by David Nobbs
There was a rather dreadful silence, to which Stanley seemed oblivious. He raised his glass.
‘Well, cheers, or is that not what one says on these occasions?’ he said.
To James’s relief the doorbell rang at this moment. It was the Essex lot, the Harcourt clan. Fliss’s and Deborah’s brother Chris, his wife Tessa, and Malcolm and Monica Harcourt, the parents of Deborah, Fliss and Chris. Malcolm and Monica, known affectionately throughout Essex farming circles as ‘The Ems’, were extremely bronzed after their holiday. Malcolm apologised for it, and James had to agree that it made them look out of place. They always did, with their old-fashioned, patched-up clothes, but today the inappropriate suntans made them stand out even more than usual. There was no room for any gradation of grief on those teak outdoor faces. Malcolm had passed the two farms on to Chris now, though he still helped, and indeed had a great deal to do at harvest time. The holiday had been in preparation for this ordeal, for ordeal it had become to Malcolm, and there were people who said that Chris put too much upon him at his age. James noticed that morning that, beneath the suntan, there was the first faint hint of frailty in Malcolm.
As the Harcourts entered the room, Stanley gave a low whistle and said to Max, ‘Pure Viking. Amazing. Well, not the younger woman. Strong touch of the Norman there, if I’m not mistaken.’
Max smiled inwardly at Stanley’s phrase. He didn’t think Stanley ever really thought that he was mistaken.
As James poured the drinks for the Essex lot – whisky for the men, sherry for Monica, dry white wine for Tessa – the last of the calm that he had managed to build up over breakfast melted away. He felt an icy blast of danger, the danger that before the day was out the family would discover how much less than a perfect husband he had been. And this brought him back to Helen and the knowledge that, while her generous phone call that morning had been a huge relief and blessing, its very generosity was kick-starting his feelings of guilt again.
Then Philip arrived having fetched Mum, and the little gathering was complete. Conversation proved somewhat sticky, and James chucked a polite stone into the silent pond.
‘How’s the harvest looking?’
‘Bad,’ said Chris.
‘Always he says, “Bad.” He’s such a pessimist,’ said Tessa. She still had the black brooding beauty that had once made her a frontispiece for Country Life. She came from a County family and was always quick to point out that the County wasn’t Essex. ‘I am not an Essex girl,’ she would say without humour. She had three dogs. People said that she loved them more than she loved Chris, and that she loved money more than she loved them. People said that she was disappointed that Chris wasn’t more ambitious and grasping. People said that it was her meanness that prevented Chris from hiring harvest help and easing the burden on his struggling father. But then people said a lot of things. James had once dreamt that he was making aggressive love to Tessa, on a piece of waste ground strewn with rubble, in a city ruined by war. Ever since then he had tried not to look at her, and he was trying not to look at her now.
‘Well, if it’s a bad harvest, it’s obviously bad,’ said Chris, ‘but if it’s a good harvest, the price will collapse, so that’s bad too. All harvests are bad now, thanks to our friends the European Union and the British Government.’
‘If the temperature rises three degrees, there won’t be any harvests at all,’ said Stanley.
‘Thank you for that,’ said Chris.
There was an uneasy silence. Philip decided that it needed to be broken, and said the first thing that came into his head. Also, it has to be admitted, he was rather fond of showing that he knew about things in other people’s fields.
‘I heard that it looks like a wonderful year for barley.’
His remark was not the soothing influence that he had anticipated.
‘Our family can talk about other things than crops, you know,’ said Fliss.
Mum leapt in now, and James was briefly proud of her, even though he did think that her bright, almost garishly yellow outfit was carrying his instruction not to be sombre slightly too far.
‘We saw two bullfinches in a garden just after Philip had driven out of the flats,’ she said. ‘They really are such beautiful birds.’
