Leah, I don’t tell you enough. I love you. You mean the world to me and if I ever, ever tell you again that you don’t know what unconditional love is, shoot me. You love everyone in your life that way, including me. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything you do. I don’t know how I could have got through the last few months without you. Jess xxx
I can almost hear Anna chuckling. She does love it when I admit I’m wrong. She did love it when I admitted I was wrong, used to take a childlike delight in it. As I get out of the car, the front door opens and it’s Leah. Her phone is in her hand and she opens her arms to me. I breathe her in. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just came around to give Mum a hand with Dad. I read your text and you’re a soppy cow.’
‘No, you’re my best friend and I need you and I’m sorry. I don’t always see things from your eyes.’
I get a very rare tight squeeze from her before she lets go, ushers me into the house. ‘Come on. Dad’s ready for bed and Mum’s wafting around in her nightie.’ Just before we close the door, Clara’s car appears on the drive. Leah disappears and I hold open the door as Rose gets out, laden with toys. She kisses her grandma and runs into the house. My immediate reaction is to be annoyed – she has enough toys. The house is coming down with toys, and then I think of Clara and the news that she will get very soon – that Rose isn’t even her granddaughter – and my heart fractures. So many ripple effects, Anna.
Clara doesn’t come in, seems a bit standoffish, and I realize that Sean is in the back of the car, looking worse for wear. She must have picked him up from the pub, and I know that he will have said something to her; I sense that he will have told her, probably ranting about DNA in his drunken state.
‘Clara,’ I call after her.
She stops at the open driver’s door. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Jess,’ she says, and climbs into her new Volvo. I stare at the space she left for a moment before closing the door. Shit.
My father is resplendent in what I can tell are new pyjamas, sitting on the tatty sofa, Rose already by his side. Mum is pottering in a floaty nightie. Leah is standing at the fridge with a bottle of vodka and two glasses of ice in her hands.
‘I have time for one.’ She jerks her head towards the kitchen end and we lean against the sink, the pair of us nursing glasses of neat, iced vodka. ‘Gus is picking me up in five,’ she says, glancing at her watch. ‘He was so cut up by today, I think he wanted a quiet half-hour.’
‘Doug is going to call by here tomorrow, convoy Mum and Dad home – though we can’t let her know she’s being escorted.’
‘I’m back in work,’ Leah says.
Of course she is. Normal hours, normal life resumes tomorrow. Not for me. I have decided to take the rest of the week off but send Rose into school, if she’s up for it. Every part of my body aches. Every part of me hurts; my neck, my shoulders, and my legs, right down to my fingers. I’m exhausted and know it. Helen told me to take what time I need and I’m going to. I need this week.
‘You’ll be okay?’
‘I will. I’m staying in bed for the day.’ I take a slug of the vodka, but for some reason don’t feel its power tonight and put the glass on the draining board. ‘Clara was odd.’ I look over at Rose. ‘I think Sean said something. He was pissed.’
‘Poor woman,’ Leah frowns. ‘You’ve got to feel for them.’
‘What was she thinking, Leah? Anna. I ask myself over and over and over again, but what was she thinking involving Sean if he was never Rose’s dad, if she really was seeing someone else for years?’
Leah puts a hand on my arm. ‘We like to think we know our loved ones, but they can often do things that shock.’
The doorbell sounds.
‘And that, I suppose,’ she waves her phone at me, ‘is that unconditional love thing. If we love someone, there’s nothing they could do that could make us stop loving them. Or is there a line?’
‘There’s a line,’ I say. ‘Except with your children.’
She laughs. ‘So you didn’t really mean what you said in your text.’
I pull her into an embrace. ‘I meant every word. With Anna, my child, the truth is no matter what she’s done, no matter what she could ever have done, I would have loved her. I would have stuck by her as unconditionally as humanly possible. I know you feel that towards the people you love: me, Gus, your stepdaughter. That actually makes you a better person. I put conditions on any relationship I’ve ever had other than with Anna.’
She grins at my confession.
Mum has let Gus in and he’s standing there watching us, red-eyed. ‘Am I spoiling a moment?’ he asks.
