‘She said that!’ Well, I guess infidelity would be one of Gloria’s hot buttons. ‘What did Eleanor say?’
‘Not much,’ Charlotte shrugs. ‘She looked at a vase of flowers and said “Iris.” Then Gloria said, “you’re not calling her that,” and then I suggested Daisy and Gloria said that they’d think about it.’
It was the only reprieve in an awful day.
Actually, I tell a lie, there were two reprieves.
I dropped Charlotte at Felicity’s and when I got home Jess and Mum were sitting, chatting with Luke, who’d finished work early.
‘They’re going to put on a coach,’ Luke told me. ‘Everyone from work wants to come.’
Everyone?
I wonder if she’ll be there.
‘I’ve washed all the sheets,’ Mum says. ‘All your laundry is up to date.’
No, that wasn’t the reprieve – Mum doing my housework just riles me. Charlotte’s wetting the bed and Mum’s going for Nanny-of-the-Year trying to help, but it just pisses me off further – I had to wash my own sheets when I used to wet the bed.
I plonk myself down on the sofa and close my eyes as Jess stands to make me a cup of tea.
‘Here’s your post.’
She hands me a wad – I mean a wad of envelopes, they’re purple and lilac and I don’t have the energy to open them, let alone read them.
‘And this came.’
It’s a brown parcel and I wearily start to open it but, as I do, I realise they were a bit off with their 2-3 business days! Given that Mum’s already ripping open the envelopes, I haul myself up to take it upstairs, before she shows the world my vibrator.
No, that wasn’t my reprieve!
I shove it in the wardrobe and head back down and, as I do, the phone rings.
It’s the coroner’s office.
I stare in the mirror and I brace myself.
I can go ahead with the funeral, I’m told, the body has been released.
And?
I look incredibly calm, I realise, but I’m waiting for the bullet, then I hear the words “death by natural causes.”
I fold over for a moment.
For the first time, since it happened, I feel as if I can breathe.
Jess brings my tea to the phone and I ring the undertaker and the vicar, then I go to ring Alice but I change my mind, she’ll be here in a couple of hours after all, I can tell her then.
I put down the phone and I simply breathe.
I’ve hit my rock-bottom, I tell myself.
It’s just the funeral to get through now. For the first time I glimpse that we’re maybe going to be okay.
I just have to keep it together, keep up with my routines. Everything will be fine now, I convince myself. I’ll come out the other side.
I had no idea what was to come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That awkward moment when the vicar asks if you want a double-plot in front of your stepchildren.
I just wanted one of those places that do everything. A “do you want fries with that coffin” place. The Original Jameson Girls want a church and not just any old church - they want the one they were all christened in, hence the visit from their vicar.
I bought cakes in the village (more stares – am I not supposed to eat?) and Jess winks at me as, already flustered, I go out into the kitchen to get them. Luke is in there with us all, not just as the peacekeeper - as I said, they were close. Mum’s upstairs playing with Charlotte but Jess is cheering me on from the kitchen bench.
Thank God for Jess.
‘Stick to your guns,’ she tells me as I arrange a little platter. ‘You have the final say.’
My jaw is so rigid it aches when I speak. ‘You should hear them, they’re debating You Raise Me Up or The Wind Beneath My Wings…’
‘You can tell me all that later,’ Jess interrupts. ‘For now, all you say is -’ Jess waits, she’s been training me. Honestly, we’ve been sitting on the couch and she’s trained me as to my responses. ‘What do you say, Lucy, when they start to push you towards something you don’t want?’
‘I’ll take it on board.’
‘That’s right,’ Jess says. ‘Remember to give a little nod after you say it, so that it looks as if you’re really going to think about it.’ She gives me a quick hug. ‘Back to it, baby.’
It’s going okay, well I think it is.
They shake their heads when I suggest Robbie’s Angel.
‘Fine,’ I concede. ‘Charlotte wants Morning Has Broken to be sung as we do all the pictures and power point stuff.’
Reluctantly they agree.
