‘Oh God, it’s Stephanie,’ I said, turning around, horrified. ‘Trust her to make an entrance.’
Sure enough, there she was, alone, stalking down the aisle in jandals — flip-flop, they went loudly, flip-flop — a hopelessly low-cut singlet top above a diaphanous sarong tied around her waist, ending just above her knees to reveal her show-stopping, long, slim, brown legs.
Show-stopping they were indeed. ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ ended abruptly as the organist caught sight of her, the congregation ogled her progress, the minister tripped over his cassock; and I visibly cringed. How could she do this to us all at her mother’s funeral?
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she breezed as she squeezed in next to Dad, who nudged into me, making me shunt Josh, who shunted Charlotte, then Adam and Simon, squashing up the entire pew as far as the watermelon at the end.
‘I’ve come straight from the airport,’ Stephanie stage-whispered, so half the church could hear. ‘The idiot airline lost my bags.’
‘So I see,’ I hissed, putting a finger to my lips to indicate she should shut up. ‘The service is just starting.’
The minister welcomed everyone and said a few kind words about Mum. I checked my bag again to make sure the eulogy hadn’t sprouted wings and taken flight. No, it was still there. I zipped it away.
In no time, it seemed, we were on our feet and singing ‘Abide with Me’ lustily. Or at least Stephanie sang it lustily. I suspect she was showing off. She always boasted she could sing a lot better than me. I maintained she just sang a lot louder than me to show everyone she knew the words.
Then the minister read those chapters from Ecclesiastes that everyone brings out for weddings and funerals and The Byrds made into a classic song; words that Mum often used to quote to us when we were more than usually impatient to be rushing off somewhere:
To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to reap …
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance …
I could feel tears pricking at my eyes. Don’t start weeping now, I told myself furiously. I had the eulogy to read any moment.
The verses came to an end and the minister gestured to me. It was my turn.
I made an attempt to put my emotions on hold and my brain into overdrive and managed to make the lectern without tripping over my heels or the frayed carpet on the steps. Then I remembered I’d left my notes in the zipped compartment in my handbag.
Feeling an absolute fool, I retraced my path, pushed past Steph, Charlotte and Adam, retrieved the notes, returned to the lectern and started to read, woodenly at first. My speech teacher would have had a fit. I could hear her giving me a tune-up: ‘You might be talking about someone who has died,’ she’d be saying, ‘but that doesn’t mean you can’t put some life into it. Lighten up!’
So I did, and even if I say so myself, I think I made a pretty good job of it. I’d written most of it late at night and had included some of the more memorable moments from Mum’s life as I remembered it, like the time she took us three kids to the annual rural show. Mikey had promptly got lost, while I got trampled by a prize Romney ram and Stephanie had capitalised on the mayhem by nicking some money out of Mum’s purse while she was talking to the man at the lost children’s tent and buying herself a ticket on the Ferris wheel. Mum had sworn black and blue she was never taking us to the show again.
And the time when she’d won first prize for the sixth year in a row for the best marmalade at the church fair. And how she’d taught herself to drive because Dad was away at the garage every Saturday when we needed to be taken to rugby and netball games and drama lessons (yes, you guessed it, Stephanie was the one doing drama — she’s been doing it ever since).
But mostly I just talked about what a great mum and loving wife she’d been all those years and how none of us would be where we were today without her.
‘Mum had a tough time these past few years and sometimes it was hard to recognise her as the strong, capable, central binding force of the family she’d once been,’ I concluded. ‘But I will always remember her as that pivotal and dynamic person who was loved as much as she was loving.’
Thankful to have made it to the end, I returned to my seat.
It was time for Charlotte, the favoured grandchild, to deliver her grandmother’s chosen reading, ‘On Death’ by Kahlil Gibran. Folded paper clutched tightly in her hand, she squeezed past us, nearly tripping over Stephanie’s long bare legs, and went up to the lectern.
