tingled with presentiment. I just knew, as they say.
‘Graham,’ I said.
‘All right.’ The T hissed; my blood chilled.
‘Is it Mum?’
‘Yeah.’
You can prepare yourself for a moment you know is coming. You can make plans, even rehearse it in your mind. I knew my mother was dying. She had been transferred to the hospice a month earlier. I had travelled north the previous weekend, said goodbye just in case. I truly believed I’d made my peace with the inevitable. But now here was Graham telling me that he had held her hand and that she had taken ‘this big breath, a big gasp, like’, then closed her eyes, sending one tear trickling down each side of her face into her near-white hair.
‘And then she let go,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘And that was it, like. That was it.’
My brother doesn’t say much, but he had known, without me asking, that I would need every detail, second by second, and he had given it his best shot. It was his way of including me in the immense and private privilege of our mother’s last moments.
‘Thanks for calling,’ I said, which seems ridiculous to me now, like thanking someone for reminding me of a hair appointment or a delivery. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Are you going to be all right?’
‘Yes. I’m meeting Seb.’
‘Good. Tell him I said all right.’
‘OK. Talk to you tomorrow.’
I had prepared. But there is no preparation. Nothing can or will help. Any plans you make for yourself and how you will behave will be forgotten. You will be alone, not with loved ones, as planned. You will be alone on the street and you will be crying like you told yourself you would not, and you will descend into precisely the red, snotty mess of your fears, blowing loud sobs into a crowd of strangers, there in your suit and your high-heeled shoes – the armour you were foolish enough to think would protect you. And you will find the sight of so many people carrying on as if nothing has happened so surreal, so fucking offensive, frankly, that you will have to stagger into a side street and find a wall to lean on while you get yourself together enough to text your husband.
Mum’s gone.
Seb would still be at work. I wasn’t sure if he’d even have his phone with him; tried not to let that thought fill me with panic. But he rang immediately.
‘Hey. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I managed.
‘Where are you?’
‘The Strand.’
‘All right. I can be there in half an hour, three quarters.’ He paused, enough to sense that I couldn’t speak. ‘First one there gets the drinks. I’m on my way, Nick. I’ll see you soon, all right? Walk there. Take the air, look at the beautiful city. Do you want me to stay on the phone?’
‘No. No, I’m all right. I’ll see you there.’
If you were walking across Jubilee Bridge that day, you would have seen a very smartly dressed woman with a great haircut weeping snottily into a shrivelled tissue. Perhaps you would have smiled your sympathy and looked away. But she would not have seen you. That day she didn’t even remember to look at the view: the South Bank Centre, the London Eye, the glorious sweep of the capital’s riverside. And when she arrived at the bar, she had no idea how she had got there.
Seb was already sitting on the red leather couch at the back. Bottle of white in a silver wine cooler. This didn’t make sense; I’d been nearer to Waterloo than him, but now I think about it, I think I must have wandered about in a daze for a bit. I have a memory of looking at lipsticks in Boots that can only have been that afternoon, a shop assistant asking if she could help me. I never buy lipstick in Boots. The way Seb looked at me as I made my way through the bar was enough to make tears come again. I blinked them back and sank down beside him. He kissed the top of my head.
‘Petes,’ he said.
Story on that: my brother’s nickname for me is posh twat. I’m not, not really, but everything’s relative. When I first met Seb at a juvenile court case long ago, I told him this and it amused him. I don’t know what you’re laughing at, I said. You’re a much posher twat than me. Posh twat became PT, which became Petey, which became Petes. There.