The Past and Other Lies (44 page)

Sitting beside her, Graham was flipping through his hymnbook in preparation for the first hymn. He held the hymnbook up between them as though he fully intended to sing. As though he expected Jennifer to sing too. Jennifer glared at him and he withdrew the book. On the other side of Graham, Charlotte was slumped in her usual bad mood, not paying attention to anyone, and probably wishing it was her own funeral.

Jennifer winced.

And then she felt a rush of irritation. It was getting so she couldn’t even think her own thoughts anymore without someone to make her feel guilty for it.

Suppose it
had
been Charlotte’s funeral?

‘Let us stand for hymn number one hundred and four on page ninety-eight of your red hymnbooks.’

The vicar had to say that, ‘your red hymnbooks’, otherwise most of the congregation wouldn’t have a clue what book he was talking about.

Everyone got to their feet with a rustle of clothes and a rustle of hymnbook pages. Jennifer glanced sideways at the line of mourners. It was odd to see people—well, basically her own family as that was all that was here—dressed in black suits and looking very sombre. And inside a church.

Aside from Graham, who looked as though he was enjoying the whole affair immensely, everyone looked very ill at ease. Mum was trying very hard to give out a dignified ‘I come here every Sunday’ sort of air that was fooling no one. Dad perched on the edge of the pew gripping his hymnbook, glancing from side to side to see when to stand and when to sit and when to kneel, and clearly hadn’t set foot inside a church since his own wedding day.

Uncle Ted, who was a valuer and auctioneer from North Yorkshire and presumably spent the majority of his time tramping about in James Herriot boots in muddy farmyards, had scrubbed up surprisingly well, though his suit was more
Incredible Hulk
than
Dynasty
in terms of its vintage and fit. His large round face and large round ears were bright pink from the cold though you’d think he’d be used to it, being from Up North.

Beside him, Aunt Caroline looked very elegant, and whereas Mum had spent the morning orchestrating everyone and getting quite hot under the collar doing so, Aunt Caroline had spoken very little. Whatever she thought of the proceedings, she wasn’t letting on.

Charlotte, who had so many black clothes she must have been spoilt for choice this morning and whom you’d think would therefore be right at home in a funeral, had fidgeted and scowled and glared at everyone all morning so that even Mum hadn’t approached her.

‘Charlotte’s just sad that Grandma’s gone,’ Mum had explained, as they all waited silently in the car for her to come downstairs and join them. This had seemed so patently unlikely that Jennifer had almost laughed out loud.

‘She’s probably in the second stage of grief,’ Graham had explained helpfully. ‘Shock is the first, then denial. The last is acceptance.’

‘And the fourth is a belt round the head with a cricket bat,’ Jennifer had observed, and Mum had said, ‘Jennifer!’

The thing was, no one appeared to be grieving for Grandma Lake. Or at least no one had been shocked by her death. She had died at the hospital at midnight on Sunday following an angina attack the previous evening. Her rapid deterioration during the night and the final, sudden end had seemed the most anticipated thing on Earth. As for denial, well no, there didn’t seem to be much of that either.

Acceptance, yes. They had all, as far as Jennifer could tell, accepted Grandma Lake’s parting with surprising ease, and already her room had reverted back to being the study. Dad had reclaimed his favourite chair, moved his stuff out of the garage and driven the car back in. Mum had cooked a really spicy chicken curry then a bolognese, they had had takeaway from the Bamboo Palace and Dad was openly watching
Match of the Day
.

All in all, they seemed to be coping very well. And any acting up from Charlotte had nothing whatsoever to do with Grandma Lake’s death. That Mum would have no idea of this, or of anything really, was entirely natural. Anything else would be shocking.

The hymn ended in a straggle of voices and a loud chord from the organist, who obviously thought he was Elton John. Everyone sat down with more rustling of coats and bags. Someone dropped their hymnbook with a sharp thud. Mr Gilchrist gripped the pulpit once more and everyone settled back, content to let him run the show.

‘Bertha Lake lived a long life. A life that spanned a large part of this century. And, we must suppose, she would have experienced first hand much of the good and the evil that man has produced during this time.’

That Grandma Lake could experience good and evil was hard to imagine, she having spent her final years waddling from her room to the television set to the bathroom in a sort of eternal triangle of torpidness. But no doubt this was the customary sort of twaddle that vicars were meant to come out with at a funeral for someone about whom they knew nothing. Or knew only what the relatives chose to tell them.

