The Day She Came Back(18)
‘You try stopping me.’ He winked at her. ‘I think someone is going to have to take these tomato plants in hand.’
‘I think that person is you, Gerald.’ She smiled fondly at him and wiped her eyes.
‘Yes, yes of course!’ He beamed.
Victoria wandered towards the kitchen, nodding at the group on the sofa, who offered tight-lipped smiles of condolence. Gerald was right: apologetic. It all felt completely different from the last wake she had attended in this very house. She recalled summer at the age of nine, when her grandpa had passed away, an event that Prim did her best to shield her from, dressing her in a pink pinafore, white lace tights and her silver ballroom shoes; no sombre colours for her. And when everyone had left, rather than set about clearing the plates of sandwich crusts and quiche crumbs or ferrying the glassware into the kitchen to swill the contents down the sink, Prim had instead put The Supremes on the stereo and they had danced and twirled to ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. Victoria had gone to bed feeling like she had had an adventure or been to a party, and not remotely sad. The sound of Prim’s crying later had therefore shocked her, the dull moan of a sound floating along the landing and under her bedroom door. This was what Prim did: no matter her own thoughts, she always made Victoria feel safe and secure.
What am I going to do without you?
Mrs Joshi kindly handed around food, refreshed drinks and stopped only to squeeze Victoria’s arm or run her hand over her hair. She felt lucky to have the Joshis on hand. Daksha was quiet, unconfident, she knew, in being able to strike the right balance between consolatory and comical, with a tendency to make inappropriate comments that at anyone else’s wake would have been funny. Not that Victoria was complaining. Daksha had stayed with her at the house every night for the past two weeks, making the obligatory cups of tea when needed and pulling tissues from a family-sized box like a magician pulls scarves from his sleeve, as and when her tears just wouldn’t stop. The thought of Daksha returning home and leaving her in this big old house all alone was enough to make the breath catch in her throat. She found it easier not to think about it.
It was odd but unsurprising that all the things that usually occupied their conversations, topics as diverse as Flynn McNamara, the best way to island-hop in Greece, and Brexit, were pushed to the background, irrelevancies now in the wake of the loss that consumed Victoria. But in recent days, as night closed in, they had spoken of Prim, sharing memories of her, and yesterday, as dawn raised its golden head over the rooftops of this leafy corner of Surrey, Daksha asked what she might do with this big house and all the stuff in it.
‘Live in it,’ she’d replied, barely able to disguise her astonishment at the question. What else would I do? Where else would I live? Still unwilling to admit that, whilst she loved the place, the thought of living here all alone was a little terrifying. Not because she feared crime or even the running of the house and all that it required, but because she knew that, with all those empty rooms echoing to the tune of lives long gone, there was a very real risk that loneliness and the ghosts which lurked might swallow her whole.
Victoria had naively envisaged a future where she would work and hopefully fall in love but would always, always live under the roof of her family home, knowing that the older Prim got, the more care she would require, and it was care she was more than willing to give. In some ways it would be payback, but a joyous payback for how Prim had loved her unconditionally when there were no other takers.
Victoria wandered into the kitchen, thinking she may drink some wine to see if that might make the afternoon pass a little quicker. As she reached into the fridge where the chilled bottles hid, she saw a tall, slender figure in the garden, standing by the edge of the lake. It was the woman in the dark coat. The woman from the church. But Bernard, she knew, had already left.
‘How very odd.’
She watched her from the window, wondering why she had not come inside with the rest of the mourners. The woman stood still and stared into the murky depths of the water, her hands pushed deep into her coat pockets.
Victoria opened the back door and walked slowly across the grass, calling as she did so, wary of disturbing the woman, and also more than curious as to why she was standing in the garden. Who was she if not a relative of Bernard’s? A cousin on Granny Cutter’s side? Someone from the library? Or maybe she was the carer of one of the infirm currently sipping sherry and nibbling on smoked-salmon sandwiches in the drawing room.
‘Hello?’ Victoria called as she approached, lifting her hand in greeting when the woman turned towards her. There was something about her that was familiar, something that she couldn’t place, but she supposed that they must have met before. Maybe it was the library, this being one of the places she and Prim ventured together.
The woman turned and opened her mouth. Her lips moved, but no words came. Victoria was mortified to see the big, fat tears trickle down her cheeks and was equally moved by her sadness.
‘Oh! Please don’t cry. I understand, I do. Prim really was amazing. In truth, I’m just waiting for everyone to leave so I can sit in the bath and have a good cry myself. I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. I keep expecting her to walk in through the door. I don’t know if that feeling ever really goes away.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out two squares of kitchen roll, which she divided, handing one to the woman, who took it into her hands like it was a precious thing and nodded as she wiped her red nose and leaky eyes.