The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr

by Frances Maynard

  Sylvia was wearing a different pair of earrings from when I’d last seen her. Small gold hoops that didn’t move when she shook her head. “I don’t like the sound of that breathing,” she whispered.

  I didn’t like the sound either. For a moment I thought of Mark’s panting when he’d attacked me. I remembered what he’d whispered, and the pain in my back when he’d forced me against the fence, and shuddered.

  “You cold, pet?” asked Sylvia.

  “No, I’m all right, thank you.”

  I don’t know why she did it, but she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me, and we rocked together for several seconds.

  • • •

  Mother Passed Away at four minutes past three. Just before that, her breathing got worse, and Sylvia went to fetch Maria. I did hold Mother’s hand then because Sylvia said it might be a comfort. Mother took four more breaths, with long pauses in between, and then she stopped. I held her hand even tighter, but she had already Passed Away. A few seconds ago, she was with me, here, the noise of her breathing the center of everything, and now she was gone.

  Mother had attended St. Anne’s Church’s Bridge afternoons for years, but that was in the Church Hall. Neither she nor Father had believed in God, although they’d both liked looking around Churches. The older style of Church. So Mother couldn’t have gone to Heaven. She wouldn’t have been allowed in. My face grew wet thinking about Mother’s Spirit, homeless and wandering. It didn’t seem fair; Mother said listening to Operas enriched your soul, and as she’d done little else but that over the past year, her soul must be bursting with goodness.

  Sylvia and Mrs. Hulme were at the door.

  “She’s gone, pet, hasn’t she?” Sylvia whispered. “I can’t hear her breathing.”

  Mrs. Hulme leaned over the bed. When she’d gotten her own breath back, she listened to Mother’s chest with a stethoscope. She looked at her watch, wrote something down, and turned to me. “It was very peaceful, wasn’t it, dear? What we’d all want at the end.” Then she called the doctor although it was Too Late.

  Afterward, Sylvia took me home and helped me make the dinner. It was Spinach Gnocchi because it was Monday. When she’d gone, I went upstairs and sat on Mother’s bed, on her slippery eiderdown. Mother would have been very cross if she’d known she’d died. Cross not to be in charge anymore or able to check anything. How could such a definite person no longer be here? Sand slid away beneath me, and my whole body shook.

  29.

  The mind plays funny tricks.

  —Mrs. Sylvia Grylls, neighbor

  Sylvia said there was always a lot to do when someone dies. There was a large blue file in Father’s study, labeled What to Do in the Event of My Death. It was behind Mother’s file of Opera Lecture Notes in the big bookcase. Inside were important documents about the house and Mother’s money and a sealed brown envelope with COPY OF MY WILL written on it in Mother’s capital letters.

  Sylvia’s lips pursed as she looked at it. “That’s important, pet. That’ll be another trip to Mr. Watson. Let’s just get the funeral over with first, though, eh?”

  One of the documents was headed My Funeral and another, Death Notice for Daily Telegraph and Sandhaven Courier. “Thought of everything,” said Sylvia, shaking her head. Mother used to read the death notices in the Telegraph. She’d read them out loud. She’d always hoped there’d be one about someone she knew, but that had only happened once, a lady who’d taught her math at school. Shriveled old prune, Mother had commented, seemed old even then. Now it was Mother’s turn.

  Sylvia put on the lilac-framed glasses she kept on a gold chain hidden inside her top because her eyes were aging. She read out the death notice Mother wanted put in:

  Carr—Agnes Margaret Montague. Beloved wife of Gregory James Carr, deceased, and dearly beloved mother of Elvira Jane.

  “Ah, pet.” Sylvia lowered the document. “Makes it very final, doesn’t it?”

  Suddenly at home/peacefully after a short illness/peacefully after a long illness—DELETE AS APPROPRIATE.

  Sylvia’s eyebrows shot up. “Ooh, that’s given me goose bumps, reading that. But of course she wouldn’t have known how she was going to die.” She looked at me over the top of her glasses.

  “She had a top-quality brain,” I said. “She thought of everything.”

  “Certainly did,” said Sylvia.

