give him the photo albums Ginny left for him? Before school or after?’
‘After. He’d have to be made of steel not to cry when he looks through those. I think he needs a bit of privacy. He might not even want to see them now. Might be too soon.’
When I got up, I put the albums to one side. I’d offer them to him later, though God knows what the proper etiquette was for ‘Here, on your big birthday, are all the pictures of you and the mum you’ll never see again’.
I never understood how Ginny had had the strength to put that album together. She’d started on it as soon as she’d found out her cancer was terminal, the year before she died. How could she bear to look back at that sweet toddler splashing about at Penarth Beach, the boy with the big gap in his front teeth, the teenager with his first rugby cup? What special torturous pain must it have brought to her heart that she wouldn’t be part of the university success, the wedding, the grandchildren that she probably assumed would be her payback for the tedious afternoons spent playing shops and colouring in? Her answer was always the same. ‘It’s not about me, Jo. I’ve let him down by dying before he didn’t need me any more. But I’m going to make sure he knows how much I love him. I’ve got some letters too for him. You know, for the high days and holidays.’
Her eyes had filled then. I’d been useless. I’d cried with her and then we’d laughed. And I still hadn’t dared say that the thought of being responsible for Victor scared the shit out of me. I kept telling her what Phoebe had got up to in the fifth year in the hope that she’d realise packing Victor off to Australia with her brother would be a far better option. In the end though, I wouldn’t have hesitated if it had been solely my decision. I didn’t know how to explain that marriage made being a good friend so much more difficult because I couldn’t just do what I wanted. I wasn’t sure Ginny would understand: she’d never had to answer to any man, and even if she had, compromise wasn’t her most notable quality. Right up to when she died, I just didn’t know whether I had the confidence to take such a life-changing decision on my own.
But here we were. I passed a little pile of presents to Victor. Oddly, free rein to order stuff on the internet for his birthday had led to Phoebe undertaking a secret mission to find out what he wanted, the most engaged she’d been in the whole time he’d been staying with us. ‘Here’s a few things from us.’ He said thank you but hesitated to open them. I panicked in case he didn’t like what we’d bought, in case he cried, in case he displayed one of a million possible reactions that I didn’t know how to deal with and that would have Patrick flapping the pages of his newspaper and Phoebe gawking but not helping.
‘You can unwrap them when you get back from school if you want to. I’ve got some things from your mum that you might want to open then.’
He gathered them up and said, ‘Thank you. Something to look forward to this evening.’ As he went upstairs to put them in his room, I had no idea whether that was a genuine response or something I should be trying to talk to him about because school was so hard to get through or any of the other fifty things I should be doing to ease his transition into adulthood.
Before we got to the enjoyable part of the day, I had to break the news to Patrick that my mother had invited herself out with us for the curry that Victor had chosen as his birthday celebration at the weekend. He dropped his head in an exaggerated expression of despair. ‘So Victor’s low-key meal now has your mother centre stage?’
‘She phoned and asked what we were doing because she didn’t want to sit in on her own again. Does it matter? It was only us anyway.’ I hadn’t wanted her to come either but contrarily, I hoped Patrick would embrace the idea.
‘Come on, Jo, the evening was supposed to be about Victor and our memories of Ginny. Your mum will make it all about her.’