Unprecedented

Unprecedented

A Tuesday

'You wouldn't believe what happened today, but I had to choose your coffin.’

‘Yeah, I know, right? Blooming weird to be choosing your mother's coffin on a Tuesday Morning!'

Wendy holds the phone to her ear and continues talking to her Mum as if she had never left.

'I know we talked most days, Mum, but not once did we discuss what coffin you wanted, only that you wanted to be cremated'.

Wendy pauses and puts down the phone to pour another generous Gin and Tonic, trying to dismiss any thoughts that she was going mad trying to phone her dead mother.

Wendy's words don’t stop, even if they are madness. She tries to mask a desperate childlike feeling of warmth, of sitting on her mother's knee, playing with her rings, wrapped in the arms of her blue-knitted jumper. And so, she continues…….

'I just…. I just...I don't know what happened, Mum.

Well, of course, I know what happened. You had a 4-inch brain bleed and clot simultaneously, which is uncommon. Then, some nine weeks later, your body and brain decided enough was enough of being shoved around the broken Sussex NHS system, bright lights with continuous beeps all while bed-hopping and little time for care.'

She sighs.

She stops

She takes another gulp of gin.

'Anyways………., Dad is fine. He phones most hours of the and dishes his orders. He has started creating weird routines since you passed.

This week, it is about Pies. Yep, that’s right, Pies’

Wendy continues talking on the phone as if she can hear her mother answer her. Bloody fool, she would have said.

Most days, he starts with a Pie. Yep, I am not joking. If he doesn’t have a pie in the house or is shopping for a pie, ordering a pie, or talking about a pie, then his life gets even more turbulent. He is like a rugby ball. You never know which way he is going to bounce or what conversation is happening next.'

Wendy feels guilty for laughing. Dark humour has always got her into trouble. Her friends would tell you of some classics. Wendy supposed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as she knew this was her parents' love language. As the kids say, her parents' love was often replaced and displayed with humour and, on this occasion, pies or maybe this time, it was because her Dad's heart was broken. His military-style brain couldn’t think beyond the basics of eating, sleeping, and washing, and to phone his youngest daughter up to four times a day demands Wendy’s attention as if she is serving with him in the Royal Air Force. After his morning pie, he calls with a list of jobs that demand attention immediately. Before Wendy knows it, she is the chauffeur to her father, who is not able to sit in silence but talks nonstop about fishing, cats, history, or various Joinery jobs he has worked on—anything that comes into his mind rather than the silence or the noise of feelings.

Wendy is driving across the South Downs, enjoying the view as her father's voice drifts in the background. She imagines the smell of freshly planned wood shavings on his workshop floor, and even then, her 9-year-old self and the last time she really spent any time with her Dad and still, he was dishing his orders.

‘His life used to be Wood, Mum, but now it is Pies’.

She takes another gulp and moves out of the kitchen to sit down. Her cat, Sunshine, replaces her phone conversation before she continues to tell him her tales.

Finally, after one more Gin, she and Sunshine stare out the window, watching a male blackbird jump around the garden. At times, I need to stop and look at them both.

Does the blackbird know something?

'Silly bloody idiot I am. Anyway, I choose Sussex Oak for your coffin.

'Night, Night Mum. Sleep well; I will speak to you tomorrow. Love you

A Wednesday…..

The dogs all stop and stare at Garden, enjoying their day with their mates.

Wendy’s dog-boarding business is limping along during her time of grief. Between her degree and all the orders from her father, it is worse than her global corporate career. She never stops, although the hourly rate is a lot different.

She could hear him from down the road. Miles Davies was blearing out of his car.

82-year-old boy racer in his Vauxhall Corsa. He marches in with his tweed trilby hat and bright yellow ruler braces from some DIY store, and with that grin, he demands tea and two sugars, strong but milky. Although this time, he was a bit different. Wendy could see his eyes were red, and as he drank his cup of tea, he was quiet for once. The dogs settled after the tornado of his entrance, came in for a cuddle, and he began to say,

"I am a Widower Wendy’

He spelt out the word as he used to when Wendy was eager to go to school and wanted to learn words and sums.

‘W.i.d.o.w.e.r. Strange word, Widower, isn't it?"

After a large gulp of his tea, he put down his cup and pulled a load of paperwork out of his pocket.

‘Look into these for me, please, love.’

I am going to need an insurance policy now that your mother has gone.’

He wearily smiled, and as quickly as he turned up, he was gone again.

Wendy has taken her mum's lead, though, and she can thank you for teaching her that one. Just listen and let him ramble on, as much like myself, you can’t keep up with most of his conversations. Wendy knows, though, that they both enjoy the comfort of the drives around the countryside.

‘But like you used to say, Mum, the trouble with your father, Wendy, is he would meet himself coming back’ After being with Dad these last few days, her mother was not wrong. Well, they were married for 56 years.

