The Girl in the Corner

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Thank you, Howard.’ Her voice had the gravelly undertone of exhaustion and yet she was curiously energised, wired, as if her mind couldn’t settle.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For . . . handling that, for asking the right questions and for not shouting at Debbie-Jo even though I know you probably wanted to.’

  ‘Today is not the day for shouting; everyone is finding their way. And of course I will handle it. I am your husband and I have known Maureen since I was a young man and she was always very kind to me.’

  ‘Do you think I should give the kids a call?’ Rae changed the topic, quite unable to cope with his kindness.

  ‘Probably best, and maybe call Dolly too and get her to go and sit with them so they’re not on their own until we get back later. I know they are with Niamh and Ruby, but I think it might be good to have Dolly with them.’

  Rae nodded and dialled Dolly’s number. It was a strange thing, but as she did so she realised that her mum had been one of the only people who truly had her best interests at heart. Unlike with Dolly, there was no split loyalty, no doubt in her mum’s mind about Rae’s potential. And now she was gone . . . gone . . .

  ‘Don’t tell me? You are sick of camping in your own home and are going to come and stay with us! Hallebloodylujah! I’ll shove a leg of lamb in the oven.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. Actually, Dolly, we’ve had some bad news—’

  ‘Oh no! Is Howard okay?’ She paused. ‘The kids?’

  ‘Howard and the kids are fine, but . . .’ She paused, recognising that saying the words out loud would not get any easier, no matter how many times she rehearsed them. ‘My mum died.’

  ‘No! No she didn’t!’

  Rae held the phone silently while her friend gasped her denial.

  ‘Oh Rae, darling! I am so sorry. I can’t believe it – I was just chatting to her last night. She was great, she had such a good evening, she was talking about the kids . . . Oh God, Rae, I don’t know what to say. What can I do? How can I help? Tell me what I can do!’

  ‘Do you think you might go and sit with the kids? I am going to call them now, but I don’t really want them there alone until we get back.’

  ‘I am leaving now. Right now.’

  Rae was grateful for her friend’s instant response and it made her think how important family was, regardless of what had passed between them. This was what mattered, being there in times of need. Dolly’s words came to her now and Rae considered that maybe she was right. I can’t imagine what it would be like if you guys split! Christmas, for example, birthdays, gatherings or, God forbid, if anything bad should happen, like a bereavement – that’s when we need to stick together, family!

  Howard indicated and parked at the front of her dad’s house. ‘Whenever I pull up here I think about coming to knock for you all those years ago, knowing I loved you and wondering what your mum and dad would make of it all. Feels like yesterday.’

  Rae unclipped her seat belt, unable to process what was happening; shock made her limbs tremble. ‘Time goes fast,’ she whispered. She stared at the front door and pictured coming home from school, her mum opening it in a pinny with floury hands, and the smell of baking wafting from the little kitchen at the back.

  ‘Shoes off!’ she’d shout, before kissing her cheek.

  Lee’s car was already there.

  Rae took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if I want to go inside. I feel like it’s going to be crazy and I don’t want to be there.’

  ‘It won’t be crazy. It will be fine – and if at any point it is not fine, you know the rule: you look at me and I will pick up the car keys, take your hand and drive you home, just like that. But it’s not about what we want, or even what Debbie-Jo and Lee want; it’s about all working together to get your dad through this. This is the day that Len has had nightmares about, the day we have all dreaded, and that day has arrived for him, sooner than any of us hoped or planned for, and so we are going to go inside and do what needs to be done. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ She nodded, liking the way her husband was giving her this verbal crutch as she stepped from the car.

  Lee let her in and stood back.

  ‘How’s Dad?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Shocked, quiet, upset, just as you’d expect really.’

  ‘Have you told Luke and Taylor?’ She pictured her nephews and hoped they had someone like Dolly they could call upon.

  ‘We spoke to Luke. Couldn’t get hold of Taylor but left him a message to call.’

  Howard walked in and shook Lee’s hand as if this was the first time they had met that day, erasing the uncomfortable moments from the hospital.

