Chapter 2 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
Although Zoe feels slightly irritated by them being here, the thought of the four of them sleeping under the same roof for the first time since they were children is strangely comforting.
She doesn’t want to sleep in this huge house alone.
When they came after their father died, Sara and Steph just stayed for the day and returned for the funeral.
Fiona must have stayed in the house but Zoe can’t remember.
‘You can all sleep in your old bedrooms,’ she says.
‘If you want? I mean, I haven’t been in them for a long time. ’
‘I’m sure Alice has kept everything nice, ready for when we came back,’ says Fiona.
Zoe stares at her. It’s like she’s from another planet. ‘Alice hasn’t worked here since Dad died,’ she says. ‘There was no money to pay her. There’s no money for anything. But there’s clean sheets in the airing cupboard on the top floor.’
‘Oh.’ Fiona’s mouth is a perfect circle.
‘I did wonder,’ says Sara. ‘Everything seems a little . . .’ She doesn’t finish.
Zoe feels another surge of indignation. But what is it about her sisters being here that’s turned her into such a cow? It’s like she’s reverted to her prickly teenage self.
‘But I totally understand you’ve been focused on Mum,’ says Sara.
‘I had to move back into the house six months ago. It had got to the stage where Mum couldn’t be left alone.
’ Zoe has missed the independence of the old oast house, half a mile from the main house on the other side of the estate.
Moving to the hall marked the end of her relationship with Ben too – he hated coming into the main house as if they were teenagers, and then she couldn’t leave Mum overnight so she couldn’t even stay at his place.
‘I had to take time off work. And then because I didn’t know when I could come back, I had to resign.
’ Zoe exhales. ‘Obviously I wanted to, for Mum’s sake, but it’s been hard.
’ She feels the tears rise up again and moves towards the door to focus on something else.
‘Anyway, let’s just get the will over with.
Mum wanted to have the funeral quickly. No faffing around, she said the other day.
’ Her voice catches on the words. Sara starts to rise but Zoe is already out of the room.
As the door closes behind her, Zoe hears someone mention her name, but it shuts before she can hear what exactly is said.
In the hall mirror, her eyes are heavy with tiredness, the reflection from the crystal chandelier making her skin appear translucent.
She touches the gilt frame, blowing off a cobweb.
Life seems to have stood still for months.
She avoids the bottom two steps where the wood is dark and spongy underneath the tatty runner.
On the first-floor gallery, the portraits of long-forgotten DeProse ancestors stare down at her.
She blows dust off the bottom of the frames as she walks past, conscious her sisters will soon be up here.
Next to her mother’s bedroom door is the painting of her grandmother Evelyn DeProse, wearing an emerald-green cocktail dress and a stern expression.
The artist brilliantly caught Granny Evelyn’s character in those few strokes around her mouth.
Zoe runs her finger along the frame but she knows there’s no dust. This is the one portrait she’s religiously cleaned.
Her mother hated the idea that her own mother would have to look through grime to survey the house she loved.
Her mother’s bedroom has already changed.
Someone has folded up the camp bed she used for the past few weeks, and stacked the bedding on top.
The duvet has been pulled back from her four-poster bed, as if her mother has just got up to make a pot of tea and will at any moment reappear and slide under the covers.
Zoe puts her hand on the dip in the middle of the bed, where the sheets are creased.
Is she imagining the slight memory of warmth?
This morning, Mum was lying here, alive.
She stayed in the drawing room after the funeral people brought her down.
Zoe doesn’t want to say ‘her body’. Not yet.
Sara sorted it all out. Steph sat fidgeting next to her, a tangle of awkward limbs.
In the cupboard of the bedside table is the large brown envelope her mother had talked about. Not to be opened until after my death is written across the front in her mother’s hand, clearly done several months ago when she was still able to hold a pen. The seal is sellotaped shut.
As Zoe opens the door back into the drawing room, a cork pops. Fiona stands pouring red wine into four lead crystal glasses on the table. They must have been in the sideboard, unused for years.
‘Would you like some, Zoe? I thought we’d toast Mum.’ Fiona holds the bottle poised over the fourth glass.
‘Where did you get that from?’ Zoe asks. In the old days, the cellars were full of wine, but they haven’t been used for ages.
