Chapter 5 Zoe Spring 2025
Zoe
‘What’s everyone’s plans? I’m going to stay here until the interment.’ Fiona lets out a slow breath. ‘I can’t exactly go back to Singapore.’
Sara nods, taking a slurp of tea. ‘I’ll have to see. It would be a long time for me to be away from my children. I’ve never even left them for a night before—’
‘But we have a lot to organise, to help out here. We should all try to do it together,’ says Fiona, cutting across her. Sara narrows her eyes and stares at her. ‘Steph?’ Fiona asks.
Steph sighs. ‘I can’t really leave the shelter for too long. I’ll speak to Jay, see if he’s able to stay for a bit. I can always pop back and forth if needed. It’s not far.’
‘It’ll be good to have you all here,’ says Zoe, surprising herself. ‘It’s been quite difficult doing this on my own for the past few months.’ She stirs the porridge in the bowl but still can’t bring herself to eat any.
‘You should have called us earlier,’ says Sara gently, eating the last of a slice of toast. ‘It was a big responsibility just for you.’
She’s right, of course, thinks Zoe. Even a few hours’ sleep has given her a little more perspective on that. She can’t now think why she didn’t.
‘Let’s look through Mum’s jewellery this morning,’ says Sara, glancing sideways at Zoe.
‘That would be a nice thing to do,’ agrees Fiona, searching through the pantry. ‘Then we can pop down to the village later to talk to the vicar about the service. Are there any eggs?’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘I’m vegan.’
Fiona’s mouth is an O, which despite everything makes Zoe want to laugh.
Steph catches Zoe’s eye and then looks away, slightly smiling.
‘Well, we can stock up at the village shop on the way to see the vicar. I’ve also dropped an email to the solicitor whose name was on the will, asking for a meeting.
’ She looks down at her list. ‘Is there anything else we need to do today?’
Zoe stares at her, impressed at her efficiency at such an awful time.
‘You and your lists, Fi,’ says Sara, a slight edge to her voice. ‘Come on, let’s go up to Mum’s room. She kept it all in the safe in her bedroom, didn’t she? I remember her showing me years ago.’
She and Sara walk up the stairs side by side.
Zoe’s not really sure what she should be doing.
After months of her days being regimented by pills and nurses’ visits, there’s a vague sense now that the days will stretch ahead with nothing for her to do.
At least Fiona is here to take charge, to organise things.
She’s not sure how she’d go about sorting out a funeral.
‘I know you must be very disappointed by the will and the house situation,’ says Sara as they reach the gallery.
Disappointed? She must be making a face because Sara takes a deep breath and pastes on a smile.
‘I’m sure when we meet Mum’s solicitor, he’ll have some answers.
But Mum had some lovely pieces of jewellery.
And they’ll all be yours now. That’s some consolation at least.’
She knows Sara means well. But jewellery?
A consolation? Zoe twirls her helix piercing with her left hand.
She never saw Mum wear any jewellery that she’d want to even try on in a million years.
It was all huge ruby and sapphire brooches, diamond chokers and strings of pearl necklaces.
She doesn’t want to wear them, but she wouldn’t want to sell them either.
The idea of getting rid of anything that Mum once touched is too painful.
And she knows Mum wouldn’t have wanted that either.
Zoe takes the key out of her pocket and unlocks her mother’s bedroom door.
‘Maybe I can swap jewellery for bits of the house,’ she says, gnawing at the side of her fingernail.
‘A diamond brooch for the airing cupboard.’ She laughs and Sara smiles at her, confusion in her eyes.
She meant it as a joke, trying to make light of an awful situation, but it came out all wrong.
Zoe can’t help but glance at the bed again as they walk in. Still empty. It feels so odd. This time yesterday, she’d gone but her body lay there. This time two days ago . . .
On the dressing table is a small mother-of-pearl box.
Jewellery played an enormous role in her mother’s life.
Granny Evelyn had handed down her own collection on her death, and Mum had added to it over the years.
She was the sort of woman who thought nothing of wearing a Cartier necklace on the school run.
In the top of the box is a key. The safe. Zoe opens the armoire and moves aside the leather overnight bag to reveal the safe behind. Security was never her mother’s strong point. Inside are stacks of tiny boxes Tetrised together.
‘Let’s put them on the bed, like Mum used to do,’ says Sara. ‘Then we can take a proper look at everything.’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘That’s where Mum . . .’ She swears she sees the faint indent of her mother’s body in the sheets. A sort of Turin Shroud. But that turned out to be a fake, didn’t it?
