Mum’s planned, but mainly still sad. I miss her so much and can’t bear that I’ll never see her or hear her voice again.’
Anna looked wistful. ‘That never goes away.’
‘And I feel bad I didn’t get up to see her more often.’
‘You went every six weeks. She understood – distance, money.’
‘Rose dropped in twice a week.’
‘Well she could, couldn’t she? She lives in London. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Guilt is a waste of energy.’ Anna glanced back at the letter. ‘Have you been talking to God as she requested?’
I smiled. ‘A couple of attempts. I asked where I was going to get the money to buy the house but I reckon if there is a God, he’d think I have more than many and should be grateful.’
‘Possibly but remember that quote from Matthew in the Bible? The one about not worrying about your life? “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, or reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?”’
‘That’s exactly the sort of thing Mum would have come out with. She was always sending me happy quotes in her last few months. She had one for every occasion, as for your Bible lines, if you lived with two cats and saw what they brought in, that would be the end of the “look at the birds of the air” theory, because they’re not in the air, they’re lying dead on my kitchen floor with their heads chewed off.’
‘Cynic,’ said Anna. ‘Do you think your sisters will try talking to God?’
‘Fat chance. Rose is an atheist and Fleur thinks she is God.’
Anna laughed.
‘Mum hated me saying anything critical about either of my sisters. She refused to acknowledge that we’d fallen out or that we only spoke to each other if completely necessary. She always chatted away about Fleur and Rose as if nothing had changed between us, and gave me their latest news and what was happening with Rose and her writers in the publishing world, how Fleur’s property portfolio was going. I’d nod and listen and imagined that Rose and Fleur did the same.’
Anna pointed at the letter. ‘She might not have acknowledged it to you but clearly she was more than aware how things were with you and your sisters hence this brilliant plan to get you back together. She’d obviously been doing a lot of thinking and scheming in her last months.’
I nodded. ‘Her letter reflected a lot of what was going on in her head before she died. She was death obsessed. On my last visit to her, she said she was researching what she could about the next stage of the journey. Where we go when we die, what life’s been all about, that sort of thing. She said she wasn’t afraid and was convinced that there’s something after life, something good.’
‘We’ll probably have the same curiosity when we’re in our late eighties. When I was in India in my twenties, I asked a guru if there was an afterlife. “Only one way to know for sure,” he replied. “Die and find out.”’
‘Sounds like good advice. Mum was never what I’d call a religious person in a church going sense but she was spiritual. On her shelf, she had a wide range of books – the Bible, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bhagavad-Gita, Richards Dawkins, There is No God, all Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s.”
‘She was always open-minded, wasn’t she?’
‘She was, right up to the end. She had great attitude and embraced death’s inevitability with the same enthusiasm she did every other part of her life. Last time I went to see her, it was like listening to someone who was making holiday plans, checking out the reviews of the destination before they set off. She said it would be like an adventure, like going to the airport, aware she was off somewhere, just not knowing where.’
‘Knowing that she wasn’t afraid must give you some solace.’
Tears welled up in my eyes. ‘Sometimes. Some days I think I can handle it; other days I can hardly breathe and don’t want to see anyone or do anything.’
‘Of course there will still be times like that. It’s only been a couple of months since she died. Grief is like standing on the edge of the ocean. Some days, the water laps around your feet; you know it’s there, it’s manageable. Other days, from nowhere, it blasts in like a tsunami and knocks you right over. They say it takes two years to even feel normal again.’
‘I can’t imagine ever feeling normal again.’
‘You will, although you’ll probably always feel her loss. I know I do of my parents.’
‘A day doesn’t go by when I don’t think of her. I catch myself thinking, oh I must tell Mum that, or see a programme in the TV guide that I think she’d like, or hear an interview on Radio Four and think I must give her a ring – then I remember, I can’t. I miss that she’s not there to talk things over with – like now, the fact that I might lose my home and so have no place to curl up and hide away on the tsunami days when I miss her most. She’d have been so reassuring. She always had such good solid advice to give. I miss that and her kindness and care.
Mainly, though, I’m in awe at Mum having thought up her plan for us and never saying a word. I need the money, yes, but it’s not just that, in fact, even thinking about that seems mercenary. I mainly want to do this list of hers because it will give me some extended contact, in the sense that she’s gone but left this legacy, mad though it may be.’
‘And you will get your inheritance in the end.’
‘Not necessarily. There’s no guarantee that one of my sisters won’t refuse to take part or back out at some stage. In devising her plan, Mum’s made me completely dependent on the two people I’d choose not to need anything from. That’s the bit I’m not happy about, and I’m pretty sure they feel the same.’
‘Clever old bird,’ said Anna. ‘She was right. How could any of you refuse to carry out her last wish? You never know, it could be an adventure.’
‘With Rose and Fleur? I doubt it. More like one long argument. Rose can be quite contrary when the mood takes her and Fleur isn’t always easy either. If it was with you, it would be different. But the bottom line is that it was Mum’s last wish. This condition mattered to her and so it matters to me. I want to do it for her.’
Anna reached out and squeezed my hand. I felt a rush of affection for her. It had been her who’d picked me up the day that Rose’s husband, Hugh had called to tell me that Mum had died of a massive heart attack. I never knew anything could hit so hard and went to pieces, numb with shock and disbelief. Not that death was new to me, of course it wasn’t – aunts, uncles, cousins, friends had all gone over the years. My father had died when I was aged six and though too young to really understand at the time, I mourned for him and what could have been rather than what was. With other deaths, I felt for their family and close ones rather than how it affected me. It all depended on what the person had meant. Mum was not only my mother, but one of my favourite people on the planet and with her passing, I felt that my heart had broken. Well meaning friends called, brought cards and flowers, those that had known her offering condolence or advice. But what could they say? In the days immediately after her death, I felt full of cut glass and it hurt like hell.
Anna had nursed me like a child, bringing food, dealing with post and emails.
Some mornings I’d wake up, feel normal for a brief moment, then remember Mum had gone for ever and weep. It was so final. I’d never see her dear and familiar face again, see the kindness and concern in her eyes, hear her voice, her laughter, have her there to turn to.
Anna had understood. ‘The loss of a parent is immense and the pain you feel at their passing is exactly equal to what they meant to you,’ she told me. ‘If you loved someone deeply, you will suffer deeply. Don’t deny it, suppress it or feel you should get over it; feel it and know it is evidence of how much you loved her.’
On the bad days, I would