And Her Mother Came Too
A Short Story by Jeannie van Rompaey
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Jeannie van Rompaey 2012
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Hardingbury village church was packed. The very same people who had celebrated Maisie Dutton’s ninetieth birthday two weeks previously had turned out in force to see her buried.
In the front pew, sporting a wide-brimmed navy-and-white hat that would have been more at home at a wedding than a funeral, sat Mrs. Dutton’s only daughter, Anne Fielding. The vicar, with a strong sense of the dramatic, leaned over the pulpit and addressed the opening remarks of the eulogy directly to her.
‘I would like you to think of today, not as a sad occasion, but as a celebration of a very special life.’ He ran his eyes over the rest of the congregation. ‘I’m sure that those of you who knew Maisie Dutton well will agree with me that her life was well worth celebrating.’
A little murmur of assent rippled through the church. Most of the people gathered to pay their last respects were, quite naturally Anne supposed, elderly women, not exactly friends of the deceased, but acquaintances. Maisie Dutton hadn’t allowed herself intimate friends. Three of these women sat together, two widows and a spinster, Mrs. Edith Coates, Mrs. Clara Watts and Miss Violet Johnson. Dressed in black, shoulders hunched forward, they perched expectantly on the edge of their pew, vultures ready to pick at a carcass.
Anne was not dressed in black but navy-blue, a compromise which satisfied her scruples but was discreet enough to avoid comment. As she felt the vicar’s eyes focus on her again, she bowed her head. Under cover of the wide-brimmed hat, a grim little smile escaped. Her husband, Brian, thinking that the dip of the hat marked the shedding of a tear, squeezed her hand in sympathy. He had no idea how liberated she felt now that her mother had finally gone.
The vicar began to extol her mother’s virtues. ‘We all knew Mrs. Dutton as a woman of integrity, loyal, hard-working and strong-willed, with a belief in Christian values all too often considered old-fashioned today. She was an excellent wife, mother and grandmother. Who could ask for more?’
Anne made her own list. Her mother had been selfish, self-righteous, stubborn, dominating and cantankerous. Anne stared at the oak coffin on the bier in front of her, half-expecting to hear the old lady hammer on the lid.
‘Maisie came to live at Home Farm in Hardingbury, when, as a young woman, she married Kenneth Dutton. I am told that for most of her life she got up at five o’clock every morning and didn’t stop working until dusk.’
The vicar paused for a moment and once more let his eyes rest lightly on Anne. ‘It was at Home Farm that her daughter, Anne, was brought up. I’ve already mentioned that Maisie Dutton was a good mother but I hope that Anne will permit me to elaborate a little on this aspect of her life.’
Anne’s eyes slid away. It appeared she had no choice in the matter.
‘I don’t think it is any secret to any of you that Anne developed diabetes mellitus at the age of ten. I am sure she would like me to pay tribute to the way her mother helped her to cope with that malady throughout her childhood and beyond it.’
Anne drew her lips together in a straight line. She hated people talking about her diabetes. Suddenly she was a child again, shaking with terror as the dark shadow of her mother loomed over her, the dreaded instrument of torture in her hand, ready to give her a jab. In later years, Anne learnt how to inject the insulin herself but she had never forgotten her early fear of the needle.
The vicar lowered his voice to a stage whisper. ‘Then came the tragic event that was to change Maisie Dutton’s life and bind the mother and daughter even closer together.’
A loud trumpeting sound echoed round the church. One of the vultures was blowing her nose. The vicar gave a slight frown, his dramatic pause ruined. Anne glanced across the aisle at the three women, the tall, the short and the thin. Mrs. Coates, the tall, had a humped back, which, in conjunction with her protruding chin, made her look even more vulture-like than the others. Mrs. Watts of the troublesome nose was short and broad; while the spinster, Miss Johnson, was so thin her clothes hung on her like drooping wings. Mrs. Watts tucked her handkerchief into her huge black bag and the vicar continued the saga.
