Page 42 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

‘I already do,’ I say, imagining what horrors await me.

‘How about I put the kettle on and we decide how we’re going to tackle this?’ Laura says and Conal and I nod. Daniel just plonks himself down at my feet and promptly closes his eyes, having decided there is minimal craic to be had here.

‘I sorted some of this paperwork into piles,’ Conal says. ‘Mum did a surprisingly good job of tying up loose ends and getting her affairs in order. I should’ve known she would.’ He gestures to the kitchen table on which rests four stacks of letters and documents.

‘She probably didn’t trust us to get it right,’ Conal adds with a smile that is clearly hiding his grief.

‘I’m sure that’s not the case,’ I say as I sit down and start examining the pages in front of me. ‘She just knew this would be hard and she wanted to make it slightly less so for you. That’s all.’

‘She shouldn’t have been worrying about this in the last few months though,’ Conal says and his voice cracks – at which I feel my own heart crack a little.

‘You have to see it as an act of love,’ I say, and swallow hard to keep my emotions in check. ‘My boys are grown men now, but I know as long as I can, I’ll do whatever possible to smooth their paths. That’s what your mum was doing. She was just being the great mum she always was.’

As Laura sits mugs of tea down in front of us, I see Conal wipe away a tear as if he’s embarrassed to have let his guard down. I can’t help it – I reach out and give his hand a squeeze of reassurance which earns me a smile. I can still see traces of that Crunchie eating, smelly boy he used to be, but I also see the man he is – older and wiser – but with the same piercing blue eyes that used to make me feel as if he had X-ray vision, and the same full lips that…

I shudder. My libido has been absent without leave for the better part of a decade and it chooses now, in front of the grieving brother of one of my oldest friends, to walk back into the room, shaking her thang and hollering for attention. What the hell have Gabby and her magic healing stones done to me?

Suddenly I’m not sure if the rising heat in my body is a hot flush, a feeling of intense attraction or Satan opening the trap door to the fiery pits of hell to drag me in for being wholly inappropriate in front of a bereaved man.

I pull my hand away as if I have been burned, because I do feel as if I have been burned. But I have to play it cool and keep my shit together. I have to not think about his eyes or the warmth of his skin when I touched his hand.

‘Did Niamh message you back yet?’ I blurt, a little too loudly, turning to Laura, desperate to change the subject.

She shakes her head. ‘She hasn’t even read it yet. Maybe she lost her phone? Left it in Sonas or something?’

I momentarily get my hopes up.

‘But no,’ Laura adds. ‘She messaged me last night, didn’t she? I don’t know, Becca. But I hope she’s okay.’

I push the worry down, even though it feels a little overwhelming.

‘Will we start with this bank information?’ Conal asks, thankfully distracting me from my spiral by bringing us back on task. ‘From what I can see she had everything up to date but obviously the bank needs to be informed she’s gone and the account needs to be closed.’

‘Where do we even start?’ Laura asks.

‘You have Kitty’s death certificate?’ I ask, knowing how surreal this sounds. I remember picking up a copy of my father’s and really trying to wrap my head around the finality of it. Seeing his name printed on it, his life and death summed up in two words on one page. Subarachnoid haemorrhage. A bleed on the brain. So catastrophic that he never really stood a chance, the doctor had told us. He had looked so peaceful for someone who had undergone something the doctor described as ‘catastrophic’. In time, I was grateful for that.

The worst bit about picking up his death certificate was having to hand it over to my mother. I felt as if I was breaking her heart all over again. There I was, confirming her worst nightmare had come true.

None of it felt real. I was not grown up enough to deal with it. I’m not sure any of us are ever really old enough to deal with the death of a parent. I don’t think it’s possible.

Laura nods in response to my question. ‘Conal registered her death.’

‘And one of you is executor of her will?’ I ask.

Conal nods in reply.

‘It’s relatively simple a task,’ I say. ‘On a practical level anyway. Emotionally it’s tougher. But first go through your mum’s accounts – see if there are ongoing payments which need to be transferred, cancelled or paid off. Then it’s a matter of providing proof that your mum has passed away – so the death certificate – and the bank looks after the rest.’

‘I don’t feel ready,’ Conal says in a small voice that reminds me we are still little more than the children of our parents, wanting to be loved and taken care of.

‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not going to tell you it’s easy. I cried in the bank when I was helping Mum sort out Dad’s affairs. I cried in a lot of places. It was the worst time. Worse than my divorce by far. The staff were so kind though. That helped. I suppose they deal with this sort of thing all the time. And I tried to look at it as a way of taking care of Dad, like he used to take care of me.’

‘I understand that,’ Conal says. ‘You’re right.’

I’m looking at him when I hear the chair Laura has been sitting on scrape back loudly. This causes Daniel and Lazlo to launch into a volley of barks that would wake the dead while Laura shouts over them, ‘I’m so sorry, Becca. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘What?’ I ask, genuinely confused. Why is she apologising to me?

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