From the Kitchen of Half Truth (24 page)

***

One after the other, people push forward to meet me, eager to tell me what a wonderful woman my mother was. They come from all walks of life. Whether they are old or young, rich or poor, they all have tales to tell of how, when they found themselves most in need, my mother swooped in like an angel from heaven, easing their burden with a chicken pie or a sponge cake. Several times the vicar tries to usher the crowd into the church, nervously checking his wristwatch, until finally, with the help of the verger, they resort to physically rounding us up and steering us through the door, as if shepherding a flock of sheep. As I stand in the front pew, I barely hear a word of the dry, monotonous speech the vicar delivers. I am too busy gazing over my shoulder at the rows upon rows of people who have come to say their good-byes to my mother.

***

Afterward, outside the church, Dr. Bloomberg takes my hands in his, peering over his spectacles at me with concern.

“How are you, Meg?”

I'm worried he's about to whip out one of his leaflets for the counseling service again, one of those ones with a scary pair of eyes inviting me to see things from a new perspective.

“I'm okay,” I say with a smile.

Dr. Bloomberg looks pityingly at me, as if he thinks I'm lying for his benefit, but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, I admit that I have a tendency to put on a brave face at times. Yes, it's true that I always want to be seen as calm, confident, and in control, but I actually do feel a hundred times better than I thought I would. Honestly. My ability to just get on with things over the past few days has surprised even me. Ironically, I think Mark would be rather proud of me. Of course I feel sad. But I also feel unexpectedly relieved that my mother's suffering is over and that it wasn't nearly as acute or as prolonged as might have been expected. Besides, she wouldn't want me to be sad.

Obviously I have shed a few tears here and there, standing in the silence of her empty bedroom or bagging up her clothes for the charity shop—well, there's no point in hanging on to these things, and it's got to be done at some point—but really I've been so busy that I haven't had time to wallow in self-pity. I am rather impressed by my own fortitude, and I would prefer it if Dr. Bloomberg was too, rather than looking at me in the way one might look at a blind, three-legged, abandoned puppy. People die all the time. He should know that.

“You know, just after you were born,” says Dr. Bloomberg, “I came to the house to see you. You were a tiny little thing, and your mother was so very young. She looked confused and scared, and I remember thinking to myself how on earth is this child going to manage with a child of her own? She was in quite a panic, your mother, worrying that you were so small she might break you. Do you know what I told her?”

You told her to spin on her head next time she found out she was pregnant and that she should feed me bicarbonate of soda and place me in the water heater closet to rise.

“No,” I say, “I have no idea.”

Dr. Bloomberg smooths down his big white mustache. “I told her that it takes the mighty oak tree no less than twenty years to produce an acorn.”

I stare at him, astonished. He actually said that? He really said those immortal words? So not everything my mother told me was a lie.

“I meant to imply that your mother was too young to care for you, but I was wrong. She may not have had the physical strength or age of a mighty oak tree, but she had the spirit of one. And that's something you've inherited. Her strength of spirit. But you know, Meg, even the mighty oak tree can be damaged by strong winds.”

As he shakes my hand, I smile at him and thank him for coming. What on earth is he talking about? Why would I be interested in what happens to an oak tree in the wind? Honestly, I think Dr. Bloomberg's going a bit funny in his old age.

***

“Hi.”

Just as I thought the last of the mourners had left, I turn to find yet another stranger in front of me, no doubt waiting to tell me how my mother used to leave cherry tarts and spicy chicken wings on his front porch. Don't get me wrong, I am delighted by the endless stories of her good deeds, but I am also utterly exhausted. The stream of people waiting to talk to me has been constant, and two hours after the service finished I am ready to go home. It takes me a moment before I recognize that the person in front of me is not a stranger at all.

“Ewan, hi,” I say, sounding surprised.

He is wearing a smart black suit and tie, his hair has been slicked back, and he is clean-shaven. He looks like a completely different person. Really, he scrubs up rather well. It must be the embarrassment of failing to recognize him that's making my cheeks flush and my palms all sweaty.

