Five Wakes and a Wedding

by Karen Ross

  Barclay kneels down on the pavement and puts his arm gently on Mrs Happy’s shoulder. ‘Sybille,’ he says loudly. ‘Sybille. It’s me. Barclay Banks. You know who I am, don’t you?’

  No response.

  So far as I can see, Barclay is taking Mrs Happy’s pulse, talking gently to her all the while. Everyone else is silent, exchanging anxious looks. Then an ambulance siren, louder and louder. The vehicle comes to a halt outside Happy Endings and two paramedics get out.

  ‘She must have fallen from the roof,’ Barclay tells them. One of the paramedics begins to assess Mrs Happy, while the other takes Barclay out of earshot and is apparently asking a string of questions. I watch Barclay gesture towards the spikes.

  When the conversation is complete, Barclay returns to my side, and pulls me into his arms. ‘I’m pretty sure the only person who can help her now is you.’ He says it in the quietest of whispers, so no-one else can hear.

  Funeral Number Three

  ††††

  In Memoriam

  SYBILLE FRANCES NEWMAN

  1965–2019

  ††††

  Golders Green Crematorium. The final stop for Sigmund Freud, Victoria Wood and Ronnie Biggs, among hundreds of thousands of others. Now it was Mrs Happy’s turn. And it appeared to Edo that it was going to be even worse than he’d feared.

  ‘Where is everyone? Surely they should have turned up by now.’ Edo looked anxiously at Dele Dier, who had insisted on waiting in the sunshine outside the red brick chapel, where he could continue to smoke.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling this is going to be like Eleanor Rigby,’ Dele Dier said.

  ‘Pardon?’ Edo was baffled. As if he didn’t have enough on his mind, and now Dele was speaking in riddles.

  ‘You know,’ the older man said. ‘The Beatles song. The funeral for the lonely old lady where no-one came.’ Dele Dier reached into the pocket of his suit, produced a packet of Marlboro Lights, took out a cigarette and proceeded to light it from the embers of its predecessor.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be doing that,’ Edo said. ‘Or that.’ Dele had extinguished the butt of his previous cigarette between two yellowing fingers, and was in the process of burying its remains in a conveniently located plant pot. ‘I promised I’d take good care of you.’

  ‘It’s a hospice I’m staying in, not a prison,’ Dele replied mildly. ‘One of the very few benefits of lung cancer is being able to smoke without worrying you’re damaging your health. More to the point, how are you feeling?’

  Edo still felt like a murderer. If only he hadn’t repaired that bloody roof, Mrs Happy would still be alive – and doubtless continuing to write threatening letters to Nina. Everyone kept telling him it wasn’t his fault, but the fact everyone was so keen to reassure him he was blameless implied precisely the opposite.

  ‘Ah, company.’ Dele was first to notice three people strolling towards the red brick chapel. ‘Anyone you know?’

  Edo nodded glumly. ‘That’s Arjun and Navja, who own the restaurant next door to Happy Endings. And the one in the suit’s a wanker.’

  Even as he said it, Edo knew he wasn’t being entirely fair to Barclay Banks. Nina insisted he’d been pretty damn heroic, taking charge at the scene of the accident. Still, offering to buy a share in Nina’s business for a ridiculous amount of money … something definitely wasn’t right.

  ‘Edo, isn’t it?’

  Edo forced himself to nod a second time.

  ‘You really mustn’t blame yourself,’ Barclay said. ‘She slipped and fell. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘I know.’

  Before Edo could change the subject, Dele helped him out. ‘Was she really as ghastly as Edo says?’ he enquired politely.

  The four mourners tried – and failed – to keep their faces suitably solemn. ‘Let me put it this way.’ Arjun from The Primrose Poppadum rose to the challenge. ‘Sybille spent more than ten years complaining about my restaurant. She did everything she could to help me lose my livelihood. She had a good word to say for nobody. But today is her funeral and we must all try hard to show our respect for her soul. At least now she is at peace.’

