The Generation Game (30 page)

‘Alright,’ I say. And I am surprised at how much I want to do this.

So a few hours later, Judith arrives bearing an interesting bouquet of nibbled pinks, some frothy-looking fennel and a few sticks of curly celery.

‘I know,’ she says in her stuff-and-nonsense voice. ‘A pretty poor show, but the best is over.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Evelyn tries to be cheerful. ‘I’m sure she’d approve of the sentiment.’

‘Do you think so? She was such a stylish creature. This back to nature approach is more down Charles’ street… ’

‘Come on, you two,’ I say. ‘We can get a candle from that new poncey shop over the road. That’ll brighten things up.’

‘Splendid idea,’ they chorus.

But I’m not sure any of us are feeling particularly bright about the pilgrimage.

When finally we arrive in Kensington, we aren’t altogether sure how to get to the Palace but it isn’t a problem; we follow the people with flowers. I’ve never
seen such a bizarre sight: women I expected, yes, but not all those men in suits – as if there’s been a spate of infidelity in the area and this is all they can come up with (is Adrian
out there somewhere?).

We are directed by a policeman as to where to line up – an orderly British queue for an extraordinarily un-British show of emotion. We shuffle along reading the notes and poems people have
written to their Princess. There are flowers spread out like they’ve grown into a field. Photos. Candles. The smell of perfume is overwhelming.

We lay down our offering and Judith lights our candle with a match borrowed from an American who is strangely overwrought by the whole process. I am quite shocked to find myself here, crying
over a woman I’ve never met but who I did once get very close to one summer’s day. A woman whose picture used to stare out at me from the magazines and papers in Bob’s News. A
woman who was a mother. Who is now dead.

What would happen if I were to die? Would anyone notice? Who would grieve for me? Who’d light a candle? Evelyn hands me a tissue from her pocket-sized packet of Kleenex. It is just as well
everyone else around here is crying because I don’t look out of place. I am one of many in a crowd of tearful strangers. But what they don’t realise is that I am crying for me. For the
bad person I am. For what I am doing to Toni who only wants to be a mother.

Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe they do know. Maybe they are all crying for themselves.

And that is when I decide to end it with Adrian. To walk away from yet another doomed relationship. Jiminy Cricket is telling me I’ve got to do something.

Unfortunately for me, Joe has been gripped by his own hysteria. It is his turn to be in love. On the day of Diana’s funeral, whilst I stand alone on the Mall, he asks his
Blair Babe to move in with him and although he would never ask me to leave, what else can I do?

So I find myself flat-hunting for a place just big enough for me and Tiger, using the money Wink left me, put away for a rainy day. For that rainy day has come. That rainy day is pouring down on
me, washing my life away down the drain, leaving me broken-hearted, guilt-ridden and abandoned once again.

Surely, surely, from now on, things can only get better?

You will get better. You will get stronger because I am stronger. They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And this tiny hole will most definitely not kill
you. It will heal and mend and your heart will beat strongly, healthily, properly. A persistent rhythm. A good beat. Boom, boom, boom. You are my baby-with-no-name and I love you. It is you I have
been waiting for all my life.

Another funeral. This time it is Bernie’s. His faulty starter motor has finally given up, leaving Sheila stranded on the hard shoulder of life. A widow. You might think
she would be relieved to be a free woman, free to cadge a lift anywhere, preferably with Bob, driving off into the sunset of late middle age. But now Bernie has gone, she at last reverts to being
the devoted wife she was when they first tied the knot all those years ago in Wolverhampton, when Devon was still a place they liked to go on their holidays.

Sheila puts her heart (much stronger than Bernie’s) and soul (somewhat confused) into the making of the funeral. Most of Torquay seem to be here, paying their respects, and a good portion
of the West Midlands. But these two groups will mix well. It was the sprinkling from London – Toni and Adrian, Justin and me – that is quite possibly a recipe for disaster.

I’ve attended more than my fair share of funerals but thankfully this one is taking place in another venue, Bernie and Sheila being Roman Catholics. But a funeral’s a funeral when
all’s said and done. It would make a change to be invited to a wedding or a christening. At this rate the prospects of either of these life-enhancing events being staged on my behalf are
highly unlikely. Maybe Toni will have more success. She might possibly manage to drag Adrian up the aisle one of these days or even manage to procure a baby from somewhere or other. For they are
still together, still a couple of some description, which is surprising given Adrian’s apathy but not given Toni’s tenacity. (She’s had no luck with Romania and is now looking
much further afield, to China.)