  Greatly missed by family and friends.

  Funeral at St. Anne’s Church, Sandhaven, on.........................at.....................................

  “She’s left blanks for the date,” said Sylvia, shaking her head.

  All friends welcome at the church.

  One family wreath only, but donations in lieu to Opera for All would be appreciated.

  Sylvia looked up again. “I’ll come with you to order that wreath.” She turned to the last page, wincing as if she’d hurt herself. “Oh, pet, this last bit’s about her ashes.” She moved her finger along the line of writing, not speaking for a minute. “She says she doesn’t want them put in with your dad’s. That’s unusual, pet.” Sylvia blinked. “But I expect she had her reasons.”

  She continued, “My ashes are to be scattered from a cruise ship, to the sound of ‘Remember Me’ from Purcell’s Dido and Annie…Aeneas.” She took off her glasses. “My goodness, she certainly knew what she wanted, your mum. A real stickler for detail.” She tapped the paper. “That’s going to be difficult for you, pet, isn’t it? The scattering might have to wait till me and Trev go on our dream vacation. We’ve been promising ourselves a cruise around the Norwegian fjords for our golden wedding anniversary.”

  She put the pages back into the file. “Your mum’s notes will make things easier. Always knew what she wanted.” Sylvia closed the file with a sigh. “Didn’t always get it, though.”

  • • •

  I chose a wreath with blue flowers, because of the midnight-blue velvet dress in Mother’s wardrobe. There was a card that came with the wreath for the relative or friend to write a message. I wanted to put Not that way, because they’d been Mother’s last words, but Sylvia said they had to be my words. It was very difficult to make a decision so, in the end, I just wrote MOTHER in capital letters.

  • • •

  Mother’s friend Jane telephoned from Dunstable. It was a difficult conversation with lots of pauses. She wouldn’t be able to come to the funeral because of her spine.

  “Nobody else has contacted you, have they, Elvira dear?”

  I told her about the With Deepest Sympathy and Precious Memories cards I’d received from people at Mother’s Bridge Club and Opera Classes and Cruise Talks, and that I’d had a telephone call from the Vicar to discuss the talk he was going to give on Mother. It had been a short telephone call.

  “Nobody else, Elvira dear? Nobody you didn’t know? Nobody claiming to be a relative?”

  I shook my head. “No. I haven’t got any relatives.” I swallowed. “Not now.”

  “That’s good, dear, because you never know.”

  I remembered Mother’s words from long ago: What you don’t know can’t hurt you. I wanted to ask, Never know what? but Jane had to go and lie down.

  • • •

  In between registering the death and arranging the funeral, I stayed in bed. On Saturday, I got up at quarter to ten. It was nearly time to visit Mother, and I was late. I went to the drawer to find a clean T-shirt, and then I remembered Mother had Passed Away. The realization hit me like a great wave at the beach. Surf roared in my ears, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. I got back into bed, pulled the duvet over my head, and cried.

  • • •

  The next day I was in Sylvia’s car—we’d gone to book the café next to St. Anne’s Church for the funeral refreshments—when I saw Mother coming down the High Street. She was walking in her upright way, wearing one of her tweed skirts an
d carrying her black stick with the silver lion handle.

  “It’s Mother!” I banged my hand on the dashboard. “Stop! Stop!”

  Sylvia darted me a look and drew in to the side of the road. I unfastened my seat belt.

  “It’s Mother!” I pointed. “Come back from Away!”

  “Oh, pet,” said Sylvia, peering through the windscreen. “That’s not possible. We saw her body.”

  Mother went into Barclays Bank, even though her bank was the Royal Bank of Scotland. I chewed my lip.

  “We’ll wait here until she comes out.” Sylvia gave my arm a little squeeze. “So you can have a good look.”

  Mother came out, fastening her handbag. On each of her fingers, on both hands, was a chunky, silver ring. Mother hated wearing rings. “Why should I have to tell the world my marital status when men don’t have to?” she’d said and refused to fill in the right box on forms. This lady wasn’t Mother. A shock ran through my body.

