Sue’s heart was thumping so loudly she was sure Tina could hear it in reception. Mam was dead. Gone! In an instant. She couldn’t quite believe it. The memory of her father’s death came roaring back in a tidal wave of memories. Her mother weeping. Telling them that her husband had died at his desk at work, from what turned out to be an aneurysm. The terror of seeing her dad in his coffin, pale and waxy-looking. Feeling his marble coldness. Knowing he was gone from her life, never to speak to, or hug, or laugh with again. Her champion, her mentor, cleaved away from her without even a last farewell. Watching their mother turn to Niall for comfort and advice, sidelining Sue as though she hadn’t a thought or contribution to make, had made it all so much more difficult to bear. She was only a woman after all: what would she know about wills and probate and the like?
Bitterness rose in Sue at the memory. Girls should marry and have children. That was the way of it, her mother had told her once, when news of Hilary’s first pregnancy had broken. ‘You should be thinking of marrying and settling down.’ And then, she had finally married, a divorced man, in a small private civil ceremony, ‘Because you were too mean to invite your relations and it’s not a proper wedding,’ Margaret had accused crossly, annoyed that it hadn’t been done ‘properly’ and she’d have to explain to family and neighbours that Cormac was divorced, and in her eyes, therefore, not free to marry at all.
Time had softened Margaret regarding the lack of a ‘proper’ wedding or marriage and her mother had pressed her constantly for news of a pregnancy. One day Sue had told her straight out. ‘I don’t like children and babies. I wouldn’t be a good mother so I’m not going to have any.’
‘And what does Cormac think of that? Does he not want children with you?’ her mother asked, taken aback by her daughter’s vehemence on the subject.
‘He agrees with me,’ Sue retorted. She hadn’t told her mother that Cormac already had children from his previous marriage. That would have caused consternation.
‘Well the pair of you are well suited so,’ Margaret sniffed condescendingly. She had never really taken to Cormac and his dry sarcastic humour and his highbrow ways. Sue knew her mother put on a façade of acceptance of their union but in reality Margaret felt that Sue had let down the family yet again by marrying a divorced man who had failed another woman. Cormac was a freelance proofreader and it was Sue who made the money in their marriage, another no-no for Margaret. ‘A man should keep a woman, not the other way round,’ she’d jibed once, after they’d had one of their periodic spats. Hilary might think that Margaret was all sweetness and light: Sue was the one that got the sharp end of her tongue more often than not.
And now her mother was dead. Each of them had disappointed the other, and it was too late to resolve their differences. And that she would have to live with, Sue thought forlornly, dreading the thought of the next few days.
In Margaret’s small kitchen Millie and Sophie buttered slices of bread and placed ham, tomatoes and lettuce on them. Their grandmother was lying in a coffin in the sitting room, and the neighbours were in paying their respects, then chatting, and having tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Niall and Hilary took turns to sit with Margaret, and later, when everyone was gone, Millie and Sophie would share the intimate vigil with their parents.
‘It’s just so hard to believe that one minute you’re breathing and everything is normal, and the next minute you’re dead,’ Millie murmured as she cut the sandwiches diagonally in dainty triangles.
‘It’s scary!’ Sophie declared, nibbling at a cut of ham. ‘I just can’t believe we’ll never see Gran again. I feel like my heart is like lead in my chest.’ She started to cry.
Millie put her arms around her younger sister. ‘It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve been sad before but never like this. I know this is an awful thing to say, but I’m glad I got my Leaving Cert done; I’d never have been able to concentrate if Gran had died before it. I keep trying to think what were her last words to me. And I didn’t even know they were her last words, whatever they were . . .’ She trailed off.
‘Me too. I think we talked about when Gran was young and she lived near the railway line and they used to walk along it to the dance hall when they were young, and how Granddad used to bring her a bunch of roses every time they went to a dance.’
‘It was real old-fashioned then, wasn’t it? Like in those old films,’ Millie remarked. ‘If you walked along a railway line to a dance now you’d be brown bread.’
Sophie giggled. ‘Fried! What a sight that would be. Your hair in a frizz and your eyes bulging. Imagine looking like that in your coffin! They’d all be screaming.’
‘Stop,’ Millie grinned, giving her sister a poke. ‘Get buttering – here’s another lot,’ she sighed as the doorbell rang and more neighbours and relatives came to say their farewells to their grandmother.
‘She looks peaceful,’ Sue said, gazing down at her mother’s serene expression. ‘They did a good job at the undertakers’.’
‘Yes, they were very kind and helpful,’ Hilary said, standing up. ‘Here, take the chair and I’ll leave you with her for a while so you can be alone. I’ll keep everyone out until you’re
