Page 33 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘Hey.’ I sat down next to him, putting my glass on the bedside table. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Knackered.’ He eased himself higher on the pillow and I could see lines of pain flicker across his face. ‘But not too sore. The meds are kicking in.’

‘You smashed it today. I was really proud. Hopefully you’ll sleep well.’

I passed him the water, but he didn’t take the glass; instead, he guided my hand to his lips and kissed it. It was just the slightest brush of his dry lips, but it brought a lump to my throat.

‘Hopefully,’ he said. ‘Morphine dreams are wild – better even than coke.’

I tutted, hiding my emotion as I knew he was hiding his. ‘I’m not sure you’re meant to enjoy it.’

‘I reckon I can enjoy whatever I want at this point.’

‘True.’ I rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Gray? Today made me think – what do you want to happen for your funeral?’

His eyes were drifting closed, but he opened them again and said indistinctly, ‘I told you. Chuck me in a plain pine box and take me to the tip, and then everyone get pissed down the Crooked Billet.’

‘Right. I know that’s what you said. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.’

‘A deathbed conversion?’ He turned over, pulling a pillow from the other side of the bed and hugging it to his chest. ‘Not likely.’

That should be me, I thought with a stab of anguish. Me he’s holding while he sleeps. I should be with him, for however many nights we have left. But I couldn’t ask him if he wanted that – I was too afraid of what the answer might be.

‘There’s nothing special you want, though?’ I persisted. ‘No particular music or anything?’

‘Fuck, no,’ he said. ‘None of that maudlin shite.’

I half-laughed, then asked, ‘What maudlin shite did you have at your mum’s funeral? Can you remember?’

He turned over again, still clinging to the pillow. The sleepiness was gone from his eyes now; they were wide open, dark and trippy-looking from the morphine.

‘Jesus, Anna. I don’t know. Probably “Ar Hyd y Nos”.’

‘A what now?’

‘It’s a Welsh lullaby. Everyone has it – it’s a massive cliché. Like English people having “Jerusalem” at their weddings.’

He closed his eyes and sang faintly, ‘Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant, Ar hyd y nos, “Dyma’r ffordd i fro gogoniant”, Ar hyd y nos.’

I felt as if a heavy weight was being pressed on to my chest. ‘I remember that. You used to sing it to Lulu and Barney when they were babies.’

‘No I didn’t. You’re imagining it. I never sing.’ A flicker of sadness flashed across his face. He turned on to his side away from me. ‘I need to sleep, Anna.’

‘Okay.’ I stood up. ‘Call me if you need anything. And – like you said, pine box, no music. But maybe not the council tip.’

‘Thanks, Anna,’ he murmured. Then, half-muffled by the pillow, I heard him say, ‘I love you.’

That weight pressed on me again, feeling as if it might crush the life out of me. ‘I love you too.’

I got up and left him for the spare room, which I couldn’t quite bring myself to think of as my room. I washed my make-up off, cleaned my teeth in the en-suite bathroom and got into bed.

But I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, staring into the darkness, thinking of that song, which had sounded so familiar. The song Gray said he thought had probably been played at his mother’s funeral, which he’d sung to Lulu and Barney at night.

He had. In spite of his denial, I could remember it clearly – the darkened house, still a building site, the smell of paint and plaster dust everywhere. Me lying in the bath exhausted, fretting that somehow we were poisoning our baby daughter with airborne chemicals. And Gray’s voice drifting from the bedroom, low and sweet, accompanying his steady footfalls as he paced up and down with her.

He was right – he never sang. But he’d sung then, when he was soothing our babies to sleep, and I’d loved him for it.

And even if my memory was playing tricks on me – even if it was something else he’d sung to them, even if he couldn’t recall what music had played at his mother’s funeral – how come he remembered the lyrics so clearly, years later after Lulu and Barney were born, and still now, every word, in a language he no longer ever spoke?