  The quiet atmosphere in the house was strange. To Rae it felt very much like she was there alone, despite it being busier with people than usual. Her dad was sitting on the sofa with his left hand flat on the sofa next to him. She wondered whether he was trying, like her, to understand how someone as central to his life, as vital as her mum, could have gone, disappeared, leaving this gap in their lives and this space on the couch. She wondered what she could possibly say to take away his hurt, to make things better.

  Kneeling in front of him, Rae reached for his hand. It was an odd thing, but she and her dad had never been that physical, and yet today it felt like the most natural and necessary thing in the world to hold his hand, wrap him in a hug, smooth his hair. Rae wondered if this was the true beginning of the role reversal, when she would start to parent him. Not that it felt like much of an option with Debbie-Jo around, busying in the kitchen, after claiming him for her car. She remembered Howard’s words and dismissed her meanness. Right now it was all about her lovely dad, the man who had lost his wife.

  ‘Just making him a cup of tea – do you want one?’ Debbie-Jo asked from the doorway.

  ‘Yes, please.’ Rae nodded. She sat back against the coffee table and watched her dad. She could hear Howard and Lee mumbling in the hallway, deliberately talking quietly, which was irritating, especially when the odd word – funeral . . . catering . . . eulogy . . . cremation – floated back to her, alien words that were almost comical until she considered their connotation.

  ‘How are you doing, Dad?’

  He looked up and blinked, seemingly noticing her for the first time.

  ‘I don’t know, love.’ He looked out towards the window, as if trying to fathom the time of day.

  ‘You don’t have to think, Dad. You just sit here and we will sit with you. There’s nothing you need to think about and nothing you need to worry about. We are all right here.’

  He scratched his stubble and Rae realised it was a long, long time since she had seen him unshaven. ‘Your mum’s got some heartburn medication that needs picking up from the chemist. I got a call about it yesterday and I said I’d go in today.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now, Dad.’ She felt her words navigate the boulder in her throat.

  ‘But I told them, Rae, I said we’d be in to collect it – they phoned.’ He looked and sounded a little agitated.

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’ Rae smiled at him, and pictured adding Mum’s medicine to her list.

  It had been a very long day.

  Rae had found it difficult to say goodbye to her dad, although in fairness Debbie-Jo seemed to have everything under control. She found it equally heartbreaking to come home to the kids all squashed on the sofas in the sitting room, with legs tucked up on the cushions, discarded mugs on the floor and damp tissues balled in their fists. Ruby and Niamh, who didn’t really know Maureen, seemed to be feeling sadness by association and sat slumped-shouldered next to the ones they loved.

  Dolly had been crying. She opened the door to Rae and Howard and held Rae fast in a tight hug. It was some small comfort to know that Maureen had meant something to Dolly, and Rae was grateful.

  ‘You know, Rae, the only thing you need to ask yourself when your parents pass away is “Was I a good daughter?” – and you were, you were the absolute best. I mean, you were no De
bbie-Jo, but . . .’

  Rae couldn’t believe she actually laughed, though this moment was immediately replaced by a feeling of disbelief, almost confusion.

  Dolly held her hands. ‘I mean it. You loved your mum and you did what you could to help out and you made her proud and that means you only have to think about all the good things. You can get on with missing her, but don’t let the sadness overwhelm you because, as hard as it is, it’s the natural order of things, if we are very, very lucky.’

  Rae nodded: this she knew. ‘Thank you, Dolly.’

  Her friend stepped forward and again wrapped her in a warm, tight hug. ‘I love you, Rae, my best friend in the whole wide world.’

  Rae closed her eyes and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, feeling the glass barrier that had stood between them since Antigua slide away. This was everything, family and being loved, comforted at a time when she needed it the most. ‘I love you too. My best friend in the whole wide world.’

  Having waved Dolly off, it was George and Hannah’s turn to hug her. She felt like a sponge, absorbing everyone else’s grief, and it was exhausting.

  ‘I am going to miss her,’ Hannah mumbled.

