Chapter 4 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
There’s a fluttery feeling in her chest. She takes several deep breaths but it doesn’t improve so she sits up.
The moon shines in through a gap in the curtains.
She slips out of bed to close them and sees a fox strut across the drive and on to the lawn, disappearing into the woods.
The trees look skeletal, haunting the skyline.
An owl hoots. Something flits past her window, making Zoe shiver.
She pulls the curtains together tightly.
If only she’d waited to have breakfast when the nurse arrived this morning, as she usually did.
She’d known the minute she walked back into the room.
She didn’t need to feel for a pulse or check for breathing.
Her mother had gone. Zoe didn’t believe in a god, but she recognised that her mother’s soul or life force or whatever it was had left her.
She was no longer Mum but a body, a shell.
She stood by the body for a few minutes, watching the flickering and flinching as it shut down.
She touched her mother’s hand but suddenly felt repulsed by it.
She was touching a dead body, not her mother anymore. This wasn’t Mum.
Of course she could never admit to the others that she hadn’t been there.
That after all those months of being by her mother’s side, she’d missed being with her as she passed.
She hadn’t even told the nurse, who turned up for her usual visit fifteen minutes later.
Just muttered something about it being peaceful.
She blames herself of course. All for a slice of toast and marmalade.
But couldn’t Mum have waited just a few minutes for her to come back?
Fiona was right – some people waited for relatives to arrive from other parts of the world until they died, surrounded by everyone they loved.
It felt like her mother had done the opposite.
Waited until she left the room for a moment to make breakfast and then died. As if she had done it on purpose.
Milly
1988
‘I’ve managed to get hold of some soya milk from that health-food shop in town,’ I say to Paul as we settle in front of the TV.
‘Soya milk? What the hell’s that?’ He pulls a face.
‘It’s like milk but not from animals. I’m not sure how they make it. It was very expensive but I thought it would be good to show Steph we’re making the effort.’
‘You’re too good to her.’ He smiles at me as he picks up the TV remote. ‘The vegetarian nonsense was bad enough. I don’t get the vegan thing at all.’
‘It’s pretty harmless, Paul,’ I say. ‘She’ll get over it.’
‘I get that she loves animals – who doesn’t – but it’s the way she goes about it. All those letters to the minister. Did you read any of them? They were so visceral. Disturbing.’
‘I did.’ I helped her write some of them, though I wouldn’t dare tell Paul that.
He worked with the minister John Gummer occasionally.
‘She’s very articulate. She’s clearly hugely bright and passionate about animals.
It’s all part of her wanting to be a vet.
’ I love how focused Steph is about it. The rest of her life – her bedroom, her school work – is complete chaos, but around animals she becomes completely focused.
And it’s the one time she actually wants to talk to me.
I can’t wait to show her the milk tomorrow.
I’ll put it on the table for breakfast. Perhaps make porridge out of it.
‘That whole incident with Eddie’s dog,’ says Paul, ‘cutting its rope. That poor old man is bereft without that dog.’
‘To be fair, that dog should not have been tied up like that all day.’
‘She used to love coming out on the estate with me, on the shoots, and now she doesn’t even do that.’
‘Paul, be realistic. She never loved the shoots. She hated them. She enjoyed the beating briefly but when she discovered why they were beating, she freaked out. Don’t you remember her calling the new syndicate manager an animal abuser?
’ He was a bit odd, and I thought Steph might have a point about him.
‘She called your father an animal abuser the last time he was here.’ He glances up at the stag heads and then flicks on the TV.
There’s a police drama just starting. We sit there quietly for a while.
I’m barely following the plot, but it’s nice to be curled up with Paul.
We spend too much time these days talking about Steph.
We used to talk about so many other things.
I must update Steph and Fiona’s school photos now that I’ve got Sara’s first one, I think, glancing at the frames on the piano. Steph’s is at least four years out of date. But she wasn’t in school this year when they took them and managed to look peculiar in last year’s one.
The programme suddenly goes quiet and it’s then I hear the stair creaking.
I turn, ready to welcome Fiona or Sara on to the sofa, thinking they’re unable to sleep and need a cuddle.
But it’s Steph, dressed all in black like a panther, creeping down the stairs.
