Chapter 15
Amy: Troublemaker
It’s been a difficult couple of days. I don’t know why.
The grief just comes out of nowhere and hits you like – well, like an Aldi lorry, I suppose.
Yeah, I know I shouldn’t joke about that, but my sense of humour has got a bit darker since it all happened.
Quite a lot darker, actually. So yes, a lot of tears have been shed.
I should really get a job at a cosmetics company testing waterproof mascara.
You’d be surprised how much they vary in tear-resistance.
I think they must test them on plain water or something.
Maybe salty water makes them run more, I don’t know.
But so far not one of them actually stays put properly when faced with an absolute flood of tears.
So I’ve often got strange dark circles under my eyes these days.
Just as well today’s Saturday, so I don’t have to rush out to work.
As luck would have it, I woke early, so I’m making myself a cup of tea, but I don’t want to get up properly yet.
I know I should, and I should find things to distract myself from wallowing, like starting back at my old yoga class, or decorating the little spare room which I’ve turned into an office now my boss lets me work from home so much.
But, quite honestly, I just feel like hiding under the covers and having a good cry.
So I think wallowing’s going to win, at least for a while.
I’m just getting back into bed when my phone shows a message alert.
Someone must have called while I was in the kitchen.
Uh-oh. It’s Carol, James’ mum. Just what I need.
But I’d better see what she wants. I click to listen to the message.
‘Morning Amy. Carol here. Susie has dropped out of running the WI event I’m at this afternoon. Would be marvellous if you could help out. I know you said you’d be at home today. Let me know, darling.’
Bother! How do I get out of this one? The reality is, I can’t.
If I don’t help out, I’ll never hear the end of it.
I know Carol means well, she tries to get me involved in things, probably so I can move on like she has.
I think Carol feels some kind of strange sense of responsibility for helping me get over James, and recently she seems eager to try to match me up with almost any man she can find.
But the fact is, we’re not cut from the same cloth.
She’s that stiff-upper-lip type who never wants to talk about anything meaningful, things that really matter, like feelings.
And I’m the opposite. I always think it’s better to let the feelings out rather than bottling them up.
Whenever I’ve tried to bottle things up it’s never gone well.
Carol’s ability to compartmentalise and switch off is quite remarkable really.
I’m just no good at that. When something happens to me, it’s part of all of me.
I can’t set things aside and keep them apart from other aspects of my life.
I realise it would be a useful skill, but it’s just not one I have.
Carol seems to have completely compartmentalised James, somehow sealed off that part of her life.
But I can’t. You only need to look around our houses to see the difference.
I have photos of James everywhere. All around the house – framed photos on the sideboard, on windowsills, on my bedside cabinet; loose photos stuck on the huge fridge-freezer (far too big for me on my own, really) with my slightly bizarre collection of fridge magnets.
Even at work, there’s a framed photo of him on my desk.
And then there are all the digital photos, which I can browse at leisure, and my very favourite photo of James for my screensavers on my iPhone and my Mac.
He’s wearing a blue denim shirt and it matches his beautiful blue eyes perfectly.
James had the most gorgeous eyes I’ve ever seen.
They used to make me think of that Donna Lewis song, because his eyes really were unbelievably blue.
As for Carol’s house – well, it’s the complete opposite.
You’d almost think she never had a son. It’s not that Carol didn’t love James.
Of course she did. She’s his mother. And besides, he was so easy to love.
It’s just that she’s done her mourning and now that’s over.
It’s like she allowed herself a set period, and when that was done she folded her grief up neatly and packed it away in the wooden box with all the photos of him.
Except the one photo she allowed herself to keep out.
The official one from when he graduated from Sandhurst. All the others are safely out of sight, along with the grief.
Anyway, Carol clearly thinks that if she, as James’ mother, has been able to move beyond her grieving and get her life back to normal, then so should everyone else.
Particularly ‘just the girlfriend’. I get the feeling she’s uncomfortable with my prolonged grieving.
Perhaps she’s just genuinely concerned about me.
But it feels like there’s something more to it.
Like, deep down, my long-term grief somehow brings into question the fact that she moved on so quickly.
But I don’t think anyone’s judging her negatively, she actually gets lots of admiration for her stoicism.
So now I’ve got an afternoon on a cake stall.
And that’s not my only problem for today.
There’s been an issue at the crem. Heather, the new Assistant Manager is causing all sorts of trouble, and she’s only been in the job two weeks.
For one thing, she’s upset Sarah already.
It’s over something which seems quite small, but it really matters to Sarah.
Heather has decided that the crem should stop having boxes of tissues for visitors to use for free, and instead wants to have little plastic-wrapped packets of tissues on sale in the café.
‘These boxes are costing the company far too much money. You can sell individual packets instead, Sarah,’ she announced this week. ‘I’ll get some pretty ones, that way you can charge extra for them. Display them prominently on the counter next to those chocolate bars. That’ll do the trick.’
Poor Sarah was mortified. It might seem unimportant, but it’s the principle of it that matters to Sarah.
She wants the hospitality areas to be as warm and welcoming as possible.
Let’s face it, almost everyone who comes here is grieving in one way or another, and having boxes of tissues freely available on the tables in the café and dotted around other areas in the crem sets a kind of expectation that crying is completely normal here, not something to be ashamed of.
I know I’ve been glad of the tissues many a time, and even some of my FFC friends, who’ve been bereaved for many years, will occasionally shed a tear or two and need a tissue to hand.
But despite the opposition to the idea, Heather is adamant that the free tissues should go.
She’s going to recommend it to Paul this week, along with various other changes, including car park charges for anyone staying for over three hours.
I mean, really? It goes against the grain for me.
I work in marketing as a customer relationship ambassador, so although I have responsibility for promoting the company, I’m always considering what our customers want too.
Heather is clearly happy to ignore customers’ needs.
Besides, I’m not even sure this kind of thing should really be in her remit.
But she’s the type to make her opinions known on absolutely everything, whether it’s up to her or not.
Apparently, she was recruited in a bit of a rush before Cathy and Giles were about to go on their big trek.
Well, they say marry in haste and repent at leisure.
Seems like the same could be said for recruitment.
So, you can see we have something of a problem on our hands. Poor Paul, he’s got enough on his plate without having to deal with some kind of super-officious new team member.
On top of upsetting other staff, she’s also siding with someone at the crem over an objection to the wedding.
I know, what kind of person would try to veto the wedding, right?
It seems unbelievably mean, and yet it’s true.
A lady called Ann has lodged an official complaint and, worse still, she’s been trying to drum up support for her objection from some others who come here.
Ann’s not a frequent visitor. She visits twice a year, once on her late husband’s birthday, and once on the anniversary of the day he died.
But you’d think she was here every day, judging by the way she behaves.
She seems to think she owns the place. I completely get that visiting frequently isn’t the right thing for most people, and that’s not why I have an issue with her objection.
It’s just that if she’s only visiting twice a year, and the wedding isn’t going to fall on either of those dates – I know this because Paul checked – then I don’t see how it can possibly impact her in any way. But she seems to think it does.
It’s such a shame. Everything was starting to fall into place for the wedding, and now we suddenly get this bombshell. Joe and Olive are being so good about it all, but personally, I can’t help feeling pretty miffed with her.
The worst of it is that Heather’s gone and taken Ann’s side in the debate on whether to allow the wedding to be held in the chapel at the crem.
‘It’s simply inappropriate,’ she says. ‘It will send entirely the wrong message to mourners.’ Even though she knows full well the plan is for the wedding to be held late afternoon, long after all the day’s cremation services will be over.