‘Anyway, I have some printed information here,’ he says, sliding sheets across the desk for them, ‘and the rest has been emailed to you.
‘Once you’re at the cottage, you’ll find much more. This, if you do it the way your mother intended, will not be a quick rummage through a few boxes – so I’d suggest that unless you have other plans, you both go home, and make arrangements for some time off work, and sort out any domestic necessities. A couple of weeks should do it—’
‘That won’t be possible,’ interrupts Poppy, quickly, ‘not right now, I’m afraid. Can this be done later?’
Rose gasps audibly, and Lewis gives Poppy a look that, he hopes, might literally turn her to stone. Then he could smash her to tiny pieces with a hammer.
‘I see,’ he says slowly, gazing at her over his specs. ‘Is there some kind of dog food advertising emergency that you need to sort out? A cat collar campaign that needs overseeing? Heaven forbid that your mother should dare to die at such an inconvenient time. You really should have sent the cancer a memo, then perhaps it could have been rearranged.’
Poppy tries to meet this look with defiance, and Rose stays quiet and shuffles, and for a few seconds the only sound in the room is that of his antique carriage clock ticking on the mantelpiece. It is a battle of wills, and one which he knows he will win – because he is right.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Poppy eventually replies, redeeming herself slightly by looking suddenly and unexpectedly tearful. She’s just a child, he tells himself – a damaged child. A child that Andrea loved.
‘Splendid. I’d suggest you meet back at the cottage in two days’ time – can I say midday, to give you both enough time to make it here from your respective dwellings, and me enough time to give everything a final check-over?
‘There are several packages, and the information you have includes all the instruction you’ll need, pass codes, that kind of thing. I hope you’ll find it illuminating. I know I did – or at least as much as I was allowed to see.’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Poppy, frowning as she drags the papers towards her with long, painted fingernails. ‘I assumed you’d been the one helping her put all of this together? Surely she wasn’t well enough to do it on her own?’
There is a slightly accusing note in her voice, and he shrugs it off. It’s not him she’s angry with, it’s herself. And quite right too.
‘I helped her with much of it, but some things, she said, were meant only for your eyes – so I respected that. She only had one proviso – that you do this together, or not at all. One of you can’t take possession of the items without the other’s permission, and all of the various tasks and scenarios that she has laid out for you must be completed in each other’s company.
‘I know, from what she told me, that this will not be especially straightforward – but I would ask you to respect her wishes. If, after seeing the materials she has left, you decide you cannot go ahead, then simply let me know and I’ll arrange for it all to be collected. And destroyed.’
He sees Rose wince at his use of the word ‘destroyed’, and feels a smidgeon of guilt. He only said it for effect. He wouldn’t be capable of destroying anything Andrea had left behind – he’d even kept her combs and her lipstick and the last crumpled tissue she’d used to wipe the tears from her eyes after she had finished the video.
‘Now, unless there is anything else I can help you with, I suggest we adjourn for now. I, for one, quite frankly feel bloody awful, and I’m sure you two have a lot to think about. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions, and I will be in touch with regard to the estate in due course.’
He stands – using his six-foot-four height to full advantage – and waits until they follow suit. He can tell that Poppy wants to argue, but can’t find anything to argue about.
Eventually, both of them stand, and he passes a set of keys into Rose’s shaking hands. He admits to himself that this is childish, and he did it because he knew it would annoy Poppy. But, as Andrea would say, small pleasures, darling, soon mount up.
They both mutter their thank yous, and start to leave, Rose lingering slightly so there is no danger of making any accidental physical contact with her sister. He shakes his head as they go, not at all sure from this initial encounter whether even the warmth of Andrea’s legacy will be enough to melt this kind of permafrost.
As she reaches the door, Rose hesitates, and turns back to face him.
‘Can I ask you something, Lewis?’ she says, voice small and apologetic.
‘Of course,’ he replies.
‘You and my mum … you seem to have been so close. You’ve obviously been a huge help to her. Can I ask – were you more than friends?’
