YESTERDAY

We woke up and went out the back.  We each sat on broken wooden lounger and breathed in the soft air. The blue sky hummed faintly and the apple tree cast dappled shadows onto the mud patch that has never been a lawn. A tiny green fruit plopped off the tree, our cat rattled the high fence as he landed shakily on it and we both tensed, would he fall? The dog came out and stretched her hind legs, wagging optimistically.

”Look at Mrs Blackbird eating berries” said J. “It’s funny, I only say Mrs Blackbird, because your brother talks like that and he got it from your mum.” I turned to my sister-in-law: “Today is a day to be happy on, really,” I replied.

Only the dog is new in our lives, acquired as a comfort. The cat, the loungers, the fence and the apple tree, all were things she knew; she, the one we are grieving. My daughter, J’s niece – has been dead five months; at just sixteen, and by her own hand.

So, as on so many other days since January, we set off to walk the marshes. The door clunked behind us and down the path we went. My young dog strained at the lead, her black haunches glistening. She jumped at my side to play-catch her lead and snuffle at my hand. J’s older dog barked, over-excited as usual.

On Walthamstow Marsh the lid on the world opens up unfailingly. The endless sky, the wide fields, a landscape now covered in lush grasses, cow parsley and elderflower, remain an incongruous paradise in our city.

We paced the paths, talking and then quiet. A train’s low crescendo carved through the green, from Walthamstow into Clapton. I shuddered. What I couldn’t fathom, or bear, is the resilience of everything; of the train, of the Victorian bridge it crosses, of the churning seasons, of us. We were still here, walking, conversing and breathing.

“Watch out for that giant hogweed,” warned J. “Don’t let the dogs near it, even if they brush against it, it’s toxic.” She paused. “And there’s hemlock in the car park.”

The hogweed stood defiantly above the vegetation on the riverbank. It rose erect with a huge head of white flowers fanned out. It was primeval and triumphant. “Splendid,” I said, “Like a monster cow parsley.”

 For a bit we didn’t talk, and I concentrated on the chorus of chirruping and cooing, woodpigeons or pigeons, I wondered; do urban pigeons coo? My fingers moved to check my ‘phone but I stopped myself: such small thoughts.

“In Nick Cave’s film, he and his wife chose to be happy after their son died. He was the same age and left behind a sibling too, a twin actually,” J ventured. “And it was a shock for them as well.”

I thought about my precious remaining daughter. “I don’t know if I can choose to be happy.”

It made sense though. It was a bright London morning in early summer. Nature, oblivious to the precariousness of all existence, was on clamorous display. It struck me that there was no choice. We would have to be happy in the end.

The sound of a train droned in the distance again.