The Last Day

by Claire Dyer

  He’s aware of the noise of the traffic on the main road and of birds singing and the hum of electricity and of people talking in the room next door and he wants to open the documents and yet he can’t.

  They sit on the table in front of him: one white envelope, one brown.

  Eventually, he leans forward and picks up the brown envelope.

  So, it appears that Belle had made a will and in this will she’s left everything to him: the residue from the sale of the house that had been the vet’s practice, all the savings she’d accumulated from her other husbands and a significant amount in premium bonds. There is a note with the will from an accountancy practice in Godalming giving the total figures as of a month ago. Even after the costs of Queen Anne’s, it is a huge amount of money. She’s also left a small legacy and all her jewellery to Vita and there are instructions to get rid of everything else, including the furniture she’d taken to the care home, to cremate her at Guildford Crematorium and to inter her ashes near to her parents in Bristol. How odd, Boyd thinks, that after everything they did to drive her away and keep her away, she would want to return to them in the end. Maybe all children want that, maybe this particular bond never breaks.

  He is surprised. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected her to leave everything to him. He’d assumed she would bypass him in some way, give it all to a cats’ home or something which would punish him yet further for breaking his promise to her. But, maybe all parents forgive their children in the end too; maybe this particular bond never breaks either. He wonders whether her parents might have forgiven her had she let them.

  It will take time to calibrate this. It will also take time to sort out probate and realise the assets, but this, he knows, is the answer to his financial worries. Now he can pay the tax bill, Anthony will be happy at last, he and Honey can move out of Vita’s house back into their own flat and he and Vita can come to an agreement about the house in Albert Terrace. At last, he can give both Vita and Honey the futures they deserve.

  He puts the will back in the suitcase and lifts out the white envelope. It is a letter from his father and it says:

  ‘Dear Boyd,

  Your mother has told me her news. I am, of course, deeply saddened to hear it and, with all my heart, wish her a pain-free end. She has always been such a force of nature and someone I have admired very much and, if things had been different for me, I would have honoured my obligation to her. I want you to know this.

  She has also told me of the arrangements she has requested for her funeral, but I have decided that it would be best if I did not attend. It would only rake up the past and I would not want to burden you with my presence. But please know you will be in my thoughts, as you always have been.

  With my kindest regards and deepest sympathies,

  Percy Harrison.’

  It is something, Boyd thinks. It is not nearly enough, but at least it’s something. After all this time, after the abortive attempt to get to know him all those years ago, this is a meagre offering, but at least it’s not silence and, Boyd realises, the fact that he has been in his father’s thoughts matters a great deal. It’s as though a link in the chain that had been broken was now fixed. Here is some kind of resolution. It’s not what he’d hoped for, but this and the proof of his mother’s unusual and changeable love for him also written down in black and white are, in the end, more than he ever thought he’d be given.

  His mother’s body has been moved to the undertakers. He’s registered her death and is in touch with the Crematorium about the funeral. They have an opening on 3rd January at eleven which he’s booked.

  And so, he bundles all this together: his mother’s things, her will, the letter from his father, the arrangements he’s made so far and leaves the hospice. He’ll tell Vita and Honey about it all later. But, for now, he needs to get back to work, to focus his mind on something other than these huge things.

  * * *

  At the office, Trixie gives him an update on the current purchases and sales and clucks around him, fusses and hangs up his jacket and asks him every five minutes if he’s OK.

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ he tells her. But he’s not; he’s not fine at all.

  Towards the end of the day, however, he remembers something he’s forgotten to do. He never, he realises, checked on the step in the storeroom. It’s been weeks since the accident and he’s been negligent in not checking on it, but he had told Trixie not to do anything with it, to leave it as it was.

  He opens the door and switches on the light. The step is in perfect order. There is not a crack or flaw in it. How, he wonders, could Honey have fallen down it? She said she’d felt something give, as if a bit of the wood had broken away. It’s lucky, he thinks, that they don’t need to report the incident to their insurers. If it had been any other employee they would have done, but Honey had insisted it didn’t matter, that it had been her fault. But, he acknowledges, he’d always thought that the step had been damaged in some way and that this is what had caused her to fall. Odd, he thinks, as he puts on his jacket, says goodnight to Trixie and heads for home.

  Vita

  I’m taking some washing out of the machine, Honey’s upstairs reading, the heating is on and is clicking away the way it does. It’s dark outside.

  I’d expected Boyd to come home hours ago but he hadn’t. It had been awful waiting for him but at last I hear his key in the lock and here he is in the kitchen. He looks shattered.

  ‘How did it go at the hospice?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, OK. I went into work for a bit afterwards, you know, to take my mind off things.’

  ‘I don’t blame you.’ I shake out a towel and start to fold it.

  ‘They gave me her things,’ he says, ‘even the present I got her for Christmas. She never opened it, you know.’

  I have no idea what to say. I pick up another towel. Thank God for towels, I think. At least I can keep my hands busy.

  ‘Where’s Honey?’ he asks.

  ‘Upstairs. She said she was going to have a lie down and read for a bit.’

