Out Late with Friends and Regrets
Read Out Late with Friends and Regrets Online
Authors: Suzanne Egerton
Out Late with Friends and Regrets
by
Suzanne
Egerton
Published in 2013 by:
Cover design by Bradley
Pow
A flicker of movement caught Fiona’s attention.
The voice of the all-purpose cleric conducting the service was without rise and fall, and he was evidently trying to spin out the patchwork eulogy constructed from the notes she had given him.
There wasn’t a lot of material to work with, admittedly.
It had been difficult to offer an appropriate description of Paul’s personality, let alone supply an anecdote fit for public consumption.
The vicar had been somewhat creative in making up the shortfall, and she found herself feeling quite detached from its appraisal.
That flicker again, in the corner of her eye.
She looked up, and saw a tortoiseshell butterfly fluttering in a spider’s web slung from one corner of the heavy curtains which framed the gateway to the hereafter.
She looked away quickly, down to the flowers on the step, some of them already appearing weary and superfluous.
The chair was hard, despite its upholstered seat.
Not much longer,
surely.
She stared at the rollers on which her husband’s coffin lay, and wondered about the hidden mechanics which in a few minutes would propel the ugly box into the consuming flames. She thought of his vulnerable body, inside.
Then the drone of more words, and a hymn to camouflage the hum of the motor, and the final, irrevocable valediction. The massed shuffle out to the dark line of sober cars. She didn’t remember anything of the journey to Cantlesham Park Hotel.
A life of disappointments had left its mark on the face of Paul’s mother. It was a face that settled naturally into brooding, with a watchful victim behind the eyes.
“Did you make sure Paul had the last rites?” she asked. Then, in case her daughter-in-law had forgotten the term, “The Sacrament of the Sick?”
Mary Hay, her skin greyer than usual against her black coat, almost certainly already knew the answer to her question.
She just seemed to need that extra little jab of suffering.
“I’m sorry, er, Mum.
Paul always insisted that he- he didn’t want any of... that sort of thing.” Mumbo-fucking-jumbo was the way he had usually put it.
“You could have insisted.
And we could have had him buried in the Church, instead of-
that
place.”
Fiona felt bad for her; her faith was really all she had.
Although it was hard to imagine a deep and loving relationship between Mary and her God, somehow.
But Mary clung fiercely to the observances.
“Really, Mum, he- he made me promise.
He even said he didn’t want anyone at his funeral, only me.”