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.
A middle-aged woman, who must have been a relative of Greg’s, asked if we should follow it in.
‘They’re going to get it in position,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure if the group before us has finished.’ It was as if we’d booked a tennis court. Greg’s relative, if that was who she was, stayed next to me. I felt no need to try any small-talk.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
I still hadn’t worked out what to say when people said how sorry they were. ‘Thank you’ didn’t seem quite right. Sometimes I’d mumbled something meaningless. This time I just nodded.
‘It must be so terrible for you,’ she said.
‘Well, of course,’ I said. ‘It was such a shock.’
Still she didn’t go away. ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘the circumstances were so awkward. It must be so… well, you know… for you.’
And then I thought, Oh, right, I understand. Suddenly I felt bloody-minded. ‘What do you mean?’
But she was tougher than I was. She wouldn’t be diverted. ‘I mean the circumstances,’ she said. ‘The person he died with. It must be so upsetting.’
I felt as if I had an open wound and this woman had put her finger into it and was probing to see whether I would cry out or scream. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I didn’t want to give her anything.
‘I’m just sad I’ve lost my husband,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing else to say.’ I walked away from her and looked at the gardens. There were shrubs and little hedges of an institutional kind, the sort you might see in the car park of a business centre. The building itself had a mid-twentieth-century solidity about it but was noncommittal at the same time, a bit like a church, a bit like a school. But behind, and towering above it, was a chimney. They couldn’t hide that. There was smoke coming out of it. It couldn’t be Greg. Not yet.
Now I was sure. I had known already, but perhaps I’d forced it out of my mind, especially for the funeral. Everyone, absolutely everyone, knew that Greg had died with another woman and that this meant they had been having an affair. And what did they think about me?
My next memory of the funeral places me inside, right at the front, next to Greg’s parents. I could feel the crowd of mourners behind me, staring at the back of my head. They were sorry for me, but what else did they feel? A little bit of embarrassment, contempt? Poor old Ellie. She hasn’t only been made a widow: she’s been humiliated, abandoned, her marriage exposed as a sham. Would they be speculating about us? Was it Greg’s roving eye? Was it Ellie’s failings as a wife?
Greg’s brother Ian and his sister Kate had both rung me with suggestions for the service. I had resented this at first. I felt possessive, territorial. Then, suddenly, I’d thought of the funeral as a nightmare version of Desert Island Discs, choosing music and poetry to show what a sensitive and interesting person Greg had been and how well I’d understood him. The idea of choosing poems with an eye on what it would make people think of my good taste repelled me so I rang Ian and Kate back and said I’d leave it to them.