Sara touches her on the shoulder. ‘Of course.’ She stands at the side of the bed, staring at the emptiness.
‘Isn’t it strange? She raised us for all those years and now she’s gone.
’ She sounds odd and Zoe moves to stand next to her.
‘I’m sad to have missed her going, but I’m really glad that you were with her as she went. That she wasn’t alone.’
Zoe swallows and turns away. ‘We’ll lay them across the carpet,’ she says, starting to take things out of the safe.
The flat, square necklace boxes nestle against the square ring boxes and the deep brooch ones.
Zoe flips open the lid of one of the largest, a deep red with a gold border faded at the edges.
Five rows of diamonds in a gold choker necklace glint back at her.
She shows it to Sara who raises her eyebrows.
‘It looks like something you’d see in Dynasty. Pure 1980s.’
Sara kneels down next to her and opens another box which holds huge yellow diamond drop earrings. ‘That’s like something Pat Butcher would wear on Eastenders,’ Zoe says and then immediately feels guilty for criticising something of Mum’s.
Another holds a gold brooch in the shape of a poodle, another a red enamel ladybird. Zoe gasps. ‘I even remember Granny wearing this – I’d loved playing with it when I was small.’ Zoe looks at the box – Cartier. She puts it aside.
They open all the boxes, unfolding brittle tissue paper that sometimes disintegrates in their hands to reveal strings of pearls or diamonds.
The three-strand pearl necklace with the diamond clasp Zoe knows her mother’s grandmother had given her on her wedding day.
The wedding photo on the piano downstairs shows her touching them, perhaps conscious of the weight, as she gazes up at Dad.
‘Oh look, the emerald bird brooch. I loved that as a child,’ says Sara. ‘It’s so Mum.’ She strokes it and then brings it to her mouth to kiss. ‘This will be my one thing,’ she says. ‘And I can pass it on to the girls when I go.’ Then, suddenly glancing up at Zoe, ‘If that’s okay with you?’
Zoe nods. ‘Of course. There’s loads of stuff here, you can have as much as you like.
What shall I do with it all? Who will want to wear this now?
’ she says. ‘It’s so old-fashioned. The world this was created for has disappeared.
Thankfully.’ She opens another box. ‘And Mum would have wanted it to stay in the family. Perhaps your children will want it one day.’ She surprises herself by saying it.
She can’t remember how old they are now and immediately feels sad.
She should have tried to be more involved in their lives – they are her nieces, after all.
‘You might have children,’ says Sara.
Zoe takes a deep breath but says nothing.
Sara looks at all the boxes, glinting in the morning light. ‘I reckon there’s thousands and thousands of pounds of jewellery here, Zoe. When you’re ready, you should have it valued and then decide what you want to keep and what you want to sell.’
Sell. Mum had been funny about the jewellery.
She wanted to make sure it was handed down to her daughters, perhaps, Zoe thinks.
Not realising that times change, fashions change and they wouldn’t want it in quite the same way.
Meanwhile the house slowly decayed around them with no money to maintain it.
Her small salary, Mum’s pension and the cottages’ rent had just about paid the bills and the estate workers and the day-to-day maintenance.
Zoe lies back on the rug, staring up at the ceiling, following the outline of the watermarks.
She’s been so institutionalised in this room, barely leaving, that it feels a relief to be back here somehow.
It felt strange sleeping in her own bed last night, lingering over breakfast earlier and not rushing back to be here. Watching and waiting.
Death is funny like that. You spend all those months sitting with someone as they lie dying, wrestling with conflicting feelings and emotions. And then suddenly it’s over.
Zoe feels bereft. Not just from her mum going.
But from losing the routine of sitting with her every day, the nurses coming and going, the radio going through its hourly routine of news, music, chat, adverts.
The finale of Schubert’s ‘Piano Sonata in A Major’ was playing when her mum died.
Or rather when Zoe came back into her room with her toast and marmalade and discovered Mum had died.
Zoe waited until it had finished and the radio announcer said what it was.
It felt important to know what Mum had been listening to as she took her last breaths.
If she had been able to hear anything at all.
‘We should show the others some of these pieces,’ says Sara, holding a sapphire pendant up to the light. ‘I think that’s everything now, quite the collection.’ Sara reaches into the safe. ‘Oh no, there’s something at the back.’