February 2018
‘Are you sure you don’t mind keeping Grace this afternoon?’ I said, standing on Angela’s doorstep, stepping from foot to foot, more to control my shaking limbs than to keep warm.
She leaned forward and touched my face. I knew it must look blotchy and puffy from the tears that had followed Martin Walker’s call. ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Grace is an absolute angel. I’m just sorry I can’t help you more.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m so sorry about your mum.’
‘Thanks.’ I tugged my parka round me like a protective layer, and stepped backwards. If she tried to hug me, I knew I would cry again. ‘I’m afraid I still can’t find my spare key, so I hope everything Grace needs is in her bag.’
‘No problem at all.’
I was about to leave when Grace trotted into Angela’s hallway. I hadn’t wanted her to see me in such a state.
‘Mummy?’ She looked rosy-cheeked from playing in the snow, and was carrying a mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows floating on the top, like lost boats on dark waters. ‘Have you come to get me?’
I knelt down in front of her. ‘Not yet, lovely girl,’ I said. ‘That looks delicious.’
‘Want some?’ she said, offering up the mug, and smiling a chocolaty smile.
‘Ooh, yes please.’ I took a small sip, enjoying the smooth liquid on my tongue, as she stared wide-eyed. ‘Yummy!’
‘I’m watching Peppa Pig, actually,’ she said, and turned and walked down the hall away from me, calling, ‘See you later, Mummy. Love you.’
‘Love you more,’ I called after her, noticing she was wearing a pair of fluffy slippers in the shape of rabbits that were a bit too big for her.
Spotting where my eyes had landed, Angela threw me an awkward smile. ‘My sister leaves them here for when she visits with her granddaughter. I hope you don’t mind Grace wearing them.’
‘Not at all,’ I said, attempting to return the smile. She’d never mentioned a sister, but then I knew so little about her.
‘Well, I’d better set off,’ I said, thanking Angela again, and trudging towards my car.
Despite being a confident driver, I hated driving in the snow, and knowing what I would find at the other end sent a bolt of anxiety through me. ‘I hope to be back by six at the latest,’ I called over my shoulder.
‘I’m so sorry about your mum,’ she repeated, before closing her front door.
***
The side roads were icy, but once I was on the main roads, doing a steady fifty, driving got easier, until I reached Suffolk. There, the countryside was treacherous and it took me ages to reach the care home. My head thumped like a bass drum by the time I pulled up in front of it.
I took a couple of painkillers with bottled water, and sat for some moments, trying to calm myself, beating back tears. The care home looked like something from a Jane Austen novel – stately, with rectangular windows, a double front door, and wisteria weaving its way up the walls. It was still hard to believe my mother had been there because Alzheimer’s struck long before her time.
And now she’d passed away. Died. My mother was dead. My amazing mother who I loved so much was gone. Not just into her own world, but forever. Tears surged, and I broke down, sobbing over the steering wheel. Loud, breathless cries I couldn’t control. I didn’t want to go in. If I did it would make it real. I started the engine, and rammed the car into reverse. I couldn’t face it today. I couldn’t face it ever.
A knock on my side window, before I could press down on the throttle, startled me. It was Margo, huddled into a tartan coat, a scarf wrapped around her neck and half her face. I lowered the window, and a burst of cold air numbered my face.
‘Are you coming in, dear?’ she said, her voice muffled through her scarf.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, with a sniff. Surely she knew how difficult it was for me.
‘I know how hard it is for you, Miss Hogan,’ she said as though she’d heard my thoughts, leaning in through the window. ‘But your mother so enjoys your visits, even if she doesn’t always seem to.’
Didn’t she know my mother was dead? She’d just arrived for work. Maybe she hadn’t heard.
I got out of the car. If we walked in together, perhaps it would be easier.
‘That’s the spirit,’ she said, as we trudged through the snow towards the building, and she linked her arm through mine to steady herself.
We reached the door, and I stopped and turned to her. She didn’t know. I needed to prepare her. ‘I’ve had a call from Martin Walker,’ I said. ‘And the thing is … the thing is … my mother died this morning.’
‘What? Oh, my dear girl, how awful.’ To my surprise, she took me in her arms and hugged me close. I didn’t pull away, needing the comfort. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea,’ she went on. ‘Your mother was an amazing woman. I got on famously with her.’
Once inside, I stood by reception, waiting. Margo had zipped away to ‘find somebody to help’ and a chill ran down my spine. It felt as though I wasn’t in my own body – that this terrible experience was happening to someone else.
My mind cruelly flicked back to the Christmas before last, when we stayed at Mum’s, and she was fit and well and seemed happy. Lawrence had been so affectionate back then; we were in love. Flashes of him helping Grace to open her presents, and Mum demanding to know how I’d made the delicious Christmas pudding we’d brought with us, and Lawrence giving away that it was shop-bought. So much happiness, so much laughter, so much normality. And now it was gone, and everything had plunged into chaos and darkness.
‘Miss Hogan?’ It was Martin’s wife, a skinny woman in a tartan kilt and white blouse. Her two-inch heels clipped the quarry tiles as she raced towards me, Margo trying to keep up in her soft shoes. ‘Margo tells me you’ve had a call from my husband.’ There was concern in her voice.
‘That’s right. About my mother.’
‘Well, he’s away at the moment, so it couldn’t have been him,’ she said, and now standing by my side, she placed her hand on my elbow.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your mother is perfectly well, Miss Hogan. She’s in her room, painting.’
I didn’t know if it was the shock or lack of food, but the room spun. I grabbed the reception counter, steadying myself. My mum’s alive? ‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated. Why would someone call me? Why would someone be so cruel? ‘I need to see her,’ I said desperately.
I took a deep breath, and raced up the stairs, throwing open her door. She was sitting in a wing-backed chair looking out of the window, her easel close by, brush in hand.
My eyes fell on her painting, and I held in a gasp. Clouds like cotton-wool balls dipped in blood dotted a vivid yellow sky. Sharp-edged, misshapen metal buildings grew up from emerald green grass.
She turned and placed the brush on the pallet. ‘I thought you might be Jude,’ she said.
‘Jude?’
She tapped her breastbone. ‘It’s gone, Rachel,’ she said.
I approached, battling back tears. ‘What’s gone, Mum?’
She screwed up her face, and shook her head, continuing to tap her neck. ‘Why can’t I remember?’ Words often teased her, reaching the tip of her tongue, before darting away. She closed her eyes, and opened them again. ‘It’s been taken.’
‘What has, Mum?’
She tapped her breastbone again, the same puzzled look on her face. ‘The hanging thing.’
‘Your locket?’
‘Yes. With Rachel inside.’ She picked up her brush once more.
‘Who’s taken it, Mum?’
She looked towards the ceiling, and shrugged.
‘Was it Margo?’ I asked. She was the only person I could think of, who Mum saw other than me.
‘I need to get it back.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s very special.’
‘I know it is, Mum,’ I said, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders.
‘And it’s been stolen.’
‘I’m sure nobody would take your things.’ I glanced around the room, then bent down to look under the bed, wondering if she’d dropped it. Straightening up again, I swept my eyes over her bedside cabinet where there was a photograph of me and a glass of water.
‘Well, it’s gone,’ she said, dipping her brush into the yellow paint, and turning away from me. ‘And so have my black shoes with the big gold buckles.’
I dropped onto the bed, my head in my hands. To my knowledge, Mum had never owned a pair of black shoes with big gold buckles.