by Jo Verity
After some time, the nurse returned to tell her that her father was ‘ready’ now. She must have looked confused because she said, ‘We’ve tidied him up for you.’
They’d turned him onto his back, and raised his head on a pillow. He was wearing fresh pyjamas. His arms were outside the covers, lying at his side. His mouth was still open as if he’d been caught in the middle of saying something. He looked cross and a little bewildered.
The scenery had changed too. The medical equipment had been removed. The tissues, moisturiser and bottle of water were gone from the top of his locker, replaced by a vase of imitation flowers and a table lamp.
‘He looks peaceful, doesn’t he?’ the nurse said. ‘You’ll want to say your goodbyes. Take as long as you like.’
‘Thanks.’ Vivian nodded towards the plastic flowers. ‘And thank you for…’
‘Our pleasure, dear. Last moments are so precious.’
Alone again with her father, she wondered what she was supposed to do. She guessed people talked to the body, or wept, or even laughed. She stood at the foot of the bed, expecting to feel something. Dislike? Not anymore – not for several weeks in fact, although she couldn’t say why. Grief? Compassion? Pity? Sadness? Relief that he was dead and that she was free? Nothing really, except exhaustion and maybe curiosity. She looked slowly around the room. Odd to think that she wouldn’t come here again. She touched his face. He was cold now. Not a person at all.
After what seemed like a decent interval, she took a last look at the husk of her father and went to find out what happened next.
She left the hospital at five-forty armed with a form stating that Philip Frederick Carey had died of sepsis, a leaflet entitled ‘What to do after someone dies’, and a sports bag containing soiled pyjamas, spectacles and dentures. It was Thursday 13th January, 2011, and she was an orphan. It was an exhilarating thought.
As she passed the Tube station, she shoved the holdall into a litter bin and then walked back to Farleigh Road.
She heard a key in the latch. It was dark and, for a few seconds, she couldn’t think where she was.
‘Vivian?’ Richard’s voice rose up the stairs. ‘It’s only me.’
She checked her watch. Four-thirty. She’d slept for six hours.
‘Down in a minute,’ she called, shivering as she pushed back the duvet.
Richard was in the kitchen, rooting around in a cupboard. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’
She couldn’t avoid his hug and as he held her, she caught the astringent whiff of coal tar soap.
‘You must be exhausted,’ he said. ‘I’m making toast. D’you fancy some?’
Within minutes of being here, he’d taken command. She shouldn’t mind. In fact she should be grateful because now she could hand all this over to him.
They sat in the kitchen and she told him how it had been, leaving out the bit about the milk delivery, determined – she wasn’t sure why – to keep this memory for herself.
‘John’s hoping to fly over on Saturday,’ he said. ‘And we should make a list of people to notify.’
‘People?’
‘Friends. Neighbours.’
‘I suppose we should tell Mrs Francks, next door. She called the ambulance. And the woman who cleans – cleaned – for him. Apart from them…’
He frowned. ‘Doesn’t he have a cousin in Wales?’
Does he? Despite being dead, her father had the power to humiliate her.
‘His address book’s next to the phone,’ she said. ‘It’ll be in there I expect.’ She pushed the death certificate and ‘What to do’ booklet across the table. ‘The hospital gave me these.’
He studied the certificate. ‘Ahhh, sepsis,’ he said, as though the cause of death made some kind of difference.
Setting it aside, he began reading aloud from the booklet, underlining sections with a red pen. This required no input from her and, as he droned on, she drifted.
I should go in to work. The contractor needs that list of door furniture – although I’m still not entirely sure about those handles. If Howard’s around, we can go through it again.
‘Okay with you?’ Richard’s voice brought her back to the kitchen.
‘Whatever you think’s best,’ she said.
He was so like their father. Dogmatic. Overbearing. She couldn’t imagine his ever admitting to being wrong. (Of course when her father was Richard’s age, she had been only eight years old. What had her parents been thinking?)