The last time I saw Ewan was four days ago, when I walked calmly down the stairs and out of the back gate, knocked on the window of his van, and told him that my mother had just died. He called an ambulance while I angrily insisted that doing so was a waste of National Health Service resources because she was definitely dead, and he showed the paramedics up to my mother's bedroom while I walked around and around the garden in the dark humming the tune to
Ready
Steady
Cook
before falling over a tree stump and scraping the skin off my arm. Looking back, I suspect that I was in a state of shock, but after Ewan sat me down and made me drink a large mug of herbal tea that smelled of old socks, I fell asleep on the sofa and didn't wake up until the morning.

I vaguely recall finding Ewan the next day, slumped over the kitchen table, asleep, and then ushering him out the back door, insisting that I had several things to get on with, while he repeatedly asked if I was okay and told me to call if I needed anything. Since then, we have spoken only once, briefly, when I called to explain the funeral arrangements, telling him after two minutes that I had to go because I was rearranging the bookshelf in alphabetical order and it was a task that required urgent attention. Half an hour later, I noticed his number come up on the call monitor, but I couldn't answer, because by that time I was busy organizing buttons into piles according to their shape and texture.

“I've been waiting to say hello,” Ewan says, “but there was quite a queue. I didn't realize your mother knew so many people.”

“It came as a surprise to me too.”

“It was a nice service. I thought your mother would have liked the bit when the vicar tripped over his lectern.”

“Yes, and the bit when he talked about a ‘fleet of socks' instead of a ‘flock of sheep.'”

“Yeah, that was unfortunate. Poor guy. I think he was nervous.”

“He's probably not used to seeing that many people in church.”

Ewan nods and we fall silent for a moment, both waiting for the other one to speak. Ewan pushes his hands deep into his trouser pockets, and I fiddle with my bracelet.

“How's Digger?” I ask.

“Good. I think he was depressed for a few days after…you know, after I took him home. He had all the signs of depression, anyway. Wasn't eating, wasn't interested in exercising, started listening to Radiohead, that kind of thing.”

We smile at each other.

“How are you?” he asks.

“I'm fine,” I say brightly, then realizing I might sound rather heartless, I add, “Under the circumstances, I mean.” I'm actually beginning to feel a little guilty for coping so well.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Thanks, but everything's under control. In fact, my feet haven't really touched the ground this past week. There's been so much to do. I've been sorting through my mother's belongings and signing all the paperwork for the house and finances, and then there's been lawyers and funeral directors to see. Plus, I suddenly noticed that the house was looking a bit shabby, so I painted the banisters, varnished the windowsills, washed all the windows, cleaned out all the cupboards, polished all the silverware…”

“Wow. Sounds like you've been busy.”

“Rushed off my feet! But I thought I might as well get on with it all. No point hanging about.”

Ewan eyes me carefully. “No, I guess not. Well, listen, you have my number, so if you need anything—”

“Oh,” I say, taken aback, “you mean you're not coming to do the garden anymore?”

It had never occurred to me that Ewan would stop doing the garden twice a week. I had assumed, for some reason, that things would just carry on as normal. He runs a finger inside his shirt collar, clearly uncomfortable in a suit and tie.

“I guess I just wasn't sure what the arrangement would be now that…well, you know.”

“Now my mother's dead,” I say, matter-of-factly. “Well, I haven't got a clue about gardens, so somebody's going to have to look after it. I don't see why things shouldn't just carry on as before. Plants don't just stop growing when somebody dies, do they? There's still work to be done.”

Ewan looks rather astonished by my no-nonsense approach. “Meg,” he says, falteringly, “you don't think maybe…”

“What?” I ask.

He studies my face closely and then shakes his head. “Nothing. I'll see you Wednesday, then. Just…just look after yourself.” Ewan turns and starts crunching his way along the gravel path, but after a few steps he stops. “You're not going to be alone when you get home, are you?”

“Yes, but I'll be fine.” I smile. “To be honest, I'd quite like to just have some time alone.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, looking concerned.

I nod. “Yes. Quite sure. Besides, I really should defrost the freezer and scrub the patio.”

