by Jessica Mann
FUNERAL SITES
Jessica Mann
© Jessica Mann 1981
Jessica Mann has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1981 by Macmillan.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter One
Rosamund Sholto and representatives of the world’s press arrived at Geneva on the morning of Phoebe Britton’s funeral. While the ‘media people’ queued to clear passport and custom controls, Rosamund Sholto was conducted from the aircraft steps into a chauffeur driven car, and from it, to a scarlet helicopter. She was accompanied by two men in what had become a uniform for Aidan Britton’s staff, dark suits with striped shirts, bowler hats, and umbrellas that were shouldered like arms and never unfurled.
The news of Phoebe’s death had reached Rosamund at the camp in the High Andes at which she had only just arrived to start a climbing holiday. She returned, on foot, by mule, by car, train and plane, to New York, where she was besieged by reporters as she had been by mosquitoes in Peru. There was just time to pack suitable clothes, listen to the messages on her answering machine, and get out to Kennedy Airport.
Now, Rosamund was at once weary and wakeful, tired and tense. She tried to concentrate on the view, interestingly unfamiliar, for she was not used to helicopter travel. The polluted lake gleamed with deceptive innocence in the bright sunshine, its surroundings domesticated, designed for comfort. Turning eastwards, their route followed the Rhône, and its rich, orderly valley, until they swung south again into a lateral valley, deeper in colour, less pacified in aspect. Another limousine was waiting at the helicopter landing place. The frequent changes of altitude over the last few days made Rosamund feel dizzy, and she staggered as she stepped onto the ground. One of the men put his stone-hard arm behind her shoulders and she shrugged herself away.
‘The service begins in half an hour,’ he said. ‘There is a room booked at the hotel, if you want to tidy up.’ He spoke in the public school plonk familiar to Rosamund all her life, and she intensified her acquired drawl in her brief reply.
The hotel was new since Rosamund’s last visit to St Jean, but the chambermaid recognised her and evidently expected to be recognised. When Rosamund shook hands the older woman wept, and spoke of Phoebe and Rosamund as children, and of their father. Rosamund was dry-eyed, but said the right things. She had a shower while the maid pressed the black coat she had dragged from the back of her closet in New York, and brushed the black trilby which had been bought for trekking in the Grand Canyon.
The church was just along the road from the hotel. Sightseers crammed onto the pavements, and it seemed that traffic had been diverted, for the two men waiting to escort her marched Rosamund along the middle of the carriageway. Phoebe had become a Catholic since her marriage, though Aidan remained an Anglican, saying that the combination was vote-catching. Now the village Curé was to conduct the service, but an English bishop had flown out to take part, in demonstration of ecumenicalism. The procession had already arrived when Rosamund went into the church, and the pews were full although the announcement had said ‘Funeral private; memorial service to follow.’
The congregation consisted largely of the villagers, many of whose faces Rosamund should have known. They were dressed ceremoniously in the velvets and embroideries now worn only for formal and traditional events, and some of the women wore the starched and goffered caps which were peculiar to St Jean.
Aidan was waiting in the front pew, and, when Rosamund walked up the aisle, turned half towards her, as once he had turned, in a different church, to face her sister. Aidan was not much changed, except that the brilliantly fair hair was silver, and the once ruddy pads of his cheeks were now flushed from too much wine, food and weather.
The family had dwindled; poor breeding stock. Sholto’s surviving sister leant forward to greet Rosamund, and Rosamund ignored the vacant seat beside Aidan Britton and slipped into the place next to her aunt. They held hands, Lady Anne Sholto’s slippery soft, Rosamund’s brown and hardened. Anne Sholto had brought up the two girls. From time to time she wiped her eyes with a large silk handkerchief, but she prayed and stood in time with the congregation. Rosamund and Phoebe’s parents had been cousins, and their maternal uncle, Sir James Sholto Kennedy, sat on Aunt Anne’s other side. Neither of them had married, and the rest of the family party consisted of two obscure and distant cousins, who were ‘Something in the City’ and traded on their relationship.
The service was beautiful. It made a tidy end to an untidy life, and death. Rosamund concentrated on the sounds which fell into the scented air. It would not do to consider the coffin and its contents. Phoebe’s earthly remains had been mutilated in death, and dissected at autopsy. It seemed a pity, in the circumstances, that her religion did not encourage cremation.
After the service, the crowds outside were more pressing, but cars were waiting, and one of Aidan’s men handed Rosamund in to sit beside her aunt. The old lady had composed her face for public inspection with a lifetime’s skill, but when the car was out of the village, her mouth twisted and she wiped her eyes and cheeks again.
‘She was such a sweet girl,’ she murmured. ‘So anxious to please. So biddable. Sholto feared for her, he used to say … poor Phoebe.’
In the old days one could drive up to the chalet only if the track was dry, and then in a jeep or tractor. Towards the end of Sholto’s life, a stone surface had been laid by the farmers who moved their cattle and belongings up to the summer pastures, but now Rosamund saw that the road had been widened and coated with tarmac, and there were passing places gouged into the mountainside. The long car swung smoothly round the bends.
