After the Funeral

by Gillian Poucher

  ‘Yes. She got rid of a lot when she moved here after Nicholas died. Some of those books, the local history ones, were my grandfather’s. You know, the vicar who Edith was talking about.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Having a vicar as a grandfather.’

  ‘You think so?’ Julia looked up at him. ‘I wouldn’t have you marked down as religious.’

  ‘No? But you don’t know me that well, do you?’ He gave her a long, unexpectedly serious look.

  ‘No. I don’t suppose I do,’ she said quietly. She turned back to the novels. How often had she thought, even today, of Pete as ‘just a colleague,’ someone she rented business premises with?

  ‘Anyway, what about you? Do you believe in God?’ Pete coughed as a cloud of dust rose from the book in his hand.

  ‘Not really,’ said Julia. She rocked back on her heels, thinking. ‘I suppose I fell out with Him when my father died. I was only eight. Mother didn’t go to church very often after that. And then religion can cause so many problems, can’t it? Not just wars, which people so often say but so many personal hang-ups.’ A picture of Grace floated before her for the second time that afternoon. The young woman’s step-mother sounded ardently evangelical and Julia was convinced her influence had contributed to Grace’s fragile mental state.

  ‘I think there’s a difference between religion and personal faith though,’ said Pete. He tapped the dusty book he was leafing through. ‘I’ve always admired this lot.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Pilgrim Fathers. Leaving behind everything they knew. All in pursuit of religious tolerance and freedom to worship according to their conscience.’

  ‘But look what that led to! What about the Salem witch trials?’ Julia stood up and flexed her foot. ‘Ouch. Pins and needles.’

  ‘Human error.’ Pete replaced the book. ‘Always gets in the way some time. But I don’t think that’s a reason to give up on God.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Julia started on the middle shelf, a miscellaneous collection of poetry, biographies and local history which seemed to be even more jammed together than the other books. ‘I think we’ll have to agree to differ. I just think there’s too much evidence for the case against God. Too many bad things, too much suffering.’

  ‘What about all that’s good in the world?’ Pete started at the other end of the shelf. ‘Creativity, and beauty, and…’

  Julia glanced at him as he hesitated. ‘And…?’

  ‘And love?’ His voice was low and his face averted. Julia was suddenly aware of their physical proximity, of something indefinable in the air between them.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her voice sounded falsely bright. ‘It’s all a mystery to me. I don’t think there’s anything… What’s this?’

  ‘I’ve got one too!’ Pete pulled out a black notebook from behind a volume of Tennyson. It matched the one Julia had found inside a book about Lincolnshire airfields.

  ‘More of Mother’s diaries,’ said Julia, ‘but much earlier than those I found last week,’ she added, surveying the faded black script on the yellowing pages. ‘1942.’

  ‘And 1941,’ said Pete. ‘Wow. I’ll leave it for you to read, Jules.’

  ‘Thanks,’ She smiled at him, grateful for his sensitivity. ‘Look, here’s another.’

  ‘And another! That’s why this shelf looks so jammed. Your mum kept these old diaries here.’

  ‘All this time. I had no idea.’ She shook her head wonderingly as they extracted the rest of the books, uncovering four more diaries which they placed on the desk.

  A squall of rain lashed against the window. ‘We should go,’ she said. ‘And we still don’t know what Linda was looking for.’ She turned the pages of one of the diaries as Pete replaced the books on the middle shelf. It contained entries dating back to 1940.

  ‘No. But those diaries will be interesting. Life of a vicar’s daughter during the war.’

  ‘I don’t know. There are a few mentions of planes overhead and Scampton airfield, but mostly Mother seemed to write about family, church and the village.’ Julia leafed through the diaries. The one from 1940 was the earliest. She spread them across the desk in date order, then frowned.