In fact, I probably would have liked some company, but my choices are somewhat limited. I have no family now. It might have been nice to have brothers or sisters, aunts and uncles, even distant cousins to support me at this time, but the fact is that I'm alone. Gwennie did offer to return home with me after the funeral, and I was almost tempted to agree, but she has her own family to care for—three teenage kids and a disabled husband, as it transpires—and I really don't want her to feel sorry for me. No, I'm just going to have to manage alone; it's as simple as that. And that's fine, because despite the pitying looks I have been receiving all day long, frankly I think I'm coping rather well. In fact, as I say good-bye to Ewan, waving the funeral program that I am still clutching in my hand, I am already thinking about getting home and bagging up some of my mother's cookbooks to give to the charity shop. Really, she always did have far too many of them.

 

In my dream, I am running.

I can't see what's behind me, but I have a sense that it is a huge, dark, shadowy creature and that if it catches up with me I will be swallowed whole, gulped down into the black pit of its stomach from where I will never return. I run and run, willing myself to go faster, panting, sweating, my heart pounding, but all the time I am barely moving and the shadowy beast is gaining on me. I can hear its footsteps at my back, its breath upon my neck, telling me I can't escape, telling me that however hard I try I will never outrun it, and then its huge mouth opens wide like a cave, engulfing me, sucking me in, and I am being swallowed down.

Down, down into the abyss.

***

I wake with a start to find myself lying on my mother's bed, my heart thumping in my chest. The curtains are open, and I can see the moon hanging in the sky, casting a ghostly bluish glow across the room. I quickly tug my sweater off, throwing it onto the floor, and flap the bottom of my T-shirt, a chill running up my spine as the hot sweat on my skin immediately starts to cool. I look around for the clock before realizing I have packed it away in one of the several cardboard boxes that lie scattered across the floor. The house is silent and still. There is nobody here except me, all alone, surrounded by my mother's packaged belongings.

I gaze around at my mother's empty room: the bare dressing table, the naked shelves, the wardrobe with its doors flung open and nothing inside but a few lonely hangers. There is only one thing I seem to have missed, and I spy it now from where I sit on the bed. On the windowsill, half concealed behind the curtain, is something square and white.

I stand up and walk over to the window, picking up the little white book, slowly turning it over in my hands. Carefully I trace the title on the front cover, printed in large blue letters:
The
Tale
of
the
Jiggly-Wop
. How is it, I wonder, that this book keeps finding its way back to me? My mother must have taken this out of my wastepaper bin when I threw it away all those weeks ago, the day I arrived home from university. This story that she read to me over and over again when I was a little girl may have no longer had a place in my life, but it still had a place in hers. I open the front cover tentatively, my heart thumping anxiously, as if all the memories of my mother are kept inside and I am afraid to look at them.

“In a land far away, there lived a creature that didn't know quite what it was…”

I bring the book up to my face and breathe in the scent of its pages. I'm sure I can still smell the rosewater that my mother wore when I was a little girl, the scent of the hot chocolate I drank at bedtime, the laundry detergent she used that left my duvet smelling of peaches. I close my eyes and see us there, me tucked up cozily in my bed, my mother sitting on the mattress beside me, stroking my hair as I listen to the soft tones of her voice.

“It had huge ears like an elephant, a flowing mane like a lion, webbed feet like a duck, a stripy body like a tiger, and its face was all covered in feathers that made it sneeze.”

In my mind's eye I see myself, a little girl with fine brown hair, giggling, finding something funny about the idea of the Jiggly-Wop sneezing because of its own feathers. I am small and warm, nestled against the pillows, sucking my thumb, and gazing at my mother's beautiful face in wonder, thinking how clever she is to be reading this book with so many big words. There is Blue Bear sitting on the bedside table and my coloring book on the floor. I am in a room that I have never before remembered that suddenly floods back to me with absolute clarity. This must be my room at our house in Brighton, I realize, the house we shared with that man that I called Daddy. This is the first time I have ever remembered anything from before I was five, but there it is, a perfectly clear picture in my mind, as if it were only yesterday.

“And so the Jiggly-Wop saw that the old baboon was right, and off he went on his merry way, back to the place where he belonged.”

“Read it again,” I beg my mother as she shuts the book.

“No, darling, it's time to sleep now.”

