by Frances Vick
‘It’s just that she’s all alone, still,’ she managed eventually. ‘All alone in the snow and now all alone in the hospital, and I can’t help her, you know? I can’t end this for her, give her a decent funeral. I know you’ve got to do your job, though, and I understand, but it’s just… hard, you know? I just want everything to be over, not for me, but for her. I want to do right by her.’
11
You Can’t Go Home Again
Unpublished post
I hadn’t really realised before that, while the answers you give to the police are approximate, they don’t really register approximations, so what you say is taken as absolutely what you’ll always say. So I’ve decided to write everything down, just so I keep track of things, remember them in the right way.
My family was bad. I come from bad stock. But that doesn’t mean I’m bad. I have to keep hold of that.
When I was a kid, the police were always hovering around. Kathleen’s partner went down for possession of stolen goods. One of her daughters was convicted of benefit fraud. Marc was always being asked down to the station for a ‘chat’. When Mum met him he’d just got out of prison for aggravated burglary.
This is the thing, I’m very familiar with the police in a way that most people probably aren’t. I’ve been brought up to fear them and hate them, and the fact that I don’t fear and hate them any more tells you how far I’ve come. But in the police station, I felt it all come back. When you come from a family like mine, there’s something about the police that makes you feel pugnacious and scrappy and, well, guilty. Even if you’ve done nothing wrong.
It bugs me that I didn’t tell Freddie that they wanted to see me. A lie of omission is still a lie.
I’m also worried that, despite what I told the police, I don’t have a clue what time I left Mum’s house. And what if they make something of that? What then?
Remember when Mum first started to see Marc? Remember how things changed, imperceptibly, day by day? I noticed it and she didn’t. How the endearments became more and more barbed, until they were cruel jokes; the pats became grabs; the one drink after work became more before and after. No more lipstick, no more nail polish. Her tread became heavier and, finally, her glorious hair, severed and swept up by a truculent teenager in the salon at the bottom of the hill. I thought, then, very distinctly, Don’t let this happen to you, Jay. Keep control of yourself Jay.
I don’t feel like I’m in control anymore. I don’t feel safe. I used to, but now I don’t, and I can feel panic plucking at me. Fear does terrible things to a person.
Jenny went to hit ‘publish’ but changed her mind, saved it as a Word document and closed her laptop instead.
12
The cat seemed even smaller and thinner on the stainless-steel table. She quivered under the vet’s dry hands.
‘A stray?’
‘Not really a stray, more homeless, I think.’ Jenny touched its ears, immediately raising that grateful, rusty purr. ‘Is she going to be OK?’
The vet frowned and cocked her head to the side. ‘She’s underweight, and has ringworm. And her eye is pretty badly infected. I’ll need to give it a good clean under anaesthetic and then give you a two-week course of antibiotics.’ She stroked one ear. ‘You’ve been through the wars, haven’t you little one? Pick her up tomorrow at ten.’
‘OK. Um, I don’t have insurance or anything. I mean, she’s not my cat. It sounds awful but how much will all this cost?’
‘It depends what we find but more than two hundred pounds, I’d say.’ The vet left a significant pause.
Jenny nodded to herself. ‘OK. Yes. I’ll find it somehow.’
‘We might be able to set up a payment plan.’
‘That’d help, thanks.’ She gave the cat one last stroke. ‘Got to take care of her, haven’t we?’
‘And does she have a name?’
‘God, I haven’t thought of that… Claudine? That’s a good name. See you tomorrow, Claudine!’
Claudine closed her good eye in response.
The police called her just as she was leaving the surgery. Just another chat. There was no need for her to come to the station, they’d pop along to see her this time if that was all right?
This time, the fear was different, less diffuse. She saw herself reflected in the surgery window, strangely distorted, deathly pale, and so much like Sal.
Like Sal dead in the snow.
She hurried home and spent half an hour putting on make-up, each careful dab and stroke blurred the resemblance to Sal, and her sleep-deprived, indistinct features became gradually more definite. More her own.
