I’ll wash it when I get in and dry it myself, that’ll make all the difference. As if washing it would help it grow the three inches back that were gone. It didn’t.
‘Oh my God,’ Abby said when she saw me later that day. She walked up to me, her eyes wide and stared at my face. ‘Your eyebrows! Oh my God, your hair! Wait …’ She flicked her eyes down once. ‘Have you …?’
‘Bugger off!’ I stepped back away from her.
‘Ooh, all right, chill. Well your hair looks lovely, anyway. It really suits you.’ She examined my head critically, peering all the way round the back, then nodded approvingly. ‘It’s lovely. Excellent.’
I’m on the canal bank now. It’s not going terribly well. I think I need some moral support.
Daisy Mack
Not approaching my nemesis. Not slowing my steps with mounting terror. Not about to die a violent and horrible death. Everything’s fine.
Suzanne Allen Good God Daisy, what on earth is going on?
Daisy Mack Nothing Suze, told you. None of that is happening. Everything’s fine.
Georgia Ling Luv it lol xxx
Susan Pimms What you up too?
Abby Marcus Brad’s balls, Daisy. Get on with it.
Immediately after I post that, my instant messenger pops. I click on the message with relief: this will be the moral support I need, thank God.
Abby Marcus Where are you?
Daisy Mack Approaching footbridge. Stop distracting me.
Abby Marcus OK. You can do it! Just keep going.
Daisy Mack Ohhhh, I never thought of it like that. Thanks Abs.
Abby Marcus Ah. Sarcasm. This is good. Things really are starting to get back to normal. xxx
When Mum was in what turned out to be her final month of life, she started to obsess about trivia. I don’t mean she was desperate to spend the last of her precious time on this earth swotting up on which country has the largest temperature range in the world, or how many drops make a dash. As if she was expecting to have to pass some kind of general knowledge quiz to get … where she was going. What I mean is she was intensely and constantly worried about what was going to happen to us all, and all her things, after she died. Which may not seem trivial, but compared to dying in a hospice it seemed pretty irrelevant to me. She talked endlessly about the things in the house that she wanted us to have: a glass punch bowl; a china set; some silk scarves.
‘Daisy, I want you to have the scarves,’ she said, trying to squeeze my hand. Her hand in mine didn’t feel real. It felt more like a collection of twigs than anything else, but I held it anyway. I held it for as long as I could stand it.
‘Mum, it’s fine,’ I said, smiling very widely. ‘Please don’t worry about it. We’ll sort it all out.’
‘No, no, you’ve got to listen. I want you to have the scarves because Naomi doesn’t suit a scarf. She’s too serious. But you mustn’t be upset if I give her the Wedgwood set. I just think it will be better for her because she’s got Russell and the house and everything.’
‘Mum …’
‘And then if she’s having that, you must have the jewellery box. It needs looking after, though, Daisy Duck. It’s over sixty years old so you’ve got to take care of it. My dad gave it to my mum on their wedding day, you know.’
‘Really?’ I did know. She’d told me months earlier. But she was on morphine by then and wasn’t always clear about what she’d already said.
‘And I need to sort out my jewellery. I need you to help me, sweetheart. I can’t ask Graham because he gave me most of it and it will only upset him to know I’m giving it away.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t think he wants to face what’s happening here until he absolutely has to. Do you understand?’
I nodded. Of course I understood. He didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that she was dying. I totally got that. ‘Yes, I understand.’
‘So … will you do it for me?’
‘Of course I will, Mum. Anything. Just tell me what you want me to do.’
It turned out she had a folder in the house with photographs and a description of every item of jewellery she owned, for the insurance, and she asked me to bring it into the hospice, with Naomi, so we could leaf through it and choose what we wanted. I used my door key to visit the house when Graham wasn’t there, sneaking in and opening Mum’s bedroom cabinet. I felt like I was violating her. She lost her dignity in so many ways.
Naomi went first, while I sat on the bed with an aching throat.
‘I love this ring,’ Naomi said excitedly, pointing to a page in the folder. ‘Can I have it?’ She looked at me. ‘Daze? You don’t want it, do you?’
I shook my head. I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it. I just wanted Mum to keep on wearing it for the next forty years.
‘Excellent.’ Naomi pulled the sheet of paper out of its plastic sleeve and wrote a large black ‘N’ on the page next to the photograph. ‘Lovely.’ She slid it back in and continued turning the pages until eventually she had labelled about ten things. ‘Here you go, Daze,’ she said, handing the folder to me. ‘You choose ten, and then we’ll fight over the rest.’
I took the folder but didn’t open it. Mum had gone to sleep and I stared at her for a few moments, watching her chest rising and falling, willing it to keep going. I started counting the seconds that elapsed between the end of an exhale and the start of the next inhale, and as it grew from three seconds to four, then five, I began wondering if today was going to be the day.
‘Wakey wakey,’ Naomi said suddenly, and I jumped a bit and turned to look at her. She wasn’t talking to Mum, though; she was talking to me. ‘Get a move on, Dozy, I’ve got to get going in a minute. We’re going to Ikea.’
So I picked my ten, and then Naomi divided the rest out between us. By the time Mum woke up again twenty minutes later, Naomi had gone and each item had either an ‘N’ or a ‘D’ next to it.
‘Oh, hi, Daisy Duck,’ Mum said, smiling at me. ‘When did you get here?’
I’m glad she did it now. It gave me a chance to wear some of it when I went to visit her, which she loved. She was so thin by this time that she hadn’t been able to wear any of it for ages, so she was happy to see it again.
‘Just don’t let Graham see you wearing it,’ she said, fingering a gorgeous aquamarine and diamond ring I had just taken off. She slid it onto her own pathetically thin finger and it dangled there loosely like a curtain ring, the heavy gem immediately sliding round to the underside. She laughed and slid it off again. ‘Here you go, it looks a lot better on you. But don’t forget, poor Graham would be devastated if he knew you had it already, before … anything has happened. Don’t let him see, sweetheart. Promise me.’
‘I promise, Mum.’ I slid the ring back on my finger, not realising how devastating that promise