They arrived at the chalet unexpectedly. In the past the journey had taken much longer, and had ended at something very different from what Rosamund now saw. The chalet was so changed as to be recognisable only by its situation. Extensions had been added, and stone facing had replaced the pine planks. Wires sprouted from aerials on the roof, fences criss-crossed the pasture. Plate glass windows and a cantilevered balcony overhung the valley. A Union Jack flew from a flagpole. When Sholto bought the place, it had been a resin-scented shelter with small casement windows and knot-holed shingles. It used to look as though a tune would tinkle out if the roof were lifted. Every summer the caretaker used to fill the window boxes with geraniums, and starch the red gingham curtains and covers, and Sholto and his daughters had never required more than the local rough carved furniture and a wood stove.
The inside was no longer boarded, but plastered and painted. One of the young men took Rosamund’s coat and showed her into a long drawing room which sparkled with chrome and glass.
‘Do you like the new decorations?’ he asked.
‘We had it all chintzy last time, with hunting prints and some of Mrs Britton’s little sketches, but the Minister didn’t think they went with the new decor.’
‘Had my sister started-painting again?’
‘I think she dabbled a little. A pleasant hobby.’
‘My sister was a well known botanical illustrator, before her marriage,’ Rosamund said. She walked across to the window. The view, at least, was changeless, down to the meadows and houses of St Jean, the river a bright gleam in the sun, and then up to the familiar, comforting peaks. A jet drew a line of white between the snow summits.
Aidan Britton came into the room, and his aide left it.
‘Aunt Anne is lying down.’
‘She is getting on for ninety. No, not champagne for me. I’ll have some whisky please,’ Rosamund said.
‘And how,’ Aidan Britton asked, ‘is Eddie Sullivan?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, he’s your current bloke, isn’t he?’
‘I suppose you kept tabs on Phoebe’s correspondence.’
‘Be your age,’ he said. ‘Of course I know about your Irish connection. I am a senior member of the government. Deputy Prime Minister. What do you imagine? Whatever my relations do is of importance.’
‘Electorally?’
‘Practically. Those men out there need to know how to protect me.’
‘You sound proud of that.’
‘It’s easy to despise me for something you grew up taking for granted. I wasn’t born to public life.’
‘I live a completely private life,’ Rosamund said.
‘You think so? The famous architect? Sholto’s daughter?’
‘I avoid publicity.’
‘You can’t help attracting it. And when you take up with a man who supports the IRA, you can hardly expect to be ignored. My sister-in-law, after all.’
‘My private life is nobody’s concern but my own,’ Rosamund said.
‘Such an interesting private life, over the years. Our old friend Sylvester. Dorset; he’s a spokesman in the Lords now. Hugh Christie. Some one night stands. Joe Velikowski. Why didn’t you marry him? You lived with him for what was it, seven years?’
‘The reason I didn’t marry Joe,’ Rosamund said viciously, ‘was that he turned into an admirer of yours. He thought what his country needed was a Britton.’
‘And you didn’t agree?’
‘Agree? You forget; I know too much about Britton for that.’
‘Is that what you told Velikowski?’
‘I don’t talk about you, Aidan. I haven’t talked about you for years. I have tried my utmost to avoid thinking about you.’
‘So you join up with my enemies instead. Incidentally, your country’s enemies. You know what the IRA does, I assume?’
‘You are a fool, Aidan. Eddie Sullivan is no more Irish than you are; less Irish than me.’
‘He’s third generation.’
‘I see you have been checking up. All right then. He’s third generation. His family starved to death, and the few who managed to escape to America perished from their sufferings on the way. A proud British record, isn’t it? And Joe Velikowski’s family escaped from pogroms in Russia. So what?’
‘Yet Joe Velikowski supported me,’ Aidan Britton said thoughtfully. ‘All over the world, in every country, men saying my name, admiring me, wishing I were their leader … it’s natural for men to long for a leader. Did Velikowski know of your connection with me?’
‘You have hardly made a secret of the Sholto connection. Of course Joe knew Phoebe and I were sisters. They used to meet in New York. But I never told him anything else. While Phoebe was alive, things were difficult enough for her without that.’
‘It is never easy for a politician’s family.’
‘For some,’ said Sholto’s daughter, ‘easier than for others. Phoebe suffered enough.’
‘Yes, she suffered,’ Aidan Britton shouted. ‘She suffered the restrictions, the limitations, the fear. How would you like to know that round every corner might be a bomb or a sniper? What do you think it’s like to have all your mail scanned before it’s given to you in case there is explosive in the envelope? To make sure your journeys are irregular? To be watched wherever you go? It wasn’t like that in Sholto’s day, Rosamund, things have changed since you lived with a Cabinet Minister.’
‘The Cabinet Minister I lived with never did anything to attract hatred. That’s the difference.’
