began speaking in a slow, strangulated voice and then grew increasingly hysterical. Julian, who had been loitering guiltily outside the door, took over but by now Vera was deaf. It was panic deafness. She really could not hear a word after Karen mentioned a terrible accident.
Oh Vera, there’s been a terrible accident.
Vera’s throat became tight, she could feel it tighten now, and she had replaced the receiver without saying goodbye. She stood, paralysed, forgetting to breathe. There was a rap on the door and a voice through the letterbox.
‘It’s me, Monica Harper. Open the door and I’ll take care of everything, my dear.’
Vera inched slowly, not sure how to make her legs move, towards the voice of the poshest of her neighbours, who it seemed had been contacted by Julian.
Vera did not know Monica that well at all, only really seeing her at her annual Christmas party, but it transpired that she was calm and efficient and gentle and somehow bundled Vera and Bob onto a train, with overnight bags, to be met by Julian, whose eyes were so cloudy, guilty, hurt and red that both Vera and Bob knew instantly that their daughter was dead.
Everything, in fact, was dead. The friendship with Karen and Julian died. The innocence of Debbie died. Poor Debbie had stretched out to catch hold of Lauren but managed only to scratch her best friend’s arm. She would burst into tears in the middle of supper or the middle of class. She became the girl to be avoided.
Some people were kind, others avoided them. Bob’s boss, Peter Stanning, not only gave Bob unlimited time off, but frequently drove round after work with fruit and his wife’s homemade strawberry jam. Vera would stand at the upstairs windows glaring as the children of The Willows scampered and shrieked, threw balls and fell off scooters. Only Monica Harper would look up and smile at her and offer Vera a glimpse of life beyond bereavement.
Someone organised the funeral. It was not Bob and it was not Vera. Debbie cried the loudest and had to be ushered out of the church before the last hymn had been sung. Teachers said nice things about Lauren’s art and Aunt Suki said nice things about Lauren’s sweet nature.
Wreaths of flowers were knee-deep in places and the smell of them was pungent and cruel. The Harpers hosted the compulsory post-funeral gathering and even Vera could tell they did it faultlessly.
‘Without you…’ she said to Monica.
‘I know,’ Monica said, and kissed her on her forehead. Vera knew it was supposed to have been a healing kiss but the memory of it felt more like she was being given permission to leave behind the pain.
The day before Lauren’s second dead birthday Vera waited for Bob to leave and then began rummaging in the cupboard under the sink in the big bathroom. She had squirrelled away a stash of sleeping pills and paracetamol tablets and needed to get going fast.
She had been saving them ever since that first terrible day and the ring of the phone. It had been more important than eating, the hoarding of the pills. Monica’s kiss, the Stanning jam and the pills. They were all she had.
Vera had a jug of water to hand and a bottle of whisky. She had planned to swig them while stood at the sink but decided it might be easier to do it at her dressing table. She would be closer, then, to the bed. She counted in Laurens.
One Lauren and swallow. Two Lauren and swallow. Three Lauren and swallow.
When the room began to spin, she lay down with her pre-prepared ice-cold face towel to place on her forehead so she would not vomit and therefore survive. She carried on counting, carried on breathing and then, ever so slowly, stopped.
Bob was slightly later home than usual, wanting to leave everything squeakily efficient at work so he could concentrate on keeping Vera afloat the next day. It was breezy and orange and yellow leaves swirled in the bowels of The Willows as he placed his key in the door. It was quiet and he could not detect any signs of food being prepared. He shouted her name, climbed the stairs and as he reached the landing he smelled the whisky fumes. He paused, he couldn’t blame her. He badly wanted a drink too. He tapped lightly on the bedroom door before opening it.
He did not panic upon surveying the scene. Part of him was instantly envious. His wife had escaped the torment. He was not sufficiently calm, though, to take her pulse. He was loath to leave her to go downstairs to the phone so he opened the bedroom window. The curly-haired twins were throwing conkers at each other.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. They looked up. He asked them to knock on the Harpers’ door. They looked at each other quizzically before running off towards their own house. Exasperated, Bob ran down to the phone, made a call he later had no memory of making, left the front door open, then ran back to Vera.
Her face cloth had slipped onto the pillow leaving it wet as if soaked in her tears. He placed his head on her stomach, hoping she would reach down and run her fingers through his hair. When the ambulance crew arrived Vera’s blouse was damp too, and Bob, for the first time since his daughter died, was unable to stop sobbing.
Vera awoke in a panic. She had dreamed she had taken pills and it had been so vivid. She clutched at her flabby stomach but she felt fine, just disorientated. Bob walked in holding their baby.
‘I’m glad you were able to nap, love,’ he said, ‘but she needs a feed.’
Vera wriggled herself upright against the pillows. It was the most beautiful thing in the world to feed little Hope, and the most emotionally cruel. Hope had been conceived in a frenzy of desperate, angry, escapist lovemaking after the death of Lauren. She had promised herself she would kill herself if she could not have another child and she had doubted it would happen, but it had. The sibling had come along. She was too late to be a real sibling. But she was real.
She looked like Lauren but not too much for constant tears. Hope made everyone happy. Vera and Bob had asked Karen and Julian to be godparents and they had cried and cried and cried about it for days afterwards. Debbie ran endless, unnecessary errands for Vera. Aunt Suki had moved in for a fortnight to ease the load, which meant she made lots of tea and toast and answered the phone and the door and reluctantly pegged out washing.
‘Oh, Bob, I’m so grateful and so angry all at the same time,’ Vera said, ‘and I’m worried Hope will know, she will be scarred or withdrawn or frightened of me or something.’
‘Nah,’ said Bob, smiling. ‘She’s the most loved child in Cheshire and we’ll tell her about her big sister in the right way, of course we will.’
Hope needed to be loved. Her name had the ring of optimism but was drenched in tragedy. Her full name was Hope Lauren Pailing.
Hope’s christening was in the same church as…
That was how they all spoke of it. ‘It’s in the same church as…’ There was no need nor desire to finish the sentence. The service was intimate, and conducted at pace, as if those present were pushing against a great weight and they could only hold their arms aloft for so long to avoid being crushed.
There were more guests back at the house, where Vera was complimented on how slender she looked in her new dress. She even summoned a little twirl for Debbie, who was particularly entranced by the crêpe fabric that fell Hollywood style to reach the floor and the way ribbons of silvery silk were woven through it.
‘You look so lovely in your silvery silky dress,’ Debbie told Vera, in a low voice to avoid making her own mother jealous and she wondered why, when she said so, Vera had blinked rapidly.
Later, sat on the edge of her bed, Vera ran her fingers along the dress which now lay across the bedspread like a willing bride. The silver ribbons glistened in the light from the pair of chintz bedside lamps and she closed her eyes. She had bought the dress three weeks ago. Now she remembered that seven years ago, maybe eight, Lauren had mentioned a silvery silky dress.
Vera smiled sadly. She did