She doesn’t know what she has been expecting from him. Tears, maybe? Hysteria? The same kind of ridiculous drama she indulged in last night, during her Festival of Snot?
Instead, she simply sees his lower lip tremble slightly, and his frown deepen. She realises that – even at his age – he is trying to be macho.
‘It’s okay to be upset,’ she says quickly. ‘I know I was. You don’t have to be brave for my sake, sweetheart, honestly.’
He studies her face, as if he’s examining her for evidence of lies, and she feels so ashamed. Her beautiful, bonny baby is trying to protect her when, really, it should always have been the other way around.
All those times he stayed in with her when he should have been out with his mates; the way he’d sent her a friend request on Facebook even when it wasn’t cool to have your mum as a Facebook friend in anyone’s universe; all those occasions when she’d sensed him feeling guilty as he left to go and see his dad in London.
All of it was wrong, and all of it was her fault. She’d relied on him when she should have been relying on herself. That really has to change.
‘What happened, Mum?’ he says, eventually. ‘She seemed really great the last time we saw her, and it wasn’t that long ago, was it?’
The tears are there, now; she can see them shining in the blue of his eyes before he swipes them away, as though he’s angry with himself for allowing them to even exist.
‘I suppose it was just before her birthday, wasn’t it?’ Rose replies, even though she has absolutely no doubt about when she last saw her mum. She’s gone over it enough times. It was over four months ago, hard as that is to swallow – time flies when you’re not having fun. She was supposed to visit after that, while Joe was away, but that was when Rose had cancelled on her. Before she was ill, according to Lewis’s timing, but still. Unforgivable.
‘Yeah,’ Joe replies, biting his lip. ‘That’s right. When we took her out for lunch at that National Trust place with the castle and the fake jousting. She bought some lavender bags in the gift shop and said the chocolate cake was so sinful she needed at least two portions, because there wasn’t enough sin in her life these days.’
Rose finds herself, against the odds, smiling at the memory of her mum relishing every last mouthful of both her slices. She never seemed to put any weight on, whereas Rose felt she only had to look at a chocolate cake to gain a stone. Or maybe that was going home and eating her own bodyweight in Hobnobs once she was on her own, who knows?
‘That’s it, yes. Well, apparently she became ill a little while ago. Six weeks or so, her friend said, when he called last night.’
‘Who called?’ says Joe. ‘Was it Lewis? And why didn’t she tell us? We could have visited her, and … I don’t know, said goodbye properly! I never even thanked her for that voucher she sent!’
His tone pops up a few octaves with the last few words, reminding her of the time a couple of years ago when his voice started to break, and he spent weeks sounding like the frog chorus. She feels his sadness, and his desperation, and his guilt. She feels all of that herself too – but she deserves it, and he doesn’t.
‘Yes, it was Lewis,’ she answers. ‘Although I don’t remember much about him, even though I know she’s mentioned him before … and Joe, your Granny wouldn’t have wanted you to feel bad about this, okay? She didn’t tell us because … because she wanted to protect us. Because it was quick, and because she wanted us to remember her the way she was – happy and stuffing her face on chocolate cake, not in pain. That’s what she wanted, and that’s what we need to try and do for her. Do you think you can manage that?’
He considers this, and swipes more tears from his eyes, and finally nods.
‘Well, I’ll try if you try,’ he says, sounding tired and a little bit scared. ‘Will we have to go to her funeral?’
‘Of course,’ says Rose. ‘That’s when we say goodbye, and when we celebrate her life, and when we try and remember all the good times. We’ll go to her cottage, and you can see where I grew up, and we’ll take our time, all right? I know this hurts. And I know we’ll miss her, Joe, but we’ll get through this, we really will. You can talk to me any time, about any of it, okay?’
He nods again, and starts to frown. Rose can tell he’s thinking about something, and waits with some trepidation to hear what it is.
‘Will she be there?’ he asks, curiosity now mixed in with the sadness. ‘Will my aunt Poppy be there?’
Rose grips the arms of the chair, and forces herself to keep her expression calm, and her voice steady, which isn’t easy when her heart is hammering away like a steam piston.
‘Yes,’ she replies simply. ‘I’m sure she will be.’
Chapter 18
Rose knows that using her own son as a human shield probably isn’t in theBig Book of Good Parenting, but she can’t help it.
She is struggling to keep herself together, here, bum squashed up on the wooden pew of the village church, feeling like a trapped, wounded animal.
It’s a tiny place, dating back to the sixteenth century, and today it is crammed. She risks a quick glance around, and sees that most of the village is here. Mrs Rubens from the post office. Jack Slater who runs the Farmer’s Arms, and his counterpart from the Tennyson’s. Gloria Lubbock, who used to be the head teacher of the village school.
Fred, whose last name she never discovered and was only ever known as Fred the Milkman. Sergeant Taylor, who’d been the local bobby throughout her childhood, and shooed her out of bus stops on more than one occasion. The farmers, en masse, sitting together in their tweedy suits, looking unnatural without their green wellies.
So many familiar faces – but, at the same time, not familiar. She’s not been back here for so long, and they have aged. Not in the normal, gradual way that people living around you age – but all of a sudden, like they’ve fast-forwarded in a time machine.
Hair has turned grey; skin has become wrinkled; tummies have grown. The grown-ups she thought of as old when she was a teenager – but were actually only the same kind of age as she is now – suddenlylookold. Properly old.
As she glances around, she gets some sympathetic nods from people she doesn’t even recognise at first. People, she soon realises when she adjusts her mindset and sees them through time-lapse goggles, she was at school with. They, too, look so much older. It’s just completely weird, like something from a science-fiction film.
