“Could I—could I see her?” to Lav the words sound bizarre but Alf Andrews does not even blink.
“Sure, sure if you want—the funeral's at four. We'll have one more drink, then you can follow me over to the house. She's laid out over at Mother's—didn't want to be taken to the funeral home.”
Laid out! Lav thinks, already sorry she has asked to see the old woman. She traces her fingernail over letters someone has scratched into the dull blue tabletop: “Frank A is a cocksucker.” Could the A stand for Andrews? And does Frank A know this message is here for all to read?
In the parking lot Alf Andrews climbs into a mud spattered pick-up truck, beckons for her to follow and takes off at what seems a suicidal speed back the way she had come. Past the Kosy Kafe, past the church, the general store. At the post office he swerves suddenly right towards the sea, driving along a steep lane—a path really—between fields of spring grass and recently turned earth. Each bit of land, some no larger than a room, is outlined with a picket fence.
At the end of the lane are two houses, a bright pink bungalow and a square, steep-roofed two-storey. The bungalow faces towards the lane and is built on a high concrete foundation. It has perpendicular steps climbing up to a long veranda on the ocean side. However, it must be impossible to see the ocean from the veranda because directly behind it, separated by a few yards of grass, a wood-pile and a clothesline, is the other house.
Planted on a rock right next to the sea, the second house stands square, white and tall with three small-paned windows under the eaves and two below, one on either side of what must be the front door. It is a beautiful house, much older than the bungalow but freshly painted and tidy, although grass grows right up to the door and there are no curtains at the windows.
“What a lovely old house,” Lav says as she goes through the gate.
Alf Andrews glances at the empty house, makes a non-committal noise, says, “Watch out—that bottom step is high,” and starts ahead of her up the steps towards the pink bungalow.
“Strange type,” Lav thinks. She is feeling slightly light-headed from having downed two drinks on an empty stomach and is as apprehensive as if she were entering an African village to observe some unknown ritual.
At the top of the steps the man holds the door, letting her go before him rato what seems to be a large kitchen. Cupboards line the walls but there are no chairs. Men stand around the room, arms crossed, leaning against counters. One woman, young and blonde, wearing tight jeans, is perched on a freezer. Everyone wears outdoor jackets and heavy boots. The woman and several of the men hold beer bottles. A round, comfortable looking man, the only one wearing a tie and suit, is laughing at something the blonde woman has said.
As Lav steps into the room the laughter stops, every face turns towards her. Alf Andrews doesn't even slow down. Edging her past the room's occupants he mutters, “Mother'll be in here,” and leads her through to the real kitchen: green and cream paint, pale yellow curtains, gleaming white stove and refrigerator; a table covered with cut glass plates on which cookies, pink, pale green and fluffy white, little sandwiches and neatly sliced fruit cake have been symmetrically arranged. Lav's mouth waters but she is swept past the food, through the kitchen into a third room.
After the dazzling brightness of the kitchen this room seems dark. Curtains are drawn and only one dim lamp, strategically placed at the head of the coffin, is lit. The coffin, set foursquare facing the door, is supported by chairs or benches that have been draped with dark wine-coloured cloth.
The coffin is large. Surely, Lav thinks, much too large for one woman. She studies the shiny brass handles, the open cover padded in gleaming satin. A picture painted on the upper half of the satin, the part that would come down over the face, shows pink and blue angels surrounding the throne of God, long yellow stripes radiate out from the pastel scene. Just below God's feet a nose, a dead putty-like thing the very shape of her own, points upward. It is the only part of Rachel Andrews she can see from the doorway.
Lav becomes aware of a small, perky woman, her hair in tight, peach coloured curls, her head jutting forward between bony shoulders, peering out of the gloom.
“This is Lavinia Andrews, Mother. The one's been callin' about Nan,” Alf 's voice is as impersonal as his touch. This woman is Selina, then—Lav had expected someone taller, more commanding. The thought is barely formed when Selina's fingers grip her elbow and she is propelled towards the coffin.
“Not another drop for any of that crowd out back—give them all a good cup of tea,” Selina calls after Alf who has quickly left the room. Then, sighing dramatically, she turns to stand beside Lav and stare down at the dead woman.
