Wonder Women (52 page)

‘You're doing wonderful work here,' she said.

‘I teach music in a private school nearby, but I believe music is something all kids should have access to,' he said. ‘So I run a series of workshops in schools where there's no music in the curriculum, and then the kids that show
interest, I invite to join these classes. We do this concert once a term for all the kids in the borough who are involved.'

Mel looked around. There was a loose group of teenagers singing an R&B song together, and a skinny boy was pounding a drum kit while a knot of kids looked on.

‘There certainly are a lot of them,' she said.

‘They don't want to do formal classes and exams, but they do need some guidance,' he said. ‘I teach them to read music, and to make their own kind of sound, but with proper musical foundations.' He paused. ‘She's astonishing, your daughter. She has perfect pitch, did you know that? She could go on to be classically trained, with that degree of musicality and that voice, but she seems happiest doing her own thing.'

‘Letting them do their own thing,' said Mel. ‘That's a tricky one, isn't it?'

‘It is,' said Ian Hope. ‘You need nerves of steel, and a lot of grace.'

Mel smiled. She couldn't help but like him. ‘Well, I'm working on the nerves, but I have a long way to go on the grace. And thank you for today. You have no idea what it meant to me. Us.'

He smiled at her, a little perplexed by her comment. ‘If you'll excuse me,' he said, ‘I've got a double-bass player with stage fright who's going to need some moral support before the second half. See you next term, Serena!'

Grace, Mel thought. Grace and forgiveness and flexibility. She took Serena's hand and they walked to the door.

The beginning of the end came much more quickly than Holly had anticipated. Judith came home from the hospital after the procedure to drain the fluid. She was more comfortable, but she was very tired. She slept almost all the time, and over the course of a few days, stopped eating. Holly was frantic, and begged her to have something – anything – but Judith waved all food away. She didn't even want to drink, but if Holly nagged for ages would suck on a few small ice chips to moisten her lips. She was cold all the time, and Holly piled blankets on her bed, almost concealing her tiny frame.

Lynne, the Macmillan nurse, came to see Judith, and when she came out of the bedroom, took Holly into the living room. ‘She hasn't got long, Holly. Just a few days, I would say. The pain medication means she's comfortable, but she's going to sleep more and more, and slip into unconsciousness, and then she'll pass on. If there are people who want to see her before she goes, and people who want to be with her at the end, now is the time to call them.'

Holly nodded. She, Miranda and David had discussed what
they would do when the time came, and they had agreed that the three of them would be in the house. David and Miranda's spouses were ready to take over caring for children and homes so they could be with their mum without worrying, and David had taken leave of absence at work.

As far as Judith's friends in the congregation went, Holly passed the buck by ringing the vicar. He said he would let everyone know, and ask them not to visit any more. She knew Judith would want the last rites performed, and he came to do that while she was still conscious. Holly stayed with Judith for the service and found it very moving. Judith looked very peaceful once it was completed, and although she didn't speak, she squeezed the vicar's hand. Holly walked him out. He was visibly upset.

‘Thank you, Father,' she said, awkwardly. It felt odd calling him that – he looked younger than she was, and she wasn't entirely sure he needed to shave yet. ‘I've made a note of everything she wants for the funeral – the hymns and readings and so on – so I'll be in touch about that when … after …' Holly couldn't finish the sentence.

The vicar nodded. ‘Your mum has been a part of our church for far longer than I have,' he said. ‘I'm not entirely sure what we will all do without her.'

That took care of the larger church community, and mercifully, the vicar seemed able to keep Angela Joba and the rest of the singing-and-praying contingent away. Mr Benton still came every day, and he moved through the house like a small, silent elf, washing up, making tea and answering the phone. For the most part, he stayed away from Judith's room, only going in to sit with her if he was
asked. Holly felt appallingly guilty every time she looked at him – he was clearly there out of selfless devotion to Judith, who quite obviously had never loved him in return. That said, she didn't seem to have loved Holly's father either. It didn't seem fair to have Mr Benton in the house doing things for Judith and for all of them when he had no idea about her secrets. Still, Holly didn't know how to send him away without hurting his feelings, so she let things carry on as they were.

