God can flip his own coin
.
Nobody came.
Thomas sat in the back of the black Daimler limousine, trying to work this one out. Some part of London he did not know was sliding past outside, distorted by the refractions of a million prisms. Maybe it was raining outside, maybe he was crying, maybe both, who cares?
He lashed out with his foot and kicked the upright seat in front of him, the one beneath the glass that partitioned off the driver. He saw the driver turn his head slightly to observe him in the mirror. So what?
His mother was dead, nothing mattered any more.
Except this.
Nobody had come! Just the people from the funeral directors’ – the drivers, the pall-bearers, Mr Smyte, the dapper man who had made all the arrangements. A locum clergyman, who ignored eighty per cent of the information Thomas had briefed him with on his mother. And some brain-dead kid reporter from a local rag, carrying a cheap camera, who had had the gall to ask him who Gloria Lamark was.
Jesus!
Maybe they had misunderstood the directions and were waiting at home now. There had been an obituary in
The Times
– OK, he’d written it for them, they hadn’t had one in stock, but that was irrelevant. He’d put the posting out to the newsgroup fan club. He’d put the information up on his mother’s website. Blanked from his mind was the knowledge that no one ever corresponded with the newsgroup, and no one ever visited the website.
The driver, a little man in black in a peaked cap, was
ogling women. Thomas could see his head turn, constantly, in the direction of attractive girls.
He could scarcely believe this. They were driving home from his mother’s funeral and here was this man, this creep employee of the undertakers’, who should have been thinking respectful thoughts, instead thinking about doing things with his penis.
Thomas leaned forward and hammered on the glass partition. ‘Stop that at once!’
The driver turned his head, startled and confused. ‘Sir?’
But Thomas had already settled back in his seat. He wagged his index finger backwards and forwards like a metronome. The driver, even more puzzled, turned his attention back to the road.
No one was at the house, either. Thomas paced up the marquee, his shiny black lace-ups from Lobb sinking into the matting that had been laid on the lawn. He was wearing a black Boss suit, summer weight, a mohair and silk blend that had a slight sheen. Beneath he wore a crisp white mandarin-collared shirt from Favourbrook, with a single black diamond stud closing the neck.
He’d bought the clothes specially for the funeral. He needed to show his mother he was all right, he was coping. The outfit was more modern than she would have chosen, but this was the image he wanted to portray to the press, that she was a modern woman, in every sense, they were modern people, children of the nineties, they were millennium people.
It was muggy inside the marquee, but he was comfortable; the heat wasn’t a problem. He was cool.
He was powerful.
He could feel the power swinging through his body as he walked. It swung through his arms, through his legs; he swaggered up the length of the marquee then down it again.
Six barmen stood to attention behind the champagne bar. Fifteen waitresses were ranked behind the tables laden with food. Half lobsters. Dublin Bay prawns. Stone-crab
claws. Loch Fine oysters. Platters of whole roast snipe. Couscous. Mangoes, guavas, passion fruit, lychees. His mother’s favourite foods. A feast. He had catered for three hundred. There was a podium with a microphone where Thomas had planned to make a speech, to welcome everyone, to thank them all for attending.
There was even a fucking liveried Master of Ceremonies.
The marquee had a ruched ceiling. That had cost extra. Green-striped walls. The rain was making its own rhythm on the roof, and in the far corner some had found a way in and was dribbling down.
Just as well no one’s here, the fucking marquee leaks
.
Thomas paced up and down again. Just himself, the six barmen, the fifteen waitresses, the Master of Ceremonies.
That reporter from the local rag in Mill Hill, who had come to the burial, was sticking in his gullet. A gormless creep in white socks and a cheap suit, hair cut like a lavatory brush – and wearing a candy-striped tie, a pink, yellow, white and magenta striped tie, with small orange globes sprinkled around it – at his mother’s funeral!
I’m sorry, my editor sent me here. I’m afraid I hadn’t heard of Gloria Lamark before today
.
What kind of a jerk reporter goes to a funeral of someone he hasn’t even heard of? And who then stands there smirking because no one else bothered to come? And who didn’t have enough respect to put on a black tie?
He had the youth’s card in his pocket. Justin F. Flowering. The youth had even written his home number on the reverse. He hadn’t even had the decency to come back to the house.
