The Past and Other Lies (43 page)

She fled the hall, escaping across the quadrangle and through the teacher’s car park to the side gate and away. Then she turned left, in the opposite direction to home, and only stopped when she had reached Beechtree Crescent. There was no For Sale sign outside the Findlays’ house. It looked exactly as it always did.

Perhaps it had all been a mistake, a joke?

But you could sell a house after you’d moved out. You could do anything you liked, once you were an adult with a job and a car and an income. You could make decisions, do things, play with other people’s lives if you wanted to.

Let’s not make a fuss
.

And Charlotte thought, If I hadn’t run into her just now. If I hadn’t seen her crossing the playground. Would she have told me? When? Would I have gone round there one evening and found them gone? The house deserted, empty. Boarded up.

She went home. Went upstairs and shut herself in the room she shared with Jennifer. If Mum had been in the house she might have wanted to know why Charlotte was home at three forty-five when the maths O-level wasn’t scheduled to finish till four o’clock. But Mum was out so when Charlotte arrived home with her school jumper tied around her waist and her face pale and carrying only a pencil there was no one to notice.

Let’s be sensible, shall we?

And soon after dinner Darren McKenzie had come round and Charlotte had stood on the landing staring down at his silhouette through the frosted glass. The door to the lounge was ajar and on the television Naomi Findlay said, ‘
...a sheep dip in Tower Hamlets
.’

Darren McKenzie had come round in search of Jennifer and then he had left, never to return.

‘Can I help ye?’ said the man at the ticket office at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station, speaking through a microphone and a glass partition.

Charlotte stared at him blankly. ‘Oh, yes. Day return to Skipton, please.’

‘That’ll be via Leeds. Ye’ll have to hurry now. Leeds train is just now boarding,’ the man replied helpfully. ‘Platform six.’

Thanks for nothing, thought Charlotte. Make me queue for half an hour then tell me to hurry.

She grabbed her bag and walked quickly out of the ticket hall, glancing, despite herself, at the station forecourt where Ashley had parked. The silver Audi had gone. But it hardly seemed to matter. She set off across the concourse for platform six.

‘I
’M SORRY, MR GASPARI’s phone is unattended at present. May I take a message?’

‘No, thanks.’

Jennifer jabbed at the disconnect button and threw her mobile down on the passenger seat beside her.

Still unattended! No one could be in the office but away from their desk
all week
. She was being screened, that was the only explanation. The board had clearly read her letter about that stupid television appearance and was still deliberating about what action to take. She was going to receive a pathetic letter of reprimand, she was certain of it. Why else would Gaspari and the rest of his geriatric cronies be avoiding her? It would probably be waiting in her in-tray Monday morning. Gloria, no doubt, would have opened it and read it and gleefully passed it around the department, never mind it would be marked confidential.

Well, there was no time to worry about it now, she had a funeral to attend.

Jennifer studied her face in the car’s rear-view mirror, reapplied her lipstick, adjusted a strand of hair and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing, she thought, opening the car door and getting out.

She was parked in the street outside Aunt Caroline’s bungalow beneath a bare and leafless yew tree. She would have parked in the driveway where she’d parked—was it really only last Thursday?—but Mum and Dad’s Vauxhall was already there.

It was eleven forty-five. The funeral was at twelve fifteen at St Luke’s parish church. Presumably Mum and Dad knew where St Luke’s was as she had no idea herself and she owned no map that extended further north than Watford.

It was bitterly cold though a clear, brilliant blue sky made her reach for her sunglasses and blow the dust off them. It had snowed up here again in the last few days and small drifts and unmelted patches glistened in the sunlight on people’s lawns and in the gutter. On the neighbour’s lawn stood the melting remains of a dwarf snowman lopsidedly sporting a woolly blue, white and yellow Leeds United hat and a broken clay pipe. The snowman stared sightlessly at her through eyes made from two small stones.