With most things in place, Holly's final and most agonising concern was the writer of the letters. Would Judith want him to know she was ill? Would she want to see him before she died? Judith's best time of day was early. It was when she was most likely to be awake and lucid, so Holly sat by her bed one sunny morning and waited for her to stir. When Judith's eyes fluttered open, she helped her to sit up slightly and persuaded her to take a couple of small ice chips. It was a difficult conversation to have. How to begin? She had not said to Judith in so many words, ‘You are dying.' She assumed Judith knew, but what if she didn't?

‘Mum,' she began hesitantly, ‘I'm trying to get things sorted for you – tying up loose ends.'

‘Thank you, dear,' Judith whispered.

‘… And I was wondering about … the man. The man who wrote you the letters …?'

Judith's face gave no hint of what she was thinking, and she didn't say anything. Holly wasn't sure if she understood. She pressed on.

‘Do you want me to contact him? Do you want me to ask him to visit you?'

‘He can't come, dear … He's in India. Gone, never to return.'

Holly nodded. She was sure the letter she had seen hadn't had an Indian postmark, but Judith would know where he was, wouldn't she?

‘Do you want me to let him know … that you're ill?'

Judith stared at the light coming in the window. ‘You can read them … after I've gone. You'll understand then, my dear. Tell him then. Tell him after. Tell him … I don't need the letters any more.'

That afternoon, she slipped into unconsciousness. In the evening, Miranda and David arrived, and moved back into their childhood bedrooms. They set a schedule for the night – four-hour stints for each of them to sit with her, but in the end, no one wanted to leave her. They took turns to doze in the armchair, but they all stayed in Judith's bedroom, one of them holding her hand at all times. She made it through the night, and in the morning Lynne came and helped Holly and Miranda to remake the bed and make her comfortable.

Through the afternoon, rain battered against the window and a harsh wind blustered outside. Judith's breathing became rapid and shallow, then she would stop entirely for long seconds at a time. They would all lean forward wondering if that had been her last breath, but then she would gasp and begin to breathe again. It was unnerving, but Lynne had explained to them what they might expect, so they knew it was not unusual. Miranda was stoic, and sat without moving beside the bed, holding Judith's hand, but David couldn't bear it. He kept going in and out of the room, and
his eyes were wet with tears. At one point Holly went downstairs to get a drink and found David standing outside the open back door, puffing on a cigarette. She had never seen him smoke before. She had no idea where he had even come by a cigarette.

He saw her and smiled weakly. ‘I bought some on my way down. I haven't had one since uni, but I thought I might need them.'

‘Knock yourself out,' said Holly. ‘Whatever you need.'

‘This sucks,' said David.

‘Well, it sucks worse for her than it does for us. The least we can do is stick with her. I don't think it'll be much longer.'

‘You're right,' said David, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Let's go.'

They went back upstairs. Holly was right. An hour or so later, Judith let out a long rattling breath. An expression passed over her face – the only word Holly could find to describe it was amazement, as if she had seen something wonderful – and the room went quiet. David, ever the man with the right words for an occasion, stepped to the bedside, crossed himself and said, ‘Rest eternal grant to her, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon her. Amen.' It was just what Judith would have wanted.

Miranda began to sob as if her heart was broken, and David put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Lynne said the hearing can be the last to go. Let her go in peace.' Miranda gasped and was quiet.

‘Goodbye, Mum,' said Holly softly. A Zulu farewell came to her and she said the words as best she could. ‘
Hamba kahle
 – go well.' It was sunset.