The door behind Aidan Britton opened to admit two men pushing a heated trolley of food, the funeral baked meats; they were followed by variously embarrassed, sympathetic or bored guests. Aidan hissed, ‘Why did you come here, Rosamund?’ and she answered clearly, ‘I am my sister’s heir. I inherit her responsibilities.’
Uncle James Sholto Kennedy came into the room, presumably fortified by several quick and private drinks. The occasion was less a wake than a peculiarly unpleasant party, for no grief was on display, since Aunt Anne was still lying down and Rosamund did not hear Phoebe’s name mentioned. Aidan spoke briefly to James Kennedy, and left the room. The old man eased himself painfully to the window.
‘Crippled,’ he said.
‘Can’t anything be done?’ Rosamund asked.
‘Tin hips? I’m too fat for an operation, they say. Too fat, too weak, too old. No, it’s endurance or a wheeled chair.’
He was indomitable, his face still the hanging judge’s, pale eyes above a jutting nose and the broad bones of cheek and jaw. ‘Well, what have you got to say for yourself my girl? Hear you’ve been making a fool of yourself. High time you married and settled down.’
Aidan Britton came back into the room. He had the manner of a great personage so that when he moved the other people around him stood back to make way, and few turned their backs on him. Rosamund had not seen this attribute in Aidan Britton before, but she was familiar with the aura that conferred power confers on its bearer. Sholto, however, had attracted attention and respect even when he was in a political wilderness.
‘I do apologise,’ Aidan Britton said. He spoke quietly, but everyone heard him. ‘A telephone call from the PM. He’s just come round after the operation.’ In a lower voice, he said to one of the guests, ‘Piles, poor chap.’
‘Piles,’ James Sholto Kennedy muttered.
‘Is the Prime Minister really ill?’ Rosamund asked.
‘Cancer of the rectum which he ignored for too long. He’s had it.’
‘And then who?’
James Sholto Kennedy gestured at Aidan Britton. ‘What do you think?’
‘Does he command the support?’
‘In the House? Of course. There is nobody to challenge him.’
‘And in the country?’
‘He is seen as a saviour. A leader.’
‘Do people want a Führer?’
‘They need a strong man. Sholto’s heir. Successful and lucky – you know how important luck is in politics. Groomed to lead. And an irreproachable private life, which matters a lot these days.’
‘The moral backlash?’ Rosamund said.
‘I prefer to call it a return to traditional good sense,’ her uncle said severely. ‘And naturally Phoebe was extremely popular. Aidan will attract a good deal of sympathy now. The same thing happened to your father when my poor sister died.’
‘You don’t think things have changed in forty years?’
‘I think not. I keep my ear to the ground.’
Some note of finality in a remark made by Aidan to the Curé from the village had indicated to the assembled company that he wished it to depart; it could not have been clearer if, like royalty, he had granted his permission to retire. A shuffling queue formed to say goodbye to him, but one of the young men came up to Rosamund and said, ‘The Minister hopes that you will remain.’
‘I have business in London. I should be on my way.’
‘Stay,’ James Kennedy said. He eased himself painfully onto a sofa and held out his glass to the young man. ‘Scotch, n
eat, please.’
‘One or two things to discuss,’ Aidan said in Rosamund’s ear.
‘I’ll go and tidy myself up then.’ Another of the aides escorted her to what had been Phoebe’s bedroom, as unrecognisable to Rosamund as the rest of the chalet. She disliked the impersonal room, but the view at least was that which she and Phoebe had shared. The one who slept in the top bunk could just see the next range of mountain peaks, over the border in Italy.
No evidence of Phoebe’s personality was left in this room. The cupboards had already been cleared, leaving nothing but a row of empty padded hangers on the rail and a heap of shoe-trees on the shelf. The drawers smelt faintly of verbena, the bed was flat under a lace counterpane. Most of the walls were covered with looking-glass.
Rosamund felt a wave of unease and dislike; she was sensitive to places and the creation of environments had been her lifework; the atmosphere in the once-loved chalet was as unpleasant to her, as it must be for a musician forced to hear muzak, or for a great writer to read a fictional creation hyped to attract an uncritical public. Rosamund lifted the telephone receiver, and a man’s voice said, ‘Yes sir?’
‘Will you get me an outside line, please?’
After a short pause, the man replied, ‘I am sorry, there is a fault on the line. There are no outgoing calls at present.’
Rosamund replaced the receiver. From the windows, and reflected in the walls of mirror, she could see two of Aidan’s young men walking up and down the lawn, swinging their incongruous umbrellas as though the alp were St James’s Park.
In the living room, Aidan Britton sat on the white leather sofa between Rosamund’s uncle and aunt. They looked like a bench of magistrates. The chairman said, ‘Come in, Rosamund, sit down.’
‘I really mustn’t stay. I have an appointment with Mr Hardman in the morning.’
‘Does he still deal with your business?’ James Kennedy said. ‘I suppose he keeps on a few clients. They tell me he is still quite spry.’
Rosamund said, ‘He was Phoebe’s lawyer. She said he would tell me what to do if anything happened to her.’