‘No.’ Leah and I part and she says goodbye to Mum and Dad, promises to come and see them very soon. Rose clings to my side as Leah leaves.
‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ I ask.
She nods. ‘Can I sleep with you again tonight, Nanny?’
‘Of course you can.’
‘In Mummy’s bed?’
‘Of course.’
My mum looks on from her standing position by the door and we both know I probably won’t be getting back to my own bed anytime soon.
Mum made sandwiches earlier and I force a leftover corner of bread into my mouth and start to load the dishwasher as quietly as possible. She appears beside me and, like automatons, we both load the plates, her handing them to me, me stacking.
‘We think we have time,’ she says.
I just nod; my nodding reflex, by now, perfectly tuned. Sometimes, depending on the situation, I have even perfected a tiny accompanying smile.
‘Do you mind if we go up to bed? I have a long drive tomorrow.’
I decide to wait until the morning to tell her about Doug. ‘Of course not. Thank you for being here. I know it’s a lot for you and Dad.’
She rinses a plate under the sink and hands it to me. ‘Like we could not have been here. Like we wouldn’t have been part of her send-off?’ She dries her hands on a tea towel with a picture of a Christmas tree and baubles that Rose gave me. ‘Leah and you. I couldn’t help overhearing earlier. About Sean …’
I would always have told Mum what’s unravelling with Anna, but would have chosen another day.
‘It’s complicated, Mum.’ My sigh sounds as tired as I feel.
‘Isn’t it always?’
‘I don’t know what to do with any of it yet.’
‘Maybe you should just let sleeping dogs lie …’
The radiator beside me crackles, bubbles of water locked in there somewhere. The television that Dad is watching sounds the peal of the ten o’clock news.
‘Just bear in mind that what you think you should do might not be the best thing for Rose.’
She’s probably right. If she were me, and she was in my position – that is exactly what she would do. Mum would leave it alone and be glad that the Gods might allow her to keep her grandchild.
She is staring at me, probably waiting for a response and my eyes blink slowly. One, two, three … eight, nine, ten. As Big Ben chimes, the thought of James Elliot’s hand on mine earlier today crosses my mind again.
I give Mum a gentle nod.
28. Jess
The next morning, she knows exactly what’s happening when Doug arrives, knows exactly what we had cooked up between us; but, oddly, Mum doesn’t object. She gives me a look that I can tell is a mixture of relief and annoyance. Rose, who I’ve allowed to stay home from school until they go, hovers in the background, watching as the car is loaded up.
Before Dad is helped into the front seat by Doug, he holds me as tight as he can with the strength he possesses in one side of his body. ‘Poor baby,’ he whispers, and I’m not sure if he means me, or Anna or Rose. I kiss his cheek, let Doug help him inside and walk around to my mum.
‘I’m going to come up and spend a few days with you, soon,’ I tell her. Seeing them, particularly seeing her go this morning, has released something in me. I’m frightened. I feel like I did when I left home firs
t, or when I got married – those big events when I left the sanctuary of my parents’. I don’t want to let go of my mother. I want her to make it all go away. I really don’t want them to leave.
‘You’re okay, Jess,’ she says, then climbs into the front seat of her Micra. ‘You know where we are.’
I pick Rose up and together we wave at the convoy until they’re out of sight.
‘Can I stay home with you, Nanny?’ It starts before we’re even back in the house.
‘You have to go to school, darling.’
‘But you’re staying at home. You always come to school too.’
I have never noticed this. From Rose’s point of view, I’m in school with her. The fact that I consider it a working environment is one thing, but in her head, Nanny comes to school with her.
‘Nanny’s not well today. You know sometimes when you’re poorly?’
She nods.
‘If you’re poorly, you stay at home and get well, and today, Nanny is poorly.’
Nanny just wants to crawl back into bed. Any bed.
‘I’m poorly too, feel?’ She holds her palm up to her forehead.
‘You feel fine to me.’ I touch it.
Then she starts to cry.
