Poppy looks up as I approach, and I see a hesitant not-quite-smile hovering on her lips. Like she too doesn’t know how to behave this morning. She folds her page over, and offers me a slice of toast.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking a bite and sitting down next to her. We both stay silent for a few moments, watching the blue tits on the bird table and admiring the riot of colour of an English garden in full summer bloom.
‘So,’ I finally say, ‘I’m not feeling awesome this morning.’
‘You’re feeling better than that Tiny Tears doll is,’ she replies, pointing to a pile of melted plastic and ashes in the barbecue.
‘Yes. We well and truly killed her, didn’t we? Anyway, what does Mum have planned for us today …? I hope it doesn’t involve climbing up hills or going to a nightclub. I’m too old for all of this.’
Poppy nods, and doesn’t dispute my oldness – the cow – before replying.
‘It’s D, and all I know is that it’s some photos, and a video, which we can download from her account and watch on her incredibly clever TV. It has a catchy title, though.’
‘Oh yes?’ I ask, not sure what to expect. ‘What’s it called?’
‘Daddy Issues. Sounds like a classic.’
Chapter 32
Andrea: D is for Daddy Issues
‘Darlings – how are the hangovers this morning? I’m working on the assumption that you took me up on C at least. You wouldn’t be my daughters if you let a single drop of champers go to waste, and I hope you did me proud.
‘As you can see, I’m filming this one in the garden. Lewis is here, manning the camera, and we’ve just had a splendid little breakfast. It’s one of the first properly warm days we’ve had this year, and I think you’ll agree it’s looking gorgeous. Lewis, pan round, will you? It means move the camera, you big lug! That’s it – do a full turn, like a slow-motion ballerina doing a pirouette – yes, keep going, nice and steady, so we get a full shot of the place.
‘Well done Lewis, we’ll make a cameraman of you yet! I think the hydrangeas are going to be especially lovely this year, girls. I don’t know what you’ll be doing with the cottage – it’s really up to you. Your lives are in other places, so I’ll understand if you sell it – but if you do, please make sure it goes to someone deserving, won’t you?
‘Not just someone who has the money, but someone who will love it like I have, and will take care of the garden for me. Someone who will keep the birdbath stocked and polish the garden gnomes and leave the animals’ grave-markers in place.
‘We spent many happy years in this garden when you were children, and I’ve spent many more here since. After Penny Peabody, when the roles were few and far between, I started to enjoy the gardening a lot more. Discovered my green thumb late in life.
‘Anyway. I’ve got to go to hospital this afternoon for an appointment – don’t worry, Lewis is taking me – and I suspect that is going to be a more and more common thing in future. I know you’ll both still be reeling from the fact that I’m gone, and I’m not at all sure whether these little home movies will help, or make it worse – but once an old luvvie, always an old luvvie, my dears.
‘As you can see for yourselves, I’m not in too shabby a state. My appetite isn’t much to write home about, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t pain, but I’m still here, still at home – where I plan to stay for as long as humanly possible. But when I need to decamp and take the nice medical people up on their offer of care and drugs, I will. I don’t know when that will be – it’s all so bloody uncertain – but for the time being, I’d rather be here, with the gnomes and all my happy memories, than anywhere else.
‘I know, as you watch this, that everything will feel unreal to you. That you might have had a difficult conversation last night. That you might have headaches.
‘That you still won’t quite believe I’m gone. The loss of a loved one takes a terribly long time to actually sink in. To start with, the pain of it is raw, and unpredictable, and all-consuming – but you hold it in and cope, at least until you get through the necessities, like the funeral.
‘After that, I’m afraid it’s something of a slow burn. You think you’re doing okay, but as time passes, you realise that you’re not. Something will happen – you’ll hear a funny story in the queue at the post office, or see an especially beautiful sunset, or hear a certain song on the radio – and it will spark some memory, or some urge to pick up the phone and tell me about it.
‘The real pain comes then – with the thousand tiny paper cuts of grief – the small things that make up a human life. The missed birthdays, or accidentally buying me a Christmas present even when I’m not here to receive it. The future losses will hurt as much as the current ones.
‘I don’t have any way of protecting you from that, my sweets, other than to do what I’m doing – trying to bring you back together again, so at least you won’t be facing it alone. And also to assure you that it does get better, with time – you’ll never forget me, but eventually, you will get through whole days and then whole weeks without bursting into tears. You’ll move on, and I don’t want you to feel guilty about that – don’t scratch at the scab once you start healing. Allow yourself to feel the pain, but allow yourself to let it go as well.
‘I’m sounding incredibly wise in my old age – but only because I’ve been where you are now, trying to come to terms with the death of my own mother, wondering how someone so strong and vibrant could be gone from the world, and how the world could go on without her.
‘I had you two, which was both a blessing and a curse – a curse because I had a lot to deal with, and it’s very hard changing nappies while weeping into the talcum powder. But a blessing as well, because I had someone to pour my love into, and so much to do that I was distracted from it all.
‘Your grandmother only met you briefly, as babies – well, you were a very chubby toddler at that stage, Rose, so adorable, and you were a few months old, Poppy. I know you’ve seen those photos, in the album on the bookshelf, but I think I have an old one somewhere of me as a baby, with my parents. I’ll root out a photo of her and leave it for you – she was a lovely lady, although very tough on the surface. They were often like that, women who grew up during the Second World War – life hadn’t been easy, and they’d learned to cope with a lot.
‘My dad died before you were born, when I was just a teenager, and that had a profound effect on me. It certainly explained some of my later behaviour – and it also brings me to the matter at hand: Daddy Issues.
‘This isn’t an easy thing to discuss for me and, even now, knowing that this might be my last chance, part of me wants to chicken out. Even thinking about it is making my head hurt.
‘Now, I know you two always had questions about your dad – and that was only natural. I’m afraid I simply never handled it well, and always fobbed you off or tried to distract you. That worked when you were little, and I think as you got older you were both too kind to press the issue in case I went into some kind of drama-queen meltdown.
‘That was unfair of me, and I apologise – but all I can say is that I did have my reasons, which may or may not become clear, depending on how you choose to proceed. Because you have a choice to make right now, girls – and it’s a choice you both need to agree on.