The hesitant, frightened fifteen-year-old, that Rachel who wrote those wispy, web-like lines into Lavinia's journal, is long gone. The head resting on the pink satin pillow could be that of some ancient Egyptian pharaoh, Yuya perhaps who lies in the Cairo Museum, or Una buried in the paupers' field outside Coltsford, it could be Mary Bundle or the Indian, whose graves, though more recent, have already slipped into the sea.
Only the nose is like Lav's. The rest of the face, the dark skin, the protruding cheek bones, the broad high forehead, the mouth, pressed into a narrow brown line, are very like Alf Andrews'. Yet the old woman's face is stronger than her grandson's. Even now with the skin like flaking, transparent pastry, with the eyes closed and the cheeks fallen in, Lav can see the determination.
“She was a determined woman,” Lav says aloud—just as if she had known Rachel all her life. She is pleased with the comment, which seems an acceptable thing to say. Perhaps I'll be alright after all, she thinks.
“That she was—right to the end. You know her last night on earth she was still talkin' about havin' the old house out back fixed up before summer. My dear, that woman was so determined she could change the wind around if she put her mind to it!”
Rachel has been dressed tastefully in what looks to be silk, a purple silk dress with a pale lace collar held together with an amethyst pin. Lav wonders if it can possibly be the pin Una had given to her daughter Tessa.
Selina notices her staring at the brooch, “It's a keepsake, Nan got from her great-grandmother. We're supposed to take it off her before the casket's closed. It's to go to Rachel Jane.” Selina's sniff indicates disapproval of her mother-in-law's choice of recipient for the brooch.
Lav is surprised to find that she quite enjoys looking at the old woman's face. It has a quality missing from live faces, a kind of calm openness, as if any moment it will reveal some secret. They stand beside the coffin for two or three minutes before Selina, her strong fingers again clamped onto Lav's arm, leads her to a corner. Three sides of the darkened room are lined with women and children seated on straight-backed chairs, watching in such complete silence that Lav has not been aware of their presence. As they approach one woman stands and smiles towards them.
“This is Doris, my daughter-in-law,” Selina says.
Lav stares at the attractive, placid face—can this be Alf Andrews' wife?
“It's nice of you to come down,” the woman is saying. “I'll be off now—get supper for the boys and be back in time for the service.”
Selina gestures Lav into the vacated chair before following Doris out of the room. Lav sits, bows her head and closes her eyes. She is feeling ill from the whiskey and from hunger. No one speaks. The women on either side of her do not move.
They must have thought she was praying because the instant she straightens up the woman on her left turns and whispers, “A good age, she come to a good age,” she dabs her eyes with a Kleenex.
Other women murmur agreement: “a good age,” “good age,” “a good death,” “good,”—the words whispering from dim corners of the room.
The woman who had spoken first leans towards Lav, “I'm Mavis Fifield. You be one of the Andrews crowd then? Down from St. John's, I s'pose?”
Lav nods. The woman, eyes bright with expectation, waits. When nothing more is forthcoming she says, “Your father must be Clar Andrews—the one teaches in at the university?”
Thinking her breath must smell of whisky Lav tries to answer the woman without turning her head, “No, no my father's name was David—he's passed on.” Lav is astonished at the words “passed on” which rise unbidden—from where? Tribal memory?
Her eyes having grown accustomed to the dark, she sees that most of the women hold teacups. She longs for tea.
“You're David Andrews girl! Well I never!” Eager to be the first with this astonishing news, the woman leans across to pat the knee of the woman seated on Lav's right, “Hear that Ruby? This one's David Andrews' girl!”
“David's girl!” Tilting her head to one side so that her round face folds into chins, Ruby squints at Lav, “Lord bless us! Sure I can see it now—she got the Andrews' mouth.”
Once again the echo, louder and more cheerful this time, circles the room: “Yes, I can see,” “Well I'll be,” “David Andrews' girl.”
“He was that handsome when he was young. Didn't you walk out with him one time, Violet?” Lav cannot see the woman addressed or the one asking the question, both sit beyond the coffin in the far, dim corners of the room.
The woman named Violet gives a deep chuckle, “That I did—but 'twarn't me he was interested in—'twas me friend Nina Stokes who played accordian with the Army.”