‘Don’t talk to me about bullfinches,’ said Chris. ‘Destructive little buggers. Strip an orchard in an hour.’ He caught sight of Tessa’s face and realised that he was not living up to her standards of social grace. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hollinghurst,’ he said. ‘That was rude of me. But my friend Rod from agricultural college had such trouble with them on his fruit farm. They helped to ruin him. I’m not rational about bullfinches, I’m afraid.’
What are you rational about? asked Tessa’s spoilt, disappointed, absurdly beautiful face.
‘Orchards are a red rag to a bullfinch,’ said Max. His only joke of the day seemed to pass entirely unnoticed, and he blushed.
‘Time for a little something to eat, I think,’ said James.
As they walked towards the kitchen, Malcolm edged himself close to James.
‘I’m so sorry, chap,’ he said, in his Essex way. ‘So sorry. Sad for us all, but for you, tragic.’
James felt spectacularly awful.
‘Thank you.’
‘Families, eh?’
‘Absolutely.’
Over their sandwiches, taken standing up round the table in the kitchen, James organised the funeral procession. He would go in the first car behind the hearse, with Fliss and Dominic. The Essex four would go in the second car, and Max, Stanley, Philip and Mum would go in the third car.
Mum made a face at him, signalling to him to follow her, and left the kitchen. He excused himself and followed.
‘What is it, Mum?’
‘I’d like to go in the first car, with you. There’s room.’
‘Well, yes, there is, but I just thought, you aren’t a blood relation, the Harcourts are.’
‘That stuck-up Tessa thing isn’t a blood relation, she hasn’t got any blood.’
‘No, she isn’t a blood relation, but I was thinking of the Ems. I just thought it might be more tactful if you went behind them.’
‘I see. Tact’s more important than a mother’s love. I understand.’
‘Oh, Mum. You’d be with Philip. You’re his mum too.’
‘You’re the one who’s just lost a wife. You’re the one who you might think would need a mum’s support.’
‘Mum, I would love your support. I just didn’t want to be selfish. Anyway, it’s no problem. I’ll change it.’
‘I don’t want to make a fuss.’
‘Mum, you’re making a fuss.’
‘No, I mean, I don’t want you to change things. I don’t want you to do anything.’
‘Well, what did you call me out here for, then?’
‘To tell you how your mother feels about things.’
‘Right. Well, now I know how you feel so I’m going to change things, so there. And actually I can do without all this, Mum.’
He strode back into the kitchen, followed at some distance by his mum, who crept in.
‘Slight change of plan,’ he announced. ‘Mum feels, and she’s right, of course, that she ought to be at my side in my moment of grief. She’ll come in the first car.’
‘You do right, chap,’ said Malcolm.
So that was how it was, and very soon the black cars arrived outside, and they made their way to them.
As the cortège slipped slowly past the Georgian terraces, James felt uneasy. He wished now that he had been more proactive, had stamped his personality and his wishes on the proceedings, rather than going along with the traditional ritual proposed by Ferris’s Funeral Services. There was no point now in this ritual. Nobody took any notice of them. In the olden days people had stood on the pavement and taken off their hats as the processions passed, but now nobody had a hat to take off, except for one woman on her way to get a Tube train to Wimbledon, and there was no other appropriate gesture to be m
ade, so the procession was just an embarrassment, especially to other road users.
Luckily James didn’t see that at the first mini-roundabout a white van, with the legend ‘Geoff Noblet – the name for meat’ on its side got skewered into the procession, and stayed in it, for the traffic coming in the other direction was heavy and in any case Geoff Noblet was blissfully unaware that he was in the middle of a funeral cortège. Then two police cars came screaming up behind them, sirens blaring, and the whole cortège had to pull over to let them get by.
On and on they went, five vehicles in dignified procession: hearse, sombre black car, Geoff Noblet – the name in meat – and two more sombre black cars. Progress was slow, and James began to get that crematorium nightmare, the fear that they would miss their slot.
The mourners were beginning to assemble, and were standing around outside the crematorium building in the hot sunshine. Black was the predominant colour, but a few people had heeded James’s wishes and dressed more colourfully.
