Lost in my thoughts, I was suddenly brought up by the telephone. Surprised that anyone should ring me so late, I spoke with James, Kirsty’s boyfriend. I immediately felt a slight pang of unease – why hadn’t she rung me herself? Perhaps she was busy cooking and had just asked James to place the call for her. But he wasted no time.
‘There’s been an accident – Kirsty is dead, but the boys are all right.’
‘No – oh, no… Tell me Kirsty is just injured…’
‘No. Kirsty is dead. The boys are all right. A powerboat hit her while she was in the water.’
I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. What I do remember is that I screamed, once, from the terrible well of grief that had opened up under me. I tore at my earrings and threw them down. If only she had just been injured, I could cope with that – but ‘dead’ was so shocking, so unexpected. Beautiful, witty, talented Kirsty – her life cut short by some dreadful accident.
I needed to tell people who were close to me. I was immediately back on the phone to John, to whom I had only just been speaking after the show, and he promised they’d be right over.
Denise, who had just returned home to Croydon, said she would drive over.
How could it be that I had sat through and enjoyed an evening at the ballet while my daughter had lost her life? Why had I not felt anything, sensed no inkling of this tragedy? I tried to ring Hamish, Kirsty’s brother, who was then living in Stroud, Gloucestershire, but the line was engaged. I knew that the news would soon break, so I rang my nephew to warn my brother Pip and inform the rest of the family. Then John arrived with his partner John Thompson; we could only hug one another. They made more tea, taking my now-cold mug away – containing tea made long ago, it seemed, when the world had been a very different place.
It was a long time before I finally got through to Hamish. His phone had been engaged because he’d been on the internet.
‘Hamish,’ I said, ‘I am so sorry, sit down – I’ve got bad news.’
His relaxed manner changed in an instant.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m sorry, Mish, but Kirsty has been killed by a powerboat. I’m so sorry you are alone. The boys are okay.’ I don’t remember what, if anything, was said after that. All I know is that my other child, grown-up as he was, was left alone to grieve.
Before long, Denise arrived, prepared to stay overnight, and the two Johns left, promising to return the following day and to keep in touch by phone. Steve Lillywhite, Kirsty’s ex-husband and father of her boys, rang from New York sometime in the early hours to say he was flying out to Cozumel, where the accident had happened. Denise was by now asleep.
Switching on the TV, I caught the first public announcement of Kirsty’s death. I remember seeing ‘1959–2000’ on the screen, underneath Kirsty’s picture. Both then and in later broadcasts, and for weeks, even months, afterwards, I could not relate the two dates to each other. ‘1959’ was meaningful: it was my daughter’s birthday. But ‘2000’? Although I knew in my head that she had died, it seemed the sort of inscription to be found on headstones or in obituaries, and usually for old people, people of my own age.
I couldn’t bring myself to understand it. And it gave rise to the inevitable and futile wish in me that I should have died in her place. And now came the realisation that she would need her mother to make life tolerable for her own children.
The phone started ringing very early. I was told people were gathering outside the house and being politely asked to go away.
Someone called Sarah, who worked at Kirsty’s record company, rang regularly to inform me of what was going on. I had rung Ronnie Harris, Kirsty’s good friend and, as it turned out, one of those appointed executor for her, just as he was flying out to South Africa on his holidays. He said he would try to deal with things and, somehow, he did.
After the pathologist’s initial report (which ended with the words ‘this is an accident that should never have happened’), Ronnie arranged for Kirsty’s body to be flown back to Croydon immediately after Christmas. But meanwhile there was Christmas itself to get through.
Christmas 2000
There was the Christmas tree, propped against the back door. I let myself into the silent house, Kirsty’s house, picking up her Christmas cards as I stepped onto the doormat. I could feel the desolation, the abandonment. Presents left on the office floor were waiting for her to wrap and put them with cards. The gifts she had already decorated had been put to one side. An atmosphere of loss filled every room. The hands that had been busy with so many preparations in the run-up to Christmas would never return to complete these celebratory tasks. It was a horribly vivid demonstration of a life suddenly cut short.
I put the kettle on and switched on the hall light so that the house might seem a little more welcoming, and waited for the taxi to arrive.
The doorbell rang, and through the glass I saw four figures peering in. I opened the door wide and hugged Louis first, and then Jamie, who winced – he was still recovering from abrasions and bruising to his side. Nobody seemed to want anything and the boys quickly disappeared into the lounge and started to play a game on the computer. James disappeared upstairs and Steve told me a little of what he knew. He said that Louis had cried on the flight home. I hoped this would help him – anything was better than this terrible numb sense of shock that had left us all like automatons.
Hamish came later, and James’s mother also arrived from the north. Steve’s new partner Patti and their young son arrived a day or so later. Then the boys’ friends from Bedales School started coming. I bless the school and the parents for letting their children come and stay over until Christmas Eve and return again later. I am sure their presence was vital to the boys in those early days of their grief. They slept in their bedrooms, which gave them the opportunity to talk if they wished.
The horror was still present in all our thinking and emotions were raw. Endless cups of tea and coffee were made, but many went untouched. I remember making shortbread with Louis and his friend Cosmo – anything to keep us busy. When the biscuits came out of the oven, one of them said, ‘Look, I’ve made a sun! Look at his smiling face,’ and sure enough there was a gingerbread man with a grin from ear to ear. I felt like hugging them.
Mutual friends started to arrive. James’s brother and the two Johns came over, and we ordered pizza for everyone, squashed around the dining table. It seemed right to me that all these people should be here. I am sure Kirsty would have wanted it.
Their love for her and the boys will be something I shall always be grateful for. But the time eventually came, on Christmas Eve, when everyone rejoined their own families and we were left alone.
The boys put up the tree and decorations without any help from the rest of us, following their mother’s example from previous years. Presents were put underneath the tree. Now what? We were all battling individually with tremendous grief and no-one seemed able to decide what we should do next. I took my strength from Kirsty, trying to imagine what she would want.
‘Why don’t we all sit around in a circle,’ I suggested, ‘put the tree lights on, and turn off the main lights? Let’s light a candle to Kirsty – she’s here with us. And, maybe, each of us in turn, can choose one of her songs.’
Hamish thought he wouldn’t be able to do that, but he joined in when the others agreed. Steve was the DJ. We each chose a favourite song as we went round the circle. After we’d finished, I commented on the quality of the sound. My own CD player, ancient and noisy, had recently packed up and we’d been using Kirsty’s equipment. I was surprised when some of them laughed.
‘It’s beginning to feel a little bit like Christmas now,’ said Jamie, quietly.
As