They remember Nina Stokes, she who had died young in the San, talk about her for a time until someone says: “David Andrews was just ahead of me in school—a real torment he was as a boy!”
Lav feels a warm glow seeping through her bones. They all knew her father, or those too young to have known him must have heard of him. They speak as if he had died only yesterday.
They even remember her grandfather—Ki Andrews, the old man her mother had so hated. “You minds me speakin' of Uncle Ki Andrews—how he'd always tell us children stories of a winter's night?” an old woman asks the small child sitting beside her. The children, Lav notes, do not speak but sit very still, their eyes moving from speaker to speaker.
Reminiscences of childhood and young adulthood going back for generations ebb and flow through the dimness. The soft rattle of teacups, the hushed voices—like the voices of adults talking in the next room—enclose Lav. She dozes. She can smell the dust under the stairs in Audrey's house, would not have been surprised to feel her friend's hand clutching hers, to hear Audrey's mother telling Charlotte about the aunts' love lives or some adventure one of the Petrassi uncles has had at work.
Eventually there is a stirring, a rumble of movement that jars Lav into wakefulness. The heavy woman in the next chair struggles to her feet. “My dears, I got to go, Clyde'll wonder what's become of me. Where's Selina? Out there gettin' more food I daresay! I'll see you all at the service.” She gives Lav a smile and goes to gaze mournfully down into the coffin for a minute before leaving.
One by one the women stand, collect their purses, their teacups, their children, and move slowly towards the door. Each woman pauses to look at the body before leaving the room. One woman lifts a small girl up to kiss the dry old face.
Before Lav has time to consider what she should do, Alf Andrews comes in. He crosses the room and stands staring gloomily down at her, his expression very like that worn by the women looking at the corpse. As if he is deciding how best to dispose of her with as little fuss as possible.
Feeling rumpled and uncomfortable Lav gets to her feet. “You have nice neighbours,” she says to fill the silence.
“Nice neighbours, lovely house, nice sea, lovely sky, nice coffin, lovely corpse,” he says in a flat, expressionless voice.
She is speechless with shock at his rudeness.
“Mother says you're to come out to the kitchen and have some tea before we go to the church,” he tells her in the same monotone.
“I'd like tea but I'm not going to the church service.” She follows him into the empty kitchen, watching as he pours tea from a large flowered teapot.
“Eat up, then, it's a long drive back to town,” he gestures for her to sit at the food-laden table but takes his own cup to the window where he stands, watching people leave.
Lav is on her third sandwich when Selina comes into the kitchen. Behind her is the plump man in the suit and tie. “My younger son, Ned—the fisherman in the family,” Selina says, “you met his wife, Doris, earlier.”
“Ah, Cousin Lavinia—the one who's scrounging through the Vincent and Andrews skeletons,” but he is smiling, a real smile. “Welcome aboard,” he says and kisses her cheek.
Selina fidgets, rearranging plates, setting out more teacups, “Why isn't Rachel Jane here?” she asks.
“Because she's makin' up beds in the motel.”
“Where's Tracy, then?”
“Sittin' out there in the porch entertainin' the troops.”
“Well? Why don't you send her back to do her job?” clearly Selina could say more but is biding her time.
Alf ignores his mother's question, which irritates her even more. “I hope the RCMP gets after you, Alf Andrews—lettin' a girl Rachel Jane's age tend bar! Anyway, you should have closed today. And while I think on it, was it you brought that beer into the house?”
It is Ned who answers, his voice is hopeful, placating, “Now Ma, you knows people got to have a drink or two at a funeral.”
“At Roman funerals, perhaps—not at ours! What would she in there say? And I don't know what Reverend Dawe thought of us this afternoon. All hands drinkin' in the back porch and the place smellin' like a brewery.”
“They're all gone now, so no harm's done,” Ned winks at Lav, the wink includes her in some family joke about his mother and drinking. “I tell you now what happens to people goes lookin' for their roots,” he begins a story about some retired couple who had spent years and years tracking the Vincent family back to the Channel Islands.
Grateful that she is not the focus of attention, Lav drinks tea and devours quantities of cookies, all the time watching the two brothers, wondering how long the silent one can go without speaking.