by Mavis Cheek
She looked across at Pauline now. She was standing a little to the back, looking proud of her tears and doing a great deal better than the widow as Queen of Grief. After the funeral, Flora told herself, I shall probably go to pieces. Quite suddenly. So I shall need something to do. Definitely. After the funeral. So many things had been set aside for after the funeral. And now here was Giles’s enthusiastically glum graveside eulogy finally, finally, slowly, slowly drawing to a close. Looking up from under her hat at the clear blue sky she willed Giles to get a move on. She was feeling hungry, no doubt about it. So hungry that Flora felt she could kill for a bridge roll with any filling, absolutely any filling, at all. The vicar surreptitiously consulted his list (so many people wanted to give testimony to Edward’s wonderful qualities) but Flora knew that Hilary was next and she, Flora, was the last.
She quickly pulled her features back into a suitably bleak expression and looked down at her feet. Ah well. At least she looked the part with her long black dress and her black chiffon shawl and her plain black mushroom of a hat. The shawl rippled slightly in the April breeze adding drama to her stillness, which she liked. It seemed more visually appropriate. She was grateful for that. While she couldn’t feel what she was supposed to feel she at least looked as if she could. Not for nothing was the wearing of mourning for anything up to a year in olden days considered an occasion of respect rather than grief. Mourning dress made you feel respectable no matter what sunny thoughts were held in your heart.
Flora stared down at the neatly dug oblong hole before her which had been annoyingly draped in mock turf. The coffin rested nearby. Elaborate handles, Hilary’s choice. Next stop canned music. Well, beneath that bright green plastic was the end of it. The clay, the clay. No more Edward. If only she had paid attention before stepping out from that bay tree he might be alive now. If only she had realised that teaching was something she could enjoy as a career, if only she had been more confident that snub noses and freckles and round potato/bun faces did not necessarily mean you were left on the shelf. And that if you were left on the shelf it did not, altogether, mean that life was dead . . . Heaven knew what it would be like without him now – horrible and unfamiliar and empty and unexciting, she thought, but it would be less tiring, surely? Lesseclipsing?
Just before he died some fool had given Edward a book about Great British Eccentrics. Flora kept hiding it and Edward kept finding it. A silent battle of wills which he was sure to win. She dipped into it and was sore afraid for she knew he would read it cover to cover and then wax lyrical on the subject of John Mytton who rode a bear, Lord North who never got out of bed between October 9th and March 22nd on the grounds that his ancestors had lost The American Colonies (though that might be rather a restful eccentricity for her husband to adopt if she could find a suitable reason for it) and even – God help her – Jeremy Bentham who wanted himself mummified. She decided to leave Edward if he asked for this particular bit of whimsy on the grounds that she drew the line at having his dried corpse sitting in the hall. Thank God he hadn’t got started on putting the book into practice before he died or it would have been straight into the Last Will and Testament . . . And knowing the man, the wonderfully ordinary man, whose legal task it was to discharge that Last Will and Testament, he might feel obliged to carry the instructions out. Her face – she could feel it – softened – her eyes – she could feel them – went a little dewy. They always did when she contemplated that particular Mr Ordinary . . .
How she had longed to be married to someone very, very ordinary. How she had longed for a husband who did sensible things; played golf, read political memoirs or biographies, took the dog for a simple walk (i.e. not attached to a little cart so that they could garner bits of wood) watched Panorama and washed the car. In these last years, had she been in any way convinced God was alive and well and likely to grant her request, she would have prayed for just that. A safe, ordinary husband to match her own plain style. Flora had not the slightest illusion about her plainness. Even when walking back up the aisle with Edward, the comforting veil thrown back, she’d had a momentary temptation to hold her bridal flowers in front of her face. But everyone’s eyes were actually on Edward even then, and in their years of marriage she, too, liked to look at him . . .