Presumably she’s trying to get out unseen.
My whole body tenses. I feel like I’m on hyper-alert.
‘Paul—’ He turns and we both stand in unison. At dinner she agreed not to go out this week.
Paul moves first. ‘Stephanie. We talked about you not going out tonight. That you needed to stay in, focus on your homework.’ I can hear the irritation in his voice.
She’s wearing some kind of black hat. There’s a roll of fabric above her eyebrows. Oh God, it’s a balaclava. Where is she going? Of course, it will be the animal libbers again. P.
‘Steph.’ He walks into the hall, his hands clenched. She takes another step down towards us, glancing at the clock. It’s almost half past eight. She should be reading, being calm, finishing homework. Just like we said.
‘I can’t be late,’ she says, shrugging, moving down another step. She’s wearing her black school plimsolls. ‘I’m always late and they tell me off.’
Late? Late? For what? And who tells her off? P?
As she turns a fraction, I realise she’s holding something behind her back. It glints in the half-light of the hall. What is it? Is it a can of paint? It’s two cans of paint. But why?
She takes another step down, biting the corner of her nail, or where her nail should be. Her cuticles are already raw. She sucks the side of the thumb. She must be bleeding.
Paul doesn’t move. ‘Come on, Steph, it’s no time for you to be going out. You can’t keep doing things like this. It’s not good for you.’ He’s trying to stay calm but I’m worried he’ll blow.
Only four more steps and then she’ll be in the hall. The door is unlocked, as it always is. Maybe we should lock it in future. Paul needs to do something. Stop her. She can’t leave. I can’t do another sleepless night. I’m so, so tired. I just want to know she’s here, safe.
She takes another step and I can see the paint cans properly. It’s the red marking fluid Paul and the men use for the sheep. We’ve only recently started the marking so there must be most of the can there and an unopened can too. What’s she going to do with it?
‘Steph, please.’ I’m walking towards her on autopilot.
‘What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?
’ Paul’s hand is on my arm, pulling me back, but I pull away.
It’s better me dealing with her calmly than him getting angry.
She takes another step down. There’s something written in felt tip on her arm.
She pauses, looking at me. I take a step towards her and hold out my arms. I’m not sure if I’m trying to hug her or stop her from leaving.
I feel ridiculous, like some kind of lollipop lady.
‘Put that paint down and go upstairs,’ I say.
Be firm, Mum and Paul say. I’m trying to be firm and calm. But there’s a funny look in her eyes.
The clock starts up its half-hour chiming routine. She glances at it for a second and then leaps down the last few steps, lunging at me. Oh God. The balaclava falls down over part of her face. She looks like a pirate.
I must have closed my eyes in the moment because all I feel is a huge explosion against the side of my head. Someone screams and I feel myself falling backwards. I wait for the impact on the floor but it never comes.
‘Milly, Milly.’ Paul’s voice drifts in. Everything’s a bit patchy.
Starry. I finally manage to open my eyes.
There’s the underneath of the hall table.
It needs a clean. Something’s throbbing.
Wet. Sticky. My head. My right eye opens but I can’t see anything from my left. ‘I’m having a stroke,’ I mumble.
Paul cups the back of my head. ‘You’re not having a stroke, darling.’ His breath is jerky. ‘Your face—’
I drag myself up, the room slowly spinning. I think I’m going to be sick. There’s something wet dripping down the side of my face. Steph. I try to move my head and look around the hall. ‘What happened?’
It sounds like he’s going to cry. ‘Steph caught you with the paint can—’
‘Must have been an accident,’ I mumble, pressing my hand to my temple. She didn’t mean it.
‘Yes, an accident.’ His face contorts and looks ugly for a second. He stands. ‘I’ll get you something for that cut or it’ll scar.’
The front door is wide open, a chilly breeze snaking around the hall. It was an accident. I shouldn’t have got in her way.
Someone is crying. Is it me? But then Paul is on his feet going upstairs. Fiona is standing at the top, swaying slightly, staring at us, her eyes like saucers. She’s holding Sara in her arms, shielding her from the sight of me.
Paul picks them both up. The hall spins again and I lie down. I really must clean the underside of the hall table. How did it get so dirty?