Carrie was not domesticated. ‘My wife can’t even boil a rabbit,’ Alan was fond of saying. But despite living on hamburgers, crisps and chocolate, Trixie looked surprisingly healthy.
Occasionally the family would be rounded up for photographs for an upmarket newspaper, where Carrie would appear most unusually making marmalade or playing Scrabble with Alan and Trixie.
‘I’m a genius at juggling,’ Carrie would tell reporters.
‘Which consists of tossing Indian clubs around and bashing anyone who steps out of line,’ observed Alan.
Carrie had sent Trixie to Bagley Hall, an independent boarding school only a few miles from the barn at Willowwood. Martin and Romy, on the other hand, were delighted Willowwood was in the catchment area of an extremely good state primary, so they wouldn’t have to fork out.
The funeral was gratifyingly well attended. The high street was jammed by black-windowed, chauffeur-driven Astons, Mercs and Rolls-Royces. Eight helicopters landed in the field below the house. Private jets had to land at Bristol airport.
‘If Mother hadn’t been so possessive about her garden we could have had a runway here,’ grumbled Martin.
But he was delighted by the presence of Bart Alderton, whose airline had always used Bancroft engines, Kevin Coley, the pet-food billionaire, Freddie Jones, the electronic maestro, Larry Lockton, who was intending to flog a supermarket, Gareth Llewellyn, who had done property deals with Sampson, racehorse owners Lazlo Henriques and Shade Murchieson, whose horse had just won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, plus many more who hoped to network and do business before the afternoon was out.
The church was packed. A marquee with a video link catered for the overflow, mostly local geriatrics and Sampson Bancroft employees.
‘Come to see the old bugger’s really dead,’ said Alan.
At the chancel steps a large, very handsome photograph of Sampson was lit up. His loud, commanding voice reverberated round the church, as one of his legendary speeches to the CBI was relayed on a big screen. The service sheet was adorned with a picture of him looking boyish and windswept in his first car.
Halfway up the church a row of pretty carers, who’d tended, read to and flirted with Sampson, sobbed to a counterpoint of keening from Sampson’s mistresses, led by the
maîtresse-en-titre
and public partner Blanche Osborne, who arrived in designer black and a David Shilling fascinator. Martin, who’d always
had the hots for Blanche, found her a seat in the family pew.
‘Just spent three hours in make-up,’ grumbled Sampson’s other mistresses.
All eyes were inevitably drawn to the widow, who looked frozen, and arrived in a dowdy black coat and too summery a black straw Breton. Shopping trips to London, even taking in Chelsea Flower Show, had been ruled out once Etta had started looking after Sampson. She wore little make-up because as she dressed she had kept hearing Sampson’s voice demanding: ‘Why are you putting that muck on your eyes?’
Blanche rose to admit Etta to the family pew, pointedly kissing her rigid cheek, saying loudly: ‘Don’t reproach yourself, it could have happened to Sampy at any time.’
‘She left Daddy alone to die,’ hissed Carrie.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ muttered Alan, who’d been ringing his bookmaker, ‘Sampson left your mother enough during their marriage.’
Carrie had shocked the congregation by rolling up in a white shirt, black tie and dark grey pinstripe Savile Row suit.
‘She should have worn a hat and a skirt for her father’s funeral,’ Blanche whispered to Martin.
Dame Hermione Harefield, the great diva, a close friend of Sampson, was the next to arrive: a Scottish widow in a long black velvet cloak with the hood up. Seeing Blanche ensconced, Hermione insisted on forcing her large bottom into the family pew, so Etta was rammed even closer to Blanche. Hermione’s partner Sexton Kemp, a genial, charming film producer, and Blanche’s husband Basil sat in the row behind.
‘Why the hell did you allow Dad to shred his correspondence?’ Martin chided Etta.
The congregation was getting restless, but the church stilled as Trixie sauntered in. She was wearing a black dress lifted above her groin by a huge leather belt slung round her hips, a black beret on the side of her head, turquoise patterned tights and flat pumps. Ignoring her mother’s imperious wave summoning her to sit next to her in the family pew, Trixie sat down next to her father in the row behind and kissed him.