They are sitting in the front pew next to Sheila. Toni is holding her mother’s hand in a rare moment of support, though it isn’t quite clear who is supporting who. It could even be
mutual. This thought, I am ashamed to admit, disturbs that old green monster, the one who watched Toni pirouetting around Tip Taps in front of a war veteran and a mother in tears. A mother who
loved her. Who didn’t want her to flee the nest.

Right now, tutus and ballet shoes are a long way away. The only thing on Toni’s mind is the father who doted on her, championing her above Terry, her more lacklustre older brother. And
there he is, sitting next to his mother, holding her other hand, looking sombre rather than grief-stricken. Justin who is still Justin and might be Justin for good now. You can’t go changing
your identity for ever (unless you’re Madonna maybe). He is forty-four. Well and truly a grown-up though he still looks to me like the teenager who hung around the garage with his mates,
giving me Chinese burns. He is a travel writer now – got the travel bug when he was living with his great Dane, doing odd pieces of writing here and there. Turns out he is good at it. Much
better than he ever was at selling houses.

Justin has a new girlfriend, Mel, who is very small and petit, almost on a par with Mandy Denning – half my size and twice as pretty with sleek hair and funereal clothes that manage to
look fashionable rather than borrowed, like mine. I’ve had to raid Bob’s wardrobe for a black cardigan as I left my jacket in London in the rush to get home. He is sitting next to me
now, my Bob, dressed in a new dark suit that actually makes him look well-groomed. Dapper, almost. It has been a long time since he’s bought a new suit. The last one had sported big lapels
and flared trousers and was worn only twice, both occasions in honour of Wink. It still hangs in the wardrobe amongst his other cardies. ‘I’ll never get rid of it,’ Bob likes to
say. ‘It’s of great historical value.’

Six strapping men lug Bernie’s coffin past us and Bob hands over his handkerchief as I am still not in the habit of carrying around a pocket-sized packet of Kleenex. He can no longer
ignore my sniffs as one or two unknown people have turned round to find out the source of such grief. And real grief it is. I have to dab at my eyes that are brimming with tears as I realise just
how fond of Bernie I was, with his winks and his bamboo canes and the way he scooped me out of my cot one summer evening long ago.

But my grief is nothing compared to Toni’s. Through the hats, I can see her shoulders shaking, her head bowed, Sheila leaning towards her. And Adrian picking up her delicate hand and
kissing it – an affectionate gesture, which really works up the green monster into a frenzy as I can’t remember him ever doing that to me but then he has special dispensation under
these circumstances. He knows how much Toni loved her father. And her grief looks like it will consume her, grief that has no doubt been quickened by the realisation that he’ll never be a
grandfather. He would have done well in that role. I’m not so sure about Sheila as grandma…

‘Stand up,’ Bob tells me. ‘You’re meant to be singing.’

He hands me a hymn book, open to (oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear)
Abide With Me
. I would probably carry on sitting down, here on the pew – not out of disrespect but from something far more
complicated – if it weren’t for Bob dragging me to my feet and telling me to get a grip, one of Captain’s favourite phrases, though Bob’s tone is much kindlier than either
the words suggest or how that manky old parrot would express them.

Much later, when speeches have been made by the priest, by Sheila, by a panel beater from Dudley, we move on to the crematorium as the Pope will now allow Bernie to be cremated
like lesser mortals. It is everything you’d expect of such an event though we could do without the final song,
Hold Me Close
(has Auntie Sheila forgotten the significance of
this?).

Now we are all back at Auntie Sheila’s where I’ve volunteered to roll up my sleeves and lend a helping hand. I zigzag through the suits and black dresses, offering trays spilling
over with vol-au-vents and sausage rolls and egg mayonnaise sandwiches, all of Bernie’s favourites, though it has been a long time since he’s been allowed to indulge in such fatty foods
– not since the high fibre diet which made him into half the man he used to be. Not that it helped. His dodgy ticker had a limited shelf life and was never going to be easily fixed with duct
tape or a bit of soldering.