We sort out the hymns and the readings. Luke is going to do the eulogy and just when I start to pat myself on the back, just when I think I’ve got a handle on this, comes the awkward moment, and my God it’s awkward (sorry God, didn’t mean to use you in vain there) when the vicar asks if I’ve thought about a double plot.
I just sit there.
I can feel all these eyes on me as they wait for me to answer.
I think I’m supposed to start crying. That I’m to lean onto the table and weep ‘yes,’ sob sob. ‘Yes,’ as I bang my fist on the table. ‘I want to lie with him forever.’
But I just sit there.
I don’t want to lie with him forever.
I want to kill him for what he did.
I sit there and I’m told about the cost of a double plot and no, I don’t want one.
I am so angry.
I am so furious and there’s no-one left to row with. There’s no chance to have it all out. I just feel all these faces looking at mine, all waiting for me to crumple, to produce mandatory tears, to dissolve, to collapse in heap, as a good widow should.
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘Single plot.’
Wrong answer, Lucy.
I can feel that my grief isn’t the grief the room wants, that my answer isn’t the appropriate one.
Shame on you, Lucy.
Shame on him!
So, we have the church the Original Jameson Girls wanted, we have the vicar of their choice and the hymns that they have chosen, which is all fine by me. I am clueless as to religion; Mum didn’t discover her Higher Power till I’d left home. He’s in a single plot which is my (everyone suck your lips in) decision and we have Morning Has Broken, near the end.
I am very happy with my victories.
I really don’t envy Luke doing the eulogy. I have no idea how he’s going to address it all. I guess he’ll just gloss over a lot of things, or rather, I hope that he does.
When the vicar leaves we start to discuss the wake.
I want to have it back here or, if it’s awkward for them, maybe refreshments in the church hall but, of course, the Original Jameson Girls don’t like that idea.
Bonny’s got big plans, it would seem. I just don’t want to hear them; I cannot rationally discuss one more single thing.
‘I’ll take it on board,’ I tell her, for perhaps the twentieth time, as I show them to the door.
As I close it, like mice creeping out, they all come into the hall.
‘Charlotte’s asleep.’ Mum says, pretending she’s just come out of her room, pretending that she wasn’t sitting listening on the stairs.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Jess says holding up a bottle of wine.
‘God, yes.’
‘And me,’ Luke says and then he grimaces. ‘Sorry, Valerie.’
‘No, go ahead,’ Mum says. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘Bonny doesn’t think a church hall is good enough,’ I explain. ‘She wants some fancy hotel. I just don’t think that I can face it.’
‘Whatever you do,’ Jess points out, ‘some people will still come back here afterwards, so why not just have it here in the first place?’
‘Wouldn't it be better to have it somewhere neutral?’ Luke repeats Bonny’s argument.
‘What?’ Jess snaps. ‘So they can all carry on as if Lucy doesn't exist!’
‘Jess!’ Luke stops her, after all, he's long been in the Jameson camp but Jess is having none of it.
‘It's true!’ Jess says. ‘They want a say in everything, yet I don’t see them putting their hands up to pay the bill. The readings, the prayers, the hymns, the flowers, have all been chosen by them and now Bonny’s kicking up about the reception venue!’ Jess looks at me. ‘Have it here. Have it in the home that he lived in with you and if it makes them uncomfortable, then good. They've made you feel uncomfortable plenty of times.’ There’s a long silence before she continues. ‘It might be better for Charlotte to be at home.’
Luke looks thoroughly pissed off but he says nothing.
‘She can play with her friends in the garden or, if it all gets too much, she can just hide in her room,’ Jess says. She does make a good point, because Luke gives a reluctant nod.
‘I can help,’ Mum says and I feel my jaw clamp down so hard that I can’t even open it to argue as she twitters on. ‘My friends will help, I’ll speak to them tomorrow.’
At her meeting.
God, that’s the last thing I need.
I’ve spent my life keeping my worlds apart and now they’ll all be coming together, in this very room. Everything that I’ve carefully separated will be curdling right here under this roof. The last thing I need is the bloody AA mob here with their piles of sandwiches and slices – honestly, they’re like machines at organising funerals. I can just imagine Bonny sneering as my mum passes round egg sandwiches and my friends will be sneering too.