They knew what to do – the hospice had given them instructions, so they rang the doctors' surgery, and one of the GPs was just coming off duty and came out to confirm the death. Then they rang the funeral home. Holly had not imagined how very difficult it would be to have strange men in the house, lifting Judith on to a stretcher and carrying her out. She had coped and been strong for all of it, but she just couldn't bear to watch Judith leaving her house for the last time, so she hid in the kitchen and smoked two of David's cigarettes. They made her feel incredibly ill, but they passed the time until the hearse pulled away.

And then there was nothing to do. It was just eight o'clock. David and Miranda could both have gone home to their families, but the three of them needed to be together. David walked up to the off-licence and came back with six bottles of wine. Miranda looked in the cupboards and freezer for something to eat, but none of them could face a reheated church casserole, so Holly rang the local Indian and ordered curry. They ate like starving animals. When they had finished, the tablecloth was stained with turmeric and oil and there were remnants of poppadoms and grains of rice everywhere. Judith would never have countenanced a takeaway and wine feast at the kitchen table. She didn't believe in convenience food, and she would have been horrified to see them eating straight out of the containers rather than using plates. In a funny way, that made it exactly the right thing to do on this of all nights.

They all drank too much wine, they reminisced, they cried, they laughed. They went into the living room and played some of Judith's old long-playing records. Then first
David and then Miranda fell asleep on the sofas. Holly sat sipping her wine and listening to her mum's Cliff Richard albums. She didn't know what she felt … it wasn't grief, not yet. She was relieved it had ended, but she also felt that it wasn't quite over. The funeral was yet to come, and there was still unfinished business she needed to complete for Judith. She got up from her chair and crept upstairs, careful not to wake her siblings. She opened Judith's jewellery box and retrieved all the letters, and also got the two Judith had put in her handbag to take to hospital. They were in chronological order, and, as Judith had said, the postmark on the oldest ones showed they had been sent from Mumbai (or Bombay, as it was then). But from 1995, the stamps changed to British ones and the letters had a Manchester postmark. The mystery man had obviously come to live in the UK. Judith must have been confused when she said he was still in India. He was only a couple of hundred miles away.

Holly's dad had died in 1992, so Judith was a widow by then. Why had he and Judith not met up? She picked up the most recent letter and turned the envelope over. There was an address sticker on the back: Dr P. Mistry, it said, with a Manchester address. Then she went back to the very first letter, dated some forty years before. The envelope was thin and the edges were frayed, as if the letter had been taken out and put back many, many times.

The date of the first letter was about six months before her mother and father were married. In the second letter, it was clear that Dr Mistry was also married, and working in Bombay. Holly read them all. None of the letters was long, and they told her the life story of this man, the man Judith had loved. A man who had married out of duty and had come to care for and respect his wife, but wrote words of love to another woman once a year. He had had a successful career and had fathered children, and was now a grandfather. When his oldest son decided to come and live in the UK, the whole family had followed and they all now lived in Manchester. From things he said in his letters, it was clear that Judith wrote to him too – he asked about things she had told him, and mentioned David, Miranda and Holly by name. It was also clear that in the intervening years they had never met up. Perhaps that was the reason, in her confused state, Judith had believed he was still in India. As long as he was married, her moral code and his would have prevented them from meeting. He might as well have been thousands of miles away.

When she had finished reading the last letter, Holly put them all carefully back in order. She got a shoebox from her room, put the letters into it and put them under her bed. She got a sheet of paper, an envelope and a stamp. ‘Dear Dr Mistry,' she wrote, ‘It is with sadness that I inform you of the death of my mother, Judith Evans. She asked me to let you know of her passing.'

Before she could fill the page with a million questions, she wrote, ‘Yours sincerely, Holly Evans,' and made herself fold it and put it in the envelope. She crept downstairs and out of the back door, and walked to the postbox on the corner. The sky had cleared, and she stood watching the stars for a while. But she was desperately weary, so she walked back home, crawled into her bed and slept properly for the first time in weeks.