Chapter 8 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
Sara presses her lips together. ‘I think I’ll have an early night, tomorrow’s going to be a big day.’ She collects her and Fiona’s wine glasses and takes them into the kitchen.
Steph glances at Zoe. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.
Zoe nods. ‘I just really hate social media, it . . .’ She can feel her chin wobbling and the tears come, even though she desperately tries to push them back. She doesn’t hate social media really, she doesn’t know why she’s making such a fuss and being so horrible to everyone.
Steph opens her mouth as if to speak but then says nothing.
She eventually shifts across the sofa and slips her arm around Zoe and hugs her.
It feels awkward and Zoe wants to push her away.
She takes a deep breath. In a few days they’ll all be gone.
Fiona’s already said she’ll book a flight for the day after the interment.
In a few days, she’ll be alone with Mum’s memory again.
She wants it more than anything. But there’s also a growing sense of dread.
What will it be like without her? She’s never been in this house alone.
She must try to make the best of this time with the four of them together, as awful as it is in many ways.
Zoe doesn’t see Fiona and Sara again that evening and she lies in bed regretting being so harsh. Of course there’s nothing wrong with posting on social media. It’s part of grief, letting people know, getting sympathy, people sharing stories about the dead person.
The village church bell marks the hour with three chimes. Tomorrow they will be inside saying their final goodbyes to Mum. Zoe needs to sleep or she’s going to feel even more awful.
Maybe a cup of tea will help.
Steph’s bedroom door is wide open, the side lamp illuminating a pile of tangled clothes on the floor, an upended book, its pages splayed, and a bath towel in a heap. It is just like how Zoe imagines a teenager’s room would be. She smiles and walks down the stairs.
Steph looks up from the kitchen table, illuminated by the moon. She’s aged so much since their father’s funeral – her hair was blonde when Zoe last saw her, now it’s a sullen grey, a permanent cloud over her head.
‘Can’t you sleep either?’ asks Zoe.
Steph shakes her head. ‘I keep thinking about tomorrow. D’you want a tea?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Zoe slides down on to a kitchen chair, her feet cold on the flagstone floor, watching Steph. Steph slides a mug of tea across to Zoe and sits down opposite her. ‘Highdown’s looking great,’ she says. ‘All ready for tomorrow.’
Zoe glances around. ‘You and Sara have worked so hard. I know it was a dump. I could see the way the three of you looked at it. But I had no time to do anything, and there’s no money.’
Steph taps her nail against the mug. ‘It was the same when we were children. It was always a bit dilapidated, wasn’t it? There was never enough money to fix it, once they sold off the land and didn’t get that rent.’
Zoe nods but she wonders if it’s true. She remembers the house always being perfect. Glossy. She was proud to bring friends back here.
The silence stretches along the length of the table, taut between them. The grandfather clock strikes the quarter hour.
‘Are you still doing the Extinction Rebellion stuff?’ asks Steph.
She didn’t think Steph would remember. ‘No, I’m not doing anything with them now.
Or rather I am now and again, but on a minor level, helping with some of the legalities.
’ Zoe sucks her bottom lip. ‘Mass participation movements like XR can only happen at certain times in history. Something about 2019 made it all happen but that energy seems to have died away.’ She misses the excitement of XR, the feeling that you were really making an impact.
Steph is still looking at her, waiting for more. She seems genuinely interested.
‘I took some of the lessons I’d learned with XR and in my old job I was helping organisations work towards net zero.
Basically reducing their impact on the environment.
I also went into local politics to work from the ground up.
Talked to people individually about why the climate crisis matters to them and why we need to change the way we live.
I was a Green Party councillor for our area, but also had to resign from that when Mum became properly ill.
It’s not a job you can do half-heartedly. ’
‘That’s amazing,’ says Steph. ‘Mum must have been very proud of you.’
‘She was and she wasn’t.’ Zoe pauses and thinks back to Mum finding out about the funeral cortège protest she organised to go through the village, the coffin representing the planet.
She’d been devastated that someone might find out Zoe was behind it.
‘But I think she preferred the politics to the activism. Less embarrassing.’
Steph laughs. ‘I can imagine.’
‘I used to deal with everything from parish councils, campaign groups, community initiatives and sort out people’s problems.’
