Alyson Rudd - The First Time Lauren Pailing Died

‘Tell me about your kids,’ Vera had slurred at the petrified Peter.

‘They, um, they’re great kids, Vera, thanks.’

‘And would you let them go off in the back of a crappy old truck?’

‘No, Vera, I wouldn’t but I would let them go on holiday without me and the wife. Anyone would have done that.’

Vera glowered. It left Peter speechless. Bob cleared his throat. Peter stood up to leave as Vera scratched at the table top with an old butter knife.

‘I didn’t want her to go but I let her go,’ she said, the mother’s guilt seeping from her lips, her eyes. ‘What if I had put my foot down? She’d be here now. Sat here, right here.’

Vera stared at an empty chair and then put down the knife and slowly pushed her glass to one side.

‘I’ve drunk enough. I’m sorry, Peter. You’re a good man.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Peter mumbled and there followed a strained, normal conversation about the weather and the deliciousness of Peter’s wife’s fruit preserves.

Vera stood and smiled politely and walked with him to the front door. Peter did not know her well but it seemed to him that Bob should be more worried about this suddenly calm, reserved Vera than the angry one who blamed herself.

‘Any time you like tomorrow, Bob,’ Peter said.

‘You should go in early tomorrow,’ Vera said a week later. ‘I’ll have a lie-in and potter in the garden and fix us some dinner and I’ll be fine.’

Bob was relieved. He felt torn between doing the right thing at home and the right thing at work, and work was so much easier to bear than the quietness of their home. After Peter left, Vera cooked him one of her mild fruity curries, the first she had prepared since the accident and they watched the BBC news still reporting on the fall-out of how Labour, led by Michael Foot, were humiliated in the 1983 General Election, by a Tory party that had to Bob’s surprise elected Margaret Thatcher as its leader. Vera did not say how little any of it mattered and even nodded at the political analysis on offer. It felt like the start of something, a life worth living perhaps and he was sure he had Peter’s gentle interventions to thank for that.

But it was Lauren’s birthday soon and so, as they sat on the sofa in front of the TV, he plucked up some courage.

‘Love, I’ll take the day off next Tuesday. Maybe we can go and see Suki or drive somewhere quiet and go for a long walk. Whatever you want, love.’

There was silence and then Vera turned and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said but she did not think ahead to the long walk, she thought back. Back to that moment when, alone in the house, with Bob at work and her daughter on her first holiday without her, Vera had pouted into the mirror. Her complexion was youthful, her skin smooth and unblemished. She had a mole close to the top of her left shoulder and she often wondered how she would feel if that mole had ended up on her chin or her cheek or her forehead. One of her teachers at school had a strange sort of wart on the tip of her nose and Vera had thought it ridiculous that it had never been removed.

She was young enough yet for another baby, she had thought. She was feeling upbeat about life, about miracles. Bob was planning to leave work as promptly as possible so they could walk to The Plough together and find a table outside. It had been a shimmering day of unbroken sunshine, the pub would be packed even on a Wednesday. Afterwards they could try for a baby, she thought as she applied Tweed perfume to her wrists and neck. She had walked past Lauren’s bedroom and wondered if the weather was as lovely in St Ives for her. She resisted the temptation to sit on her daughter’s bed and absorb the scent of her, of her clothes, of her craft box. She’ll be home soon enough, she had thought to herself teasingly, and then the phone rang.

Karen began speaking in a slow, strangulated voice and then grew increasingly hysterical. Julian, who had been loitering guiltily outside the door, took over but by now Vera was deaf. It was panic deafness. She really could not hear a word after Karen mentioned a terrible accident.

Oh Vera, there’s been a terrible accident.

Vera’s throat became tight, she could feel it tighten now, and she had replaced the receiver without saying goodbye. She stood, paralysed, forgetting to breathe. There was a rap on the door and a voice through the letterbox.

‘It’s me, Monica Harper. Open the door and I’ll take care of everything, my dear.’

Vera inched slowly, not sure how to make her legs move, towards the voice of the poshest of her neighbours, who it seemed had been contacted by Julian.

Vera did not know Monica that well at all, only really seeing her at her annual Christmas party, but it transpired that she was calm and efficient and gentle and somehow bundled Vera and Bob onto a train, with overnight bags, to be met by Julian, whose eyes were so cloudy, guilty, hurt and red that both Vera and Bob knew instantly that their daughter was dead.

Everything, in fact, was dead. The friendship with Karen and Julian died. The innocence of Debbie died. Poor Debbie had stretched out to catch hold of Lauren but managed only to scratch her best friend’s arm. She would burst into tears in the middle of supper or the middle of class. She became the girl to be avoided.

Some people were kind, others avoided them. Bob’s boss, Peter Stanning, not only gave Bob unlimited time off, but frequently drove round after work with fruit and his wife’s homemade strawberry jam. Vera would stand at the upstairs windows glaring as the children of The Willows scampered and shrieked, threw balls and fell off scooters. Only Monica Harper would look up and smile at her and offer Vera a glimpse of life beyond bereavement.

Someone organised the funeral. It was not Bob and it was not Vera. Debbie cried the loudest and had to be ushered out of the church before the last hymn had been sung. Teachers said nice things about Lauren’s art and Aunt Suki said nice things about Lauren’s sweet nature.

Wreaths of flowers were knee-deep in places and the smell of them was pungent and cruel. The Harpers hosted the compulsory post-funeral gathering and even Vera could tell they did it faultlessly.

‘Without you…’ she said to Monica.

‘I know,’ Monica said, and kissed her on her forehead. Vera knew it was supposed to have been a healing kiss but the memory of it felt more like she was being given permission to leave behind the pain.

The day before Lauren’s second dead birthday Vera waited for Bob to leave and then began rummaging in the cupboard under the sink in the big bathroom. She had squirrelled away a stash of sleeping pills and paracetamol tablets and needed to get going fast.

She had been saving them ever since that first terrible day and the ring of the phone. It had been more important than eating, the hoarding of the pills. Monica’s kiss, the Stanning jam and the pills. They were all she had.

Vera had a jug of water to hand and a bottle of whisky. She had planned to swig them while stood at the sink but decided it might be easier to do it at her dressing table. She would be closer, then, to the bed. She counted in Laurens.

One Lauren and swallow. Two Lauren and swallow. Three Lauren and swallow.

When the room began to spin, she lay down with her pre-prepared ice-cold face towel to place on her forehead so she would not vomit and therefore survive. She carried on counting, carried on breathing and then, ever so slowly, stopped.

Bob was slightly later home than usual, wanting to leave everything squeakily efficient at work so he could concentrate on keeping Vera afloat the next day. It was breezy and orange and yellow leaves swirled in the bowels of The Willows as he placed his key in the door. It was quiet and he could not detect any signs of food being prepared. He shouted her name, climbed the stairs and as he reached the landing he smelled the whisky fumes. He paused, he couldn’t blame her. He badly wanted a drink too. He tapped lightly on the bedroom door before opening it.