Doll

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“What are you then?” my mother says. “A mouse?”

So I go in.

The room is tidy and the bed made, which alone proves that my mother is dead. For if my mother lived there would be mess everywhere. Drawers agape, clothes on the floor, lids off lipstick. But there is no mess. There are no candles. No cinnamon sticks. Even the flowers are gone. The window is wide open and the morning air abrasively clean. In the night, Grandma has scrubbed the carpet. Got down on her stiff knees with the disinfectant. If there were stains – if there were spots – on that carpet last night, there won’t be now. But there were no spots. There were just rose petals, red rose petals. That was all. I was there. It was a good death, the death she would have wanted.

“Always tell the truth, Tilly,” says my mother. “The truth is important. Yes?”

“Tilly.” It’s Grandma calling. “Is that you?” I move quickly into the corridor, pretend that I’ve just come from the bathroom.

“Oh, good, you’re up. Breakfast’s made.”

The smell of bacon fat curls up the stairs. I go down to the kitchen. Grandma is also frying sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms. As I come in she cracks two eggs.

“You know I don’t eat breakfast.”

“Well, you should. You must. Breakfast sets you up for the day.”

We have had this discussion a thousand times. I don’t want to have it this morning. I make for the fridge, for juice. Then I see the breakfast table. It’s laid for three.

I round on her. “You’ve told him, haven’t you? You called him.”

“Of course,” my grandmother says. “What did you expect?” And then: “He’s family.”

As if in confirmation of this fact, the doorbell rings.

I watch her unyielding walk to the porch.

“Margaret.” My father steps into the hall, greets my grandmother and then turns immediately to me. “Tilly, I’m so sorry.”

He walks straight down the corridor and, uninvited, puts his arms around me. As I stand like a stone in his embrace, I think: this is what it must be like to be hugged by a stranger. Although he’s not a stranger. I see him most weekends.

Then he says something else. He says: “Grandma told me. Grandma says it was you who found her.”

And I feel a pricking hotness in my face, as though he’d accused me of lying. And something in me wants to shout, but I put my hand on the doll and keep my mouth clamped shut.

He releases me. He’s a small man. Small and mobile and the colour of sand. How could my huge, dark mother have loved him?

“Tilly …” he begins.

“Don’t worry, Richard,” says Grandma. “I’m here. I’ll be here. I’ll look after her. We’ll be fine, won’t we Tilly?”

“Yes,” I say then.

He looks relieved.

“There’s coffee, Richard,” says Grandma. “And breakfast if you haven’t eaten.”

“Of course he hasn’t eaten,” I say. “He eats at the restaurant. That’s why he’s always gone so early.” I say it on autopilot, like my mother used to say it, half bitterly, half to explain why he was never here of a morning.

My father looks at his watch.

“I expect you’re busy,” I mimic. “I expect you’ve got a lot on.”

“Tilly …” warns Grandma.

“It’s OK,” says my father. “It’s the shock.”

“Hardly a shock,” says Grandma.

My father sits down. My mother’s mother brings him coffee, serves him a man’s breakfast. The plate steams.

“How can you eat?” I say.

“Everyone has to eat,” says Grandma.

“I’ll let the school know,” says my father. “I’ll drive you in, Tilly. Speak to the Head.”

“No!”

It sounds like a gasp. Grandma looks at me, moves to my side, takes my hand.

“No need, Richard,” she says smoothly. “I’ll deal with all that.”

“But—” he protests.

“It’s fine, Richard. It’ll be fine. You have enough to do.”

“Enough” means work. Grandma likes a man to work. Her husband always worked, Gerry. Worked long hours, worked long distances, was a travelling salesman. Good commission, until he ran his car into a tree. Still got Salesman of the Week though, even though he died on the Thursday. Had more Tupperware receipts in his pocket that day than most salesmen got in a month. That’s what was said, proudly, at his funeral. His daughter, my mother, was fourteen at the time. The same age I am now.

“Well,” says my father, “if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” she says.

He looks uncomfortable. Says to me, knife poised, “Aren’t you having any?”

“I’m not hungry.” He should put down that knife. The light on the blade is bouncing in my eyes.

“She’s a stick. A rake. How can she be the daughter of a restaurateur and be so uninterested in food? You should feed her up, Richard.”

“She knows she’s welcome in the restaurant any time.” He looks up at me, blade still upright. “In fact, you can come back with me, Tilly. Stay until – well, you know.”

“Put down the knife,” I say.

“What?”

“The knife. Put it down!”

Grandma moves swiftly, pushes my father’s knife into his bacon, as though he were a child.

“What—”

Then she backs off, stands against the counter. “Sorry, Richard,” she says and half nods at me. Adding quickly, “And don’t worry about the arrangements. I’ll take care of everything.”

And I know why she’s standing there.

My father re-groups. “I don’t know what we’d all do without you, Margaret,” he says.

She’s standing there because of the Sabatier block.

I edge towards the counter myself, but I keep my eyes on my father.

“You’ll let me know – what happens?” he says.

“Of course,” says Grandma.

“We’ll need to talk about a long-term solution. Tilly can’t stay here, not now, not after …”

I expect to see a gap. One knife missing. The long, thin-bladed carving knife. But, as I turn and glance, I see it. The knife. Washed and dried and in its place. Grandma. Oh Grandma.

“No need to rush into things,” says Grandma. “Take one day at a time. That’s the best way.”

My father drains his coffee. “You don’t have to go to school, Tilly,” he says. “I’m sure they’d understand.”

“Best to keep busy,” says Grandma. “What would she do here, anyway?”

“Tilly?”

“I want to go.” It’s a kind of whisper.

“OK. Your choice.” He pauses. “Do you still want to come to the restaurant on Sunday?”

“Of course she does,” says Grandma.

“Tilly?”

“If you want.”

“Well, I am short-staffed. It would help.”

“OK then.”

“Thanks, Tilly.” He stands up. He comes for a kiss, or a touch, but I move away and his arms fall short. “Just one thing,” he says. “It’s not your fault. You do understand that, don’t you Tilly? Nothing that’s happened is your fault.”

Why does he have to say these things?

“Of course she understands that,” says Grandma. “Now come on, Tilly. We have to go.”

She puts her body between my father’s and mine, directs him towards the door.

“Goodbye then,” he says.

I watch my father drive away. What strikes me most about him this morning is that he is alive. And that doesn’t seem fair somehow.

The drive to the school gates is fifteen minutes, but Grandma doesn’t take me to the gates. She pulls the car up four roads short. Looks in all her mirrors.

“OK?” she says.

“Yes. Thanks Grandma.”

I also check the road. Sometimes Mercy’s friend Charlie walks this way. But more often she gets the bus and the bus doesn’t come down this street. I can see no one but a man and his dog. I give my Grandma a peck on her dry cheek.

“It’ll be all right,” says Grandma. “Don’t worry about a thing. Promise me?”

I get out and watch while Grandma turns the car and drives away. Until this moment, I have no doubt that I’m going to school. It’s not as if I don’t know the way. I’ve walked the route from here more times than I care to remember. But, as my grandmother’s car disappears from view, so does my certainty. It’s as though, by turning the corner, she has cut me adrift. School doesn’t seem the point any more. Even the word “school” seems to have shifted. I can’t fix on its meaning. I stand bewildered. I seem not to know what to do or where to go.

And then I hear a voice, soft and low. “I know,” the voice says. And then it whispers: “Come.”