Laura put a chip in her mouth. Her diet could start tomorrow. Well, not tomorrow; when the funeral was out of the way. No one should have to be thinking about calories and coffins at the same time.
‘Maybe just some sandwiches and a couple of cakes. I wondered if you’d do the cakes. You know how much better you are at baking than me.’
Laura nodded, wishing she didn’t feel like the child who’d been given the fairy cakes to make so she wouldn’t cause any trouble.
Chapter Four
Then
Laura could still smell her mother in the air. Years later, she would recognize the scent as Shalimar and the merest waft of it could cause the breath to catch in her throat. But, at five years old, it was just the smell of her mother.
She clutched her monkey tighter and squeezed her eyes shut to hold in the tears. They had started when Daddy had been reading her a bedtime story, but then he did all the funny voices of the characters in the book and gave Laura such a big cuddle she forgot to be sad. But when Mum had leaned over to kiss her goodnight, Laura felt the tears coming again and she was furious with herself for being such a stupid baby. Jess wasn’t crying. She was lying on her tummy on the other bed with her feet in the air, flicking through her book.
Mum was cross too. ‘Oh, Laura,’ she said, using that voice. ‘Don’t spoil Mummy’s evening!’
A siren wailed in the background.
Laura had somehow swallowed down the tears, told her mum she looked beautiful and been rewarded with a smile. Her mum held open her arms and Laura snuggled in, enjoying the sensation of the slippery satin dress under her fingertips. Her mum was wearing the new necklace that Dad had bought for her birthday and Laura felt relieved that she really liked it (the shoes he had got her last year not having been a success). The necklace was heart-shaped and apparently you could put teeny-weeny photos inside it. Laura was a bit worried there was only room for two photos though. If Mum put Dad on one side, would she have to share the other side with Jess? Or would it just be a picture of Jess?
Laura hugged too hard and too long. ‘You’re ruining my hair,’ her mother had said, pulling away from Laura and surveying her gravely. Laura pulled at her hot, itchy nightie. ‘Come on now, be a big brave girl like your sister.’
Laura nodded. Last time Mummy and Daddy had gone out, Mummy had been cross with her for making ‘such a fuss’. So tonight, she had tried extra hard to be good. She hadn’t looked sulky when Jess showed off yet another sticker from school, she’d eaten all her yucky supper, she’d gone up to the bath the second her mother told her to even though Blue Peter wasn’t finished.
But now she’d spoiled it.
Chapter Five
Order of Service
Phone funeral director
Book Calvin the Clown
Tidy flat
Laura looked at her notepad and sighed. This was the first time in her life she’d made a to-do list. She was turning into her sister. Only she wasn’t, because none of the things on Laura’s list were getting ‘to done’. (The clown wasn’t for the funeral – that really would be weird – he was for Billy’s birthday party, which was three days afterwards.)
Today was Blue Monday, which meant it was officially the most depressing day of the whole year. A day when the ‘stay in PJs all day and eat brie for breakfast’ joy felt as if it was a lifetime ago and not just weeks earlier. And surely there must be extra misery points for the bereaved? Laura wasn’t sure she was extra miserable though; in fact, she would have been hard-pressed to say exactly how she did feel since it seemed to change dramatically from one second to the next. Although if she’d had to settle on one constant, guilt would have been a strong contender. She felt guilty for not getting to her mother’s bedside in time, guilty for mindlessly surfing the internet when she was supposed to be making funeral arrangements and guilty that she still seemed to be able to both sleep and eat (really eat – perhaps it could be deemed ‘comfort eating’? Except, it was how she ate all the time …).
The trouble was there was no manual for how to behave. At one time, when someone died, you drew the curtains, donned a wardrobe of black (which was pretty much Laura’s normal wardrobe) and went into a period of almost hiding. Now the bereaved were expected to carry on with their day-to-day lives, but this presented so many challenges. Laura felt weird chatting to a mum acquaintance in the school playground and not mentioning her mother’s death – it was like it was of no consequence – but she felt uncomfortable at the thought of bringing it up too – I don’t deserve your sympathy. And what about laughter? Jon had been telling her a funny story the other day about a couple of women who were in front of him in the queue in one of the delis in Dulwich Village. One of the women was lamenting her child’s ‘laziness’ because he had said he was too tired to do his homework after being at school all day, then swimming fifty lengths at Tiger Sharks and going to his piano lesson. ‘How old would you guess the poor kid was?’ Jon said. Laura said she didn’t know. ‘Younger than Billy. Four – tops!’ And they’d both laughed and laughed, but then Laura heard herself and thought: your mother died three days ago.
Laura pulled up the draft of the Order of Service she’d started work on earlier. She’d do some more – even if she couldn’t control her inappropriate laughter or moods, she could at least make sure she did the things on her list. Jess would have done everything on hers by now and would be busily making new lists.
One person who didn’t seem particularly blue this Blue Monday was Jon, who had gone out drinking again with his mate Jimmy the Guitar. ‘Just a quick one after leaving the office.’ Jon and Jimmy loved that gag – neither of them had ever worked in an office in their lives. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ Jon had said to her tonight. ‘Of course not,’ she’d replied, because she didn’t really feel right playing the grief card and because they both prided themselves on her being a cool chick who didn’t nag about stuff like that. She would kind of like him back now though. And preferably not completely hammered.
Laura’s eyes landed on the book she had found herself buying on impulse the other day: Good Grief. She had no idea what had made her get it. She’d only read the ‘Stages of Grief’ chapter so far and it had got on her nerves by implying that bereavement was simply a tick list. Also her grief wasn’t like other people’s grief, so the book would almost certainly be utterly useless to her. Terrible jaunty title too, now she came to think of it.
She didn’t suppose Good Grief would make any mention of sometimes feeling almost happy about your mother’s death. That wouldn’t be in there because other people – normal people – wouldn’t suddenly be hit by this strange feeling of lightness; a feeling that they’d been released from a stronghold and could finally be who they wanted to be. That was the feeling that made Laura feel like a very bad person.
Laura felt like she ought to be doing better with grief – not to mention life in general – since she was the agony aunt for Natter magazine and, as such, the purveyor of knowledge and wisdom. When the trained counsellor who used to write the column had become the victim of budget cuts, Laura’s editor had ‘asked’ her to take on the role. Laura was horrified. ‘I’m not qualified,’ she’d stuttered.