My heart was in my throat, hoping she’d be okay. Public speaking had never been Charlotte’s forte and she was looking particularly nervous, glancing down at her notes, up at the congregation, then down again. She cleared her throat and started to speak, then seemed to think better of it.
There was a breathless hush as we all waited to see what she would say.
Then suddenly, out of the silence, Tigger began to yelp and howl, making the same awful wail he does when a fire engine siren is within earshot. I caught a few sniggers behind me. That damn dog, I thought. I should have left him scrabbling in the garden.
As if the dog had startled her out of her nervous freeze-frame, Charlotte haltingly started to read ‘For what is it to die?’. It wasn’t until she got to the last line that I really heard her; it wasn’t until then that I realised why Mum had chosen it. She was telling us, way back when she first became aware that she was burdened with Alzheimer’s, that for her death was not an end but a beginning, a new life.
‘And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance,’ Charlotte read.
I could hear Mum telling us that at last she was free — free from the binds of a body that confined her movement to a slow, awkward shuffle; free from the frustrations of a mind that denied her clear thought and a memory that failed her; free from people she no longer recognised; free from a world that was completely baffling.
Until that moment I’d been so preoccupied with organising the funeral that I hadn’t had a moment to think about Mum and what her death actually meant to me. There’d been the initial terror that Dad had been responsible for her death when, instead of grieving for her, I’d focused on what the doctor had said, how Dad reacted, whether there’d been any sign that Dad might have tampered with her medication or put a pillow over her head.
On top of that, I’d been worrying about whether Josh or Stephanie would make it on time for the funeral, where I’d put them up and the fact that the house hadn’t been spring-cleaned for at least a year and was in a real mess.
But now these preoccupations were behind me.
I felt tears welling in my eyes as I watched Charlotte step down from the lectern and make her way back to me, pausing as she passed the casket in the middle of the chancel. I rooted round in my bag to find tissues and dabbed my eyes while the minister said a prayer for Mum’s soul.
That’s when for the first time I saw — I mean actually studied — the casket. I’d glanced at it on my way to my seat but I’d been so selfishly gloating over Jacinta’s plight that I’d hardly given it a second glance. Now the polished woodgrain of the macrocarpa and the spray of white roses, lilies and carnations on its lid held my full attention.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t want you to die.’
Or did I?
I’d certainly thought it often enough, especially when she was being so difficult — like when she’d taken off with Mr Jamieson into the linen cupboard and made Dad’s life such a misery.
And that was a terrible thing to think, Penny Rushmore, I told myself. Your poor mother wasn’t in her right mind. She couldn’t help it.
Be careful what you wish for. My clandestine wishes had come true.
The rest of the service went by in a blur. In no time, it seemed, Dad and the boys were carrying Mum’s coffin past us and out of the church to the pla
intive strains of Albinoni’s ‘Adagio’. Tears streamed down my face as they lowered the coffin into the back of the hearse.
Andy came up behind me and squeezed my arm.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he whispered as he shut the tailgate. He and his assistant then got into the front seat and Andy drove the hearse away to the crematorium.
I stood beside Dad, holding his hand as together we watched the flowers on top of her coffin disappear from view.
‘Poor old Mum.’ It was Stephanie, who’d been standing quietly behind me, along with Mikey.
I gave them both a hug and they in turn embraced Dad.
‘Is Marcus coming?’ I asked Stephanie while Mikey was talking to Dad.
‘I have no idea,’ she sniffed. ‘I left him at the airport to wait for Seraya. She’s flying up from home?
Mikey turned and put an arm around each of us.
‘Open home at your place, then?’ he said to me.
‘Yes, I’d better get back to the house. Do you know where to find us?’
‘I’ve got my Navman,’ he grinned. ‘You know how much I like gadgets.’
‘Great. You’re so low maintenance compared with Stephanie!’ I turned to my eldest son. ‘You can squeeze in with us, Josh.’
He’d been hovering behind me as we’d come out of the church but now I noticed he was staring purposefully along the footpath towards the church hall. I followed his gaze and realised he was focusing on Amelia Chatfield — a girl who’d been at university with him a couple of years ago and whose grandmother used to be a good friend of my mother’s, before the Alzheimer’s set in. I remembered Amelia from Josh’s graduation party.
