Two For Joy

by Patricia Scanlan

  Oh no! That would be very, very difficult. Seeing them together would be the pits. Hell, seeing Lorna on her own would be the pits. It was bad enough that they were burying her beloved grandmother without having to deal with all the Lorna and Neil stuff. Would Lorna swan around trying to rub her nose in it? Bet she would. Would Heather have the longed-for dismissive conversation where she told her man-stealing cousin exactly what she thought of her? She’d practised that speech so many times in her head, did she want to get the chance to use it? Her heart sank at the prospect. It seemed so horrible and petty to be thinking of spite and revenge in front of her grandmother’s corpse. Heather suddenly felt ashamed and very much alone.

  * * *

  Ruth drove herself and Heather home from the hospital. As sad as her twin was at this moment, she was looking so much better than the last time she’d stayed with her in Dublin, Ruth thought approvingly. It was a real stroke of luck that she’d got that job in Carleton’s. It suited her perfectly, having gained such experience in Dublin. She was talking about buying a place of her own. That was great! Positive stuff. She wasn’t looking for a man to provide for her and that was good, Ruth reflected. Although it would be nice for her sister to have a decent man in her life. It was so enriching. She smiled thinking of Peter. He would be coming for the removal later; it would be a solace of sorts to have the comfort of him.

  Their Aunt Jane was trying to get a flight home from New York. It was unfortunate that her holiday had had to be cut short. Ruth wasn’t sure if Lorna was accompanying her. She sincerely hoped that she wasn’t. She was the last person Heather needed to see. But if she did appear, Ruth knew one thing: Lorna Morgan was going to be a very, very sorry young lady, once she’d dealt with her.

  * * *

  ‘What removal do you want to go to?’ Oliver tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. It seemed as though half the parish was dying lately. Cora was always ringing him to bring her to this funeral or that.

  ‘Martha Jackson’s. She lived in that little cottage just beyond Rooks Point on the lake.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Oliver pretended to know who she was talking about. He couldn’t remember a Martha Jackson, but then his mother had so many friends and acquaintances. He had a vague recollection of the cottage though. A little stone one with a wild, overgrown garden.

  ‘What time is it at?’ He glanced at his watch and saw that he was running late.

  ‘Six sharp, pick me up at twenty to. I don’t want to be late for the hearse like we were for poor Annie Clarke’s. I was mortified,’ Cora ordered.

  ‘Yes, Ma, twenty to six it is. Have to run, ’bye.’ He put his phone into his shirt pocket, mentally trying to rearrange the rest of his day to suit his mother’s desire to attend yet another funeral in the county.

  * * *

  The Aer Lingus airbus roared down the runway at JFK, lifted its immense bulk into the sky and headed for home. Oh, Gran. Why did you have to die right now? Lorna whinged silently, horrified to find herself sitting in a plane flying home to Ireland. Only that she knew her mother would be extremely hurt if she didn’t attend, she would have stayed put. She’d been very fond of her gran, of course, but she was gone now and she wouldn’t know who was at her funeral or not.

  She was literally going to have two days to attend her grandmother’s funeral and then it was straight back to New York to move out of the house in Yonkers and start her new life in Sandra Winston’s and the East Village. It was just as well it had happened now, if her grandmother had died the following week her new job would be up the Swannee.

  A thought struck her and her heart sank to her toes. She was going to have to face Heather at the funeral, and even worse, that virago, Ruth. Ruth would never let her get away with what she’d done to Heather. She was always interfering, fighting her twin’s battles. Would she be crass enough to have a go at her at their gran’s funeral? Knowing Ruth, the answer was yes. Lorna felt tension twist around her intestines like a snake.

  ‘Er … Mum have you been talking to Anne or Heather lately?’ She turned to her mother, who was gazing regretfully at the faint, hazy, unmistakable outline of Manhattan in the distance as JFK faded away beneath them as they gained altitude.

  ‘No, funnily enough, I haven’t. I saw her at Mass a couple of weeks ago but she was in an awful hurry and didn’t stop to talk. I left a message on her answering machine to say I was going to New York. I thought she’d phone me back but she didn’t. She’s always so busy with parish activities. I’d hate her life,’ Jane admitted.