  “There, there, pet,” said Sylvia. She tried to hug me, but the hand brake was in the way. “The mind plays funny tricks. When Trev’s mum died—Vera, you know—I was convinced it was her at bingo, same cauliflower perm, same pink glasses. I couldn’t stop staring. It was only when she shouted “House!” in a Scottish accent that I realized it wasn’t her. And that was after her funeral.”

  • • •

  “You could get seasick in here,” Trevor said, swaying from side to side and jerking his bristly chin at Mother’s shipwreck pictures. He put the little chair by the door, ready to carry downstairs, then reached down to her suitcase because he was tall. I think the chair slipped from his hand because he put it down with quite a bang.

  I had to sit down, not because I was seasick, but because Mother’s things were here, waiting for her, not knowing she was never coming back.

  “Faced the final curtain here, didn’t she, old Agnes?” Trevor adjusted his glasses.

  I looked at the curtains. They’d been partly drawn, like they were in my bedroom, when Mother Passed Away.

  “She was happy here, your mum, with her opera music and this lovely view and the nice staff,” said Sylvia, taking a pair of Mother’s shoes from the wardrobe.

  “Life of Riley,” said Trevor. He stretched up to the Storm at Sea painting.

  I nodded, even though I didn’t know who Riley was. “She didn’t like the guinea pigs, though,” I added, “or the entertainment.”

  “Especially when the two were combined.” Trevor tipped Mother’s photos into a box.

  Sylvia frowned at him.

  “Often she didn’t know I was there,” I said.

  I got up to pack Mother’s clothes, as if I was helping her to go on a cruise, when, really, she was already Away. I folded the blue, defeated-looking cardigan with the leather buttons that she’d worn in the hospital. I had to wipe under my eyes with my sleeve.

  30.

  Humans contain dust from distant planets.

  —David Attenborough, wildlife expert

  Mother’s death notices appeared in the Friday editions of the Daily Telegraph and the Sandhaven Courier. I bought copies, cut the death notices out, and put them in Mother’s Documents File. Seeing them in print meant there could be no mistake now. Mother had Passed Away and would not be coming back.

  I sat on the floor of Father’s study with the file open in front of me, sunshine lighting up the dust particles swirling in the air. David Attenborough said humans contained dust from distant planets. In a few days, after her funeral, Mother would be dust. Part of the Cosmic Swirl. Her dust might float off to a distant planet. That might be where Away was.

  • • •

  The only funeral I’d been to before had been Father’s. There had been lots of people I didn’t know there: men in suits with shaven heads or very short hair who’d engineered with Father (one had a tattoo of a snake on his neck), smartly dressed women with lots of jewelry, who were the wives or secretaries of the men in suits, and a long-haired man in tracksuit bottoms who’d smelled of alcohol.

  Mother hadn’t cried. She’d been angry, I remembered. Angry with Father for dying while he was Away and because of something he’d left behind him. She wouldn’t say what it was. But, when you die, you can’t take anything with you. The short-haired strangers had also enraged her. She’d glared at them during the service and hadn’t spoken to them afterward. When I’d asked why, it was because she hadn’t invited them. “I didn’t expect them to read the Telegraph,” she’d said.

  She’d been cross with the two men who’d sat at the back of the church without joining in the hymns or the prayers. They’d scanned the congregation and taken notes. They hadn’t stopped for refreshments; they’d climbed into a Police car and driven off. Mother said the funeral had turned into a circus. She’d been angry with me too, for not being able to do up the zipper on my trousers.

  Now I was mourning the death of another parent, Mother herself. Instead of a With Deepest Sympathy card, Roxanna gave me a drawing of an orangutan, bright orange with a red mouth and wearing a purple skirt. I blue-tacked it to the fridge. Shelbie had suggested that Roxanna do me a drawing, apparently. “She’s moved on,” said Sylvia, nodding. I thought she meant gone to live above the salon, but Sylvia said, no, it meant stopped being angry.

