Just In Case

It’s not the saying goodbye that’s hard. It’s the letting go.

I tell myself, if I didn’t come to check the post, burglars would guess no one was home and ransack the place. Not that there’s anything worth breaking in for. Unless they like the smell of dusty cabbages or they’ve got a thing for incontinence pads and denture fix. Who knows, we live in a strange world. But I come to check. Just in case.

When the front door closed behind me, I hadn't planned on staying. Just popped in to check the fridge had been emptied. The milk would smell bad otherwise. The post was mostly brochures for loft insulation, double glazing, with the odd leaflet plea for help to save overworked donkeys in Spain and abandoned dogs in Romania. I’m not sure mum would remember where Spain was these days. Or what a donkey was for that matter. Not sure she ever knew where Romania was.

But there was something so familiar about the way the door clicked shut. So comforting. So peaceful. Made me not want to rush away.

The kitchen had that feeling like someone had only just left. Cups washed on the draining board next to a half empty bottle of washing up liquid. The same brand mum had always used, since we were kids. The calendar hung on the pantry door hadn’t been turned since January. It was now November. A pot plant on the window sill hanging on for dear life, desperate for a drink. Two dried up tea bags in the sink.

I opened the cupboards, don’t know why. How many tins of soup can one old lady need? And candles. Not pretty scented candles. Long white wartime candles. No matches, just candles. Just in case.

I straightened the tins so they all faced the same way. Like the shelf in a supermarket. They would’ve made mum smile. She’ll never get to see them.

There were packets of powdered food you just add water to. No nutritional goodness. Just powder, but easy to swallow when your teeth have dropped out and your brain forgets how to chew.

Like an overworked Spanish donkey.

I spent a few happy minutes rearranging the cutlery in the drawer. Knives at the back just like when we were kids. Out of reach. I guess the carers had put them at the front. Maybe they don’t have kids. Or maybe their kids are safe with knives. Never crossed my mind that different households would have different knife rules. Mum always kept the knives at the back out of reach. Just in case.

There was an old shopping list on the worktop, mums handwriting, only shakier than I’d remembered. And faint, like the pen was running out.

Onions

Pots

Teabags

Tooth stuff (whatever that was)

Bleach

Bisto

Swiss roll

Custard

Mum would always serve us Swiss roll and custard on a Saturday night, as a treat. As long as we ate all our onions and pots we would get a bowl of hot custard poured over a warm Swiss role. I used put my face close to it and let the steam engulf me. Maybe I’d stop off at the shop on the way home and get some for my kids. I’ll heat the custard on the hob like mum did. Standing at the oven in her apron and slippers, pans stacked in the sink. The air warm and heavy with steam, the radio on. We would sit at the little table in the corner. The three of us. Blowing on the hot custard as we held it up on our spoons. We would have to wait for her to try a little first. Testing how hot it was with the end of her little finger. Just in case.

Her move to the home, when it happened, was both brutal and clinical. Apparently, one of the many entry requirements to be accepted was the ability to heat a bowl of soup for so long you set the smoke alarms off.

Tick.

And being caught outside of your house in your nightwear or at least part of your nightwear.

Tick.

And probably my favourite was not being able to remember what a toilet was, where it was and what is was for.

Tick,tick,tick.

What I hadn’t prepared myself for was the ease at which mum walked out of this house. No arguing, no crying, no looking back. And that was it, gone. Maybe she’d already left weeks ago. In her mind at least.

I’d noticed a few houses on her street had already put festive lights up. Mum would have hers up by now. Weeks ahead of all the neighbours. She loved the warmth Christmas brought. She’d have left them up all year if we hadn’t nagged her to take them down.

The central heating clicked on and the house came alive with ticking pipes. I used to lay in bed and listen to the radiators hissing in the mornings. And mum, clanking around the kitchen, making a pot of tea and packed lunches. I’d stay under the covers until the smell of toast wafted up to my bedroom.

I opened the under stairs cupboard to turn the heating off. No point wasting gas now

no one was here. It smelt of shoes. Maybe the burglars wouldn’t stay long if the house was cold.

Peeking at me from an open box was mums Christmas tree. Must have been fifty years old. Hardly any needles left on its scrawny branches. Looked a bit like an abandoned Romanian dog with half its fur missing. Still, I pulled it out and stood it near the window in the lounge. The lights were in the box still partly wrapped around it.

I straightened it and sat in mums chair in the dark with the lights on. Well, most of the bulbs worked.

It did make the house feel warmer.

I know it’s silly. I know she’s not coming home.

But I’ll set the timer and leave the lights on . . . Just in case.

It’s not the saying goodbye that’s hard. It’s the letting go.