  ‘Here they come.’ Barclay shepherded everyone off the short stretch of tarmac that led to the chapel. Nina’s blue van drove slowly through a pair of iron gates, followed by two cars. The van stopped in front of the chapel and the cars continued to the parking places nearby.

  As if summoned by an invisible signal, four men appeared. Dressed in matching black suits with white shirts and black ties, they looked like members of a once-famous boy band, all set for their comeback concert, forty years on.

  Mr Happy, meanwhile, had emerged from the passenger seat of a VW Golf and was waiting in the car park with half a dozen others. Edo recognised only one of them. Rob, the guy who owned Sheet Hot Roofing.

  ‘Not quite Eleanor Rigby, then,’ Dele murmured to Edo. ‘Shall we go inside? Make sure we don’t get trampled in the rush.’ Dele led the way into the chapel and scanned the arrangement of seats. ‘Back row, I think. Like the cinema. Always the best view. That, and the opportunity to behave badly without anybody noticing.’

  Edo obediently took a seat next to Dele in the row of seats nearest the door. Then he asked, ‘Doesn’t this make you feel … well … nervous? Or scared?’

  In the weeks since Edo and Dele had been introduced at the hospice by Joshua Kent, the two men had spent hours discussing topics as diverse as art, football, women, drugs, politics – Dele believed all members of the Green Party should be automatically placed on a no-fly list – and the interesting potential of the Latin American stock market. But never death.

  Dele had never mentioned the subject.

  And Edo had never been brave enough.

  Until today.

  The circumstances in which they now found themselves demonstrated starkly the gap between end-of-life theory and practice. Edo still couldn’t believe he would never see Mrs Happy again. But what was far more disturbing was the thought that the next funeral he was likely to attend would be that of the man sitting next to him, the man who was wistfully fingering a cigarette between two of the fingers on his right hand, not – quite – daring to smoke it.

  Dele took his time, weighing Edo’s question. ‘You know what?’ he said finally. ‘I’m with Peter Pan. I really hope death turns out to be an awfully big adventure. But scared? Not at all. Pissed off that I’ll never know if Homer becomes president in the final episode of The Simpsons. Which reminds me, I’ve finally conceptualised my final work of art. My legacy.’

  Dele Dier’s career landmarks included a video loop of Hitler addressing a Nazi rally, subtitled to explain the Fuhrer was overseeing preparations for a football match that involved Bayern Munich travelling to Chelsea – a game destined, he declared, to culminate in a German victory, followed by a permanent occupation of Stamford Bridge. That one had spawned thousands of YouTube imitations.

  Another installation featured what looked disconcertingly like two freshly severed heads, each one bearing an uncanny resemblance to Tony Blair, gazing into one another’s eyes and smiling. It had been promptly banned in four Middle Eastern countries although a gallery in Islington had given it a permanent home, insisting only that visitors had to be over eighteen.

  But it was an earlier work that was Edo’s favourite. The Museum of Invisible Art. Dele had rented an empty space in Venice and announced the exhibits on display existed only in his imagination. Collectors were invited to purchase a title card that described a piece of art and mount it on a blank wall. The exhibition had sold out in forty-eight hours, with Dele trousering the thick end of one hundred thousand euros. Global headlines followed, but Dele had failed in his ambition to win the Turner Prize. That year, it had gone to Damien Hirst and his pickled tiger shark. Dele had never forgiven him. Or the shark.

  Edo was delighted to hear about something brand new. Something that would take his mind off death, and the fact that Dele was visibly shrinking, steadily
losing weight, week by week.

  ‘Awesome!’ Edo declared. ‘What’s it going to be?’

  ‘My final work will be a statement about the culture of intolerance.’ When you knew Dele, it was easy to tell when he was sending himself up. ‘Or rather, I should say our work,’ he continued. ‘We’re going to do it together, and you’re going to take all the credit.’

  Before Dele could explain further, five men, ranging in age between twenty-five and fifty, entered the chapel. They walked, heads bowed, towards the front row of seats. Edo recognised none of them. They were followed a second or two later by Barclay, Arjun and Navja, who, after slight hesitation, opted to sit together in one of the middle rows.

