Human Remains

your own.’
    That almost made me laugh. Who could I bring? There was nobody at all.
    ‘I’ll come in a while,’ I said. ‘Thank you again.’
    ‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘We’ll see you later. Take care.’
    I replaced the phone and looked around the office. I was sitting in the MIR at one of the spare desks, and all around me conversations were going on, people were on the phone. Some man standing in the doorway was laughing about something with another person standing on the other side, out of my line of sight. None of them had the faintest idea what had happened. None of them knew.
    I stood up and sat down again as my legs felt as though they might not hold me up.
    ‘Are you OK?’ said the DC who was sitting at the desk next to mine. Was his name Gary, or had I just made that up?
    ‘My mum died,’ I said.
    I think he thought I was joking, at first, or maybe he thought he’d misheard, because he smiled at me. Then he must have seen from my face that I wasn’t joking at all, and he said, quietly, ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Was that your dad on the phone?’
    ‘No, the hospital.’
    I tried to stand up and this time my legs felt better, so I mumbled something about getting my coat and said a curt, ‘Excuse me,’ to the two men standing in the doorway sharing jokes with each other. That was just not appropriate on a murder enquiry, and anyone would have been irritated even without the added distress of having just heard about the death of your parent – the end of your family.
     
     
    The hospital had a bag with all my mum’s things in it, which didn’t amount to much because I hadn’t had a chance to take anything in for her.
    One of the uniformed women on the ward – possibly a nurse, maybe some kind of healthcare assistant or whatever they are – took me down to the Chapel of Rest. Everyone I saw spoke to me in hushed, gentle tones. I suppose that was their training, their way of avoiding me spiralling into hysteria. But, despite the tumultuous rush of events that had led up to this point, I did not feel hysterical. I felt calm, almost detached from it all. I had a job to do now, a list of things I needed to work my way through until I could get on with my life.
    Number one, go and see Mum.
    Collect form from someone. They’d made an appointment.
    Take form to registrar to get death certificate.
    Go to see Mum’s solicitor and get temporary power of attorney over her effects.
    Check her house is OK.
    Contact funeral director.
    Arrange funeral.
    Pack up Mum’s things.
    Put the house on the market.
    There were hundreds of other steps that would fall in between these ones, but focusing on the milestones ahead while I was sitting in the chair beside my mother’s body in the Chapel of Rest was really the only way I could cope.
    I wondered if I should talk to her. What could I even say?
    I was so tired it was hard to think straight. My mind was wandering, searching around for her, for a sense of her, the way I felt for the angels when I needed them. I might ask and get an answer, feel a supportive hand on my shoulder, feel a breath or hear a whispered word of love. I closed my eyes and tried to feel her presence, even though she was next to me.
    Mum
, I thought,
help me. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
.
    I could feel nothing, nothing at all. It felt as if she had gone.
    I opened my eyes again. There was music playing in the background, something classical without being spiritual. It was probably Classic FM’s Top 20 Chapel of Rest Hits, and the thought raised a smile that threatened to turn into a most inappropriate giggle. And something else struck me then. I’d nearly made it to the end of my thirties without having ever seen a dead body, and now in the space of a few days I’d seen two.
    I stood up. I looked at her one more time, thinking I should touch her, I should kiss her goodbye, I should
do something
… but I could not. Instead I left her lying there with the white sheet up to her chin, turned my back on her and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind me.
    I collected the form, which needed to be taken to the registrar as soon as possible. ‘I could go now,’ I said to the woman who’d handed it to me.
    ‘It will be closed now,’ the nurse said gently. ‘I think you might need to leave it until tomorrow.’
    My first thought was that I had work tomorrow, but they were probably expecting me to take some time off. I would