Free The Long Fall by Julia Crouch Page A

– you just go into the chemist and ask for slimming pills (‘though you may have to tell them they’re for a friend,’ she said, laughing and flicking my bony shoulder). I’m going to give it a go tomorrow.
    We’ll get really wasted!!!

KATE
     
    2013
     
    Kate had nine days before Tilly’s departure.
    She sat in the kitchen trying to eat blueberries for breakfast and thinking about what it meant to her. She still had deep-rooted, ridiculous misgivings. Despite an hour of yoga on the mezzanine above the bedroom she shared with Mark, she hadn’t been able to breathe away the tightening in her belly. All she had managed were five berries, individually chewed, washed down with a cup of peppermint tea.
    About four calories.
    She glanced up at the photograph she and Mark had commissioned years ago from Steve Mitchell – the photographer who had more recently made her the Face of Kindness. It hung, huge on the wall, equal to any of the other contemporary artworks that filled their home.
    She rarely looked at it. There was no need: she knew it off by heart. It was the shape of her family, set against a white studio background. She was wearing the long swirling Pucci dress she had practically lived in that summer; Mark stood at her side, handsome as ever, his hair only slightly threaded with the silver that had since taken over. Holding her hand was Tilly – a chubby little seven-year-old girl in a Liberty lawn dress. Scampering beside her, a little apart, her knees bent and slightly blurred as if she were about to jump, was Martha – a piece of thistledown, ready to blow away.
    The tumour must have already been growing in her brain, but no one knew it at the time.
    They were so happy then.
    It was because of this that she had never listened to Mark’s oft-voiced suggestion that it might be helpful for her to have it taken down. In fact, she would fight to the death to defend her right to keep it up there.
    She drained her cup of the last drop of tea.
    When Tilly was born – conceived after a determined and difficult couple of years’ work with an expensive private nutritional therapist – Kate had secretly called her Tilly Purpose. Her arrival shooed away all her existential doubts. Well, nearly all. She could hardly believe that she had been permitted such joy. Then, when Martha came along, she felt, for the first time ever, that she was complete. She even forgot to feel undeserving for a short while.
    The short while that Martha lived.
    Now Tilly was growing and going. Kate knew it was inevitable – healthy even – but she would soon be rattling around the house with no one to clear up after, no one to chat to late at night over a cup of tea or a glass of wine.
    No more purpose? She shook away the thought.
    As places to feel like a loose ball bearing went, this house wasn’t too bad, with its tall ceilings, clean, white surfaces and – apart from the girls’ floor – minimal furnishing. Mark and Kate had bought the place – the lion’s share of a converted primary school – off-plan just after Tilly was born, when, even so close to the river, Battersea was still a relatively daring choice for people like them.
    Kate had worked closely with the developers to upgrade the finish to her exact specification, and it was glorious. She loved the views from its vast, tall windows. The light and space and familiarity of her home were great correctives for the dark cloud that sometimes hung over her.
    She put the uneaten blueberries in the fridge, placed her cup in the dishwasher, wiped down all the kitchen surfaces with bleach and performed her ritual daily wash of the kitchen and living-area floor.
    After that, she washed and dried her hands and applied the rich, unperfumed hand cream that went a small way to counteracting the effect of her daily use of harsh cleaning products. It had never seemed right, somehow, to seek to protect her skin with rubber gloves.
    Then it was on to the rest of her tasks. It was Monday