Wendy continues to stare out of the window at the dogs happily playing. Like her father, she needs a task, a job, and a problem to solve. The satisfaction of organising the funeral is within her day.

‘I think you would like it, Mum’.

Wendy pauses: the blackbird is back, this time on the windowsill, staring straight at her. Her stomach flips, and the world goes blank momentarily.

A Thursday………

'Hi Mum, I had to go back to the hospital to pick up your clothes today.

Wendy is back on the sofa with Sunshine, telling her mother the tales of the day.

‘The whole 45 minutes it took to get us there, he talked nonstop.

He didn't take a breath. He marched me through the hospital, giving his cheek to the nurses, charming them as he shared his fleeting stories about your lives.

‘He randomly told the nurse how he became a Joiner and that he didn’t have a bag for the tools that he needed for his exams, so he wheelbarrowed them down Brixton High Street and completed his City and Guilds. Nothing stops him, Mum, as without taking a breath, he clumsily tells me that he saved a month’s wages for your Wedding Ring'.

Wendy, lost in the confusion and speed of time with her father, has always been the same.

‘I have to say, Mum, he does have a cracking sense of humour; even on the bad days, I have been belly laughing at times. I can see why you fell in love with him, but I can also understand why you wanted to divorce him. You can’t keep up with the man, even at 82’.

‘He still loves you, Mum; I can see it in his eyes. Sometimes, he seems so strong that I want to run into his arms to gain that strength and protection that only a dad can give. But instead, he talks, and I drive.’

Wendy's words stop. Empty. Silence. Blank.

Sunshine squints his eyes and purrs as her brain stops, the fog rolling in.

she whispers,

‘I'm so knackered, Mum……….and weary.

The weary Wendy had never experienced. She was always happy to be awake and out of bed. But now, not so much; her bones hurt from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, she hurt.

‘I know, I know, Mum, you were right.

You always were. You always told me, ‘You never grow up until your Mum dies’. Well, it's happened. I have grown up, Mum, and I don’t bloody like it.

A Saturday……

Oh, Mum, Peter has died. The cancer got him in the end.

Something strange happened, though, when I saw him before he passed Mum.

I went into his home, and the spare bedroom, and he was in my bed!!!!!

My bed, a bed we shared in the 1990s. Why on earth has he still got it?

Then, what Wendy found most amazing was that she, Peter, and his girlfriend sat on her bed—the bed they shared—and now she was sharing it with them both. This triangle love affair had spanned some 25 years, and they had both made sacrifices for the love of this man. Some 25 years later, we were literally sitting on his deathbed.

‘I hope they changed my mattress.’

Wendy rounds up the day's dogs, and off she goes to walk down to the rec. St George's playing field, where she and Peter and their friends spent most of their youth—the Fields of Legends—is where she thinks she wants to be scattered when she dies, along with the Hazel trees she has planted for her Mum.

She sits on the bench, listening to the wood pigeons and songbirds and feeling the nurture of nature in the absence of past games on this field. The bench she chose is one that her Dad crafted in remembrance of another. Jean. Cracking wicketkeeper, she was. Her hands ran across the designs, and she remembered that he traced the designs from benches along Eastbourne Seafront.

A Monday

Bloody hell, Mum, I am so pleased you and Peter aren’t here to see this. It is bonkers. The Country is closed.

‘Dad shouted down the phone at me today, Wendy, keep away from all this. It is like a war office; it will be chaos, and you won't like the decisions.'

Wendy stares at the tele as she continues to speak to Sunshine as if it is her mother. They watch the Prime Minister tell the country that business is shut and that we are to stay indoors.

It's weird, Mum. It's something called COVID, and it’s a respiratory thing, so we are going to have to wear masks if we want to go outside. We can't even go to the shops, Mum. It's just so weird. What am I going to do about the dogs?

‘Surely I can go out, I can't stay shut in, Mum. I am going to go bonkers.

Wendy's mind wonders again about the time her Mum used to lock her out of the house, but it was the 1970s, and her neighbours were always happy to chat with her.

Or she used to run outside and climb the plum tree and sit in it for hours eating plums, watching the leaves in the wind. Her mind was always calm once she was outside, and no one shouted at her or told her off. Nature liked her.

Wendy stands in the garden as Buzzard circles over, as if they are searching for the kill. They have new ground to explore, and the A272 is silent for the first time since she has lived here.

A Wednesday

Oh, Mum, Dad is Dead. Oh Mum

Oh, Mum, the police found him in the River Medway on the first day of the fishing season. OH, MUM, Mum, Mum, Mum,

The silent cries as Wendy drops to her knees, sobbing as if a black-gloved hand has reached inside and ripped out her throat and heart. Gasping for breath, Wendy whispers as her legs give way, and she curls up amongst the Marsh grass like a toddler, not a 40-something menopausal woman walking her dog.

