The Guest Who Stayed

Chapter 18 - Spring 1928

Alice died on May 27th, 1928. It was a warm spring day and the garden was ablaze with new blooms and ripening blossom. The cherry trees cast a pink mantle over the house that had symbolised Alice and Jed’s shared hope when they married.

 Jack held Alice in his arms in her last moments. The medication had induced a state of semi consciousness in which it was impossible to know whether Alice understood what was being said. Jack’s final words were whispered and barely audible.

 “I’ll never let you go. You’re inside my heart and my soul. I love you.”

 Her eyes were closed. There was a fleeting smile, then a deep breath. Then she had gone.

 Jed was downstairs attempting to amuse Evie. He had opened the dolls’ house and was trying to get her to arrange the furniture but she was more intent on sitting inside the box that the house was kept in. A desperate shout from upstairs brought Jed to his feet. Evie rushed to Jed and he swept her up into his arms. She clung to his neck, sensing that something was wrong. There was another shout followed by a long anguished sob. Slowly, Jed went upstairs, clutching Evie tightly. As they entered Alice’s room, Jack was on his knees by the side of the bed with tears streaming down his face. Jed placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder and then held Evie up to look one last time at Alice. To Evie, she looked beautiful - at peace, with her auburn hair spread across the white linen pillow - like Sleeping Beauty. It was an image that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

 In the weeks leading up to Alice’s death, both men had spent time alone with her. Each knew that the other had his own private thoughts and memories to share. For Jack, there was the anguish of losing a lover, someone with whom he had shared passion and created new life. Knowing too that his own life would soon be at an end, he and Alice spent many hours discussing death. For Alice, the notion of being switched off like a light bulb, with all the finality that implied, was irrational. Watching the changing seasons through her bedroom window and seeing the continuous cycle of birth and death, made her want a better explanation. Though neither Jack nor she were particularly religious, they found it hard to discount the idea that there was some further dimension in which the essence of themselves - their souls - might continue. Although Jack normally took a cynical view of such things he had found himself questioning his own disbelief. On a number of occasions recently he thought he had felt the presence of Yvette. It wasn’t that he could see her, just a sense of her being present and still being a part of him. It was enough to open his mind to the possibility of a continued existence - a feeling which he found strangely exhilarating.

 Jed spent long hours with Alice, many of them in silent reflection. Understanding his hurt, Alice talked to Jed about his strength and courage and how these would support him in the future. She begged him to look after Evie and told him that she was as much his child as she was Jack’s. And she told Jed that he must find another wife, a better wife than she had been.

  The funeral was held at St. Martin’s Church a week after Alice’s death. Jack and Jed stood together at the graveside, both visibly moved. If bystanders wondered about the relationship that these two men had shared with the same woman, nothing was said. What happened behind closed doors was not their business.

  In the weeks after Alice’s death, Jed and Jack tried to cope and create an atmosphere of normality for Evie’s sake. Jed was out for much of the day working, leaving Jack to cope with the domestic chores. When Jed returned exhausted in the evening, he would take over the role of caring for Evie and cope with her increasingly aggressive tantrums. When Evie was finally in bed, both men would slump into chairs in the sitting room and the conversation would soon turn to Alice. They had a need to keep her alive in their minds and in the process to understand the relationship which had bound them together.