But this other – this normal other – she thought wistfully – was her little secret. He liked playing golf, or reading the newspaper, or sitting on the sofa with his little bald patch, his slightly pouchy eyes, his slightly paunchy belly and an abiding interest in – if not Panorama – then Question Time. Which would suit her just fine. It crossed her mind that now she was free she could do something about it. Crossed her mind, and very swiftly went out of it. Despicable thought. He was a married man. And anyway, do what?
She took a sideways look at Hilary. Pink-eyed, streaming tears, brave little profile, hankie at her nose. At least she was doing it right. Flora never seemed to get anything right. Even when Hilary was dumped by the boyfriend-before-Robin (he was running two women) Flora may have felt the hurt as if it were her own – but when she expressed surprise she was made to feel that she should have recognised such an iniquity. Edward, on the other hand, immediately said that he had never trusted the blighter at which Hilary fell into his arms and said Oh Daddy, you were so right, making Flora feel worse. Of course she cared, she cared very much, but Flora found her daughter a little daunting, a little self-satisfied and sometimes very irritating indeed. She was certainly not one to let an opportunity for drama go by if she could help it and she could even keep a coughing fit going for what seemed like eternity. That was not to say she did not care deeply – and rightly – about her father’s death – of course she did. But she was also poised, very poised, to make a meal of it.
Flora turned her head away and looked about her, past the bowed heads of the mourners, to where the sun put a mellow glow on the honey-coloured sandstone of the old church. Just beyond the tower (fifteenth-century with seventeenth-century additions, Edward would wish to tell you) she could see the rise of Blowhorn Lane, which led to Lodge Cottage and beyond it she could just make out the beginning of the old stone wall. What ghosts walked hereabouts, she wondered. What have these walls seen, this church? And how fascinating is the journey of discovery when you peel back the layers of the past. Those monks – good and bad – the Catholic schemers, the Orthodox righteous and the zealous Reformers – the families with their new fortunes and their misfortunes. No different, she thought, no different at all, except for the vagaries of time.
Hilary’s sobs brought Flora back to reality. Giles was giving it all he’d got and there were tears coursing down his cheeks, too. Hers seemed to be the only dry ones in the place. Rather wonderful that Edward should command so much emotion. Even as she put her arm through her daughter’s and said, ‘There, there, Hil, there, there . . .’ she sent her mind to safer, more comforting ground where it dwelled in domesticated places. Less marble halls than the kitchen and the downstairs cloakroom back at the Lodge. Had Mrs Graves and her daughter Martha (of droit de seigneur fame) got on with the finger foods? Had Lucy, her neurotic cleaning person who practically genuflected at Edward and who sometimes walked into Flora so little notice did she take of her, and who insisted she was only twenty-nine but who seemed to remember The Eagles and ‘Hotel California’ rather perfectly and who pored over Hello Magazine looking for signs of facelifts and rubber breasts much as Midas might have pored over his gold – had she nipped back and managed to put the Beckhams down for a moment and place enough clean towels into the downstairs lavatory? Well – nothing Flora could do about it if she had not.
Mrs Graves and her daughter Martha were the pillars of Hurcott Ducis catering. Mrs Graves ‘did’ for village weddings, baptisms, funerals, eighteenths, twenty-firsts and the occasional nervous and very low-key Bar Mitzvah. The village had not yet found the need to celebrate Holi but if it came along Mrs Graves would be there, with her sleeves rolled up, staining the rice and charging for it. She was partic
ularly appropriately named – Flora looked down into the hole in front of her again for the job in hand today. As Mrs Graves always said, of them all she much preferred a burial. And she was a dab hand with the Funeral Baked Meats. Well, bridge rolls by any other name, prawns in aspic, little tiny sausages in sweet and sticky something or other and cream cheese and mixed dried herb roulade, sweet biscuits and fruit cake. The funeral menu might not alter but Mrs Graves had a particular face for each catering occasion. Flora had seen her performing at them all – and when she and Martha arrived at the house this morning Mrs Graves looked most suitably solemn. And she was clearly very shocked at Flora’s cheery greeting but Flora couldn’t stop herself. After all it was a sunny morning and it seemed to have been raining for days. Instead of dabbing her nose with a laceedged handkerchief and silently indicating that the pair of them should enter the house of death, Flora opened the door saying, ‘Come in, come in. Lovely day for it, don’t you think?’ The sight of their mouths in two perfect circles set before her still glowed in her mind.
