The Missing One Read Free Page B

instead, ruddy-cheeked, squatting in his dungarees with his fat fists buried in the dirt.
    Doug obviously felt the tension rising because he pointed at the tall flowers, and said, in a slightly desperate voice, ‘They’re such a nice colour, what are they?’
    â€˜Wolf’s bane.’ She gave him a grateful smile. Even at the end, when she was so thin and her cheekbones so sharp and huge, her green eyes sunken, she still had dimples on each cheek when she smiled. Then she told him how the roots of the plant are used in Nepal to make a deadly poison, but in Chinese medicine, detoxified, they are a healing tonic. ‘Death and salvation,’ she said, ‘all in one lumpy root.’
    Finn set off in a crawl towards the blue flowers. I leaped up and hoiked him back, but my mother didn’t even move. She just turned her face to the blue sky.
    â€˜Granny’s flowers are poisonous,’ I said, pointedly. ‘Don’t touch them. Yuk.’ But I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream, ‘Oh my God! Your grandchild is right here! Don’t you even care? Can’t you see him? Don’t you want to know him before you die?’ But of course, I swallowed that back down, too, and turned away from her, setting Finn down on the grass, far away from her wolf’s bane.
    We stayed out in the garden for too long that day, and in some ways it was as if nothing had changed at all. She was solicitous of Doug, as always, asking about university politics, his latest book, cutting him a second, thicker slice of cake. She didn’t offer cake to Finn and I had to ask – is it OK? – and then she looked surprised, and a little embarrassed.
    â€˜Yes, sorry, of course.’
    She smiled at Finn in her distant way as he ate the little corner of cake I gave him, sitting on my lap and spraying crumbs over us both. He looked up at her, and grinned back and I saw her face melt. She leaned towards him, and touched her fingertips to his toes. ‘Do you like that cake?’ she said, softly. ‘Do you?’ Then a film came down over her eyes, and she blinked, and looked away, leaving him gazing up at her with his big brown eyes. I felt my throat tighten and put my hand on Finn’s head. Doug stiffened next to me, perhaps anticipating trouble. But I started to talk – something about Finn’s eating, the first time I tried him on solids and how he didn’t spit it out the way the baby books said he would, but wolfed it down madly. As I babbled she just stared at the sky, nodding vaguely, gathering whatever it was back into that dark place.
    I couldn’t bring myself to ask her directly, that day, about the treatment she had refused. I couldn’t find a way to lift my hand and touch hers; to say I was sorry, beyond sorry, and that I loved her despite all our difficulties and misunderstandings and furies; that this was unbearable – that she couldn’t die. I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t just blame her for the way we were – I blamed myself too. This was both of us. I couldn’t tell my mother that I loved her.
    Only one thing was different between us that day. After I’d strapped Finn into his car seat, found his lost teddy bear, packed his wellies and board books and bottles and clothes into the boot, and snapped at Doug for not getting the travel cot down, we all stood for a moment by the car. Suddenly, she held out her arms and pulled me towards her, and kissed my face, ‘Take care, my lovely darling.’
    She hadn’t called me that for years and years. Her words knotted themselves around my heart so tight it was all I could do to breathe and smile and get in the car with Finn and Doug, and roll down the window to say goodbye, see you soon.
    But I didn’t see her; I didn’t visit again until the last day, just a week ago, when Alice called at five in the morning, and I had to get out of the leather