Lost for Words

by Andrea Bramhall

  So Sasha did. She sipped her drink and enjoyed the peace and quiet with her family.

  Chapter 30

  Another breath rattled out of her mother’s chest and Sasha held her own. Waiting, hoping, that Fleur had the strength to pull in another. She couldn’t believe how quickly she had deteriorated. Six days. It had only been six days since she’d been admitted to the hospice, and the nurse had already warned Sasha that Fleur was unlikely to make it through the night.

  Jac sat beside her, hand clasped in Sasha’s, watching with equal parts dread and hope on her face. Dread and hope for the same exact thing: Fleur’s last breath. Dread, because no one wanted the end to come, but hope, because they’d all seen Fleur’s pain, and death now was the only release she’d truly find.

  When Fleur gasped in another breath, they both breathed with her, each strangled lungful the new marker of time. Each one fought for. Each battle taking more from Fleur than simple breathing should. And each one was slower to come than the last.

  A chill ran down her back, and Sasha needed to be closer. She let go of Jac’s hand and sat on the edge of the bed. Grasping Fleur’s hand inside her own, she pulled it to her chest and bent to kiss her mother’s head.

  “I love you, Mum.”

  Fleur’s eyes fluttered open, and her lips twitched. It wasn’t a smile, but it was meant to be.

  Tears dripped from her cheeks and splashed on Fleur’s face. She started to pull her hand away, to wipe the tears away, but Fleur gripped her with more strength than Sasha knew she had left.

  “You know the place between sleep and awake?” Her voice was tiny, a whisper, “The place where you can still remember dreaming?”

  Oh God, no. Please no. Not this.

  “D—don’t quote me Peter Pan, Mum.” Sasha could barely get the words out around the bands constricting her chest.

  Fleur’s gaze never wavered, and her eyes were the clearest Sasha had seen them in days. “Then you tell me, baby girl.”

  Why? Sasha wanted to scream. Instead, she sniffed back her pain and gave her mother what she asked for. Her throat was thick with every unshed tear as she managed to whisper, “That’s…that’s where I’ll always love you.” She couldn’t say any more. She couldn’t form the words. Sasha couldn’t draw enough breath into her lungs to force even a sigh from her lips.

  Fleur drew in a rattling, scratchy-sounding breath. “That’s where I’ll be waiting,” she said as she let the breath go. Her eyes closed.

  And Sasha waited.

  She waited for that next scratchy breath. She waited for that next inhalation that signalled her mother was still there. Still fighting for those few more precious moments they could have together.

  But it didn’t come. Ten seconds turned to thirty. Thirty to a minute. A minute became two, and finally it started to sink in.

  Fleur was gone.

  Chapter 31

  Jac held on to Sasha’s hand as they sat in the front pew. The past week had been a blur of meetings with funeral directors, confirming Mike Hunt had been telling the truth. Fleur had indeed made all her own arrangements, meeting with the vicar who would conduct the service at the crematorium. Fleur had picked the music she wanted—right down to her refusal of hymns in favour of her own…personal choices. Jac still couldn’t make up her mind how she felt about the choices Fleur had made for the service. But she’d been clear. Concise. And Sasha was determined this was to be a reflection of the woman her mother had always been. Quirky. Unconventional. And damn well unforgettable.

  The vicar smiled sadly as he welcomed the huge crowd, and spoke soft words about the woman they’d all known. Jac expected Sasha to cry, but she didn’t. She stood with her head held high, staring at the picture of a laughing Fleur that sat on top of the casket. She was dressed in a hula skirt, long grey hair flowing and covering her chest and what Jac hoped was some sort of bikini top on under there. The flowery lei and hair obscured it, though. She had a coconut shell in one hand, a straw and umbrella sticking out of it, and she was clearly having a ball.

  When the first song choice blasted out of the speakers, Jac was startled back into the present. She closed her eyes but she could hear the titters of laughter starting further back in the chapel. Bon Jovi. “Blaze of Glory”. An epic choice only someone like Fleur could get away with.

