City Lives

by Patricia Scanlan

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ Caroline hung her head as his words sank in. Richard really was dead. She was going to have to identify him. She had to face it. She couldn’t run away from it. She took a deep breath.

  ‘Will you come with me, Luke?’

  ‘Of course I will. Will we go now?’

  She nodded silently.

  ‘This way, Mrs Yates.’ The staff nurse led them out.

  All Caroline was conscious of, on that long walk to the room where Richard lay cold and still on a gurney, was the pressure and strength of Luke’s hand in hers. She gripped it tight and tighter still as she looked down on the face of her dead husband. His eyes were closed, his cheeks a strange waxy colour. His lips bluey-white. There was nothing left of the Richard she knew. Nothing of the Richard with whom she had shared such a turbulent life.

  Where was his spirit now, she wondered, hardly able to breathe with grief and regret. Had Charles met him on the threshold of his next great journey? Could he see the whole picture of his life now and know the reasons for everything that had ever happened to him? Was he finally at peace? Had he seen the face of God? Had he felt the most pure and unconditional love that was the birthright of every soul that was ever created?

  ‘Goodbye, Richard. I’m sorry,’ she whispered as she traced her finger gently along his cold cheek. ‘Be at peace.’

  A thought struck her. Deeper dread enveloped her.

  ‘Does his mother know?’ she asked Luke.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t imagine so. Who would know to tell her? No-one would be told until you were. You’re the next of kin.’

  ‘She wouldn’t want to see me. She wouldn’t want to find out that Richard is dead from me,’ Caroline fretted as Luke led her from the room.

  ‘Why don’t you ring the nursing home and ask them to tell her doctor to break it to her when he considers the time is right. At least she’s in the best possible place if she takes a turn or anything,’ Luke suggested.

  ‘What am I going to do about the funeral? She might want to arrange it.’

  ‘He was your husband,’ Luke pointed out.

  ‘You know the sort of marriage we had, Luke,’ Caroline said miserably. ‘And anyway, the last thing I want to do is to fight with that woman over Richard’s funeral. It would be so unseemly. It would be just like her to die for spite and then I’d have her on my conscience as well.’

  ‘Caroline, this was not your fault. You can’t let yourself think like that,’ Luke reiterated.

  ‘Oh Luke, if you were in my shoes you wouldn’t say that.’ Caroline started to cry again.

  Luke put his arms around her and held her close, not knowing what to do or say to console her.

  ‘Come on,’ he said after a while. ‘Let’s get you home to bed. You won’t have to worry about the funeral for a day or two yet. They won’t release the body to you until the post-mortem has been conducted.’

  ‘If the shock of his death doesn’t kill her, knowing that he committed suicide might. Sarah will never get over that. She always worried about what the family and neighbours would say. They’ll have plenty to talk about now. And so will the crowd in the law library. The gossips will have a field day when the news gets out,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘What do you care about any of that, Caroline? Those people know nothing and it’s none of their business. Don’t give them a second thought,’ Luke advised as they reached the room where Devlin and Maggie were waiting.

  ‘You must stay with us for as long as you want, Caroline,’ Devlin said. ‘Come on home. It’s late.’

  ‘I suppose I should ring my dad and the boys, as well as the nursing home.’ Caroline tried to sort out her priorities.

  ‘Caroline, there’s nothing anyone can do tonight. Why don’t you try and get some sleep, and phone people tomorrow,’ Maggie suggested.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s not going to make any difference now. But I’ll phone the nursing home. I don’t want Mrs Yates to say that I kept Richard’s death from her,’ Caroline said tiredly.

  ‘OK, but we can do that at home,’ Devlin said firmly.

  ‘I’ll drive your car home, Caroline.’ Maggie held out her hand for the keys. Caroline gave them to her without argument. She felt she was in some sort of dank fog. She couldn’t think straight, let alone drive a car.

  ‘Maggie, you’re welcome to stay the night too if you want. We’ve loads of room and Terry wasn’t expecting you home until tomorrow evening.’ Devlin looked hopefully at her friend. Maggie was great in a crisis. She always seemed to know what to do and what to say.

