Which was fine by me, now that I knew what Leanne really thought of me. So the world had contracted to four of us revolving like satellites round Scarlett. Jimmy was the bewildered one, not really understanding what was going on and why Mummy was spending most of her time in bed. Scarlett tried to conserve energy for him every day, but the nearer she came to death, the harder it became. In the final few days, it was all she could manage to snuggle with him while he watched cartoons in bed with her.
When he wasn’t at nursery, one of us would take charge of him. We’d play in the pool, kick a ball round the garden, watch videos or build rambling Lego structures across his bedroom floor. I used to sit on the window seat with him and work my way through his collection of picture books. I think he found me quite comforting to be with. When I look back on those few weeks, it’s with a mixture of sadness and contentment; I think I did him a bit of good and built a bridge into our future.
The only interruption to our routine came when the team from Yes! magazine turned up for the final photo shoot, complete with stylist and make-up artist. I know there were people who thought it was pretty sick, but Scarlett wanted the world to see what a woman dying of cancer looked like. ‘We shut sick people away so we don’t have to confront the fact that we’re all going to die,’ she said. ‘I want to show them that I’m still a human being, still the woman I always was.’ Then that achingly sad smile. ‘And it’s a few extra quid in the coffers,’ she added.
When the end came, it was very peaceful. We were all in the room when Simon loaded up the last bolus of saline and refilled the morphine pump. Jimmy kissed Scarlett and gave her a last cuddle. I held her in my arms for the last time, unstoppable tears running down my face. Her courage in the face of impending death had been remarkable. The final act of a remarkable woman. I walked Jimmy out of the room and took him to bed.
I was still sitting in his room, watching him sleep, when Simon came through to tell me it was all over. I stood up and wrapped my arms round him as he shook with the force of his tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he kept saying. ‘If only I could have saved her . . . I’m sorry.’
‘You did your best. Nobody could have given her better care.’
‘She was special,’ he gulped. He drew away from me, folding his arms over his chest, hands on his shaking shoulders. Somehow, he pulled himself together. ‘I need to call the funeral director,’ he said. ‘They’ll take her away and prepare her. And I need to sign the death certificate.’ He bit his lip. ‘I’ve lost my share of patients, Stephanie,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think I ever minded more.’
44
The funeral was a circus. A perfectly orchestrated circus, but a circus nevertheless. Scarlett had left detailed instructions which it fell to George and me to carry out. And carry them out we did, even though our teeth were gritted for most of the time.
The media were frustrated by the lack of a grieving relict. We knew they would dog our every step until they got something for the front page, so we arranged for them to have a single pool photographer take a series of shots of Jimmy carrying a posy of flowers into the funeral parlour where his mother was laid out. In his second black suit of the year, he walked in with bowed head, not quite five and already apparently master of his own public image.
Once the media had the pics they wanted, they decamped from the hacienda. There was nothing to see now Scarlett was gone, after all. Their place by the side of the country lane was swiftly taken by the tributes left by Scarlett’s army of fans. Bunches of flowers, cards and soft toys soon covered the verges and we all prayed that the rain would stay away. Banks of sodden tributes would be an eyesore that would provoke complaints to the council from the other residents of the lane, who had never approved of Scarlett or what she brought in her wake. It would be one more hassle we could do without.
The grown-ups went for a viewing before they closed the coffin. I barely glanced at her; I’ve never understood the need to mourn with the dead in your eyeline. From what I saw, they’d done a good job on her. She looked less gaunt than I expected, and Marina had chosen one of her signature hats to cover her baldness, the deep watermelon shade giving a welcome splash of colour to the interior of the woven willow coffin. ‘It looks like we’re sending her off in a giant picnic basket,’ George said.
‘It’s what she wanted,’ Simon said. ‘She cared about the planet. Even if she wasn’t going to be here, Jimmy’s got to grow up in this world.’
George sighed. ‘I know, I know. It just looks . . . odd, that’s all. I’m accustomed to a more traditional look.’
On the day of the funeral, George arranged for a driver to collect Scarlett’s mother and sister from King’s Cross Station. To her final days Scarlett had been adamant that she didn’t want Chrissie and Jade at her bedside. She didn’t want them to so much as set foot in her house. The instructions were to provide them with first-class return tickets from Leeds and a hotel room if they needed to stay overnight. George had booked them into a decent hotel near King’s Cross. In an act that would have made Scarlett smile, he’d chosen one that had no bar or restaurant.
Marina, Jimmy and I were taken from the hacienda to the nearby funeral home by 1940s black Rolls Royce. I couldn’t help feeling that Leanne should have been with us, but she hadn’t turned up. The day after Scarlett’s death, Simon said he’d called to try and persuade her to put the rift behind her and pay her last respects with the rest of us. But Leanne had been adamant that Scarlett hadn’t wanted her there, so she would stay away. She wasn’t going to be two-faced about it. It seemed a sad end to what had been one of the few important relationships in Scarlett’s life.
There were two other vintage Rollers in the cortège, one carrying Simon and George, plus the two assistants from the agency who had worked most closely with Scarlett. The third was occupied by the team from Scarlett’s TV chat show – her co-host, the producer, her stylist and a couple of others I hadn’t met before. Chrissie and Jade were in a black BMW bringing up the tail.
The hearse itself was a horse-drawn carriage, all four bay horses with black plumes on their headbands. They were preceded by two professional mourners, their silk top hats beribboned and their black Crombie coats perfectly fitting their burly frames. You could hardly see the coffin for the floral tributes. MUMMY from Jimmy, of course. SCARLETT along one side from the TV channel and SMILE in the style of the logo from the perfume company. I hadn’t seen a cortège that over the top since a fellow ghost writer had persuaded me to come with him to a Kray family funeral.
There must have been thousands of fans lining the half-mile route from the funeral home to the crematorium. They wept, they cheered. They threw flowers and, bizarrely, confetti at the hearse. Once we had passed, they abandoned the pavements and fell into step behind the cortège. The police, there to prevent any public order offences, were hopelessly outnumbered. They looked completely bewildered, taken aback by this outpouring of public sorrow for a Northern underclass underdog who had somehow won people’s hearts.
The Prime Minister himself had jumped on the bandwagon. The local MP had got to his feet in the House of Commons and asked if the PM had plans to extend breast screening to younger women in the light of Scarlett’s tragic death. The PM had put his serious face on and said, ‘I was saddened to hear of the death of Scarlett Higgins, a brave young woman who demonstrated how it’s possible in today’s Britain to triumph over adversity and build a successful career. She brought delight to us all and she will be sorely missed. I will ask the Health Secretary to write to the Honourable Member in response to his question.’ I hoped he was watching the live coverage on the satellite news channels, so he could see what popularity looked like.