She whisked off the tea towel that had served as an apron around her waist and picked up her car keys. ‘Harold’s watching the news and Natalia and Alice are keeping him company.’ She hesitated. ‘I hope it’s OK, but I rang George. He’s up in Tamzin’s room with her. I had a word with him, told him to let her grieve, just to keep her company – he’s never had to deal with anything like this. I’ll leave you with your family now.’
He nodded, too scoured out with guilt and grief to speak. As he made his way to the sitting room he heard her car start and the crunch of tyres across the gravel.
When he entered the room, Harold pointed the remote control at the television and cut off theLook Eastpresenter mid-sentence. James sat down heavily, suddenly sick with fatigue. All eyes were fixed on him, the family focused on every detail of the process of losing Valerie.
He reported his meeting bluntly. ‘They asked me formally to allow a post mortem – although I’m not sure I really had a choice. It’ll take place tomorrow, and after they’ve given me the result I can get a death certificate and arrange for her to be moved to the funeral home.’
After several moments, Harold murmured, ‘Does she really have to be … disturbed?’
‘They have to know how it happened. We all need to.’
The evening stretched ahead. Abruptly, fiercely, James wanted Diane back, making them cups of tea and knowing what to say.
A curious aimlessness descended. No plans could be made without the death certificate. It felt indecent to sort through Valerie’s things so soon. He hadn’t told their solicitor of her death. Or the bank. Or, indeed, her friends or any family but the most immediate. He could begin on the family this evening –
But he remained in his chair, eviscerated by death and tragedy. He shut his eyes. So tired. Soooo tired ... He’d do it in the morning. She’d been only in her forties. It no longer mattered how she abused her body. Never again would she endanger herself or anyone else. She had made him angry and made him sad and he’d wanted rid of her.
But not dead.
He managed a few hours sleep, which helped. Awake since dawn, he sat down at the kitchen table with a spiral-topped pad from the kitchen drawer and began to list necessary phone calls.Solicitor, bank, insurance companies –
He’d been sitting there for a couple of hours, trying to force his brain to work, when an unfamiliar cough mad him turn. He found himself staring at George Jenner.
George hovered awkwardly, hands jammed inelegantly in the back pockets of ripped jeans so that his elbows stuck out like cup handles. ‘Um, I gotta go, ’cos I’m on a work placement. Tamz said it’s OK. I’m already having time off for the gig in Liverpool on Friday.’
‘No, of course. Right.’
George shuffled and cleared his throat. His eyes flicked to James and away. ‘Um … did you know … Tamzin’s done stuff.’ He fidgeted. Itched his calf with the opposite foot. ‘To her arms.’ He took his hands out of his pockets to make a tentative cutting motion with the side of his hand to the inside of his elbow.
James felt his stomach plummet. ‘Oh hell, has she? Verybad?’
George cleared his throat again. ‘Like, about three …’ He made the cutting motion again. ‘That’s to do with this depression she had, right?’
‘Self-injury. It seems to be a reaction to when something bad happens that she has no control over.’ James pushed his fingertips through his hair.
George shook his head. ‘Amazin’. And you can’t get her to stop?’
James decided to ignore the faint note of accusation. George had no experience of dealing with self-injury. As Diane had pointed out, he was a nineteen-year-old boy. He was talking so awkwardly not because he was rude or inarticulate but because he was excruciatingly embarrassed. He and James scarcely knew each other. ‘Not so far. Unless you’ve got any bright ideas?’
Slowly, George slipped his feet into a pair of oversized trainers that seemed to have spent the night with the family collection of footwear in the corner. ‘I dunno. It’s weird.’ He hesitated. ‘Would it help to, like, make her do stuff?’
James fought down irritation. ‘Dowhat kind ofstuff?’
‘When my granny died Dad and Uncle Melvyn and Uncle Gareth had a load of stuff to organise, the funeral and that. There’s always a load of stuff, isn’t there, when somebody dies? I’d make her do that.Askher to do that, for her mum. She’ll do it for her mum. Then maybe she’d have less time to rip herself up. But you’d probably have to, like, let her think you really needed the help, not that you were just trying to get her out of her room.’
‘So you think it’s wrong, do you, for her to be left alone in her room?’ James was curious. This lad had become hugely important to Tamzin in a few weeks – maybe he might be the one with the insight?
George rubbed his chin. ‘I think she needs to be out of there but you’ve got to do it without letting on that that’s what you want. Make it something real or she’ll just get the meanies. She’s like it with food. If I act like I don’t care whether she eats or not, she shares my meal. If I make a thing about it or buy her a meal of her own, she hardly touches it.’
When George had gone James stared at his list, at his angular handwriting. George made him feel old and cranky, to think in uncharacteristic phrases such as,young man, I believe I know my daughterand, probably,better than you.
He’d been desperate to end Tamzin’s nightmare.
He’d thought Valerie unfeeling when she said he was making too much of Tamzin’s problems. Depression was a medical diagnosis, not some babble he’d picked out of a trendy magazine; his instinct had been to make things easy for his daughter. Unlike some households, her lack of occupation hadn’t mattered, financially. She could be safe at home for however long it took for her to find her way out of the grey caves.
But … in taking all possible pressure off, had he removed ‘motivation to progress’ as Cherry in HR would say? Both George and Diane plainly thought that Tamzin should be steered towards occupation.
He wrote,Ask Tamzin for helpacross the top of the list.
