“And did he have a will?”
“He made one years ago, when you were born. But I don’t know if it’s still any good. It was a long time ago, it might not be valid any more.”
“Of course it’s still… never mind. Where’s it lodged?”
My mum looks mutinous. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Mum.” I force myself to stay calm. “Who’s got it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know where half his papers are.”
Lily leans slightly forward, reaches behind her and pulls out a squashed, crumpled cushion, marked with bleach where a stain has been viciously attacked with the wrong sort of cleaner. She lays the cushion flat on her lap, plumping it so the stuffing is evenly distributed, neatening the tangled tassles, stroking the velvety pile into the right direction. The cushion, worn and battered as it is, transforms under her touch, a treasured heirloom rather than a scrumpled back support. As I watch her do this, I remember that this cushion is one of a pair, a long-ago Christmas present from Lily. When they arrived, the cushions were rich and splendid, and quite out of place. I have no idea what’s happened to the other one.
“We don’t need to worry about his other papers right now, just the will. Can you remember who drafted it?”
“We made them at the same time. They were mirror wills, I remember that. We made mirror wills.”
“And who drew them up for you?”
“It was someone in the high street, I think…”
I force myself to keep sitting in my chair and taking deep breaths. I don’t think I have the patience for this tonight.
“You’re home.” Daniel stumbles over the threshold to greet me, warm with sleep. “Oh, thank God, thank God. I’ve missed you so much. Come here.” He hugs me tight, and leads me to the sofa. “Jen, how did you know?”
“How did I know what?”
“That your dad was going to… you know.” There’s something in his expression I can’t quite read. “I knew there was something wrong. When you went away I thought you were leaving me. But you were only getting ready.”
He’s relieved. My father is dead and Daniel is relieved. I should explain to him that what he thinks of as prophetic dreams and magical insights are simply coincidences, but he hasn’t listened the other million times, so why should he pay attention now?
“So how are they all?” he asks.
“My mum’s losing the plot. She can’t remember where anything is or what she’s supposed to be doing. God only knows where my dad’s will is.”
“Leave her to it. It’s not your problem.”
“Of course it’s my problem. She’s got no idea, she’s hopeless.”
“Well, she’ll have to pull herself together. Let her sort it out. God, you’re gorgeous. I missed you so much. Come to bed, it’s late.” He shambles off to the bedroom, a simple unencumbered animal waiting for his mate.
Daniel has no idea what I’ve left behind me in my mother’s living room. Which is worse? My mother’s soggy spinelessness and apathetic refusal to take charge? Esther’s barely concealed relief that her child, at least, has been spared? Or Lily’s cold strong fury? Her capable hands, stroking the cushion as if it was a familiar crouching on her knee. It was a mistake to leave her there. If Lily decides to attack, my mother will be helpless against her.
How am I going to get us all through the next few days?
“Have you thought about music?” The undertaker looks from one face to another, unsure where to direct the question. My mother, the chief mourner but far from the chief decision-maker. Esther, handing tissues. Lily, tall and silent, unforgiving. Me with my notebook, making suggestions that become decisions that become my responsibility. We are, as my father used to say, a terrible houseful of women.
“Music?” My mother looks at me, then away again, then back at me.
“Mum, come on.” I’m nauseous with exhaustion and too many cups of tea. “How on earth would I know?”
“Daniel. He’ll know.” My mother calls him in. She talks too fast for me to follow, but I understand anyway. She’s passed everything she possibly can onto me, from the shape and fitments of my father’s casket to the time the cars will arrive to take us to the church. Now she’s passing on the choosing of the music to Daniel. Daniel looks at her with perplexity, as if he can’t understand what she’s asking or why. Then he shrugs, nods and disappears again.
Lily is watching me, her eyes bright and eloquent. She seems constantly on the verge of saying something, but whenever we’re alone, she fails to speak. Instead she offers small gestures of practical affection – making bowls of soup and insisting I eat them, plying me with tea and ginger biscuits, whipping a comb from her sleeve to tidy the tangles of my hair away from my face. There’s something on her mind, but she won’t tell me what, and I don’t have the time to ask.