‘Right.’ He slapped the table with the palms of his hands in a that’s-settled-then gesture, although she had no idea what had been settled. ‘Before we talk to anyone, we need to decide whether it’s burial or cremation. Did Dad discuss it with you?’
She remembered how she and her father used to sit in this kitchen, discussing the rats in the shed or what he owed her for a jar of jam.
‘No,’ she said.
‘Mmmm. Maybe he wrote something down. The filing cabinet’s the obvious place.’
‘It’s locked,’ she said. She was sure of this because, curious to know what the ugly grey thing contained, she’d tried it only a few days ago.
Pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket, he isolated a flat, silver key, holding it up as though he’d done something heroic. Of course he had a key. He would have been given it when he became attorney.
Her father had been a systematic and unimaginative man, and, when Richard unlocked the cabinet, she wasn’t surprised to find his tax documents filed under ‘T’, water bills under ‘W’, and so on.
‘D for death?’ she suggested. ‘F for funeral? H for heaven?’
Richard put a hand on her arm. ‘You must be out on your feet. Why not leave this to me?’
She could no longer remain in the house with this bumptious bore. ‘I’m going home now,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you and John will do a perfect job. Let me know if you need me.’
She lay in bed. She was hungry but couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. When she swallowed, her throat had that raspy tickle that preceded a cold. It was Thursday, wasn’t it? Somewhere amongst it all, death had stolen Wednesday.
At St George’s, the night staff would be coming on. Some other sick person would be in that little room, hitched up to monitors and drips. So where, exactly, was her father’s body? In one of those refrigerated drawers, perhaps, with a tag on his toe – or was that just in movies? It seemed impossible that he could make the journey from wherever he was into a hole in the ground (or an urn on Richard’s mantelpiece) without a hitch. But undertakers did all that, didn’t they? Amazing, considering how hard it was to find a reliable plumber.
She had no recollection of undertakers or registrars or anything much in the period following her mother’s death. She’d floated near the ceiling for days on end, watching a zombie masquerading as Vivian Carey, going through the motions. Those drugs were strong. This was nothing at all like that. A sick old man had died. It was the natural order of things.
She turned over, yanking the duvet up over her head, breathing the warm scent of her own body. Tomorrow she would go to work and soon everything would return to normal.
37
Howard pressed her to take more time before coming back to work, but she was adamant that she wanted to get back to normal. However it appeared that ‘normal’ was out of the question. Throughout the day, her colleagues sidled up mumbling condolences, Ralph near to tears as he recounted what he’d gone through when his father died. She felt embarrassed and fraudulent.
True to form, Ottilie’s concern manifested itself in a relentless supply of coffee and snacks, and an offer to listen if she ‘needed to talk’.
‘Thanks,’ Vivian said, ‘but I’m fine. Really I am.’
‘You think you are,’ Ottilie said. ‘When Duval passed, Ma kept right on going, as if nothing had happened. Three months later…’ She pursed her lips and shook her head.
To Vivian’s satisfaction, Richard seemed disturbed by her abrupt departure. He phoned sever
al times to check that she was ‘coping’ and to update her on the ‘arrangements’. Death commanded an abundance of euphemisms. He and John had decided on cremation, he didn’t explain why. The funeral would take place in ten days time, somewhere out beyond Morden. There would be refreshments – ‘sandwiches and cakes, nothing elaborate’ – at the house for anyone who cared to go back. He didn’t say who would do the catering and she didn’t ask.
Before leaving Farleigh Road, she had picked up her father’s address book, saying she would contact those that needed to be informed. Richard seemed reluctant to let the book out of the house but she’d held her ground, insisting that he already had enough to do. Also, unbeknown to him, she had taken her father’s keys. She’d happened across them in his overcoat pocket and guessed he’d forgotten to replace them on the hook after his final expedition. Amongst them was a small silver key, which she now knew belonged to the filing cabinet.
