How I longed to get in my car and drive in the opposite direction.
The hall was two-thirds full and I could hear the burble of chatter as I pushed through the double doors of the small vestibule. Luke and Lottie were together, Luke’s arm around her shoulders, pulling her close: protective.
Howard, Arjun and Geoffrey stood in a tight circle together in one corner, picking at sausage rolls on napkins. Arjun had a mark on his lapel, had done something funny to his hair with gel or water or I wasn’t sure what. How I wished we were all four on the golf course, walking in companionable silence between holes, only commenting on the awkward green or Howard’s ridiculously showy swing or Arjun’s ability to lose his new balls in the long grass. That was where I was comfortable, not here in a suit I hadn’t worn in years that smelt of mothballs and damp, panicking internally at the amount of familiar faces whose names I couldn’t recall.
I felt awkward and exposed, unable to deal with the tears of other people. I stuck out a hand to shake: old friends of yours, work colleagues ignoring the hand, pressing their powdered cheeks to my face, dabbing at their eyes. They wanted to tell me stories about you, they wanted to ask how you had been in those final days and weeks. I answered their questions in monosyllables, not able to give them the answers they wanted to hear.
You would have held their hands, produced tissues from a miniature packet in your handbag, asked the right questions, said the right things. You would have been so much better able to deal with this day.
Why aren’t you here to help me any more? What am I going to do without you now?
I love you, my darling. I miss you. God, I miss you.
Teddy x
Chapter 5
Love is the space where nothing used to be
ISABELLE, 79
A few weeks have passed since the funeral and I’ve been dividing my time between Grandad’s and our flat. I feel like I’m living my life on trains and tubes, often turning up to court dishevelled and trying to fix my make-up and clothes in the ladies’. I barely see Luke, who often drops in on Grandad when he knows I’m busy. I love him for that; I know he’s doing it to ease my mind even though he has always got on well with Grandad. Still, somehow, by the time I’ve returned to sink into bed beside him, I never seem to get the energy up to say anything to him.
I miss Grandma. I miss my grandad’s easy smiles, a little harder to summon these days. I miss the easy laughs, the endless tea, the Sunday roasts: the times when we weren’t all noticing what, or rather who, was missing. My grief is a weight that drags my whole body down, keeps me in bed in the mornings, not wanting to get up.
I wasn’t sleeping well, at times disorientated over where I was, and struggling to concentrate on my work. I would straighten my wig, take a breath and step into the court, trying to put on an invisible mask, Lottie the Professional, to ensure no one knew that inside I was all squiggles and confusion. I needed to look strong, to be strong for Grandad, and sometimes it felt as if the effort of that drained me in every other area of my life.
I had finished court early today, defending a man who had been charged with being drunk and disorderly on a plane when heading home from his eldest son’s graduation day. He had been discharged after a not-guilty verdict, mostly because he was so charming and apologetic in the witness box. At the end of the trial he had clutched both my hands promising that his family would be lighting a candle for me that night at home in Romania. The image had made me a little tearful and I was reminded it was these moments – helping clients, being their mouthpiece – when I really loved my job.
I was out of court by two o’clock, the whole afternoon stretching ahead. I longed to return home, crawl under a duvet on the sofa and devour a mindless boxset, but I had a sudden image of Grandad alone in the house and knew how much he’d appreciate seeing me.
I let myself in with my key and called down the empty corridor. Noticing Grandma’s furry hat on a hook, the one Grandad always said made her look like she was wearing roadkill, I felt my mouth lift, was glad I had come.
‘Grandad?’
The living room was empty: two glasses of water on the coffee table, an abandoned newspaper, but no people.
‘Hello?’
I wondered if he was out playing golf. He seemed to play in any weather but I had noticed his clubs hadn’t moved from the spot in the corridor for weeks now. It had worried me: golf and the club where he played had always been his passion. That, and Grandma.
‘We’re up here,’ a voice called from upstairs.
I frowned and looked up, transported back to a moment when Grandma had been alive, then shook my head. Silly.
I climbed the stairs, finding Arjun and Grandad in the bedroom, looking like they were about to drown in a sea of black bin liners, carrier bags, shoe boxes and hangers.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked them both, standing in the doorway.
Arjun looked up, his black hair barely flecked with grey, glossy under the overhead light, his wiry frame practically buried under women’s clothes.
‘We thought we’d make a start sorting through some of your grandmother’s things,’ Arjun said, in a voice that suggested he was already regretting it.
I looked round at the room at the piles of clothes, shoes, belts, hats and more. My grandma had loved to dress and had never really changed shape so nothing was ever thrown away.
Grandad was sitting on the bed clutching a thin black leather belt, pulled from a pile of other belts by his side.
‘Is that one particularly special?’ I said in my most sensitive voice, moving towards him, ready to give him comfort.
‘No,’ he said, his fingers inching along the leather. ‘I just can’t believe how much stuff there is. She could have dressed every woman in Maplelands club . . . for a year.’ He sounded dazed. I couldn’t help but giggle.
Grandad looked at me properly then, still dressed in my suit and heels. ‘Lottie, did you come from work? You must be busy. We are more than happy to do this – you get off and do something fun for the day.’
‘Don’t be silly, I can help,’ I said, not wanting to leave now, overwhelmed by the enormous number of things strewn on the bed, furniture and floor. ‘You’re going to need it,’ I added, putting my briefcase down and folding my coat on top of it.
‘I wouldn’t leave that there,’ Arjun said, clutching a roll of bin liners. ‘You might find it heading to Oxfam.’
‘Good point,’ I agreed, picking my things up again and placing them in the corridor. ‘I’ll make more tea,’ I called, heading back down the stairs.
‘Just hot water for me,’ Arjun called after me. Arjun had always tried to get Grandad and Grandma into various health kicks: he treated blueberries like they were the food of the Gods, played endless rounds of golf and had introduced them both to aqua aerobics (Grandad had only attended the first session, claiming the pop music they played was not to his taste).
The bedroom was stuffy and we worked in silence, heaping clothes into separate piles. Standing in front of the wardrobe I was overwhelmed by the scent of Grandma, a mix of mint and the outdoors, my hand shooting out for balance as if the smell would send me physically back through time. I could see her now at my cousin Nikki’s wedding in a lemon yellow linen dress; leaving for bridge in a pale blue fitted shirt, her hair shining; sitting up in her bed in a white, high-collared cotton nightdress, still beautiful and dignified even that last time.