People stood in groups of their own kind, as birds and animals do. Cambridge friends in a small huddle. Globpack people in a larger huddle, including Declan O’Connor and Rod Avery, who had fallen in love with each other in the accounts department and moved away to hairdressing, where they felt more comfortable. Deborah’s girlie friends in a more glamorous huddle. Philip’s four children and their wives and partners. Married couples from the various stages of James’s and Deborah’s social life eyed each other warily, knew that they should know each other, but weren’t quite confident enough in their powers of memory to venture towards each other. Everyone was tense. They all, seeing people from various aspects of the lives of James and Deborah, felt an echo of their original shock. They shouldn’t be here on this lovely summer’s day. Deborah shouldn’t be dead. It was against the natural order of things.
The previous funeral ended early, it must have been a skimpy affair. Only nine people emerged from the chapel, some of them elderly and tearful, others young and spiky-haired and imprisoned in suits that were too small and hadn’t been worn for years. Nobody watching could fail to feel sad at the sight of this evidence of a lonely life and death.
Charles made his way briskly into the chapel, with Valerie following in his slipstream. Slowly, a little uncertainly, not quite sure if it was yet time, people edged their way nearer to the doors. Everyone was a little anxious about getting a seat, for the place was going to be crowded, but nobody wanted to be seen to be anxious. It wasn’t quite dignified to be worried about having to stand, on such an occasion as this.
‘If you’d kindly wait just a moment,’ said a crematorium official with a half-smile, ‘we are just putting reserved notices on seats for the family. Thank you for your patience.’ He looked at his watch. Where were the family? They were cutting it fine.
A lady emerged from the chapel, gave the all-clear, and the official stepped aside and waved the mourners in. The first few hesitated, none of them wanting to be the first to go in. This was England, the Land of Hanging Back.
Charles didn’t look up from the piano as the first people entered. He was in a different world. The eloquent, beautiful notes of Grieg’s ‘Notturno’ from the Lyric Pieces, Op. 54, softened the severe Victorian chapel with its dark stained-glass windows, its frowning statues and its lifeless rows of pews.
Outside, the procession made its appearance at last, minus Geoff Noblet – the name for meat. They had cut it fine. James’s nerves were shredded already, and the service hadn’t even begun.
Just before the procession pulled up outside the chapel, a couple hurried round the corner, close to the wall of the building, as if trying to creep in without being noticed. The young woman was thin, almost emaciated. She had a ring in her nose. Her clothes were long and dangly and made for someone larger, and her complexion was as white as fresh snow. She looked as if all the blood had just run out of her. The man was much older, his clothes slightly ragged, his face looking lived-in, and lived-in by somebody rather disreputable and not altogether clean in his habits. They slid into seats near the back. Charlotte had used up all her courage by coming at all. She was trembling. Her companion held her hand and pressed it.
Four solemn men carried the coffin slowly up the aisle. Behind it James couldn’t help wondering how much of Deborah had remained to be put in the coffin. Beside him, Max looked more like a tree than ever. He had set his face in a wooden mask that hid all emotion.
James walked slowly into the chapel and down the aisle. He longed to look straight ahead. He didn’t want to see the massed faces of his friends and colleagues, all looking at him to see how he was bearing up, how he had taken it, whether his grief had marked him, whether his hair had turned white, whether he had lost weight, all suffused with that strange mixture of sympathy and curiosity that congregations feel at funerals. But he had to force himself to look, force himself to face their stares. He felt sick with apprehension as he hunted for Charlotte. He found her straight away. His heart soared and sank all at once. She was there. She had come. She looked so ill.
She was looking straight ahead, for which he was grateful.
Now he could look straight ahead, and did so fixedly.
The family took their places, the vicar stood facing them. Charles, not to be hurried, continued playing, leaving the vicar with egg on his face.
