by Jo Verity
He clapped his gloved hands together. ‘Come on. I’m getting chilly. Let’s up the pace.’
They completed their circuit of the Heath, ending up at the Garden Gate at South End Green. The pub was hot and noisy, there was nowhere to sit and the food had sold out.
‘Polly’s talking about giving her baby for adoption,’ he said.
This was neither the time or place for this – but that’s what happened when he drank on an empty stomach.
‘How d’you feel about that?’ she said.
‘Feel? Scared. Angry. Responsible. But mainly scared. Apparently my daughter hates my guts.’
Something trickled down his cheek and he realised that he was crying. ‘Can we get out of here?’ he said.
When they got back to her flat, she persuaded him to sit on the sofa and watch the tail end of a movie while she cooked cheese omelettes. After they’d finished eating, she showed him the two certificates, pointing out the offending dates. ‘See?’
He regretted his earlier impatience. ‘Your mother would have told you one day,’ he said. ‘On the face of it, she had another thirty years.’
‘I suppose so. And I’ve been thinking. Maybe this was what Dad was trying to tell me.’
‘Could well be,’ he said. ‘I’d like to come to the funeral, if it’s okay with you.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Gil, would Polly and I be friends?’
He thought for a second. ‘No. I don’t think you would. She’s flighty. Irrational. Wilful. In fact she’s pretty obnoxious.’
She gave a sad little smile. ‘And you love her, don’t you?’
‘I suppose I do.’
39
Gil’s journey involved a bus to Waterloo, a train to a place he’d never heard of, a ten minute walk down a suburban street and a short cut across a recreation ground. He’d expected the North East Surrey Crematorium would be a new-ish building – ’60s, maybe, painted magnolia, with a chimney masquerading as a bell tower. But what he found was a substantial Victorian edifice with buttresses, twin spires and stained glass windows. No chimney to be seen.
He arrived in good time and sat on a bench, skimming the newspaper he’d picked up on the train. Hearing voices, he looked up. Four people were coming from the opposite direction. As they drew nearer he recognised the Friels, Ottilie and one of the men from the party. Friel was holding forth, pointing at something on the roof of the building, and none of them spotted him. They stopped to check the noticeboard at the entrance, then went inside and, after a minute or two, Gil followed. He chose a seat several rows behind them and, unbuttoning his jacket, studied the service sheet. Philip Frederick Carey. 7th August 1923 – 13th January 2010. RIP.
It was all depressingly humdrum. Anodyne music. Muted décor. Sickly scented flowers (or air-freshener). A couple of attendants – looking alarmingly like bouncers – hovering near the entrance.
He had been fourteen when he’d attended his first funeral. The dead man was a workmate of his father’s – a man whom he’d never met. ‘Best see how it’s done when you’re not grieving for the poor sod in the box,’ his father had said. Wise advice. He wished he’d done the same for his own children before they’d had to face their grandfather’s funeral.
Inevitably, thoughts of death crept in. If he died tomorrow – it could happen – who would sort things out? There had to be a procedure for dealing with unclaimed bodies. He’d be disposed of by some means or another that was for sure. He might even end up here, in this vast cemetery. Now that would be weird. Of course he wouldn’t be ‘unclaimed’ unless he’d totally pissed off every one he knew – more than likely, the way things were going. Maybe he should put something in writing.
Vivian watched the undertaker’s men slide the coffin out of the hearse. It was pale not unlike laminate flooring and with gold-coloured handles, and three white wreaths balanced on top of it. The four men manoeuvred it deftly onto a trolley – waist height with spindly chrome legs – and propelled it towards the entrance. The whole thing looked insipid and comic, and to be honest, feminine. Decidedly inappropriate for the old man who lay inside. But having opted out of those decisions, she had no right to criticise. Besides, the whole lot would be gone within hours.
