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‘Someone from the council maybe. I’m only just beginning to process how much there is to sort out and it’s really quite a burden, isn’t it? Anyway, when Dad dies, it’ll all be taken care of by me so you won’t need to be involved. I’ll perform my filial duties to the full, I promise.’
The self-sacrifice was thick as syrup in Paula’s voice, along with something else that Shay couldn’t quite identify; something sour, sly even, but she couldn’t give it any energy now. She didn’t want to think about their father passing but she hoped that Barbara would take command when the timecame because she’d do a loving and sensitive job. For now, Shay was just grateful that her sister had left all the arrangements to her for their mum so that she could go in peace, because there wasn’t going to be much of that around when Paula saw her most recent will.
She didn’t feel comfortable knowing something about it that Paula didn’t because it was sure to cause major ructions – the younger daughter telling the older one how it was, turning the chain of command on its head but what choice did she have? She’d promised her mum she’d carry out her wishes, and she wouldn’t break her word, but what a task she’d been left with. She only hoped she could hold the showdown off until after the funeral. Even now, with her mum no longer here, Shay felt as compacted in the middle of that sandwich as she ever was.
She sat at the kitchen table having a cup of black coffee. The whole house felt too empty to try and imagine that her mum was merely outside in the garden or having a natter at Dagmara’s. Roberta was gone and her home couldn’t make any sense of it.
Everything else could wait, but she needed to throw the perishable food in the cupboards away, the loaf in the bread bin, the milk and cheese, the yoghurt and the bacon in the fridge. But it was the lone Potterworth éclair on the shelf in there that brought the tears fast to her eyes. Her mum’s favourite. It never crossed Shay’s mind when she bought it for her that she would be dead before she managed to eat it and that realisation made Shay’s thoughts spin. How fleeting and fragile life could be, like spider thread. One minute someone was there; the next gone, leaving a space that felt so much bigger than the physical one they had occupied. Tanya’s death had punched her heart so brutally, she hadfelt the bruise for a long time, still did occasionally. It never hurt less, it just hurt less often and she supposed it would be the same with Roberta, because people were hardwired to survive the ongoing circle of existence. But it hadn’t been that way when Denny Smith died because that defied the natural order. It had changed the fabric of her down to the DNA; she was not the same Shay Corrigan after it as she was before. The canvas that had grown over the gaping hole he had caused in her kept splitting and as much as she’d tried to stop herself staring into the rottenness in the chasm, she couldn’t help herself.
There was a knock at the front door, followed by the sound of it opening.
‘Shay? Hello?’
Dagmara Mitic wandered into the kitchen, her smile pinned on as usual, but a different smile today; one of sadness and sympathy. She was carrying a large brown envelope in one hand and a packet of malted milk biscuits in the other.
‘Oh my darling Shay,’ she said, putting her arms around her, flooding her with the perfume she and her mother both used. It was almost too much, too easy to imagine it was her mother holding her, arms tight about her.
‘Would you like a coffee, but I’ve no milk?’ Shay said when she let go, wiping her tears away with the heel of her hand.
‘No, I just saw the car and came to see if you were all right. And I brought you these.’ Dagmara put the biscuits on the table then sat down, reached for Shay’s hand and held it fast.
‘I came to get an outfit for Mum,’ Shay said. ‘I don’t want to be here for too long. It feels awful.’
‘I know, I know,’ said Dagmara. ‘What have you chosen?’
‘The suit she ordered from your catalogue.’
‘Ah.’ Dagmara reached into the envelope and took out a photo. Roberta posing in the wedding ensemble, hat on her head at a cheeky tilt, hand on her waist, proud bow of a smile on her face.
‘I ran off copy for you. Doesn’t she look lovely? She tried it on but it was all creased, so I pressed it and we had fashion show. Perfect fit. She looked like duchess in it.’
Shay’s vision blurred, she rubbed at her eyes to clear it. ‘It’s beautiful, Dagmara. Did she pay you for it?’
‘Of course,’ said Dagmara. ‘From the purse at the back of the drawer where she keeps all her documents. You have to pull it out because it’s lodged behind it for safekeeping.’
‘Oh, that’s why it doesn’t shut properly.’ Shay gave a small smile, shook her head at how methodical her mum could be at the same time as so muddled.
Dagmara took a hankie out of her pocket and wiped her own eyes.
‘She was the best friend I ever had. I will miss her. Who am I going to plan the murder of the pair of Balls with now?’
They both laughed, a well-needed spurt of jollity.
‘It’s too early I know to talk of things but when you come to sell, Derrick’s son Errol would be interested. I hope you don’t mind I mention it, Shay, because it will be one less thing for you to have to worry about.’
‘I don’t mind at all, tell him thank you for me, please. I would like it to go to someone who fits in with you all,’ said Shay. Unlike her sister wanting to slap up a for sale notice straightaway, Dagmara’s motives were based on thoughtfulness, not greed.
‘Are you coping? There is so much to do when your heartis breaking and your head just wants to lie down until it all goes away.’
‘The one thing I can do in my sleep is paperwork, Dagmara,’ replied Shay. She wasn’t good at delegating and had told Sunny and Courtney and Bruce that she could – and wanted to – handle it all alone, which was why she was exhausted.
Shay drank the last of the coffee in the mug. She’d always enjoyed the cheapish brand her mother preferred, but it didn’t taste the same without the warmth in the kitchen, her mother twittering that she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything for tea and Shay insisting she eat: the often frustrating familiarity of their interchanges. A chaos of emotion welled up within her, needing an out.
‘Was I a good daughter, Dagmara? You know, when the weather was bad or work was piling up at home or my own kitchen needed cleaning, it felt like a chore when I had to break off and come here sometimes. But I’d give anything to see her again with a list of her to-dos: replace that lightbulb, dust the top of the wardrobe, put that stupid handle back on the cupboard that kept dropping off. I should have forced her to come home with me, not just let her stay here with that monster Drew Balls playing loud music through the walls. Did I let her down, Dagmara?’
‘Shh,’ Dagmara squeezed her hand tightly. ‘You are not a saint, Shay. It’s been hard, I know; pressed from all sides. I’ve been there too. You would not have overruled her and forced her into your car and taken her away because it was important to both of you that she was the mama and you the daughter for as long as you could be like that.’ She sat back in the chair, took in the distressed woman opposite her, the child of her dearest friend. ‘You were wonderful daughter,you dideverythingout of love for her so don’t doubt yourself. But even the most perfect daughter would hunt around inside herself now to find something they had not done, something they had missed, it’s what happens when someone you love dies. But no daughter is perfect, no mother is perfect. We can only do our best, and you always did your best. You never let her down.’
Shay nodded. Dagmara’s brain was just like her mother’s had been when it was bright and sharp and incisive and yet her body had crumbled so much more than Roberta’s. Shay would have picked the mental advantage every time.