Toni comes into the kitchen but isn’t much help either, standing still, staring at the funeral cake that Sheila has decided to bake for her late husband and that now takes pride of place
amongst the food on the kitchen table. I don’t have the luxury of staring as I have to get the next batch of cocktail sausages out of the oven and impaled onto sticks. (Somebody has to keep
these people fed with something to soak up the vast quantities of alcohol being knocked back in Bernie’s memory.) Toni pulls herself together enough to refill her sherry glass (which is far
too small for the job in hand) and winces at the sight of so much cholesterol all around her.

‘I don’t know how Mum could make all this food. She should know better.’

‘It’s just a mark of respect for your dad, I suppose.’

She raises her eyebrow – at the word ‘respect’ presumably.

‘A bit late now,’ she says, staring out the window at the winter garden beyond. At Coco, Bernie’s abandoned excuse of a dog, cocking his little leg against the naked sycamore
tree. ‘I hope this heart thing isn’t hereditary,’ she goes on, laying her hand against her silk blouse, feeling her own heart. ‘Another reason to adopt anyhow.’ She
brightens up a bit then, at this glimmer of hope that is always burning out of her reach. But it makes me think of my tiny baby floating around inside me, the size of one of Evelyn’s ripe
apples – but alas, not ripe enough… was that why I lost the baby? Did it have a dodgy, faulty heart? Does Justin? Is there some kind of gene that he carries?

I make my excuses, leaving Toni alone to mope over the cake, and disappear into the garden for some fresh air; the after-life presence of Bernie is oppressive. I can still hear his phlegmy cough
following me from room to room. Out here I am able to see the positives of his life: the new greenhouse, the kitsch Alpine rockery, the surgically-pruned rose beds. I’ll miss Bernie. He was
as good an uncle as any. And I believe he loved my mother in some way, his own way. He certainly loved Sheila. How else would he have put up with her Bob-pinings all these years?

Oh dear. This is all too much. If I were a smoker, now would be the time to reach for a fag and inhale deeply. As it is, I have to make do with a tepid cup of tea and a slice of Dundee cake. But
someone else has the same idea: there is Justin sitting on a bench under the sycamore, puffing on a cigar of all things.

It has been a long time since I’ve spoken to Justin. Now is the moment to put that right. I leave my safe haven behind the pampas and sidle over to his tree. It is damp on the bench. I can
feel it seep through the tights and skirt I’m not used to wearing.

‘Where’d you get that from?’ I indicate to his cigar. ‘Was it one of your dad’s?’

‘No.’ He blows the smoke up into the air, away from me. ‘Adrian gave it to me. He’s handing them out like Ferrero Rocher in there.’

‘I bet your mum’s pleased about that.’

‘She’s itching to get out the Febreze. But then she lets Adrian get away with murder for some reason.’

‘Really?’

‘She thinks he’s good for Toni, bizarrely.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really, Philippa. What’s with all the surprise?’

‘I didn’t think he’d be good enough for her – in your mum’s eyes.’

‘He’s grown on her – like staphylococcus.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Bacteria that lives on the skin.’

‘Nice.’

He relights his cigar as it isn’t handling the breezy weather too well. We sit quietly for a while. I am not really sure what to say exactly, it has been so long since I’ve been with
him. But it is alright. Despite everything.

‘I suppose Mum reckons Toni can look after herself,’ he says eventually.

‘You don’t sound so sure.’

‘She’s got a lot on her plate.’

‘The baby.’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘The mythical baby.’

Coco bounces up to us at this point, yapping and jumping up at our legs, snagging my tights. I push him off but Justin makes a point of stroking his tummy, under that ridiculous tartan coat he
is wearing. Then Coco spots a magpie (only the one) and chases it without any game plan as to how to catch it. I half expect the bird to turn the tables, pick Coco up by his diamante-studded collar
and fly off; the bling round his scrawny little neck is just the sort of thing a thieving bird like that would go for.

Justin takes another puff at the fat cigar, blowing expert smoke rings that would’ve impressed Miss Goddard’s Hiawatha no end. Then he turns his attention to me but in a way that
yanks the tablecloth out from a long abandoned feast. He looks up at the house and says: ‘Is it over between you two?’