  Prayers were swapped out for poems, Bible readings exchanged for anecdotes from friends. When the vicar looked at Sasha and held out his hand in invitation, Jac was still surprised to see her dry eyes.

  Sasha stood up at the podium and cleared her throat. “Thank you, everyone, for coming today. Mum would be very pleased to see the turnout.” She paused a beat while she looked at the coffin. “Of course, she’d accuse you all of only being here for the spread afterwards. But she’d still be pleased.”

  Low chuckles ran through the crowd, and Jac knew immediately why Sasha hadn’t cried. If she allowed herself to let go, she’d never make it through this. This was her chance to say all the things to her mother that she hadn’t had the chance to say before. And she intended to make it count.

  “We all have our own memories of Mum. Some of you from long before I came along and ruined her life and figure, apparently. And afterwards, I look forward to hearing every single one of them. There was more than enough of Fleur Adams to go around, but I must admit, I have the urge to collect and hoard all those bits she’s spread around over the years.

  “Mum was more than just Mum to me. She was my best friend, my confidante, my protector. She always had been, and she did that right up to the very end. And I still haven’t decided if I’m more grateful or angry for that. Because she never gave me the chance to be all those things for her too.” Sasha’s voice cracked, and Jac wished she could step forwards and hold her hand, offer her support in some way. When Sasha’s gaze locked on to her, she realised that where she was in the chapel didn’t matter. She was giving Sasha what she needed simply by being there.

  “This last week, we’ve done nothing but talk. Going over all those old memories that we’d built over a lifetime. The time I almost burnt the house down when I was making her breakfast in bed. I blame my father. I mean, who lets a five-year-old fry bacon while he’s outside smoking?”

  “Good old Bert, that’s who!” a voice chimed up from the back.

  “You got that right, Uncle Eddie. But it started the whole ball rolling about things I remember most about Mum. And I don’t just mean recent stuff. I mean when I was little and she told me not to throw a punch at a boy because he was being mean to me. No, not my mum. She taught me it was much more effective to knee him in the groin when he got close enough.”

  Jac sniggered, as did Sophie sitting next to her, but Jac could see some of the blokes in the crowd shifting uncomfortably in their seats. “Good old Fleur,” Sophie whispered. Jac couldn’t agree more.

  “There was also the time she spent a Sunday afternoon teaching me how to forge her signature. She said if I was going to do something, I was going to do it properly. Then she grounded me for a week when I used it to get out of PE. Apparently doing something properly didn’t excuse you from the consequences when found out.”

  “Must have been a riot growing up with her,” Sophie muttered again.

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “But what I remember most was when I came out to her. The day I told her I was gay was probably the scariest of my life. I was so worried that I’d be a disappointment to her. That she’d be upset, or that she’d take it badly. I was afraid to lose her, you see?” Her voice cracked again. She sniffed, and Jac worried for a moment that she wouldn’t be able to continue. Then Sasha glanced at the picture on the coffin again.

  “Instead, she told me about a girl she worked with who was, in her words at the time, ‘one of those’ and said she’d set me up on a date. She took me to my first Manchester Gay Pride parade that summer, and she went with me ev
ery year after that.”

  Applause shuffled around the room, alongside a few cheers.

  “I’m sad to say she often got hit on more than I did.” Sasha rolled her eyes and chuckled. “Mum had such an energy about her. It drew people to her. People just wanted to be near her because you never knew what was going to happen. She was so exciting, so full of life.” The tears Jac had been waiting for broke free and slid down Sasha’s cheeks, but she continued to smile to the crowd.

  “One of my most treasured memories is of her reading to me as a child. Oh, the adventures we went on in my bedroom. We sailed the seven seas, explored entire universes, travelled infinite galaxies, and fell in love with a little boy called Peter.” Sasha took a moment to wipe her face and swallow. Jac could hear how difficult it was becoming for her to finish her eulogy. Everyone could. Tears and open sobbing were becoming increasingly noisy throughout the chapel.

  “We read those stories over and over again, and I’d like to leave you with a line from Peter himself, and one I know Mum would want us all to bear in mind as we let—let her go.” Sasha sniffed and wiped her nose with a tissue, then stepped down from the podium and took the picture off the casket. Cradling it to her chest, she faced everyone and said, “‘To die would be an awfully big adventure.’”