  I told Janice at the checkout in Asda that Mother had died, and the next time I went in, she gave me a Thinking of You card. It was nice of her to think of me. I also had an Our Thoughts Are with You at This Difficult Time card from Brenda at Pet Therapy, signed With Love from Brenda and the Girls. I wasn’t sure if the girls meant the ladies from Canines Who Care, or the guinea pigs.

  Sylvia and I had had trouble deciding what I was going to wear for Mother’s funeral. We’d agreed on a pair of smart black trousers from Marks & Spencer, and I’d wanted to wear a black T-shirt and a black V-necked sweater with them, because that was the color of mourning, but Sylvia said, “Too death metal, pet. You’re not exactly going to fit in wearing those!” (Rule Two.) I wore navy and gray instead, with my smart navy coat on top. I hadn’t worn it for months because of there not being any other Special Occasions. Now it hung about me like a tent, and I could do up all the buttons easily. Mother would have been pleased about that.

  • • •

  Sylvia and I sat in the front pew of St. Anne’s Church. My eyes were gritty and bloodshot because I hadn’t slept, in spite of Sylvia telling me I didn’t have to do anything, just be there.

  “You’ve been bereaved, pet. Nobody’ll expect you to make conversation.”

  This wouldn’t mean breaking Rule One, Politeness, and actually, pet, it was a good example of Rule Seven, the difficult one, about Rules changing to fit the Situation.

  Sylvia looked around her and clasped and unclasped her hands as if she was waiting for someone, although she said she wasn’t. A funeral was a bit like a party, except for not knowing who was coming and it being a sad occasion. A tiny part of me still expected Mother to arrive and take charge, to peer at me over her glasses, tug my coat straight, and disagree with what the Vicar said about her.

  The funeral pallbearers carried Mother’s coffin in as if it weighed nothing at all and put it on an altar, covered with a red throw. I felt people looking at me. Apart from Mother, in her coffin, I was the center of attention. I clenched my toes and kept my eyes on some graffiti that was carved into the side of the pew: EW 1938. When I glanced around, I saw Maria and Kim from Bay View Lodge sitting near the back of the church, not wearing their uniforms. Maria gave me a big smile.

  Across the aisle, Paul, with his dad, put his hand out to me in a high-five gesture. The other mourners were older people with faded hair—students from Mother’s Opera Classes or members of the Bridge Club. There were seventeen mourners altogether, counting Sylvia, Trevor, and myself. Josh and Shelbie couldn’t come because of Roxanna and the salon, and Katie couldn’t come because of t
he boys.

  • • •

  I lay in bed now, my head throbbing, my brain overflowing with detail: the smell of mold and candles; the egg and cress sandwiches in the Church Hall being made with white bread, not brown; the dark clothes people had been wearing, and how they’d all looked at me, especially when Mother’s body was brought in and out. I couldn’t remember exactly what people had said afterward, but it had involved shaking my hand, and them saying Mother had had a formidable intelligence and had been a force to be reckoned with.

  • • •

  Sylvia said Mother’s will needed to be dealt with by an expert: Mr. Watson. In Mills & Boons, family members gathered in a lawyer’s office and the will revealed an exciting inheritance for one of them and nothing but trouble for the rest. As I was the only member of my family left, there couldn’t be any trouble, but just the sight of the will’s stiff cream paper, with its black italic writing and red seal, made my hands clammy.

  “I was sorry to hear of your mother’s death, Miss Carr…Elvira,” Mr. Watson said, his shaggy eyebrows low. “Always a sad and difficult time.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. Watson’s office, with its high windows and walls lined with shelves of documents and portraits of well-known lawyers and their clients, turned my voice into a whisper, like it had done after Mother’s stroke.

  “Now.” Mr. Watson tapped his fingertips together. “I have reacquainted myself with the contents of your mother’s will. It is an unusual will in some respects.”

  “That was what I was afraid of,” said Sylvia. She grasped the strap of her leopard-skin handbag with both hands and looked over her shoulder as if she expected someone pretending to be a family member to burst in.

  “And in other ways,” Mr. Watson continued, “it is very simple. You are the main beneficiary, Elvira, and your mother’s trust continues in your name.” He drew a document toward him. “Financially, the provisions are exactly the same.”