  ‘And Heather?’ Lorna tried to keep her tone casual.

  ‘Don’t you keep in touch? I thought you and she were all sorted?’ Jane looked at her in surprise.

  ‘Em … we don’t, no. Mum, I should tell you something.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Heather won’t be speaking to me because I had a bit of a fling with her boyfriend and she found out about it.’ There, it was said. She waited for her mother’s censure.

  ‘Ah, Lorna! What on earth did you do that for?’ Jane frowned. Had her daughter no cop on? There were some things you just did not do. Jane sometimes feared for Lorna. She had no loyalty to anyone but herself.

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ Lorna said sulkily. ‘It happened. It was one of those things.’

  ‘But not with your cousin’s boyfriend. Heather’s always been very good to you. There are boundaries, Lorna. You can’t be totally selfish for the rest of your life.’

  ‘I was only looking for the same thing as you were when you slept with that man,’ Lorna retorted, and immediately felt regret for her horrible barb when she saw the flush rise to her mother’s cheeks.

  ‘Lorna! That was uncalled for,’ Jane said quietly.

  ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry. I was only trying to explain,’ Lorna apologized hastily. ‘I don’t know what comes over me. I think I’ve found what I’m looking for and then it just crumbles away. Don’t be cross,’ she wheedled.

  ‘I’m not. I just worry about you,’ Jane sighed.

  ‘Well, don’t. I’m going back to a job that’s going to be a real stepping-stone for me and I’m very happy about it. And Mum, please don’t ever tell anyone that I was waitressing, sure you won’t?’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ Jane exclaimed, understanding her daughter perfectly on that score. ‘That’s why Anne was avoiding me? As if it were my fault,’ she added indignantly. ‘Is Heather still working for him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Will they have to have a post-mortem for Gran?’ Her daughter changed the subject.

  Jane shook her head. ‘No, not at her age and with her history of heart trouble. I was talking to your dad. He’s arranged the funeral with Anne. Solicitors are good at things like that. Gerard is always very good in a crisis.’ She shook her head at her daughter. ‘Try to stay out of Anne and Heather’s way,’ she suggested, as the air hostess came down the aisle with the drinks trolley.

  That injunction proved to be easier said than done. When they went to the funeral parlour later in the morning after arriving home, the first people they saw coming out were Anne and Ruth. Lorna nearly puked. Her cousin’s lips tightened and her eyes flashed contempt, but she said nothing and turned away from Lorna as though she had the plague.

  Anne ignored her niece completely as she went to kiss her sister.

  ‘Are you all right, Jane?’ she asked. ‘It must have been awful to get that news so far away from home.’

  ‘I’m a bit shocked and jet-lagged. I wasn’t expecting Mummy to go,’ Jane murmured, subdued.

  ‘No. It was sudden, she went in her sleep. I’m glad she didn’t suffer.’ Anne started to cry and Jane put an awkward arm around her. ‘She looks very peaceful, Jane, would you like me to go in with you?’

  ‘Please, Anne, would you?’ she said gratefully. ‘I’m a bit apprehensive. I’m not great at things like this.’ She looked troubled and very tired.

  ‘Mummy looks like she’s asleep, she’s very peaceful,’ Anne comforted, putting her arm around her siste
r’s shoulders. They walked back into the funeral parlour and Lorna, who had no desire to see her grandmother’s dead body, but was anxious to get away from her cousin, made to follow. But not fast enough.

  ‘Just a minute, you little slag,’ Ruth hissed.

  ‘Fuck off, Ruth,’ Lorna hissed back. ‘Show a bit of respect.’

  ‘Do you hear who’s talking about respect, you little hypocrite. What kind of a bitch goes off with another girl’s bloke, especially when that girl is the cousin you’ve grown up with and shared a flat with? You are the pits, Lorna Morgan. You’re scum.’ Ruth then turned and deliberately spat at her. Lorna was faint with horror.

  ‘You spat at me?’ She couldn’t believe it. ‘You dirty wagon. You spat at me!’

