by Cathy Glass
‘Is that Cathy?’ The woman’s voice sounded familiar, although I didn’t know where from.
‘Yes, speaking,’ I replied.
‘It’s Bet, Caz’s friend.’ Her voice broke and immediately I knew something bad had happened. But nothing could have prepared me for how bad it was. I thought that Caz might be in hospital again.
‘Cathy,’ Bet said after a moment, having collected herself, ‘I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but Caz passed away yesterday.’ She stopped as her voice broke again.
‘Oh no.’ My eyes filled and my throat closed. ‘Oh no,’ I said again.
Time stood still and I suddenly became acutely aware of everything around me. The discarded toy on the floor waiting to be put away, the small spider’s web hanging just outside the patio window, the little twitch of the cat’s ear and the framed photographs of the children on the walls that had been there for years, but now seemed suddenly vivid and real.
‘Yesterday?’ I asked at last.
‘Yes.’
Bet sniffed, fighting to regain composure. I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes. Neither of us spoke again for some moments.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘So very sorry. It’s a dreadful shock. I can’t believe it.’
‘No, neither can we. The girls are too upset to talk to anyone, so I said I’d phone you.’
‘Thank you.’ It was impossible to know what to say as, shocked and reeling, I tried to make sense of what had happened. ‘I didn’t know Caz was ill,’ I said, struggling to get the words out.
‘She wasn’t. It was very sudden. It seems she got up as normal yesterday morning after the kids had gone out, and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, then collapsed. Kelly found her at lunchtime when she went back to make her some lunch, as she had been doing.’
‘Oh, the poor girl.’
‘Yes. Her mother was on the floor. Kelly called an ambulance, but there was nothing they could do. She was already dead. It’s likely she died from a massive heart attack, but there’ll be an inquest.’
I let out a long, heartfelt sigh as her words hung in the air. Then my thoughts went to her children. ‘How are Max and the girls coping?’
‘They’re devastated as you can imagine. They’re taking time off. Max is staying with me for now, I’ve told the social services. I’ve taken the rest of the week off work, and then we’ll see how it goes. They’ve got no one else to make all the arrangements.’
‘Have you told Dan?’ I asked.
‘Yes. A fat lot of good he was. I didn’t expect anything better. He didn’t offer to help, so I said I’d let him know when the funeral was.’
‘Bet, is there anything I can do to help?’
‘Thanks, but not really. My hubby is helping. Sadly, we know what to do – we buried both my parents last year.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’ The poor woman had recently lost both her parents and now she’d lost her best friend.
‘Will you phone me if there is anything I can do?’ I said again. ‘Obviously, I would like to come to the funeral.’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll call you with the details.’
‘Thanks, Bet. And please phone if I can help at all.’
‘I will.’
You feel so helpless when tragedy strikes and sometimes it can make you feel a little better to help out in the aftermath, but I didn’t hear from Bet again until she’d made the funeral arrangements. Needless to say, during that time Caz and her children were never far from my thoughts, and while Caz wasn’t an especially old friend, I felt deep compassion for her. I’d seen her at her most vulnerable, been her confidante in past suffering and witnessed her recent struggles first hand. I think what depressed me most was all the heartache and suffering she’d experienced in her short life. If someone old dies you can usually console yourself with the words that they’d had a long, happy and fruitful life or similar, but that couldn’t be said of Caz. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she’d had some happy times, and she obviously loved and got pleasure from her children, but overall her life had been very challenging and sad – abused by her stepfather and then her husband, she’d taken comfort in food, which had ultimately led to her death. It all seemed so futile. I thought she deserved better than that and it plagued me, kept me awake at night and increased my sense of loss and upset.
Caz’s funeral took place at our local crematorium and thankfully – a small mercy – it was a sunny day, although cold. Steeling myself, and with a wodge of tissues tucked into my coat pocket, I followed other mourners into the small chapel, where I was handed an order-of-service sheet by an usher. On the front of the booklet was a lovely head-and-shoulders photograph of Caz with her full name, date of birth and death printed beneath. I guessed the photograph had been taken when she’d been in her mid-twenties. Already noticeably chubby, but smiling brightly before ill health had set in. My eyes welled as I sat in a pew on the right of the chapel, third row from the front. It was a truly charming photograph, a brief snatch of happiness and not at all like the person I had known. My bottom lip quivered and I took a deep breath, looked up and tried to concentrate on what was around me as a diversion for my thoughts: the chapel walls, the arrangement of flowers in a vase on a small table at the front, the wooden cross above the simple altar, the modern stained-glass window. Other mourners were slowly filing in and a woman slid into the end of the pew where I was seated. Recorded organ music played softly in the background.