Once, my mother comes into the room and catches Lily handing me a plate of freshly prepared cheese on toast. The toast is crisp and golden, the cheese gently bubbling with a thin scrape of tomato puree beneath. I’ve felt sick for days and have begun to suspect the reason, but the plate looks delicious. My mother looks at Lily with baffled fury.
“You need to take care of yourself,” Lily tells me, carefully not looking at my mother.
In my mother’s hallway, Lily stands straight and composed, her rose-painted lips pressed tightly together. I wonder why she’s waiting here like this – the cars won’t arrive for another half an hour – but when I go into the sitting room, I see my mother on the sofa, and I understand. Esther sits beside her, trying helplessly to comfort her. My mother holds her arms out and draws me into a damp embrace. I close my eyes and cradle my mother for a minute, then let go. She looks at me in surprise.
“Lily’s on her own,” I tell her.
“She could come in here if she wanted to. She’s happier out there in the hall. You know what she’s like. Stay here with me, Jen. I need you with me today.”
Being indispensable is far uglier and more painful than I ever imagined.
Besides the long black limousine my father rides in, there are two more cars, swollen and sleek like well-fed cats. Each car will take three people only. Esther, or course, will ride with my mother. I have to make a choice.
Esther goes first. My mother follows, then turns and looks at me. Lily’s hand remains on my arm. Behind Lily, Daniel holds the handbags and waits to be told what to do.
“Which car are you getting in?” he asks.
I feel like I’ve been fighting this battle my whole life. I am so tired.
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Jen. Pick a car.”
My mother’s mouth trembles. My ears sing and my stomach’s sour and unhappy, a gift from the little stranger nestled below. Does it have arms and legs yet? Can it move? I’m already convinced my baby will be a boy. There are too many women in my family. We need someone to even up the balance. I don’t know what to do, about any of it.
Then, as she so often has, Lily saves me. She slips her hand from my arm and pats my shoulder.
“Go with your mother. I’ll ride with Daniel. Don’t worry.” And as I look at her in weary disbelief that this awful contest could be resolved so easily and ask her with quick small gestures if she’s sure, she adds, “I’ll always love you best, remember?”
I climb into the spot beside my mother, who is trying to work the central seatbelt. I keep my eyes down so I don’t have to see what she’s saying, and rummage between the seats. Despite age and arthritis, Lily never has trouble with seatbelts. I’ll always love you best. It’s the first time I’ve heard this statement for what it really is: a declaration of war.
The church is unfamiliar and forbidding and almost everyone in it is a stranger. Are they neighbours? Friends? Did my father know them from work? Did he have a hobby I don’t know about? Was he secretly a member of a swinger’s club? How little I know about my father’s life. My mother’s eyes are fixed fearfully on the doorway where shortly,
my father will make his last entrance. Lily is beside me again, tense and trembling. On her other side, looking bored, is Daniel. When the coffin comes in, my mother collapses back into the pew and covers her face. I feel Lily take in a sharp gasp of breath and her hand fumbles for mine.
The undertaker asked if I wanted an interpreter for the service, but I have no desire to hear whatever bland nonsense my father’s boss has cobbled together to share with the rest of the mourners. I look up the hymns and follow the words. Beside me Lily holds her head high and sings, not even glancing at the book. ‘How Great Thou Art’. ‘Nearer, My God, To Thee’. The floor thrums with the notes from the organ. The vicar speaks; the man in the dark blue suit who I only know as Mr Landsborough speaks; the vicar speaks again. Everyone closes their eyes and bows their heads to pray.
I put my hand across my roiling stomach to quiet it and gaze around at the congregation. My mother’s hair has its first strands of grey. Esther’s hair is all iron now, a thick helmet that looks strong enough to ward off anything. Do I want to join them in the tribe of motherhood? Can the rewards possibly be worth the pain? Shall I wait and see which of their traits my child inherits? Or shall I visit the doctor, take the pills and watch him dissolve and disappear?