  Dele nudged Edo. ‘And we’re off,’ he said.

  A man in a dog collar had appeared at the chapel door. He nodded towards the sparse congregation, a signal that everybody should stand. A sense of expectation filled the silence, broken only by a nervous cough from Edo.

  The minister began to walk slowly towards to the front of the chapel, ahead of the coffin, which rested on the shoulders of the four freelance bearers Nina had hired for the occasion. Ned Newman – Mr Happy – head bowed, eyes hidden behind dark glasses, walked behind it, accompanied by Rob the roofer. With a casual ease that demonstrated their many years of experience, the bearers placed the pine box on the catafalque and disappeared through a side door, their work complete.

  ‘I am the resurrection and the life,’ the minister began. ‘The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.’

  Edo had never believed in God, not even as a child. He wondered if Mrs Happy had. He pictured her now, inside that box, dressed all in orange, hands crossed neatly against her cold chest. Astonishing to think that in a single moment, she had ceased to exist. If only—

  Edo’s thoughts were interrupted by an instruction to stand and sing ‘Guide Me, O Thy Great Redeemer’. He did his best, aware the small congregation was no match for the taped organ music that drowned their voices, although Dele became unexpectedly enthusiastic when they got to the bit about heaven and bread.

  A very simple no-frills funeral. That had been Mr Happy’s brief to Nina. She had been gobsmacked when he asked her to make the arrangements, having assumed her name would be bottom of any list. Until it turned out Mr Happy had already contacted the Belsize Park branch of Jason Chung’s company. Even with their £500 discount they were much more expensive than Happy Endings.

  No, Nina had explained, hiring a hearse was actually not a legal requirement. The specially equipped Happy Endings van would be fine. And to trim costs even further, Edo knew Nina had quietly paid Julie out of her own profit for the beautiful orange and peach single-ended spray of roses, chrysanthemums and carnations that adorned the top of the coffin.

  The minister had finished reciting Psalm 23 and was saying something about shadows lengthening, evening coming, and a busy world being hushed.

  ‘Please all stand for the committal prayer,’ he continued. ‘We now commit Sybille’s body to be burned, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  There had been no eulogy. Not a single word to distinguish the life of Mrs Happy from everyone else who had been carried down the well-worn aisle of the chapel before her. The minister had murmured something about ‘beloved wife’ but that was about it. Mr Happy had insisted he wanted a short, traditional service, and Nina had delivered.

  Sybille Newman was leaving the crematorium, her coffin on a conveyor belt that reminded Edo alarmingly of a supermarket checkout. He was first to leave the chapel, seconds after the ritual had ended, trying hard not to think about what would come next. He could hear Dele a couple of steps behind him, lighting up on his way out of the door.

  ‘If my shindig’s anything like that,’ Dele said, ‘I’ll fucking kill you, Edo. I’m relying on you to put the fun into my funeral. We need to pick some decent music, for a start. And since there’s no chance of anyone describing me as a beloved husband – bloody husband yes, beloved … definitely not – I need to write some nice things about myself before I go. And remind me to Google “professional mourners” once I’m back at the hospice. All those empty seats. Testimony to a bad life poorly lived, if you ask me. Still, where’s the afterparty?’

  ‘Shh!’ Edo had noticed Mr Happy and Rob the roofer walking towards him, their arms around one another’s shoulders for support. The moment Edo was dreading more than any other. He took a deep breath followed by a few paces forward. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ He spoke directly to Mr Happy. ‘I made a full statement to the police, and obviously, if I could only turn back the clock …’

  Edo faltered. It was the first time he’d come face to face with Mr Happy since the accident. He’d rehearsed this moment in his head over and over, but was damned if he could remember what he had planned to say next.

  Mr Happy stepped into the silence. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said. ‘Rob and I will never forgive ourselves. We were in the kitchen having a sandwich. Chicken and Marmite. Rob had promised to go out onto the roof and check your repair after lunch but Sybille must have decided to see for herself. I think she may have slipped on some fresh bird droppings and toppled over.’