‘While still a relatively young man, Kenneth Dutton was killed in a car accident on his way back from Northampton market. A lesser person than his wife might have gone to pieces. Not Maisie Dutton. She rallied and got on with her life. It was fortuitous - God moves in mysterious ways - that Anne was just about to be married to Brian Fielding and it was at her mother’s generous suggestion that the young couple came to live with her and help run the farm.’
Anne glared at the coffin. You weren’t that generous, she told her mother. You could have given us the farm as a wedding present but oh no, you wouldn’t do that. You told me that you were safe-guarding my interests, that Brian was an unknown quantity, a virtual stranger. Fair enough, I suppose. At first. But he didn’t remain a stranger. He worked his guts out on that farm but you refused to give up your hold on it. Or on me. Funny really, my main reason for marrying Brian had been to leave home and get away from you, but after our marriage I was more tied to your apron strings than ever.
The wreath of red roses on top of the coffin seemed to tremble a little. Was her mother rocking the coffin in protest or was it only the draught whistling under the heavy oak church door that ruffled the flowers?
Anne screwed up her eyes and tried to imagine the tiny body with the hard, dried-up face lying in the satin-lined coffin. Oyster satin it was. No expense had been spared for this funeral.
I hope you’re comfortable, Anne thought, because you’re going to be in there for a long time. For eternity. And there’s nothing longer than that. You stole my life, made me believe I was an invalid, incapable of doing anything on my own. You stole my children and insisted on bringing them up your way. Jonathan was your favourite. You spoiled him. Everyone knew that, including Rachel. That’s why she left home as soon as she could and rarely came back to visit us. Count yourself lucky she’s here today.
Anne had tried to break away from her mother. She’d found an advertisement in “The Chronicle and Echo” to rent another farm, but Brian had said, ‘What’s the point of moving? We’re doing well enough here. This is a fair old farm you know, Anne.’
‘But it’s not ours,’ she’d said.
‘It’ll be ours soon enough. When she gets a bit older she’ll make it over to us. You’ll see.’
She never did.
Brian hadn’t really understood why Anne wanted to move. He was out on the farm all day so hadn’t realised what a tyrant her mother had become, supervising every little thing, not allowing Anne a moment to herself. ‘We can’t desert her. She couldn’t manage the farm without me, he’d said.
Anne’s next ploy had been to suggest that her mother should have her own part of the house: a granny flat with its own front door. ‘So that you can be a bit independent,’ she’d told her.
Maisie Dutton wasn’t fooled by her daughter’s seeming solicitude and refused to “be pensioned off” as she put it. ‘I will not be turned out of my own kitchen and anyway, you couldn’t cope without me beside you.’
She thought her daughter incapable of doing the most simple things without her and Anne, demoralised by her mother’s domination, began to lose faith in her own ability and eventually gave up the fight. It was easier to give in and go with the flow.
Anne started as the vicar’s voice resumed its booming tone. A little nerve in her neck betrayed her tension but no one was looking at her. ‘When Brian retired five years ago, Jonathan and his wife, Lynne, took over the farm. Brian and Anne moved to Primrose Cottage and of course….’ He paused and his eyes twinkled knowingly, ‘Her mother went with them.’
There was an old music hall song Anne remembered, called, “And her mother came too.” Her mouth tightened. She’d promised herself over the years that everything would be different when Brian retired. They would have the time to broaden their horizons, visit different places, go abroad perhaps, meet different people….
No chance of that with you around, Anne informed the body in the coffin.
Generous at last, her mother had relinquished her hold on the farm and given it to Jonathan, her blue-eyed boy. The farmhouse was big enough to accommodate her as well, much bigger than Primrose Cottage, but Jonathan had put his foot down. ‘She is not going to live here. Not even in a granny flat. We don’t want the responsibility and we don’t want her interfering, telling us what we should and should not do. Farming has changed a lot in the last few years. I have to be free to make the necessary changes without her continual advice and resistance to change. And, naturally, Lynne doesn’t want her around either. She wants to do things her way, without Grandma looking over her shoulder and bossing her about. You know what she’s like, Mum.’