She leans over and kisses me gently on the forehead. Her hair, hanging in long auburn locks, tickles my face and smells of spice and roses.

“Good night, Mummy,” I say sleepily as she tucks Blue Bear under the duvet with me. “I love you.”

“Sweet dreams, Meg May,” she whispers, switching out the light. “I love you more.”

***

I open my eyes to find my reflection staring back at me from the blackness of the window, the little book clutched to my chest, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. The pain is so bad that I can barely breathe, my body shuddering with the great sobs that catch in my throat and make me gasp for air. I double over with agony. It feels like someone has reached inside me and grabbed my insides, twisting them mercilessly into a tighter and tighter knot. My legs give way and I collapse onto my knees, tears streaming down my face and falling onto the pages of the book, running over the beautiful lettering, soaking the colorful illustrations.

***

I don't know how long I have been lying on the floor, worrying the fringe of my mother's bedroom rug between my fingers, lost in thoughts of despair, when I hear a noise from downstairs. One hour? Two, maybe? Who knows? Time has lost its meaning now, just as everything has. I lift my head slowly, my temples pounding from all the crying, and listen for a moment. There it is again. A small, scratching noise. It could be an intruder, I think, breaking in to murder me. I lay my head back on the carpet. I really don't care. Why would it matter anyway?

But the noise continues, getting louder and louder, and added to the scratching there is a high-pitched whining. After a couple of minutes, I slowly haul myself to my feet, supposing that if it is an intruder, I probably should make some attempt to find out. I stagger down the stairs, my head heavy and painful, flicking on light switches as I go, throwing the house into a brightness that stings my red, swollen eyes. The noise is coming from outside in the garden. Once I would have been anxious, terrified even, wondering who was lurking out there in the darkness so late in the evening, but right now I am too dead inside to care. I carelessly throw open the kitchen door, and there on the patio, illuminated by a square of light from the kitchen window, sits Digger, looking at me with his head cocked to one side.

“What do you want?” I ask, confused, my voice groggy.

Cautiously, Digger comes toward me with his head lowered and his ears back, his tail wagging submissively. I crouch down and put my arms around his neck, burying my face in his fur.

“You miss her too, don't you?” I whisper.

He snuffles around my ear, licking my face.

“Me too,” I say.

“He was worried about you.”

I look up to see Ewan stepping forward out of the shadows.

“We both were.”

I stare at him, feeling dazed and numb. He has changed out of his smart suit and back into jeans, more like the Ewan I recognize. I have never seen him wearing a jacket before, though, and there is something about the way he buries his chin deep inside his collar and pushes his hands into his pockets that makes me sad. Why can't things be just as they were a few weeks ago when the sun was warm, the vegetable patches still overflowing, and my mother still here beside me?

“I know it's late,” says Ewan, “but I tried calling and there was no answer. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He studies me, an expression of concern on his face. “
Are
you okay?” he asks when I don't reply.

I am so exhausted, so defeated, that it doesn't even occur to me to lie. “No,” I tell him wearily, fresh tears springing to my eyes. “I don't think I am.”

***

“I put all her stuff in boxes,” I tell Ewan forlornly as we stand in the doorway of my mother's bedroom.

In the full-length mirror on the wall opposite, the only thing I have not been able to pack away, I see us both, Ewan gazing around the room in dismay, and me shivering in my funeral dress with tousled hair and bright red eyes, chewing anxiously on my thumbnail. I look a state, but I am past caring.

“Do you really want all her stuff in boxes?” Ewan asks gently, as if I am a dotty old woman who has done something incredibly foolish.

“No,” I croak, my voice hoarse from sobbing. “No, I want it all back exactly as it was.”

Slowly he opens the nearest box, watching me carefully as if he's not sure quite what I'll do next.

“Okay, then,” he says, cautiously, “let's put it all back.”

***

I am stressing Ewan out; I know I am. When he makes me a chamomile tea to calm my nerves, he makes himself one too, something I have never seen him do before. Every time he takes an item from one of the boxes and places it somewhere in my mother's room, I tell him to move it an inch to the left, no, an inch to the right, slightly lower, a bit higher. Somewhere deep inside I know this is only temporary, that sometime soon, not very far in the future, I will have to pack her things away again, but for now everything must be exactly as she left it. For now it must feel, even if only for a little while, that she is still here with me.