I guessed about thirty of us were gathered to pay our respects when the service started and the minister’s voice came from the rear of the chapel and asked us all to stand. The organ music changed and a slow, mournful dirge began. I rose to my feet and braced myself for what I knew would happen now, turning my head slightly towards the centre aisle. Caz’s coffin, borne on the shoulders of four pallbearers, began its slow journey towards the front, followed first by Kelly and Paris, both already crying, then Summer holding Max’s hand and being so brave, then Bet and her husband. It was piteous and broke my heart, as it did others. I heard sniffing behind me and a man clearing his throat. The woman on my left took a tissue from her handbag and wiped her eyes. The children were too young to be leading a funeral procession, too young to have lost their mother. Everyone looked to the front as the pallbearers carefully lowered the coffin onto the plinth, took a step back, bowed respectfully and then, turning, left the chapel. Caz’s children, Bet and her husband took their places in the two rows in front of me.
The minister asked us to be seated and then opened the service by saying we were here to celebrate the life and mourn the passing of Caz. I looked at Max seated between his sisters, concentrating on the minister, listening intently to the words as he spoke of the pain of losing a loved one, the journey we all made from birth to death, and specifically about Caz and her family. He included a couple of little anecdotes about Caz, personal touches that I guessed Bet must have told him, as Caz wasn’t a church-goer and as far as I knew didn’t know the minister. Paris sobbed as he made reference to the children having lost their mother young and asked for God’s blessing and said they were in our thoughts and prayers. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dan, sitting alone at the end of the pew closest to the door. I wondered what his thoughts were as he listened to the minister’s kind words about the wife he’d abused and cheated on. Did he have any regrets or, like many abusers, was he able to justify his behaviour? Whichever, I felt pretty certain he would have little or no involvement in the lives of his children in the future. Bet had said he hadn’t been near them since Caz’s death, which was probably for the best.
I managed to keep a rein on my emotion and hold it together reasonably well until Bet paid her tribute. Standing, she went up to the rostrum, clearly nervous; her hand shook as she looked at the sheet of paper she held in front of her. I thought she was very brave. Her emotion was palpable as she began by saying that Caz’s children had lost their beloved mother and she had lost a dearly beloved friend
. She spoke of Caz’s sensitivity, warmth and generosity and how she always had time for a chat over a cup of tea. She said she had many treasured memories of their little chats together that she’d remember always. She said Caz hadn’t had the easiest of lives and spoke of her braveness during all the years of ill health that had plagued her for most of her adult life. She said Caz didn’t often share her innermost thoughts – she wasn’t that type of person. But Bet wondered if she’d had a premonition that she might leave this world soon, for only last month, during one of their chats, Caz had made a point of talking to her about what would happen if she died.
‘At the time I told her not to be silly,’ Bet said, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘But now I’m glad we had that chat, as I was able to reassure her and carry out her last wishes. Caz was worried what would happen to her children and I promised her that my husband and I would make sure they were well looked after. She told me she wanted a simple funeral service at this crematorium and then handed me a poem she wanted read out. This poem,’ Bet said, referring to the sheet of paper she held, ‘Caz had come across it in a magazine and copied it out. She felt it applied to her, especially the verse that begins, “Those of you who liked me …”’
She paused and took a breath. ‘It’s called “One at Rest”. For you, my dear friend Caz, rest in peace.
‘Think of me as one at rest,
for me you should not weep;
I have no pain, no troubled thoughts,
for I am just asleep.
‘The living, thinking me that was,
is now forever still,
and life goes on without me now,
as time forever will.
‘If your heart is heavy now
because I’ve gone away,
dwell not long upon it, friend,
For none of us can stay.
‘Those of you who liked me,
I sincerely thank you all,
and those of you who loved me,
I thank you most of all.
‘And in my fleeting lifespan,
as time went rushing by,
I found some time to hesitate,
to laugh, to love, to cry.
‘Matters it now if time began,
if time will ever cease?
I was here, I used it all,
and now I am at peace.’
Bet stopped. There was silence. You could hear a pin drop. All Caz’s children were crying silently, as was Bet’s husband. Wiping her eyes, Bet stepped from the rostrum and returned to her seat as I took a tissue from my pocket. Rest in peace, Caz, you deserve it. We all liked and loved you.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cruel to be Kind
Those of you who liked me,
I sincerely thank you all,
and those of you who loved me,
I thank you most of all.
Caz was grateful if someone liked or loved her because she didn’t believe she deserved it, which was heartbreaking. Her words, spoken by Bet through the poem, remained with me years later.
The last time I saw Kelly, Paris, Summer and Max was straight after the funeral service at Bet’s house. All the congregation were invited back for light refreshments and about twenty of us went. Bet’s daughter, the one who lived with her, had put out sandwiches and other savouries and there was a cup of tea or a beer to drink. The wake, as it’s sometimes called, is often looked upon as the start of the healing process, where mourners gather together, share their happy memories of the deceased and start the journey of recovery. But because Caz’s children were relatively young, I didn’t feel this and I wasn’t the only one. The atmosphere of sadness and grieving continued. I said a few words to each of Caz’s children, but it was clear they were struggling and didn’t want to talk. I talked to Bet, her husband, Harry, and also some members of her family – all lovely, warm-hearted people just as Bet was. Harry told me that he was helping the girls to sort out their finances and making sure the rent and other bills were paid. The girls wanted to stay in the house if possible and he was looking into the welfare benefits that were available. Kelly and Paris were now adults (just) and Summer was nearly seventeen, and they’d all made it clear to social services that if they tried to put Summer into care they’d block it. Max would continue to live with Bet and her husband for the foreseeable future, and the social services were hurrying through a foster carer assessment so they could be passed to foster him. Jo and Lorraine had both left – Jo, after a number of absences due to ill health, and Lorraine to work for another authority – so they were now dealing with someone called Katrina, who Bet said was helpful.
