Human Remains

gas – but then the heating wouldn’t come on, and maybe the pipes would freeze.
    My mind started to spin in exhausted circles, so I forced myself to put those thoughts to one side. I turned the light on, put my bag down in the hallway and hung my coat up on the coat stand as I did every time I came into this house.
    She’d moved here fifteen years ago when her sister, my aunt, moved to Scotland. They’d shared a house after I went away to university but, once Aunty Bet went, Mum had wanted to live nearer to me. Back then she was still active, still going out to bingo with her friends, still visiting the supermarket herself three times a week, going on the odd weekend coach trip with the Social Club. I don’t think I had a real awareness of her getting older but, looking back, the signs were there. She fell out with someone at the Social Club so she stopped going there. Aunty Bet died five years ago and the death of her only sister started Mum on a downward spiral. She started worrying about money, even though she had a good pension and had never worried about it before. Not long after that she stopped going to bingo too. And then it was just me. I was the only person left for her, apart from the neighbours who popped in to check on her every so often, and even then she used to complain about them to me when I came round.
    ‘They’re always bothering me,’ she would hiss, as though they might be listening with glasses pressed to their ears on the other side of the wall. ‘They just turn up. I mean, it’s not exactly convenient.’
    ‘Why?’ I said. ‘What might you be doing?’ I refused to lower my voice in these circumstances. We never heard them talking; why should they be able to hear what we were saying?
    As it turned out, Len next door had almost saved her life, and had certainly given me the chance to say a kind of goodbye even if she couldn’t hear me. I would have been to see her the next evening, but by then she would have been dead. If she’d been a bit more welcoming towards him, he might even have discovered her a bit sooner than he did, and then maybe she would have survived.
    I went into the living room, turning the light on, and almost expecting to see her sitting in her chair. The impact of the empty chair hit me like a physical force and I took a step back from it. Every time I visited her – three or four times a week – she would be sitting there. Occasionally she would get up while I was there to go to the loo or do something in the kitchen, using her Zimmer or her sticks to get about, using my helpful hand to heave her out of the chair, but most of the time she would sit and wait for me to fetch things for her.
    And the chair was empty. There was a dip in the seat cushion and the covers were both faded and grubby from years of use. The arms of the chair were grey from the constant touch of her hands. She was not there any more.
    I was breathing quite fast and I felt panicky, strange. I wondered what it was that had suddenly set me off like this. The house was so silent, so still. Had I ever been in this room without the television being on? Even the air felt different without her in here.
    I took a deep breath and got myself back under control. This was no good. I had things to do.
    I turned my back on her chair and went to the kitchen. It was really dark there, the window facing only the empty yard and the unlit windows of the neighbouring house. I turned on the light.
    It was suspiciously neat. Mum was not fond of doing the washing-up, and when I came to bring her dinner I would usually start by washing up the dishes from the previous few meals. But the sink was clear, the grey dishcloth draped over the mixer tap, a steady drip-drip splashing into the sink. I opened the fridge. Inside it looked bare – a couple of jars of jam, a bottle of salad cream, a cardboard egg box, the butter dish, an unopened pack of cheese, an unopened bottle of white wine. Had I even bought those things? I couldn’t remember. Where were the vegetables I’d put in here… when was it? Sunday? She couldn’t have eaten them all before she fell. What about the milk? I’d bought her a new two-pint bottle yesterday.
    ‘Annabel, is that you?’
    The sound from behind me made me jump out of my skin. Len was standing close by. I had no idea how he had managed to get in without me hearing him, given the silence of the house.
    ‘Hello, Len,’ I said. ‘You made me jump.’
    ‘Sorry, my dear. How are