Page 39 of One Last Thing
I tell him I’m fine. When he helps me upstairs to bed, he tells me he’s going to put the rosette on the mantlepiece, pride of place. I pretend to be embarrassed, but I’m grateful. I want Mum to see it when she gets home.
I’m still awake when I hear her stumble through the front door a couple of hours later. I hear Dad having a go at her in the kitchen below in a hushed voice. She gets defensive, telling him she’s allowed to have a drink every now and then, and today was very important for her career. He wantsthisbook to sell, doesn’t he? He replies too quietly for me to make out, but he sounds defeated. Then I hear his soft footsteps coming up the stairs to bed. Mum stays downstairs a bit longer as I don’t hear her come up. I must fall asleep.
The next day, she sleeps in and then when she comes down, she opens several kitchen cabinets and drawers looking for something. I tell her I won an event at the finale of pony club yesterday. Distracted, she says, ‘Oh, well done, darling! I knew you could do it. Do you know where the paracetamol is? Oh, here we are. Why your father keeps it inthisdrawer I’ll never know, but that man is so stuck in his ways.’ She kisses me on the head and plods into her office to grab her laptop before returning back upstairs with it, tucked under her arm.
I take the rosette down from the mantlepiece and put it away in my bedside drawer.
14
DAWN
In my early twenties, when I first met Henry, he was in the same friendship group as a girl named Emily who had grown up with a lot of land somewhere in Derbyshire. She was lovely and she washardy, nothing fazed her. When some of us went camping for the weekend, she knew how to put up the tent and seemed to enjoy doing it. She didn’t care about the changeable weather or what that would mean for her wardrobe choices. She tied her hair back and, with bright eyes and a wide grin, sorted dinner for everyone and taught me how to toast a marshmallow properly, and went to bed and seemed able to get a good night’s rest on uneven ground.
That weekend, I tried very hard to mimic Emily, but my true nature would flare up before I could stop it: I jumped if I felt a bug on me, I tripped over the tent rope, I panicked when my marshmallow set on fire, I changed from jeans to shorts to jeans to pyjamas in the course of a few hours, and I did not get any sleep. Eventually, I gave in and concluded that I was the sort of person who needed a mattress and soft pillows and a fully functioning toilet and at least one plug for essential items like my hairdryer. And definitely fewerbugs.
I had to face it. I was not that easy-going, fun, low-maintenance girl. Luckily Henry didn’t seem to mind. He found me and my aspirations for a life of luxury amusing.
I don’t know what happened to Emily. As the group dispersed and life took its twists and turns, we didn’t end up staying in touch. I think I recall someone once telling me she’d gone travelling and ended up staying longer than anticipated in Australia. She’d certainly be laughing at my current behaviour which might compare to a young teenager being forced into the bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to please their parents. I don’t need anyone’s approval these days. I’ve been giving off a realif-I-have-toattitude.
‘You sit back and relax, Mum, don’t worry about a thing,’ Megan is saying in a strained, heavily sarcastic manner as she grapples with our tent.
Yes, I did say ‘our’ tent. Another one of Henry’s instructions. Megan and I will share a tent together for the night. Apparently, Henry is lonely on his post-life plain and is hoping one of us will kill each other quick so he’ll have some company.
‘If I tried to help, Megan, I would make things worse,’ I insist, wrinkling my nose at the palm of my hand, inspecting it after placing it down on the mucky log I’m sitting on. ‘And my thighs are killing me after a whole day of riding. And not the good kind.’
She shoots me a withering look. ‘Gross.’
I shrug, delighted with myself, before reaching into my bag to pull out Henry’s ashes and place the box carefully balanced on the log next to me. There you go, Henry, you can be a part of this. Silent and to the side of our bickering just like the old days.
‘We’ve all done a day of horse riding,’ Megan points out bitterly, shooting a small frown at the box. ‘But someone has to put up the tent so we have somewhere to sleep. It’s part of the—’ she pauses to hammer a peg into the ground ‘—fun.’
‘This is what I don’t understand about camping. How is what you’re doing right now considered “fun”?’ I ask,gesturing to her as she wipes her brow with the back of her hand. ‘It’s like you’ve been brainwashed to think physical labour is a holiday!’
‘Who is brainwashing me?’
‘I don’t know. The outdoor equipment salespeople.’
Megan straightens. ‘You sound ridiculous.’
‘I know.’ I think I spot a hint of a smile on her lips and my heart leaps at the notion. Maybe I am still trying to win someone’s approval. ‘You’ve done very well putting the tent up all by yourself.’
‘I didn’t have much of a choice.’
‘Where did you learn to do that? You’re not a camping person.’
‘What does that mean?’ she says defensively. ‘Why am I not a “camping person”?’
I regret my statement immediately.
‘I only meant, you don’t usually go camping. Do you?’
‘I’ve camped at Glastonbury.’
‘Oh. Well. I stand corrected.’
‘Why are you making that face?’
‘I’m not making any face.’
