They had settled into a comfortable pattern, chatting about nothing much: the weather, their preferred biscuits, an antiques show on TV. The once-formidable Kitty had softened and, for the first time, Della could figure out how to be with her: calm, reassuring – like a mother, really. As a child, Della had always been rather afraid of her mother’s quick temper. However, towards the end of Kitty’s life, Della could tell that her mother liked her at last, or at least appreciated what she did. So did it really matter than the number 43 bus had been too slow today?
‘So,’ Jeff said, pacing around the kitchen, ‘I suppose we’d better get started.’
Della stared up at him. ‘What d’you mean, get started?’
He blinked at her. ‘I mean, figure out what needs to be done. Isn’t that why we’re here?’
‘Jeff,’ Roxanne said sharply, ‘Mum only passed away a few hours ago. Nothing needs to be done—’
‘And we’re here because …’ Della cut in, before tailing off. How could she put it: that it now seemed right for them to have gathered here in the very place where they’d forever complained that there was nothing to do, yet had somehow found infinite ways in which to amuse themselves? Long, lazy summers had seen them roaming through the undulating fields and rather scary woods, summonsed back for tea by Kitty’s shrill calls from the garden. Winters had featured endless games of Monopoly and copious reading by the crackling fire in the living room. Irritatingly, Jeff had had the best collection of books, all neatly ordered and catalogued in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in his bedroom. It looked – and indeed functioned – like a library. Frequently, Della had been fined twenty-five pence for a late return.
‘Well, I’m glad we came here,’ Sophie said firmly. ‘What’ll happen to this place now, Mum?’
Della grimaced. ‘We’ll sell it, I guess.’
‘I’ll help with that,’ Roxanne cut in quickly, ‘but with the funeral, well … I’m sorry, I just wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘It’s okay,’ Della found herself saying. In fact, she knew precisely what to do, having arranged her father’s a decade ago, when Jeff had been too caught up with his newborn twins to get involved, and Roxanne had been rendered helpless by grief.
Roxanne squeezed her hand. ‘You’re amazing, you know? The way you just … get on with things.’ She swept back her long highlighted hair. ‘I’m sorry, though, I’d better think about getting back. Early start tomorrow, and the weather’s not looking too good tonight.’ A little light rain, was what she meant.
‘Me too,’ Jeff said, ‘but call me, okay, Dell? If there’s anything at all I can help with. It’s going to be a hell of a job, I’ll do whatever I can.’
‘Of course I will,’ Della said unconvincingly. Minutes later Jeff was preparing to head back to his wife, their boys and fancy detached home in Manchester, while Roxanne was itching to return to London, to write about hemline lengths and the ‘silhouette of the season’, whatever that meant.
They hugged, the three of them, despite their differences, as they had never hugged before: the only ones who knew what Kitty was really like. But as he climbed into his gleaming BMW, Jeff cast Della a quick, disapproving look, as if he still suspected she had stopped off for a sly steak bake instead of catching their mother’s last breath.
In fact, it wasn’t a hell of a job for Jeff or Roxanne because, despite their reassurances that they’d be readily available – ‘I’m only a phone call away!’ Roxanne had trilled before zooming away in her convertible – Della had organised everything. There had been a short service at the crematorium, then all back to Rosemary Cottage where the villagers had been invited for tea.
Mark hadn’t involved himself in the preparations. ‘You seemed to be handling everything so well yourself,’ he remarked, when Della mentioned that a little help would have been appreciated. So she was immensely grateful to Freda when it came to sprucing up Kitty’s place in readiness for the surge of guests. Della’s friend since they had fallen into companionable chat while their daughters played together in Heathfield Park – the girls were still virtually inseparable – Freda had literally rolled up her sleeves and got stuck in. Together they had deep-cleaned Kitty’s front room and dotted it with jam jars of late-flowering purple asters from the rampant cottage garden. They had gathered together all the china, sorting the chipped from the unchipped, and made vast quantities of dainty triangular sandwiches and a variety of cakes. (Freda was an excellent baker. Since her marriage broke up – amazingly amicably, Della had thought – she had been supplementing her part-time teacher’s salary by supplying speciality breads to delicatessens all over North Yorkshire.)
‘Well, I think we’ve done a pretty decent job here,’ she murmured above the hubbub of the living room.
‘We have,’ Della agreed. ‘Thanks so much. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing while you grafted away.’
Della smiled gratefully, catching snatches of Mark’s and Jeff’s rather awkward conversation about their working lives. While Mark was capable of appearing intrigued by Jeff’s corporate world, her brother clearly found it difficult even to feign interest in Mark’s podiatry practice. ‘So, um, how is the world of feet?’ he boomed.
‘Oh, you know, rich and varied.’ Mark rubbed at the side of his nose.
‘Anything new occurring? Anything I should be looking out for?’ Jeff chortled, and both men stared down at his black lace-up shoes.
‘You tend to know when things are going wrong,’ Mark observed, trying to sip from his wine glass before realising it was empty.
‘But I thought it was all about prevention these days?’ Jeff turned to his sister. ‘You know all about this, don’t you, Rox? In magazine land?’
‘Not about foot problems, no,’ she remarked dryly.
Jeff laughed again, possibly forgetting that this was their mother’s funeral gathering and perhaps he shouldn’t be quite so jovial. ‘Tell you what, Mark, you’ve got people like Rox to thank for all the cash you rake in.’
‘How’s that, Jeff?’ Roxanne asked with a frown.
‘Oh, come on, encouraging women to wear crippling heels that crush their feet and misshape their toes. Some of them look like – I don’t know – Roman sandals with enormous platform soles! You see girls out in Manchester, hobbling around on a Saturday night …’
Della stopped tuning in. She offered sandwiches to the haberdashery sisters, as they were known in the village – Pattie and Christine ran a curiously old-fashioned store for anyone who needed an emergency zip or a spool of elastic – then continued her rounds with a tray of mini savoury tarts. ‘Such a lovely idea to have tea here,’ remarked Irene, who ran the general store-cum-post office and whose fluffy hair bore a curiously peachy hue. ‘Kitty would have loved it, everyone gathered in her home to celebrate her life.’
‘Yes, I know she would.’ Della smiled. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure about that. Kitty had had an aversion to neighbours popping in, especially those who insisted on being helpful. Irene Bagshott dropped by with a chicken and leek pie,