After the One by Cass Lester (novels for students .txt) 📗

stark contrast to the simple lettering on the memorial itself. It was a plain white stone with the words picked out in slate grey: Kim’s name, the dates of her birth and death, and the message:

Mum – I love you

and I miss you.

They were simple, unfussy words and typical of Tara – no-nonsense and full of heart. She kept her mum’s grave immaculately, always ensuring there were fresh flowers in the vase, because she believed fresh flowers on a grave meant far more than flowery words on a headstone.

‘You know what I hate the most about Mum dying?’ Tara had said to Charley, as she’d knelt to put the flowers into the vase on Kim’s grave. ‘She won’t see Monnie grow up, and Monnie…’ she broke off, gathered herself, and then continued, ‘Monnie won’t really remember her – she’s not old enough.’

Charley had crouched down next to Tara, the wet grass dampening their shoes. ‘We won’t let Monnie forget Kim,’ she promised. ‘You’ve got stacks of photos, and we can share our memories with her.’

‘It won’t be the same though, will it? They won’t be her memories.’

‘Does it matter?’ Charley had asked gently.

Tara had thought about it for a moment, then shrugged and said, ‘Probably not.’

She’d stared to gather up the cellophane packaging from the flowers, and momentarily seemed lost in her own thoughts. Then she’d suddenly stopped and turned to Charley and flashed her a broad smile. ‘D’you remember when Mum came to that 1970s disco?’

‘Oh my God, yes!’ Charley’s face had lit up at the memory.

‘That Tina Turner dress! It barely covered her bum!’

‘And that wig! I can’t believe she came on the bus!’

‘I sodding can!’ laughed Tara.

Laughing with her, Charley had stood up and held out her hand to help Tara to her feet, then they’d picked up their bags and headed towards the cemetery exit. Passing the newer graves, where the ground was still muddy and raw, they had noticed an elderly man sitting on a bench, alone. Wrapped in an overcoat and huddled in a woolly hat and scarf, he sat motionless, staring into the distance.

Tara never believed the old adage that ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. Frankly she thought it was an excuse made by those too timid to tackle something difficult to offer help. Grief, she had discovered, was a lonely enough place without being marooned there, avoided by people too scared of saying the wrong thing. Even angels rush in sometimes, but they tread lightly, because the ground near a newly dug grave is soft.

‘Mind if we join you?’ she had asked the elderly man. He hadn’t, and they’d both sat with him on the bench, and then they’d stayed a while talking. He told them he’d just lost his wife, after fifty years of marriage. It didn’t take an angel to understand that he was the one who was lost.

‘Where did you meet her?’ prompted Tara.

He smiled, his eyes, old and rheumy, moistened with memories as he drifted back across the years. ‘At a dance. She was a wonderful dancer…’

‘Are you?’ asked Charley.

‘No! I’m terrible!’ he confessed, with a smile. ‘She always said I had two left feet.’

They sat there, the three of them, on a wooden bench at the edge of a graveyard – an elderly man telling two complete strangers about the love of his life. As he talked his face softened and lost some of the pinched look of grief.

When they eventually got up to leave, Tara said to him, ‘When my mum died, someone told me that whenever I felt overwhelmed by sadness, and missing her, I should remember something fun we did together. Something that made us laugh.’ She smiled at the old man gently. ‘It works for me.’

When Charley got back from Tara’s, she was surprised to find that Pam had company. She was sitting on the sofa chatting to Nisha. Charley plonked herself down on the coffee table, facing the two of them.

‘I had coffee with my ex-mother-in-law,’ Nisha told her, barely controlling the beaming smile creeping across her face.

‘And?’ prompted Charley.

‘You were right! She was lovely! But, God, was I nervous?’

‘I’ll bet,’ said Charley, and of the corner of her eye she caught Pam smiling fondly at Nisha.

‘I’d decided not to tell her about what Jay was up to over the phone. I thought it might seem combative or confrontational. So I just asked if she’d meet me for a coffee and a catch-up.’

‘Very wise,’ said Charley.

Nisha shook her head. ‘Not necessarily! I worked myself up into a complete state while I sat and waited for her. I literally felt sick.’

Charley found it hard to imagine Nisha ever getting flustered or anxious. In all the years she’d known her, Nisha had always been the cool, composed one in the room, the one she could always rely on to be the voice of reason.

Rolling her eyes at the memory, Nisha went on, ‘I was thinking, what if she’d called Jay and mentioned that I was meeting her and he’d told her not to come? What if she already knew what was going on, and thought that Jay was in the right and was only coming to pressure me into giving him the money? Or, worse, what if she didn’t know, and then, when I told her she got angry and caused a scene and accused me of luring her to meet up under false pretences?’

Charley’s hand flew instinctively to her mouth. ‘I hadn’t thought of that!’

‘I know! I was almost ready to give up and scarper when she turned up.’

In the event, it turned out that her ex-mother-in-law had absolutely no idea that Jay was demanding money from Nisha. When she found out, she was livid and ashamed of him. Perceptively, she blamed his new partner, as Nisha did.

‘Apparently she doesn’t like her at all. None of them do. And then she said something that made me choke up.’ Nisha paused and took another sip of wine, clearly in danger