watching the door, hoping Mary didn’t come in. Shouldn’t they have asked her if this was OK? Maybe she wanted the pickle. Maybe it was Jack’s pickle?
She boiled a kettle (trusted the electrics for five minutes) and looked out at the garden while she waited. It was overgrown, but rather beautiful in its wildness. All sorts of colours and textures were weaving together. When the kettle was ready she washed up the few cups and plates she found festering in the sink. But the simple act of washing up felt wrong. This might have been the plate Jack ate his last meal from. She might be washing him away.
Now for the medicine list. Tolterodine, Lisinopril, Doxazosin . The top one had an asterisk next to it. Mum had written, withdrawal of bladder meds possibly increasing confusion? Everything about Mary seemed to have a question mark next to it.
She tentatively opened a cupboard above the sink. It was packed with cereal boxes. Damn! Did they count as perishable? Probably, since no one was going to be eating them now. Which meant she had more stuff to throw away. She hauled them out, but on each and every one was a Post-it Note: If it’s dark, come back to bed .
God, that was so sad! It must be Jack’s writing. Jack keeping Mary safe, guiding her back to their bed in the night when she wandered off and thought it was time for breakfast. Katie couldn’t throw those stickers away. She peeled them off and put them carefully in her pocket before chucking the cereal in the bin bag. In the next cupboard – no medicine, but coffee, tea, cups and plates. On the inside door: Only one teaspoon of sugar, you’re sweet enough! Katie peeled that off too. Perhaps Mary would like to have the stickers at the flat to make her feel at home. Now Katie was looking for them, she found several more: The kettle is hot, like you. You set my heart on fire, but don’t touch these matches .
By the door to the garden: If you want to go outside, please take me with you .
They were everywhere. They were so, so beautiful. And here, on a corkboard, was an actual drawing. And it hurt to look, because it was a stick-figure man with ‘Jack’ written above in the same handwriting as the post-its. He was holding hands with a stick-figure woman, ‘Mary’, and underneath were four more stick figures with names scrawled above their heads – ‘Caroline, Steve, Katie, Chris’.
Here was Katie’s family drawn by a dead man and here was Dad holding hands with Mum and it was all so perfect, like reading a really romantic book or watching a movie. Katie pulled the picture from the board and rammed it in her pocket. She grabbed the biscuits and went into the lounge. Mum could find the medicine. Mum could make the tea.
Chris was clearly disobeying instructions too, since Wolf Mountain was plugged in and fully operative. Plastic wolves with blue metallic eyes stood on a plateau. Lights glistened in the snow at their feet. Their white fur stood up in frozen peaks. Chris bent his ear to them, listening.
‘Hear them howl?’ Mary said. ‘They’re guarding things, that’s why.’
Chris nodded. ‘I’ll put them in the suitcase.’
‘That’s it. Bring the wolves.’
Katie hoped they weren’t serious. Mum would hate having anything electrical from Mary’s house in the flat. She’d think it would start a fire or, at the very least, blow all the fuses.
‘Here,’ Katie said, hoping to distract Chris, ‘biscuits.’
He took the packet with a grin, but it didn’t deter him. He placed the wolves carefully in the case. ‘Aren’t they great?’
‘Lovely,’ Katie said, as she ran a finger through the glass beads of the chandelier and watched rainbows shimmer across the room.
‘These are Jack’s souvenir smoking pipes,’ Mary said, waggling a handful at Katie. ‘Wherever we went he’d pick a new one up. This one is from Austria and splits into three. I always rather liked the Tyrolean picture.’
‘She really did see him through the
She boiled a kettle (trusted the electrics for five minutes) and looked out at the garden while she waited. It was overgrown, but rather beautiful in its wildness. All sorts of colours and textures were weaving together. When the kettle was ready she washed up the few cups and plates she found festering in the sink. But the simple act of washing up felt wrong. This might have been the plate Jack ate his last meal from. She might be washing him away.
Now for the medicine list. Tolterodine, Lisinopril, Doxazosin . The top one had an asterisk next to it. Mum had written, withdrawal of bladder meds possibly increasing confusion? Everything about Mary seemed to have a question mark next to it.
She tentatively opened a cupboard above the sink. It was packed with cereal boxes. Damn! Did they count as perishable? Probably, since no one was going to be eating them now. Which meant she had more stuff to throw away. She hauled them out, but on each and every one was a Post-it Note: If it’s dark, come back to bed .
God, that was so sad! It must be Jack’s writing. Jack keeping Mary safe, guiding her back to their bed in the night when she wandered off and thought it was time for breakfast. Katie couldn’t throw those stickers away. She peeled them off and put them carefully in her pocket before chucking the cereal in the bin bag. In the next cupboard – no medicine, but coffee, tea, cups and plates. On the inside door: Only one teaspoon of sugar, you’re sweet enough! Katie peeled that off too. Perhaps Mary would like to have the stickers at the flat to make her feel at home. Now Katie was looking for them, she found several more: The kettle is hot, like you. You set my heart on fire, but don’t touch these matches .
By the door to the garden: If you want to go outside, please take me with you .
They were everywhere. They were so, so beautiful. And here, on a corkboard, was an actual drawing. And it hurt to look, because it was a stick-figure man with ‘Jack’ written above in the same handwriting as the post-its. He was holding hands with a stick-figure woman, ‘Mary’, and underneath were four more stick figures with names scrawled above their heads – ‘Caroline, Steve, Katie, Chris’.
Here was Katie’s family drawn by a dead man and here was Dad holding hands with Mum and it was all so perfect, like reading a really romantic book or watching a movie. Katie pulled the picture from the board and rammed it in her pocket. She grabbed the biscuits and went into the lounge. Mum could find the medicine. Mum could make the tea.
Chris was clearly disobeying instructions too, since Wolf Mountain was plugged in and fully operative. Plastic wolves with blue metallic eyes stood on a plateau. Lights glistened in the snow at their feet. Their white fur stood up in frozen peaks. Chris bent his ear to them, listening.
‘Hear them howl?’ Mary said. ‘They’re guarding things, that’s why.’
Chris nodded. ‘I’ll put them in the suitcase.’
‘That’s it. Bring the wolves.’
Katie hoped they weren’t serious. Mum would hate having anything electrical from Mary’s house in the flat. She’d think it would start a fire or, at the very least, blow all the fuses.
‘Here,’ Katie said, hoping to distract Chris, ‘biscuits.’
He took the packet with a grin, but it didn’t deter him. He placed the wolves carefully in the case. ‘Aren’t they great?’
‘Lovely,’ Katie said, as she ran a finger through the glass beads of the chandelier and watched rainbows shimmer across the room.
‘These are Jack’s souvenir smoking pipes,’ Mary said, waggling a handful at Katie. ‘Wherever we went he’d pick a new one up. This one is from Austria and splits into three. I always rather liked the Tyrolean picture.’
‘She really did see him through the
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