As we unpack, I tell Ewan how my mother got that vase at a garage sale in exchange for a treacle tart, how she painted that picture herself one warm summer's day, how she gathered those pinecones for potpourri, how she found that shell on Brighton Beach. I tell him all this because someone other than me should know. And all the time he listens patiently, working quietly beside me, not saying a word.

It takes us over two hours to put everything back where it belongs, and as I finally place my mother's clock back on her dressing table, I see that it is nearly midnight. I am so exhausted that I can barely stand, and the room seems to keep moving around me. Ewan switches on the TV to make sure it is working, having just reconnected the wires that I had pulled out and packed away in a box neatly labeled “Electrical Equipment.” On the screen appears an American woman with a pearly smile demonstrating the new five-way vegetable chopper. Her co-presenter, a man with teeth so white I think Ewan must have accidentally altered the color, is helpfully handing her one carrot after another.

“How long would it normally take someone to chop all those carrots, Jessica?”

“Well, Brad, I'd say at least an hour, but look at how quickly you can do it with the new five-way vegetable chopper. You just slide them in—”

“Wow! That's incredible! Look how quickly they come out!”

“My mother used to love watching all the kitchen gadgets on the shopping channels,” I say wearily, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “It kept her entertained whenever she couldn't sleep. She would have bought everything on the show if she'd had the money.”

Ewan sits down on the little wooden chair next to the bed and gazes sleepily at Jessica and Brad demonstrating the different ways in which a cucumber can be sliced with various blade attachments.

I stretch out on the bed, exhausted. Digger jumps up beside me, snuggling next to me for warmth, and I put my arms around him.

“She was some woman, your mother,” murmurs Ewan.

I breathe in the reassuring scent of Digger's fur. He smells of mud and rain, reminding me of the garden, of my mother's love of nature. “She was my best friend,” I say sadly.

We both stare blindly at the TV screen.

“I don't know what I'm going to do without her,” I confess. “I don't know how I'll cope. This house, the garden. I could never consider selling it, but it all seems too much.”

On the screen, Jessica and Brad suddenly burst into laughter, as if cruelly mocking my feelings of inadequacy and incompetence.

“You don't have to do it all alone,” says Ewan. “It's okay to ask for help.”

“I'm not very good at asking for help. I can be stubborn at times.”

“Really?”

His sarcasm makes me smile to myself. How is it that he knows things about me I am only just realizing myself?

“You always try to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Like Atlas,” I say, yawning.

“Just like Atlas. And you don't have to carry all that weight alone.”

“But look at what happened to Atlas,” I say sleepily. “He placed his trust in Hercules to help him carry the weight of the world, and Hercules made a fool out of him. He tricked him and ran off laughing, leaving Atlas just looking stupid.”

“Maybe, but Atlas couldn't let that one bad experience tarnish his view of the world forever. He had a choice. He could choose never to really trust anyone ever again, or he could take a chance on someone new.”

“So what's the catch, Jessica?” Brad is saying. “I mean, surely this offer is too good to be true.”

“So what did he choose?” I ask, closing my eyes, my words sounding distant in my own head. Digger's body is warm next to mine, and his breathing is slow and deep. Even as I struggle to stay awake, waiting to hear Ewan's reply, I can feel myself drifting further and further away. The last thing I am aware of is a man's voice, perhaps Ewan's, perhaps Brad's, telling me I can trust him.

***

In the weeks that follow my mother's death, my world takes on a dreamy, surreal quality as I go through the motions of starting to build a new life without her. There are papers to sign and lawyers to see, bills to pay, letters to write, and people to notify. Throughout the day, as I go about my tasks, I switch the TV from one cooking program to another so that in the background there is always something to remind me of her. I try cooking steak-and-kidney pie the way she taught me, and when the pastry burns, I am overwhelmed with emotion and collapse on the floor sobbing. At night, in the silence of the empty house, I cry, sitting on her bed, clutching her sweaters to my face, breathing in her fast-disappearing scent. Each night I fall asleep with the image of her face in my mind, wondering how I will get through the next day without her.