I gather the post into a pile, imagining Mum lying in her hospital bed with the stupid, oppressive reminders of ordinary life spilling through the letter box day after day. Sixty-four years old, gone without warning; of course the bills and letters and junk mail have kept on coming – no one expected this sudden departure. Again, the enormity of her passing hits me. I will never be able to call her on a whim, to ask if she’s seen the size of the moon tonight, or to check on her recipe for scones; never share another Christmas lunch with her, never have to sneakily return ill-fitting birthday presents to Marks & Spencer. Never be able to hear her say, Don’t worry, darling, I’m sure it’s nothing. I sniff back tears.
James reappears with a roll of black bin bags, a long length of which he tears off and passes to me. ‘Here you go. Evie, bless her, is going through Mum’s clothes.’
I feel suddenly hot with outrage. ‘Don’t you think you should have asked me to do that?’
‘Calm down! We thought it’d be too much for you, so Evie volunteered. You should be grateful: you know what a good eye she has. She’ll be able to tell at a glance if there’s anything worth selling on, though she said right away she thinks most of it will have to go into recycling or to charity shops—’
‘It’s not Mum’s fault she didn’t dress the way Evie thinks she should. Dad left with all the money and then fucked off and died after spending the lot on his mistress!’
James shuffles his feet. ‘No need to swear, not very ladylike.’
Not very ladylike, I mouth at his back. When did my brother become such a prig? Probably ever since Evie started campaigning.
Gathering the post into my arms, I take it into the lounge and dump it on the coffee table, knocking a framed photograph to the floor in the process. James picks it up and stares at it, hands it to me. The photo is faded into the ochre and pale blue of old Kodak stock. It shows the four of us, Mum and Dad with James and me, standing in front of a hedge and old gate, and beyond us a shining expanse of sea stretching into flared-out infinity. James and I look about eight or so. You’d never know we were twins. We don’t look alike, have never even had much in common. As soon as we’d developed our own little personalities the family had fractured along gender lines: me and Mum, with our fine, fair hair and introversion, our love of books and plants; James and Dad, dark and confident and loud, disappearing to take part in manly pursuits. It’s a window into a lost age.
‘I wonder who took it?’ I muse. ‘It obviously meant a lot to her but I can’t remember where or when it was taken.’
James shrugs, uninterested. ‘May as well chuck it. The frame’s just plastic.’
‘I’m going to keep it.’ I pick at the black metal clips on the back so that I can remove the precious print, but James has already moved on and is opening cupboards and exclaiming at the crammed contents.
Mum moved into this flat when she and Dad divorced, declaring that she loved that it was bijou – like a jewel – and so much easier to look after than their big old four-bedroomed house. Which I took at face value, never looking past the fresh paint, the bright curtains and rugs, to see that the underlying carpets were worn, that mould was encroaching in the bathroom and beneath the bedroom window, that its peeling, unloved state mirrored her own. Looking past James, I see damp has brought down a sizable chunk of cornicing. It must have fallen recently, since it has not been cleared away, as if it was holding on all this time and as soon as Mum was gone, simply let go.
‘If you go through the post I’ll check her bureau for the documents we need for probate. Just chuck all the crap and keep the official stuff and bills.’ And off he goes to the spare room. Beyond, I can hear the clack of clothes hangers and the efficient rustle of discarded garments being thrust into bin bags.
Boy jobs and girl jobs.
I turn my attention to the pile of post. Bills. Bank statements. Credit card demands. More bills. Catalogues, flyers for local reading groups, adverts for mobility scooters, circulation improvers, novelty garden ornaments, solar panels. I sigh. It’s tragic how little a life can be reduced to, how much of it is transient and disposable.
Evie appears carrying a bulging bin bag in each rubber-gloved hand. Did she bring the Marigolds with her? I wonder. Does she have a full hazmat suit tucked away in her Prada handbag? ‘Sooo much to go through!’ she trills. ‘It’s like the aftermath of a jumble sale in there.’ She manoeuvres the stuffed bags through the doorway and out into the hall, reappears empty-handed. ‘We should have hired a skip!’
My throat feels hard and swollen, as if bulky words are trying to choke me. I watch her peel off the gloves finger by finger, snapping them back into shape with brisk efficiency as if performing a medical procedure. Her nail varnish is a shade of dark plum, like old blood.
‘Poor Becky.’ She knows I don’t like her calling me that: it’s too intimate. ‘It’s so awful to lose your mother after all you’ve been through.’ She pauses. ‘Such a shame Eddie couldn’t be here to support you.’
Is there any real concern here, or is she just point-scoring?
‘I mean, it’s a bit much, not coming to your mother’s funeral. And with you so fragile.’
I hate that she knows so much about the sinkholes in my life. But the worst part is she’s completely right. Tears sting the back of my eyes, but I cannot cry in front of Evie. I thrust myself to my feet. ‘Need a cigarette,’ I mutter, and flee.
*
I don’t smoke, actually – never have. Out on the concrete steps I sit and fiddle with my phone, selecting my home number with trembling fingers. I need to hear Eddie’s voice: it will calm me down.
When I told him tearfully about the awful readings James had chosen, and the soulless venue for the funeral, he had held me close and let me weep into his chest. But as soon as I mentioned getting his suit dry-cleaned, he’d gazed at me as if I’d mortally wounded him.
‘Becks, you know I don’t do suits and funerals – I’m an artist.’ He ran a hand through his wild, dark hair, exasperated by my failure to understand something so fundamental to his being. ‘Look, you know how fond I was of your mum. I’d love to help you give her a proper send-off. But I just can’t afford to lose the time, not now, for God’s sake, Rebecca, my exhibition! I can’t lose an hour, let alone days! Besides, what does it matter? Jenny’s gone, and anyway she’d hate all the ritual and empty show. She’d say, “Eddie, for goodness’ sake, you’ve got to make your exhibition a success. It’s so important.”’
My mother would have said exactly this. At once I had felt mean and unworthy. But that was before yesterday’s world-altering phone call, which has ricocheted around my skull all through the night, nicking little edges of sentient matter here and there, leaving me thick and dull after barely two hours of sleep. I want to share the content of that call with Eddie. But I can’t: that really would be selfish. He’s already been through so much with me. I’ll tell him after the exhibition, but for now all I want is to hear his voice, to receive a virtual hug from the man I’ve lived with for ten years.
We never actually got married, because Eddie said marriage was a bourgeois social construct designed to control people’s individuality. ‘All that parading around in fancy clothes, while a load of people you don’t really like, who’ve bought you gifts you don’t really want, stuff their faces with food and booze you’ve paid for with money you don’t have!’ I had sort of agreed with him: we didn’t need a piece of paper to prove how much we loved one another, and neither of us was religious. Besides, we were broke.