They sat backand listened to the rain splattering on the patio and outdoor tableand chairs. Their feelings of relief, satisfaction almost, weretempered with a difficult to explain air of gloom. Mark broke thesilence.
‘This mightbe our last night up here, it’ll be nice to get back to Petworth.We seem to have been away for ages and it’s been a bloody strain attimes, but it’s worked out fine. Are you sure you’re okay witheverything, Gemma? You must feel a bit weird.’
‘Yes, ofcourse; you’ve sorted it all out brilliantly.’
Gemma askedMark to light her a cigarette; she let the events of the past fewdays play back in her mind. She didn’t feel anything like remorse,she had done what she had felt was right, she had done it forherself and for her dad too.
***
Anne had diedon Tuesday 29th December. Mark and Gemma had stayed over in Farnhamfor Christmas Day and Boxing Day and had made sure they had hadplenty of heavy meals and lots to drink. In spite of the realreason for them being there it had been quite fun in a bizarrelyblack sort of way and Anne had obviously really enjoyed herself.Gemma had been quite happy to see that but it had no impact on herresolve; it was almost as if they were giving her mother one lasthurrah and somehow it seemed to have made everything kind ofeasier. She could see what Mark had meant when he’d said itprovided a weird form of rationalisation for it all.
Mark had stuckto his plan of adding a sizeable, and as it transpired fatal,amount of thallium salt to the Boxing Day dinner and they had goneback home on the Sunday afternoon. Just as they were getting readyto drive back on the Tuesday morning to see how she was, and to seeif the thallium had done its business, Edith had phoned them in anevidently distressed state and said she couldn’t get Anne out ofbed and feared the worse. Gemma had put her foot down and they gotthere within forty minutes and sure enough Anne was clearly deadand had been for a few hours at least.
Gemma hadcalmed Edith down as best she could and Mark called Dr Ferguson. Hehad come round straightaway and after examining Anne had signed themedical certificate and put down the cause as respiratory failureas a result of bronchopneumonia. It seemed a bit of a mish-mash ofan explanation to Mark but he wasn’t about to complain. Dr Fergusonsaid how sorry he was but that it was perhaps not unexpected andtold them to register the death at the Farnham register office andto get at least a couple of copies of the death certificate. Gemmahad done that the next day and there’d been no comment when she’dsaid that they wanted the funeral as soon aspracticable.
It certainlyseemed to help that it all happened in the Christmas and New Yearholiday period; it appeared as if everyone just wanted to movethings along and to get on with a new year. The local funeraldirectors had called in with remarkable efficiency early on theWednesday morning and it had all been planned and arranged withrelatively little fuss. They were even able to fit in the funeralfor the following week, particularly as Gemma said her mother hadspecified she didn’t want to be buried and a cremation was whatthey had agreed on. Edith had been more upset than anyone and Gemmaresolved to make sure she gave her something when the will wasfinalised, maybe one or two of the vases as a keepsake and a fewhundred pounds too.
Part Three: Autumn1982
Sunday 19 September1982
‘You can’tlet him drag you down, Gemma, you’ve got to be your own woman.Surely now you don’t need to stay stuck out in the middle ofnowhere. Why don’t you come and live up here in town? We’d have agreat time; you could really go for it now. You’re an independentwoman, after all.’
Rebecca hadbeen one of the few school friends Gemma had kept in touch witheven though they had seen little of one another since doing theirA-levels at Farnham Girls Grammar School back in 1975. At thattime, Rebecca and Gemma, along with a few carefully chosen others,had considered themselves as the ‘in-crowd’ at school – pretty welloff, good looking and knowing it. They were the ones who had olderboyfriends with access to cars. It was little surprise that sincethen she had developed a persona that was a kind of cross between asecond wave feminist and an upper class debutante. They weresitting outside the Crown in Princedale Road, Holland Park, alongwith Victoria, who had been the Head Girl at Farnham in their finalyear. Although she had never been particularly close to Victoria,Rebecca had met up with her by chance when she’d been browsing thevarious boutiques and vintage clothing shops in Ladbroke Groveearlier in the summer. They’d gone for a coffee and cake at one ofthe trendy little cafés there and found out that, without havingrealised it before, they both worked for the BBC at Shepherd’sBush, just the next tube stop down the Central Line from HollandPark. After catching up on the last few years, they had agreed tomeet up during their lunch breaks whenever they could. It hadn’tbeen long before Victoria suggested Rebecca move into the apartmenton Norland Square which her father had bought a few yearspreviously as an investment. Rebecca had leapt at theopportunity.
In theirmid-twenties, living in the increasingly fashionable Notting HillGate to Holland Park area and with fancy-sounding titles for whatwas effectively secretarial work at the BBC, it had worked outnicely for both of them. They were keen to impress on Gemma theadvantages of what they clearly felt was their current and coollifestyle; and to be
