‘What now?’ says Sarah. We’re standing outside Jean’s house, my friends gathered together, everyone seemingly reluctant to go our separate ways. Tess jogs Harry up and down on her hip, Joy wrapping an arm around the two of them and staring ahead, a dazed expression on her face.
It was hard to leave the cottage. After the tears and a couple of drams of whisky Jean seemed calmer, the stiffness gone from her body and in its place a sense of ease. But it was difficult to say goodbye to her.
‘You’ll see me tomorrow at the funeral,’ she’d said, and I watched as my friends flinched.
‘I’m not going anywhere just yet,’ she continued. ‘I’ll see you all tomorrow. Now get on home, all of you.’
I could barely meet Christopher’s eye as he showed us out, his shoulders sagging and the apron around his waist limp and stained with splashes of milk. Before reaching the front door he paused, stretching a hand out to one of the school photographs on the wall and finding Jean among the children, stroking her face with his thumb.
‘I take it you didn’t change her mind,’ he said quietly. Guilt rushed through me. We’d let him down. I shook my head.
‘This is what she wants,’ I replied, placing a hand gently on his arm. He sighed.
‘You’re right. I’m just not ready to let her go.’
‘I know.’
‘Anything we can do to help, you let us know,’ said Brenda. ‘You aren’t alone, OK?’
Now, the door shut behind us and the group of us gathered in the road, the desire to be together pulls us close to one another.
‘Shall we go down to the beach?’ suggests Emma. But Kerstin shakes her head.
‘It’s too exposed down there. I don’t think I could deal with making small-talk with dog walkers right now.’
I understand what she means. We need to be together, just us, to absorb what just happened, what is happening to our friend.
‘I’ve got an idea.’
I lead them quietly towards the village hall. As usual the door is unlocked and they follow me inside, into this place where we gather every week for my classes. The room is warm, sun slanting in through the windows and creating squares of white light on the lino. On autopilot my friends reach for the mats in the corner of the room and spread them out on the floor, congregating close together around the patches of sunlight. One by one they sit and lie down next to one another. Tess and Joy push two mats up against each other and sit down with their legs spread wide, creating a square of space between them where they place Harry, who pulls himself back and forth between them. Sarah sits cross-legged, staring straight ahead. Emma lies on her back, knees up and feet planted on the floor. Beside her Brenda stretches out next to Kerstin, who slumps on her side. Morag takes a moment to get down onto the ground and I reach out an arm to help her. For once she doesn’t wave it away. I sink down to my knees alongside my friends.
We sit in silence for a moment.
‘It’s just so unfair,’ says Brenda, her voice loud and hard with anger.
‘Aye,’ adds Morag. ‘Why Jean? I’m bloody ancient, if the man upstairs wants somebody he should take me.’
‘Why does anyone have to be taken anywhere?’ says Emma. ‘I can’t bear the thought of losing any of you, you’re like my family.’
Her voice cracks and Sarah reaches across and hugs her.
‘You’re right,’ says Joy. ‘I don’t know, but I guess with my parents living so far away … Jean’s been so helpful with Harry, you all have.’
Tess nods sadly.
‘She was our teacher,’ says Emma. ‘I just always thought she was invincible, you know?’
‘I know,’ agrees Sarah. ‘Me too. God, it’s strange isn’t it – if you’d told me as a child that Mrs Brown would end up one of my closest friends I would have laughed.’
Emma wipes her eyes and smiles.
‘Me too. But that’s the thing about friendship, isn’t it? In the end that stuff doesn’t matter, does it?’
I look around the room at my friends, at Tess and Joy who are in their late twenties, Sarah and Emma who are several years older than me, Kerstin who is in her fifties, Brenda who turned sixty last year, then Morag, who might have the body of an eighty-year-old but still makes me laugh as hard as any other of my friends can, perhaps even harder. We’ve all had such different lives, different careers, different experiences of family. Sarah and Emma might have grown up here but the rest of us come from all over, our disparate lives converging here on this small island. But Emma’s right. The differences between us aren’t what matters. What matters are the moments we’ve shared together, doing yoga in this hall and on the beach, drinking together at The Lookout, celebrating each other’s birthdays and good news, commiserating each other’s losses and low moments, laughing together in the sunshine and in the rain. Now, we’re facing one of the hardest journeys together as we do our best to support Jean and accept what is to come. I still can’t quite comprehend what Jean told us today. But at least I know I’m not alone in the way I feel. And we won’t let Jean feel alone either. We’ll be there beside her every step of the way, even when it feels impossibly hard.
‘Alice,’ says Tess, ‘do you think you could teach us? I don’t know about everyone else but I could do with the distraction.’
‘Good idea, if I don’t move my body I may just stay here all day,’ says Kerstin from where she’s stretched out on the floor.
