I see Rose pause in the hallway, and understand why immediately. It’s the smell. The smell of lavender and fading fresh flowers and the ghost of puddings past. The smell of our mother, and the life she built for us, and the life she was forced to live without us.
The smell of childhood, and home.
It’s the first thing that hits me, and I know from the look on her face that it is the same for Rose. At once so comforting and so painful – we are coming home, but she isn’t here. The person who made it a home – who lined the drawers with lavender and picked the flowers and baked the cakes – is gone, and has left behind this vivid sensory echo.
I’ve never believed in ghosts, or anything even remotely spiritual, but the way that smell makes me feel is exactly the same as if Mum had wafted down from the ceiling, all made of cobwebs.
I feel suddenly woozy, and lean against the wall.
‘Going to the loo, I’ll be back in a minute,’ I say, fleeing up the stairs, practically crawling up them like an animal on all fours, desperate to escape.
Of course, the bathroom is even worse. I shut the door behind me, locking it, leaning back against it and trying to steady my breathing. I look around, and see all the tiny things that make up a room like this: her shampoo, her shower gel, her make-up bag.
I sniff it, inhaling the familiar scents of Chanel and Lancôme and Max Factor, my nostrils flaring as I am transported to a different time: us, as girls, watching my mother put her make-up on, getting ready for a night out or an audition. The skilful way she blended and coloured, the almost magical transformation, the running commentary explaining what she was doing. The way she always used to give each of us a final pat on the end of our noses with her powder puff once she was done.
I see her Pears soap on the soap dish, dry and cracked now, and feel bad for it. As though it is a person, and feels abandoned, untouched by my mother’s hand. I see the new Egyptian cotton towels I bought her neatly stacked on the shelves, along with a dozen expensive toiletry sets I’ve given her over the years – all unopened, still pristine in their boxes. I should have known, really – despite her proclamations of delight at each gift, she remained loyal to certain brands for the whole of her life.
The same soap. The same make-up. The same perfume. Maybe that’s why the smell of this place is still so powerful, so evocative – it’s like a time capsule for the nose.
I use the loo, and splash my face with cold water. I need to get a grip. I want to sit in here forever, sniffing the used towel hanging on the back of the door, touching her belongings, holding the things that she once held, pretending that none of this is happening. But I can’t. I have to go downstairs, and face Rose, and deal with whatever it is our mother has planned for us. I owe it to both of them.
I open the bathroom door, and see that Joe is in his mum’s old childhood bedroom. I don’t go in there – I’m not quite ready for that yet – but I pause on the landing and give him a little wave.
He waves back, and gives me a sweet smile.
‘Mum sent me up here to have a “rest”,’ he says, grinning. ‘But I think she actually just wanted to get rid of me for a bit, just in case you two have a cat-fight or something.’
‘We won’t, I promise,’ I reply, sensing his tension beneath the smile and the banter. ‘That’s not what we’re here for. Anyway, you’ll have fun nosing round in there. You can try and imagine what your mum was like at your age.’
‘Maybe,’ he answers, frowning in confusion, ‘although I’m still not sure I can take her seriously ever again now I’ve seen this Boyzone poster on her wall.’
‘That was a joke,’ I reply, craning my head around the corner to see that yes, for some reason it is still there.
‘She absolutely hated Boyzone, so while she was away at college, I covered her walls with pictures of them just to freak her out. All the walls, the entire ceiling, the door – everything. It was one hundred per cent Boyzoned up, took me ages. She ripped most of them down, obviously, but left that one up for a laugh. Don’t worry, your mum’s not a secret Ronan Keating groupie or anything.’
‘Oh,’ he answers, possibly looking even more confused. I suppose it’s a little too early for him to be able to accept that once, a long time ago, his mother and I were actual, proper, real-life sisters – who wound each other up and played tricks on each other and spent a lot of time laughing. Bearing in mind he only met me for the first time a few days ago, anyway.
‘You all right?’ I ask, reminding myself that he is just a kid – albeit a huge one – and that he’s just lost his grandmother. ‘Is this all freaking you out a bit? Being here in Andrea’s house?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, honestly. ‘It kind of is. I mean, I’ve never been here before, for some reason – and neither of them ever talked to me about why, or what happened. And I know you’re not going to either, don’t worry – but it is weird. And sad. It smells like Granny, doesn’t it? Like her perfume, and … well,her?’
I nod, and do a spot of rapid blinking to get rid of any approaching tears. ‘It does. And yes, it’s sad. Look, I’d better go downstairs for now – is that okay? Hopefully we’ll get more time to chat later.’
‘I’d like that,’ he says, ‘and I think I’ll probably have a bit of a rest now anyway, like Mum said.’
He collapses back on to the bed, his Converse-clad feet hanging off the end, and closes his eyes. He looks younger when he does that, and almost unbearably sweet.
I take a final look at that bedroom. Rose’s room, the one I used to hang round in when she was gone, touching her things and lying on her pillows and wishing she was there. Wishing she’d never met bloody Gareth, and wondering if there was a way I could secretly arrange for him to die in a tragic exploding calculator accident and get away with it. Wishing that things would go back to normal.
Wishing everything was different.
I look Ronan in the face, and stick out my tongue. Screw you, Ronan, I think. Screw all of this – especially the past.
Chapter 24
Poppy: September 1999, Lime Street Station, Liverpool
Rose has forgotten I’m coming this weekend. It’s the only reason I can come up with to explain the fact that I’m sitting alone on my backpack at the train station, where I’ve been for the last hour.