‘It’s okay, I’ll cadge a lift in a minute,’ he said, clearly preoccupied.
‘Who’s taking you?’ I asked cheekily.
‘Dunno. But I’ll be fine, no worries. There are plenty of people here who’re coming home for the wake.’
I decided not to push it. After all, it looked like whatever was going down with young Amelia was only just beginning — and Amelia probably didn’t know anything about it yet.
I turned to Dad. ‘Time for a cup of tea.’
‘Aye, and a wee dram,’ he said with a sad smile.
‘At least we can be sure the dog won’t have eaten all the food.’
‘As long as he hasn’t eaten the car.’
I guided Dad back to the car, to discover that while Tigger was being prevented from eating the funeral feast, he’d relieved his hunger and boredom by devouring an old newspaper that had been on the back seat. Numerous shreds of it had been deposited throughout the car, along with copious amounts of dog slobber. Having demolished that, he’d started on Dad’s white bowling hat, which now sported a large, jagged hole in the front brim.
‘You’re going to have to do something about that dog, Penny,’ he said angrily, waving the ruined hat at me. ‘He’s no manners at all.’
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I said, trying to restrain the crazy dog from jumping all over us. ‘I’ll buy you another hat.’
After me, Dad was the biggest softie as far as Tigger was concerned, so I knew his anger would soon dissipate. But he had a point: Tigger could be a real pain. I made a mental note to take him back to dog school next term and try to instil some discipline into his tiny doggy brain.
Clearly unrepentant, he scrambled out my open car door and took off, leaping a flowerbed and rushing round and round the small patch of grass beside the church door, ignoring the crowd of mourners gathered nearby. Finally he slowed down, narrowing his orbit to a small circle with his nose to the ground.
‘Oh, no!’ I cried, recognising the signs.
Sure enough, Tigger hunched his back legs, squatted on the holy turf and let go an enormous steaming pile of poop, right in front of the vicar’s wrinkled nose.
‘I don’t even have a plastic bag,’ I wailed. ‘Or do I?’
I rummaged round on the floor of the car. Nothing. I opened the boot. There was an astonishing array of Adam’s old lunchboxes, rotting sandwiches, apple cores, empty biscuit packets and, praise be! — enough plastic bags to scoop up even the biggest turd Tigger could muster.
Grabbing a couple of bags, I dashed over to the grass as fast as my heels would carry me and removed the offending item, trying not to gag at the overwhelming odour and doing my best to ignore the appalled stares of the assembled mourners.
‘Sorry,’ I said as I beat a hasty retreat, bearing the evidence now securely sealed inside its double plastic sheath. ‘Sorry.’
‘Idiot dog!’ Dad said as I tossed the bag in the boot and slammed it shut.
‘Trust you to cause trouble. You’d better watch it or you’ll get turned into a hot dog,’ Adam said as he shoved Tigger into the back seat.
‘Definitely time to go home,’ I said firmly, opening the back door and pushing Tigger out of my way.
Tigger ignored my fierce countenance and sat on top of the scattered papers and Dad’s hat, panting happily.
‘Where’s Charlotte?’ The sight of her empty seat reminded me we were one family member short.
‘Talking to her friends,’ Adam said.
‘Well, can you please go and get her?’
I waited on the kerb rather than inhale Tigger’s doggy breath in the back seat. Finally Adam returned.
‘She doesn’t want to be seen with us after Tigger crapped all over the vicar’s lawn.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. We can’t wait for her to get over it. We’ll be late.’
‘She said to go without her. She’ll come with Becks.’
‘But she’s got to be at the house to help me when everyone arrives.’
‘She said she wouldn’t be long.’
‘Yeah, I’ll bet.’ I sighed. ‘Oh well, I guess we’ll have to do without her.’
I lowered myself reluctantly into the car and told Adam to drive on. As we passed the gathering outside the church I searched for Charlotte’s face, but she was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully she was already on her way.
