20

Monday 30 December

The doorbell rarely rings at this time in the morning, but it has, and it’s yanked me from my sleep. My first thought is to try and remember what I must have ordered from Amazon recently. My second is that it says a lot about my life that I automatically assume the only person who’d pay me a visit at the weekend is a delivery driver.

I throw on my dressing gown and head downstairs before opening the door. The second I see Mum and Dad standing there, and before I’ve even registered the looks on their faces, I know exactly what’s happened.

‘No,’ I say, my legs turning weak and my eyes fluttering as my dad steps inside and embraces me.

‘Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,’ he says. The man who’s just lost his mother, whose first instinct is to act as a rock to everyone else.

‘The carer found her in bed this morning,’ Mum says. ‘She’d died in her sleep. She looked very peaceful, apparently, and wasn’t in any pain.’

I know this should come as some relief, but it really doesn’t. Even though we’d all expected it to come at any moment, known that she didn’t have long left, nothing makes it any easier.

Nan had always refused to go into hospital or into a care home, and had instead chosen to have a carer visit her at home twice a day. My parents and other family members would pop in occasionally during the day to keep her company or help her with her lunch, but the professional carers would do the morning and evening routines. It must have cost her a packet, but she was adamant and determined that she wanted to remain at home and keep that last element of independence. It’d been an admirable stance to take, and had probably kept her alive longer than going into an MRSA-infested hospital or a soulless care home would’ve done.

Mum takes me through to the lounge while Dad goes through to the kitchen to make us all a cup of tea.

‘I’m not even dressed or showered,’ I say, as if this is the sort of event everyone should be dolled up for.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Mum says. ‘We’ve seen you in worse states over the years. Besides which, we didn’t really feel right ringing you up and telling you we were coming over. It was the sort of thing we felt we needed to tell you in person. We wanted to be here with you.’

I smile helplessly. ‘How’s everyone else?’ I ask, presuming aunts, uncles and cousins will have found out by now too.

‘They’re okay. As well as they can be, of course. I think everyone knew it was due to come at some point soon, but it doesn’t make it any less upsetting for anyone. Your uncle Tony’s taken the lead and will be organising funeral arrangements. Apparently your nan had it all planned out in a notebook. She’d chosen the music, the venue, the lot. She even knew which pub she wanted the wake to be held in.