On Saturday she spent the morning food shopping, cleaning and catching up with the washing, finding these humdrum chores improbably agreeable after the disruption of the past weeks.
After lunch, she sat down with the address book. According to the flyleaf, her father had started this book a matter of months after her mother’s death. She could picture the old one now, well-thumbed and disintegrating. What had become of it? As she flicked through its pages, the sight of her father’s writing pulled her up short. Striding across the paper, bold and old-fashioned and so very particular to him, it was like hearing his voice. He’d maintained that ‘ballpens’ had been the death of good handwriting and had always used a Waterman fountain pen – a retirement gift from his work colleagues. The entries in this address book had been made with that pen and, judging by their uniformity, might have been written at one sitting.
It didn’t take long to go through it. In fact there were so few names, so few crossings out to indicate a move or a death, she wondered whether he’d kept it up to date. Apart from her half-brothers and their families, and her aunt in Munich, the addresses were all in the south east of England, the majority in London. Her father’s cousin – if he existed – must surely be in here somewhere. But there was no one in Wales or, come to that, anyone west of Reading.
She’d planned to phone around but the only phone numbers recorded were those of the family. It was a striking omission, as if he didn’t want or need to speak to any of his ‘friends’. Undeterred, she composed an obituary notice, including details of the funeral and adding her name and phone number. She printed a copy for everyone in the book and used her own fountain pen to address the envelopes.
Next morning – Sunday – she couldn’t summon the willpower to get out of bed. A dull ache had spread across her lower back and a sore throat was affecting her voice, making her sound like a stranger. She suspected that there was some truth in Ottilie’s warning although she’d hate to give her the satisfaction of knowing it. She slept the morning away and, after a bath and a couple of Nurofen, her backache eased and she relocated to the sofa. Searching for something to occupy her, she picked up Gil’s Christmas gift.
A Dream Too Far was, as he’d warned, sentimental tosh. Yet it was easy to see why its protagonist had appealed to the pregnant Helen Thomas – not much more than a girl – daydreaming of her unborn child and hoping that, were it to be a boy, he would grow up to be a dashing young doctor like Gillon Fraser. Fifty-odd years ago, ‘Gillon’ must have caused a stir but Helen had stuck to her guns and Vivian admired her for that.
London was shockingly cold and by the time Gil reached home, he had donned every item of clothing he had with him.
He’d anticipated returning to a chaos of ransacked drawers and unwashed crockery but his flat was disturbingly tidy. A loaf of bread sat on the worktop, the fruit bowl was fully stocked and there was a Tupperware container of what looked like chilli in the fridge. Feray.
To stand any chance of getting to work on time tomorrow, he needed to sleep. Pulling down the blinds he fell, fully clothed, into bed. As soon as he closed his eyes, he was bobbing on a gentle swell which, had he been on a boat, might have been soporific but here, three storeys up, it was disconcerting. After a restless hour he got up and made a bowl of porridge. As he aimlessly trickled a syrupy Gil across its surface, he recalled his breakfasts with Vivian. The bland, warm food steadied his gut but now she was in his head and he wouldn’t sleep until he’d spoken to her.
Returning to the warmth of his bed, he called her.
‘Where are you?’ she said.
‘At home. My body is anyway. It’ll be a while before my brain catches up.’
‘My father died,’ she said. ‘I know I said I’d mail but there was no point.’
Voices murmured in the background. She must be at work.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘When was it?’
‘Thursday. I was with him.’
‘That’s good,’ he said.
‘Yes.’ She paused. ‘I found it weirdly fascinating.’
‘Most people do, although they won’t admit it. It’s the ultimate mystery, after all.’
‘Yes. It really is.’
‘So when’s the funeral?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘You’ve been busy then,’ he said
‘No. I’ve handed over to John and Richard. All I have to worry about is what to wear.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re okay.’
‘Did you sort things out with your daughter?’ she said.
‘I’m not sure.’
Then someone called her name and she had to go.