Had Mum or Aunt Caroline provided him with the relevant biographical details or was he flying solo? Aunt Caroline had only come down south this morning so it seemed unlikely she had spoken to the vicar. Mum then. Mum must have given him some brief outline. Very brief, by the sound of it.

‘She was born at the start of the century...’

There! He didn’t even know what year Grandma Lake had been born.

‘...in Acton, a suburb where she grew up and married and where she lived as a wife and, for many years, as a widow, until just two years ago.’

When she was forcibly wrenched from her home and dumped here.

‘She married Matthew and they enjoyed a happy and successful marriage that spanned twenty years until Matthew’s untimely death in 1945.’

Mr Gilchrist paused to allow the impact of this tragedy to sink in.

‘As a widow in post-war London, Bertha raised her two daughters, Caroline and Deirdre, on her own and she was fortunate enough to live to see both her children marry and make homes of their own and present her with three grandchildren, Jennifer, Charlotte and Graham.’

Jennifer frowned to cover her embarrassment. Graham beamed and looked around at everyone as though seeking congratulations from the congregation for a job well done. Charlotte continued to sulk in the corner and probably wasn’t even listening.

So, Grandma Lake’s life was to be judged by how long her marriage had lasted, how many offspring she had produced and how many grandchildren she had had. What about Aunt Caroline? Never mind that she’d existed for fifty-odd years on her own, all that mattered was that she was now married and settled down with Ted.

Jennifer tried to imagine what Mr Gilchrist might say about her if she should happen to die tomorrow: poor, sweet Jennifer, struck down in her prime, denied the joy of motherhood, of holy union with another—well, that’s what the vicar would say and Darren, sitting in the congregation gripping Roberta Peabody’s hand and fighting back tears of self-recrimination, would know it wasn’t true, would know they had shared holy union on a number of occasions, thank you very much, in Darren’s bed no less, while his mum and dad were downstairs entertaining their city friends over dinner. Oh yes! Darren would be remembering all that and he’d regret dumping her then, wouldn’t he!

The vicar peered short-sightedly at a piece of paper he was holding in his hand, his eyes scanning the contents to make sure he had missed nothing. Then he looked up at the congregation brightly. ‘Let us pray.’

Is that it? thought Jennifer, outraged. Eighty-odd years and all Grandma Lake got was three paltry sentences? It was
nothing
. Couldn’t Mum have come up with more than that?

She turned to look at her mother but Mum was already rearranging herself on the kneeler before her and didn’t seem the least bit outraged. Further along the row Aunt Caroline wasn’t kneeling. She was sitting up in her seat and didn’t even bow her head when Mr Gilchrist began the prayer.

At least it meant they could all go home soon to the mushroom vol-au-vents.

Mum had explained that after the service, the family were expected to stand at the church door and shake hands with everyone who had attended. In reality, this meant shaking hands with the vicar and that was it. Apart from the family no one else had come.

They piled into two cars, Dad’s red Cortina and Uncle Ted’s large and mud-splattered dark green estate (‘I do think he could at least have given it a wash before coming down,’ Mum had observed in an aside to Dad), and drove off after the hearse to the crematorium. Here a nervous, shuffling wait was followed by a ten-minute service, a moment of horror as the coffin slid soundlessly and eternally behind a curtain and vanished, then a half-hour journey home again, by which time Jennifer was starving.

‘I set the oven to come on at twelve,’ Mum explained as they filed into the house. The dining room table was already groaning under the weight of a ton of cheese, ham and tomato sandwiches, a vast bowl of French onion dip, pineapple chunks and little cubes of Red Leicester held together with cocktail sticks, plates of Ritz biscuits and rolls and rolls of neatly folded table napkins.

‘Tuck in,’ said Dad, nodding towards the feast he had been heroically slicing and buttering that morning before anyone else was even awake. ‘Tea or coffee, Ted?’

Ted, who was removing his boots in the doorway, met Dad’s suggestion with a barely concealed look of dismay.

‘I could sink a nice glass of bitter, if you’ve got one, Eric-lad.’

‘Aren’t you driving, Ted?’ said Mum, shocked, standing forlornly in front of the oven with a tray of frozen vol-au-vents in her hands.

‘We both drive, Deirdre,’ said Caroline coming in from the hallway and removing her coat thoughtfully as though she hadn’t quite made up her mind to stay.