‘That sounds like a busy job. Lots of responsibility.’
Zoe nods. ‘It was. I spent the first six months with serious imposter syndrome. But I really liked the feeling I was helping people, often those in desperate situations. I hope I can go back to it.’
‘I’m sorry I never made it to that XR protest. I lost the leaflet.’
‘What protest?’ says Zoe, her head on one side.
Steph swallows and looks away. ‘Never mind.’
Another heavy silence falls over them.
‘I’m sorry about the will,’ Steph says eventually. ‘I want you to have my share of the house. I don’t need it. I have everything I need at the shelter.’
Zoe glances up. Is she serious? ‘That’s kind of you but it’s not just about that. It’s about feeling that maybe Mum didn’t love me like she loved you all.’
‘I think she loved you best of all,’ says Steph, taking a sip of tea. ‘You were the golden child, the one who could do no wrong. And you proved it by staying and looking after her. If she had a favourite, it was you.’
‘Do you think?’
‘Yes,’ says Steph. She gets up and puts her mug in the sink and walks towards the door.
‘Thank you,’ Zoe says to Steph. ‘For telling me that. It helps.’
Steph smiles slightly and walks back up the stairs.
Zoe stares at the space where Steph has just been.
If she had a favourite it was you.
Milly
1989
The woman from the council – Child Protection, or whatever she calls herself – advised me to talk to Steph when we were both calm.
Talking together in a quiet moment, she said, can help foster a good relationship which can support us through the more challenging times.
I understand what she means but there are fewer and fewer calm times.
And far too many challenging ones. And in the rare calm moment, you just want to have a lie-down and enjoy the peace, not start creating new problems. Even my bones ache with tiredness.
And I hate having people from outside interfering with our family. Mum would hate it if she knew. But after Steph’s arrest, Child Protection turned up on the doorstep and I couldn’t turn them away.
I switch on the kettle and get out two mugs.
On the lawn, Alice is playing catch with Fiona and Sara, Woody racing back and forth between the three of them, desperate for a dropped ball.
I wonder how much they’re affected by what’s happening.
Sara very little, I reckon – she seems oblivious to most things.
I think back to when I was five and I can remember almost nothing.
Tiny fragments of school. An old doll I had.
The books with the ant and bee which I read until the spines disintegrated.
And Sara is close to Fiona, worshipping her, rather than her oldest sister.
Steph must almost be an adult in Sara’s eyes.
But Fiona is different. At ten, she sees everything.
I can tell by the wariness in her eyes. I wonder how much Steph talks to her about what’s going on?
The two are often together, tucked up in bed chatting, sitting on the roof outside Steph’s bedroom though I’ve told them a million times that it’s dangerous.
Fiona’s regular bed-wetting over the past few months must be linked in some way.
She never did it as a young girl and when we took her to the doctor he found no physical reason.
I try to talk to her too but she just clams up.
I take a packet of biscuits out of the pantry. I’m failing. I’m failing all of them. I have one job. Be a mum, raise the girls, and I can’t even do that. I munch through the first biscuit.
Now I’m forty the chances of having another child are diminishing by the day.
Another thing the doctor said. Fertility falls off a cliff after forty.
So there’s not likely to be a boy for Paul after all.
No Tommy. Even the most recent miscarriage was a girl, they said at the hospital.
I called her Zoe even though she was too small to be called anything.
And Paul and I will have to be closer for the prospect of another child.
He even slept on the old sofa in the library last night, after we rowed about the idea of Steph going on the pill.
He’s so naive if he thinks she won’t be having sex.
In our bed alone, I hardly slept a wink.
There’s a squeal as Sara misses the ball and Woody grabs it in his jaws, circling around them joyfully, proud to finally be part of the game. ‘Woody!’ Sara screams, chasing him. I pour boiling water into the pot, stir the teabags around and fill up the cups, eating another biscuit in the process.
Steph’s door is closed, but I remember to knock on it. There’s no reply but I doubt she can hear it over her music. There’s something behind the door and I have to put all my weight against the door to open it. There’s a thump on the other side.
‘For Christ’s sake, Mum,’ says Steph. ‘I didn’t say you could come in.’