Risky, Nora says.
Worth it, I reckon, Freya says, as she holds one up to the light. They’ll go nicely with dinner, if they’re safe.
Oh yeah? What’s cooking?
Turkey dinosaurs, her mother says, which makes Nora snort and say wow, what a throwback.
That’s the second time I’ve heard that term this week, Freya says. Romi says it’s something we should do at the hospice. Throwback Thursdays, or some such nonsense. Remind the residents of thegood times.
What’s wrong with that?
What’swrongis all they bloody do is sit in their beds and throw back! They’re dying, for Pete’s sake. Lying there justwaitingfor death. We don’t need a day marked for throwing back to the good times; we should make this day, this very moment, agood time.
They both reach for the same mushroom, fingers touching; her mother’s scratched from foraging, Nora’s calloused from her sewing.
Seize the moment, Freya goes on, as Nora chooses another. Let them live, because lord knows people don’t, before they realise they won’t be able to. Eat the cake. Drink the champers. Fart long and recklessly between the bed sheets, which some of them do, mind.
Nora knows this is funny; knows she should laugh. Instead she scrubs harder at her mushroom so that it comes apart in her hand, splits the soft cap from the stalk.
On that, Nora says.
Farting between the bed sheets?
No, she says, and she does laugh at that, a little; Freya too, the sound fluttering, like a shuffle of papers. I, uh. Have something to tell you.
Freya doesn’t look at her; keeps scouring. Nora takes abreath, but then her mother cuts across her, says she’s sensing that this is a moment for the greenhouse.
No, it’s not, Nora says. It’s fine.
Don’t fight it, darl. Sanctuary awaits.
Freya, I –
Your wellies are where you left them. Let’s go and be with the tomatoes.
I don’t need to be with the tomatoes! Nora says, but Freya is already out of the kitchen, pulling on her gardening shoes in the utility room and wrenching the door open. It’s ruddy freezing, she calls out. Grab your coat!
Nora looks at herself in the dark glass of the kitchen window and sighs. Her mother had always insisted on having emotional conversations somewhere grounding – somewhere you could step outside of yourself, be at one with the earth. Feel your emotions, yes, but only somewhere sealed off, and appropriate. So she shrugs on her coat and follows her out, pulling on her once-fuchsia, never-before-cleaned wellington boots. The oak tree looms at the end of the garden, fanned black against the night. The river flowing beyond it, silent and unseen. Stars out, now. Rain threatening.
Nora braces herself, ducks into the greenhouse – which is heated, through the winter – and Freya slides the door shut.
Now, she says, taking her hands. Close your eyes, daughter of mine, and breathe with me. In through the nose, out through the nose, that’s it. And again. Now, isn’t that better?
Nora knows it is best to go with it. Keeps her clammy hands in her mother’s rough ones, breathes as she is told to. The sodium lamps are off. The greenhouse smells verdant, a little damp. The tomato plants are –
Frey, Nora says. What’s wrong with your tomatoes?
You’re supposed to have your eyes closed!
But they look –
Like a Kandinsky painting, I thought? But don’t be taken in by aesthetics, Nora. It’s Spotted Wilt. A killer, if you don’t step on it post-haste.
So have you –
Nora, her mother says, an edge to her voice now. The tomatoes are fine. I am fine. Are you not fine? Because I’m sensing something’s off.
Light filters through the greenhouse from the back door, everything dim and shadowy, like a high-grain photograph. Nora looks at her mother, dirt streaked on her brow; her vegetables all around them, hanging like baubles in the silver-gold light.