  ‘Of course I’ll stay. I’ll give Terry a ring just to let him know. Come on, let’s get you and Caroline home. It’s been a long day.’

  None of them could argue with that.

  As Caroline walked out into the drizzly cold night she knew the nightmare was just beginning. And a major player in the nightmare would be the mother-in-law from hell.

  Thirty-eight

  Sarah patted her hair into place and lay back against her pillows ready to receive a visit from her consultant. An unexpected visit, to be sure. He didn’t usually call on a Sunday. It must have been after her little turn following that upstart Gleeson’s visit. And then of course there was Richard and the upset he’d caused her. Sarah’s mouth tightened into a thin line. He was ready to put her into a home, the ungrateful pup. She’d had to ask the nurse for extra sleeping-tablets after that upset.

  She could hear Mr Collins’s firm brisk footsteps on the lino’d corridor. She recognized his walk. She’d been listening out for it here and in the hospital for weeks. The consultants always had a very decisive confident sort of walk, Mr Collins especially so.

  He was rather early. It was only five to eight. Her breakfast tray was still in the room. They really ought to come at a more civilized hour, she thought crossly, as the footsteps drew nearer. Should she close her eyes and pretend to be asleep? She certainly didn’t want to give him the false impression that she was as bright as a button. She fluttered her eyelids closed, heard the knock on the door and then the matron’s voice calling her name.

  Her eyes flew open. Matron, too, on a Sunday. She was getting the treatment. And rightly so, Sarah thought, extremely pleased at this extra bonus.

  ‘Good morning, Matron. Good morning Mr Collins.’ She made sure not to sound too bright.

  ‘Good morning, dear. How are you today?’ Matron asked.

  ‘Not too bad, Matron. Yesterday wasn’t the best of days.’ Sarah smiled wanly.

  ‘But a little stronger today?’ Matron queried.

  ‘A little,’ Sarah agreed.

  ‘Now dear, we want you to be very brave. Mr Collins and I are with you but we have some bad news for you, which I know you wouldn’t want us to keep from you any longer.’ The matron gripped her hand tightly.

  Sarah suddenly felt very frightened.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered and her heart began to pound. She was going to die. They were going to tell her that her illness was terminal.

  ‘It’s about Richard—’ Matron began.

  ‘Richard!’ snapped Sarah, relieved beyond measure that Matron wasn’t giving her a death sentence and annoyed that the nun had given her such a fright. Richard was probably in a huff because she’d told him to get out and he wasn’t going to visit. She’d been half expecting that, she thought, as she lay back against the pillows.

  ‘I’m afraid Richard died last night,’ the matron said gently.

  Sarah looked at her uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Did you hear me, dear? Your son died last night. We got the phone call late and decided against waking you. I’m very, very sorry. If there is anything we can do, don’t hesitate to ask.’

  Sarah looked at the matron and then at her consultant. He had taken her other hand in his. Richard was dead. Her Richard. He couldn’t be. It was all a big mistake. She tried to open her mouth to tell them so but she couldn’t speak. She tried again. She saw Mr Collins looking at her with concern. She saw
his lips moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. A great roaring in her ears almost deafened her and then blackness engulfed her and she knew no more.

  ‘She’s still in a coma then?’ Devlin said to Caroline as they drove to the funeral parlour to finalize the arrangements for Richard’s funeral.

  ‘Yeah! They don’t know if she’ll come out of it. It was a massive stroke. It’s so ironic. She’s alive still, and Richard’s dead partly because of her. If she had died after her heart attack Richard would still be alive. He’d be in Boston and he’d be happy,’ Caroline said flatly.

  ‘Well, at least you got to make the funeral arrangements,’ Devlin murmured.

  ‘And I’m glad of that, Dev,’ Caroline said vehemently. ‘She would have wanted him buried out in Sutton in the family plot. He’d never have got away from her. This way he’ll be as free as a bird with the one he always wanted to be with. And if she comes out of the coma and objects, it will be too late and there’ll be nothing she can do about it.’