  ‘I know, darling, I know.’ Rae kissed her girl.

  With pizza delivered for everyone and the odd quip about how delivery saved on firefighter visits, Rae realised she had zero appetite. She slowly made her way upstairs, removed her make-up and brushed her teeth, then slipped her nightdress over her head and climbed into bed. Her ritual was the same as every night, but it felt odd. She gazed over at the lace curtain shielding her from the world outside, where Mr Jeffries put out his milk bottles, Mrs Williams called her cat in for the night and Fifi’s mum walked up and down the crescent with her hands in her pockets, casting a furtive look over her shoulder. And yet it was a very different world this evening. It was a world without her mum in it. A world where her mum would never call her again or leave her a rambling message about bread or thank her for a food delivery that came like magic with all their favourite things. She would never sit at the Christmas table and pass judgement on the gravy or lament the lack of bread sauce. She would not demand a cup of tea at the single most inconvenient moment, and she would not be ready with a list of ailments that was long and ever changing – ailments she was worried might rob her of her life in her sleep.

  It was a very different world because the worst thing had happened: her mum had died, and for the first time that day Rae felt the full weight of this knowledge. It sat in her stomach like a rock, it hung on her shoulders and it stifled the breath in her throat.

  She looked up as Howard came into the room, treading softly across the carpet and throwing his watch on to the cherrywood chest of drawers. She felt something strange, like a rumble, a quake in her very soul. And it frightened her.

  ‘Howard?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, love?’ He stared at her as the quake grew until it was thunderous in her ears.

  ‘Can you . . . can you hold me?’

  He walked to the bed, and as if sensing her urgency, did not stop to remove his trousers or shirt. Instead he pulled back the duvet and slid across the mattress, taking her swiftly and firmly into his arms with one hand cupping her face to him, anchoring her as he slipped down the bed, taking her with him, holding her fast against his chest. Shielding her, a safe harbour, waiting for the danger to pass. And with the moonlight streaking the duvet and a hush throughout the house, Rae-Valentine gave in to the tears that finally found their way to the surface. Tears that shook her body and clogged her nose and throat, hot spiky tears that burned her skin with the injustice of their cause.

  ‘My . . . mum!’ she stuttered. ‘Mum . . . oh no! No! No! No! Not my mum . . .’

  As her tears subsided and her breath found its natural rhythm, Rae closed her eyes and, with her cheek pressed against his skin, she spoke the words that were a rope, cast out in her moment of need, pulling her and her husband together, where in unity she knew they would find strength to weather the storm.

  ‘I think we should try to carry on, Howard. I don’t have the energy for anything else, not now. I want us to put everything behind us. I want us to focus on the good and I want us to move forward. Together.’

  ‘Oh, Rae! Rae!’ He placed her hand on his heart. ‘You have no idea how much this means to me! I love you and I am thankful and I will not let you down. I love you. I love you!’

  And, right there in the moonlight, the magic spell worked, those three words that fixed just about everything.

  FOURTEEN

  In the ten days since her mum had died, Rae had fluctuated between bouts of sobbing and extreme cleaning, both of which left her feeling exhausted. The lack of kitchen had worn very thin, and she was now at the point where she couldn’t care less about the intricacies of design; she just wanted the situation fixed. In the end she simply pointed to a glossy page in the catalogue that had been popped through the door by a contact of Vinnie’s and said, ‘That one. That’s fine. These cabinets, this oven, marvellous! And I will have it designed exactly like the one that was taken out. Thank you.’ She had closed the catalogue and handed it to Howard, who had nodded and made a phone call to organise delivery and labour.

  Easy.

  In the sitting room of the house in Lawns Crescent on this grey afternoon, however, her best friend took exception to the news.

  ‘But this is a chance to remodel. It should be fun! You can have a walk-in larder, a new range or one of those fancy-pants coffee machines that you need an engineering degree to operate!’

  ‘I don’t need all that. I’ll just be glad to have a working stove and a countertop to make pastry on. And to not have to wander up and down the stairs with a washing-up bowl full of dirty mugs, which I then have to clean in the bathroom, will be wonderful.’