  ‘If we weren’t outside a funeral parlour and I wasn’t mourning my grandmother,’ the emphasis on the ‘I’ was unmistakable, ‘believe me, Lorna, I’d thump you because you need a good thumping, you spiteful, two-faced little cow.’ Ruth was puce with fury and Lorna felt a twinge of apprehension as she hastily stepped backwards. She wouldn’t put it past her cousin to sock her one on the jaw.

  ‘One good thing,’ Ruth threw over her shoulder. ‘At least Heather has finally seen you in your true colours. I’ve been trying to tell her what a cow you were for years. At last the penny’s dropped and she’ll never have anything to do with you again. You’ll have to find someone else to use!’

  She disappeared through the doors of the funeral parlour, leaving Lorna feeling extremely shaken. The verbal attack, the spitting, the names were appalling. She had never felt such naked aggression directed towards her in her life, and it rattled her. But for one brief, fleeting moment she envied Heather for having such a champion. There was no one in her life who cared as much about her. Her brothers were a dead loss in that regard. Feeling very forlorn and weary, Lorna sat on the steps of the funeral parlour, rested her head on her knees and cried.

  When her mother came out, red-eyed and weepy, she was sitting in the car. They drove home in silence and went to bed exhausted. Lorna was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  Neil read the funeral notice in the paper and his mouth tightened into a very thin line. Lorna Morgan would surely be at her grandmother’s funeral. Not even she would be self-centred enough to miss it. He flung the paper on to his desk and stared out at the forecourt.

  This might be his only chance ever to get to talk to her again. To tell her what he thought of her. His face darkened with fury. The longer it lasted that she hadn’t contacted him, the more outraged and indignant he’d become. What made a woman treat a man with such disrespect? Did she really think him of so little consequence? She’d always looked down her pert little nose at him, now she was just rubbing his nose in it. What made her feel she could use him like that and get away with it? The more he thought about it the angrier he got. He was eaten up by his anger. It was all-consuming. He was going to have it out with her come hell or high water, and if the only way to do that was at her grandmother’s funeral, so be it.

  * * *

  Lorna woke up around three thirty, woolly-headed and jet-lagged. She had a shower and spent half an hour trying on various combinations of clothes to see which would make the biggest I’m-a-New-York-Success statement. There were usually more people at the removal ceremony than at the funeral, she figured. This evening was the evening for the biggest impact! After many changes and discarding this and that, Lorna finally decided on her DKNY little black number with a short black cardigan and a single string of pearls à la Sandra Winston. She pulled her hair back off her face and applied her make-up with extra care. Even if she said it herself, she had never looked better, she thought with satisfaction. Let Kilronan look on and be impressed as hell. To add to her look, she slipped on a pair of dark glasses. Very Princess Di, Jackie O, Catherine Zeta Jones, she approved, studying her reflection in the mirror.

  It was a shock to see Heather at the funeral parlour, weeping, red-eyed and red-nosed, as they knelt to pray for their late grandmother. Her cousin was wearing a dark navy suit and her hair was cut in a shorter, sharper style. It quite suited her, she thought with a little jolt. For one brief moment Heather looked in Lorna’s direction, a dismissive, disinterested look that bugged Lorna by its apparent indifference, then she picked up a prayer sheet and resolutely began to answer the prayers.

  Lorna felt a flicker of shame.

  All’s fair in Love and War.

  But you didn’t love him and she did.

  More idiot she.

  I did her a favour.

  Oh, stop it. Can’t do anything about it now.

  The internal dialogue went on and on, until with relief they began to file out after the coffin to begin their journey to the church.

  Lorna quite enjoyed the drive to the church in the funeral limo. It added to her sense of importance and she was definitely dressed for a limo ride, she reflected, as the car drove into the church grounds thronged with friends and neighbours. She climbed elegantly out of the limo making sure to show a discreet flash of toned, tanned thigh. She’d had a tanning spray job done the evening she’d found out that she had to come home – it had cost a fortune but it looked so real and so golden it was worth every cent. She looked as if she’d just come back from the Caribbean.