  When Caroline had got the news that her mother-in-law had suffered a stroke on hearing the news of Richard’s death, she had decided there and then to take charge of the funeral arrangements despite what any of the Yates relatives might say.

  Once Richard’s body was released for burial she had arranged for him to be cremated in Glasnevin. She knew if Sarah had been conscious she would have freaked.

  Sarah didn’t believe in cremations, even if the Church now allowed them. If a burial was good enough for the Lord it was good enough for everyone else, she was fond of saying. Sarah would never have allowed Richard to be cremated.

  But Caroline knew exactly what she was going to do with his ashes. She was going to mix them with the tiny container of ashes that Richard had kept after he had scattered the rest of them on Killiney Hill as Charles had requested. It had been their favourite place. They had walked it’s length and breadth many times together. Now they would be there together for eternity. Free and at peace.

  She would do this one last thing for Richard, no matter what the objections.

  They arrived at the funeral parlour to find a photographer lurking around the building.

  Devlin cursed under her breath. But Caroline sat motionless and expressionless as the flash bulb went off in her face.

  ‘Bastards!’ Devlin swore as she swerved and drove past. The news of Richard’s suicide had been leaked, and reporters and photographers had staked out Caroline’s apartment and phoned constantly looking for information.

  She had blanked them out completely. Detached herself from everything except the need to arrange a farewell to her husband that would have been everything he wished.

  The undertaker was kindness and compassion personified and Caroline was happy to take advice from him. Between him and Luke they had organized everything and taken much of the burden from her shoulders.

  The removal of the remains from the funeral parlour was taking place the following evening, followed by Mass and the cremation service the next day. She would keep going until it was over and then she could collapse in a heap, she promised herself. But she had to keep going. Her greatest fear was that Sarah would revive and raise an objection to the cremation.

  Sarah’s brother, Richard’s uncle Gordon, had told Caroline in no uncertain terms that cremation was against the wishes of the entire Yates family and that he was seriously thinking of taking legal advice on the matter.

  ‘I’ll get an injunction to stop the cremation,’ he threatened.

  ‘You do that, Gordon, and it will be all over the papers. The family name will be disgraced even more,’ Caroline snapped, knowing exactly where the family Achilles’ heel was. It was bad enough having news of Richard’s suicide and the subsequent nasty conjectures plastered all over the newspapers. It would be an even worse nightmare to give the tabloids the juicy titbit that there was a family row going on about the burial.

  Gordon Yates had stomped out of Devlin’s apartment red-faced and puffing, but there’d been no more talk of injunctions. And Caroline had felt a fierce sense of triumph on Richard’s behalf. She’d heard of injunctions to stop burials and cremations. If Gordon had gone to court she didn’t know what would have happened. But her threat had seen him off. Bullies always backed down when confronted.

  ‘The cheek of him, anyway,’ she said to Devlin indignantly. ‘He never even went in to see Sarah after her heart attack. He was no help to Richard at all. He didn’t want to know. So stuff him.’

  ‘He’ll be first into the church, you wait and see,’ Devlin prophesied. And she was right.

  Gordon and his pasty-faced wife and their four pasty-faced sons were seated in the front row of the church when Caroline arrived with her father and brothers in the black limo, having followed Richard’s hearse from the funeral parlour.

  She was affronted. How dare they!

  Without pause she genuflected and slipped into the front seat of the first row on the other side of the aisle. There was an audible gasp from the mourners behind Gordon’s pew. Caroline had set the cat among the pigeons. Whom did they go to pay their respects to? The wife or the family?

  Caroline couldn’t care less. She knew that most of the people in the packed church were there out of a sense of duty or curiosity. Richard had had no close friends. He was respected but not particularly liked in his profession, and the rows full of the crème de la crème of Dublin’s movers and shakers, with their faces suitably arranged in masks of solemnity, impressed her not one whit.

  How sad it was, she thought, as the priest began the prayers, that there were so few in the church who would truly mourn Richard. To go through life and not be mourned at his passing, and to have touched so few lives, was a sad reflection on his own existence.

  They thought he had it all. Success. Wealth. Looks. The irony of it was that he had nothing in the end. Love was all that mattered in life.