I didn’t see or hear from Bet, Max or the girls after that. There was no reason why I should. I’d only met Bet a few times and she led a busy life just as I did, with fostering, bringing up my own children and working part-time from home. Of course, I thought about Max and his sisters often, and wondered how they were all doing, especially Max. Foster carers never forget the children they look after and I secretly hoped that I might bump into one of them in town, as had happened before with children I’d fostered. Or possibly a child I was fostering might go to the same school as Max, so I could find out how he was doing and even see him. But that didn’t happen. Occasionally a foster carer finds out by chance how a child is doing through another carer or social worker, but once the child has left, the social services don’t usually keep the carer updated. It would be impractical to update all foster carers on all the children they’d fostered; there just aren’t the resources available. So the years passed without any news.
Part of me felt that Max would be OK. He was intelligent, motivated to learn, self-reliant (too much so sometimes) and resourceful, and he had Bet and her husband looking after him. How much his early life experience had impacted on him was another matter, though. Those years are so important in shaping a child’s future, even into adulthood. Max had coped while at home by shutting himself in his bedroom and burying himself in books and learning, which wasn’t really a long-term solution. Or was it?
Ten years after Caz’s death, on Monday, 12 December, I was standing in the kitchen opening the mail while waiting for the kettle to boil so I could make a cup of coffee. The mail contained a wonderful selection of festive Christmas cards, beautiful snow scenes with reindeer and robins, Father Christmas carrying sackfuls of presents and nativity scenes. I savoured their bright, glittering images; they brought joy to my heart. I love Christmas with all its trimmings. The next card I opened contained a photograph – not unusual, as some of my friends and relatives who lived a long way away and whom I saw infrequently often included a photograph of their family so we could keep up to date. However, this one was slightly unusual. It wasn’t a family group. It was of a young man standing beside a bicycle in front of an historic building that looked familiar. Yet while the building looked familiar, the young man did not. Intrigued, I turned over the photograph and read the handwritten words.
Hi Cathy. Remember me? Just completed my first term at King’s College, Cambridge. Had to learn to ride a bike, as everyone here rides bikes!
Max x
Max! Good gracious! Of course I remember you! I quickly flipped back to the photograph and examined the image of the young man. Yes, I could see it was Max now, just. His features showed a passing reference to the young boy I’d fostered all those years ago, but he was so very different. Apart from natural maturity redefining his features, he was no longer chubby – not in the least. He had grown into a fine, tall young man and looked toned and fit. So different from the child I’d last seen that I’m sure I would have walked past him in the street without recognizing him. And he’d secured a place to study at King’s College, Cambridge – one of the most prestigious universities in England! Well done, Max. What a fantastic achievement. He’d also finally learnt to ride a bike.
I smiled as my thoughts went back to the six-year-old Max who’d been so overweight he’d struggled to even kick a football, let alone ride a bike, during that lon
g, hot summer when he’d played in the garden with Adrian and Paula. Yet now he was confidently cycling around Cambridge on his way to and from lectures like hundreds of his fellow students. Cambridge students are renowned for using bicycles to get around, and cars are banned from many areas in the city centre. But had he made friends, I wondered? There would be a good social scene at Cambridge, but was Max part of it? Or after lectures did he return to his lodgings to sit alone and read and study as he had done at home? It was impossible to know from looking at the photograph. He appeared self-assured, but photos are only a snapshot of a person’s life, not the whole picture.
Setting the photograph to one side, I now read the words he’d written in the card beneath the printed Christmas message.
Cathy, if you remember me I’d love to visit you during the Christmas holidays.
Best wishes,
Max x
He’d included his mobile phone number. Ignoring the boiling kettle, I picked up my phone from where I’d left it on the work surface and, creating a new contact, entered Max’s number. I didn’t need to think about what to say in the text. Hi Max. Thanks for the card. Of course I remember you! Would love to see you. When r u free? Cathy & family x
I pressed send and began making the coffee, still in a daze of wonder and amazement. Before I’d had a chance to add the milk my phone bleeped with an incoming text message. Great! Is next Saturday any good? Max x
I texted back: Perfect. Around 2 p.m. would suit me x
See you then. Max x
The following Saturday afternoon saw Adrian, Paula, Lucy (my adopted daughter) and me eagerly awaiting Max’s arrival. I’d baked a cake and made some sweet mince pies, which are a traditional Christmas favourite of ours and were warming in the oven. Although Lucy had never met Max, when I’d shown her his photograph and explained who he was she’d become as excited as Adrian and Paula were to meet him. Paula had been so young when Max had lived with us that she only had the haziest recollections of him, but Adrian, that much older, remembered him clearly, as of course I did.