  ‘Pete, can you check that shelf again? I think we’ve missed one. I’ve got one for 1940, one for 1941, two for 1942 going into early 1943 and then one for early 1944. Maybe she gave up after ’44, the entries are much shorter, just facts about what she did each day, like the diaries she kept recently. But there might have been another from spring 1943 to the end of the year.’

  Pete pulled out the books again. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t bother then. Or maybe it’s lost.’

  Pete stretched his arms above his shaved head. ‘Or maybe that’s what Linda was looking for when she came back that day. Maybe she took it.’

  ‘But why? It doesn’t make sense. Let’s go.’ Julia switched off the electric fire. The top bar sparked, making her jump. ‘I need to get that checked,’ she said, shoving the diaries into a plastic bag she had left on the desk the previous week.

  ‘You look like you can’t get out of here fast enough!’ said Pete as he pulled the front door firmly shut.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just something…’ Julia locked the door, waving to Edith who was apparently tidying her porch.

  ‘Something not right?’ Pete looked at her over the roof of the Fiesta.

  ‘No. Oh, I’m probably being silly.’ Julia shook herself as she climbed into the car. ‘It’s been a long day. And I’ve kept you too long too.’

  Pete paused in the action of turning the key in the ignition. ‘You can keep me any time you like, Jules,’ he said softly. He leaned over and kissed her, a gentle lingering kiss. For a moment she kissed him back, then pulled away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded. Without looking at her, he switched on the engine and turned the car to climb back up the hill from the village. ‘You told me you were involved with someone!’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘No, you bloody well shouldn’t, and yes, you did tell me you were involved with someone!’ she shouted. She leaned her head back against the head rest and closed her eyes.

  He didn’t reply as he made the turning on to the road leading back towards Scampton. Then he pulled into an opening by a farm gate and switched off the engine.

  Julia’s eyes snapped open. ‘What are you doing? Can you please just take me home?’

  Pete turned away from her, looking out of the driver’s window into the rainy twilight. ‘I know this isn’t the right time,’ he said, ‘but you were the woman I was talking about last week. You, Jules – Julia – you are the reason I split up with Xanthe. She knew there was someone else. Only of course there wasn’t, because you were still with Greg back then.’

  He turned to her. She caught her breath when she saw the naked longing and vulnerability in his eyes.

  ‘It’s you I want to be with, Jules.’ His voice was husky. ‘I’d really like to give it a go. I think we could be good together, you and I, don’t you?’

  She swallowed. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I’m sorry, but no. I just can’t… there’s too much…’

  He looked at the condensation rising on the windscreen and switched the engine back on. ‘OK. Forget I said anything.’ He laughed, but Julia wasn’t deceived. ‘Timing was never my thing,’ he said.

  They drove back to Lincoln in silence, too fast for Julia’s liking, splashing through puddles created by the rain and the backed up drains.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, as he drew up outside her house. The words sounded so inadequate. ‘I really appreciate all your help this afternoon.’ She grimaced. Too patronising.

  ‘No probs,’ he said. He didn’t look at her as she opened the passenger door. ‘By the way, I’m taking some leave next week, so I won’t see you at the office.’

  ‘OK.’ She suspected the decision had been made in t
he ten minutes it had taken to drive home. She felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. She would rattle around in the old school without him, but life was complicated enough without the awkwardness which they would both feel following his declaration. ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Yeah. See you soon.’ With a screech of tyres he drove off.

  –  CHAPTER 15  –

  ‘It helped me last week, realising I need to grieve for the father I lost as a little girl.’ Grace settled back into her chair at the start of her third counselling session the following Wednesday.

  Julia nodded encouragingly, noting that it was the first time that her client had taken the initiative in their meetings.

  ‘I’ve wondered if that’s why I’ve been dreaming about him as he was when I was a child too. He’s younger in my dreams. When I wake up, I feel safe and secure, in a way I haven’t since I was small.’ She smiled wistfully before her cornflower eyes clouded over. ‘Then I remember that he’s gone and I feel so sad, so lost.’ She paused, twisting her strawberry blonde plait between her fingers. ‘It’s like Frances took him away from me all those years ago.’ She sighed. ‘And I know this might be strange, but I blame God too.’