  ‘I’m glad. She deserves the rest.’

  She deserves the rest, I think. For fuck’s sake, what about me? Don’t I deserve a rest too? But I say nothing. I still don’t know what to say.

  ‘Um …’ Boyd jangles his keys, staring down at them. I imagine the metal of them must be getting hot in his hands by now. ‘Um …’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, trying not to sound impatient.

  ‘She left a will you know,’ he says.

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘And there was a letter from my father with her stuff, addressed to me. Here,’ he holds out a white envelope, ‘you can read it if you like.’

  I put down the towel I’m holding and take it from him.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘She left me everything, you know: all the money, everything. And there’s a lot of it too.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. I’m surprised and I’m not surprised. I’d always wondered if she would, in the end.

  ‘And she left you her jewellery.’

  ‘Me? Why on earth would she do that?’

  ‘Why do you think, Vita?’ he says.

  I really don’t know, I can’t think. I look at him. His face, his dear, dear face is crumpled with grief and loss.

  ‘I’d better go and tell Honey,’ he adds.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I suppose you should.’ I stare at the envelope, anything to avoid looking at him again but there’s a tiny beat of triumph in my heart at the thought that Belle left her jewellery to me and not to Honey. Hah, I think. Hah!

  ‘At least this means we can move out, get out from under your feet,’ he says. ‘Honey’ll be pleased. This way I can pay the tax bill, sign this house over to you and we can go back to the flat, leave you in peace; it’ll be just like it was before.’

  No, I think. No it won’t, you stupid, stupid man. Nothing will ever be the way it was before, not ever. I wasn’t at peace then and I certainly won’t be at
peace when you’re gone. I open my mouth to tell him this but I’m terrified of saying it. It is the sort of thing that once said can’t be unsaid. Neither he nor I are ready for it and I wonder if we ever will be.

  I couldn’t protect him from the pain of William’s death, but maybe I can protect him from the pain of knowing that I’ve been wrong and misguided and foolish, that I now know for sure that if I were allowed to, I could love him again, love him still.

  He puts his keys down on the kitchen counter and starts to climb the stairs. I open the letter. I can’t watch him go.

  Honey

  She’d tried not to mind when Boyd held Vita just after Belle died. She really had. But, to tell the truth she did mind; not because she doesn’t trust him around her – she’s convinced they’re nothing more than just good friends these days – but because it was a reminder of what they’d once been to one another, what they’d shared and lost, all the heartache as well as the joy. It’s something she can never compete with. Vita had fitted in against him so comfortably. Suddenly Honey had felt too tall and bony, too young and soiled for him.

  Her horoscope today says she should align herself with winners as some of their competitive spirit will rub off on her. She has no idea what this means and frankly, it makes her a bit cross. She’d wanted something a little more tangible and her-specific; something to do with the fact that today her plaster comes off, something that will reassure her that she’ll get no more texts from The Boatman. It’s been a while now and there’s been nothing; in some ways she hopes the reply she sent did the trick and he has fucked off and hopefully died too.

  Boyd said he’d drive her to the hospital but she would have been OK getting a taxi as she really wishes he wouldn’t take the time off work. They’re so busy right now, which is odd seeing that it’s the 29th December and you’d think everyone out there would be too full of mince pies and sitting paralysed amongst the piles of wrapping paper, but there was a rush to get some sales completed by Christmas which has left a backlog of all the other stuff that Trixie and she have to do. Not that she minds; it’s good to be busy. It means the business is doing well.

  Since Belle’s death, things have been different though. Boyd’s told her about the will and the money and the letter from his father and has said that they’ll be able to move back to the flat in March when the current tenants move out. It’ll be odd not to be here. Despite everything she has the feeling she’s going to miss this house, and Vita too.

  She does wish, however, that Boyd would cry because he hasn’t, not really. She has to remind herself that it took him years to be able to cry about William’s death, so maybe it’ll take years for this other death to work its way through too. All she knows is that during these last few days both he and Vita have been quiet and very sad. They move around the house as if in slow motion and seem always to talk in whispers to one another as if any loud noise will puncture something precious.

  Even though they knew it was going to happen, there’s a world of difference, it seems, between the idea of death and it actually taking place. Honey has never known it before, not so close up, and what shocked her most was its absolute irrevocability. Once Belle had gone, she’d gone totally. They say that the spirit can rise out of the body and that those who mourn can witness it going, but it was nothing like that with Belle. She did that funny kind of breath and then there was nothing, absolutely nothing; it was as though the room had emptied and that she and Boyd, and then when Vita came in, none of them were really there but were looking down at the empty room as if from a great distance.

  ‘What’s Vita doing today?’ she asks Boyd as they pull away from the house on the way to the hospital.

  She checks in the wing mirror, there is no one standing under the horse chestnut trees this time.

  ‘I don’t know. I think she might spend some time in the studio. She said she’s got a commission to work on.’

