dusty volume and opening it up. When Da had died a lot of his books, as well as his papers, had been given to the university but there were still plenty left in the study and in the rest of the house â shelves of them in almost every room, including many of our books from childhood. I put Drewâs mug on the desk, close to the silver-framed photograph of Ma in her WAAF uniform. She smiled at me from out of the past. Trim and slim, tie neatly tied, uniform cap stylishly worn, her dark hair rolled up behind the ears, Forties fashion. People had always said how alike we were: same build, same features, same colour hair â until hers had eventually gone pepper and salt in her late sixties. Throughout my life she had been there at all the stages, for the good times and the bad, the easy and the hard; suddenly, she wasnât. She had gone and she had denied me the comfort of some last words together. I felt, childishly and I knew unreasonably, that, at the end, she had deserted me.
âTeaâs up.â
Drew grunted, already engrossed in the book. Like father, like son. I left him to it and took my own tea upstairs to the main bedroom, as glacially cold as the hall. I switched on the lights and stood for a moment in the silence, warming my hands round the mug. Maâs dressing gown was still hanging on the hook behind the door, her slippers placed beside the big double bed, her woollen cardigan draped across the back of a chair, her string of pearls lying on the dressing table, and there was a faint trace of the floral scent that she always wore. Her death seemed quite unreal: a horrible misunderstanding. I had never, after all, witnessed her dead. By the time I had reached the hospital she had been taken away to the mortuary and I had refused, in cowardly panic, to see her, afraid that the sight of her dead might erase the memory of her alive. Now, I could almost believe that she might come back at any moment. The front door would click open and shut, her footsteps would sound across the hall, her voice call out from the stairs:
âJuliet, darling, is that you? Iâd no idea you were coming. What a lovely surprise!â
Instead, there was only silence.
For no particular reason, I went over to her desk â an Edwardian ladyâs kneehole writing bureau with drawers down each side and a fold-up lid. On the top was a photograph of Drew and myself as children, arms linked together, and, beside it, one of my daughter, Flavia, taken twenty years ago at four years old. Her only grandchild.
The desk lid was closed but the key had been left in the lock. I sat down where she had sat, put the tea mug aside on the floor and turned the key, lowering the lid gently onto its brass hinges. In front of the pigeonholes, propped up conspicuously so that it could not possibly be missed, was an envelope addressed to me in my motherâs hand, in the royal blue ink she always used.
For Juliet
.
I picked it up and turned it over. More writing, but smaller, on the back. I took my reading glasses out of my coat pocket.
To be opened by her, and her alone, after my death
.
I felt no premonition or apprehension. I simply thought that it was probably about some wish that she wanted carried out, not already mentioned specifically in her will. Something she felt she could rely on me to see to rather than Drew. She had known, after all, that she was dying and there had been plenty of time to think about such things, to make additions and amendments. I slit open the envelope with the ivory paperknife kept in one of the pigeonholes, and took out a folded sheet of writing paper and, tucked inside, an old black and white photograph. I glanced at the photo briefly. It showed a group of men â obviously an air crew dressed for flying â in front of a large plane. The men at the back were standing, the ones in the front crouched down on their haunches. I put it aside on the desk, wondering who on earth they were, and
âTeaâs up.â
Drew grunted, already engrossed in the book. Like father, like son. I left him to it and took my own tea upstairs to the main bedroom, as glacially cold as the hall. I switched on the lights and stood for a moment in the silence, warming my hands round the mug. Maâs dressing gown was still hanging on the hook behind the door, her slippers placed beside the big double bed, her woollen cardigan draped across the back of a chair, her string of pearls lying on the dressing table, and there was a faint trace of the floral scent that she always wore. Her death seemed quite unreal: a horrible misunderstanding. I had never, after all, witnessed her dead. By the time I had reached the hospital she had been taken away to the mortuary and I had refused, in cowardly panic, to see her, afraid that the sight of her dead might erase the memory of her alive. Now, I could almost believe that she might come back at any moment. The front door would click open and shut, her footsteps would sound across the hall, her voice call out from the stairs:
âJuliet, darling, is that you? Iâd no idea you were coming. What a lovely surprise!â
Instead, there was only silence.
For no particular reason, I went over to her desk â an Edwardian ladyâs kneehole writing bureau with drawers down each side and a fold-up lid. On the top was a photograph of Drew and myself as children, arms linked together, and, beside it, one of my daughter, Flavia, taken twenty years ago at four years old. Her only grandchild.
The desk lid was closed but the key had been left in the lock. I sat down where she had sat, put the tea mug aside on the floor and turned the key, lowering the lid gently onto its brass hinges. In front of the pigeonholes, propped up conspicuously so that it could not possibly be missed, was an envelope addressed to me in my motherâs hand, in the royal blue ink she always used.
For Juliet
.
I picked it up and turned it over. More writing, but smaller, on the back. I took my reading glasses out of my coat pocket.
To be opened by her, and her alone, after my death
.
I felt no premonition or apprehension. I simply thought that it was probably about some wish that she wanted carried out, not already mentioned specifically in her will. Something she felt she could rely on me to see to rather than Drew. She had known, after all, that she was dying and there had been plenty of time to think about such things, to make additions and amendments. I slit open the envelope with the ivory paperknife kept in one of the pigeonholes, and took out a folded sheet of writing paper and, tucked inside, an old black and white photograph. I glanced at the photo briefly. It showed a group of men â obviously an air crew dressed for flying â in front of a large plane. The men at the back were standing, the ones in the front crouched down on their haunches. I put it aside on the desk, wondering who on earth they were, and