Lily isn’t praying either. She catches my eye, gives me a knowing secret smile and squeezes my hand. She has something she wants to say to me. I watch her fingers. Life goes on.
The grave is as simple and terrible as these things always are; a steep-sided claustrophobic space, the sides sliced smooth by the blade of the mechanical digger. My mother stumbles against me, clutching my arm hard enough to bruise. Esther glances guiltily towards Lily and I know what she’s thinking. Thank God it was her child and not mine. Not my daughter. Not my daughter. Never my daughter. Lily’s face is very white and her eyes are fixed on the coffin, but her step remains steady and firm, one foot and then the other, carrying her through space towards the place where she’ll bid her son farewell. Daniel glances into the hole, winces, and turns away.
The vicar’s vestments are white and clean. I’ve read the words in advance so I know what’s being said. I wish my dad was here, standing next to my mum and possibly engaged in one of the many minor squalls that made up the fabric of their marriage. What would they bicker about? My father’s choice of shoes. His driving on the way here. His failure to listen to her directions, thus making them late. Occasionally he’d retaliate by saying they were late because she took so long getting ready. Yes, that would have been a good argument. I wonder what their last words were to each other.
The coffin is lowered by four solemn-faced men in suits. The sturdy nylon straps are ugly and industrial against the polished wood. They step back, hands folded in front of them. My whole body shudders and I force myself to stand straight and true. Dying is part of living. One day I too will end my days in either earth or fire, but until then, it’s my time, and while my time lasts I will live in the best way I can, making my own choices and accepting the consequences.
It’s time to leave. Time to go to the pub-restaurant I chose, eat the buffet foods I selected from the mid-range menu, shake the hands of those who came to say goodbye, all while trying to hold my mother together, before taking her home and putting her to bed with a sleeping pill. I can’t sleep, she tells me over and over, I wake up in the night and stare at the ceiling and weep. Then at four o’clock every afternoon she will declare, It’s no use, I can’t fight it any longer. I’ve got to get some rest. And she will swallow her pill with a mouthful of milk, leave the glass on her bedside table to turn sour and lumpy, and fall into a drugged stupor that will take her through to the hours when I’ve left and Esther and Lily are both softly asleep in the spare bedrooms.
I’d hoped the horror of my father’s death might bring out the best in my mother. Instead she’s taking her widowhood as permission to behave in the most childish, helpless way she can possibly manage, transferring all my father’s responsibilities onto my shoulders and adding the wearing complexities of death into the bargain.
“Come on,” I say to her, and take her arm. To my surprise, she resists. I tug again, trying to get her moving. She shakes her head and says something I can’t catch.
“I didn’t get that.”
“I can’t bear it,” she repeats. “I can’t, Jen. I can’t go to that restaurant and eat food and talk to people, and be polite, and let them tell me all about how much they liked him and how sorry they are. I can’t do it.” She looks almost proud of herself, as if she’s achieved something morally worthwhile. “Can you go for me, Jen? You can go. Just you and Lily and my mum, everyone will understand. I’ll go home and have a rest. You can explain.”
“Mum.”
“Thank you, darling.” She smiles tremulously.
“Mum, please, I – okay, yes. No problem. I’ll go. How are you going to get home? We need both cars.”
“I don’t know. I’m so used to your father doing the driving. Oh, Jen, how am I going to do without him?”
“It’s all right, it’s all right, we’ll sort something out.” I look around for help but most of the guests have already left. Daniel is studying the names on the headstones. Esther is speaking to the undertaker. Does my mother have a mobile phone? And what are the chances of persuading her to make a call?
“Come with me, we’ll find the vicar and—”
And then Lily’s there, her face transformed with passion, her fingers sharp and witchy, her hair flying around her face as her chignon comes undone with the force of her rage, and all the words she’s been holding back explode from her mouth like poisonous toads.