She’d had no response to her obituary letters and she’d fretted all week that no one would come. Howard had reminded her that funerals weren’t RSVP affairs, and that it was simply a matter of crossing one’s fingers that someone turned up on the day. As they followed the coffin down the aisle, she was relieved, therefore, to see a handful of people – Gil, Howard and Cara, Ottilie and Ralph, Mrs Francks (how had she found her way here?) and a group of elderly strangers – already in their places.
The service was formulaic, the singing pathetically thin. A man who had never met her father said complimentary things about someone she didn’t recognise. When he instructed them to ‘take a few minutes to remember the man you knew and cared for’, she wondered whether anyone here had known or cared for Philip Carey. Finally, accompanied by mundane music and the hum of an electric motor, curtains surrounded the coffin.
The small congregation was steered out through a side entrance, into a courtyard where piles of wreaths indicated that this was one of many funerals today. A young man in a dark suit was in the process of placing the family wreaths alongside one other, the card on which read ‘Deepest sympathy from all at Friel Dravid’, Ottilie’s influence unmistakable in its deep reds and purples.
It turned out that the strangers – two couples and an old man – were ex-neighbours of her parents. They’d spotted the obituary in the local paper. When Richard thanked them for coming and invited them back for refreshments, they declined, explaining that Ken, who had driven them down, wanted to get home before the rush hour. After a few minutes, Ottilie and Ralph made their excuses and headed off, leaving Howard, Cara, Mrs Francks and Gil as the only customers for the sandwiches sitting on the table at Farleigh Road.
‘You’ll come back to the house?’ Vivian said, half-hoping they wouldn’t.
‘Of course we will, darling,’ Cara said. ‘Who needs a lift?’
John stepped in. ‘We’ll be going in the limousine. If you could bring Mrs Francks and…’ He raised his eyebrows and nodded towards Gil.
‘Gil. Gil Thomas,’ he said.
Vivian guessed from Gil’s face that he was expecting her to elaborate but she couldn’t put the right words together and the moment passed.
As Howard led the little party towards the car park, Gil turned and raised his hand.
The return drive through Morden and Colliers Wood seemed never ending. Vivian stared out of the window, detaching herself from the Scottish foursome and their prattle. ‘That went off well, don’t you think?’ ‘Not a bad turnout, considering.’ ‘I wouldn’t want to live here, on this busy road, would you?’ Now and again, when they stopped at traffic lights, she caught the eye of a pedestrian whose pitying, grateful expression showed relief that that they weren’t in the funeral car.
When they reached Farleigh Road, Howard’s car was already outside the house. Richard ushered everyone in whilst John dealt with coats. Joan and Penny (‘the wee wifies’ – John’s phrase) took orders for tea and coffee.
Vivian watched the facets of her life collide. The Friels, like a Hollywood couple on a mercy mission. Richard, challenged by their urbanity, getting more pompous by the minute. Gil doing his best to fade into the background. The ‘wifies’ shocked yet fascinated by Cara’s bad language. Mrs Francks gamely chomping her way through salmon sandwiches. Occasionally Gil glanced in her direction, but she ignored his unspoken invitation to come and stand next to him. She didn’t know why but she just couldn’t.
Cara cornered her. ‘I didn’t realise you and Gil had become such good friends.’
‘It’s been tough,’ Vivian said, ‘and he’s been incredibly supportive.’
‘Well all that’s behind you now, darling,’ Cara said, disposing of Gil with a wave of her hand. ‘I hear you’re off to Colo
gne soon.’
‘Yes. In a couple of weeks.’
‘How exciting. I can’t wait to visit.’
Vivian and Howard had finalised the arrangements yesterday. She hadn’t told Gil yet. But it shouldn’t come as a surprise. He’d always known she was going to do this.
A headache was starting and she went upstairs to find something for it. The bathroom cabinet still contained her father’s first-aid supplies. Cough syrup had oozed from a bottle and the box of paracetamol tablets was glued to the shelf.