Up came the coffin, like a vast floral shopping basket.
‘Biodegradable,’ Martin explained to Blanche.
Bio-degrading, thought Etta. Sampson should have had oak.
‘Sampy in the basket,’ whispered Trixie to her father. They both shook with laughter.
The service kicked off with ‘Eternal Father’, because Sampson had been briefly in the Navy. Romy’s fine singing voice was
drowned by Dame Hermione’s and taxed by a sadistic organist playing an octave too high.
‘“Man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them,”’ warned the vicar.
Despite Trixie’s defection, they were such a tight fit in the family pew that Etta and Blanche had to share a hassock embroidered with a white rabbit when they kneeled down, their knees rammed against each other. Etta wished Bartlett was sitting next to her; she hated leaving her all confused at home.
Dame Hermione sang ‘Where’er You Walk’.
The vicar, who’d enjoyed an excellent crate of claret from Sampson every Christmas, had wanted to pay tribute to his old friend but had been pushed aside by Martin, who, in a very white shirt, black tie and dark suit, cut a much handsomer figure than his sister. The mistresses gazed at him hungrily, as he told them how heart-warming and humbling it was that they’d all turned up ‘to burst our lovely church at the seams’.
‘I’m Martin Bancroft,’ he went on pompously. ‘Today is a thanksgiving service, a celebration of a brilliant man, a field marshal of industry. Dad suffered from a deadly degenerative heart disease called Howitt’s, terrifying in that it destroys organs, muscles and brain, wrapping itself around the sufferer like a boa constrictor, causing excruciating pain. I know Dad would have liked me to express his gratitude to all the nurses, carers and doctors who looked after him so selflessly.’ Martin smiled around.
‘What about Granny?’ said Trixie loudly.
‘This illness can linger on for twenty years,’ droned on Martin, ‘and although I would have given the world for another five minutes with Dad, God was merciful.’
The captains of industry were getting restless – all on their BlackBerries, typing with their thumbs, increasing their millions, checking emails and texts. They had deals to close, mistresses to pleasure, shares to buy, conference calls to take.
Shade Murchieson, whose horse was favourite in the 3.00 at Ludlow, said ‘Fuck’ very loudly when it only came fourth. Trixie got the giggles. She thought Shade was cool.
‘This is going on too long,’ complained Drummond, catching the mood.
‘If this is Grandpa’s funeral,’ grumbled Poppy, ‘where’s Grandpa?’
‘In that basket, stupid,’ said Drummond.
The audience rocked with laughter.
Time for the readings: Carrie was meant to kick off with Mr
Valiant for Truth arriving in heaven and the trumpets sounding for him on the other side, followed by the Last Post.
But she suddenly lost it, couldn’t get any words out and burst into tears.
An anguished Etta was about to run and comfort her but was forcibly restrained by Martin, secretly thrilled that his sister had screwed up, as the organ tactfully launched into ‘Dear Lord And Father’. Etta looked up at a stained glass window of knights in armour fighting, and identified with a plump strawberry roan sidling away from the conflict.
‘Still small voice of calm,’ sang the congregation.
No voice could have been less still, small or calm than Sampson’s, thought Etta, and blew her nose on a piece of kitchen roll, so far removed from the lace handkerchief wafting Miss Dior with which Blanche mopped her eyes.
‘If Etta had died first,’ Blanche whispered to Dame Hermione, ‘Sampson would have married me.’
‘Or me,’ said Dame Hermione loftily.
‘Or me, Etta’s lost her looks,’ reflected the mistresses.
But to their husbands and the captains of industry, Etta was still appealing. She might have lost the enticing youthful plumpness of a Golden Delicious, but with the light falling on her soft curls, her bewildered blue eyes, her sweet profile and lovely skin, she was infinitely touching.
