‘It’s better than the one in Highgate – that’s absolutely heaving – but you should have tried to get him into Kilburn. It’s lovely, Kilburn. Lovely views.’
‘Right,’ I said faintly, although it occurred to me to wonder of what benefit that would be to the occupants. ‘You’re …au fait with most London cemeteries, I take it?’
‘Can’t think of one I haven’t been to,’ she chuckled proudly. ‘Shh now, dear, the vicar’s going to do his bit. He won’t want you gassing on.’
As the coffin was lowered into the ground Lily squeezed my hand and I squeezed back. The vicar spoke of dust and ashes, and Mum, when invited to, tentatively sprinkled some earth. So did the man with the medals. And the lady with the feather boa. Then everyone, it seemed, wanted a go. I shut my eyes as Angora Bedjacket went back for her second throw. Keep breathing, keep breathing. I was also dimly aware of a commotion behind me, some panting and arguing. When I turned, I saw that the two old ladies who’d been pinching each other in the back row of the chapel were bent double and wrestling to pull a wooden crate through the throng.
‘You don’t mind the doves, do you, dear?’ whispered Barbara in my ear.
‘Doves?’
‘Released at the graveside. Two of them, usually. It symbolizes the deceased’s spirit, soaring up to heaven. Gloria and Vera always do it.’
‘Oh! Um, well, I’m not sure.’ Good God. Whatever next?
‘Oh yes, Mummy, it’ll be lovely,’ enthused Lily.
‘Oh Lord,’ I muttered. I hesitated. ‘Well quickly, go and see what Granny says.’
Lily hastened over and whispered in Mum’s ear. I saw her raise her eyebrows a fraction and move her lips just perceptibly.
‘Granny says – whatever,’ Lily reported back breathlessly.
Gloria and Vera duly manoeuvred the crate to the head of the grave. I glanced at the vicar, but he’d clearly seen it all before. No doubt if a pair of randy dogs had been released to roger away amongst the graves, he’d still have had that same faraway, beatific expression on his face. He rocked back on his heels, cassock billowing in the wind, dreaming of lunch.
As Gloria struggled with the catch on the box there was a nasty moment when it looked like Dad’s soul was going to be trapped for ever in an orange box. Happily though, she worked it free, and a pair of grey pigeons soared up into the sky.
‘Doves?’ muttered Benji in my ear.
‘Pigeons are cheaper,’ Barbara explained. ‘Free, as a matter of fact. Vera’s brother breeds them for racing. We usually dye them white, but we didn’t have time, I’m afraid. Nice touch though, don’t you think?’
‘Very,’ agreed Benji drolly, as we watched the birds circle overhead then zoom off determinedly. ‘And where, exactly, does Vera’s brother live?’
‘Hendon way, I think.’
‘Twenty-two, Stonecroft Road,’ put in Vera helpfully, straightening up from the crate and dusting down her hands on her bobbly cardigan.
‘Excellent.’ Benji nodded as the birds duly homed off in that direction. ‘Nice to know where my father’s soul is. Where his final resting-place is.’
Back in my mother’s flat, it quickly transpired that we’d seriously under-catered for our new friends.
‘I had no idea they were all coming,’ Mum hissed to me in the kitchen as we peered through the hatch, watching the sitting room fill up.
They instantly made for the table she’d laid with plates of food and glasses of sherry, stuffing in two sandwiches at a time and draining the glasses.
‘Clearly funerals are the highlight of the geriatrics’ social calendar,’ Francis observed as he came in with a couple of empty plates. ‘Come on.’ He reached into the bread bin and passed a sliced loaf to Angus. ‘Get buttering.’
‘Actually, I’d go easy on the sherry,’ said Marcus, coming back with a tray of empty glasses. ‘We don’t know what medication they’re on, for God’s sake. We don’t want another funeral on our hands. Boil the kettle, Lily.’
In the event, our visitors made the party go with a bit of a zing. They were refreshingly unfazed by the nature of the occasion, even putting bets on who would be next, and were clearly out to have a good time.
‘Marvellous man, your father,’ Tartan Trousers confided to me as I joined what seemed to be a permanent queue for the loo. ‘Talented too. Imagine being able to ride a monocycle and kick a pile of cups and saucers onto your head at the same time. And then put a lump of sugar in the last cup!’
