Page 7 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
‘Naturally.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Cleo asks curiously. My eyes seem to ask the same question.
‘Visiting some of my favourite people. Do I need an excuse? Now go get changed for school. I can come on the walk and help drop you off, how does that sound?’ Joyce says excitedly.
‘Cool!’ Cleo replies and legs it up the stairs. Joyce’s gaze follows her.
‘Excuse me, how big? What are you feeding her?’
I laugh and lead her through to the kitchen where she spies all the reading books and spelling lists lined up with Post-it notes and packed lunchboxes. We have a blackboard on which the week is planned out to the letter. Ham for Cleo, cheese for Maya. Not the cereal bars with the dried fruity bits because they get stuck in Cleo’s teeth. Not the squeezy yoghurts as Maya can’t open them without squeezing them all down her front. Joyce runs her fingers over the red school cardigans hanging off the backs of the chairs.
‘Look at you. I was awful at the morning school runs – so disorganised. Did Tom ever tell you how I once made him bring a Pot Noodle to school and ask the teachers for hot water?’ she says. I shake my head. ‘Awful parenting but a story of legend. Apparently, he even knocked on the staff room door.’
Joyce makes her way to the kettle. She still looks the same as when I met her all those years ago, ten to be exact. She’s a fan of a pair of biker boots, black leggings and a massive woollen jumper that she wears like a dress, her hair bushy and crispy on her head.Come home and meet my mum, Tom had said.She’s mad as a hatter.I was cautious; it was meeting the mother, no? That’s an event of status in a relationship. I also did not want to reciprocate by introducing Tom to mine because my mother also came with my four sisters who would have gone lioness-pride mode and torn him apart with questions. But as soon as we drove up to his house in North London and the door opened, the reception was exactly the same as the one moments ago. Joyce was warm and inviting and ever since Tom’s passing she comes down on occasion to visit. To her, I am a daughter who replaced a lost son. To the girls she is Aunty Joyce, and she treats them like her own grandchildren. I have no doubt she’s brought them candy necklaces too.
‘Cleo’s right, to what do we owe the pleasure?’ I ask, as she reaches up to retrieve some mugs. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a photo of Tom and me from university; one of those shots where we look completely fresh-faced, clueless and drunk out of our eyeballs. She studies it for a moment.
‘I actually have a meeting later at Latymer Academy…’ she tells me.
‘Tom’s old school?’
‘One of the governors got in touch after my last marathon to say they’re naming a new wing after him.’
This is what Joyce does. When Tom died, the grief hit us differently, from all angles really, but we sought out our coping mechanisms. I left. I travelled. After Tom and I graduated, we split up for a while and he did a world tour of teaching. He needed to get something out of his system. I never understood that, why he left me. Even though we stayed in contact for most of that time, I later traced his steps, filled in the gaps and found out where he’d gone, who he’d met, to find some peace on random beaches and the bottom of foreign bottles of alcohol. Joyce ran. She ran many marathons, too many to count but they doubled up as fundraising opportunities. She is good at all of that – at getting people to hand their money over and keep Tom alive. I cheered her on when I could but she always made me wear this T-shirt with his face on. I imagined Tom would have hated that, especially as she chose his LinkedIn photo so it looked like we were honouring the passing of a very cheesy-looking estate agent who could find you a good deal on a three-bed with en suite.
‘That’s cool. You did contribute quite a lot to that,’ I reply.
‘It’s what he wanted.’
We pause for a moment. Tom left instructions after he died that were to the letter. No sad social media posts where people he’d not spoken to in years could leave empty words of condolence. No flowers at his funeral. No super-depressing music. That was to his mum.Please don’t honour my passing my blasting out Joni Mitchell albums and inhaling my leftover scent on my clothes. The thought of dying is hard enough without knowing how much it will hurt the ones I leave behind. Celebrate my life, give my money to charity, stick some fingers up to cancer for me.
‘The school want to do a big thing, a memorial event of sorts, in a few months’ time when the building’s finished. I suspect they’ll want me to cut a ribbon or something. You should be there.’
‘Of course I will,’ I say, grabbing her hand.
‘I was also thinking of inviting people. Help me with the list? I don’t want it to be shit. Can you help me organise?’
‘He didn’t like canapés on sticks if that helps.’
‘That was because when he was younger he got a skewer stuck up his nose. I always blamed his bad dancing on that. I thought it penetrated the grey matter responsible for co-ordination and rhythm.’
I laugh. ‘He told me he didn’t like standing there with a skewer and not knowing where to put it.’ His dancing had been extraordinary – it was a series of co-ordinated jumps, such freedom with his arms, expression in every inch of his face, too. ‘Of course I’ll help. A whole wing. I’m not sure what he would have made of that.’
‘He would have gone full ostentatious. He’d have wanted a wax model in the hallway. Maybe a portrait of him dressed as a king in oils.’
The thing is, it’s true. But he’d also have had beanbags in every room and winding shelves of books of every shape, size and colour. He’d have brought back the blackboard for sure. There’d have been hand-painted quotes that he’d have attributed to himself but which would most likely have been stolen song lyrics. The wing would have beaten with his energy and enthusiasm. I imagine the colour scheme would have been awful too, lime-green walls – he’d have wanted it to be seen.
‘Apparently, the school band have written a song in his honour too.’
I bite my lip, trying to hold back the giggles. ‘Will you be singing it?’
‘No, I’ve said you can. Can you imagine, he’d strike me down with lightning.’
I cackle with laughter. Now the pain has faded somewhat, this is what connects us both. All those stories, all those little Tom quotes and moments that brought us so much happiness.
‘I also had an interesting letter from my editor too.’
That was the other thing Joyce did. After he passed, she wrote his biography, an outpouring of longing and her experiences as a mother who’d lost her child.Goodnight, Major Tomdid very well. It was translated into Latvian and eight other different languages and all the proceeds went to charity. Did I read it? I did. Did I cry all the way through? Perhaps. Again, I don’t think Tom would have approved of half the childhood stories she chose to mention (I didn’t know he wet the bed until he was nine) but it was the ultimate love letter to her son.
