had led up to this point, I did not feel hysterical. I felt calm, almost detached from it all. I had a job to do now, a list of things I needed to work my way through until I could get on with my life.
Number one, go and see Mum.
Collect form from someone. They’d made an appointment.
Take form to registrar to get death certificate.
Go to see Mum’s solicitor and get temporary power of attorney over her effects.
Check her house is OK.
Contact funeral director.
Arrange funeral.
Pack up Mum’s things.
Put the house on the market.
There were hundreds of other steps that would fall in between these ones, but focusing on the milestones ahead while I was sitting in the chair beside my mother’s body in the Chapel of Rest was really the only way I could cope.
I wondered if I should talk to her. What could I even say?
I was so tired it was hard to think straight. My mind was wandering, searching around for her, for a sense of her, the way I felt for the angels when I needed them. I might ask and get an answer, feel a supportive hand on my shoulder, feel a breath or hear a whispered word of love. I closed my eyes and tried to feel her presence, even though she was next to me.
Mum, I thought, help me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
I could feel nothing, nothing at all. It felt as if she had gone.
I opened my eyes again. There was music playing in the background, something classical without being spiritual. It was probably Classic FM’s Top 20 Chapel of Rest Hits, and the thought raised a smile that threatened to turn into a most inappropriate giggle. And something else struck me then. I’d nearly made it to the end of my thirties without having ever seen a dead body, and now in the space of a few days I’d seen two.
I stood up. I looked at her one more time, thinking I should touch her, I should kiss her goodbye, I should do something… but I could not. Instead I left her lying there with the white sheet up to her chin, turned my back on her and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind me.
I collected the form, which needed to be taken to the registrar as soon as possible. ‘I could go now,’ I said to the woman who’d handed it to me.
‘It will be closed now,’ the nurse said gently. ‘I think you might need to leave it until tomorrow.’
My first thought was that I had work tomorrow, but they were probably expecting me to take some time off. I would ring Bill, find out what they wanted me to do. After all, it wasn’t as if I didn’t have stuff to do at work. They were finally starting the investigation I’d been pushing for – how much time was I was supposed to take off?
A few minutes later I was heading back down the corridor to the main entrance, thinking of my list of what I had to do and mentally ticking some things, rearranging others and adding more tasks to it.
‘Annabel!’
I looked across the crowded reception area and to my dismay it was him again. Sam Everett. I continued walking towards the door, hoping he was here for some other reason and not because he was stalking me.
‘Hey! Annabel!’
He touched my sleeve and then I supposed I could no longer ignore him.
‘Sam. Hello again.’
He looked at me closely. ‘Are you alright?’
I realised I must be behaving oddly. ‘My mother died,’ I said. ‘I just came to collect her things.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. He looked as if he meant it, and as if he had been expecting something like that. ‘Come and have a drink with me.’
‘No, thank you, I have lots of things I need to do.’
‘Just a quick coffee. Over there,’ he said, indicating the WRVS cafe which was still full of people. ‘Come on.’
It was easier to give in. I followed him, still clutching the carrier bag they’d given me with my mum’s possessions inside, and stood dumbly behind him while he moved a tray in a painfully slow progress towards the automatic drinks dispenser and thereafter the till.
‘Coffee?’ he asked, when he finally got to the till. ‘Cappuccino OK?’ All the other buttons on the machine were taped up with ‘not working’ written on the tape in a wavering handwriting.