She began dropping things into the waste bin. A discoloured crepe bandage. A tin of Germolene. Athlete’s Foot powder. A squeezed-out tube of Anthisan. She tipped liquids – Optrex, calamine lotion, TCP – down the lavatory and flushed several times to get rid of the stench of antiseptic. At the very back of the shelf was a tube of Savlon. She was about to toss it in the bin when she noticed the use-by date. 04/2005. Three months before her mother died. God. Her mother had bought this. Her mother had held this in her hand.
Vivian remembered many details of that July day. Ants swarming on the front path. Her father polishing his shoes. Her own hands holding a lace-edged handkerchief. Strangers laughing in the kitchen. There must have been a coffin, and cars, and weeping, and wreaths, but when that had been going on, she’d vacated her body and gone somewhere else – she couldn’t say where.
The stairs creaked and she shoved the tube into her pocket.
‘Vivian? Are you up here?’ It was Gil.
‘I’m clearing the medicine cabinet,’ she said.
He must think her mad. This was her father’s wake and she was in the bathroom chucking things out. But all he said was ‘Can’t you slip away? We could catch a movie. Or get something to eat. Whatever you fancy.’
That’s what he said, but she knew he meant can’t we get back to how we were and she wasn’t ready to deal with that.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘There’s family stuff to discuss.’
After he’d gone, she realised she hadn’t asked about his daughter.
The others were shaping up to leave and Friel offered to drop Gil somewhere.
‘Thanks, but I could do with a walk,’ Gil said. He couldn’t face any more of the man’s condescension. Of course Friel was in love with Vivian. It was obvious from the way he kept putting his arm around her and looking at her whenever he said something funny.
He wondered when she would get around to telling him the Cologne date had been fixed. On the return drive, he and Mrs Francks had ridden in the back of the car. (He’d expected her to twig that he was the man who had offered to clear the snow from her path – but of course that man had been Polish.) Cara Friel had treated the journey as a travelling cocktail party, playing hostess and making small talk. Do you have family in London, Mrs Francks? How was your Christmas, Gil? Shame there weren’t more people at the service. Oh, and wasn’t it good news that Vivian felt up to starting in Cologne.
He’d known she was lined up to run the German office. She’d explained about the flat and how she would return home regularly to check her place and visit her father. But now he was dead, it seemed, there was nothing – no one – to stop her from going. To be realistic, their relationship might stagger on for a few months. He’d end up arranging his life around her schedule, on the off-chance that when she was in London she might spare him a moment. The disappointment – the resentment – when she didn’t would be destructive. Let’s face it, he’d come to London to escape that sort of crap.
He got in to find two emails from Janey, the first was rambling and melodramatic, filled with spite. Apparently this adoption crisis was entirely his fault. Everything had been going smoothly until he turned up. And while they were at it, why had he run out on his children? His selfishness was to blame for Polly’s going off the rails. In ten years time, when – demented with self-loathing – she flung herself off Sydney Harbour Bridge, he would be responsible for that, too.
He assumed Janey had been drunk when she’d written it. If not, she was out of her mind.
The second mail, sent six hours later, was short and to the point. Polly had been keeping a list of girl names, adding to it whenever she came across one that appealed to her. Janey had just found the list in the waste paper basket, ripped into tiny pieces. He had to agree that this was proof she was going to give the baby away.
Destroying baby names was the kind of chilling act that figured in psycho-dramas. But leaving the debris where it could be spotted? Nah. This was part of Polly’s wind-up campaign, along with telling him his mother was ‘losing it’. Either way, what the fuck did Janey expect him to do?
He switched on the television, flicking from channel to channel, but nothing held his attention. He checked the time. Polly should be at home now. He could ring her. But what would he say? Please don’t give your baby away? Yeah, brilliant. That should do the trick.
He’d promised her that motherhood wouldn’t mean putting her life on hold. Of course that was twaddle. A baby was a burden. Physically. Mentally. Economically. (Look at Kevin and his wife – two of them to one scrap of baby, yet they were struggling to stay sane.) No matter how much help she had from Janey and the sainted bloody Alan, no matter if some day a nice fatherly guy came along, this kid would always be her responsibility. What he couldn’t explain – and wouldn’t even try – was that this burden would be far outweighed by unconditional love. What parent wouldn’t take a bullet for their child?