  ‘Most people would like the opportunity to have a new kitchen,’ Dolly asserted. ‘They would give it a lot more thought than pointing at a random kitchen and going, “That one!”’ She mimicked her friend.

  ‘That might be true.’ Rae spat on the iron to check it was hot enough and proceeded to iron the first of Howard’s shirts that lay crumpled in the ironing basket. She had the ironing board set up in the lounge and Dolly lay on the sofa. ‘But most people are not trying to organise a new kitchen as well as their mother’s funeral and to deal with their grief, and forgive me if it all feels like a bit much right now.’

  ‘I get it, but I don’t want you so suffer from Post-Kitchen-Order Regret Syndrome.’ Dolly flicked through her magazine and flexed her toes. ‘You know how you do when we go out to lunch and you don’t order the same as me and the waiter brings the food and you look longingly at mine and I know you are suffering Post-Lunch-Order Regret Syndrome. This might be the same and it’s a lot harder to fix. You won’t be able to just click your fingers and have the man bring you a whole new set of floor tiles!’

  Rae smiled at her friend. ‘I won’t. It will be fine. And the reason I covet your food is because you always order the bad stuff, the stuff accompanied by fries, covered in cheese and deep-fried and stuffed with things and rolled in things and dripping with fat and calories, the stuff I deny myself! Which, I have to confess, often looks better than my Caesar salad without dressing.’

  ‘I can assure you it doesn’t only look better . . .’ Dolly paused. ‘It tastes better too.’

  ‘Probably,’ Rae conceded, gliding the hot iron up and down the fabric.

  Dolly gave her a quizzical expression and grabbed the roll of fat that sat over the waistband of her jeans. ‘Do you think that’s why I am fat?’

  Rae shook her head as she finished the flat back panel of the shirt. ‘No. I know it’s why you are fat.’

  Dolly laughed loudly.

  ‘I know you mean well, and thank you for caring about my kitchen. But the one I’ve chosen is soft wood, painted cream with a dark countertop – it matches all the bits and bobs I had previously and is very similar to the old one. Don’t forget that
I am only getting a new kitchen because I have to and not because I want to.’

  ‘Okay, well, as long as you are happy.’

  ‘I think “happy” is a bit of a stretch.’ Rae felt her face crumple with sadness.

  ‘Oh, honey.’ Dolly waited until her tears abated. ‘Are things all set for the funeral?’ Her tone was now a little more reserved.

  ‘Yes.’ Rae nodded and turned the shirt to start on the sleeves. ‘I am dreading it.’

  ‘Which bit?’

  ‘All of it. I hate seeing my dad so upset and he can’t seem to get it together. Not that I am saying he should – of course not; he is completely floored by the whole thing – but to see him so sad, vacant, when there is nothing I can do to fix it is one of the hardest things. I spend half my time wishing we could wind the clock back for him so he doesn’t have to go through it, and the other half wishing I could wind it forward to a time when hopefully he will have healed a bit.’

  ‘I bet. And how’s Debbie-Jo?’

  Rae shook her head and looked out of the window before resuming her chore. ‘It’s weird, Dolly. We have never been that close, as you know, but I think at the back of my mind I always assumed that when something terrible like this happened we would come together and work as a team, set any petty differences aside and ease each other’s pain, like they do in the movies. But it is nothing like that.’

  ‘Honey, if life was like the movies, I would click my heels and we’d be back in Antigua.’

  ‘I think if life was like the movies, you’d click your heels and we’d be back in Kansas.’

  ‘Is it sunny in Kansas? Do they have cocktails?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dolly. Probably. The point is, Debbie-Jo is an odd fish. Every time I sit down to chat to Dad, just to get five minutes with him, she bursts into the room and joins in or asks questions. I know it sounds odd, but it’s like she thinks we are conspiring. And I don’t mind her joining in – it would be nice to all have a meaningful chat – but she assumes this stance that makes me feel . . . like a guest. It’s horrible.’