Rose isn’t a crybaby. Nor is she sick. Suddenly, the reality of having to look after, I mean be solely responsible for, this little girl’s well-being – emotionally, physically, mentally – hits me in the gut. I bend down to her level and hold her. She clings like a limpet and I know there’ll be no school for her today. I also know I have no idea how to deal with this. I have no clue how to comfort her, how much she really knows and really feels. If I take the route that she knows everything, really understands that her mother is never coming back – the poor little scrap should be able to stay home and cling to me for as long as she needs to. On the other hand, if I do ‘what’s best for her’, she should probably get back into school and her routine as quickly as possible.
What’s best for her … The words roll around my mind. Leah has asked me a couple of times if I was being selfish; was I sure about what I was doing? I pour cornflakes into a bowl, ruffle Rose’s hair. This isn’t selfish. Yes, it’s what I want, but it’s hard and it’s going to get harder. If I were being selfish, I’d have let her go, let her be with Sean. I’d have got some sort of life of my own back. Instead, I now have Rose to think about, Rose to put first for at least the next twelve years. She looks up at me, wide-eyed, as she munches her cereal. And those eyes tell me she’s grateful – that if her mummy has to be gone, she’s glad I’m here. I ignore the nagging doubt I have about starting a chain of events that means Sean may be gone from her life too.
We spend the rest of the day in front of the television, both of us wrapped up in a blanket on the tatty sofa. Pug spends most of the time on Rose’s lap, apart from the moments Rose takes her out on the lead in the garden. Every time she does, I hear her squeal with laughter – she seems to find it hilarious seeing Pug wee. The sound gives me hope.
We eat the scraps that we have in. Two meals cobbled together from whatever is in the freezer. When she asks for pizza, I tell her it’s fish fingers today. I’m not going out. Today is just one day I don’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. This includes Theo – maybe especially includes Theo. He has blasted my phone with so many texts that I’ve turned it off.
This is how we spend the day after Anna’s funeral – cocooned away from the world. Rose and I have a sleep together in the afternoon and, when it comes to bedtime, I convince her to sleep in my bed. I need my own bed tonight. Mum, being Mum, has already changed the linen, and I tuck Rose in, telling her I’ll be shortly behind her. She’s almost asleep before I even leave.
I don’t go straight downstairs. Instead, I pass through the landing to Anna’s room. My palm massaging my forehead, I look around. There must be something. Maybe I missed something. It’s with this thought that I begin to search. It’s not just a ‘lift up the blanket and peer to see what’s underneath’ search. It’s more the forensic type. I go through every scrap of paper in her accordion file. There are no more letters – not that I was expecting any. Her life was lived in the digital world. Every loving note she ever sent was a text or an email. I have some cards in a drawer in my room from when she was young, but as soon as phones arrived on the scene … By nine o’clock, my stomach is growling and I have been through every single crevice in her room. There is nothing. Nothing that would hint at a man, which is strange in itself. Who has nothing, nothing at all from their lover?
I’m downstairs trawling the Internet for any information on James Elliot. He is not in Anna’s lists of friends on her Facebook page, which I first stalked on the eighth of December. I had to stop – the outpouring of what I considered premature grief for her was too much back then. Her laptop, which I only used for stalking her social media, has never revealed anything meaningful, and right now it stubbornly refuses to reveal anything about James … other than his profile on the company website. I’m googling his name when the house phone startles me. It’s Leah.
‘I have the mobile.’
‘Oh.’ I massage my stomach and take a seat on the last step of the stairs next to the landline. ‘It’s open?’
‘I’ve only turned it onto check it opens. I haven’t looked at anything, knew you’d want to first.’
‘Right.’
‘Look,’ Leah says. ‘Don’t go off on one when I tell you this and tell me you’re fine because I know you’re not. I have loads of holiday due, so I’ve taken the rest of the week off. Let’s take Rose up to the Lakes. I’ve spoken to Gus, he’s fine with it. You know him, he buries himself in work when things are tough and I think he probably knows you and I need to be together right now. What do you think?’
‘Mum and Dad only just left.’
‘I know, but we could kill two birds with one stone. I’ve sorted out some temporary agency help for Mum while we wait for the home-care package from the doctor’s. We can bed that in and you can try and relax a bit and we can make some new memories for Rose.’
‘Have you really not looked at the phone?’