I swallowed. ‘Quite.’ Perhaps I’d come back to the loo later.
They all remembered Dad very fondly, though.
‘A very funny man, your father,’ observed the hunch-backed lady with the feather boa, laying a cool, dry hand on my arm. ‘If a little smutty.’
I smiled and after a chat with her, drifted on. I was moved to hear the more alert members of the group – those who weren’t slumped staring into space or fast asleep in armchairs – say much the same. Clearly Dad had been the Home’s clown: not a side of him we’d seen at home, although the humour had always been there. They’d seen it in the raw, I suppose, stripped of its subtlety and intelligence. Nature without the nurture.
At one point, the old boy with the medals proposed a toast. They all got rather chaotically to their feet – zimmer frames clanking and walking sticks flying – and raised their glasses.
‘The Great Renaldo!’ went up the cry.
The rest of us, who’d muttered ‘Dad’, or ‘Gordon’ froze, wide-eyed. I couldn’t look at Mum, but saw Benji choking with laughter into his sherry.
The party resumed, but after a while I glanced across at Mum. She was standing over by the window with both hands in the small of her back looking tired and talking quietly to Howard Greenburg. I’d noticed him earlier, seeing to people’s drinks and handing round cakes, and been pleased that he was making an effort. I looked around for the children. They were perched on a sofa, trying vainly to make polite conversation with elderly people who didn’t know what day it was, let alone what a GCSE or a lacrosse match was. One desiccated old lady, gazing enchanted as Lily chatted on, reached out a bony hand to stroke her hair. I felt proud of them, but enough was enough. I caught Marcus’s eye, something I’d avoided most of the afternoon, and he nodded. We might be conducting simultaneous affairs and be ready to lynch each other, but we’d been married for fifteen years and could still tell each other across a crowded room that the party was over. I went into the bedroom to get the coats, whereupon a few neighbours quickly followed suit. Hopefully Barbara and Grace would take the hint.
‘Sure you don’t want me to stay behind and help tidy up?’ I asked anxiously as I kissed Mum goodbye at the door.
‘No, dear, I’ve got masses of help as it is.’
I smiled and wrapped my scarf round my neck. ‘Howard?’
‘No, no. Howard and Angela have been marvellous already. They made the vol-au-vents. I wouldn’t dream of letting them do any more. No, Benji and Francis are staying on to help clear up. Now you get off, my darlings. I’m worried about your long drive.’
‘Angela?’
‘Howard’s girlfriend. You met her, over there by the Hostess trolley. Nice woman.’
I glanced through the door at an auburn-haired woman in a smart navy suit. ‘Oh. I thought that was his sister!’
‘No, he met her at the Parkers’ whist-drive last month. She’s a widow. Now off you go, love.’
‘But …don’t you mind?’
‘Mind?’ She looked confused. ‘Why should I mind?’
‘Well, I thought …’
She stared. Then her mouth fell open. ‘What – me and Howard Greenburg? Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Henny. I’ve known him forty years! Bertha was my best friend! Anyway,’ she grinned, ‘he’s got terrible halitosis.’
‘But I thought –’
‘Go on, away with you. I’ll be glad when today’s over, I can tell you. Thank you for your support, my loves,’ she kissed the children. Then she squeezed
Marcus’s hand. ‘And thank you, for coming.’ She eyed him gratefully, then went back inside.
I trailed blankly down the stairs as my family clattered on ahead. As they piled into the car parked just down the road, Marcus, in the driving seat, leaned across and opened the door for me. I got in.
‘Got that wrong, didn’t you?’ he observed dryly as I sat down.
I leaned back in my seat. ‘Clearly.’
Chapter Twenty-one
‘Can I put a CD on?’ asked Angus from the back seat.
‘Yes,’ Marcus and I both said together.
We glanced nervously at one another. Normally it was an emphatic ‘No!’ but clearly we both felt Def Leppard, or whatever it was Angus was about to subject us to, was preferable to stony silence.
