhouse pine. Ben watched Cat work her middle finger along the furrow as if she was gouging it anew.
‘Are you OK, babe?’