  Julia raised her finely shaped dark eyebrows. ‘God too?’

  ‘Yes. Daddy got so involved with the church when he met Frances. He’d talk about how he’d met Jesus, how God had sent Frances into our lives, how we had the chance of a new start with her.’

  ‘And how did you feel?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘I didn’t understand.’

  ‘You didn’t understand?’

  ‘No.’ Grace placed the forefinger of her right hand on her lip, staring into the distance like a child working out the answer to a tricky question. ‘I didn’t understand what meeting Jesus meant. And I didn’t understand what he meant by a new start. I thought,’ her voice quavered, ‘I thought we were happy as we were. Just me and Daddy.’

  She lowered her head into her hands, dashing tears away. Julia resisted a sudden urge to go across and place an arm around her slender shoulders.

  The younger woman looked up again, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise, Grace. Remember, this is a safe space.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. I do feel safe with you, you know, like I could tell you anything. Almost like…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Like you’re the mother I never had.’ She glanced at Julia shyly. ‘Is that OK?’

  Julia took a deep breath. She was taken aback by the inner warm glow she felt at Grace’s words. But she was well-aware that client dependency was something all counsellors had to guard against. Grace identifying her as a mother figure suggested she was becoming overly dependent.

  ‘I’m sorry. Should I not have said…?’ Grace chewed her lip.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Julia hastened to be clear. ‘Obviously you know I’m not your mother, but it’s good that you feel able to talk to me so openly.’ She hesitated, wanting to move the session onto safer ground. ‘Tell me more about how you felt when your father met Frances and found God.’

  ‘I felt lonely. Lonely and confused.’ The younger woman hugged herself, looking towards the rain spattered window. ‘Suddenly Daddy was never there. He found babysitters for me – teenage daughters of women who worked in his office. One of them, Tracy, would send me off to bed as soon as possible so her boyfriend could come round – I’d creep out on to the landing when I heard her opening the front door, hoping that maybe Daddy had come home early, even that he might have left Frances. No such luck.’ Her full lips twisted into a wry smile. ‘One day I mentioned Tracy’s boyfriend coming round to Daddy. Frances was there. I remember her sharp intake of breath, her shocked expression. She said something about “not wanting to create temptation for these young people, especially with your child to consider.” Of course I didn’t know what she was talking about. But Tracy didn’t babysit for me again. It was soon after that Daddy and Frances got married. When I was older I wondered if my mentioning Tracy’s boyfriend coming round led to them getting married so quickly.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. You remember me telling you last week how Frances had this line at the church café for the children of any men who turned up on their own – “Draw a nice picture for Mummy” to suss out if the men were single or not?’

  Julia nodded.

  ‘I think she was desperate not to be on her own, and also that she wanted a baby. But the church took the traditional line that sex should only take place within marriage. That’s the teaching I grew up with – it makes me feel guilty if, you know…’ Her voice trailed off.

  Julia waited, wondering if Grace’s reference to being ‘ashamed’ the previous week concerned a relationship.

  But her client resumed her childhood story. ‘There was no question of Daddy living with Frances if they weren’t married. So within a year she had what she wanted, a husband and a baby. I was the unwanted extra. For Daddy as well. That’s how it seemed to me anyway.’ Her voice broke, and the tears flowed.

  This time Julia gave into the impulse to go over to her client. She knelt by her side, cradling her head against her, not caring about the dampness spreading over her grey cashmere sweater.

  It was Grace who broke away when she had recovered her composure. Julia registered a pang of disappointment as she returned to her chair. She wondered uneasily how much of her interaction with her client she would be sharing with her supervisor the following Monday. She’d always tried to be as open as possible with Louise, but she sensed that this particular client relationship was becoming dangerously close.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Grace giggled unexpectedly. ‘Your jumper looks like you’ve been breastfeeding!’

