The Last List of Mabel Beaumont

by Laura Pearson

What’s wrong with spending your last few years in quiet contemplation? It’s too late to change the world, isn’t it? That’s the trouble between us; I’m winding down and he’s still trying to go full throttle.

Sometimes it feels like the world is unimaginably big, and other times it feels like you could hold it in your hand.

There will always be tough years in a marriage this long. It’s guaranteed. The best you can hope is you have someone who cares enough to weather them with you.

I’ve always loved that about reading. Being able to experience a different time or place, but mostly getting a chance to experience being a different person altogether. One who’s braver, who knows what she wants and reaches for it without apology, or one who doesn’t have regrets. How different would my life have been if I’d been a different sort of person?

‘When you’re young and you’re a woman,’ I say, ‘everyone’s interested in you. In what you look like and what you’ve got to say. And then there’s a point in your life, around fifty or so, when it all stops and you become invisible. And it’s stupid, really, because by then you have much more interesting things to contribute to the conversation, but no one wants to hear them. I’ve come to terms with it, it happened to me a long time ago, but since my husband died, some days I don’t speak to anyone, and I feel like no one can see me, and I think I wanted to test that.’

‘I’d advise against limiting your dreams at this early stage,’ I say. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that later on. Now, you should be aiming for the biggest thing you can think of.’ She looks up

‘Love,’ she says, a hairline crack in her voice. ‘That’s the biggest dream. Then art.’ I nod, because I understand. I do. All those career paths I didn’t and couldn’t have taken, none of them would have led me anywhere as wonderful as love. ‘Go for both,’ I say. ‘Always both. Then later, if you have to, you can start making compromises or choosing between them. But right now, reach for everything.’

I buy some things I haven’t had since Arthur died: camembert, blueberries, sourdough bread. Arthur used to tease me for being conservative about food, used to say you can’t live off ham sandwiches and conference pears, but he was wrong about that. You can live off so little, can avoid variety and texture. It just makes for a boring life. I don’t want to do it any more.

The price of living a long life, I think, is the sheer weight of the losses you have to suffer. You carry each loved one you lose, and they stack up, and it becomes unbearable. I tick them off in my mind. Brother, father, mother, husband, and my friend, my love.

You can’t live in the past, I tell myself, but you can visit. And you can bring bits of it into the present, when you need them. All this time, I’ve thought of every year since Dot left as wasted, but perhaps it isn’t as bleak as all that. There have been pockets of happiness, there has been laughter and a certain kind of love. Raging bliss isn’t the only thing that’s real.

‘When we met, I was grieving, and I had no idea that you were too.’ She shrugs. ‘I think we’re all grieving for something. Our childhoods or a relationship or a dream.’

We all have something that’s broken us, I suppose. Nobody gets away unscathed.