Lucky I came up to visit last week, thought Jennifer, approaching the house. She nearly hadn’t but something—probably guilt—had made her, and she must have been the last one of them to see Aunt Caroline alive. It was important to make the family aware of this point.

Aunt Caroline’s front door opened before she had gone two steps down the garden path and Dad emerged, followed closely by Mum.

‘Hello, love,’ he said, meeting her halfway up the path and touching her elbow, which was about as tactile as anyone was likely to get today. Dad was in his old dark-grey work suit that still fitted him perfectly eight years after retirement and, despite his slight stoop, seemed to give him an air of authority that his usual cardigans and BHS permanent-press trousers didn’t. ‘Good trip up?’ he said, because it was expected.

Jennifer shrugged, ‘Contraflows round Newport Pagnell but otherwise okay. Hi, Mum.’

‘Oh, hello, dear,’ said Mum vaguely, scrabbling in her handbag for something.

Mum was wearing her 1980s black skirt suit that had done many a funeral in its day, the skirt horribly pleated and shoulder pads that would have looked more at home on a Denver Broncos’ quarterback.

‘Did you end up in the centre of Leeds?’ said Mum. ‘We always do. Where
are
they? Eric, have you seen the car keys?’

‘I’ve got them,’ said Dad, holding them up as proof.

‘Oh,’ said Mum, looking a bit peeved. Then she pulled herself together and held up a map. ‘I’ll navigate. We’ll all go in the one car, saves petrol.’

‘Is this all of us?’ said Jennifer, looking back into the house and imagining a funeral with only three people—four if Charlotte bothered to turn up—sitting in a vast, empty church. And where was Graham?

‘No, no, no. Ted’s sister Iris and her husband are here.’ Mum jerked her head back towards the house. ‘And the neighbour, Mr Milthorpe. He’s gone on ahead. Graham and Su are meeting us there.’

Iris and her husband, Arthur, emerged from the house. Iris, an elderly lady with a pink tinge to her hair who walked with the aid of a stick, and Arthur, who followed one step behind, carrying her bag and sporting an ancient trilby hat, allowed themselves to be shepherded by Mum into the back of the Vauxhall. Jennifer fled to her own car, calling out, ‘I’ll follow you.’

‘Oh, all right, dear,’ said Mum, clearly not pleased by this deviation from her plan.

They set off in convoy, Dad driving, Mum navigating with wild gesticulations, Iris and Arthur wedged patiently in the back and Jennifer behind, keeping a safe distance in case of sudden and unexpected turns.

Where’s Charlotte? she wondered irritably, as the Vauxhall indicated right and Mum pointed vigorously out of the window as though she didn’t think Jennifer could work out where they were going. Perhaps Charlotte was going direct to the church?

Perhaps she wasn’t coming?

The convoy successfully negotiated a mini roundabout and a set of traffic lights.

Would Charlotte miss Aunt Caroline’s funeral? She’d missed Christmas, spinning some tale about end-of-term papers and departmental meetings that no one had believed for one minute. Well, Jennifer hadn’t believed it. Mum had spent Christmas Day banging on about how Charlotte was about to be tenured or made emeritus professor or vice-chancellor of the whole bloody university or something. Charlotte hadn’t even rung up till halfway through the Queen’s speech.

The church, a small stone and slate affair with an ivy-covered lichgate, was on the left and Mum leaned out and pointed to a suitable parking spot. Jennifer ignored her and pulled up on the other side of the road. She sat for a while, watching in her rearview mirror as her family plus extras climbed out of the Vauxhall, retrieved hats and gloves and bags and walking sticks, and generally sorted themselves out. Only when it was safe did she venture to get out of her own car and join them.

One or two elderly people dressed similarly to Iris and Arthur were standing about outside the church and in the vestibule. In the middle of this group stood Graham and his girlfriend, Su. Graham, despite the fact he must have driven up from Bristol this morning, was in a suit that looked as though it had come straight from the dry cleaners, it was so precisely pressed. His shoes had a shine to make a drill sergeant drool.