I want my Mum. I want my Mum, I want my Mum.’

The skylarks circle in birdsong to ease Wendy’s distress.

A Thursday

Jack Daws swoops in as Wendy lies in the hammock and tries to settle. This is the night that she feels relaxed enough to be able to sleep.

Weeks seem to have passed, and she hasn’t slept. She has gone to the doctor to ask for some sleeping tablets as her mind cannot stop whirling.

The Chancellor Rishi Sunak stated that they excluded 3 million self-employed business owners.

‘Oh, Mum, what am I going to do?’ I really wish I could speak to you.

Wendy had been frantically defending herself against incorrect court summons and going through aggressive paperwork and wording because of the government's decision. Sussex Council wrote to her this morning to confirm that she had ‘unjustly treated Ms Turner.’ But now, what is she going to do with the business shut? She will have no income and no governmental support packages.

Wendy had lost £15,000 worth of bookings because she followed the HMRC rules, as she always had. During her global corporate career, she had paid nearly a million pounds worth of tax, travelled the world, and ran projects in numerous languages. She knew how this was going to go, and she knew that her dad was right about his advice. This was the world of spreadsheets and finance, not dog walking and studying for her degree. She was now in the world of formulas on an Excel spreadsheet, and her rural, quiet dog-boarding business was now in the cell that had been excluded.

Jackdaws circle the garden. Fifteen of them, she counted, but she had nothing, nothing to give anyone.

No one wanted her or her business. She was worthless; her old demons kept circling as her brain heard every insulting word about herself; she manipulates; she is unfit, she is too much, she is not wanted, and she is to be locked out of the house.

Wendy needed a friend to share her woes, so she took a sleeping tablet and a drink of brandy to call it a night and called her friend while in bed.

The next thing Wendy knew………..a nurse had woken her up in an NHS Corridor.

A Tuesday

‘What am I doing here?

‘I don’t know, love, you tell me? You took 14 sleeping tablets. Said the nurse in a matter-of-fact way.

‘I did what?’ Wendy exclaimed

But I only got them yesterday from the Doctor. Because I can't sleep, Wendy gasped.

Why can't you sleep, love? Said the Nurse.

Wendy told the nurse that she was under the doctor, a counsellor, and a spiritual support network due to the recent deaths and the ripple effect that is having on her and the family, plus she was dealing with her business being excluded from all government support packages.

‘Well, love, ‘there is nothing we can do for you here’, the masked nurse claimed to the beeps and buzzes of a broken NHS.

Wendy eases herself off the bed, walks outside, and, in a robotic motion, gets a cab home. Alone.

Excluded; in fact, no one wants her. No one. The NHS can't even help her.

Wendy cannot take any more of the punches of life.

The cab dropped her off at home, and there was no one to greet her.

Except for the blackbird and Sunshine,

Sorry, Mum, I am just so so sorry Mum

Another Saturday

Wendy sits on her couch, staring at the large plastic storage box.

Her garbled, exhausted mind drifts off into her thoughts of her practical mother, not a natural mother or nurturing mother, as she was a woman who taught Wendy to change a plug and prepare for when she wasn’t there.

.

‘I have sorted out all my wardrobes and bits and pieces so that when I go, there won't be much for you to do.

Oh, cheers, Mum. Is that what I am supposed to say?

But I don’t want to sort out your things, Mum.

Oh, Wendy, it will happen one day; you can't escape it, love. I just wanted to save you the job as you know it will be you who does it’

Wendy eases herself up, carefully selecting a book with torn brown paper wrapped around it to protect the binding. She carefully opens the pages.

Hazel Pickwell, Age 7

189 Bowbridge Road, Newark, Notts

She opens another

Hazel Pickwell Age 9

11 Vernon Street, Newark, Notts

And another

If found, please return to

Hazel Pickwell Age 10

11 Main Street, Newark, Notts

Six Bibles, safely wrapped in brown paper from the 1940s to protect her mother's youth or the Bible's words. Whatever her mother's reason, they were painstakingly cared for over 60 years, leaving the treasured words of a moment of a child's life and her carefully written who had 14 homes by the time she was 14. or as her mother used to say, without a shadow of resentment or distaste for the cards life had dealt.

‘I lived in all four corners of Newark, and that’s just the way it is sometimes.’ Wendy sees her mum's face and hears her voice as she carefully handles such treasures.

Why did she leave them for me to find?

Why keep these books?

More questions.
Wendy knows her mum was never religious, but six Bibles.

She goes to get up to make coffee or wine.

What’s the time, Sunshine?

Her tabby squints and bundles over to her in his obvious happiness and safety.

The clock said 5 pm

‘Time for your tea. Come on then.’

Sunshine purrs with not one worry in his world.