At last Charles brought Grieg’s splendid ‘Notturno’ to a close. A sudden deep silence rolled round the chapel. Charles walked, with slow, erect dignity, to the seat reserved for him. Valerie shuffled over to give him the room his importance demanded.
‘Before we start our service of thanksgiving for the life of Deborah, who was a much loved woman as can be told from the size of the congregation here today,’ began the Reverend Martin Vigar, ‘James has asked me to tell you that you are all invited back to the house – you’ll find the address in your order of service – for refreshments afterwards, and he really would like you all to go, the more the … well, not the merrier exactly, but the more people who go to share memories of Deborah, the more pleased he will be.’
Suddenly his tone changed, and he said, ‘Let us pray,’ in a deep, sonorous voice.
As the vicar led them in the prayers and responses, James felt shocked. Gone were all traces of Allied Dunbar. In their place was his love of God, and, even more powerfully, his love of himself. James realised that he was a frustrated actor, a luvvie of the lectern. This was what he had given up his salary and his commission and his bonuses for, not for scantily attended services and parents forced into hypocrisy for their children’s sake but for the moments when a full church hung on his words, when every eye was on him and he abandoned his tactful stoop and stood tall. His mouth was suddenly full of plums. What had been a hint of singsong was now a threat that at any moment he might burst into extracts from The Sound of Music. This was not the man he had booked. This was not the performance he had asked for. This was not ‘light on God’. He felt cheated. And the pity of it was that the man wasn’t even a good actor. He was playing a vicar, and it was a cliché, and he was playing it badly, while in his own persona, with its hint of the financial consultant of yore, he had been quite interesting and far more likeable.
The coating of significance that had so suddenly entered the vicar’s voice robbed his first prayer of all significance for James. Its pretension stripped the words of all meaning. When the congregation uttered their first solemn and fervent ‘Amen’ he found that he couldn’t utter the word. He just couldn’t do it, and this was a shock for which he was entirely unprepared.
Now they were standing for the first hymn. The organ boomed out.
‘All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small.’
The singing was good. James loved hymns, and he sang along too. His singing was flat, but hearty. He was singing for Deborah. He was singing with his beloved son at one side, and his brother Philip, suddenly promoted into being his favourite brother, at the other side. The three of them
were as one, expressing in song their love of Deborah. James was surprised to hear a catch in Philip’s voice.
But all the while, below the surface as he sang, James’s thoughts were churning. He was having a revelation. He didn’t believe in God. He didn’t believe that Deborah was on her way to heaven. He didn’t believe that he would ever meet her again. He felt devastated, yet still he sang.
‘How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.’
More prayers followed, and he just couldn’t bring himself to utter the responses. This shouldn’t really be such a shock. He hadn’t been to church once in the thirty years since he had left school, except to attend weddings, christenings and funerals. He hadn’t once given serious thought to the question of religious belief. There hadn’t been any need for spiritual feeling in the world of packaging.
Every time there was a response spoken by the congregation he could detect above all others the voice of Dwight Schenkman the Third. Beside him, Max was mumbling, and he sensed the moment when Max noticed that his father wasn’t joining in.
He realised with a sense of shame and horror that he had done no thinking about the form of the service. Naturally Deborah and he had not yet made any plans for their funerals, and the shock had taken him entirely unawares. How he wished now that he had held a humanist funeral, with a woodland burial. How Deborah would have liked the thought of her body, in the earth, giving sustenance to some of the lowliest creatures in nature’s cycle. How stuffy all this was. Why why why hadn’t he thought more deeply about it?
And now here was the Reverend Martin Vigar starting on his eulogy. Fair play to him, he didn’t pretend to have known Deborah, and he related the facts of her life accurately and with less pomposity than he had employed in his prayers. His delivery became a little more natural. But it still felt as if he was talking about somebody James had never met, had only heard about. He spoke of Deborah’s pride in her fine son Max, and her deep sorrow at the disappearance of her beloved daughter Charlotte.