Mira in the Present Tense (34 page)

I don't see why we need her to do it anyway. I can't understand why Nana chose this woman. She never liked people who spoke too slowly. “Controlling behavior,” Nana used to call it. Celebrant Lady does both as she sits with Mum and Dad, filling in forms and making notes, planning the schedule for Nana's funeral.

“And Mira here, she wants to read a poem or say something.” Dad smiles at me, probably trying to make me feel involved.

“Ah,” sighs Celebrant Lady without looking my way. “When it comes down to it, it can be very difficult for children to deal with these big emotions. I can always read it out for you,” she says, half smiling in my direction. “What's the name of your poem?”

“I don't know yet,” I lie. Just because I feel like being as unhelpful as possible toward her. “I know the music Nana wanted though,” I tell Dad.

“Do you? That's great. Tell me later,” whispers Dad, looking sideways at an impatient-looking Celebrant Lady.

“Well, let me have the title and author of your poem as soon as you can and a copy, just in case,” she says, packing away her sensible black notebook.

I can't believe that this is actually her job. What she wants to do with her life. Plan other people's funerals.

When she's gone, Mum and Dad are back on the phone. It's as if Krish and me and Laila don't exist anymore. Laila's been plonked in front of the television in a little nest of cushions and Krish is sprawled out on the sofa, still in his pajamas. He hasn't moved all day. I wander up to my room to find something to do. But there it is waiting for me…Nana's easel. Every time I look at it, I can't help but feel as if it's calling me over. It's something about the way it leans. Today, it's bending even farther to the right than ever. I take out my charcoals. It's as if I'm walking toward another human being, but I know it's only an easel, made of wood and spattered with Nana Josie's paint. I fix the canvas in place; it's as if I have no choice…As I start to draw, I can feel something of Nana inside her easel. It must be all those hours she's spent standing in front of it. I don't even have to adjust the height. It fits.

It's not like I've really thought about what I'm going to draw. I just pick up my mirror and place it on a shelf behind the easel, so that I can see myself and draw at the same time. This is my first-ever attempt at a self-portrait, and as soon as I start, I realize how difficult it's going to be. It was much easier to draw Nana than it is to follow every detail of my own face. I work on it for hours, drawing in lines and smudging them out again. It's not just the shape of the face that makes you look like you—you have to try and catch what's coming to the surface. Like the day I understood that Nana was trapped in her body. No matter how accurate you are with the lines and proportions, if you can't catch that, you can't bring a person to life. Finally a face emerges that has something in it that belongs to me. That's the best I can do for now.

I am lying in bed staring at my first attempt at a self-portrait on Nana's easel.

Mum knocks on the door. She never used to knock.

“Everything all right, Mira? You've been very quiet today.”

Mum walks over to the easel, looking from me to the canvas.

“That's a very sad and somber you,” says Mum, wrapping her arms around me.

I nod.

For a while we just lie there together, looking at the girl in the picture, who is me.

“She looks like I imagine you'll look, when you're older…maybe sixteen, but this terrible sadness will pass,” says Mum, moving the mirror back to the dressing table.

“I just looked in the mirror and tried to draw what I saw,” I tell Mum.

Now that I've finished, the easel's straightened up. It's not calling me over anymore.

When I turn the light off, there is nothing sitting in the corner of the room watching me. It's just Nana's easel with my first attempt at a self-portrait sitting on it. It's as if it's peaceful now that I've done what it wanted. Can there be such a thing as a peaceful easel? Pat Print would say there could.

I wake with an acid taste in my mouth and a dull ache in my belly…I know what's coming and I actually want it to come right now. That way, by the time it's Nana's funeral, it will all be over. Today I feel like lying in bed, doing nothing, seeing no one.

“I've got a job for you today,” says Mum, opening a box full of programs for Nana's funeral. There are hundreds of them.

“Are there that many people coming?”

