‘Minty, I’m glad you agreed to let Dad be buried here.’ Poppy looked round the church. ‘It would have been wrong to put him elsewhere. What made you change your mind?’
Rose stroked Poppy’s hand. ‘Shush. This isn’t the time.’
In the organ loft, the organist unlocked his instrument and settled himself. The pipes released a series of groans and sighs, some distinctly digestive. My lips twitched.
Poppy hadn’t finished with me. ‘It would have been awful in the future if you’d met someone else and gone to live – oh, I don’t know, Spain or somewhere, and he would have been alone in London.’
‘Poppy.’ Rose was sharp. ‘Enough.’
At that moment, I admired Poppy for her truculence and rudeness, and her fine line in insult. ‘Listen to me, I would never live in Marbella. Got it?’
Organ and congregation stumbled to the end of the hymn. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the flutter of several white handkerchiefs. In a dark suit and black tie, Roger approached the lectern. He cleared his throat. At that moment, the sun came out and a multi-coloured refraction of light from the window spread over the floor of the nave. ‘I knew Nathan for twenty years, many of them as a colleague,’ he began. ‘He was a company man, through and through. We fought many battles together, and rejoiced when we won.’
Had Nathan been a company man? I supposed so. Roger smiled, suggesting recollected joys of the companionship he had shared with Nathan in pursuit of the company’s welfare. We live a life of false smiles. It is one of the prices we pay for civilization – bared teeth and stretched lips, unholy thoughts teeming behind them. I bet Roger couldn’t remember anything truly significant about Nathan.
‘Loyalty is what distinguished Nathan… He was loyal to colleagues, to his work, ultra-loyal to the company…’
I bit my lip and blanked out the rest of Roger’s speech.
The service wore on. Richard read an extract from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Afterwards, Rose took her place at the lectern. ‘This may seem strange,’ she addressed the congregation, ‘but Nathan discussed his funeral with me more than once.’
She was disingenuous. There was nothing strange about people who had lived with each for a long time, and presumably loved each other, discussing their finale. It was those amid the intricacies of the second act who never got round to it. For the record, Nathan and I had never touched on the subject.
There was a rustle, part-embarrassment, part-anticipation. The light fell over Rose. She was past coltish prettiness, and she had never been sexy, but there was beauty. If a face truly mirrored the inner being, Rose was offering hers for inspection, boldly and without pretence.
Poppy’s hand flew to her mouth. Roger stared straight ahead and Felix whimpered. I bent over him. ‘Listen, Felix,’ I whispered, ‘it’s about Daddy.’
Rose went on, ‘Nathan loved his family. He loved pottering in boats, mackerel fishing…’ She told her story, deconstructing the bland company man whom Roger had presented. Rose’s Nathan was a man who strove to think and to feel.
She could have added, ‘The Nathan who shouted out the answers to a radio quiz programme, who disliked broccoli, who sat utterly still when he was thinking.’ She could have described Nathan cradling one or other of the twins and his struggle to find words…
‘He loved the poem I’m about to read. It was one of John Donne’s and Nathan felt… Nathan honoured humour. A man of strong feelings, he sometimes found it difficult to see the funny side of things. I know he wouldn’t mind me saying that, and I know he’d want me to tell you that he admired people who could find humour in difficult moments.’ She paused, and peered at the paper from which she was to read the poem. ‘Print’s a bit small,’ she said, and elicited a laugh.
‘Sweetest Love, I do not go
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter Love for me:
But since that I
Must die at last, ’tis best
To use myself in jest…’
She read it in a husky but unwavering voice. This, indeed, was her gift to Nathan, the husband who had left her for me.
Then we sang the hymn I was sure that Nathan had hated.
The sandwiches were excellent, and the wine – Sam’s choice – was also good, a fact tacitly acknowledged by the guests who were swallowing it in large quantities.
My former colleagues from Vistemax clustered round me. Rose’s former colleagues clustered round her. In between there was a no man’s land of relatives and friends who were not quite sure to which camp they should be seen to belong. The twins veered between the two and I lost count of how many times someone reached out and, almost absently, placed a hand on one or other of their heads.
A combination of shock, grief, the excellent wine – you could take your pick – loosened tongues. I negotiated past Maeve Otley with a plate of sandwiches just as she was confiding, to Carolyne Shaker, ‘Of course, he was a nice man but he wasn’t exactly loyal to his family…’
Carolyne, dull, sweet Carolyne, trussed up in a too-tight navy blue suit, replied, Well, he was loyal in his way.’
Nathan’s cousin Clive collared me. ‘You must remember me. We met at Poppy and Richard’s wedding party.’
‘Clive, of course.’ Clive-the-expert-on-wind-turbines, arguably the most boring subject on earth.
Clutching his wine, he edged closer and I noticed that his black tie was stained, his shirt fraying at the cuff. ‘What did the old boy die of?’ He seemed anxious and unsettled. ‘He wasn’t… you know…’ Clive tapped his nose. ‘Someone mentioned he was… er, in bed.’
There and then, I abandoned Clive and made my way over to Sam. Glass in hand, he searched for something to say. ‘Minty… you’ve done this well.’
That was something. ‘I want to say how sorry I am.’ Emotions had never been Sam’s strong point, and he looked uneasy. But I persisted: ‘He talked about you a lot. I know he wanted to talk to you about America.’
Sam’s grasp tightened on his glass. ‘I’ve accepted the job, and I’m off to Austin in September.’
‘And Jilly.’
‘She hasn’t made up her mind, but I’m hoping to persuade her.’ His gaze shifted to his wife. Evidently some telepathy was working for Jilly turned, from a group that included Carolyne Shaker and Rose, to her husband and the exchange was neither sweet nor happy.
‘I’ll commute for the first few months,’ he said, then added miserably, ‘I’ll miss Dad.’
Many of the guests did not stay long. Those who spoke to me edged over and proffered an excuse: a meeting, a train to catch and you know what the trains are like. Carolyne and Peter Shaker were among the first to go. Peter held out his hand. After a second or two, I decided to take it.
‘This is difficult, I know,’ said Peter, ‘but, despite everything, Nathan was a friend.’
‘Well, yes. A friend.’ My inflection of ‘friend’ was intended to convey irony. ‘No doubt you have a meeting to go to.’
‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
‘A meeting that Nathan might have attended if he hadn’t been sacked?’
Carolyne flushed, and stuffed a hand under her husband’s elbow. On closer inspection, there were signs that Peter’s elevation had had an effect. Her hair had been cut expertly and the flashy gold earrings had been replaced with diamond studs. ‘There’s no need to be like that, Minty.’
The Shakers dematerialized as Martin came up. ‘Must go. The car’s waiting. But we’ll be in touch, as you know, Minty.’
‘There must be a fleet of company cars outside. Don’t get into the wrong one.’
He smiled. ‘It was a good service, Minty. Good for Nathan. I’ll remember it.’
‘That’s what I wanted,’ I said.