The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Fourteen - Funeral

A couple of weeks later, I was woken by Daniel coming into my room.

"What's up?" I asked.

"It's your mother," he explained gently, sitting on my bed and taking my hand. "She's slipping away. They don't think she's going to make it through the night."

My stomach clenched and I was overcome by this impossibly hollow feeling... I couldn't even cry.

He leaned down and wrapped his arms around me and, for a long time, he just held me.

"I don't know what to do," I whispered at last.

"I think you ought to go and sit with her," he told me. "It won't do any good but, you may well regret it in future if you don't."

I nodded and allowed him to help me out of bed. "I'll go and get dressed," he said as I started to organise my own clothes.

"You're coming with me?" I asked, astonished and yet desperately grateful.

"It's not the sort of thing that anybody should have to do on their own," he replied simply.

The journey had a surreal quality as the limousine sped us through the dark of the night. The nursing home was quite a way out of London, set in spacious grounds, and, as we rolled up the driveway, I realised in a vague sort of way that the place must be expensive... really expensive.

It felt strange, walking into my mother's room. Although I'd never been there before, it all felt completely familiar from the remote monitoring system. The one nurse, who I recognised as my mother's principal carer, was sitting by the bed when I arrived. I felt that was a nice touch. She stood up and said a couple of organisation type words but, luckily, Daniel was there to deal with that sort of stuff. I just slipped into her chair and took my mother's hand.

And, a couple of hours later, just as the faintest hint of dawn was making itself felt on the horizon, she died. One minute she was drawing her shallow, ragged breaths and the next she wasn't. A light on the panel above her bed flicked on but there were no alarms. I don't suppose there was any point in alarms... it wasn't as if there was anything anybody could do.

After a couple of minutes, the same nurse returned. "She's gone," I told her quietly and she nodded. I guess she already knew.

"Would you like a while longer with her?" she asked.

"Not really. She's not there anymore. In fact, she's not really been there for months."

"Can we go now?" I asked Daniel.

He nodded. He thanked the nurse politely and told her that his office would be in touch then put an arm around my shoulders and guided me back towards the waiting car.

The rest of the day passed in something of a blur. I fell asleep in the car... and dozed off a couple of times through the day. Daniel went into work for a few hours but, even though I wanted to, he told me that I wasn't allowed. "You'd do more harm than good," he explained. "It's Thursday today so you're taking today and tomorrow off as compassionate leave."

And the look he gave me let me know that further protests would not do any good but that they might just earn me a couple of slaps.

So I just hung around at home. I found myself spending a lot of time with Susan... I'd been slightly ignoring her since I'd been back at work.

Then, on the Friday evening, Daniel invited me into his study. The layout was quite similar to his office at work but, here, the wood was dark mahogany rather than the lighter coloured beech that was used throughout the office.

"You need to think about what you want to do about your mother's house," he told me.

"I really hadn't thought about it."