He was late getting to the hospital next morning. He’d fidgeted around the bed for what seemed like hours. ‘Too tired to sleep’, his mother used to say. Eventually he’d given up and watched a no-star movie on Channel 5. The last time he’d checked it was near midnight but soon after that he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep, not waking until nine. Kevin huffed and puffed but a few strategic enquiries about baby Jack, along with an offer to cover evening work for the remainder of the week, put things right.
In a quiet moment, he mailed Polly. They had – or so he liked to think – reached an uneasy peace, but he’d seen how touchy she was, how ready to take offence, and he kept his message short, avoiding saying anything that might rub her up the wrong way.
My dearest Polly. It was wonderful seeing you last week. Thanks for taking the time. I often think about our walk to Mutton Bird and the things we talked about. You are never far from my thoughts. Love to my very special daughter – and her very special daughter. Dad xx
He wasn’t exaggerating. Thoughts of his daughter were ever present, like the hum of a fridge. Occasionally the hum stepped up to a roar and he was overwhelmed with anxiety. It sickened him to think that she was resigned to a mundane future. And she was obviously scared of the birth itself. Janey had been the same when she was nearing her due date, terrified that she wouldn’t be able to expel the ‘thing’ inside her that was getting bigger and bigger by the day. The second time, enormous with the twins, she’d been quite serene. Once Polly was safe in her crib, at least Janey had had someone with whom to explore the unmapped territory of parenthood. For a while, anyway.
But it wasn’t as if Polly would be going it alone. Janey would be there. And good old Alan too. Alan had been ready to support Polly through her pregnancy – no small commitment – and doubtless he’d be delighted to play grandfather when the babe was born. The kid wouldn’t be short of grandpas – even if the bona fide one lived on the other side of the world.
The trip to Coffs had been a mental and physical drain. (He must have been crazy to think he could take it in his stride. Ten years ago, maybe.) But it had been unexpectedly good to see his family and he was glad that he’d gone. By the end of the week, he was over the worst of his jet lag. He still woke at odd times in the night and felt bushed in the afternoons, but the dazed feeling had faded and his metabolism was returning to normal.
Before he could settle back into his London life, a c
ouple of issues needed to be resolved. First there was Irene. There had been no developments while he was away and Kevin advised him to do nothing. Why stir things up needlessly? Reasonable enough although he would prefer the matter to be cleared up, not left to lie in wait like a malevolent redback.
Feray, too, was causing him slight concern. She’d offered to keep an eye on his flat and, loath to hurt her feelings, he’d accepted. He hoped she realised there was no more to it than that but, on his return, he’d been thrown to find that she’d been in and tidied the place up and he’d dropped a rather formal note through her door, thanking her and enclosing a fiver to cover the groceries.
He’d not spoken to Vivian again but it was clear from her emails that she was glad to be back home and able to concentrate on her work. Their dates – if they could be called that – had, in a weird kind of way, been contingent on her father. With him gone, things would be on a very different footing – one which had yet to be established.
When Friday evening came and they still hadn’t arranged to meet, he called her.
‘Hey. I was thinking. It’d be good to catch up. Could we get together over the weekend?’ He felt like a kid, arranging a first date. ‘That’s if you’re not tied up.’
‘I have things I need to do on Saturday,’ she said. ‘Sunday? We could go for a walk.’
‘Terrific. I’ll come over around eleven.’
It was snowing again and Feray was scattering salt on the steps.
‘No let up,’ he said, pointing to the low, grey sky. ‘Thanks again for…’
‘It took only a few minutes,’ she said.
She asked about his trip. He asked about the kids. Then they stood awkwardly, neither of them sure how to wind up the encounter.
‘Need anything from the Co-Op?’ he said.
‘I’m good,’ she said. ‘But thanks anyway.’
She smiled and he remembered how beautiful she was and how good things had been with her.
‘Look, Feray. This sounds creepy but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m really, really sorry. You and the kids deserve a steady bloke. Someone who’ll commit.’