Anne did know what she was like and had to admit Jonathan was right. Even if he’d been willing to have her, Anne couldn’t, in all conscience, have burdened Jonathan with his grandmother. At the same time, the thought of the cantankerous old woman living with her and Brian in that tiny cottage and continuing to rule her life was an anathema. It crossed her mind that they should put her in a residential home but her mother was not the kind of person you could just “put” anywhere.
Anne fixed her eyes on at the coffin. Well, I’ve well and truly put you somewhere now. It’s no use, Mother. You’re in that box and there you’re going to stay. You’ve made these last five years hell for me. Everywhere I went you trotted after me. I couldn’t even go in the kitchen without you following me, reminding me to warm the teapot or not to waste any leftovers. Don’t forget the hospital corners, you said every single time I made the beds and how you delighted in pointing out that I’d missed a bit of dust in the corner when I was sweeping up. When I did go out, to the Women’s Institute or to the shops, you insisted on coming too.
Was it Anne’s imagination or was the wreath of roses vibrating more vehemently now as if the bony old hands were pounding on the coffin lid demanding to be let out?
As for Brian, a man who had been active all his life on the farm, once he retired, he did nothing, noticed nothing, just sat glued to the television all day with the sound turned down, dozing. He was no help at all.
‘What a wonderful old lady Maisie Dutton turned out to be,’ The vicar enthused. ‘Indomitable. And what a wonderful companion she had in her daughter. They were always together. Inseparable. That says a lot about the quality of their relationship.’
Anne bit her lip. Inseparable? They might as well have been Siamese twins.
Her mother had sulked when Anne dared to suggest that she and Brian wanted to go away on their own for a break. Just for a week-end. Or a week at the most.
Don’t deny it, you sulked, she told the coffin. We booked a trip to Scotland and arranged for you to stay at the farm with Jonathan and Lynne while we were away. The day we were due to leave you staged a fainting fit. You - who had never fainted in your life - came over all dizzy and fell over. Jonathan was completely taken in. She was too frail to be left alone all day, while he and Lynne were working, he said. Frail! There was nothing frail about you, Mother, but of course we didn’t go and in the end I gave up trying to plan holidays. You always managed to prevent us going at the last minute and Brian didn’t seem that keen anyway. You got your own way over that, Mother, the same as you did with everything else.
She remembered Brian saying, ‘We’ll get away soon. She can’t live for ever.’
Anne wasn’t so sure. Sometimes she’d believed that her mother would outlive them both but now here she was, in her coffin. At last. In a few minutes she would be buried and that would be that.
‘Family life is very special.’ The vicar was summing up now. ‘It is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly rare these days to see such a closely knit family. Let us pray that we may all aspire to that special closeness in our families.’
‘Amen,’ mouthed the congregation.
Anne glanced along the pew at her family, at Brian beside her and at Rachel next to him. Rachel gave her a little nod. Anne couldn’t help thinking how plain Rachel looked these days. She wore no make-up, no jewellery and seemed to take no interest in fashion. She called herself a feminist but surely all that nonsense had died a natural death years ago. Next to Rachel was Jonathan, tall and broad-shouldered, with a face that knew where it was going. His grandmother’s face. Jonathan’s slip of a wife, Lynne, stood beside him, wearing a skirt that was far too short. Anne had never considered Lynne good enough for Jonathan. A bit common, really. There were no grandchildren. This was the extent of her family, lined up as they were in the front pew, yet how little Anne knew them.
