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They stood there for what was probably only a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. Nola found herself drifting back to years earlier, when they’d put their arms around her and somehow made her feel better on a day when it was impossible to have really felt anything at all. She closed her eyes now, gave herself over to the tears that racked their way through her body. She managed to shuffle so she knew she was steady on her feet. Her sisters were still holding onto her, both of them, supporting her for just long enough so she didn’t end up splayed across the sun-lightened rug, which was too thin now to pad out any bruising from the hard parquet beneath.
And then, when she took a deep steadying breath, Iris slipped her arm away again, as if its straying there had been some sort of accident. Georgie too stepped back, cleared her throat and said, ‘Well, I suppose we should probably pull ourselves together for what comes next.’
*
Georgie thought it felt as if they stood there for a long time, close enough to touch, but with a million miles and broken promises making them so far away from each other in every other sense. Today, it seemed that her father, like everything else about Soldier Hill House, had become smaller, more faded – still like himself, but at the same time, not.
‘I didn’t know he’d grown a beard,’ Iris said lightly, tracing her finger along the grey silky hairs that had been tamed and tapered about his face and chin.
‘No?’ Georgie asked shakily.
‘He looks different. I mean, apart from being…’ Nola stopped.
‘He’d lost a lot of weight, by the end,’ Georgie whispered. ‘Mary said there was no tempting him no matter what she cooked for dinner. Sometimes, she’d come back to find the dinner she’d prepared sent straight to the bin and he’d have maybe had a cream cracker or two by the end of the day.’ She reached out and touched his hand gently, lingering just a little, but his skin felt waxy and Georgie missed the warmth of him so much she thought it might double her in two.
From four o’clock, villagers began to arrive and it seemed like everyone who pushed open the front door was an old friend. To Georgie, they were mostly foggy characters. Her weekend visits had just been to the house; she hadn’t involved herself in the village for years.
‘Dear God, deliver us,’ Georgie said under her breath when they spotted Boo and Everina Swift arriving in the front hall. The twins had been in school with her and even when they were very young, Georgie had been able to mimic them expertly. ‘Looks like they’re still leading out the hunt every year.’ They were still bandy-legged in breeches.
‘I always thought he fancied you.’ Nola leaned in closer and tried to stifle a giggle as Georgie nearly choked on the dainty cup of tea she was drinking.
‘Don’t get me started,’ Georgie scoffed because she could so easily fall back into that habit of making fun of them just to make her sisters laugh.
It felt as if they shook hands with every villager for miles around that afternoon. People came and spoke about their father in a way that made him seem even further away than he already was.
‘Aye, he was a changed man these last few years.’
‘Never seen the likes of it, couldn’t do enough for the village.’
‘Best man in a pickle.’
‘Never leave you stuck – that’s for sure.’
And on it went, as if they had nothing better to do, but stand over him, giving him the last of their best wishes.
By the time the last of them left, she could see the same worn-out quality in Iris and Nola as she felt in herself. It was as if they’d been washed over by an ocean of other people’s grief for a man who meant more to her than anything or anyone else in the world.
‘Well, that’s part one over, I suppose,’ Iris said softly as she closed the front door of the house after the last of the mourners left. Then came the removal of their father’s remains. And instead of the hushed sympathy of strangers murmuring what were meant to be words of encouragement and solace, the house echoed with the creaking of screws being turned slowly and deliberately as the coffin lid was fastened closed across their father. Georgie sat with her sisters in the hard chairs that lined the opposite side of the room, feeling each turn of the screw spin her insides back to front. She wanted to be sick and still she sat there, knowing that to leave would be like abandonment. It seemed to take forever, one painful creak at a time, as if they were winding up some invisible pressure – the question was, which of them would crack first?
And then, the undertaker touched each corner of the coffin with a narrow tap from a miniature hammer and Georgie wasn’t sure if it was some old wives’ tale tradition, or if the tiny metal hammer would in some way secure their father for the next part of his journey to the local church.
Outside, four strong men waited to carry their father to the hearse, and the sisters stood together silently on the doorstep as he made his final journey down the avenue. Georgie’s breath caught in her chest as the starlings filled up the sky in a coordinated soaring and diving cortege.
She stood there for a while after the hearse had rounded the final bend and moved out of sight. It felt as if his spirit lingered, reluctant to leave them just yet. Maybe that was why her sisters stayed there too, until the final starling had disappeared from the sky and the moon was an oblique shadowy light picking through the tall trees beyond. Silence tripped across the hall between the three sisters, none of them quite sure what they should do next.
‘Have any of you thought about what will happen to this place?’ Iris murmured, her eyes travelling up the staircase, taking in everything as if she was seeing it for the very last time.
‘We’ll sell it, of course, and then split everything evenly between us,’ Nola said, shivering against the evening cold in her flimsy dress.
‘You say that as if it’s already been agreed.’ Georgie couldn’t imagine pulling apart her father’s life – at this moment, even talking about it felt like a betrayal and then, just to spite them both she said, ‘For all we know, he may have made a will and left it to just one of us, or maybe none of us at all.’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’ Iris didn’t sound very certain. ‘It’ll be divided equally between the three of us, I’m sure.’
‘And when it is, the only sensible thing to do is sell it on and divide the proceeds three ways,’ Nola said.
‘You can’t wait to take everything he worked for and hightail it back to London, can you?’ Georgie said, and there was no mistaking the fact that the day had torn into the reserve of composure she’d been wearing like a flimsy mantilla.
Nola bristled. ‘I wasn’t the one who brought it up.’
