the night, screaming because the zombie in the dark cupboard was eyeing her through the keyhole, waiting to begin his dreaded deeds. ‘Hush now little wing,’ her mother had whispered, ‘It’s just a dream. You must learn to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s pretend. It isn’t always easy—it took me an awfully long time to work it out, too long.’ And then she’d climb in next to Laurel and say, ‘Shall I tell you a story, about a little girl who ran away to join the circus?’
It was hard to believe that the woman whose enormous presence vanquished every night-time terror, was this same pallid creature pinned beneath the hospital sheet. Laurel had thought herself prepared. She’d had friends die before, she knew what death looked like when it came, she’d received her BAFTA for playing a woman in the late stages of cancer. But this was different. This was Ma. She wanted to turn and run.
She didn’t though. Rose, who was standing by the bookshelf, nodded encouragement, and Laurel wrapped herself within the character of the dutiful visiting daughter. She moved swiftly to take her mother’s frail hand. ‘Hello there,’ she said. ‘Hello there, my love.’
Dorothy’s eyes flickered open briefly before closing again. Her breaths continued their soft pattern of rise and fall as Laurel brushed a light kiss on the paper of each cheek.
‘I’ve brought you something. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.’ She set down her things, withdrawing the small parcel from in-side her handbag. Leaving a brief pause for convention’s sake, she started to unwrap the gift. ‘A hairbrush,’ she said, turning the silver object over in her fingers. ‘It has the softest bristles—boar, I think; I found it in an antiques shop in Knightsbridge. I’ve had it engraved, you see, right here—your initials. Would you like me to brush your hair?’
She hadn’t expected an answer, not really, and none came. Laurel ran the brush lightly over the fine white strands that formed a corona on the pillow round her mother’s face, hair that had once been thick, darkest brown, and was now dissolving into thin air. ‘There,’ she said, arranging the brush on the shelf so that light caught the cursive D. ‘There now.’
Rose must have been satisfied in some way, because she handed over the album she’d taken from the shelf and whispered that she was going down the hall to make their tea.
There were roles in families; that was Rose’s, this was hers. Laurel eased herself into a remedial-looking chair by her mother’s pillow and opened the old book carefully. The first photo-graph was black and white, faded now with a colony of brown spots creeping silently across its surface. Beneath the foxing, a young woman with a scarf tied over her hair was caught forever in a moment of disruption. Looking up from whatever she was doing, she’d lifted a hand as if to shoo the photographer away. She was smiling slightly, her annoyance mixed with amusement, her mouth open in the articulation of some forgotten words. A joke, Laurel had always liked to think, a witty aside for the person behind the camera. Probably one of Grandma’s many forgotten guests: a travelling salesman, a lone holidaymaker, some quiet bureaucrat with polished shoes, sitting out the war in a protected occupation. The line of a calm sea could be glimpsed behind her by anyone who knew that it was there.
Laurel held the book across her mother’s still body and began. ‘Here you are then, Ma, at Grandma Nicolson’s boarding house. It’s 1944 and the war’s nearing its end. Mrs Nicolson’s son hasn’t come home yet, but he will. In less than a month, she’ll send you into town with the ration cards for groceries and when you return there’ll be a soldier sitting at the kitchen table, a man you’ve never met but whom you recognise from the framed picture on the mantle. He’s older when you meet than he is in the picture, and sadder, but he’s dressed the same way, in his army khaki, and he smiles at you and you know, instantly, that he’s the one you’ve been waiting for.’
Laurel turned the page, using her thumb to flatten the plastic corner of the yellowing protective sheet. Time had made it crackly. ‘You were married in a dress you stitched yourself from a pair of lace curtains Grandma Nicolson was induced to sacrifice from the upstairs guest room. Well done, Ma dear—I can’t imagine that was an easy