Brian Tenby, the family lawyer, however, thought differently. Not poppy, nor mandragora shall lull you to that sweet sleep which you had yesterday, he thought pityingly, when you hear the will tomorrow and realize Sampson’s left you nothing. Penelope’s suitors, of whom he had been one of the most ardent, would cool off dramatically when they heard.
Martin Bancroft had often been told he had a lovely voice. He let it break and wiped his eyes as without passion he read:
‘Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast …
Nothing but well and fair,
And what must quiet us in a death so noble.’
The captains of industry next admired Romy’s splendid bosom, which heaved as she spoke of Sampson only being in the next room.
‘Not bloody far enough,’ muttered Alan.
Outside, it was a lovely day. The sun streaming through the stained glass windows cast rakish scarlet and emerald streaks on
the congregation’s hair and a blue rinse on little Drummond’s blond curls. Hardly able to see over the lectern, he charmingly listed the things he loved about Sampson: ‘Grampy loved tomatoes and
The Simpsons
. Grampy was always pinching my chips.’
Poppy then sang a song and refused to leave the lectern until the congregation, led by her mother, applauded loudly.
Trixie, who’d been texting throughout the service, got up to read from Robert Louis Stevenson and nearly gave Uncle Martin a coronary with the shortness of her skirt. How could anyone, reflected the captains of industry, have flesh that was so firm yet meltingly soft at the same time?
‘Under the wide and starry sky,’
she began meditatively,
‘Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you ’grave for me:
Here he lies where he long’d to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.’
Closing the book, she smiled round at the congregation. ‘Grampy also liked short skirts,’ she drawled, mocking her little cousin Drummond. Next moment her mobile rang and she got the giggles again. ‘That’ll be Grampy, asking when we’re going to get stuck into the Bolly. He loathed hanging around.’
Laughter rocked the church, as an apoplectic Martin leapt to his feet to take up his position on the chancel steps beside Sampson’s photograph.
‘I want you all to know,’ he boomed, ‘this week I’ve travelled the road to Damascus. As a result I’m giving up the City and going to devote my life to fundraising – kicking off by launching the Sampson Bancroft Memorial Fund to aid research into Howitt’s.’ More sobs and clapping. ‘I know many of you wanted to send flowers. I hope instead you’ll make donations to find a cure for this hideous recently identified condition. Sampson, you’ll agree, was a man who made a difference. I want to make a difference too.’
‘And a fucking fortune,’ murmured his brother-in-law.
‘Now who’s going to kick-start me?’ asked Martin.
Shade Murchieson, a show-off, carefully laid a wodge of £50 notes on the silver collection plate, putting everyone else on the spot.
Prayers followed, because the vicar was determined to have his innings. The church would also need a new roof after it had been taken off by Dame Hermione.
Then Martin was on his feet again: ‘Just to prove Dad was a fun person and never square,’ and the organ and the trumpeter, who also wanted his innings, launched into ‘Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White’, which Sampson had once sung to Etta. The audience went laughing and bopping into the sunshine, through the daffodils in the churchyard to the huge grave into which Sampson’s body was lowered.
Clutching Martin’s hand, half fainting, Blanche chucked a bunch of crimson-flecked geraniums into the grave. They were immediately covered in earth.
Back at Bluebell Hill, guests spilled out on to the lawn to admire the view and Etta’s exquisite sweeps of pink and purple cyclamen, sky-blue scillas and white daffodils, deep blue grape hyacinths mingling with a crowd of pale purple crocuses and crimson polyanthus. Everyone was speculating how many mil the house would go for while agreeing it looked ‘a little tired’, like poor Etta.
Inside, a distressed, trapped Bartlett had been sick everywhere, giving Etta a feeling of normality as she rushed round wiping it up, realizing with stunned horror that she’d never be bathing or washing Sampson’s huge body again.
‘Have a drink, Granny.’ Trixie handed her a brimming glass of champagne. ‘You were so brave not to cry.’
‘My problem is I’m too sensitive,’ sighed Blanche, emerging from the downstairs loo where she’d been repairing her face. She must buttonhole Martin and see that the £50,000 a year that Sampson had promised her would hold good.