‘I’ll have a beer, too,’ Jennifer called out as Dad went to the fridge.

‘Tea or coffee?’ said Mum firmly. She glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘Now I’ve put the vol-au-vents in but they’ll take about 35 minutes so don’t fill yourselves up.’

‘Grand,’ said Ted obligingly, helping himself to a plate and a napkin and a huge spoonful of coleslaw. ‘Mek em yourself, did you Deirdre?’

‘Fat chance,’ muttered Charlotte, who had come slinking into the room last and was now sitting in her usual spot in the furthest corner of the sofa.

‘Caroline? What can I get you?’ said Dad, hovering halfway between the fridge and the dining-room table.

‘Well, what have you got in that drinks cabinet of yours, Eric?’ she replied, earning her the instant respect of Jennifer. Graham looked up from his inspection of the potato salad to gauge Mum’s reaction. Mum straightened up, having placed a quiche in the oven alongside the vol-au-vents, and made a great show of regarding the kitchen clock. Then she surprised them all.

‘Oh, why not? Eric, I’ll have a tiny sherry,’ she said, throwing caution to the wind.

Dad blinked. ‘Right-ho,’ he said. ‘Caroline? Sherry? Or we’ve got Dubonnet, vermouth, advocaat or Cinzano.’

Ted spluttered and a mouthful of lager dribbled down his chin. ‘By ’eck,’ he muttered, for no obvious reason except that this choice of drinks was not, perhaps, what he had been expecting.

‘Sherry’s fine, thanks, Eric,’ said Aunt Caroline and she sat down beside Charlotte on the sofa. ‘After all, it’s not every day you bury your mother, is it?’

‘We didn’t bury her,’ Graham corrected, and before he could add, ‘We burned her,’ Mum leapt in.

‘You girls? Tea or coffee?’

It’s not every day you bury your mother
.

Jennifer regarded Aunt Caroline and noticed that Charlotte was watching her too. She’d always been different, Aunt Caroline. Different from themselves, at any rate, and that was the only difference that mattered. It was hard to picture Mum and Aunt Caroline as sisters, let alone Aunt Caroline being Grandma Lake’s daughter. They had hardly been in the same room as each other twice in the last two years.

‘You’re looking peaky,’ said Aunt Caroline, taking the tiny sherry glass that Dad offered and studying Charlotte’s face.

Charlotte turned away furiously.

Aunt Caroline reached out and touched her knee. ‘You know, you can always come and stay with us. If you need a break.’

What about me? thought Jennifer indignantly. I’m the eldest! Why can’t I come up? What if
I
need a break?

‘There you are, dear,’ said Mum, handing her two cups of coffee. ‘Pass one to Charlotte.’

So now they all had drinks in their hands and Dad and Mum and Ted were standing in the middle of the lounge, Mum with her tiny sherry, Dad and Ted nursing lagers, and all looking at each other.

‘Not a bad drop this, Eric-lad,’ said Uncle Ted, holding up his can of lager to the light appreciatively. ‘I mean for Southern-poofter beer,’ he added with a wink at Graham.

‘Don’t have more than one if you’re driving, Ted,’ said Mum.

‘The missus is driving us ’ome, an’t ya, love?’

‘Actually, many of the stronger ales and bitters are brewed by breweries in the south and southwest,’ Graham pointed out, earning him a withering look from both his sisters.

‘You’re lucky you both drive,’ observed Mum, as though being able to drive was something you were either born with or you weren’t. ‘Dad never drove, nor did Mum.’ It seemed that now Grandma Lake was gone it was okay to get nostalgic about her. ‘Do you remember that old Ford Dad had for years, Caroline? But he never would drive it.’ She looked over at Caroline to confirm this but Caroline took a sip from her drink and seemed in no mood to confirm or deny anything.

‘Well, he must ’ave driven at some point, Deirdre,’ said Uncle Ted. He turned towards Caroline. ‘You’ve got a photo of him sitting in the cab of a bus, an’t ya, love?’

Caroline stood up abruptly and sniffed. ‘I think your vol-au-vents are burning, Deird.’

Mum spun around, flustered, and rushed into the kitchen.

And as far as Jennifer could remember, no one had mentioned Grandma Lake again that day.

W
ILL YOU COME BACK to the house for a bite to eat, Vicar—Justin?’ said Mum, putting on her Margot Leadbetter voice, as they left Aunt Caroline’s cremation.