“The close-knit family” followed the coffin down the church path and over the road to the new cemetery. Maisie Dutton hadn’t held with cremation. Anne thought about all the other things her mother hadn’t held with: strong drink, sex outside marriage, sex within marriage unless absolutely necessary for the propagation of children, aeroplanes, going abroad, consorting with foreigners….
It may be too late for me to have sex outside marriage, thought Anne, ‘but I can go on an aeroplane, visit different countries and consort with foreigners and tonight I intend to have a good few gin and tonics. I can do anything I fancy and there’s nothing you can do to stop me, Mother.
A little giggle threatened to break out as she imagined herself sitting on a terrace in Paris “consorting with foreigners.” French had been her favourite subject at school but she’d never had a chance to practise it. She’d probably forgotten every word now but it had always been her dream to go to Paris and now her dream could come true. She turned the giggle into a cough and felt Brian’s hand tighten on her elbow. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jonathan frown. He’d just become a church warden and took his duties seriously. He wouldn’t want his mother to be indiscreet.
There were a good many wreaths and sprays of flowers laid out on the grass verge by the cemetery path.
‘She’s being given a good old send-off all right,’ commented tall Mrs. Coates, stooping over to read the labels on the wreaths.
The grave was at the far end of the cemetery by open fields that seemed to roll on forever: a peaceful resting place. As the coffin was lowered into the grave and the vicar was saying his piece, some sheep, grazing in the nearby fields, bleated and drowned the final comment. Anne’s urge to giggle, strong before, was now growing out of control. She could feel it fizzing ready to explode. She bit her lip, dropped her head to hide her face under the wide-brimmed hat and held her handbag firmly over her quivering stomach.
Brian put his arm round her. ‘Come on, old girl. Bear up.’
Anne wiped away a tear with the back of her hand and then, out it came, the laughter, bubbling up like a fountain from a deep spring inside her. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she cried and laughed and laughed, unable to stop.
‘Poor soul,’ whispered Mrs. Coates. ‘She’s gone all hysterical.’
Mrs. Watts took out a man’s handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘I think I’ve got a cold coming on.’
‘It was the sheep that did it,’ Anne spluttered. ‘Did you hear them? They just about put the tin lid on it, they did.’
‘Come on, Mother,’ Jonathan said crossly. ‘Let’s get you back home.’
He took one arm and Brian the other and they propelled her out of the cemetery with Rachel and Lynne close on their heels. Anne continued to splutter and giggle as they left. ‘That just about put the tin lid on it that did.’
‘She’s been under a terrible strain,’ said Miss Johnson pursing her thin lips. ‘It must have been a shock her mother going like that, so sudden like.’
‘Still,’ Mrs. Coates observed as the three women made their way out of the cemetery in the wake of the Fielding family, ‘she’s got to realise that when your time’s up, it’s up. That’s what I had to tell myself when my Stan passed away. I always thought I’d be the one to first but it were not to be.’
‘Same with my William,’ said Mrs. Watts. ‘Mind you, he were a poorly old thing at the best of times, but it’s always a shock when they go. As for Maisie Dutton, well, I have to say, she were lucky. She never knew a thing, went to sleep and didn’t wake up. A lovely way to go. I always wash up the dishes before I go to bed and tidy up a bit, just in case I pop off in the night.’
‘Are you going up to the farm for the do?’ asked Mrs. Coates.
Mrs. Watts nodded. ‘I could do with a cup of tea.’
‘Nice of Jonathan to have it at the farm. More room there than at the cottage.’
‘Well, she were his grandma.’
Miss Johnson decided to add her pennyworth. ‘His wife works in Woolworth’s in Northampton.’
‘Yes, I know,’ sniffed Mrs. Watts, but whether the sniff was a comment on Lynne’s chosen job or a symptom of Clara’s cold who could say?
Home Farm was nearly as packed as the church.
‘Just think,’ Mrs. Watts said, easing her bulky body down on to the sofa next to Mrs. Coates. ‘Just think. Last time we were all here it were her ninetieth. Only two weeks ago. And she were so spry and happy.’
