I said it a bit brusquely, because he flushed a little and shifted uncomfortably on the spot. ‘Yes, well, we didn’t want the food to be going off. I thought it would be a lickle while before you came round – you know, with the grief… and everything.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘that’s very kind of you. But really – I can manage.’
‘Difficult times,’ he said, appeased. ‘Very difficult. Me and the wife, you know, we did our best to keep an eye on her, but she was getting very frail. Very difficult to get about, and then it’s just a matter of time really, isn’t it? Comes to us all, don’t it? In the end?’
‘Well…’ I said again.
‘Of course, it’s different if you’ve got family close by, like your mum had. Our two boys are both grown up and gorn away, long time ago now. When they have families of their own, you know, it’s hard because they get so busy and they know we’re alright, we’ve got each other, we can take care of ourselves, so we don’t really see them that much. Christmases, yes, and they came for her seventieth birthday last year, but that’s about it really. And it does make you wonder, don’t it, all this stuff in the paper about people being found dead and nobody taking care of them, it just makes you wonder about what might happen in the future.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘Anyway, I mustn’t stand here gassing all day, she’ll wonder what’s happened to me. I’ll be on my way. Do you want that stuff back?’
This last bit was thrown casually over his shoulder, a parting question so innocuous, but he turned then and fixed me with a beady eye. Oh, so he’d not thrown it out, then? Effectively he’d come in here and stolen all my mum’s fresh food out of the fridge. I was surprised he’d left the eggs and butter behind.
‘No, of course not,’ I said.
‘Righto, I’ll be off. You know where we are if you need anything – give me a ring if you need us, yes? I’ll check on her post and stuff if you like. Righto, then. See you.’
I heard the front door slam. It hadn’t slammed when he’d come in. He must have shut the door quietly, crept through the hallway treading carefully on the bare wooden boards. I didn’t want him to check her post. I didn’t want him to have a key. I would call round and ask for it on the way out.
I looked back at the silent kitchen, everything in its place. Everything waiting to be used again, looking back at me expectantly. I had a sudden thought and opened the cupboard where she kept her dry goods – tea bags, cereals… right at the top was a commemorative tea caddy: the wedding of HRH Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer, 1981. In here she kept her housekeeping money, the money she kept by from her pension to pay for groceries and other incidentals. I’d set up direct debits on her bank account to pay all the bills, and I checked them once every few months to make sure everything was covered and being paid. When I got her shopping, I would take the money from the tin and put the receipt behind in its place. I would round it up or down, never bothering with coins because it all evened itself out in the end anyway. When I’d been here last Sunday there had been eighty pounds in here in twenty pound notes. I’d taken out a twenty and replaced it with a ten pound note from my purse, because the shopping had come to a total of twelve pounds ninety eight. When I’d come yesterday, though, I’d been so tired after working late that I’d forgotten to do it; the receipt was still at the bottom of my bag.
In the jar was a grand total of twenty pounds. A single twenty-pound note. Fifty pounds had gone since the last time I looked – a few days ago. For a moment I stood there looking at the single note, wondering if I was mistaken. Wondering what she might have spent it on.
After that I went to the bureau in the dining room, the bottom drawer of which contained all the important stuff: her passport, bank books, birth certificate. I rifled through it briefly but even at a glance I could see that it was all still there. That was a relief;