given. If any one of you fails to take part, no one gets their inheritance, so every second month, Mr Richardson will ask for your signatures saying you’ve all done as I asked.
‘“Oh, I wish I could see your faces now. How are you going to refuse the last wish of your dead mother? I thought the ‘I shall rest in peace knowing I have done all I can to bring you back together’ bit is particularly good. Yes, I suppose it is blackmail of sorts. Not something I would normally adhere to, but I’ll be gone by the time you hear this letter, and won’t be around to hear you complain.”’
Fleur burst out laughing and Rose shook her head, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. I could. I could easily believe it, and imagined Mum’s eyes twinkling with mischief as she wrote the letter.
‘“In the meantime, I’d like you to try talking to God or whatever power you believe in,”’ Mr Richardson went on. ‘“I’ve read that meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking, so have a word. Talk to the wall if you prefer, like Shirley Valentine did. You don’t have to believe or do it every day, just now and then, when you feel like it or if something’s troubling you. I think it puts you in touch with what’s going on inside of you and that’s never a bad thing. In the hustle and bustle of life, we can often ignore what our hearts are telling us and I’ve found it makes me feel better so see where it takes you. If you don’t, I’ll come back and haunt you. Only joking Daisy. Don’t worry.
‘“Rose, Daisy, Fleur – all I care about is your well-being, and that you’re happy in your lives. What mother doesn’t want that for her children? I hope that this condition and my kicking the bucket list will go some way to helping you attain that. Goodbye my darling girls, God bless. With love as always, Mum. Deceased. Dead. Departed.”’
I let out a deep breath. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Exactly,’ Fleur agreed, then chuckled. ‘The sly old fox.’
Rose looked as if she’d sucked a lemon.
Tuesday 1 September
I stared out of the window and tried to absorb what we’d just heard while Mr Richardson went to make copies of Mum’s will and letter for us.
Rose and Fleur occupied themselves on their mobile phones. The atmosphere was uncomfortable, the air thick with unspoken resentment. No change there, I thought. Rose, Fleur and I had hardly spoken in three years, not since a row that had driven us all apart. The argument had been about what we all thought was best for Mum when it became obvious that she needed care after her stroke. Before that, I’d been on reasonable terms with both my sisters, though we weren’t exactly close. It had been over thirty years since we’d lived together as children, then teens. We had drifted in and out of each other’s lives in our twenties and thirties, then slowly grown further apart in our forties. Fleur was often abroad and Rose occupied with her job and family. We got on well enough when we did see each other, falling back into old roles and familiar teasing when we met up at Christmas, for big birthdays or family gatherings, but that was all.
For the last three Christmases, we’d made our visits to Mum separately.
When Mum had moved to the retirement village, Rose had suggested that we spread time with her over the festive period, so that Mum had three visits to look forward to instead of one. The arrangement suited me because the train companies often did engineering works over Christmas, making travel difficult from where I lived in the south west, but it also meant that I didn’t see my sisters – not that either complained. Years ago, Rose had commented that, ‘I wasn’t really in her life any more.’ It had stung. I had thought differently – that we were family, sisters, and always would be, despite time apart, but I knew what she meant. I wasn’t involved in the ordinary everyday events that made up a life. What she said had hurt all the same, but then Rose had always been able to do that to me. She’d been dismissing me since we were little – not including me in her gang when we were in junior school, shooing me away in our teens when her friends were over. I was always too young, not cool or clever enough to be in with her crowd.
All of us were worried about Mum. Even though she’d made a good recovery from the stroke, apart from a weakness down one side of her body and difficulty walking sometimes, her doctors warned that it might happen again. Rose, Fleur and I agreed on one thing. We wanted the best for her last chapter in life. Rose had a demanding job in publishing, a husband, her children, still at school then, and no spare room. Fleur was living in California at the time and there was no way Mum was going to uproot that far. I’d been the obvious choice to take care of her. I’d lived alone since my daughter Lucy had flown the nest almost six years ago. She’d gone first to live with her aunt on her father Andy’s side, in London, then later with her boyfriend to live in Australia near Andy, so I had her old room on the first floor that could be used.
‘Dee, you could go and live with Mum and take care of her,’ Fleur had suggested.
‘You can work from anywhere,’ said Rose. ‘There’s loads of room in the old house for you to paint.’
‘But my life is in Cornwall. I don’t want to uproot any more than Mum does, and if I let go of my house, I’m unlikely to ever find such a place to rent again. My landlady will find a new tenant, and when Mum does pass, the family home will have to be sold and I’ll be homeless.’
‘Don’t be overdramatic,’ said Rose.
‘It’s OK for you two. You have your own homes. I don’t own mine.’
‘And whose fault is that?’ asked Rose.
I’d chosen to ignore her jibe. ‘What would I do with Max and Misty?’
‘Mum’s allergic to cats,’ said Rose, ‘so if she came to live with you, you’d have to put them in a rescue home.’
‘Forget it. I can’t – won’t – abandon them. I can’t believe you can even suggest that. And what about Lucy when she comes home?’
‘She only visits every couple of years,’ said Fleur. ‘There’d be room at Mum’s.’
‘Summer Lane is her UK home as well as mine.’
‘You’re being selfish and uncaring,’ said Rose.
‘I am?’
‘And putting your cats before Mum,’ added Fleur.
I was outraged. ‘I do what I can. Neither of you have ever appreciated the distance I have to travel to visit, never mind the cost. Door to door can take seven hours, and that’s if the buses, ferry and train run smoothly, which more often than not, they don’t.’
‘Oh stop moaning,’ said Rose.
‘It’s all right for you, Rose. You live less than an hour away in Highgate.’
‘I don’t though,’ said Fleur. ‘I live in California, yet I still manage to get to see Mum.’
‘You let her down more times than you turn up, though,’ said Rose. ‘Don’t you know she marks the date in her calendar when you say you’re coming? She likes to anticipate a visit, gets food in, bakes for you, then you cancel and turn up out of the blue with your expensive presents to make