  Edo had the feeling that Mr Happy, too, had been rehearsing what to say – and had been better at learning his lines.

  A few feet away, Dele and Rob the roofer were sizing one another up. Rob spoke first, ‘So is he your partner?’

  ‘Him?’ Edo heard Dele demand with a dismissive snort. ‘My partner in crime, that’s for sure. But determinedly heterosexual, so far as I’m aware. Always banging on about the same girl. Gloria, isn’t it, Edo? Still not getting any?’

  But Edo was no longer listening. He was looking at Nina.

  And Nina looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  30

  I can see Edo is looking at me, and I can tell my expression is shocking him. I probably look as if I’ve seen a ghost.

  After all these years, that’s what it feels like.

  It does happen at funerals. Occasionally. A definite presence, as if the person who has died is still with us. I have seen rainbows appear from out of nowhere during burials. Lights flickering on and off at wakes. Even a hailstorm in the middle of August. All as if someone unseen is doing their very best to say, ‘I’m here!’

  This is not the same thing.

  This is Ryan Sherwood.

  My husband.

  Large as life and twice as natural.

  Leaning against my van in the car park.

  Sweet Jesus, now he’s waving at me. What if Edo sees?

  I’m supposed to stay here until everyone has left the crematorium. It’s my job to offer words of comfort to Mr Happy. I need to thank the vicar. Tell the bearers they’ve done a great job and that I’m sure I’ll be able to offer them a lot more work in the future.

  But none of that matters now.

  I can’t let Edo meet Ryan.

  Edo believes my husband is dead. Just about everyone I’ve met in the past five years believes my husband is dead. Sometimes, I have even caught myself believing it. If the truth comes out now, I’ll be mortified. And, worse, exposed as the liar I am.

  My stomach is churning hard enough to produce a pack of Kerrygold, but it’s essential to behave as if nothing’s wrong. I manage to catch Edo’s eye and half-wave to him. ‘See you later,’ I mouth. Before he can respond, I turn and walk towards my vehicle.

  This is how Marie Antoinette must have felt on her way to the guillotine. There’s a part of my brain telling me to run the other way, fast as I can. But I also know there’s no chance of escaping my fate.

  Almost there.

  Yes, it’s absolutely definitely Ryan.

  I thought I would never see him again.

  Not for real. Not like this.

  My husband – the ghost – is a few pounds heavier than I remember. With a suntan and longer ha
ir that suggests he is no longer in the army. And smiling, for all the world as if he’s just come home and is pleased to see me after a difficult day at work.

  ‘Hello Nina,’ he says. ‘How’ve you been?’

  His voice flows over me like a bowl of tepid washing-up water. Not exactly unpleasant, but somehow it makes me feel sullied. I want to rinse my hands. That doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

  Ryan …

  ‘Ryan.’ This time, I manage to cough out his name, although my own voice seems to be strangled somewhere deep inside my throat. ‘What are you doing here?’ I’m fumbling in my bag for my car keys when something that does make sense occurs to me. ‘Did somebody die? Your parents?’ I’ve been too busy to check the crematorium’s daily funeral list.

  ‘No, they’re both fine.’

  I open the door of the van. ‘What are you doing here?’ I recognise I’m stuck on repeat, but anything more complex is beyond me.

  ‘Let me in and I’ll explain. Shall we drive to Hyde Park?’ Our old stomping ground. ‘Take a pedal boat out on the Serpentine? God, Nina, you’re looking great. Black was always your colour!’ One of our standing jokes. The way he says it – warmly and with what sounds suspiciously like affection – you’d think we’d been apart for a couple of hours.

  It’s been five years.

  Five years since my husband left me.

  And now he wants to take me boating?

  All I can manage by way of response is, ‘You’d better get in.’

  I slump into the driver’s seat and flick the lock for the passenger door. Ryan slides into my van, as if that was always what he had expected would happen. I start the engine and head slowly towards the Finchley Road, aware I’m in no fit state to drive. We travel in silence for a couple of miles. Ryan keeps sneaking glances at me, and I feel I’m being X-rayed.