It is four days after Hugh’s funeral. Augusta and Johana arrive at Celia’s door with a pot of soup for supper and a tin of beskuit for emergencies. The town is quiet in the afternoon heat. The neighbours already know everything, as they always do.
Johana knocks and they wait. From inside comes the long shriek of packing tape being pulled from its roll.
Augusta glances at Johana.
“She’s packing.”
They find Celia in the dining room, surrounded by boxes. Hugh’s good dinner service lies wrapped in newspaper on the table, and his books are already stacked in a pile by the door.
“Put that tape gun down,” says Augusta.
“I have to do something,” says Celia.
“You do,” says Augusta. “But not this. Not yet. You don’t know enough yet to know what you’re packing for. Come and sit down. Johana brought soup.”
Celia looks at the half-filled boxes, the dinner service wrapped in newspaper, the books waiting by the door. Then she puts down the tape gun and follows them into the kitchen.
Mark and David have left—David back to Beaufort West, Mark to Cape Town. They will be back with their families to visit again. They will definitely be back for the memorial service. They had been kind and busy and full of plans.
They are Hugh’s boys, not hers, but she loves them. It has never really mattered. Loving was enough. Now she won’t burden them, or their step-sister, Maggie, in Norwich with her issues. Maggie will be here to help soon. She is both looking forward to it and dreading it. How will she control her grief.
Now the boys have gone, and the house is very quiet; empty. Except for the animals.
Until now. She greets her two friends.
“I don’t know where to start,” says Celia. “There’s so much. And I don’t understand half of what I’m supposed to be doing. David says he’ll handle the estate, but he’s never done anything like this before. He keeps talking about the Master and the Receiver, and I don’t know what any of it means.”
Augusta ladles out the soup.
“Start with what you do know. Hugh had a will.”
“Yes. The house is to be sold and divided between me and the boys. He thought I’d live with one of them.”
Johana looks up.
“And will you?”
Celia is silent for a moment.
“David’s wife is very kind. But Beaufort West isn’t home. And Mark is in Cape Town.”
Augusta says nothing. She picks up a beskuit and waits.
“Is it straightforward?” asks Johana. “The will?”
“Hugh thought so,” says Celia. “But the lawyer mentioned something about the pension. That it may have been… arranged… during his first marriage. I don’t entirely understand what that means.”
Augusta sets down her cup.
“How old is Hugh’s will?”
Celia thinks.
“He had it updated when we married. But that was twenty-five years ago.”
Next time: What home means.
Booklet: Some thoughts on: Managing Death and Retirement