There is a hopeful note to her question, as though she desperately wants him to say yes. Perhaps it would make her feel less guilty about her mother’s final few weeks if she thinks she had a lover by her side, instead of a boring old fart of a solicitor.
‘I loved your mother dearly,’ he says, fighting to keep his own voice from cracking, ‘but no, we weren’t more than friends. She wasn’t my type, beautiful creature though she was. I’m more of a Jason Statham man myself.’
He enjoys the look of shock on both their faces – he doesn’t get to shock people anywhere near enough these days – and finds himself smiling as they leave.
Smiling, and wondering. Wondering what went wrong, all those years ago, to cause such an apparently uncrossable divide?
And wondering if there is any way that a trip through Andrea’s sometimes psychedelic alphabet will be able to bridge it.
PART TWO
The Curtain Opens:
The A–Z Begins
Chapter 20
Poppy
I am sitting in my car, outside the childhood home I’ve not seen for over a decade, waiting for them to get here.
Waiting for my sister, who I haven’t properly talked to for seventeen years, and my nephew, who I hadn’t even met until the day of the funeral. I have been avoiding thinking, and feeling, and crying, for so long now, I’m not sure I even exist any more.
I am just a blob of a human being, melting on a hot summer’s day, confronting a past that makes me cringe and a future I can’t even imagine. I’ve coped until now by keeping busy. By out-bitching myself in the office, and by using up every spare moment of every day drinking or working or sometimes both at the same time. Because that’s what hip flasks were invented for.
Everything’s been building up to this – to this A–Z madness – and now, I feel like I’ve been here for hours. My blouse is sticking to the sweat under my armpits, and I have no clue why I still have my leather jacket over my shoulders. Just for show, I suppose, like the stupid high-heeled sandals that are crippling my feet. Heaven forbid I look less than perfect.
I might look it, but I really don’t feel it. I’m a nervous wreck, and every time I hear the distant sound of a car engine, one that might be hers, I try and pull myself back together again.
I’ve planned for this, I tell myself. I’ve practised my neutral face in the mirror, and my calm speaking voice by talking out loud. I am determined not to start us off on the wrong foot, but … well. She’s late. And there’s nothing like being locked out of your dead mother’s house to make you tetchy.
Obviously, I’d arrived early as well, so it’s almost an hour I’ve been waiting now. Walking around the gardens; counting the gnomes; staring through the windows. Thinking about stuff I didn’t want to think about.
It was the window peeking that finally did me in. Shielding my face from the glare of the sun, like you do when you’re at an ATM on a bright day, and gazing inside at the living room. Seeing the chintzy sofa and the matching armchair, and picturing Mum sitting there, watching a movie or reading a book or on the phone to me.
The little side table next to it, where she kept her glasses – both the type she used to read with, and the type she used to drink wine from. The books on the shelves; the n
ow-empty vase she usually had filled with wildflowers. The brand-new flat-screen TV that I’d heard all about – ‘darling, I swear, Richard Burton’s head is bigger on my new telly than it was in real life!’
It all looks the same. Apart from the flat-screen. Just like it did the last time I was here, which is way too many years ago. I almost expect to see her pottering around in there, wearing her yoga pants and a nice pashmina, wandering in from the kitchen with a jug of something cool and alcoholic.
It’s the knowledge that she won’t ever wander in again that breaks me. And when the tears come, they come with a vengeance – as though they’re annoyed that I’ve been avoiding them for the last few days. Holding them back, imprisoning them behind chains made of to-do lists and meetings.
I retreat into the car, with the air con on, and just let them flow. Best to get them out of the way before putting my game face on. At least one grubby angel needs to try and stay strong enough to get through this.
I’m tired, and sad, and I want my old life back – the one where kicking the arses of the graphics team was the most trying thing on my schedule. Or, even better, the one before that. The one where I was a loud, proud angry young woman, preparing to do battle with the world. Preparing to battle with Rose on one side, and my mum on the other – safe in their love and secure in the knowledge that both of them would always be there for me.