I don’t like you, Justin F. Flowering. I don’t even like your name. You and I are going to become very bad friends
.
The waitresses were all watching him. So were the barmen. They didn’t know yet that no one had turned up to Gloria Lamark’s funeral.
Not even any of the faithful old retainers had come. Not one. He guessed that they were upset because they’d been sacked. In the past couple of years his mother had had some strange moods. One by one she’d fallen out with her staff,
some of whom had been with her for thirty years, and fired them. Most recent of all she’d sacked their cleaning lady. Now there was no one. She’d told Thomas she just wanted it to be the two of them together, no outsiders, no interruptions to their happiness in the house.
All the same, he’d thought some of them might have come today, out of respect. Couldn’t they have found it in their hearts to forgive her? At least Irma Valuzzi, her dresser. Or Enid Deterding, her secretary. But they had not shown up. The only apology for absence had been from Joel Harriman, her publicist, who was recovering from a heart-bypass operation. All the same, he could have sent someone from his office, couldn’t he? Instead, he’d sent a fucking telegram.
And what about Dr Michael Tennent? No, he wouldn’t have come. He wouldn’t have had the nerve to show his face.
Thomas marched through the house and into his mother’s study, closing the door so no one could hear him. Like her bedroom, this room smelt of her. Chanel No. 5. It was in the wallpaper, in the curtains, in the cushions on the divan, it was in her handwriting on the sheets of notepaper that lay on the desk, her lists that she wrote out for him daily.
Separate headings on separate sheets. Daily shopping lists headed Cosmetics, Vitamins, Homeopathic Remedies, Chinese Herbs, Additional Medications, Food, Hardware, Miscellaneous. Daily Phone Call lists. Correspondence lists. There was a stack of bills and invoices. On the top was an invoice for Durrant’s, the press-cutting service.
He sat down in the massively ornate chair at the desk, suddenly overwhelmingly tired as he stared at the tiny pile of condolence letters. He avoided his mother’s eyes. They were everywhere he looked in the room, staring out at him from frames. Accusing him.
You fool
.
You’ve let me down
.
You’ve made a complete fool of me
.
And he had. He knew that. The barmen out there would
be smirking in another ten minutes, when they realised the truth of the situation. So would the waitresses. It was probably best to stay in this room now, let the funeral directors deal with everything. He’d done his bit, strutted his stuff. Now they could all go to hell.
He looked at the one tiny framed photograph his mother had kept of his father, whom he had barely known – he had left when Thomas was three. He was standing in front of an aircraft propeller in a greatcoat; his own plane, his mother had told him once. A tall man, with Teutonic good looks, sharp dark hair and a stiff, unsmiling expression. Thomas liked this photograph. The man had a coldness, an arrogance, the kind of man no one
ever
makes a fool of.
He was his father’s son.
He picked up the phone. It was old-fashioned, with a dial rather than numbers. His mother had preferred that: she thought it more elegant to dial than to press buttons. He dialled Joel Harriman’s home number.
The publicist answered, his voice instantly recognisable, the squeaky, creepy voice of the school fat boy. ‘Thomas, hi, sport, how’s it going?’
Thomas reckoned Joel Harriman had lost the plot two decades ago, but his mother had insisted on keeping him on, and Thomas knew why: it was because the creep knew how to work flattery. Strands of hair carefully parted over his bald dome, designer warm-up suits, trainers, perma-tan, he kept up a prodigious, relentless bombardment of badly typed, badly photocopied press releases about Gloria Lamark to the press and media.
To his credit, Joel Harriman managed to get her birthday listed in several national papers and magazines, as well as occasional down-the-line local radio interviews when one of her old films reappeared on television, and he briefed people well.
‘Did you tell anyone? What did you say to people?’ Thomas asked, choking with anger.
The tone of the man’s voice changed. ‘Hey, sport! What’s up?’
‘Tell me what the hell you said to everyone?’
‘We sent out the press release with the wording you gave us.’
‘Who did you send it to?’
‘Everyone! And we rang all the people we thought might want to know personally. Huh? Michael Grade, Dickie Attenborough, Christopher Lee, Leslie Phillips, Nigel Davenport, Dulcie Grey, Michael Denison, John Gielgud, Michael Winner, Barry Norman, Ray Cooney, Michael Codron, Tony Hopkins, Sean Connery – hey, come on! I mean, you have to remember a lot of the people who were her friends are dead now or infirm.’