She winced and refocused, looking out covertly from under the brim of her hat at the distant ancient walls surrounding them. They were comforting in their way – old, solid, good to look at, good to sit on, always there and always functional. They made a more pleasing eye-full in the morning sun than that reproachful, vivid green clad hole in the ground.
She looked down at her watch as if bowing to silent contemplation of the deeply spiritual. Her watch said that Giles had been talking for nearly ten minutes . . . but now, at last, he was stepping down and even brushing a tear from his manly eye. That was nice. Well, that was her husband’s halo dusted. And now it was Hilary’s turn. And the good daughter would, quite rightly, polish it. Those two presented a united front on the subject of Edward’s peccadilloes. Giles – if faced with a peccadillo – usually slapped Edward on the back and opened another bottle and Hilary, living and working in Cambridge and with some hundred and fifty miles between them, did not have to experience these peccadilloes first hand. Indeed, when it was the painting peccadillo and Edward offered her some of his brighter watercolours of Lytham Hill, she said – with great regret – that the house was so tiny that they really had no wall space. As far as Flora could remember there was nothing hanging on the walls of the Cambridge cottage except a couple of indifferent old Habitat prints and she was tempted to point out that her daughter had four rooms, kitchen and bathroom which constituted – by her calculation at least – twenty-six hanging possibilities if you included two walls in the hallway – but she did not. She simply went on putting as many as possible of the gelatinous oils and insipid watercolours away at the back of a cupboard and hanging what she must in the remotest places she could find.
Hilary swung her long blonde plait over her shoulder and stepped up on to the little podium, and Flora was inwardly sighing. Hilary was going to be brave. Pride came into the equation now and nudged irritation out of the way. Whatever else you could or could not say about their daughter, she was both confident and clever. And still beautiful. Flora blinked away the stunning possibility that between them she and Edward might have got something right, and watched as Hilary straightened her back, swung her plait once more, presented a tear-stained and agonised face to the world (as is her prerogative, Flora reminded herself), and then, as her daughter began with the words ‘My father was one of the last true Renaissance Eccentrics . . .’ Flora immediately remembered who the fool was who had bought him that book.
Hilary kept her eyes on the coffin while she spoke and it did look remarkably and movingly like a scene from Greek tragedy. How soothing these rituals are, thought Flora. And even she felt her eyes grow damp to think of that eternal rest in the damp, dark tomb. Until she remembered it was already occupied.
The ceremonials went on. And on. Edward, in the way of Men of Destiny, apparently, had set down his funeral arrangements in minute detail. And they were adhered to faithfully. Only in one respect were his wishes departed from – which was when Flora, instead of giving the final eulogy as designated in the order of things, read from a poem. It was much easier to speak another’s words than her own. Hers were a confused mixture of affection and loathing, acceptance and irritation, sadness and excitement and panic and relief at the prospect of a new day dawning. And the wait had been so long. Before Giles and Hilary there had been Foot’s rather grand reading of Sir Randolph’s testimonial and Myra (from the library) and Betty (from the post office stores) speaking together about what a lovely, lovely man he was, always so polite and gracious and never a cross word, so now there was precious little left to say.
Hilary stood down and kept her chin up. She nodded to Flora as she passed her much as the Queen might nod at a grandee on Armistice Day. Flora then walked to the front and stood there for a moment before saying quietly that she felt Edward, as a man of erudition, would want something literary in the last resort. The words ‘last resort’ were, she realised, wholly inappropriate, but they had the useful effect of setting Hilary off, who set off Pauline Pike who was standing at the back but had moved forward (Flora forbade her from videoing the proceedings – firmly, but kindly) and within the jumble of sounds pursuant to that, the deceased’s widow in the appropriately rippling shawl, began:
The Winter being over,
In order comes the Spring,
Which doth green herbs discover,
And cause the birds to sing.
