Mum's List

by St. John Greene

  “Forget the cook,” Pete said. “I’ve got you a job as a gaffer—an auctioneer’s assistant.”

  “Are you sure, Pete? I don’t want to cause you any hassle.”

  “No trouble, Singe. It’s worked out for the best. This scene involves horses, and I know you can ride and handle horses. You’ll be with some of the stunt team.”

  I followed Pete’s instructions and went to a separate unit, where I was dressed in a flat cap, hobnail boots and a big coat and black waistcoat, which thankfully fitted well and really made me look the part. I couldn’t wait to get on the set.

  The whole of Castle Combe was surrounded by smoke machines, so you couldn’t see anything of the village from the costume hangars outside. Several checkpoints later, I was finally allowed through the last cloud-shrouded security gate and on to the film set. When the mist cleared and I emerged on the other side I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was instantly transported back nearly a hundred years. The set was stunning, decked out with market stalls and banks of delphiniums and wisteria to make it look like springtime in a typical English village in the First World War.

  On the right hand side of the set I was astonished to see Steven Spielberg himself, sitting in his director’s chair. Wandering across the road, I noticed the actor who played the werewolf character in Harry Potter. “David Thewlis!” I heard another extra whisper excitedly as he nudged his mate.

  Several of us “gaffers” were asked to walk some horses across the set, and I was eventually chosen to perform a little sequence with a huge Clydesdale, where I had to run into the camera and grab the neighing horse. I secretly smiled to myself, thinking my size was actually a bonus now, as this was certainly not a job for a small man. The horse was enormous, and it took all my strength to control him and lead him away exactly as Steven Spielberg directed. In the end I performed the same sequence about ten times before the great director was satisfied.

  “Good job, Singe,” he called over a few minutes later in his great American drawl, much to my delight.

  My very first thought was: “I can’t wait to tell Kate!” Her number was still listed as my favorite contact in my phone, and I desperately wanted to ring her or text her and tell her my exciting news. I took out my phone and suddenly felt deflated, like bubbles were bursting around my heart. I clicked through her old texts, many of which contained items she wanted me to add to the list. “Sort out fish tank, pebble chess set, netball center,” I saw. It was the last item added to her list, I remembered. Kate would be so sad the tank had crashed, but so pleased I was planning on installing a bigger and better one in the extension.

  I found a quiet spot to sit and think. The pebble chess set was a job for the future, I thought. I could do that when the building work was finished and we had our garden back. I had started teaching Reef to play chess when he was in hospital, and one day Kate had picked up a perfect, shiny black pebble and a shiny white one on the beach. “We could paint pebbles and make our own chess set for the garden,” she had said, but we had never got round to it when she was alive.

  I looked at “netball center” and thought what an awful irony it was that they were the very last two words on Kate’s list. She played the position of center in netball when she was younger, as she could run like the wind and was extremely skillful. She wanted the boys to know she was a good team player, to set an example to them, and to remind them she was not always bed-bound and tired out, breathing through an oxygen tube.

  I wanted to contact Kate so badly I very nearly pressed “reply” to her text as I stared at it. I wrapped my fingers around the phone and could feel them trembling.

  “You OK, mate?” one of the other extras asked.

  “Yes, yes, I am,” I said, meaning it. I’d just had the most incredible experience, and even though I felt Kate’s loss very acutely, I realized my shaking hands had as much to do with my excitement as anything else. I knew Kate would have been delighted for me, and I couldn’t wait to share the experience with the boys.

  “Why did you do that?” Finn asked, looking rather bemused when I got home and described my adventure on set. “Why couldn’t you do a Disney one again, like Narnia?”

  “Well, I didn’t have a choice about the film,” I said. “I was very, very lucky to get the chance to go on this set, and sometimes you just have to take the opportunities you are given.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “What I mean, Finn, is that when you get the chance to do something exciting and different, you should take it.”

  “Always?” he asked, screwing up his forehead.

  “Er, not always,” I said.

  Reef was listening now, and I saw an opportunity.

  “If it was something dangerous, like riding a motorbike, then no,” I said. “Mummy didn’t want you to ride motorbikes or scooters because you could have an accident, especially on the road. Neither of us want you to do that. But with things that are safe, that aren’t going to hurt you or other people, you should always have a go. It makes life fun!”

  Unbelievably, within the hour I took an unexpected phone call from the local press agency, South West News Service, which had distributed several stories on both Reef and Kate’s cancer in the past. They wanted to do a “follow-up” now that Finn was at school, to report on how we were coping as a family of three.

  “I think it’s a lovely idea,” I said. I could hardly refuse, after what I’d just said to the boys, though I did wonder whether anyone would really be interested, so long after Kate’s death.

  “I suppose I could talk you through Mum’s List, and tell you what I’ve done and what I plan to do.”

  There was a momentary pause before the journalist asked: “What’s Mum’s List?”

  “Oh, you know, Kate scribbled down a load of things she wanted me to do with the boys, stuff she wanted them to know about her, a few rules she wanted me to keep—normal mum stuff. It all started when I asked her, ‘What if you leave me?’ She started coming out with so many things that I said she’d better write them down, so I didn’t forget.”

