‘I forgot,’ I said again, my voice sadder now. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I added in a whisper. ‘How could I?’
I was still shaking; I had been from the moment I’d plucked my mother’s phone from the drawer and immediately staggered backwards as the memories cannoned into me, one after the other.
I still felt dizzy and disorientated, and my knees finally gave up the impossible task of keeping me upright. I sank down onto them, feeling the dew-covered grass immediately seep into the denim of my jeans.
Reaching out, I tentatively touched the black granite headstone with its gold-etched writing. I read the inscription as though I was seeing it for the very first time, which in a way I was. My lower lip began to tremble as I read her name, Elizabeth Louise Harker. But it was the dates beneath it – especially the second one – that wrenched a sob from me. It was six months in the past. My mother had died over half a year ago, and yet for me it was breaking news that I couldn’t take in.
She’d been so healthy. So fit. I cast my mind back and couldn’t remember a single day she’d ever been off work sick. For most ofmy childhood, she’d held down at least two jobs, sometimes three. If anyone ever wondered where my fierce independence or unwavering work ethic had come from, they didn’t need to look far. This apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.
‘What happened, Mum?’ It was the voice of the child I hadn’t been for a very long time.
More memories found cracks in the wall the lightning had created. And none of them were good. It had been cancer. I remembered that now. It had been horribly and cruelly quick. But she would have welcomed that. She’d never been one for long-drawn-out goodbyes. Had we said ours properly? Had we made peace with all the petty disagreements of the past? I shook my head sadly. Those memories were still locked away from me.
There were flowers on her grave that were borderline past their best. I assumed they must have come from me, because we had no other family. It had always been just her and me. Mum made acquaintances easily, but friends... not so much. Those she did have lived far from here. I touched the wilting roses, and a wave of sadness shuddered through me.
I leant forward until my forehead was resting on the cool smooth stone of her marker. It felt familiar, as though I might have done this before. I really hoped that wasn’t just my imagination filling in the gaps that still existed.
When had I last visited her in this place? I hoped it hadn’t been too long ago. ‘Because it looks kind of lonely here,’ I said, my voice cracking on the words.
Mum had a solitary plot in a row of doubles, which felt both sad and symbolic. Not that she’d have wanted it any other way. She’d never wanted nor needed anyone beside her in life, so why would she in death? As far as I knew she’d never dated again – not even once – after my father had walked out of our life. ‘You can’tmiss what you never had’ was a phrase I grew up hearing. ‘Besides, I’m too busy for all that nonsense,’ she’d always maintained.
Had she thought it through properly, I wondered? I looked down at the empty space on the grass beside her and ran my fingers through the cool, damp blades. Was spending eternity alone really what she’d wanted, or was it just the hand that life had dealt her?
A bird cawed overhead, and it sounded exactly like the dismissive sound my mother would have made if she knew the direction my thoughts had taken.
I got to my feet and glanced over my shoulder towards an empty bench not far from my mother’s plot. Currently its only occupant was a curious robin, who was hopping from seat to armrest. He disappeared into the trees in a flurry of flapping wings when I sat down, only to return moments later as soon as I settled. I wondered if he was a frequent visitor to this spot. I hoped so. It would be nice if Mum had some company.
I sat on the bench until the sun had climbed as high as it could go above the trees and the cemetery began to grow busier. By the time I got to my feet, there were others walking along the footpaths, some carrying flowers, and a young couple carrying a teddy bear.
I spoke to no one as I made my way towards the exit, walking with my head down and studying my feet, which I only now noticed were in mismatched socks. The only interaction I had was when a distinguished-looking older gentleman with sad eyes and a kindly smile nodded my way in unspoken acknowledgement as I passed him at the wrought-iron gates. He looked vaguely familiar, and I wondered if our paths had crossed on one of my previous visits. I had no idea, but then he swept past me without a word, so perhaps we’d never met at all.
Feeling exhausted, I walked slowly back to my car.
Chapter Eleven
There was water all around me. I wasn’t swimming in it – it wasn’t one of those dreams – but I felt dwarfed by the sheer volume of it and dazzled by its glare. I looked down as though preparing to dive, which even dream-me knew was a bad idea, as I’m only a passable swimmer.
I struggled to pull myself out of the dream, but something was tethering me to it, entangling my limbs as though they were imprisoned in long twists of rope. I woke with a start, my legs still thrashing across the width of the double bed. It took a moment or two for reality to kick in and for me to realise they were tied up in nothing more treacherous than the sheet I’d replaced the duvet with, following the Met Office prediction that tonight would be the hottest in decades.
With an impatient grunt, I freed myself from the sheet and then flopped back on the mattress, waiting for my racing heart to find its usual rhythm. I was covered in a film of sweat; I could feel it greasily sticking the hair to the nape of my neck and trickling unpleasantly down my back. Even the skimpy strappy top and briefs I’d worn to bed were damp with perspiration. It was as if I’d run a marathon in the night, but I hadn’t been asleep long enough for one of those. The illuminated screen of the bedside digital clock confirmed it was only a little after two-thirty in the morning.
I’d been asleep for three hours, which was the longest stretch I’d managed to achieve in the seven days since I’d learnt of my mother’s death. Those words rolled across my brain like tumbleweed over a prairie, still alien, still incomprehensible. Grief and guilt were as tangled up in my head as the sheets I’d kicked myself free from. It was impossible to separate the strands of loss from the shocking truth that my brain had simply erased her death from my memory. Was that because losing her hadn’t hurt? Or because it had hurt too much?
How many times had I charged her phone, just so I could call it and hear her voice one more time? Those were just some of the questions that waited for me in the shadows at the end of the day and in the lonely middle-of-the-night hours when sleep eluded me.
Tonight, in the stifling sultry heat of the bedroom, it had been even harder to slip into the oblivion I craved. Every bedroom window was open, attempting to trap a whisper of a breeze, but the night air was thick and soupy and totally still.
The dream had already lost its potency as it evaporated away, and although I tried to grasp its disintegrating fragments, they were already just wisps of thoughts disappearing from my memory. Like so many other things have done recently, I thought as I flipped over my unpleasantly damp pillow.
As odd as the dream had been, I didn’t think it was responsible for jerking me awake. There had been a noise, or a crashing sound. My senses were instantly alert to the possibility of an intruder, but seconds later the room filled with brilliant light as though an invisible hand had momentarily flicked on every lamp in my flat.
I bolted upright, already placing the source of the sound before it came a second time. It roared, louder than a jet engine, from somewhere directly above the rooftops, making the windows rattle in their frames and the entire building shudder.
In pure reflex I drew up my knees, bringing them tightly against my body as though I was trying to make myself so small the lightning couldn’t find me. But it did, didn’t it, said a voice in my head that refused to be silenced. It found you again.
Those were the words that triggered the third most terrifying thing to happen to me in the last few weeks. Knowing I was spiralling into a panic attack, even though I’d never experienced one before, did nothing to stop my descent into terror so intense it felt as though my heart was surely about to stop. It was pounding against my ribs as though trying to hammer its way out of my chest. My throat was tightening, and every breath became a hoarse gasp that failed to deliver enough oxygen to my lungs. I felt dizzy and light-headed, and there was a weird tingling sensation in my fingers and toes, like pins and needles on overdrive.
A terrified whimper escaped me as the thunder was followed by more forked lightning, so bright I could still see it imprinted on the inside of my eyelids.