  None of them could figure out why he had committed suicide. Speculation was rife, money problems being the most eagerly discussed. How they would love revelations of a big cash scandal to top it off.

  Let them speculate all they liked. Richard was free of all their pettiness now, Caroline thought, as she looked at the simple teak coffin that she had selected for him.

  When the service was over, she sat beside her father and brothers and shook hands with everyone who came to offer their commiserations. It all became a huge blur. The myriad faces and ‘I’m sorry for your troubles’ ebbed and flowed with an air of unreality.

  It was at the funeral Mass the following morning that her composure cracked, when the choir began to sing ‘Be Not Afraid’, the opening hymn that she had chosen.

  Oh Richard! Richard! Not even a note to say goodbye. After all we’d been through together. I deserved that at least. She silently reproached him as she buried her face in her hands and wept. He had been found in his car clutching a photo of Charles. She had put the photo in the coffin with him, on his heart, with his hands crossed.

  At least he’d had one great love, she reflected, as she stood silently alone with him for the last time. She had never known the great love of a man. Not the kind of love Luke had for Devlin. And she had never opened her heart and poured her love onto someone, and that was the great grief of her life. It was ironic that Richard had had that kind of love and she hadn’t.

  Her father patted her on the back awkwardly, and for his sake she tried to compose herself. Time enough for tears and self-pity when she was on her own again. She could weep and wail all she wanted with not a sinner to hear her.

  Later, during Holy Communion, the choir sang ‘Here I am Lord’, and she took some measure of comfort from it. She had kept the readings simple. Luke had done the first reading and a cousin of Richard’s the second. She had asked the priest to keep his sermon short and to dwell on the compassion and mercy of God. Devlin and Richard’s secretary had brought up the gifts at the offertory. There was no-one else she felt she could ask. She only wanted people who felt some re
gret at Richard’s passing. And Devlin had been truly upset.

  The prayers at the end of the Mass gave her great solace, especially when the priest asked the angels to lead Richard to Paradise. She knew in the heart of her that Richard’s soul was safe and happy and she tried to hold onto that thought later on in the crematorium, as the red curtains slowly closed behind the coffin as it slid out of sight. She felt some of the tension seep out of her. Richard’s funeral had passed without incident.

  Sarah was still in a coma.

  Again people came to pay their condolences, and then it was time to go to the hotel where she had ordered a buffet lunch for the mourners who had filled the church.

  ‘Look at them stuffing themselves, you’d think they never got a bite. Look at William Casey.’ Devlin nudged Caroline and discreetly pointed to where the rotund barrister, who earned a fortune at tribunals, was tucking into a mound of food on his plate. ‘I bet he goes up for seconds,’ she whispered.

  In spite of herself, Caroline chuckled and grinned at Devlin when William did indeed go up for seconds . . . and thirds.

  ‘Look at Sophie Harris,’ Maggie murmured, nodding in the direction of the tall, striking businesswoman who was a client of Richard’s. ‘She’s had a face-lift.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ whispered Caroline, diverted.

  ‘Look. There’s not a crow’s-foot in sight and her eyes have that slightly startled look because they’re pulled so tight. And she’s had a boob job. They’re like Twin Peaks,’ Maggie scoffed. ‘And wearing a mini at her age! She’s worse than Madeline Albright.’

  ‘Jealousy’ll get you nowhere,’ Devlin teased.

  ‘Bitch!’ hissed Maggie and the three of them grinned, glad of the light relief to break the awfulness.

  That night, when it was all over, Devlin and Caroline sat curled up in the big easy chairs in Devlin’s lounge. Luke had gone to bed.

  ‘I should go back to the apartment really. I just dread the thought of it.’ Caroline sighed.

  ‘You know, I don’t think you should ever go back there. You never liked it from the minute you moved in there. It was always Richard’s apartment. Maggie and I will sort out Richard’s clothes and belongings. We can give his clothes to a charity shop. We’ll file his papers in boxes until you decide what to do with them. If I were you I’d put the apartment on the market next week and close that chapter of your life.’