‘We only had one obituary. In
The Times
. The one I wrote,’ Thomas said.
‘Oh – uh, you didn’t see the one in
Screen International
? There should be one in
Variety
next week. So anyhow, sport, tell me, how’s it going?’
‘Good,’ Thomas said quietly.
‘So – she’s having a good send-off? Big turnout?’
‘Huge.’
‘Great, that’s great. She was a great lady. You know something? Today’s actresses, not one of them’s got her class.’
‘I have to get back now,’ Thomas said. ‘Got a lot of people on my hands here.’
‘Sorry not to be with you. I’m glad there’s been a good turnout. Listen, chin up, you’ve been a great son to her. She was a very lucky lady to have had you. We’re all going to miss her.’
Thomas replaced the receiver. The anger inside him felt like something had broken loose, had got out of its cage and was rampaging around inside his head.
He looked up at the walls, at the photographs. His mother was angry, too, she had a real rage on. That was the thing in this world: there were so many different ways you could be angered. No sooner did you start to square off one set than another came out of midfield.
You had to organise yourself. Or else, as Pope said, ‘Lo! thy dread empire! Chaos is restored!’
Chaos.
The Butterfly Effect would get you. One tiny beat of wings on the far side of existence . . . you had to stop that from happening, you had to catch the butterfly and tear off its wings.
He flipped the business card of the young smug reporter, Justin F. Flowering, out of his wallet and let it fall onto the desk. It landed face up, and that was a good sign.
He pulled a coin out of his pocket and flipped it.
Heads. Good.
Bad friends
!
He dialled 141, followed by the number on the business card. Justin F. Flowering was back at his desk and answered.
Thomas altered his voice just enough so that the reporter would not recognise it. ‘Someone told me you were at Gloria Lamark’s funeral today. You’re writing a piece?’
‘The big no-show. Yes.’
‘When are you writing it?’
‘For tomorrow’s paper.’
‘You want some scandal about her? To juice the piece up?’
‘What do you have?’
‘We need to meet. I can’t do this over a phone.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I can’t tell you that. Just be where I tell you. Six o’clock this evening. Then you can go back, write your piece. You’re going to like this, Justin. You’re going to like that we spoke. You’re about to hit an enormous learning curve.’
‘I’m much clearer in my mind now,’ Amanda said. ‘I’m feeling more confident. I really do feel I’m getting my life sorted out.’
‘It’s always hard to face reality. Much easier to ignore it or to reinvent it in a way that suits us.’
Amanda nodded. She knew the problem. She hadn’t needed three years of therapy at sixty-five pounds a session to understand the reality; it had been there all the time during the whole seven years. Finally, she had faced it.
And now, in the large room with pale turquoise walls and big wicker furniture, wooden floor covered in scattered Afghan rugs and a plump crimson Buddha on the mantelpiece, Amanda Capstick told her therapist this.
Her therapist’s name was Maxine Bentham, and she was a distant descendant of the philosopher Dr Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham had been a passionate advocate of the right to happiness, and believed people should be free to live unhindered by restrictive legislation. Following his beliefs, Maxine believed that too many people spent their lives choking on guilt. People should be freed of the restrictive baggage with which life saddled them.
She was a solid woman, not fat, not matronly, just snug, and had a warm, attractive face with fair hair cropped boyishly short, and a sharp, alert expression. She was dressed as usual in a black ankle-length designer smock that fitted like a sack, her fingers were crusted with chunky rings, and a lump of quartz crystal the size of a small planet hung from her neck.
Amanda sat in a wicker armchair, and sipped her mint tea, which had gone tepid. It always gave her a boost to be
here. Therapists weren’t supposed to give opinions unless specifically asked, but Amanda had told her she
wanted
opinions. Maxine was like a wise aunt and she made Amanda feel comfortable and secure. She wished she were able to talk to her mother the way she talked to Maxine. Her best friend, Roxy, had a great relationship with her own mother, they were like mates, and Amanda had always envied that. She and her mother got on fine, but they were not
mates
, and probably never would be.