Safe. You’re safe. Safe. You’re safe. Everything you can do to stay safe, you’ve done.
Then the doorbell rang.
It was the Dawn French woman with a younger officer she vaguely recognised. They sat down after commenting on the weather (Rain. You’d never know we were nearly snowed in a week back, would you?). They refused tea. Was that a bad sign? Sal had never offered the police tea whenever they’d come round, so Jenny couldn’t tell. Close your eyes, take some deep breaths. Damp the panic down, stamp it down. Don’t let them see it.
‘Are you all right there?’ the younger officer said.
‘I’m… scared,’ Jenny admitted. ‘I’ve never really had any dealings with the police before. It’s all a bit… overwhelming.’
The Dawn French woman, sitting heavily on one of the spindly kitchen chairs, shuffled forward with a creak. ‘Well, like I told you yesterday, it’s all routine. There’s nothing to be concerned about. Just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.’ She smiled.
What did the smile mean? What kind of a smile was that?
Jen smiled at her tiredly. ‘I think I just watch too much TV, that’s all.’
‘It’s nothing like the TV shows,’ the woman said. ‘It’s a lot more mundane than that. No, we just want to double-check: when did you leave your mother’s house the night she died?’
Jenny closed her eyes. ‘I want to say ten? Around ten. But I can’t swear to it, I’m sorry.’
‘No, that’s fine. And did you see anyone on your way back to the Lees-Hill house?’
‘No. No one. The weather was too bad.’ She frowned then. ‘I do remember seeing a car on the high street though, and thinking how horrible it would be to drive in all that snow.’
‘Car?’
‘Yes, it was red, I think, but I couldn’t tell you the make… and a man was driving – I saw his face by the traffic lights.’
‘You didn’t mention that before.’ The woman shifted. Her shirt rolled up slightly, and Jenny could see the pink and white crenulations the elasticated waistband of her slacks had dug into her flesh.
‘God, sorry. I didn’t think about it before. You asked if I’d seen anyone in the street, and I hadn’t. I’d forgotten about the car until now.’
‘And you saw the man’s face?’
‘Yes, but only from the side and just for a second or two. White guy, short dark hair.’ She made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘That’s all I saw. Why?’ Her face froze. ‘Wait, do you think that man had something to do with Mum—?’
The woman looked alarmed. ‘No. No. Nothing like that. A person came forward today.’ She took out her notebook. ‘He was driving back from the airport. He says he saw you walking past the Rose and Crown at 10.30 p.m. He remembers because it was snowing hard and you weren’t wearing a coat.’ The woman put the notebook down, and her blue eyes rested on her kindly. As kindly as they could, anyway. ‘So, what this means is, we have no reason to ask you any more questions.’ The room sang with silence.
‘I don’t really understand?’ Jenny managed after a moment.
‘The post-mortem reports “Death by Misadventure”. Basically, it’s as we thought; sadly, your mum slipped and fell on the ice. The alcohol in her system and the medication probably made her more unsteady, and we know from talking to you and others that she’d had similar accidents in the past. All this, cou
pled with someone seeing you walking back, means that there’s no case.’
‘You mean against me? Is that what you mean?’ Jenny’s voice broke. ‘God, I didn’t even think of that!’
The woman was apologetically solemn. ‘We have to investigate an unexplained death, you understand.’
‘Oh, yes, of course!’ Jenny said quickly. ‘It’s just… It’s only just dawned on me how bad this could have been. Worse I mean.’ Despite the flooding adrenaline her eyes remained stubbornly droopy, fatigued. She put one shaking hand up to her hair, and through her tired mind the phrase drummed: It’s over it’s done with over it’s done with. ‘So, I can organise her funeral?’ Her voice broke further.
‘Yes, that’s something you can do now.’