  The comment pierced Julia for a reason she didn’t want to analyse. She took a deep breath, trying to recover her professional poise. ‘Please don’t apologise. You’re telling me about feelings of rejection, Grace. To sense your father withdrawing from you must have been very painful after you had been so close.’

  ‘Yes.’ The younger woman nodded slowly several times, as if this were a new realisation for her. ‘Daddy immersed himself totally in Frances and Suzanne. It was as though I didn’t exist. That’s why I feel he couldn’t have cared about me so much after all, could he?’

  Julia hesitated. It was recommended that clients should work out their own answers to their questions. But looking into Grace’s beseeching wide blue eyes, glimpsing again the vulnerable child desperate to understand, she framed a response. ‘We can’t work out what was going on for your father. We’ll never know. It sounds like he cared for you very much, looking after you so well when your mother…’ She paused, veering away from mentioning the fire, the image of the burning house, the sound of the screaming infant, so eerily similar to her nightmare. ‘When your mother left,’ she said finally. ‘I wonder if Frances and his newfound faith offered him stability after the trauma? She sounds like quite a powerful woman.’

  ‘Hmm. You could say that.’ Grace sighed. ‘You remember I told you my PhD is a psychohistorical study of the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth, and I’ve wondered if my fascination with them is because of my background?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see Frances in the role of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth’s mother. The difference is,’ Grace laughed mirthlessly, ‘Frances lives on. And at least my father was nothing like Henry VIII.’ She hesitated, glancing at Julia and then away again. When she spoke again her voice was so low that Julia had to lean forward in her seat to hear her. ‘I used to hope something terrible would happen to Frances, that she would die in an accident. And Suzanne with her. Especially after Frances made sure I knew what my mother had done.’

  What a cow, thought Julia. The intensity of her reaction towards Frances shocked her. But what kind of woman would tell a little girl her mother had nearly killed her in a fire? She bit her lip, struggling to keep her tone neutral. ‘So you didn’t know your mother had set fire to the house
until Frances told you?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘She didn’t tell me directly. She was too clever for that. She knew my father had kept it from me. I suppose he thought he was protecting me. He just said my mother had left us, that it was better not to talk about it. So I didn’t. I was old enough to understand he found it painful. But to hear Frances talking about it with her friend, Elaine…’ Grace gulped back fresh tears before going on, ‘We were in Sunday School, colouring in pictures about the ten lepers who Jesus healed. I remember thinking I knew exactly how the lepers must have felt. Unclean, ignored. That’s how Frances treated me. Father too, thanks to her.’

  She tugged her plait, looking across at Julia with haunted eyes. ‘Frances and my father had been married about a year. Suzanne was a tiny baby. Elaine complimented me on my colouring and Frances said, “I believe her mother was artistic – I do hope she’s not going to turn out like her!” She clapped her hand to her mouth when I looked up. “I’m so sorry, Grace, I shouldn’t have said that,” she said, but I’ve never forgotten the malicious gleam in her eye.’

  The younger woman paused, staring out of the window at the rain swept playground, her eyes unfocused. ‘I turned back to my colouring, pretending not to listen. Frances was speaking in a stage whisper. I knew she wanted me to hear. “The woman was mad,” she said. “She set fire to the house with Grace in her arms. And you know, with Grace being so quiet and withdrawn, always reading, not wanting to play with other children, I do worry about her.”’

  ‘Elaine made some admiring comment about Frances marrying my father when he came with “baggage.” Frances said in the pious voice I had come to hate, no longer bothering to lower it, “I feel it’s what God wanted me to do, to offer a home to a broken man and his poor child. And look how Philip has grown in the Lord! And now we’ve been blessed with a child of our own.”’

  She looked back at Julia, her eyes swimming with fresh tears. ‘So that’s how I found out that my mother had nearly killed us both.’