Now, I have neither – and I’m finally being forced to think about it. To do like our mum asked, and look back at where it all started to go wrong. This is not my idea of a fun time, and it doesn’t help to stem the waterworks.
By the time I hear her car chugging up the lane, I’m a bit calmer, but a lot soggier. I have kept a box of tissues on the passenger seat for exactly this kind of occasion, and clean myself up, inspecting my face in the mirror when I’m done. Not perfect, but good enough under the circumstances.
I get out of the car, and arrange myself carefully, aiming to look fifty shades of okay by the time she actually arrives.
Part of me is terrified – part of me is relieved. She’s now forty minutes late, and I had been starting to wonder if she’d decided not to come. If I wasn’t worth the effort. If she’d just completely forgotten about me.
Because that, even if she doesn’t realise it, was one of the things she got really good at. And that, as far as I can see, is where the rot first started to set in.
Chapter 21
The Cottage, 1999 – Poppy’s 22nd Birthday
I am still living at home, after doing my English degree. It’s weird being back, but I’m kind of between life choices at the moment. Floating between one stage and the other, like a once-shiny helium balloon running out of puff.
After I graduated, I did some travelling, but got so bored I ditched my friends in a beer cellar in Budapest, and made my way back to the UK. None the worse for wear, apart from the Buddha tattoo on my hip that had seemed like an excellent idea at the time.
Now I’m home, I’m stuck in a rut. An English degree doesn’t feel like the most useful thing in the world. I can’t go off and build wells in the Third World, or discover a new planet, or cure cancer. I can, of course, quote extensive passages of Beowulf in Old English, but that isn’t a great consolation.
A lot of my friends are going into journalism, and there’s always teaching, of course. That phrase gets repeated so often it should have capital letters – There’s Always Teaching. I’m not set against that, but I don’t feel passionate about it either.
Still, it would be a shedload better than marketing, which one of my more ambitious friends has moved into – for a pharmaceutical company as well. I can’t think of anything worse than marketing – totally soul destroying.
What I’d really like to do is write a book, which doesn’t exactly make me special. Everyone wants to write a book, including our milkman, Fred. But wanting to write a book, and actually doing it, are very different things, I’ve discovered recently.
Truth is, I don’t have much to write about yet. Boyfriends: several; none serious enough to break my heart. Travel: backpacking around Europe, where every hostel seemed the same, and every night seemed to consist solely of drinking cheap local beer. Trauma: luckily, I suppose, very little. Family: oddly shaped, but brilliant.
So far, my books have been big on emotions, and low on action. Pretty much like myself right now, I think, rolling around on my bed and staring at a poster of The Doors. The Blu-Tack on one corner has died, and the paper is curling up on itself, making Jim Morrison look as though he only has one leather-clad leg.
I’m bored, but also gripped with some kind of paralysis that is stopping me doing anything else. It’s all just too … comfortable here.
Mum makes it very easy to loll around at home, pottering in the village and watching crap telly and reading. Mum is glad of the company – she’s between gigs herself, as parts for middle-aged ladies don’t seem to come knocking that often. Patriarchal bullshit is alive and kicking in the world of show biz, it seems.
One day, perhaps I’ll move to London, and live in a Bohemian garret and write stirring literature with a feminist sub-plot – but not right now. For now, this will do – and at least I have the weekend to look forward to.
It’s my birthday today. I’m 22 years old, which sounds a lot more grown up than I feel. Up until 21, you get away with things. Your twenty-first is a birthday on which cash still falls out of your cards when you open them. You get shiny metallic-painted plastic keys, and cakes, and parties, and older people look all misty-eyed and reminiscent as they buy you booze.
Nobody expects anything of you when you’re 21, not even yourself. It still feels like you’re just starting out. Twenty-two, though … well, it’s a bit of a nothing birthday, isn’t it? Nothing, but old.