‘Jess, I said so. I just turned it on, then turned it off again. Steve, the guy who unlocked it, set up a new PIN code. I’m the only person who knows it, so be nice to me. Look, I can just bring it over now if you like, or we could both go up north tomorrow and I’ll give it to you then.’
I make an instant decision. Despite my will to be strong, right now I probably need my family around me.
‘Tomorrow. Let’s go early. Let’s not tell Mum. She’ll just fuss. I’ll go and pack a bag for me and Rose.’
‘A few days’ clothes, no more – we’ll come back on Saturday. I’ll drive, I’ll be there at eight.’
‘Okay, Leah?’
‘Yup?’
‘Don’t forget the phone.’
When the call is finished, I head straight upstairs and throw some clothes of mine into a bag in the dark. In Rose’s bedroom, I do the same. I have no idea what we’ll be wearing. I have no urge to match her clothes the way I normally would. I just feel very relieved that for a few days I’m getting out of here.
Two a.m. I’m up again and downstairs staring out through the rear window to the back garden. Every time I have tried to lie down and sleep, I’m gripped by panic. It’s the night, I tell myself, looking outside to the black, star-free sky. Dark clouds chase one another – there is rain on the way. By my feet lies an empty suitcase and a pile of clothes. They are the last things she wore. I have rubbed them against my skin, smelled them until my nose hurts. I should wash them but can’t bring myself to. They’ll end up being repacked in the case, the case put under her bed, until the next time the night won’t let me breathe easy.
On my knees, I begin to fold them. Her black polo-neck jumper. She lied to me. Her dark navy jeans. She lived a lie right here with me, right here in this room on our tatty sofa. Underwear, a matching black bra and knickers. Who gave her the underwear? Her Pepp
a Pig dressing gown. She must have thought she couldn’t tell me. What does that say about me? Slippers, white, sheepskin. It says, however much I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me either. Her makeup bag. Did I suffocate her? Was that it? Did the love that I thought was unconditional strangle my daughter too?
My hand rests on the white plastic bag. The red suit is the one thing I haven’t been able to touch. I open it; release the smell of death into the room. Tears fall slowly, silently. ‘You have to start to pull yourself together,’ I tell myself out loud. ‘She’s gone. You can’t ask her what you want to ask her. You can’t hold her and tell her it doesn’t matter.’ I unravel the suit and clutch it to my chest, ignoring the rips in the legs, and I sit there rocking on my knees.
Outside the rain is falling. The wind has whipped up a gale and lightning flashes nearby. The silver zips on the red suit seem to wink in its glow. I pull open the first pocket. Inside is a lip salve and a white hanky. It is tightly creased and, when I shake it out, I have to hold my nose.
It’s large. It’s a man’s, definitely, and my heartbeat thumps in my ears. An image appears on my closed eyelids: a tiny triangle of white peering out of a breast pocket. A dampened white square rubbing orange sauce from a new suit. There is only one man I know who uses handkerchiefs. Oh My God.
29. Jess
The morning sun shooting early shards of sunlight through the trees makes a liar of the debris on the rear lawn. Last night’s wind and rain has brought many branches down. I’d normally be out there, clearing it all into separate piles of rubbish and potential firewood, happily hacking at the latter with an axe, creating a store for winter.
I blow my coffee; accept that – since Anna died – I can’t seem to focus on the future, yet I’m worried constantly about it. I can’t seem to plan. Take the firewood – I have no desire to go outside and do something for next winter. I may not be here next winter. I fold the white square in my hand as small as it will go, watch it spring open again when I release it. There’s a tiny stain on one corner and I scrape it with my fingernail. If it could talk, this piece of cotton would tell me what that is now lurking under my nail. It would tell me the name of its owner. Not Theo. It can’t be Theo’s. It might tell me where it’s been in the world. It has definitely been to France and back recently, which is more than I can say for Anna. Tears threaten and I chomp my cheeks, refuse to allow them to fall. The sound of Leah’s car out front makes me move, call out to Rose upstairs. I’ve told her she can take four things, four toys, and she has been upstairs choosing for the last ten minutes. I yell her name as I open the front door.
The Day I lost You Page 17