The service was simple, fitting, with a lovely eulogy given by Mrs Devlin, who had played in the orchestra with her dad for decades and of whom he was very fond. As the velvet fringed curtains closed and the coffin was lowered to somewhere Lilly would rather not envisage, the sound of Albinoni’s ‘Adagio in G Minor’ rang out around the crematorium, musical perfection for such a moment. Still, despite the sound of muffled sobbing all around her, Lilly was yet to shed a tear. Because it didn’t feel real, any of it, and therefore her body couldn’t cry, as her mind wouldn’t let her.
The wake was busier than she had anticipated. ‘A good turnout’ seemed to be the appropriate phrase. The entire orchestra, his work friends from the music shop, members of the Ramblers’ Association, neighbours, even the odd army friend or two. He would have been chuffed and embarrassed in equal measure to see such a gathering. There was an air of reverence in the Builder’s Arms pub, where platters of cheese and pickle, andham and tomato sandwiches, trays of Scotch eggs and bowls of ready-salted crisps had been placed on the bar, alongside a stack of paper napkins to aid with food residue on the fingers.
People she knew, and some she didn’t, came to shake her hand, share a lovely anecdote, usually detailing something funny or kind her dad had said or done, and all with a genuine sadness about them that they wouldn’t see him again.
Her mum came to the funeral; of course she did. What Lilly hadn’t expected was that Derek Manners would be there too. It was obvious, really, that her mum wasn’t going to pitch up without her husband of fifteen years, and in fairness to Derek Manners he had never done anything to directly hurt or injure Lilly, it was more what he represented. He was the man who had provided the open window through which her mother had climbed, keen to escape her unsatisfactory life in Waide House. More than that, he’d put up a rope ladder and placed a safety mat on the ground, promising to catch her if she fell. A neat exit from their flat, where not even that wide window and the view of the river was enough to tempt her to stay.
Lilly approached her mother with caution, still wary of rejection, still nervous to place her hand on her, to touch her in any way, never to tell her that she loved her, worried by not receiving the same in return. And even now, wanting to punish the woman who had promised so much with her regular dinners, laundering skills and bedtime stories, making the withdrawal of it all that much harder to bear.
‘Thank you for coming.’ She spoke with a certain formality, nodding at her mum, who looked older than she did in Lilly’s mind, and sad, of course. It was a requirement for the occasion, even if it was a look that Lilly was struggling to achieve. Her mum narrowed her eyes at her. ‘Of course. Of course we were going to come!’
We . . . We . . . We . . .
‘It’s surreal to me.’ Jeannie drew breath. ‘Robert was one of those people who was just always going to be around.’Unlike you ...Lilly swallowed the thought. ‘I can’t imagine what you are going through, Lilly.’
‘I’m fine!’ She gave a brief, contained smile: proof. ‘People keep telling me it’s a blessing for him to have experienced such a swift and straightforward ending. I guess that’s true.’
‘I believe that. Derek’s brother had cancer’ – her mum shook her head and simultaneously exhaled – ‘and there was nothing straightforward about that.’
‘Right.’ Lilly widened her eyes, in no humour to hear about the suffering of someone she had never met or heard of.
‘How have you been?’ Her mother toyed with the handle of her handbag, bitten nails nervously flicking the frayed edge of faux leather.
‘Well, there’s a question.’ Lilly considered it. ‘I’ve been ... preoccupied, I suppose. Busy. No one tells you that, do they, about all the admin involved when someone dies. It’s not actually the emotional stuff that gets you at the end of every day, not the longing for one more minute or the revisiting of moments and memories that reduce you to tears. At least it hasn’t been for me.’ She gave a small, awkward laugh. ‘For me it’s more about being physically exhausted, entirely unenamoured by the filling out of the forms in triplicate, the sending off of certificates, the numerous phone calls, arguing with the bank, cancelling policies and standing orders, closing accounts, all that rubbish.’
An image of her wonderful Bertie filled Lilly’s mind, knowing his family had been exhausted by the long and laborious nature of his passing. The wasting away of the once vibrant man, watching him over a series of months reduce and reduce until he barely resembled the person they all adored. A living ghost. As if he had died long before he died. Applying lotions and potions and trying to find new and inventive ways to presentthe kaleidoscope of colossal pills that seemed both endless and pointless. The sleepless nights, understanding that at that stage, the end, the nasty disease paid no heed to the clock. And neither did her darling Bertie Barnes, who at the most irregular of times needed to use the bathroom, take morphine, or simply felt the need to make sure for the umpteenth time that she fully understood the workings of the safe in the gallery. The gallery he had left to her, this the one thing he had wanted to say before he died. It was hers because she was the closest to a daughter he would ever have, and he loved her so.
Lilly looked up and coughed, refocusing, as if remembering who she was talking to and what she was talking about. ‘So yes, I’ve been preoccupied.’
‘I guess it’s one good thing, that he didn’t suffer.’
‘Oh yes,’ she offered brightly, falsely. ‘Thatisone good thing.’
‘You sound’ – her mum licked her lips, nervously – ‘a bit bitter. Angry, actually. Angry with me.’
Lilly smacked her hand on her forehead. ‘Now why on earth would I be angry with you?’
‘I don’t know, Lilly, because maybe you think if I hadn’t left, your dad might still be alive, as if you think it was somehow my job to stay and look after him. Is that what you think?’
This time her mother didn’t waste time agitating the handle of her handbag. Instead she placed her thumbnail directly between her teeth and ripped.
‘I don’t know what I think, Mum.’ The sound of the word was still alien on her tongue. But that was a lie; Lilly did know. And what she thought was that, had her mother not abandoned her marriage, her husband, her life, then maybe, just maybe, her dad might not have kept his heart condition secret, might not have had a bad heart at all! As if one that wasn’t broken had a better chanceof survival than his, which his wife had taken and smashed into a million fragments.
I think that if we assume it’s for ever then we won’t be disappointed. And if it turns out not to be the case, then we’ll be extra happy if she comes home ...
It was a ludicrous notion, of course.
‘Ignore me, I’m tired’ – she rubbed her sore eyes – ‘and my dad’s just died and I’m trying to get my head straight.’
‘That day, that day you called me to tell me about the boy you’d met’ – her mum met her gaze and, just like that, Lilly felt the throb along her scar – ‘I think about it a lot. It was like...’
‘Like what?’ Lilly’s tone was clipped. This conversation, about all the things she kept boxed up and shut away, made her quite uncomfortable. The very last thing she wanted to do was open them up today, and especially not in front of her mother.
‘It was like I always hoped it would be’ – Jeannie’s voice cracked – ‘you phoning me, excited, sharing a little bit of your life, letting me in.’
Lilly had almost forgotten the thrill she had felt at relaying the news. Someone had picked her! Someone had wanted her! And he was, until she discovered otherwise, quite, quite marvellous! This memory was now edged with the embarrassment and sense of failure that she had grown accustomed to. How did this woman not understand that she had forfeited the right to all of those feelings the day she walked away, abandoned her!
‘It came to nothing, obviously.’ She spoke the words, knowing this was not what her mother was driving at.
