She leaned back into the pillows and considered the implications of Anth’s death.  The feeling of freedom and relief that she had expected to feel had not materialized.  Instead there was a crushing sense of the weight of responsibility she now had to take for her own welfare and actions.

Anth was no longer there to force her to behave to suit him, making all her decisions for her, controlling her almost down to her thoughts.  How was she going to face living alone and making decisions for herself?  It didn’t matter that Anth had left her alone for hours on end – sometimes days – his very presence on earth meant that she was not “living alone”, was not free to make her own choices.

She felt somehow like someone who had spent a long time running up a hill, but had run right off the top and was now trying to run in mid air, suspended above the ground and getting no-where.

That feeling stayed with her all the time she was in hospital.  It stayed with her all through the inquest.  The verdict of death by mis-adventure added to the surreal feeling rather than detracting from it.

She had needed help applying for income support, her confidence was so badly shattered.

Their previous landlords had re-housed her in a small flat on Brookside estate, several miles from her former home.  The flat was nice enough on the inside, but the first time Beryl had seen it from the outside, her heart had dropped into her boots.  The building looked like some science fiction barracks, built all of concrete, all vertical planes and angles.

 

As she walked in through the door, she thought how dark the interior was.  The long hallway gave access to only four rooms.  At the far end, straight ahead was the kitchen, and this was her first surprise.  As she opened the door, she was greeted by a bright and airy space that was both comforting and welcoming.  The previous tenant had left it decorated in pink and grey, and she thought that something needed to be done about that, but otherwise, the kitchen alone welcomed her in and made her feel easy. 

Out of the kitchen and into the next door around on her left, she was in the living room.  The window was wide and welcomed the sun in from a southern elevation, making the room warm and welcoming, and they looked out over a small grassy area bordered with footpaths.

The bedroom was a shock, however.  The ceiling was black with stick on luminous stars scattered over it, and the walls were a deep and oppressive purple.  Nothing that a coat of paint wouldn’t fix, though, and for the first time in her life, she started to warm to the idea of being able to decorate her own home, just the way she wanted it.

The other two doors off the hallway opened into a bathroom and an airing cupboard.  All in all, the flat was smaller than the one that she had been forced to leave, but it suited her very well.  Even if the housing trust were to offer her the chance to go back to the old flat once it was repaired, she would not be able to go.  There were too many bad memories there that she would prefer to leave behind her.

She moved into the flat with only the bare minimum.  Much of what she had had at the other flat was salvageable, but she wanted to cut all ties and start again with all her own stuff.  Leave the past behind and face the future brand new.

Her doctor had her on anti-depressants to try to help her cope with not only the trauma, but also with the stress of learning to be independent again.  She was also offered counseling and a short term care person to help her to re-enter a world that she had been isolated from for so long.  This person, one Susan Morgan helped her to get out, go shopping, take walks, took her out to choose the minimal amount of equipment that she could afford, as well as the tools and materials to decorate the flat with.

Days passed and the new look to the flat was planned.  Weeks passed and the materials were assembled and the job begun.  She was perfectly capable of doing the work herself, and found that she was thoroughly enjoying it.  It kept her busy, kept her mind occupied and stopped her from dwelling on her past too much.  Months passed and the work was complete and there were never enough pastimes to keep the darkness at bay.  The pills were not helping much, and neither were the ones that replaced them.  The horrors that had stayed in the darkness now started to invade the days.

On the plus side, however, she was beginning to feel more comfortable being out and about.  She was becoming used to taking busses around the town, and eventually decided that she needed to be able to go out even when her care person was not available, so she started walking to the local shop every day, just to prove that she could.

Then the day came when her Susan said that she thought that Beryl should try taking the bus without her.  This bus did a circular tour of the south side of Telford, so she could get on the bus outside the flat and just sit there as it toured its circuit and then get off again when it returned.

When she got off, the Susan was standing there waiting for her, and she felt such a sense or achievement that she almost hugged the woman.  Tears flowed down her cheeks, curving outwards to flow around the broad grin brightening her face.  She felt empowered, ready to catch the next bus along.

A couple of days doing this and she was asked to get off the bus somewhere around the circuit and wait for the next one.  That was another milestone.  The next was to get off at the town centre and walk around there for a few minutes before catching the bus home.  Crowds were a major stumbling block for Beryl, so she had to pick a day when there were fewer people around.

Then, one day, she took the bus to the town centre without anyone telling her too, walked around to the library and browsed for the whole morning.  When she told her Susann that, the woman was delighted, said “get your coat, we’re going to celebrate – my treat”  It was still early enough in the morning for the malls at the shopping centre to be quiet as they walked up from the bus station to “The café in the garden”.  “Here’s a treat for you, the Susan said as she placed a huge foaming cupful of something decadent on the table in front of Beryl.  A cup topped off with a deep cap of foamy whipped cream and cocoa powder.

“What is it?”

“Mochachino.  Try it; it’s a little bit of heaven in a cup.”

Beryl sipped it, and was hooked.

 

More and more, the compulsion to stay indoors and wait for Anth to call and check up on her began to fade in the face of his continued absence and under the pressure of a certain tough personality that bubbled up whenever the darkness faded – as it did more and more as time passed.

Against her doctors’ advice, she began to wean herself off the anti-depressants, and as she cut down on them, she noticed that she felt better.  There was a certain degree of fog lifting away from her brain, and as it lifted she became more interested in living and in getting out and DOING things.

Before long, she was able to leave the flat without any encouragement at all.  When this happened, the Susans’ visits were toned down to one visit a week, and then the service was withdrawn altogether.

 

Towards the end of June, she received a letter from a solicitor, asking her to come into the office. 

When she read the letter, her heart dropped into her boots.  What did they want with her?  Surely Anth’s death had been all settled and all blame removed from her?

Terrified, she readied herself to go and find face the music.

Dressed in her smartest, tidiest suit, hair scraped back in a severe bun, makeup muted, she took the bus into Wellington and walked the distance to the Solicitors office, butterflies in Iron boots battering themselves against her ribcage, trying to get out.
When she got there, she only waited a few minutes, mouth dry as cotton, sweat coating her hands and her heart fluttering in her breast, before she was called in to the office.