‘I picked a couple of bottles up in duty free. I thought Mum might fancy a glass.’ Fiona sighs. ‘Silly of me . . .’
‘Understandable,’ murmurs Sara.
Zoe nods at Fiona, who fills up a glass. She hasn’t had anything to drink for months.
‘Not for me, I don’t really drink,’ says Steph. Fiona ignores her and hands her a full glass. Steph takes it, slopping some of the dark-red liquid on to her hands. She wipes them on her jeans.
‘To Mum,’ Fiona says, and they all lean close enough to clink glasses. Somehow it feels wrong to be drinking wine, as if it’s some sort of celebration.
Zoe sits down next to Sara, puts the wine glass on the floor and peels back the strip of tape from the envelope, drawing out a sheaf of papers.
‘There’s quite a few pages,’ she says, leafing through them.
A couple of months ago, her mother mentioned there would be something after her death that she wouldn’t like or understand.
Zoe tried to press her but her mother had been having a bad day and waved the questions away, and there hadn’t been another opportunity to bring it up.
As she flicks through the pages, Zoe wonders if she was referring to the funeral or an odd clause in the will, but the funeral arrangements all seem to be as she expected.
‘When did they take her body?’ asks Fiona. The word hangs in the air, suspended between the old beams.
‘Not long before you arrived.’ Zoe hears Sara’s swallow. ‘It’s so warm this spring, the funeral people didn’t want—’
Fiona takes a sip of her wine, and then looks back at Zoe.
‘She wants a service at the church here in the village. No surprises there. It all looks a very traditional service. She’s listed all the music.
“O mio babbino caro” for the entrance of the coffin.
’ Zoe bites her lip as she reads. ‘She was always playing that. Then “Abide with Me” and later “Lord of all Hopefulness”. She’s listed the readings and prayers too.
She wants us to do one reading each.’ Zoe glances up at her sisters.
Zoe hands around the envelopes on which their mother wrote their names in her distinct sloping hand.
She opens her own envelope and there’s a few lines of text with her name at the top.
She puts two fingers on her name and brings them to her lips.
Her mother wrote these. Probably the last time she wrote Zoe’s name.
In the midst of our grief, we pray for unity among those who gather to remember our mother.
May this shared experience bring us closer together, reminding us of the bonds that transcend the challenges we face.
Help us find strength in one another as we navigate this emotional journey.
Thank you for the unity we find in times of sorrow. Lord Hear Us.
She blinks away her tears. She checks the envelope. There’s nothing else. No personal letter. She doesn’t know what she was hoping for, maybe just a few words about how much she was loved, appreciated. Something more than just a funeral reading.
There’s silence as they all read their text, their heads bent over the papers.
Sara takes a gulp of wine. Nobody offers to share and Zoe wonders what the other readings say.
Maybe they’re all about unity. Their mother’s last attempt to bring them all together.
She should make that effort, for her mum’s sake if nothing else.
Steph folds up hers and stuffs it back into the envelope, her hands shaking.
‘Have you got a long reading, Steph? It looks like you’ve got a couple of bits of paper?’ Zoe tries to push away the twinge of jealousy. This is bringing out the worst in her, she thinks.
Steph glances up at her, her eyes blinking rapidly. She shakes her head and waves the envelope at her. ‘No, just a reading for the funeral,’ she says. ‘It’s about unity. What’s yours about?’
Zoe could have sworn there was another sheet of paper.
‘Mine’s about unity too.’ She lets out a long breath and looks back to the other documents.
‘Mum’s included numbers of the people to call and invite to the wake.
Mainly locals, but a few from elsewhere.
She wants to hold the wake here. After the service, she wants to be cremated and then interred in the family plot in the cemetery. ’
They all nod. Their mother had made no secret of her fear of being buried alive, always cutting out newspaper articles about coffins being dug up with scratches on the inside.
There was one still stuck to the fridge which she had put there when she was able to walk down the stairs.
Zoe must take it down before someone throws it away.
She focuses back on the pile of papers and starts to open the one labelled ‘My Will’.
‘Here’s her will,’ she says, sliding her thumb underneath the flap.
‘I imagine it will be fairly straightforward,’ says Fiona, still looking at her reading. ‘A split of Mum’s assets, with perhaps some specific gifts and charitable legacies.’