Tears, large and hot, welled and spilled, and the tension rolled off her in palpable waves, making her stutter, making her shake. It’s over it’s over it’s over…
When they left, a peace, heavy as a shroud, fell on her shoulders. She slept for the next three hours and didn’t dream. When she woke, she saw that her make-up had transferred itself onto the pillow, like a vivid Turin shroud but, rather than changing the pillowcase, she lay back down, drowsily, with her smudged eyes open, smiling. One clenched hand furled open, closed, opened again.
13
You Can’t Go Home Again
Hi guys.
I want to thank everyone for their messages, public and private. It’s been a hard couple of weeks. A few times there, I really thought I was going under… reading all the positive things people said helped me look after myself though.
There were a lot of negative things thrown at me too. Sometimes I wonder if you realise that This Is Real Life. This is my life, with no filter, no defences. I’ve chosen to put myself out there, and it’s hard, it’s painful. Just because this is a blog, and not a TV show or something, doesn’t mean that I’m not real, that what’s happened isn’t real, and what people say about me doesn’t really hurt. But here’s the thing: People have every right to their opinion. I’m all about truthful disclosure, and some people find that threatening. And when people feel threatened, they act on their basest instincts – they attack, they obfuscate, they lie. The last few days have taught me that I have to allow for this sort of thing, and accept that I have no control over the opinions of some Haters, just as they have no control over what I choose to share.
So, what I mean to say is, I won’t be silenced, and neither should you be. This isn’t a cult of personality, you’re free to dislike me/mistrust me/argue about me. I’d prefer it if people were more accepting, nicer, less aggressive, but I started You Can’t Go Home Again with the idea that it should be a dialogue rather than an echo chamber. I feel very strongly that We Are In This Together, that we can be a family to one another. And families argue and then make-up; they fracture and re-bond, become stronger. I’m stronger than I was a few weeks ago. I believe in myself more. In a funny way, everything that’s happened has given me a sense of my own worth, a small but growing sense of entitlement. And there’s nothing wrong with entitlement, is there? We’re all entitled to respect, to comfort, to safety, to success. Just one small, good deed can change a person’s whole life, and we should be alive to that possibility, and welcome it.
Something quite wonderful happened to me today.
I don’t want to go into the whole story, it’s all too raw, but, as you know the police (briefly) investigated Mum’s death. What I didn’t tell you was that, since nobody saw me leave the house the night she died, they appealed for witnesses, and for a few horrible days I felt as if I was some kind of suspect. This, coupled with shock and – yes, some of the abuse that I received via the blog – almost drove me to a breakdown. For the first time ever, I really felt that I could be losing my mind. Grief, horror, misplaced guilt – it all knocked me down, but then, something happened that made me regain my faith in people.
A witness came forward to say that he’d seen me that night, and suddenly, I could do right by my mum, give her a decent burial. I asked the police if they could thank him for me. They said that, yes, he’d agreed to that. I passed on my number, and… he texted me this morning. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d invited him over for a coffee. Bear in mind that the house is still a mess – half of the furniture has gone, and I only have one chipped mug and a wine glass. I almost texted back to say, Actually can we do another time? But that seemed rude, so I didn’t. I’m really glad I didn’t.
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time at friends’ houses, but they very rarely came to mine. I could never be sure what kind of a state Mum would be in, and I told myself that she’d be mortified if anyone saw her drunk, but really, I think I was protecting both of us.
So, in a funny way, this man was my first visitor. Apart from the police.
He’s my age, and, weirdly, we went to school together! He remembers me, but sadly I don’t remember him at all. He told me that he’d noticed me at school, because he thought I seemed sad sometimes, insecure. And then he said something that really struck me: ‘I should have reached out to you then.’
And I felt my thoughts start to untangle and resolve into one, simple emotion: Gratitude.
When you look after a relative, when you’re a carer, you’re so removed from other people. You exist in a realm of sickness, age, worry. It’s debilitating. I said something like that to him, and he knew exactly what I meant. Why? Because he, too, is looking after a close relative.
