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Tori
St Gytha’s Church, Canonford, UK
February 2019
‘For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ The vicar’s voice rings out in the near-empty church. She’s a pleasant middle-aged woman with candyfloss-pink hair and a West Country accent, and she told us straight away to call her Angie. I like her immensely.
‘Margaret came to our village twenty-five years ago, after the death of her beloved husband Hugo,’ Angie continues. ‘Her dignity, her grace, her Christian faith and her strong sense of fairness endeared her to all who knew her. Today, in a private service with Margaret’s closest family, we gather to celebrate her life and commend her soul to God. Let us pray.’
Next to me, my mother folds her black-gloved hands in her black-clad lap. She’s perfectly rigid, radiating disapproval of everything around her: the squat stone church, the colourful Victorian stained glass, the appliquéd banners with their fat white doves and wonky crosses. I can only imagine what she thinks of Angie’s hair. Not for the first time, I wonder how Granny and Grandad – whom I remember as a vague, gentle presence, all frayed wool and pipe tobacco – managed to produce such an appalling social conformist.
There’s a muffled sound somewhere behind me, and I look round to see a little group of women lurking at the back of the church by the noticeboards. I recognise some of them as Granny’s friends from the local Women’s Institute. I smile and nod, motioning them to sit down, and Mummy kicks me in the ankle. I’ve broken the rules, you see. This is strictly family only, even though Daddy died when I was little, and my sister Charlie’s kids are sick with something violently contagious, and my husband Duncan was simply too busy to come, so that only left Mummy and me. We’re supposed to bury my brilliant, generous, loving grandmother quietly and without making a fuss. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.
Angie’s reading a psalm now, the one about the Lord being our shepherd. I glance over my shoulder and see the WI ladies massed in the back pews, silk-scarved heads bowed in prayer. A sob rises in my throat and I press my hand to my mouth to stifle it, but it bursts out as an ugly, strangled hiccup.
My mother stiffens. She puts her gloved hand on my arm and lets it rest there for a second. Then she returns it to her lap and goes on looking ahead, back straight, perfectly rigid.
*
As Mummy stalks off across the church car park towards her elderly Jag, Angie approaches me. ‘Tori, are you rushing off? Or have you got time for a quick word?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘My train doesn’t go for ages.’
She beams at me. ‘Great. Then we could have a cup of tea and a proper chat, if you like. And I can tell you all about the vigil. It really was a lovely event – I was so sorry you couldn’t be there, but I know you were with us in spirit.’
I blink at her. I didn’t hear anything about a vigil, and I can’t imagine Mummy condoning such a thing. It sounds distinctly like making a fuss. ‘Sorry?’
‘The vigil, last night, at the Chapel of Rest. We had ever such a good turnout. Mostly locals, obviously, but word must have spread because a few of your grandmother’s friends came from London and beyond. We even had one or two Italians – because your granny had friends over there, didn’t she? She told me all about how you two used to go there together.’
‘She did,’ I say. ‘We did.’
‘That must have been wonderful,’ Angie says. ‘Anyway, I know it was too much for you, the vigil, but I thought you’d like to hear about it.’ She’s starting to look puzzled herself now. ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’
‘I don’t,’ I say.
‘Right,’ Angie says. ‘Right. Yes, we’d better have a cup of tea. The vicarage is just over the road. Come on.’ She takes my arm and guides me through the lychgate and across the narrow lane to a pretty, low-slung cottage in Cotswold stone. I’m starting to feel a bit odd, if I’m honest: shaky and unreal. I feel like I might break down and cry properly for the first time since Charlie called me to tell me that Granny had been taken to hospital and then again, just a short while later, to say that she was gone.
‘In here.’ Angie opens a side door and ushers me into a homely kitchen painted in gentle blues and greens, with cacti ranged along the windowsill and an elderly cat dozing in front of a big cast-iron stove. Once I’m seated at the scrubbed-pine table with a plate of biscuits and a clay mug of tea with a peace sign painted on the side, Angie sits down opposite with her own tea.
‘The first thing to say,’ she begins, ‘is that anything we discuss here is completely confidential. The second is that if you need a bit of a weep, go ahead and have one. I won’t judge you.’ She nods towards the box of tissues by my elbow. ‘And you can swear all you want – it doesn’t shock me, nothing does. Understood?’
She looks so serious. She looks, in fact, really concerned and I have a feeling, a nasty, creeping feeling deep down in my gut, about what she’s going to say. ‘Understood.’
‘Good,’ Angie says. ‘Now, the vigil. You really didn’t know about it?’
‘I didn’t. If I’m honest, I’m not totally sure what one of those is.’
‘I see. Well, it’s not necessarily common practice in the Church of England, but our parish has a tradition of holding a vigil the night before a funeral – a bit like a wake, you know, in the Catholic tradition. It’s something we do for people who were really important to our church community. And since the funeral was going to be family only… well, it was a chance for all of us to say goodbye, especially as she died so suddenly. So we asked your mother if we could hold one for Margaret, and she gave us her permission.’
‘What, really?’ Mummy finds the C of E a bit infra dig. I can’t see her giving the go-ahead to anything that smells even slightly of Rome.
‘Well, not right away,’ Angie admits. ‘I think she was concerned it would create more work and stress at a difficult time. Which is totally understandable, of course, but in this case we’d planned to organise everything ourselves and she wasn’t expected to do anything or even to attend. So once I’d made that clear, she agreed. And obviously our first thought was to invite you. I know you’re not a churchgoer…’
‘Sorry,’ I say.
‘No, no, it’s fine. But I know you and Margaret had a special bond. She talked about you all the time. And my own mum died of a stroke – I know what a horrible shock it is, and how painful when you don’t get to say goodbye. So I phoned you up.’