Is that why you walked out on us, Dad?
40
They met at the solicitors’ office in Balham.
After introductions and condolences, Sonja Olsen, whom Vivian placed in her mid-forties, ran through a checklist of what needed to be done before they could apply for probate.
‘It’s very straightforward,’ she said. ‘You’ll be able to do most of it yourselves.’
She held up a large cream envelope. ‘I have your father’s will here.’ She turned to Richard. ‘You’re his executor, Mr Carey. Did he give you a copy?’
‘As a matter of fact he didn’t,’ Richard said. ‘He informed me you were holding it, but we were surprised not to find any reference to it amongst his papers. Is that going to be a problem?’
They’d talked about this last night, along with what should happen to the contents of the house and what Vivian was owed for utility bills. Despite a trawl through the filing cabinet – Vivian holding her breath for fear they noticed that the marriage certificate was missing – they’d found neither the will nor any reference to it.
‘It’s customary,’ the solicitor said ‘but in some cases clients prefer their wishes to remain private until after their death. It’s a personal choice.’
She handed Richard the envelope. ‘Maybe you’d care to look at it while you’re here. If there’s anything you don’t understand, I’ll do my best to clear it up.’
She installed them in a quiet room, and the receptionist brought a tray of coffee. Richard made a performance of opening the envelope, running his pocketknife under the flap, pulling out a sheaf of paper with a theatrical flourish. Along with the original will, there were three copies, each of their names written in the top corner in their father’s slanting script.
‘I suggest I read it aloud whilst you follow your copies,’ Richard said.
He cleared his throat and began reading, projecting his voice as if he were addressing a board meeting. Vivian hadn’t given much thought to the will. She’d vaguely assumed that it was a formality and that everything would be divided between the three of them. But after a paragraph or two of standard preamble, it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be at all like that.
‘“I bequeath to Vivian Johanna Carey, daughter of my late wife Anneliese Birgit Carey (née Krüger), free of all taxes and death duty, the sum of five thousand pounds.”’
Vivian stared at the page. Daughter of my late wife. What an odd way to put it.
Richard must have thought so too because he stopped reading, the absence of his
voice making way for the purr, click; purr, click of a photocopier somewhere nearby.
And then she understood. There was nothing odd about it. It was the truth. The wonderful, obvious truth. She was not Philip Carey’s daughter. He was not her father. To be absolutely sure, she re-read the whole sentence, checking each syllable of each word. And, as she did so, the cords binding her to him stretched and stretched until they snapped.
Richard and John must have worked it out too. Silent and motionless, they watched her, waiting to see how she would react, no doubt expecting her to fall to pieces. When she didn’t, John began fidgeting, flipping through the photocopied pages.
He cleared his throat. ‘Maybe we should take a few minutes to…’
‘No,’ she said, switching her gaze between these men who it seemed were, miraculously, no longer her half-brothers. ‘Carry on please, Richard.’
Richard rattled through the rest of it, stumbling over the antiquated terminology, plainly desperate to get it done. It didn’t take long. The estate was to be shared, equally, between ‘my sons, Richard James Carey and John Philip Carey’.
‘Did you know?’ she said when he’d finished.
Richard looked as though he were going to vomit. ‘Of course we didn’t. And besides we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said.
John took it up. ‘Dad…I mean…maybe he left some kind of explanation. We should check.’
‘Check what?’ she said.
‘Well, we ought at least to—’
‘Check that I have no valid claim on his estate?’
‘That’s below the belt, Vivian,’ he said.
Richard signalled his brother to be quiet. ‘Assuming this is true, he must have had good reason to keep it to himself.’
‘How about this?’ she said. ‘When my mother died, he lost his support system. It suited him to have me stick around. He knew if I learned the truth, I’d never go there again.’
‘Dad could be selfish but you’re making him out to be a scheming tyrant,’ Richard said.