  The tears and sobs began in earnest, and from somewhere in the back, the cue for Fleur’s final goodbye was recognised. The opening haunting chords began to filter through the speakers as Jac stepped from the pew and wrapped her arms around Sasha’s sobbing form. As Freddie Mercury demanded to know, “Who wants to live forever,” Jac led Sasha out of the chapel and into the cold autumn air. Leaves of red and gold danced in the wind, and grey clouds gathered overhead. And as the crowd filtered out slowly behind them, weeping their own grief and whispering their own memories of the woman Fleur had been to them, Freddie sang on.

  Jac glanced up at the sky and wondered if she was looking down at them, singing along, and laughing at the stories they were all swapping. Memories of the life she’d lived. Enjoy the adventure, Fleur. May it be all you ever dreamed it would be.

  Sasha hadn’t really realised just how many people her mother knew and it was strange to see so many of the different facets of her mother’s life come together. To see them all in the same place. The hall her mother had wanted them to use for the wake was huge. And it needed to be. There were literally hundreds of people there. Nurses from the hospice and from before. Ones who had treated her original cancer, helped her through her rehab. Sasha even recognised one of the doctors from the GP’s surgery they went to. Mike Hunt was there, chatting to a few of her mother’s friends from bingo. Fleur’s friends from her “crystals” group were gathered around a table, swinging their own crystals over plates of sandwiches and pork pies. They’d refused the chicken drumsticks, just in case. She wasn’t sure “just in case” of what. Salmonella? E. Coli? Botulism?

  Dante and the rest of the street thugs sat around a table at the back. All drinking the hard stuff—Cokes all round, full fat, none of that diet crap. Jude behind the bar knew none of them were over eighteen, and he wasn’t risking his license for anyone. Every few minutes, one of them would hold up their glass and start another toast to her mother. So far, she’d heard them toast to her adventures, to her advice on women, to her “career” advice, to her gardening tips—Sasha didn’t want to even think about that—and to her willingness to buy them cheap booze every now and then from the offie. No wonder they looked out for Sasha if they were trying to keep her mother sweet.

  Maria and a few of the other girls from the salon sat at one of the other tables. They’d all shown up, piling out of Maria’s car like they were trying to break a Guinness World Record.

  Bobbi herself was wandering around, helping Sophie and Mags. But every now and then she’d stop and just stand there in the middle of the room looking lost. Like some unexpected memory or thought had just occurred to her and she wanted to share it with Fleur but she couldn’t. Just like Sasha felt. Sasha found it hardest to look at her. She had so many shared memories of Bobbi and her mother that they were the hardest to push away, to get through the rest of the day when she saw the tears on Bobbi’s cheeks.

  There were friends there who she hadn’t seen in years. People who Fleur had said were on “Christmas-card only” terms, others who were “once a month” mates—as in they spoke on the phone once a month—and there were close friends. Those she’d see on the way to or from the shops whenever she ventured out. Close friends she’d known many years, and some she hadn’t known that long but had gone through her cancer battle or rehab with.

  Every one of them knew and loved Fleur. Well, almost all of them.

  Sasha stared at the small group of people who had come from Kefran Media. People who were there to help her and Jac, support them throughout the day. Sophie and Mags were working tirelessly, bringing out plates of sandwiches, tearing through cling-film wrappings, and helping the bar staff by clearing empties off the tables. They never seemed to stop. And they seemed to understand Bobbi’s need to help as much as she needed their understanding when she lost what she was doing. Sasha had seen Sophie rescue a tray of sandwiches Bobbi was about to drop on the floor, then wrap her in her arms and hold her while she cried. Mags had gently shifted her from the middle of a walkway to a quieter corner where Bobbi could stand without being run over by the crowd stampeding the buffet line. And when Bobbi’s tears had run down her cheeks, one or the other of them had been there with a napkin or a tissue for her. Sasha was glad. Because she wasn’t sure she had it in her to offer Bobbi comfort herself. Not today.

