LITMIR.BIZ

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me. ‘No.’ I squeeze Dad’s hand. ‘Not today.’

      My father nods and his eyes veer back to the boats. I sit back, still holding his hand, am cast back to the many times I sat here on his knee watching the same scene. It was an idyllic childhood, both Leah and I lucky enough to grow up in this beautiful place. And Anna loves it here. Right now as I look at the green space between the house and the water, I can almost hear her laughter; see her running as her granddad chases her. He taught her so much; taking her out on the water in a tiny dinghy, so small it made my heart skip a beat when they both left shore. It was my father who taught Anna to sail. It was my father who took us all on what was Anna’s first snow holiday. It was my father who taught her to ski.

      I stand up, pass the table, filled with enough food to feed an army. My mother has used a white tablecloth; has place settings in her best bone-handled cutlery, linen napkins with tiny embroidered daisies. A pitcher full of home-made lemonade sits in the centre and I pray that she also has something stronger as well as I head to the loo.

      In the cloakroom, an apple-scented diffuser does its job so well, I almost gag. My heartbeat is rapid and I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to leave; just open the front door and go. Anna is telling me to calm down, but I’m talking back to her telling her that I’m okay, I’ll just sneak out for a bit and take Pug for a walk.

      There is a gentle knock on the door and I grip the edge of the sink. ‘Coming,’ I say.

      My mother opens the door anyway, shuts it behind her. ‘Food’s ready, darling. Who were you talking to?’

      ‘Myself.’

      She hugs me again. ‘I do that all the time.’

      ‘I pretend she’s here. I pretend she’s here and talk to her,’ I whisper to her lined neck, to her soft piccalilli curls.

      ‘I know … Don’t knock it if it helps. C’mon.’ She rubs my arms up and down with her hands. ‘Let’s eat, we’re all famished.’ She goes to leave.

      ‘Sometimes,’ I tell her, ‘it feels like I’m losing my mind. I just need to see her one more time. Just once – to tell her how loved she is and if she has to go, then, I …’ I shake my head. Our eyes meet and my mother’s fill. I smudge her tears away with my thumb.

      ‘I talk out loud to your father all the time,’ she says. ‘And I imagine him talking back to me the way he used to, not in the broken sentences he can manage now. I imagine him and me arguing during Question Time. Jess, he’s here physically, but I lost a big part of him in the first stroke. We both understand loss, you and I.’

      ‘God, Mum.’ I pull her back to me. ‘Am I ever going to be able to feel again?’

      ‘You will. Because you have to. You have Rose.’

      ‘I’m sorry I’ve been staying away. Everything. Anna, Dad, it’s all so hard. I feel like an exhausted ninety-year-old.’

      ‘You’re still a young woman, Jess.’

      I attempt a laugh. ‘Not that young any more.’

      ‘You have a life to lead. Don’t waste it; don’t wither on the vine. Anna would never forgive you. Your beautiful girl would hate that.’ Her tears have traced thin parallel lines down her cheeks. She reaches forward, pulls some toilet paper from the roll and wipes her face.

      ‘I can’t cry,’ I say. ‘Not properly; not since the day I heard the news.’

      She shrugs. ‘I do enough of that for two,’ she says, straightening out her clothes.

      ‘I blame Dad.’ I blurt it out.

      The look of horror on her face says it all.

      ‘He took us on that first snow holiday. He made her love it.’

      ‘Oh, Jess …’ She takes my hand.

      ‘I know it’s wrong. I know it.’

      ‘Is that why you don’t come up?’ she asks simply.

      I raise my hand to my mouth, exhale loudly through spread fingers. It comes out in uneven, ragged breaths. The question doesn’t need an answer so she pulls me from the room. As we walk, I focus on the love I have for my mother and the love I know Anna has for me. I close my eyes and will her home, as Mum and I walk arm in arm to the dining table, and together, all five of us eat roast beef with seven different vegetables.

      Leah’s quiet on the way home. Pug is asleep in the carrier by my side.

      ‘How do you think your mum and dad were?’ Gus asks.

      My eyes flit to Leah’s who turns around to face me. ‘What did you think?’ she says.

      ‘You first.’

      ‘Mum’s going to kill herself running around after him, way before he goes.’

      ‘I don’t know. He seems … He just seems to have disappeared inside himself. He seems lost.’ I pause a moment before finishing. ‘I didn’t like the look of him.’

      ‘They did tell us that things would worsen over time, the risk of tinier strokes happening regularly.’

      I suppress a sigh; stare out of the window; try not to think of the man I’ve just left as my once vibrant, athletic father; try not to think of the once glamorous woman who takes care of his every need now having piccalilli hair.

      ‘Do you agree we need to get Mum some help?’ Leah asks.

      ‘You tried, didn’t you?’ Gus says. ‘Last time you and I were here, you said it to her. She said she didn’t want any strangers in the house, that it would upset your dad.’

      ‘That was then,’ Leah said. ‘I think it’s probably time. She can’t keep doing what she’s doing. Can she?’ She turns around again to look at me.

      ‘Mum will do what Mum wants. If she says no strangers, then that means no strangers.’

      Leah tuts. ‘She needs help,’ she repeated. ‘The GP has recommended him for a care package. All we have to do is put the wheels in motion and, even then, it could take time.’

      ‘Look, you’ve tried. Let me talk to her?’

      ‘Tell her we’ll find someone who looks like Daniel Craig,’ Leah says, removing her laptop from her bag and putting her glasses on.

      I smile, despite myself. My mother has a thing for Daniel Craig, though I’m certain care workers who look like him are probably quite rare.

      Gus grins at me in the rear-view mirror. Leah has snapped into work mode. There’ll be no talking to her now until we arrive home. Her work is her life. I remember when Anna became pregnant with Rose, together they had cried. Leah with a rare frustration; sadness that since she had willingly decided never to have children with Gus, already a father, it brought it home that she would never have ‘her own’ child. Anna because she, having slept with Sean only once, found herself with an unplanned and very inconvenient pregnancy.

      By the time Gus drops me and Pug off, my watch says seven forty and I feel like it’s much later. I am planning a cup of tea, an hour of recorded Downton Abbey, a chat with Anna and then sleep – lots of it. With Rose away still with Sean, I take any opportunity to sleep longer and later. There’s a pile of mail lying on the hallway floor. I open the cupboard under the stairs and, anything with Anna’s name on it, I throw into the black refuse sack full of her post. The only thing bearing my name that I choose to open is a small brown padded package with my address in Doug’s handwriting. Pug is yapping to escape the travel carrier as I rip it open. Inside, there’s an item in a clear plastic bag, the sort I use for Rose’s school lunch. A yellow Post-it is attached.

       ‘You said you wanted this when we got it back. The police sent it through this week. I charged it but Anna has a lock on it and I haven’t been able to open it with any code that I thought she’d use … Let me know you get it okay? Doug’.

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