Finally – finally – the bus crawled into view. Della perched on the edge of the front seat, as if that would get her there faster as it trundled through the bustling market town. Her mother was dying, for goodness’ sake, couldn’t the driver put his foot down? Of course, it wasn’t his fault that Heathfield was especially busy today, it being the first Wednesday in the month and therefore farmers’ market day. Never mind a seventy-seven-year-old lady with terminal cancer: people needed their onion marmalades and artisan cheeses. And the driver had to let passengers on and off; it was his job, Della reminded herself, conscious of her thumping heart. And her job right now was to be with Kitty, to hold her bony hand as she slipped away to … where exactly? Although Della didn’t believe in the afterlife, she hoped her mother might drift away to a place where pain, confusion and toxic chemicals would be replaced by a steady trickle of gin.
Come on, bus. Come ON! It had stopped, not at a bus stop but due to a van parked outside Greggs, hazard lights flashing, blocking the lane. Seven minutes, it took, for a man in unforgiving tight jeans to reappear and drive it away. Della felt herself ageing rapidly as the bus finally nudged its way along the tree-lined residential roads and out into the soft, rolling North Yorkshire countryside towards Perivale House. The turreted Victorian manor came into view. The bus doors opened and Della sprang off.
Roxanne and Jeff looked up from Kitty’s bedside in the small private room. Jeff muttered something – it might have been ‘Here you are’ – but Della couldn’t hear properly. All she could do was look at the tiny old lady whose facial skin had settled into little folds around her jawline. A little downy fuzz was all that was left of her hair now.
‘Oh, Mum,’ Della whispered, kneeling down on the rubbery floor and taking her mother’s hand. Kitty’s slim fingers were cold, her ring with its chunky emerald a little loose. ‘I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. I’m so sorry.’
Roxanne reached down and squeezed her sister’s arm. Apart from pinkish, sore-looking eyes, she was her usual immaculate self in a plain but clearly expensive black shift, plus an embroidered cream cardi and low, glossy black heels. Della was wearing the leggings and faded turquoise T-shirt she’d napped in. Jeff, the eldest of the three and something important in banking, fixed her with a resigned look across the bed. As her siblings were occupying the only two chairs, Della remained kneeling on the floor. ‘When did it happen?’ she murmured.
‘About ten minutes ago,’ Roxanne replied.
‘Ten minutes! I can’t believe it. That’s when I was stuck outside Greggs …’
‘You went to Greggs on your way here?’ Jeff gasped,
‘No, of course I didn’t. I was on the bus, there was a lorry blocking the road.’
‘The bus?’ gasped Roxanne, who probably hadn’t travelled on one since 1995. ‘Why didn’t you drive?’
Della let go of her mother’s hand. ‘My car wouldn’t start.’
Jeff let out a heavy sigh. ‘For God’s sake, Dell, you’re an adult woman. When are you going to get a proper car that’s not held together with string?’
At first, it had seemed like a terrible idea: for the three of them to drive over to Kitty’s house less than two hours since she had passed away. But then, the Cartwrights weren’t one of those families who gathered purely to be together. They needed a purpose: a birth, a marriage, a significant birthday – or a death. And coming to Rosemary Cottage – in which all three of them had grown up – felt like the right thing to do. They had things to attend to. They needed, as Jeff put it with his customary directness, to ‘figure out what needs to be done’.
Mark arrived, still in his work attire of crisp striped blue shirt and dark grey trousers, with Sophie in tow. ‘Oh, darling,’ he exclaimed, ‘I know how hard this is for you.’ He gathered Della into his arms and kissed the top of her head where her haphazard top-knot was coming loose.
‘Thanks, love,’ she said, momentarily soothed by the embrace.
‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ cried Sophie, her own tears setting off Della’s. ‘My phone was out of charge. I’d just got in when Dad came home and said Gran had—’ She broke off with a sob.
‘It’s okay,’ Della murmured, hugging her daughter. ‘We knew it was going to happen. And, remember, it’s been tough for Gran for such a long time …’ She turned to Mark. ‘It’s just, I missed it, you know. I was too late.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he insisted. ‘You’ve done what you could. You’ve been amazing … looking after her, sitting with her for hours and hours.’ She caught him throwing Jeff and Roxanne a glance of irritation.
‘I just wish I’d seen her more,’ Sophie said, blotting away tears on the cuff of her faded red sweatshirt. ‘It’s too late now. I should’ve made more effort. I should’ve gone every day …’
‘Sweetheart,’ Della said, ‘you went often enough. Gran knew you loved her. She knew we all did.’ She caught Roxanne’s eye, and a flicker of acknowledgement passed between the sisters.
‘What I feel bad about,’ Jeff announced, looking around their mother’s cluttered kitchen, ‘is the state of this place. How could she have lived like this? We really should have done something about it.’ He cast a derisory glance over the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with ancient cookbooks.
‘Mum liked it this way,’ Della pointed out. ‘You know that. She refused to throw anything away.’
‘But there’s so much stuff!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s oppressive, so dingy and dark. It can’t have been good for her.’
‘Clutter doesn’t make people ill, Jeff,’ Della countered, trying to soften the defensive edge to her voice. ‘Books don’t cause cancer. It was the way Mum wanted it, we couldn’t just barge in and take over.’
He exhaled loudly and peered at the shelves, running a manicured nail along the books’ spines. Their sheer volume lent Kitty’s kitchen the air of a second-hand bookshop. Perhaps, Della figured, the peeling whitewashed cottage did seem pretty chaotic when you visited so rarely. Like Jeff before her and Roxanne soon after, Della had been eager to escape Burley Bridge, the once-pretty, now rather shabby and beleaguered village which had formed the backdrop to their childhood. She had, too – albeit settling only seventeen miles away in the nearest sizeable town of Heathfield. However, as Kitty had become more dependent, she’d been the one to make frequent visits. To her, Rosemary Cottage with its vast collection of cookbooks and the enormous pine dresser crammed with chipped china knick-knacks, seemed normal.
Roxanne, too, was examining the books. ‘I’d forgotten how many of these she had. What was the point? I don’t ever remember her cooking much.’
‘She did when we were young,’ Della reminded her. ‘Not so much in later years, after Dad left. But, you know, they were important to her and for whatever reason she couldn’t let them go.’
Roxanne smiled, her eerily unlined face looking drawn and pale. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all of this, Dell. You know I’d have come up more often if I could. It’s just, I’ve had crazy deadlines lately.’ Although Della knew nothing about the world of glossy fashion magazines – apart from the fact that they featured handbags covered in gold buckles and costing £3,000 – she did know that Roxanne’s came out monthly, suggesting that she wasn’t deluged by ‘crazy deadlines’ all the time.
Yet, while