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TWO WEEKS AGO

The first time she entered the number, she cancelled the call before it rang. Then, her fingers shaking slightly, she forced herself to key it in again. They were only people, she reminded herself. And people who, in her day-to-day life, weren’t important at all. So if they were short with her, or angry, or abruptly ended the call, nothing much in her life would change. She could do this.

She’d dreaded this moment all day, building it up in her mind as she tried to get children to engage with Shakespeare’s sonnets. She simply had to get on with it.

‘Hello?’ Tom’s mother answered with a question. She didn’t have Sophie’s latest mobile number so clearly didn’t know who to expect.

Sophie hoped her voice, her contact, wouldn’t shock her too much. ‘Hi, Julie,’ she said softly.

‘Sophie?’

‘Yes.’

There was a silence for a moment, as if both of them were thinking. Then Julie’s voice came back more strongly than it had before. ‘Well, how are you, dear?’

‘I’m OK, thanks.’

‘I heard that you’re getting married!’

‘Oh. Well, yes, I am.’

‘Good for you.’

Sophie couldn’t tell whether the comment was barbed or not, so she decided to give Julie the benefit of the doubt. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. Then, ‘I was actually calling about Tom,’ she ventured.

‘Oh.’

‘His ashes, to be precise.’

Later she wondered how she’d been so wrong about Julie, about her apparent sternness and the way she’d always seemed distant. When she listened to the impact her words had on her former mother-in-law, she felt newly guilty at having kept the ashes tucked away, rather than deal with what had clearly been a traumatic wait for Julie.

Will texted her from work.

Will

All good?

Sophie

All sorted.

She’d booked her tickets, she’d told work she wouldn’t be in on Friday, making up a reason. Because this needed to happen, now that she’d decided, and quickly.

‘What are you doing?’ Tom asked as she tried to prise the lid from his urn.

She jumped, almost scattering him all over the floor. ‘Tom! You scared me!’ she said.

Every time she thought about the hallucinations in abstract, she told herself that she shouldn’t be engaging with them, talking to them. But when he was there, it felt natural somehow to respond. She was drawn in each time, believing on some level that he – his spirit? – was with her, that this very real version of her husband couldn’t possibly be the product of her misfiring brain.

‘I’m trying to put a bit of… this in my locket,’ she told him, finally managing to free the lid and shuddering slightly as she looked inside. ‘God, this is awful.’

Somehow she managed to do it, sealing both locket and urn up tightly afterwards and washing her hands vigorously. ‘Hey, I could get insulted by that,’ he told her.

‘Really?’ she looked at him and he shrugged.

‘You’re trying to get rid of me, aren’t you?’ he persisted as he followed her to the hall table where she placed the urn, ready to be taken to Julie, and made her way upstairs to put the locket somewhere safe.

‘What?’

‘Scattering my… these ashes. Because you want me to leave you alone?’ he said. He seemed quite hurt. She reminded herself yet again that he was only a manifestation of her grief. That Tom wasn’t really there .

But it was no use. The look on his face forced the words out of her. ‘Tom, of course I don’t want to get rid of you. I never wanted any of this. But the truth is, you’re gone. And it’s not fair to keep you here with me any longer.’

He nodded. ‘So where are you taking me?’

She smiled then, looked up at the man who’d played such an important role in her life. Had grown up with her, then forced her to go on alone. Who’d made her laugh, shout, smile, cry and pretty much everything in between.

‘We’re going to Paris,’ she told him.