‘On top of the world she was,’ Mrs. Coates agreed. ‘I remember saying to her daughter, “You’ll have to start saving up for her hundredth. She’s bound to hang on for that. She won’t want to want to miss her telegram from the Queen!” Do you remember that, Anne?’ Mrs. Coates called out as Anne, the only remaining sign of her recent hysteria a bright pink patch on either cheek, was passing with a plate of salmon and cucumber sandwiches. ‘I was just saying she won’t get her telegram from the Queen after all.’
‘I’ll have another of them sandwiches while you’re here if you don’t mind, Anne,’ said Mrs. Watts. ‘I must say you’ve done everything very nice, hasn’t she Edith?’
‘Rachel and Lynne helped,’ Anne said modestly as she edged away.
‘It was after that party she started going downhill,’ Mrs. Coates said. ‘Perhaps it was something she ate.’
Mrs. Watts nearly choked on her sandwich and put the uneaten bit back on her plate. ‘That cucumber don’t agree with me, gives me indigestion something terrible.’
‘I never touch cucumber myself,’ said Mrs. Coates. ‘Don’t trust it. As for salmon, well, that’s always a bit suspect. In my opinion it was the salmon that were Maisie’s downfall.’
‘Make room for a little one,’ said Miss Johnson.
Mrs. Watts, looking a little pale after Mrs. Coates’ last remark, heaved her huge body along the sofa a few inches to allow her thin friend to squeeze in. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘Where d’ you think?’ breathed Miss Johnson. She looked round to make sure she wouldn’t be overheard then hissed in an undertone, ‘There was no toilet paper. Lucky I had a tissue in my bag.’
‘She’s just been past with the sandwiches,’ Mrs. Coates said. ‘If you want one, you’ll have to go and help yourself.’
‘And the bath had a ring round it. A tide mark. Maisie wouldn’t have approved of that. Not at a funeral.’
‘Everything all right?’ Rachel asked breezily as she swept by with the remaining sausage rolls.
‘Too bad if it’s not,’ commented Mrs. Watts. ‘She was in a bit of a hurry, wasn’t she?’
‘Comes of living in London does that,’ said Mrs. Coates.
‘I could have done with one of them sausage rolls,’ grunted Mrs. Watts.
‘They say she’s only got one kidney,’ was Miss Johnson’s contribution to the conversation.
Rachel found her mother in the kitchen making another large pot of tea.
‘Take the weight off your feet, Mum. I’ll do that. You’ve done nothing but race about all day.’
‘I’m better on the move,’ Anne said.
‘Have you had a cup of tea yourself?’
‘Do you know, I don’t think I have.’
‘Then sit here for a moment and we’ll have one together.’
Anne was used to doing what she was told. She sat at the huge scrubbed kitchen table where, under her mother’s watchful eye, she had rolled out pastry for Brian’s favourite steak pies for more years than she cared to remember.
Rachel poured out two teas and sat opposite her mother.
‘Now this is over, you’ll have to get Dad to take you away somewhere.’
‘If he’ll go. He doesn’t seem to want to budge these days.’
‘I’ll budge him. Lazy bugger. What you need is a good long holiday.’
‘I’d like to go to Paris. Or Venice perhaps.’ Suddenly the whole world was on offer.
Rachel smiled. ‘I can’t quite picture you and Dad on a gondola.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Anne said.
‘Second honeymoon?’
‘What d’ you mean second? We never had a first.’
Rachel thought about that. ‘She kept you on a short leash, even then.’
‘Now, our Rachel. Don’t speak ill of the dead. Not today.’
‘What’s special about today? She was a harridan and you know it. Now you’re free.’
Rachel leant across the table and took her mother’s tiny hand in hers. ‘Look Mum, why not come to London for a bit. Stay with me. I know I’d be at work all day but you could go shopping, buy yourself some new clothes for that trip to Venice or Paris.’
