AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘This is beyond my area of expertise.’
I shake my head. ‘You’re all useless,’ I mutter. ‘You told me you’d keep an eye on her. You promised.’
I take a photo of the sign so I can contact the estate agency and tell them they’ve made a mistake and order them to take it off the market.
My thoughts are bouncing from one invisible wall to the next. I suddenly realise that I haven’t given a thought to where she is now. ‘Where’s Mum’s body?’ I ask. ‘Which funeral director is she with?’ I turn to Reverend Eddie again. ‘You must have their details, because I’ll need to start planning her service.’
Mary and Joe look to one another and then at the reverend.
‘What?’ I ask.
Reverend Eddie briefly loses eye contact with me.
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ I continue.
‘I’m afraid the funeral has already taken place, Connie,’ he says.
My jaw drops. ‘What? When?’
‘Three weeks ago.’
‘Why didn’t you wait until I got back? I told you I was only going to be in Italy for a few weeks.’
‘We all tried calling you,’ says Joe, ‘But we could never get—’
‘I don’t believe this. You let Paul talk you into organising her funeral? What’s wrong with you all?’ I shake my head and begin pacing up and down.
‘I didn’t organise the ceremony,’ Reverend Eddie says. ‘And Gwen wasn’t buried in the village churchyard.’
‘But you told her she could be, in the plot next to Dad’s? Remember? We had that conversation months ago. It’s bought and paid for. That’s where she wanted to be.’
‘And if I’d had anything to do with it, I’d have ensured her final wishes were adhered to. But I never got the call. It was only when I phoned around the funeral directors myself to see where her body had been taken that I discovered the ceremony had been and gone. It was at a parish in Oxfordshire.’
I look to Joe and Mary. ‘Oxfordshire? Why?’
‘I don’t know, sorry,’ says Joe.
‘Who went?’
‘There was no ceremony or attendees,’ Reverend Eddie says. ‘And I’m afraid she was buried in an unmarked grave.’
Every possible response I have to this information becomes lodged in my throat. I open my mouth, but for a moment, I can’t get a single word out. It wasn’t enough for Paul to come between us when she was alive; now, even after her death, he has to keepus apart. And to bury her in an unmarked grave? That’s beyond spiteful.
I’m too angry to cry but I need to take my fury out on something. So I storm to the front of the house and begin trying to pull the For Sale sign out from the ground. It’s buried deep in the lawn and I almost lose my footing. It takes several more attempts before finally it’s out. It’s heavy but I find the strength to lift it above my head and start smashing it against the concrete block driveway. After half a dozen attempts, it finally separates into two pieces. More of the neighbours have gathered in their gardens and at their windows to watch the spectacle. They’re all either pitying me or they think I’ve lost the plot. And I just don’t care.
The mixture of exertion and frenzy is enough to bring my voice back. ‘Why didn’t any of you listen to me when I told you Paul couldn’t be trusted?’ I rage.
I direct my attention towards Reverend Eddie again. ‘How can a man my mother barely knows be allowed to bury her and put her house up for sale and no one steps in and calls him out on it? He’s not her next of kin, he doesn’t have a power of attorney. What he’s done is illegal.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not,’ says Eddie.
‘Of course it is!’
And just when I think this scenario cannot get any worse, his next sentence makes it so.
‘It was legal because Paul and your mother were married.’
CHAPTER 26
