She spied Gerald sitting alone in the garden room in the very chair where Prim had taken her last breath. Try as she might, her gran’s empty face was all she could see when she looked into the room, and since that horrible day she had avoided coming in here unless it was absolutely necessary. And to comfort Gerald, who cut a lonely figure, did indeed seem absolutely necessary. He was, after all, the only other person on the planet who might be mourning her gran in the way she was; the irony wasn’t lost on her that he was no more than Prim’s acquaintance and could easily disappear from her life altogether. She truly hoped not, knowing she would need as many people in her corner as she could garner. The cloak of loneliness was only ever a heartbeat away and, it seemed, was always ready to wrap itself around her slender shoulders.
‘How are you, Gerald? Are you doing okay?’ she asked softly, bending down and resting on her haunches by the side of the chair. She looked at his liver-spotted hand lying casually along the rounded cane arm and realised it would be on top of where Prim had rested hers. Very much like they were holding hands across the great divide. It brought a lump to her throat.
‘Not really, dear.’ He acknowledged her, his gaze far off. ‘You know, it doesn’t matter how many people you lose, it never, ever gets any easier. It’s not something you can condition yourself against. You’d think it might be, wouldn’t you? But no. Each loss is unique and each has a new and distinct level of pain, like a layer of paint coming off that leaves you feeling a little raw, exposed.’
‘Yes.’ Not that she could relate, not really, having never known her mum and having lost her grandpa when she was too little to fully understand the impact.
‘I shouldn’t be so selfish; yes, I will miss her, but I know that my loss pales in comparison to your own.’ He looked up at her. ‘She did a good job of raising you to be strong and independent, despite your start in life, and this, I suppose, is when it will be tested. So my question is: how are you, Victoria?’
She tried her best to phrase it. ‘I’m a bit lost, really. I’ve been busy planning today and sorting stuff out, and that’s kept me occupied, but honestly? None of it feels real.’
He nodded. ‘I know that feeling. I keep checking my phone to see if I have a text from her. She used to keep me informed on everything from the weather to what birds she’d seen in the garden or what show was coming to the Playhouse. I shall miss that. But most of all I shall miss her noise.’
‘Her noise?’
‘Yes, she was so very loud! So full of life – listen to that lot in the drawing room and hallway.’ He cast his eyes in their direction. ‘At least twenty of them, but no one making a peep! That’s what old people do, they go quiet, apologising for their presence, as if they have outstayed their welcome on the planet, aware of the inconvenience of their existence. But not Primrose – she was loud, vivacious and wonderful!’
‘She was. I was thinking, Gerald . . .’ She drew breath. ‘You will still come and visit, won’t you?’ Victoria realised in that instant that, should he stop, she would miss not only his visits but also one of the last links to Prim. ‘I would . . . I would like to still see you. I’d like it very much,’ she whispered, unable to stop the latest trickle of tears.
I don’t have anyone else, Gerald! I don’t have anyone that loved Prim, only me!
‘You try stopping me.’ He winked at her. ‘I think someone is going to have to take these tomato plants in hand.’
‘I think that person is you, Gerald.’ She smiled fondly at him and wiped her eyes.
‘Yes, yes of course!’ He beamed.
Victoria wandered towards the kitchen, nodding at the group on the sofa, who offered tight-lipped smiles of condolence. Gerald was right: apologetic. It all felt completely different from the last wake she had attended in this very house. She recalled summer at the age of nine, when her grandpa had passed away, an event that Prim did her best to shield her from, dressing her in a pink pinafore, white lace tights and her silver ballroom shoes; no sombre colours for her. And when everyone had left, rather than set about clearing the plates of sandwich crusts and quiche crumbs or ferrying the glassware into the kitchen to swill the contents down the sink, Prim had instead put The Supremes on the stereo and they had danced and twirled to ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. Victoria had gone to bed feeling like she had had an adventure or been to a party, and not remotely sad. The sound of Prim’s crying later had therefore shocked her, the dull moan of a sound floating along the landing and under her bedroom door. This was what Prim did: no matter her own thoughts, she always made Victoria feel safe and secure.
What am I going to do without you?
Mrs Joshi kindly handed around food, refreshed drinks and stopped only to squeeze Victoria’s arm or run her hand over her hair. She felt lucky to have the Joshis on hand. Daksha was quiet, unconfident, she knew, in being able to strike the right balance between consolatory and comical, with a tendency to make inappropriate comments that at anyone else’s wake would have been funny. Not that Victoria was complaining. Daksha had stayed with her at the house every night for the past two weeks, making the obligatory cups of tea when needed and pulling tissues from a family-sized box like a magician pulls scarves from his sleeve, as and when her tears just wouldn’t stop. The thought of Daksha returning home and leaving her in this big old house all alone was enough to make the breath catch in her throat. She found it easier not to think about it.
It was odd but unsurprising that all the things that usually occupied their conversations, topics as diverse as Flynn McNamara, the best way to island-hop in Greece, and Brexit, were pushed to the background, irrelevancies now in the wake of the loss that consumed Victoria. But in recent days, as night closed in, they had spoken of Prim, sharing memories of her, and yesterday, as dawn raised its golden head over the rooftops of this leafy corner of Surrey, Daksha asked what she might do with this big house and all the stuff in it.
‘Live in it,’ she’d replied, barely able to disguise her astonishment at the question. What else would I do? Where else would I live? Still unwilling to admit that, whilst she loved the place, the thought of living here all alone was a little terrifying. Not because she feared crime or even the running of the house and all that it required, but because she knew that, with all those empty rooms echoing to the tune of lives long gone, there was a very real risk that loneliness and the ghosts which lurked might swallow her whole.
Victoria had naively envisaged a future where she would work and hopefully fall in love but would always, always live under the roof of her family home, knowing that the older Prim got, the more care she would require, and it was care she was more than willing to give. In some ways it would be payback, but a joyous payback for how Prim had loved her unconditionally when there were no other takers.
Victoria wandered into the kitchen, thinking she may drink some wine to see if that might make the afternoon pass a little quicker. As she reached into the fridge where the chilled bottles hid, she saw a tall, slender figure in the garden, standing by the edge of the lake. It was the woman in the dark coat. The woman from the church. But Bernard, she knew, had already left.
‘How very odd.’
She watched her from the window, wondering why she had not come inside with the rest of the mourners. The woman stood still and stared into the murky depths of the water, her hands pushed deep into her coat pockets.