‘Oh, Minty.’ Rose was almost inaudible. ‘Thank you.’
Barely half an hour later, Poppy was on the phone. She was hostile and cold, and I no less so. ‘About the hymns, Minty. Dad’s favourite was “Immortal, Invisible”. We should start with that. He was very particular about hymns.’
‘Was he?’
‘You wouldn’t know, perhaps. You didn’t need hymns when he married you. And “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” to finish with.’
I groped for a dim memory of various weddings I had attended with Nathan when those hymns had been sung. ‘I don’t think he liked either of them. He thought they were boring.’
But Poppy had appointed herself keeper of her father’s flame, and in this matter she was not to be denied. Her voice trembled with anger. ‘I think we’re the ones to know what Dad liked or disliked.’
During the first verse of ‘Immortal, Invisible’, Sam bent his head and wept. Jilly slid her hand unobtrusively under his elbow and pressed closer. He edged away from her and blew his nose. Jilly dropped her hand and stared straight ahead.
Across the aisle, seated on either side of me, Felix and Lucas shifted uneasily at the sight of their big brother’s grief. For the hundredth time, I questioned if they should be at the service. Both had gone missing as we were due to leave Lakey Street and, after an increasingly tense search, Eve discovered them in Nathan’s cupboard. I bribed them out with a bag of normally forbidden Tangfastics. As Felix got into the car, he asked, ‘If we put Daddy in the ground does that mean he’ll grow again?’
In the pew directly behind us, elegant and sombre in black, Gisela’s voice was a pleasant alto, ‘… God only wise.’ Beside her, Roger sang bass rather badly. Gisela had been as good as her word and had kept in constant touch. ‘Ask me anything,’ she said. ‘I’m a professional widow. I know what to do.’
I held Felix and Lucas’s hands in my gloved ones and sang the hymn chosen by Rose, Sam and Poppy. I rarely wore gloves, and the weather was warmer, but they seemed necessary at a funeral, as necessary as this rite of passage, and I longed for the funeral to arrive. ‘The dead are always with us,’ runs the truism. Everyone is accompanied by a crocodile of ghosts, trailing fore and aft. I sensed that Nathan was hovering over us now, seeking permission to leave.
The church at Altringham was as pretty and ancient as Poppy had vowed, and every pew was taken, which, considering Altringham was more than an hour’s journey from London, was a tribute to Nathan. The nave was filled with the scent of the narcissi and lilies that had been placed in the window niches in huge bowls. More were massed on the altar and beside the coffin, which was made of bamboo – Nathan was going to his grave with impeccable green credentials. There were two flower arrangements on top. The first was a bouquet of pink and white camellias whose label read: ‘Nathan and Daddy, with love’. The second, white roses woven with laurel leaves and ferns, read, ‘From Rose, Sam and Poppy, with all our love’. The scent was dense, almost solid. I pressed my gloved fingers to my mouth. For ever after, I would associate this light, sweet, unbearable perfume with death.
Earlier, just after the coffin had been brought in and before the service, I had left the boys in Eve’s charge and sneaked into the then empty church. The porch was cluttered with leaflets, service manuals and postcards whose edges were curling. Have I got it right? I wanted to ask the presence in the coffin, which was not quite body and not quite spirit. Do you like the flowers? Gisela’s florist had been more than helpful. ‘Just leave it to me, Mrs Lloyd,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure I get what you and he would want.’
Would the wine, to be served at the funeral wake at the local hotel, be drinkable, the sandwiches acceptable? The rules of this ritual and how it should be conducted were as mysterious to me as those that had governed my faltering marriage. I had a nagging feeling that a good funeral lasted longer in the memory than a wedding. I owed Nathan so much, a debt I could never repay, and if nothing else, I could ensure that the reach of his memory stretched long.
Hymns… undertakers… tea for the twins… There was a hint of hysteria as I ticked off the mental list, walking down the aisle. There had been so many to work through, and so much advice of which, mostly, I couldn’t remember a word – except what Mrs Jenkins had offered at school. Glasses positioned at the end of her nose, a gesture designed to ward off intimate contact, she had said that Felix and Lucas should go to their father’s funeral because it offered ‘closure’.
I approached the coffin, craving the moment of silence and calm in which I would try to talk to Nathan for the last time.
I planned to tell him again: I am sorry.
My heels clacked on the uneven tiles and a woman sitting in the front pew swivelled round. I thought it would be you,’ said Rose. Her hair was twisted into a chignon, and she wore an exquisitely cut linen dress and jacket (French, no doubt). A bouquet of white roses lapped with laurel and ferns lay on her lap. She was pale but she had presented herself with distinction as the not-quite-but – almost-widow.
I slipped into the pew beside her, then gazed into the face that was bent towards me. Like my own skin and bone, Rose was impossible to eradicate. I could never scrape her away. Nathan had lived with her first, had had his first children with her, died with her. On that last day, stricken and beaten, he had fumbled his way… to Rose.
She was to blame for everything and nothing.
In the window embrasures, the bowls of flowers seemed to float, poised on the boundaries of this world and some spectral realm. ‘Do you think the flowers will do? The florist was uncanny. She seemed to know,’ I said.
Rose hesitated. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I had a word with her and told her what Nathan preferred.’ She touched one of the roses in the bouquet on her lap. They were creamy white, on the edge of full bloom, perfect, as flowers chosen by Rose would be. ‘I thought I wouldn’t be treading on your toes. You’d want what Nathan liked?’
‘You should have asked me.’
At that she coloured. ‘Perhaps, but you were busy and I know you want to keep contact between us to a minimum. I thought you would agree that it was Nathan who was important.’
We looked at each other and, for the thousandth time, I asked myself why I had chosen to use Rose, of all people, in the way that I had.
She pointed to the bouquet. ‘I’m going to put this on the coffin with your flowers. It’s from us, the family.’
‘Ah…’ The sound slid away from me.
‘You can’t possibly say no.’
Anything was possible. ‘Please,’ I said, and gestured towards the coffin. But I had the curious sensation that my years with Nathan had disappeared, pulverized in the fierce, implacable determination of his first family.
Rose got to her feet and her linen dress fell into place as it should. The heavy gold ring gleamed on her finger. She placed the flowers beside mine on the coffin and rested her hand briefly on it. Tor you, Nathan,’ she said to the coffin. ‘They’re the best I could get.’
She turned round. ‘Are the twins coming today?’
Yes. I wasn’t sure about subjecting them… But they’re here.’
‘There you are.’ Poppy rustled up, pale and hollow-eyed. ‘I got here early to help out.’ She slipped a hand under her mother’s elbow and peered into her face. ‘Are you OK?’ she inquired anxiously. ‘Will you get through?’ Poppy wanted – needed – Rose to be bowed down with grief. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, Mum. I’ll look after you later.’
Mother and daughter exchanged a glance of perfect understanding. Without being told, Rose knew that Poppy was terrified yet elated by the drama of her sorrow and Poppy understood that her mother’s courage was stretched taut.