“It's hard to know, Mira, but Josie wanted glitter, so glitter she must have.”

For the cover of the program Nana chose a photo of her by the sea in Suffolk. She's throwing a piece of wood into the waves for Claude, her Newfoundland. She wanted us—me, Krish, and Laila—to sprinkle glitter on the waves in the photo. So that's what we try to do, but it's impossible with Laila “helping,” because she either keeps trying to eat the glitter or just splodges it onto the cards. Mum says it doesn't matter, but I think it does. Nana would have liked the idea of Laila joining in, but not if she made a mess of the cards. After ruining about five of them, Mum finally realizes that it's just not going to work, so she takes her off to the swings.

Krish sits in silence, carefully sprinkling just the right amount of glitter onto each wave. I have mixed the glitter to be the color of the Suffolk sea on a warm summer's evening…silvery-blue.

You know that there's something wrong when Krish is this still and quiet.

“I've done twenty—how about you, Krish?”

That should wind him up enough to get a reaction. But Krish just counts his pile without looking up.

“Fifteen,” he shrugs as if he doesn't care.

“Are you all right?”

He doesn't answer, but just carries on gluing and glittering.

Glitter is sprinkled all over this house, but there is nothing here to celebrate.

Aunty Abi, Aunty Mel, and Piper arrive to take Krish off to buy a suit. His first-ever suit. I see that Mum's already decided that I'm going to wear what Nana bought me for my birthday, because she's washed and ironed it and hung it on the back of my bedroom door. I wonder if she saw the blood. I suppose I
have
to wear it now because if she didn't see it there's no excuse not to wear it.

When Piper sees Krish and me, he barks and jumps all over us, licking our faces like he's really missed us.

“Can we take him for a walk?” Krish pleads, jumping up and down in excitement. It's the first time I've seen him anything like his usual lively self since Nana died.

“
After
we've got your suit,” says Abi.

“Boring!” sighs Krish.

Krish hardly ever wears anything except sports clothes or, if he's being really smart, jeans. So going shopping for a suit is not exactly his idea of heaven. I would love to go out and choose something to wear, something I really like, but I wouldn't go today, not to try things on…just in case. One thing that does make Krish happy is the fact that Aunty Mel has taken the roof off her beaten-up old sports car. As they drive off, Krish waves like the queen, probably to make me jealous. Irritating though he is, I'm actually pleased he's more his old self again.

I lie on my bed for most of the day, flicking through Nana's giant art books…her art books
and
her collection of catalogs from all the exhibitions she ever went to in her life…she left them all to me.

The phone rings. Mum's voice is shrieking at the same unbearable pitch as the smoke alarm. Suddenly the atmosphere in the house is charged. To make matters worse, Laila sets up her wailing. I jump off my bed and listen from the landing.

“What do you mean, run off? How long ago?” Mum fires question after question down the phone. I run downstairs to see that Mum's face has turned Payne's Gray. Dad's rocking Laila, too fast, backward and forward, straining to hear what's going on over Laila's wailing. Mum's holding her hand over her mouth, trying to calm herself down. She looks as if she can't believe what she's hearing.

“OK! Sam and Mira will come over to look with you. If we don't find him in an hour, we'll call the police.”

Dad hands Laila to Mum.

“Abi's on her mobile,” says Mum. “They're looking over the Heath for him.”

“Get your shoes on, Mira,” orders Dad.

Suddenly we are speeding toward the Heath. This is the second time in a month I've been in a car with my dad in a total panic. Pat Print was right: a lot can happen in a month. We're taking the same route that we always took to the hospice and that's what gives me the idea.

“Maybe he's gone to the hospice.”

“Why would he do that, Mira?”

“I don't know. He's been very quiet since Nana died.”

“It's worth a try, I suppose,” Dad says, picking up his mobile to call them, but right at that moment his phone rings.

“Uma…where? Mira thought he might…Ran all that way…Have you called Abi? Good. I'll pick him up.”