Still, the one advantage of having a birthday is that Rose will be coming home. She’s still in Liverpool, and shows no signs of budging. She’s done her degree – got a first, obviously – and her Masters. Now she’s taking a year off, working in a lab where they do something frightfully clever with plant cells, and is considering taking on a PhD. So she’ll eventually be Dr Rose.
She’s already made it very clear that if she does go down that route, she will fully be expecting everyone in the family to refer to her as Dr Rose at all times.
I like this idea, and the ways I could have fun with it: ‘Would you like salt and vinegar on your chips, Dr Rose?’ ‘Pint of lager please, Dr Rose.’ ‘Was it you who let out that terrible fart, Dr Rose? It smells like a gerbil crawled up your bum and died, Dr Rose.’
She’s not quite decided yet, but I hope she does it purely for the comedy value. And, you know, because it would add value to the world. Unlike me, Rose could potentially cure cancer, or at least make coffee for someone who is curing cancer. Rose is brilliant; a huge, clever cake, with awesome sauce and sprinkles on top.
I miss her so much, and I can’t wait for the weekend. She came home for Christmas, but then disappeared back up North for the New Year – she invited me to go along, but I didn’t want to leave Mum on her own.
Mum had taken me in, cooked my dinners, pretended the tattoo wasn’t awful, and lent me the car whenever I needed to escape. Mum had been great.
The least I could do was spend New Year with her. It had even turned out to be a laugh – we downed several chilled G&Ts, made in a jug with cucumber just how she likes them, and then saw the year in with the rest of the village at the Farmer’s Arms.
At least, the rest of the village aged over 30. Younger people go to the Tennyson’s, where the landlord accepts a library card as a valid form of ID. The grown-ups go the Farmer’s, which is all olde-worlde stone floors and exposed brick walls and a blazing fireplace, like something out of Emmerdale but with more adultery.
I could have gone to the Tennyson’s. There would still be people I knew there – but it felt wrong, somehow. The thought of seeing people from school again made me feel melancholy.
Either they’d have fab ca
reers and exciting prospects, which would make me jealous, or they’d be taxi drivers or working at the poultry-processing plant down the road, which would make me depressed. All that gilded youth now elbow deep in turkeys would be too much to handle.
New Year wasn’t quite the same without Rose, who was at some super-duper party in Scouseland, but it was fun – especially the part where Mum led a conga round the bar to the soundtrack of Prince singing ‘1999’.
Now it’s the first week in February, which I always think is a totally shitty time to have a birthday. Everyone is skint after Christmas, the weather is always crap, and there’s nothing in the whole month worth looking forward to. Unless you count Valentine’s Day, which I don’t, as I’ll only get one card this year. It will be signed ‘from your secret admirer’, and it will be from my own mother.
Rose coming back for the weekend is the only thing I’ve had to look forward to for ages. We always spend the nearest weekends to our birthdays together, even when we’ve been living in completely different parts of the country. Rose would come to my college bar and get drunk, or vice versa. Or sometimes we’d just meet at the cottage, which was kind of in the middle, and Mum would do jelly and ice cream and tell us both how splendid we are.
I roll over so I can play Snake on my new Nokia, and jump when the phone actually rings. I see that it is Rose, and answer it immediately. Happy time is here.
‘Hey Dr Rose!’ I say, sitting up, cross-legged, absent-mindedly sticking down the corner of that Doors poster as she talks. Poor Jim has enough problems without losing a leg. ‘How’s it hanging?’
‘It’s hanging well, thank you,’ says Rose, slightly crackly over the phone lines – the reception is pretty rough out here in the middle of the arse end of nowhere.
‘In fact, it’s hanging in a decidedly Irish way. You won’t believe this, sis, but I’m in Dublin. Sitting in a pub in Temple Bar, pint of Guinness in front of me, and a band playing “It’s A Long Way To Tipperary” in the background. Can you hear them?’
The A-Z of Everything Page 9