  Now there was a longer pause, during which I wondered if it might have sounded a bit strange to describe it as “normal mum stuff” when what had happened to Kate was actually quite out of the ordinary, and so sad.

  “I think it’s a lovely idea too,” the reporter said, sounding more animated. “In fact it sounds really special. When can I come round?”

  I gave a long interview the next day, during which I broke down several times as I was asked to recap on events of the previous nine months. I gave the reporter a copy of Mum’s List, which Christine had kindly typed up for me, and I agreed it could be reproduced in the article, which would be sent out to both the local and national media along with a selection of family photos.

  “If anyone prints it, I’ll be able to put the stories in the memory boxes,” I said. “Mind you, I won’t hold my breath! I can’t imagine why anyone would be that interested in me and Kate.”

  The reporter smiled. “You might just be surprised,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  A few days later I had to take the boys for their holiday shots so they’d be ready for Egypt. I wasn’t looking forward to it. This was the sort of job Kate and I would have done together, so we could look after one child each. We always went as a family whenever the boys had the dentist or anything like that, just to make things easier.

  “I need you to be really good boys,” I told Reef and Finn. “You have to have these injections so you’ll be safe when we go to Egypt. It might hurt a tiny bit, but it’ll be over in a flash. I know you’re both brave enough to do it.”

  “I’ve had lots of injections before, remember, Daddy,” Reef said. There was a slight questioning tone in his voice. “Yes, Reef, I do remember,” I said, thinking to myself: “How could I ever forget?”

  Reef p
ut his arm around Finn’s shoulder. “It’s not that bad, you’ll be fine,” he said, throwing in a serious little nod and a narrowing of the eyes.

  It was a relief to find two nurses waiting for us at the clinic. The boys needed one injection in each arm, so the plan was to inject both arms simultaneously, one child at a time. Despite his brave words, Reef looked nervous, and so Finn, in typical bombastic style, volunteered to go first. Sitting on my lap, he boldly rolled up his sleeves and stuck out both arms, looking as confident as he did when he high-fived Mr. Webber.

  Seconds later, the efficient nurses having performed their job perfectly, Finn let out a loud scream and looked at Reef in horror.

  “They stuck nails in my arms!” he wailed in disgust.

  He turned to look at me, tears spilling down his cheeks.

  “It really hurts,” he said accusingly. “Reef, it really really hurts. They are going to stick nails in your arms!”

  Finn’s little face was so full of outrage and his reaction was so dramatic I found myself trying not to laugh. Thankfully, Reef barely had a chance to respond before the nurses had swiftly administered his shots too, and the ordeal was over. By now Finn was walking round hugging himself, rubbing his upper arms as if he’d been attacked with six-inch nails, and Reef was as white as a sheet but was saying unconvincingly: “It wasn’t that bad.” Kate would have done the mummy bit now, kissing their arms better and offering words of comfort, and no doubt giving me a look to warn me to stop laughing.

  “Come on, lads,” I said. “You’re both tough guys, well done. Now put your sweaters back on and let’s go. You can have some chewing gum in the car.”

  I wasn’t Kate and couldn’t do what she would have done. There are just some things mums do better than dads, and I had to accept that, even though I felt pangs of regret thinking that way.

  I jumped in the driver’s seat, and, with their sore arms, both boys struggled to buckle themselves into their booster seats in the back. It was a job I’d taught them to do, and something they’d done hundreds of times before.

  “Can’t do it!” Finn sulked.

  “Daddy, you have to do it,” Reef whined.

  “No, boys. It’s not that difficult. You have to do it yourselves,” I said.

  It would have been quicker for me to get out of my seat and do it for them, but I was making a point. They were four and six years old, well capable of clicking a seat belt into place, even with aching arms. I wanted to bring them up to be self-sufficient and, besides, as a single parent I needed them to do as much as possible for themselves. It was a full five minutes before both buckles were finally clicked into place, and when I caught a glimpse of the boys’ cross little faces in the rear-view mirror, I wondered if I’d been a bit hard.

  “Here you are, boys, here’s a piece of chewing gum each,” I said cheerfully.

  They brightened up, but it reminded me of the first time they’d had chewing gum, after I told them Mummy was dead. Just like then, Finn had tear-stained cheeks and the smell of sweet strawberry flavoring hung in the cold, damp air. Treating grief with gum suddenly seemed like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite. I then had a horrible jolt, thinking that I’d failed to do something Kate had asked. “Always help them if they ask,” she had said.

  Was I too tough on the boys? Should I do things differently? Was Kate right to put that on the list? I’d have a chat with Ruth and ask her opinion tonight, I decided. I’d had a few missed calls on my phone while we’d been at the clinic, and when I got home I was surprised to see the answerphone flashing too. I dialed my voicemail, and to my delight it was the reporter from South West News Service.

  “We’ve had quite a lot of interest in your story from the national press,” she said. “You could be in a few national papers tomorrow, give me a ring.”