  She saw Oliver Flynn’s tall form in the middle of the crowd and remembered her conversation with Neil about his eligibility, now that he and his wife had separated. He was an extremely good-looking man, she decided. A real man, who didn’t give a hoot what people thought of him. Not like Neil, to whom image was everything.

  She wondered would he be here. She’d just play it very cool and ice-queeny, she decided. After all, she was flying back to NY the day after next and as she was in mourning she couldn’t be going out socializing. That’s what she’d tell him anyway, she determined as she followed her grandmother’s coffin up the aisle, her impossibly high heels making a very satisfying click-clack as she went.

  It was a little awkward at the top of the church. The front pew held her parents, her aunt and uncle, her grandmother’s two younger sisters and their husbands. Grandchildren had to sit in the row behind. Lorna grabbed her two brothers and whispered, ‘Let me sit between you,’ so that she didn’t have to sit near her twin cousins who were also in the same row.

  Strangely, when the choir sang ‘Be Not Afraid’, she remembered how as a child her grandmother would take her to tea in the Lake View, before it had been refurbished, when waitresses in black dresses and little white aprons and caps would serve them beautiful scones with jam and cream. She’d always felt very important sitting beside her grandmother, sipping tea out of fine china cups. A lump rose in her throat and to her horror she started to cry. If she wasn’t careful her make-up would be ruined. She could see her mother silently crying in front of her and that made her feel worse. Poor Jane had been having such a carefree time in New York and it had been cut short so abruptly. Once Lorna started working for SW, as she had started privately calling her new boss, she’d never have any time off for the next six months. Even if Jane did come back out, she would only be able to spend evenings and a weekend with her. Life was mean sometimes, she thought glumly as she slanted a glance through her glasses and saw both Ruth and Heather in tears. Once again a wave of loneliness enveloped her and she cursed herself for her weakness.

  It took a good thirty minutes for everyone to come up and offer their condolences, and Lorna was rigid with tension wondering would Neil appear. She breathed a sigh of relief when it was done. Why would Neil come anyway? He didn’t know her grandmother after all.

  She emerged into the bright sunlight, glad to be out of the church. It was eerie to think that her grandmother was in the coffin at the foot of the altar. Little knots of people stood chatting in the warmth of the evening sun, and she saw Oliver Flynn lope over towards Heather. Why he should go to her first to offer condolences she had no idea, she thought sniffily. After all, she had been a full gu
est at his wedding. Heather had only made the afters. She watched them talking and smiling at each other. They seemed very comfortable in each other’s company, she thought enviously, wishing she had someone to share the sadness of her grandmother’s funeral with.

  ‘Well, Lorna! Dropped any hot potatoes lately?’ Neil suddenly appeared in front of her and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  ‘Don’t be tacky,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t the time or the place.’

  ‘Really,’ Neil derided. ‘And when is there a time and a place? You made a fool out of me, Lorna Morgan.’ His voice was rising, his face red with suppressed fury.

  ‘Shut up, Neil,’ she hissed, aware that people, and especially Heather and Oliver, were looking in their direction, surprise written all over their faces.

  ‘You let me spend a fortune on yo—’

  ‘Oh, get over yourself, Neil,’ she snapped, annoyed that he would doorstep her at her grandmother’s funeral. No class. ‘If you want to play with the big boys act like one of them and stop whingeing and moaning every time you use your credit card. Grow up and cop on.’

  ‘You bitch!!’ he roared. ‘You selfish little user, you had no feelings for me and yet you slept with me and let me spend a fortune on you. You know what that makes YOU?’

  ‘How dare you!’ Lorna, incensed, raised her hand and slapped Neil hard across the cheek, leaving a stark red imprint.

  Neil’s eyes glittered and the veins in his neck bulged, but the next moment Anne Williams, outraged at the carry-on at her mother’s funeral, marched over and said icily, ‘How dare you, the pair of you. If you want to behave like alley-cats don’t do it at my mother’s funeral. Get out of my sight, you,’ she said to Lorna. ‘And as for you, Neil Brennan! You and she are well matched. Sly, slithery worms the pair of you. Get out of here and show some respect for the dead.’