Eardrums reverberating, we set off towards Kent and I thought how odd it was to be back in the family car: the children on the back seat bickering as usual, Marcus beside me, his familiar hands on the steering-wheel guiding us home. Home. Well, it had to be home, obviously, because the children were with us. We couldn’t possibly go our separate ways. Had to keep up appearances. Yes, that was what we were doing, I thought, as a lump came to my throat. I gazed out of the window. Keeping up appearances. I took a deep breath. I was bound to feel emotional, I reasoned. Of course I was. It had been a very emotional day.
Once we reached the farm though, it was worse. While I’d been away, the trees had changed colour to dazzling effect, and the house, tucked in the soft fold of the valley with the stream glistening beyond, looked magical. It was caught in one of those last, sudden blazes of golden light that only happens at this time of year and makes everything look like a film set. Home, I thought, as I got out of the car and shut the door. My home. And what would become of it now, in this new, fractured family? Who would it belong to? Marcus presumably, I thought, crunching across the gravel drive, since I’d never contributed a penny.
I opened the back door and gazed around at my farmhouse kitchen, Farrow & Balled to within an inch of its life. But then again …didn’t wives usually stay in the family home with the children? I was sure the law was weighted that way. But could I really chuck Marcus out and live here with Rupert? I put my bag on the table and stared at the navy-blue Aga. LIVE with Rupert? Is that what I was planning? My pulse began to race. In my heart I already knew it was what he wanted, long-term commitment, but …I bit my lip. Through the window I could see Fabrice, Marcus’s horse, rugged up for the winter, grazing peacefully in the meadow. No, I certainly couldn’t live here with Rupert. What – see him out in the yard every day feeding the chickens? Strolling around Marcus’s orchard? Have the children come home to someone who wasn’t their daddy, Rupert at the head of the table? No. So obviously I’d leave it to Marcus. And Perdita. I swallowed. And instead, she’d walk around my garden, feed my chickens, and take my dog for a walk. I felt the blood surge to my cheeks. Would she hell. Bugger that.
Dilly was scratching at the bootroom door and I let her out, pausing only briefly to acknowledge her. I felt hot, clammy. I walked through to the sitting room, holding myself tightly and flicking on lights as I went. No, it would have to be sold. Definitely sold. Neither of us could live here without the other, it was our home, Marcus’s and mine. Too many decisions had been made together, from the colour of the walls to the position of the light sockets, to having flagstones or terracotta tiles in the hall …It had been our project, our baby, and if we weren’t here together, it would have to go.
Perfect, I thought miserably as I mounted the wide oak staircase, my hand dragging on the rail. Just perfect. So the real losers here would be the children. No home to come back to any more, no familiar bedrooms, no playroom, no ping-pong table, just a flint cottage with Daddy and Perdita and a flat in London with Mummy and Rupert. Panic rising and having to breathe really quite hard now to control myself, I went down the corridor to the bedroom.
I could hear them in the playroom below me, squabbling about who got to lie on the most comfortable sofa, who got command of the remote control. Another battle ensued about who went to get the crisps, and then I heard Angus’s voice in the kitchen, outraged that there wasn’t the usual supply of smoky-bacon flavour in the larder, or any chocolate digestives in the tin. Well, of course there weren’t, I thought. I hadn’t been here.
In my room I pulled out jeans and an old jumper and started to take off my dark-grey suit. I’d bought it specially for today, but at the back of my mind had known it would do for work; that it was an investment. For work I was surely going to have to do, I thought grimly, only on a more serious basis now. Not as a joke, a laugh, a few days away from the mud and the simple country folk – no, as a full-time occupation. As a single mum. I sat down on the bed in my bra and pants feeling cold and numb as the ramifications were rammed home, one after another. The door handle turned as I peeled off my stockings, and Marcus came in.
‘Oh. Sorry.’
Our eyes met in confusion and he backed out again.
So. It had come to that. I dropped the nylons in a heap on the floor. My husband, on seeing me in my underwear and feeling so uncomfortable, being so unfamiliar with my body, had had to back away. Too used to seeing a different girl in the buff, I thought, bile rising. And even Marcus wasn’t shameless enough to view two women in one week in a state of undress. I got angrily to my feet, pulled on my jeans and went to find him. He was in the bathroom having a poo.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ I shut the door quickly.