  It turned out that almost every national newspaper in the country was planning to use our story, complete with family photos. I phoned Ruth excitedly to tell her the news.

  “Wow!” she said, adding in typical frank style, “I’m not sure Kate would have loved it though, Singe.”

  “She’d be absolutely gobsmacked, I know I am,” I said. “But I know she wouldn’t mind, or I wouldn’t do it. By the way, Ruth, can I run something past you?”

  I explained all about the scene with the seat belts and asked Ruth straight whether she thought I was too hard on the boys.

  “Absolutely not,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “They know you love them and care for them, and you’d be doing them a disservice if you pampered them.”

  “Yes, but I can’t do the mummy stuff like Kate did . . .” I said.

  “Singe, nobody expects you to,” Ruth replied. “The boys are a credit to you. How many times have people complimented you on how well-mannered and poised they are for their ages? It’s all down to the way you and Kate brought them up together, and how you’ve carried on bringing them up without her. Kate wouldn’t want you to change. You are a great dad. Sometimes saying ‘no’ is a way of helping your children.”

  I was very grateful to Ruth. I knew she would tell me straight if I was making mistakes and wouldn’t just tell me what I wanted to hear. I remembered how she stood toe to toe with me once when Kate was ill and I was finding it tough dealing with relatives. I lost my temper with some of them when I was desperately short of sleep, but even though I was going through such a difficult time Ruth cut me no slack. “You’re out of order,” she told me. “Calm yourself down, you’re making things ten times worse.” With hindsight she was right, as she always is.

  “Thanks, Ruth, you’re a great mate,” I told her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  As soon as I put the phone down it rang again. It was the news agency, asking if I would appear on Sky News, the BBC and ITN the next day to talk about Mum’s List.

  “Of course,” I said eagerly. “I wasn’t banking on having film footage for the memory boxes too, but bring it on!”

  October 1 turned into quite a surreal day. I’d agreed that the local BBC News could film the boys going into school, but when the reality of it dawned as we went about our normal morning routine, I wondered what I’d let us all in for.

  “Why are the television people filming us?” Reef asked, completely bemused.

  “Because they want to do a story about the list Mummy left for us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, well, because it’s quite unusual for a mummy to do that.”

  “Why did Mummy do it?”

  “Because she was extra special.”

  “OK, then. Can we go now?”

  Finn was thrilled by the excitement of it all, enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame as the film crew followed both boys walking up the little path into school. My mobile rang before it was my turn to be interviewed. Unusually for that time of the morning, it was my old friend Nathan.

  “Singe, I’m on the train,” he said. “And I’ve just nearly fallen off the seat. You’re splashed across The Times!”

  I roared with laughter. “I think it’s great,” I told him. “I’m thrilled to bits.”

  When the camera turned to me, I must admit I felt a bit like a rabbit caught in headlights. This was weird and totally unexpected, though undeniably exhilarating too. Once I got going I relished the opportunity to sing Kate’s praises and explain what an amazing wife and mother she had been, and what a wonderful life we had had together.

  Mum’s List was the icing on the cake, I explained. It was over and above what any mum might be expected to do in her dying days, but that was Kate all over. I’d gotten so used to living with Mum’s List I was surprised it was causing such a stir, and I said that too.

  The BBC journalist told me we were indeed featured in all the big daily newspapers. As well as The Times, there were huge articles in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror, Sun, Express an
d Guardian. Now Radio Five also wanted me to do an interview with them.

  “Are you happy with everything?” the reporter from South West News Service asked tentatively.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m not sure Kate would have relished all this attention, but I think it’s a brilliant tribute to her.”

  My phone never stopped ringing throughout the day, with friends from all over the country phoning me to say they’d seen me in a newspaper or on the news. Journalists from as far afield as Spain and Japan wanted to cover the story too.

  I arranged for ITN and Sky to do their interviews once I’d brought Reef and Finn home from school in the afternoon, and I’ll never forget the look on the boys’ faces when we drove into our cul-de-sac. The house was completely surrounded by TV vans topped with satellite dishes, and people with clipboards and phones were milling all around. It’s just as well the neighbors know us so well, I thought, because save for a strip of yellow police tape it looked like a major crime had been committed.

  “Can we go in the trucks?” Reef and Finn asked, having no trouble unbuckling themselves swiftly and bouncing excitedly out of the car.

  The journalists and crew were fantastic, showing them all the equipment before we started the interviews in our lounge. I had no qualms about letting the boys be filmed. It was an extraordinary experience for them, and they both took it in their stride.

  “Not many young boys have an opportunity to talk on the news,” I told them. “Make the most of it!”

  “Is it really exciting to have the television cameras here?” one journalist asked them.

  “Yes,” said Finn. “Daddy does silly things all the time!”

  I just shrugged and smiled; that was music to my ears.

  The media interest continued over the weekend and then dispersed just about as quickly as it had arrived. I’d found it cathartic talking about Kate, and I don’t think it did the boys any harm at all to talk about how lovely their mummy was, and to have a bit of fun along the way. They told the reporters she was very kind and she always played with them, and they missed her. They did Kate proud, and they looked as cute as anything too.