If I’d asked Gwen or Mary, they’d have been eager to accompany me, but this was something I needed to do alone. And so, the day before the funeral when I was supposed to be making final arrangements, I headed east. It wasn’t an area of London I really knew, though it wasn’t far from where we lived (where you live, I corrected myself fiercely; not ‘we’ any more) and I mistook the route, getting off at Stratford. It took me about twenty-five minutes to walk to Porton Way, nearly getting myself killed as I dashed across the great arterial routes that lead east out of London. The sky, which had been grey when I left that morning, turned an ominous purple-brown; a storm was coming, and occasional raindrops splashed my cheek. A bitter wind was blowing over the London streets, whipping up litter and the last of the autumn leaves, which swirled along the pavement.
The entire area seemed to have been turned into a building site. Giant cranes punctuated the horizon and swathes of land had been turned into rubble and sticky mud, scarred with wide trenches. There were Portakabins behind high fences, men in hard hats driving diggers, temporary lights redirecting traffic.
Porton Way, lying at the bottom of a steep incline, was dismal, abandoned, full of half-smashed warehouses and the remnants of old houses, which had been brought to the ground in a pile of bricks and cement blocks. One house was still standing among the ruins, though its front wall had been ripped away. Even from below, I could still see the wallpaper and the old bathtub. Once people had lived there, I thought, sat in that kitchen.
I consulted the map, tracing the route Greg had driven with a finger. What a drab, dreary, ugly place to come for a tryst. But private. Even now, in the middle of the morning, there was no one around; it looked as though work had been suspended for the time being. As I trudged towards the fatal corner, it started to rain, the skies opening up and releasing an onslaught, water streaming down my cheeks, seeping into my inadequate jacket. The bottoms of my jeans were soon soaking. Water squelched in my shoes. My hair lashed wetly against my face. I could barely see where I was going.
But there I was, at the steep corner. This was where it had happened. Greg had gone straight across and plunged down that embankment. I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Where had he landed exactly? Was there anything remaining of the car? I left the road and clambered down the slope, but the mud was like slippery clay and I half fell, putting out my hand to catch myself, ripping my sleeve on a thick bramble. I heard myself give a sob.
It seemed to take a long time to get to the bottom, and by the time I arrived I was muddy and sodden. My forehead stung and when I put a hand up, it came away red with blood, which trickled into my eye, making it even harder to see where I was going. I took off my scarf and held it against the cut.
And what was I doing there, anyway? What could I hope to prove – that Greg wouldn’t have come to this place? He wouldn’t, but he had. That he wouldn’t have taken his eyes off the road on a sharp corner? He wouldn’t but he had. That he would have worn a seatbelt? He would but he hadn’t. What did I expect to find – to feel? Some kind of – what was that horrible word the coroner had used at the inquest? – closure? Of course not, yet I knew I had to be there anyway, in some ritual that would have no effect and make no difference.
In fact, it was quite clear where the car had landed, although it had obviously been cleared away long ago. There was a charred patch of land, a small crater in the larger one of Porton Way. I made my way across and squatted. So, this was where Greg had died. I stared at the gash in the earth. I blinked away the streaming rain and pushed my hair back. Drops of blood escaped the scarf I still held to my forehead and I could taste them on my lips, their iron tang. The woman at the inquest had said Greg wouldn’t have suffered. Did he even know, as he was dying, that this was the end, or had it been too quick even for that? Had he thought of me?
At last I stood up, miserably cold and wet, my jeans sticking to my legs. There was nothing for me here. I turned my back on the site and trudged up the hill. At some point I realized I’d dropped my scarf, and when I turned I could see it, a wisp of colour on the muddy ground. The blood trickled down my face like tears, and when I finally reached the Underground station I thought people were looking at me strangely. I didn’t care.
When I arrived home, it was mid-afternoon and my fingers were so numb I could barely turn the key in the lock.
‘Ellie?’
I jumped at his voice behind me and turned. ‘Joe – what are you doing here?’
‘What do you think? I’ve come to see you. But what on earth have you been up to? You look –’ He stopped, staring at me with a kind of fascination. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said finally.
‘Oh, nothing. I just went out and it started pouring with rain,’ I said feebly. I didn’t really want to talk about my day, not even to Joe.
‘You’ve got blood all over your face.’
‘Oh, that. It’s nothing. It probably looks worse than it is because of the rain. Do you want to come in?’
‘Just for a minute.’
I managed to get the door open and we stepped into the hall. I pulled off my mud-caked boots and struggled out of my jacket, then stood dripping on to the floor.
‘Here,’ said Joe. ‘It’s not important but I thought you’d want this. It was in the kitchen and we missed it.’
He’d brought me Greg’s favourite mug. It had the photograph of him finishing his marathon last year printed on it, although repeated washing had faded the image. I took it from Joe and looked at it, at Greg’s triumphant, exhausted smile. I’d met him afterwards and put my arms round his sweaty body and kissed his sweaty face and his salty lips.
‘And I wanted to check if there was anything I could do for the funeral.’
‘You probably just wanted to check, full stop,’ I said.
He smiled ruefully at me. ‘Well, I can see you’re taking excellent care of yourself. Go and have a bath.’
‘I’ll do that.’
‘While you’re at it, can I do anything for you? Tidy up a bit or make you a warm drink?’
‘That’s kind of you, but no thanks.’
‘Ellie?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re all right?’
‘What? Yes. You know.’
‘You’ll tell me if you’re not?’
‘Yes.’
Chapter Eight
Afterwards, I remembered the funeral only as a collection of random moments, all of them bad. We had been told we had to arrive five minutes before the eleven thirty start because there were funerals before and afterwards. So, we found ourselves standing outside the north London crematorium waiting for our turn. We were a collection of old friends, family members, hovering, not quite sure what to say or do. I noticed people recognizing each other, breaking into a smile, then remembering they were at a funeral and forcing sadness on to their faces.
The hearse arrived, the back door opened and the wicker coffin was exposed. Mr Collingwood always referred to it as a casket, as if that was more respectful of the dead. It wasn’t lifted by pall-bearers, but trundled into the chapel on a silly little trolley that looked as if it should be moving packing cases into a supermarket. It rattled clumsily over the cracks between the paving stones. Mr Collingwood had warned me about it in advance, saying it had been forced on them by their insurers. There had been reports of serious back injury.