The night also expired,
Then comes the morning bright,
Which is so much desired
By all who love the light.
This may learn
Them that mourn,
To put their grief to flight:
The Spring succeedeth Winter,
And day must follow night.
He therefore that sustaineth
Affliction or distress,
Which every member paineth,
And findeth no release:
Let such therefore despair not,
And therefore must have end.
They that faint
With complaint
Therefore are to blame;
They add to their afflictions,
And amplify the same.
(At this point she raised her voice as Hilary’s was, indeed, adding to her afflictions and amplifying the same.)
But those that are contented,
However things do fall,
Much anguish is prevented,
And they soon freed from all.
They finish all their labours
With much felicity,
Their joy in trouble savours
Of perfect piety, Cheerfulness
Doth express
A settled pious mind,
Which is not prone to grudging,
From murmuring refined.
Flora folded the piece of paper, looked up, and smiled at the gathering. Most of whom smiled back, though some looked quietly cautious. Fortunately for Flora, poetry is not something that the British middle classes feel confident of criticising or they might have realised that the message contained was mixed, to say the least, and not altogether suitable for a grieving widow, Spring following Winter and Day following Night and so forth. Nor was the title one she could share: ‘A song to excite Spiritual Joy’. But its author was an obscure female poet, An Collins, and Flora was an obscure widow, and if it sounded wrong it felt right. No one noticed. Instead there were some bowed heads, a few nodding sagely, and fleeting, knowing expressions of immense understanding exchanged. Hilary, fortunately, was so absorbed by her own response that it was unlikely she had heard anything beyond the rhythm of the piece. She and Pauline Pike seemed to be in direct grieving rivalry – with Pauline just having the edge in the highness of her notes.
Flora smiled decently at the gathering, bent her knees (which creaked in suitable memento mori) and delicately dropped the copy of Great British Eccentrics on to the top of the coffin. At least he would have something to read in that fine and private place.<
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Thus, over an hour after they first assembled, the mourners departed the perfect lawns and gently drunken gravestones of St Lawrence’s to take sustenance from whatever Mrs Graves had concocted. As they made their slow way back to the house, Flora’s heart plunged a little. She knew she should have taken greater care with the catering arrangements and not abandoned it entirely to Hurcott Ducis’ finest. At least Mrs Dalloway had gone to get the ruddy flowers herself. It would be entirely her fault if Mrs Graves had had a brainstorm and scattered the house with shocking salmon-pink begonias and the guests were offered pickled eggs and rollmops instead of the usual roulade and bridge rolls. During the consultation Flora simply waved a hand and said, ‘Whatever you think appropriate, Mrs Graves. After all, you’ve been to a greater number of funerals than I have – and seen a greater number of people into their graves than I could ever hope to do or ever will . . .’ Then – unfortunately – she had tinkled a merry laugh and added, ‘Why, you could do Funeral Feasts on Mastermind.’
Mrs Graves then opened her mouth, closed it, and appeared to ponder the absolute truth of this while at the same time realising that the statement was wholly improper. If Mrs Graves still felt aggrieved that there had been no enjoyable batting to and fro of ideas, let alone true tearfulness, her perfect revenge might lie in the provision of wildly inappropriate food. Village people could behave very strangely, Flora had found. Very strangely.
As Flora skirted her way around the grave she hoped that if the catering was oddly scattered with pickled herring and the like, the guests would perceive it to be a mistake made from profound grief and not from a complete lack of interest in what they ate. At least Giles was doing the drink. She wondered what grape variety would go with a pickled egg if the occasion arose and decided that if everyone looked upon their platefuls with creeping horror, she would tell the assembled that these were particular favourites of Edward’s. Oh yes, he liked nothing more than a rollmop and a pair of pickled eggs, my husband . . . Such, she thought, are the madnesses that attend the banalities of committal.