Automatically Anne withdrew her hand and started to protest. ‘I’m not sure if your father would come. He’s not keen on London, doesn’t like cities.’
‘Never mind about him. Let him stay at home or here at the farm with Jonathan.’
Go to London on her own? Why not? Wasn’t that what she’d dreamt of doing, branching out, spreading her wings, so to speak?
‘We could go to the theatre,’ Rachel was saying, ‘and the cinema, do all the things you should have done years ago. Maybe I could get a bit of holiday and we could fly off somewhere together. Paris, Venice, Rome.’
As Anne looked across the table at her daughter’s shining face she wondered how she could ever have thought her plain.
Lynne tottered into the kitchen on her high heels.
‘My God,’ she said, flopping down on the chair next to Rachel. ‘When are they all going home? Anyone would think this was a hotel the way they go on, scoffing all the sandwiches and demanding more tea.’
‘Mum’s just made another pot. I’ll take the next lot round.’
Lynne took off her shoes and put her feet up on the table, exposing an expanse of white thigh under the mini-skirt. Anne couldn’t help pushing her lips together in disapproval.
‘Do you know,’ Lynne said. ‘When you purse your lips like that you look just like Grandma Dutton.’
Back at Primrose Cottage, Anne made another pot of tea for Brian and poured the gin and tonic she’d promised herself earlier. The first of several she intended to have that evening. Brian didn’t notice. He’d switched on the television as soon as he’d arrived back and would spend the evening mindlessly watching anything that came on. Really, he was no company. No company at all.
They’d never sat and talked much. They used to whisper together in bed if they’d had something to discuss that they didn’t want her mother to hear. That was the only time they’d had to themselves. As she’d grown older, her mother seemed to need less and less sleep. Always an early riser, she would make tea at five-thirty every morning and wouldn’t dream of going to bed before midnight. She’d expected Anne to brush her hair and help her dress and undress although she’d been quite capable of doing these things for herself. In placating her mother, Anne supposed she’d neglected her husband. Now, as she watched Brian pouring his tea into his saucer, blowing on it to make it cooler and then slurping it up into his mouth, she gave a little shudder. He might just as well be a stranger for all she knew about him.
‘You won’t be able to do that in Paris,’ she said.
He wasn’t listening. The cricket scores were on. She poured herself another gin and tonic.
‘I’ll just watch the weather, then I’ll go up,’ he said a bit later. He still took a keen interest in the weather forecast, though it didn’t matter to him now he wasn’t farming any more. ‘They’ll not be able to start haymaking tomorrow. There’s going to be a downpour about mid-day. Mind you, they don’t always get it right, the BBC.’
As Brian shuffled past her on his way up to bed, she noticed how bent his back was and how grey his wispy hair. She thought of the touches of grey in her own hair and the lines on her face. Rachel was right. They would look ridiculous in a gondola.
At the bottom of the stairs, Brian turned and asked, ‘You coming?’
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ Anne said.
She thought she’d sit for a while before taking his cup and saucer and her glass into the kitchen and washing them up. She laid her head back on the antimacassar and put her feet up on the footstool. Opposite her, the rocking chair, her mother’s chair, was empty. Silence. Anne gave a little sigh of satisfaction.
Everything had gone so smoothly. She could hardly believe her luck.
It was after the birthday party that the idea had come to her. Her mother had had a wonderful time, a day to remember. At Maisie ’s suggestion, or rather order, the rocking chair had been transported in Jonathan’s land-rover from Primrose Cottage to Home Farm where, for that one special day, it had resumed its accustomed place in the large sitting room. Ensconced on her throne, Maisie Dutton had held court as the villagers trooped into the cottage to pay their respects. Everyone brought presents: flowers, pot-plants or boxes of chocolates. Really the place had looked like a hospital. But what else could you buy a ninety-year-old? All the visitors had complimented Maisie on her health, told her how marvellous she looked and Mrs. Coates had joked about having the next party in ten years time and receiving a telegram from the Queen.
