Free Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty Page A

broke the news to me. After she took me home that night, she sat at my kitchen table with a cup of tea and explained that I would be appointed a family liaison officer who would guide me through the procedures that followed.
    I looked at her. ‘I want you,’ I said.
    Gently, she explained to me that it was usual for the family liaison officer to be someone different from the person who brought the news to a family’s door. ‘I’m not FLO-trained,’ she added.
    The acronym reminded me of my professional life – the NHS, an organisation that would collapse in a puddle of taxpayers’ pennies were it not for acronyms. ‘This FLO- training ,’ I said, ‘how long is it?’
    She gave a small, tight smile. ‘Six days,’ she said softly.
    ‘I want you,’ I repeated.
    ‘I’ll speak to my Inspector,’ she said. ‘We’re a small unit out here.’ I wasn’t sure whether she meant that they were short- staffed as a result, or whether she was close enough to her Inspector to get what she wanted.
    I didn’t tell her the real reason why I wanted her: it wasn’t in spite of the fact that she had brought the news to my door, it was because of it. She and the young male officer together formed the bridge I had just crossed, from my old life with Betty in it to the new, unimaginable one without her. Bridges can be crossed both ways.
    My house is full of people but Toni is the only person I can bear. I am neurotically attached to her. She has given me her mobile phone number, along with an explanation that it will be turned off when she is off-shift, but she is around a lot anyway. I find her vastly preferable to the people who know and care for me, who have filled my house. David is here all day but leaves at night to go back to Chloe and the baby. He plays with Rees a lot. Rees understands only that Betty is not around and that lots of people have come to be with him so he won’t be lonely. There is a lot of food in the kitchen, so as far as he is concerned, the atmosphere is festive. He is enjoying the attention.
    Julie from across the road has taken charge of my kitchen, which is the hub of activity in a busy house. When friends and neighbours come with food in plastic tubs or Pyrex dishes – which they do a lot – she labels it and puts it in the fridge. Mrs Cracknell, a widow from the end of the road, sits at the kitchen table dressed in the sort of dark brown dress my mother would have called a frock, wringing a hanky in her lap. Julie gives her tasks from time to time out of kindness – making hot drinks usually. We all drink hot drink after hot drink: tea, coffee, herbal infusions. Some of them, I don’t even recognise the taste. I drink whatever I am given – the hotter the better as I am frozen to the core – but I cannot eat a thing. Between them, Julie and Mrs Cracknell run a wellorganised outfit, dealing with the physical needs of our many visitors. I might feel a vague sense of gratitude were it not for my low-level but persistent anger that anyone is in the house at all. These people are here because Betty is gone. I want them gone and Betty back.
    My role in all this activity is simply to exist, to breathe and to carry on breathing. That is all that is expected from me as I move from room to room. If I go up the stairs, for instance, and meet someone such as Aunt Lorraine descending, she flattens herself against the wall and allows me to pass without comment. When David’s father comes into the hallway from the kitchen and sees me standing there alone, in front of the mirror, he stops, then turns and goes back into the kitchen, even though he has his coat on and is clearly attempting to leave the house, as if I am an empress whose frown holds mortal sway, someone to be skirted with great care. Once in a while my son, wearying of the attentions of others, approaches me and clambers on my lap, or comes and stands next to me and hugs my legs. When he does this, I am aware of the other people in the room