“Don’t you dare.” She slaps my mother hard across the face, then grabs her by the shoulders and shakes her. “Don’t you dare put everything on Jen. You’re a vampire, do you know that? You sucked all the life out of my son, all those years and years of running round after you, as if you were a child. He’s in his grave because of you. You killed him. You drove him to his death.”
My mother has a cut where Lily’s diamond ring has caught the tender skin at the corner of her eye. A thin little line of blood runs down her cheek. She puts her hand up to her cheek.
“I’ve been watching you,” Lily continues. She’s signing as well as speaking now, but she doesn’t need to. I’m getting every word. “You sit there in that house, day after day, letting Jen run around after you, doing your shopping, cooking your dinner, tidying your mess.” She jabs a sharp finger into my mother’s chest. My mother staggers backwards. “Making her organise her own father’s funeral. What kind of mother are you? You never loved her properly, not since the day you found out she wouldn’t ever hear again. You’d have got rid of her before she was born if you’d known that was coming, wouldn’t you? You always resented her—”
“That’s not true!” My mother’s hands, helpless and grasping, stretch out towards me. “Jen, that’s not true. I’ve never, ever, ever wished that. I love you. You’re my darling girl. I don’t know what I’d do without you, I couldn’t manage without you, I need you so much. Jen, I promise that’s not true.”
“Of course it’s true!” Lily’s face is vengeful and triumphant. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. You think that’s love? Love is giving, not taking. You’ve never loved anyone in your entire useless life.” She spins on her heel, driving the sharp little point deep into the grass. “Listen to me, Jen. She’s going to ask you to come and live with her. Only for a little while, she’ll say. Only while she gets settled. Only while she learns to cope. And every day she’ll tell you how much she loves you, how wonderful you are, what an amazing daughter you are, how she doesn’t know what she’d do without you. He won’t hang around.” She points contemptuously in Daniel’s direction. “Not that he’s any sort of loss, you’d be better off without him. But there won’t be another one. She won’t let you. She won’t let you have anyone. Not even your baby. You’ll never have your child in your mother’s house, Jen. You won’t have the strength. She’ll
take everything from you, and she’ll live a long time, vampires like her always do, and when she finally goes—”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” My mother’s hands, feeble little fists, beat uselessly against Lily’s arm. Lily looks at her in surprise. “You don’t know anything about it, you horrible old witch. Jen loves me. Not you. Me. Of course she’ll take care of me, she’s my daughter, she won’t mind. Will you, darling? Just for a little while. I looked after you while you were little, all those appointments and learning to sign and finding a special school and everything, it took everything I had but I did it, because I love you. And now you’ll do the same for me. Won’t you?”
“It’s all right,” Lily says. “I’ll take care of you. Both of you.”
I feel so weightless I might float off into the sky.
Then Daniel takes my hand.
“Did Lily say you’re having a baby?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“And… are you?”
“Yes.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God!” He’s laughing. “Oh my God, that’s so cool.”
“It’s not cool, it’s a nightmare. We’ll have to find a bigger flat. And I’ll only get six months’ maternity leave. And we’ll never afford childcare.”
“That’s okay. You go back to work and I’ll be a stay-at-home dad.”
“What about your music?”
“It’ll be fine, I’ll fit it around the baby. I gig in the evenings anyway and you’ll be at home then. We’ll manage. And when it’s older it can come too, and hang out backstage. Is it a girl or a boy? Do you know yet? Have you had one of those scans?”
“It’s a boy,” I say. “There are enough women in this family. Mum, I’ll see you tomorrow. But I’m not coming to live with you.”
As we leave the cemetery, I look back just once. My mother looks confused but triumphant, and I know she’s relieved I didn’t choose Lily. Lily’s face streams with tears, but she’s watching me every step of the way. As I go, she raises her hand in farewell. She’s saying something to me, and even though I’m too far away to see it, I know what she’s telling me. I’ll always love you best. The words she always says when we part. And today, we’re parting for the last time.
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