  Sophie and Mags’s presence was truly a comfort, and everything they were doing let Sasha stop worrying about the details of the day. The nitty-gritty stuff she’d been so worried about. They took care of it all. She wasn’t sure how she was going to be able to repay them. But she was truly grateful for everything they were doing. But most of all, she understood why they were there. They were there for her and for Jac. To make the day easier for them. Not because they knew and loved Fleur; though Sasha knew they did like her, they simply hadn’t known her long enough to form the kind of bond with her that others in the room had. But what Sasha couldn’t understand was why Vanessa had come with them.

  Since walking in, supposedly under the pretext that she was there to work with them to help, she’d done nothing but stand at the bar, staring daggers at Sasha and drinking steadily. Sasha knew this because she had wanted to go over and get a drink several times but hadn’t wanted to go near her. She didn’t have to work with the woman anymore, so Sasha had no reason to try to be polite. Neither did she want any drama. Today was difficult enough. Today was Fleur’s day. And Sasha didn’t want to get drawn into a conversation with Vanessa that might in any way detract from that.

  She felt Jac’s hand on the small of her back and turned to look at her. Jac’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, her smile as tight and weak as her own. “You okay?” Sasha asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “I’m fine, love. Wouldn’t mind a drink, but I don’t want to tempt the barfly into conversation.”

  Jac looked over her head and scowled. “She might as well not have bothered coming. She’s not done anything to help Sophie or Mags or Bobbi.”

  “I know. But I don’t want any drama.” She rubbed a hand over Jac’s belly, drawing her attention back to her. “Not today.”

  “No, not today. I’ll go and get you a drink, babe.” She bent forwards and kissed her lips. “What do you want?”

  Sasha inhaled deeply. “Brandy, neat.”

  “You sure?”

  “God, yes. Make it a double.”

  Jac tipped her head to the side but didn’t argue as she said, “One double brandy coming up.” They wandered to the other end of the twenty-foot-long bar to where Vanessa was propping it up.

  “I can’t believe there are
so many people here,” Sophie said, appearing at Sasha’s side.

  Sasha nodded but kept her eyes locked on Vanessa as she began to teeter over to Jac. “Mum was a popular lady. It always seemed like she knew everyone whenever we went anywhere.” She pointed to where Octo-Nessa had just clamped her hand over Jac’s arm while she waited to get the bartender’s attention. “What do you think it will take for her to get the message that Jac isn’t interested anymore?”

  “I don’t know,” Sophie said, “lightning bolt from above?” She looked skyward. “Think your mum’s broke into the heavenly stash yet?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past her. But just in case she’s been held up with red tape or something, let’s go and get Jac out of there.” She sighed heavily. “Why did she have to turn up today? I just don’t want to have to deal with her shit today.”

  “I’ll go. You stay here. Maybe go and get something to eat.”

  “No, Jac’s got my drink anyway.” Sasha set off to the bar. It wasn’t too far away. Maybe only twenty feet or so, and as they neared, Sasha could hear Vanessa’s whiny voice as she ran her hand up and down Jac’s arm.

  “…Look I just want you to know I’m here for you, Jac. Anytime. Just like I was the other night. Holding you in my arms again was magical. I know it meant something to you too. You’ve never let go and cried like that before.”

  “Vanessa, get over yourself,” Jac hissed. “I was upset. I wasn’t letting go with you. I was just…upset. Now just leave me alone. If you aren’t going to make yourself useful today, maybe you should think about leaving.” Jac turned around, drinks in hand, and stopped as soon as she saw Sasha. She held out the brandy snifter. “Hey, babe. One double brandy as requested.”

  Sasha took the glass but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure what to say, to be honest. She was sure there was some innocent explanation to what Vanessa had said. Of course there was. Jac had been her rock, Jac loved her, Jac was not now, nor ever would be again, interested in Vanessa. But Vanessa just wasn’t getting the hint, for fuck’s sake. Today? Today she was supposed to deal with her mother, with saying goodbye to her mother, not Vanessa’s petty, stupid fucking drama.