Beside him, Su was dressed in a woven cotton longyi in different hues of red and brown that wrapped around her slender waist and reached almost to the ground, and over this a short white tunic buttoned to her throat. Despite the fact that her outfit was clearly more suited to a rubber plantation than a Skipton churchyard in very early February, she still managed to look serene. She was busy explaining to the group of elderly listeners why Burma was now called Myanmar. There was a lot of smiling and nodding and arm touching and they all appeared to be getting along famously.

Typical, thought Jennifer. If Graham and Su didn’t score invites to tea from most of Skipton’s over-seventies it wouldn’t be for want of trying. Had they played their trump card yet, she wondered, looking around for Su’s two little boys, but there was no sign of them. This didn’t mean the boys weren’t here—it wouldn’t occur to Graham or Su that kids might not be appropriate at a funeral—it simply meant they were sitting somewhere looking impossibly cute.

Graham looked up and gave a wave of welcome, indicating their arrival to Su with a nudge, and Su gave a big smile as though she had been waiting all morning for Jennifer to arrive. Jennifer raised her hand in a half-wave but didn’t go over.

Hovering in the church vestibule with two elderly mourners was a very young vicar. When he spotted them, he excused himself and came over with both hands outstretched, producing a warmly sympathetic smile as though it was something they taught you at theological college.

‘Mr and Mrs Denzel! Welcome to St Luke’s.’

The very young vicar (‘Oh, please call me Justin’) took both her parents’ hands and clasped them for a moment longer than was necessary before guiding them all into the church.

Not a bad turnout, thought Jennifer, turning discreetly around from her seat in the front pew to survey the congregation. She counted fifteen who had now entered the church and were sitting in twos and threes just behind the family. There were still a few minutes before the service was set to begin and she slipped her mobile out of her bag and glanced at it. No messages.
Damn
Gaspari!

She was distracted by someone appearing at the end of their pew and, looking up, she saw Charlotte slide in next to Dad.

Well,
finally!
What she had done,
cycled
here?

Charlotte was wearing a surprisingly smart black jacket (surely not D&G?) and noisy black boots, and had a scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. She was carrying a purple backpack (a backpack, for God’s sake!) which she slid under the pew, then she slumped down in her seat the way she had done since she’d been a teenager.

For a second Jennifer remembered another funeral and another church and Charlotte sitting just like that, slumped in a corner, silent.

The vicar appeared magician-like from behind a curtain, robed up, and a hush fell over the congregation.

‘Hello and a very warm welcome to you all on this cold, cold morning,’ he said with a big smile.

Charlotte looked up then and for a brief moment their eyes met. And Jennifer thought, I never said sorry. I never told her it was all my fault and I’m sorry about what happened.

DECEMBER 1981

‘D
EARLY BELOVED, WE ARE gathered here today in the sight of God our Father to mark the life and the sad passing of one of our flock.

‘Bertha Mavis Lake, nee Flaxheed, lived but a short time in this parish, where she came in the twilight of her years to be cared for by her loving family.’

Jennifer fidgeted irritably in her seat. It was
freezing
in here! Why didn’t they put on the central heating? How could anyone be expected to sit through a church service in this cold? No wonder people didn’t go to church anymore. It wasn’t exactly welcoming.

A fierce glare from Mum brought her attention back to the service.

‘Though Bertha Lake lived less than two years in this parish and I did not have the pleasure of being acquainted with her personally...’

Lucky you, thought Jennifer automatically, then she felt guilty and made herself pay attention.

‘...I know from my conversations with her family that she was a caring and loving daughter, mother and grandmother, and a much-loved and
much-valued
member of our community.’

The elderly vicar, Mr Gilchrist, paused for effect or perhaps to check his notes. He was knocking on a bit, Jennifer observed; his shoulders were stooped and a tremor passed over his hands as he held tightly onto the pulpit. His voice rasped the words with difficulty but then, she had to concede, it would be a challenge for anyone, giving a funeral service for someone they’d never even met. Although nowadays vicars probably did more funerals for people they’d never met than for those they had.