We sat in the darkening kitchen and talked for hours. We talked about work, about holidays, about ambitions, about all the things that get put away when you’re a carer, all the things that you hope, one day, will regain their rightful place in your life again. And the guilt, of course. The guilt that, no matter how much you love your parent, you miss your own life, and want it back. When he left, we both felt better, and we agreed to meet again, soon.
So, let me leave you with this: think of the small, good things we can do for others that are large and life-changing. Never underestimate the value of these small things. Don’t give in to fear, but rather share your feelings, reach out to others. We can form our own families, forge our own bonds. All you have to do is be honest. All you have to do is come from a place of love.
XOXO Jay
Lilagracee: Such a relief for you and amazing Revelation! You keep shining lady!
Laundryloony2: Going on a date ;-)
Lilagracee: Not everything’s about that take some time
Brittanywalsh: He sounds nice
DaisyChain: “To those who have given up on love… trust life a little bit”
HollybFootitt: If you can’t love yourself, how can you love someone else? Self-love is NOT narcissism! Pleased to see Jay *finally* believing in herself.
Brittanywalsh: sad2 here about bad messages tho just discovered YCGHA and have2 say i love it.
Lilagracee: @Brittanywalsh welcome to the family!!!
Laundryloony2: Going on a date??!
14
A funeral, with the invitations, the venue, the flowers, the refreshments, is the stunted shadow of a wedding. The morning of Sal’s funeral was incongruously sunny. Brownish remnants of snow clung to kerbs, melting muddily into the drain. Kathleen, a trim, attractive woman in her late fifties, had come up a few days before to help give the house a last once-over, and pick out the outfit Sal would be dressed in: the same periwinkle blue suit she’d worn to Maraid’s wedding and Roisin’s divorce party. Jenny could hear her talking to herself quietly – ‘Grace and Dignity – come on Kath, Grace and Dignity!’ and every now and then stifling a sob.
The two women sat in the shining house waiting for the cars to arrive. The smoke from Kathleen’s cigarette curled into the lemon-scented kitchen. Claudine padded about, her fur glossier, her eye almost healed.
‘What you going to do with the cat then?’ Kathleen asked.
Jenny stroked Claudine’s ears. ‘Keep her. She’s nearly better now.’
‘Did you put the wine an
d beer in the fridge?’
Jenny wandered to the door and leaned against it. ‘I did, but I’m not sure people’ll be drinking.’
‘People expect a drink after a funeral,’ Kathleen said firmly. ‘I’ve done more funerals than you, so I know. They need a bit of help relaxing. Helps the grieving process. And anyway,’ she looked up, ‘we’re Irish, aren’t we? The Irish love a drink at a funeral.’
‘We’re not Irish,’ Jenny muttered.
Kathleen thought about that. ‘Well, my nan was. And your auntie Miriam’s mum was.’ Kathleen squinted through her cigarette smoke. ‘I think?’
‘Miriam’s not my real auntie though.’
‘Oh, is she not? Well…’ Kathleen took her cigarette to the open door, stubbed it out on the doorstep and immediately lit another. ‘Everyone’s a bit Irish, aren’t they?’
People arrived just as the hearse did. The coffin was all but obscured by a huge arrangement of yellow chrysanthemums spelling out ‘SAL’. Kathleen nodded with approval at her own good taste. Then she went forward, clutching at the hands of her daughters, before moving on graciously to welcome those she didn’t know – Mrs Mondesir, frail and uncertain; Freddie who arrived with his parents, Ruth and Graham; Andreena; Mrs Hurst who Sal had worked for. Kathleen was right, she did know more about funerals and, under her expert eye, everyone was introduced, made to feel welcome and ushered back into their own cars within a few minutes, with none of the scattered, self-conscious small talk that Jenny had so dreaded.
It was only when she climbed into the car that she realised just how much this was costing Kathleen; she slumped into tearful anxiety, muttering: ‘Grace and dignity, grace and dignity’ under her breath. It was somehow horrifying to see her reduced to this state. She took Jenny’s hand, squeezed it too tightly. ‘You’re a good girl, Jen.’