• • •
You’d have thought it was a race to see who could get back to the house first. We won, but only just; by the time I’d shooed the dog out the back door and slipped off my jacket, someone was ringing the doorbell. I sent Dad out to greet people while I joined Tamsin the caterer in the kitchen.
‘You go and be with your guests,’ she said as I started to fiddle with the sandwiches she’d arranged on one of my plates. ‘I can manage here. It’s all under control. I’ve just made the tea and the coffee’s coming up. No need for you to worry.’ She brandished a large silver teapot at me so I took the hint and departed for the lounge, where several old codgers were deep in conversation with Dad. I was just about to join them when I heard a familiar voice out in the hall.
‘Where’s the tea — I’m dying for a cuppa,’ Stephanie announced as she entered the room, tossing her handbag and a capacious holdall down on the couch. ‘It’s all I’ve got,’ she said. ‘My suitcase is probably in Alaska by now.’
I scooped both bags off the sofa and laid them under the phone table, out of the way. ‘Gotta make room for the old folks to sit,’ I explained.
She fingered her sarong disparagingly and pulled a face. ‘Not exactly standard funeral garb, I’m afraid.’
‘I couldn’t believe it when you turned up in your beach clothes. That’s so not you.’
‘Tell me about it. I should have brought a change of clothes in my carry-on luggage. I might have known our bags wouldn’t make it.’
‘Well, you certainly made an entrance back there at the church,’ I laughed, somewhat ruefully.
I felt a tug at my elbow. It was Dad.
‘Where have you put the Glenfiddich, lassie? It’s not in the cabinet.’
‘I don’t know where it is if it’s not there.’ I looked around in the hope I might see it, but that was unlikely after the morning’s cleaning frenzy. ‘Ask Adam, he might know.’ I noticed Adam looked surprisingly triumphant at Dad’s questi
on, passing by on his way to the kitchen. Dad followed him, looking thunderous, and soon returned, carrying the Glenfiddich aloft like a trophy.
‘Adam produced it from the back of the pantry, of all places. My best single malt and Adam tells me your daughter hid it there after scoffing it with her friends!’ he muttered.
‘Charlotte? I had no idea she liked spirits!’
‘It’s not just any old whisky, either,’ he said disgustedly. ‘It’s single malt. It’s twenty years old and it’s a very precious drop. It shouldn’t be in the hands of a teenage girl.’
‘Quite right. I’ll make sure she pays you back.’
‘I should think so.’ Dad looked only slightly mollified.
Dad took it to his beloved old mahogany cabinet, pulled out some of his best crystal glasses, poured his mates a measure and handed it to them neat. I’d only just turned back to Stephanie when I heard a splutter, followed by a roar.
‘That girl’s watered it down,’ he said, waving the almost empty glass. ‘Not only does she guzzle it behind my back, she has to ruin the rest of it by filling it up with water!’
‘It wasn’t Charlotte,’ Adam said. ‘It was that man she was seeing. She gave him some when he was here.’
I did a classic double take. ‘He was here? When?’
‘Oh, about a month ago.’
I realised that was when I was in Turkey.
I made a mental note to tell her off, and not just for wasting her grandfather’s best whisky.
‘I’ll get Simon to pick some up on the way here,’ I said to Dad, hoping to assuage his anger. ‘Glenfiddich, twenty years, of course,’ I added when I saw his pained expression.
‘What on earth would Charlotte want with a bottle of Dad’s whisky?’ Stephanie asked. hovering behind me as I dialled Simon’s number.
‘Believe me, you don’t want to know,’ I sighed.
‘Teenagers,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I can’t say I’ve missed Seraya in the last week. She can be quite demanding at times.’ She looked around, as if expecting to find her daughter in the crowd. ‘She should be here soon. If Marcus manages to find her at the airport.’ She wafted off in her floaty sarong and jandals. Her new look was quite disconcerting, especially to most of the men who noticeably ogled her long, bare legs when they thought nobody was looking.
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