  Honey shifts in her seat, trying to get comfortable. She can’t wait to get this damned thing off. ‘Anything else we need to do for the funeral?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t think so. Everything’s sorted.’ He hesitates; some fuck-awful song is playing on the radio. She wishes he’d turn it off. ‘What saddens me,’ he says, ‘is that it’s going to be such a small affair: just us, Trixie and maybe some people from Queen Anne’s and the hospice. After the life she’s led, how vibrant and angry she was for most of it, it’s tragic to think there’ll only be a handful of people seeing her off. If only …’

  He pauses again, lifts a hand off the steering wheel and runs it through his hair.

  ‘If only what?’ she asks, although she thinks she knows what he’s going to say. She’s right.

  ‘If only there was a grandchild,’ he says, ‘one who, in years to come, might be interested in the woman who’d been their grandmother. My father’s other family will never know her either and that’s tragic too.’

  ‘I know,’ Honey says. But she doesn’t. For someone like her who’s got no relatives at all – that she knows of anyway – it’s hard for her to imagine a future filled with descendants and family stories. And, although what Belle said to her about her having a child is still lodged somewhere between her heart and her brain, she hasn’t been able, or willing, to process it yet. Despite all the promises she’d made herself the last time she got a text from ‘The Boatman’, it seems she is still very good at not making any decisions and keeping her head resolutely in the sand.

  They get to the hospital on time and park and walk in, Honey holding on to Boyd’s arm and, when the plaster eventually comes off, she feels giddy with relief. Her ankle’s pale and tender and they say she’ll have to do some physio and wear a kind of support stocking for a while, but it’s not just the freedom of movement and the lightness of her leg but having use of her hands again that’s bloody wonderful.

  ‘I’ll have to take you dancing,’ Boyd says, brushing his lips over hers when they’re back in the car.

  ‘You’ll have to learn how to dance first,’ she replies, kissing him back.

  ‘Cheeky sod,’ he says, smiling at her.

  * * *

  It’s not exactly dancing, well not the kind of dancing she’d expected, but on New Year’s Eve Boyd takes her to a party at a pub in town. There’s dinner and a disco and they eat and shuffle gingerly to the music and chat to people he knows vaguely through work. Vita’s out with Colin, or so she says, and at just before midnight Honey texts her to say ‘Happy New Year’ and Vita texts straight back, although Honey knows they’re doing this more for form’s sake than anything else because of Belle’s funeral, which is mere days away.

  They have, however, scheduled another sitting, their last, for the day after tomorrow when Boyd will be in the office catching up on paperwork and Honey will be at home nursing the hangover she’s still expecting to have. With the news that they’re going to be moving out in the spring, suddenly the need to get the picture finished is becoming more important. It feels like both Vita and she are working towards a deadline now.

  Honey kisses Boyd at midnight and peels herself out of his arms to go and open the front door of the pub; it’s not quite as it should be because she should actually be opening all the doors but the logistics of this defeats her.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ he asks, coming up and standing behind her as she waits on the threshold breathing in the damp night air.

  ‘I’ve got to let the old year out,’ she says, ‘before the New Year can come in.’

  ‘You’re one crazy lady, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s nice to have something to believe in.’ She nods and leans back, resting her head against his chest.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispers into her hair.

  ‘I love you too.’

  Boyd’s ordered a cab and, when they get home around one-thirty, Vita’s not home.

  ‘I guess she must be staying next door,’ Boyd says as he closes the front door behind them. His voice is expressionle
ss.

  Honey takes him by the hand and starts to lead him upstairs saying, ‘Come on then, stud. Let’s do it.’

  She feels desperate, as though she really is on the cusp of some momentous change. She hadn’t realised, until she’d opened the door of the pub and they’d stood there and it all seemed so calm and beautiful, that actually what she was doing was acknowledging that at the passing of the old year, and with the heralding of the new, the moment she’d been dreading was now within sight.

  They make love and it’s fantastic. She wraps her legs around him and when he comes she is full of him and somehow it feels different this time. Maybe it’s the fact they’re both a little drunk, maybe it’s the grief and this tiny moment when they can escape it, and the fact that Vita’s not in the room across the landing. All she knows is that afterwards she realises that in her desperation she has never known this total abandonment, this total connection before.

  ‘We’re getting good at this,’ Boyd says, raising himself on one elbow and looking at her, his left eyebrow kinked.

  ‘I should think so too. We’ve had plenty of practice.’

  She tucks herself into the crook of his arm and they doze as the night ticks on. She tries not to think of tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, or of anything other than being here, now, with this man and whatever shade of love it is that they’ve coloured themselves in. And she doesn’t have the dream.

  The next morning, Boyd brings her a cup of coffee and she checks her horoscope as he gets ready for work. It might be New Year’s Day but he says he wants to go in and catch up on a few things. Honey’s taken today, tomorrow and the day of the funeral off work, or rather Boyd has told her to. ‘You need a rest,’ he’d said. ‘Get that ankle of yours well and truly mended.’

  Vita’s still not back and so, when he’s gone, Honey goes downstairs and opens the front door to check whether the curtains are open or not at Colin’s. It would be nice to know if Vita’s OK. She’s been strangely quiet since Boyd told her they’d be moving out.