It was that remark that had set Anne thinking, because really it wasn’t a joke at all. Her mother could, and probably would, live another ten years or more. Out of spite, if nothing else, determined not to leave her daughter in peace. Anne had calculated that if her mother did live to be a hundred, she, herself, would be seventy-five, a bit late for her to spread her wings. Anne had decided there and then that she wouldn’t allow that to happen. Enough was enough. Maisie Dutton had had her life. Why shouldn’t her daughter have hers? A week or so later, Anne had put a sleeping draught into her mother’s bedtime drink and prepared herself for the long night ahead.
Anne poured herself another gin and took a large swig of it. She hadn’t thought in detail about that night since. It was as if a shutter had come down on that part of her brain and blotted out the memory. She’d been busy with the funeral arrangements and hadn’t let herself dwell on the events that had preceded it. Now, with her mother safely buried, she could afford to let go a little and savour what had taken place.
It had all been so easy. The sleeping draught did the trick. The old lady went off to sleep immediately and hardly stirred when, a little later, Anne inserted the needle into her stomach to inject that fatal dose of insulin. It was ironic really. What kept Anne alive was death to her mother. All night long Anne sat by her mother’s bed. She thought it only fair to be with her mother during her last moments. The tiny face on the pillow looked quite sweet in repose. Anne watched, mesmerized by the way the bed covers moved up and down as her mother breathed in and out. She waited patiently for the insulin to take effect. Every half an hour or so she took her mother’s pulse. That’s how she knew the exact moment her mother stopped breathing. Five o’clock. Maisie Dutton had missed her early morning tea.
No one suspected foul play. No one considered examining the body to discover the cause of death.
‘These things happen,’ the doctor had told a white-faced Anne. ‘I know it must be a terrible shock for you but just be grateful she went peacefully in her sleep and didn’t suffer.’
Anne was grateful, grateful that no second injection had been needed. It had been bad enough gearing herself up to give her the first one. She was grateful too that no one knew or suspected what she had done. No one, except perhaps, Maisie Dutton herself.
It was nearly midnight. Time for bed. Anne’s hipbone clicked as she stood up. Arthritis. They said old age never came alone but at sixty-five she was still quite agile. It wasn’t too late to make a few changes in her life. Next week she would make the necessary arrangements and go and stay with Rachel in London. That would be a start.
It was as she was carrying the tray with her glass and Brian’s cup and saucer into the kitchen that she heard a familiar sound: footsteps, trotting behind her, following her into the kitchen just as they had always done. Her hand shook and she nearly dropped the tray. Now she understood what they meant in ghost stories when they wrote about people’s blood running cold. Her blood could not have been colder and her heart was beating nineteen to the dozen. She reached the draining board and put the tray down carefully. Very slowly, she turned her head and peeped over her shoulder. The kitchen was empty but a faint scent of Johnson’s baby powder hung in the air. Her mother was nearby.
Anne gripped the edge of the sink with both hands. Her knuckles turned white. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she told herself. ‘She can’t be here. It’s not possible.’
Taking a deep breath, she began to make her way back to the sitting-room but stopped in her tracks as she heard a creaking noise, a sound as familiar as the scent of the baby powder: the steady movement of the rocking chair.
‘Pull yourself together woman,’ she told herself again. ‘It can’t be her. She’s dead and buried.’
The rocking stopped.
Anne took another deep breath and, step by step, forced herself to cross the kitchen back to the sitting-room. At the open door, she shut her eyes tightly to compose herself. She was quite calm when she opened them again.
There, in front of her, rocking herself gently to and fro, sat her mother.