I stood outside and covered my face. Christ. Now I was doing it. And we were a couple who had happily done anything in the same room. Had always barged in on each other. Although I must admit, I always quite liked a private poo. Wasn’t very good at straining with an audience. I waited until he came out. His face was inscrutable.
‘Marcus, we must talk.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Well, obviously it’s going to be quite awkward, the next couple of days. You know, being in the same house. But for the children’s sake, we must get on with it. Just for now.’
‘I agree.’ He folded his arms.
I swallowed. It was so odd talking to him like this. He was so cold. So remote. Like a stranger.
‘Clearly we can’t sleep in the same bed.’
‘Clearly.’
‘So you can sleep in your dressing room.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘And tomorrow,’ I ploughed on, ignoring the sarcasm, ‘well, tomorrow we’ll just keep out of each other’s way, I think.’
‘If that’s what you want.’
A silence hung between us.
‘I – I shall probably go shopping,’ I faltered on, filling the gap.
‘And I shall go hunting. Lily wants to come too.’
I blinked. ‘Lily? She’s never been out before, has she? Oh Marcus, do be careful. Look after her, won’t you?’
He did not deign to reply to this, just gave me a withering look.
I pressed on. ‘Right. Well, no doubt Angus will want to see Tom, if he’s around, so that’s all organized.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ he said bitterly.
I stared at him, appalled at his tone. Shocked at his new-found contempt for me. Tears welling, I turned and went back to the bedroom. I stood still and held myself tight, staring bleakly at the bed. I stayed there a few moments, just holding myself. Then I noticed something. The way the bed had been made. Not the way Linda or I made it, with the lace cushions in a neat little stack, largest at the back, smallest at the front – the lace cushions which, if Marcus had anything to do with it, would be in a heap on the floor. No. They were in an unfamiliar circle. A sort of …tasteless clutch. And on my bedside table was a little vase of flowers, which someone had picked from my garden to have by her side when she woke up. Perdita’s side.
I caught my breath in fury, then flew out of the room. I cornered Marcus on the landing, fists balled.
‘And Perdita’s going too, is she?’ I shrieked. ‘Hunting?’
He blanched. ‘Of course.’
‘Oh, of course,’ I mimicked. ‘Of course she is. Whinnying away in her skintight jodhpurs and her leather boots – giddy-up!’ I trotted on the spot holding imaginary reins. ‘Of course!’
Angus came to the bottom of the stairs. He frowned. ‘Mum?’
I dropped the trotting and glared at my husband standing there so impassively, so seemingly full of moral superiority. If Angus hadn’t been at the bottom of the stairs I’d have slapped his stupid face. Instead, I pushed him bodily into the spare room behind us and shut the door.
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ I hissed. ‘I will not be sleeping in the marital bed tonight, I’ll be sleeping in here, because for reasons which I’m sure you’ll appreciate, I won’t feel comfortable in there. Savvy?’ I shoved my face close to his. ‘Savvy, Mister Booted and Spurred and Tally-ho Over the Fences We Go? Oh, wait a minute, let me whip your backside first, darling.’ I turned and gave mine a mock slap. ‘Mmm, ooh – harder!’
He frowned. ‘Henny, are you on drugs?’
‘Oh, drugs! Oh yes, that’s a good one, isn’t it? Sex and drugs, ooh splendid, let’s accuse her of that too, shall we? That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it? You’d love that, wouldn’t you, Marcus? Then you could say, “Not only is my wife having an affair, she’s snorting cocaine too!” ’ I sniffed up an imaginary line from my hand. ‘Mm, yummy! And why stop there? Why not say – say I’d been giving blow jobs in Waitrose car park?’ I said wildly.
‘Behind the shopping trolleys? Why not make it all up? Say it was all my fault?’
‘You’re insane.’
‘And you’re looking for excuses!’ I spat. ‘Excuses for your appalling behaviour – well, I won’t give you any. You started this mess, Marcus,’ I prodded him in the chest with my finger, ‘this is all of your making and I am not going to be the scapegoat. You will not hang your grubby little misdemeanours on me! Now get out of my bloody bedroom!’
He didn’t. Just stood there regarding me with disdain.
‘All right!’ I panted eventually, fists clenched. ‘I will!’
Not That Kind of Girl Page 29