But not quite her mother. Her clothes, the ones she’d been buried in, were torn and dirty, covered with freshly-dug soil: her hair was matted, sticking out like twigs in a bird’s nest. Smears of mud streaked down the grey crinkled cheeks. One eye had gone to the wall. Her hands were grubby and there was mud under the fingernails and splinters in the skinny fingers. All this Anne took in a split second. She stood rigid, unable to move, staring at the apparition before her.
The stiff jaw opened and a voice, thick with grit and stones and grave-dirt, rasped out: ‘Time to brush my hair, Anne.’
Then Anne did move. She took a step forward and fell down at the feet of her monster-mother and the world turned black.
It seemed fitting that Anne should be buried next to her mother at the far end of cemetery where the rolling countryside, dotted with sheep, offered a promise of eternal peace.
Rachel and Jonathan stood either side of their father who seemed to have aged ten years in the last few days. Lynne wasn’t there. She said she couldn’t ask Woolworth’s for another day off so soon after the other one.
The three vultures were there, the tall, the short and the thin.
‘Poor soul,’ whispered Mrs. Coates. ‘It were all too much for her.’
‘Heart attack, the doctor said,’ said Mrs. Watts.
‘Went completely off her rocker, if you ask me,’ said Miss Johnson. ‘They say there was dirt on the rocking chair and on the carpet. Took some clearing up that did. They say she tried to dig her mother up.’
‘It’s true. I’ve always been an early riser and you know I like to go for a walk as soon as I’m up,’ said Mrs. Coates. ‘I thought I’d just pass by and have another little look at them wreaths. Cost a lot of money do wreaths and the flowers die so quickly you have to take advantage and look at them while they’re still nice. Anyway, I was too late. When I got here, they were all over the place, those wreaths. Torn to pieces. The grave were in a terrible state, gaping open with flowers and soil all over the place. It were me who informed the vicar.’
‘You wouldn’t think she’d have had the strength,’ said Miss Johnson.
‘I blame the husband,’ said Mrs. Watts. ‘He should have kept an eye on her, not let her go out on her own visiting a graveyard at that time of night.’
When the vicar had finished his prayers and the Fielding family were leaving the cemetery, Mrs. Watts said, ‘It were a lovely service, I’ll give him that. He’s really good at funerals.’
‘He should be,’ said Mrs. Coates. ‘He’s had a lot of practice lately.’
‘I never did think she’d last long once her mother had gone,’ said Miss Johnson.
‘I never thought I’d be able to go on without my Stan,’ said Mrs. Coates, pulling her shawl over her hump. She seemed to feel the cold more lately. ‘But here I am and here I intend to stay. I’m not going to miss out on my telegram from the Queen.’
Mrs. Watts had a coughing fit, competing with the bleating of the sheep. Mrs. Coates and Miss Johnson exchanged a knowing look.
After a moment or two, Mrs. Coates asked, ‘Are you both going up the farm for the do?’
‘Well, I could do with a cup of tea,’ Mrs. Watts said.
Mrs. Coates gave a sideways look at the plump woman beside her. ‘And a salmon and cucumber sandwich?’
‘I think I’ll give them a miss this time. You can’t trust salmon. Perhaps they’ll have some ham.’
‘I don’t think I’ll come,’ said Miss Johnson. ‘I’d rather get home.’
Her two friends shook their heads as they watched her hobble away.
‘Beginning of the end when you want to stay home all the time,’ said Mrs. Watts.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s not the next. They say death comes in threes.’
Mrs. Watts tucked her scarf securely inside her coat. Her cold hadn’t completely cleared up and she didn’t want to chance it turning into bronchitis or something worse.
They took a last look at the two new graves.
‘Together in life. Together in death,’ said Mrs. Coates. ‘Rather nice is that. It’s what you might call fate.’
Was it her imagination or did the wreath of red roses on top of Anne’s grave begin to shake?
Edith Coates shivered and pulled her shawl more tightly round her shoulders. ‘Come on, Clara, let’s get up that hill and have that cup of tea.’
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