Patrick Parker's Progress

by Mavis Cheek

  He felt even more cheated when Father Bryan refused, absolutely refused point-blank, to let journalists into a funeral. If he was ever going to get a bishopric you could not afford to have things like that on your CV.

  And then once the body - his mother - what to call it - was released, as if the cheated feeling could not get any worse, just before the funeral, when they were due to set off for Coventry Peggy went down with a temperature of one hundred and two. Influenza.

  'But I can't organise the thing’ he said, pacing the floor of her bedroom, running hands through his hair. 'I expect I will go down with it too, now.'

  But though he tried and tried - he did not. Just for once, despite his mother's upbringing, saying the deed did not induce the illness. It was a fine time for him to find that out.

  He was forced to set off for Coventry alone. Polly was dragged out of her nest on the other side of London to nurse her mother. Isambard could not be found. Not that he ever could. And if he was found he'd probably have nits and that rash of his again. Peggy used to wail that he never had nits once when he was at school...

  There was nobody else left to help. Dolly was dead. He thought -oddly enough - of Audrey. 'Pity I lost contact’ he said. Peggy's temperature shot up. 'Anyway, she's probably fat and married somewhere with a couple of kids and a bus conductor for a husband.' Her temperature went down, but only a little.

  So much to do, so little time, but at least Patrick had remembered to place the announcement in The Times. And The Times thought they would come up anyway, funeral or not, and take a few pictures of him. Perhaps at the grave or something. That kind of thing. Patrick certainly did not want them going anywhere near his old home.

  When he arrived at the house it felt cold and strange and unpleasant and chills ran up and down his spine. Here he was, at the forefront of his world and he had no one to help him. No good asking any of his London or international friends or their wives - think what they would do when they saw his humble home. No - it was his wife or it was nobody. Pity about Aud - she'd have been good. He rang Peggy again. 'Are you absolutely sure you can't make it?' he said plaintively. 'It's not long on the train.' She just gave a gasp and the phone was passed to Polly. Who hung up.

  The flowers pleased him when they arrived. Florence might have stolen his thunder in the order and content of the service, but the floral tribute was entirely his. Daisies, lilies, irises and masses of curly greenery, which he had ordered to be shaped as the bridge to heaven. 'A touch’ he said, 'of which my mother would approve.'

  The press arrived the day before to photograph the inside of the church, already arrayed with flowers, the pictures of which would accompany a short piece by Patrick on how much his mother had influenced his early years of dedication. Accordingly, on the preceding day, the press were also taken from the church grounds (pensive shot of Patrick leaning on the marble arm of a slightly bird-spattered angel) to the chapel of rest to see the coffin and the Bridge to Heaven. 'For My Dearest Mother. My Help and My Inspiration. Without You I Was Nothing.' A statement of which the press, if not Father Bryan, heartily approved. Close-up of Patrick and the floral tribute. Also distant shot. The great man brought low.

  Patrick made a touching figure bowed down with grief, without the help of his wife or his children (who had all, as he told the press, succumbed to the flu epidemic. He said this quite unblinkingly because - well - son Isambard might have got it. Wherever the ungrateful little bastard was. Come to think of it, if he hadn't already got it, he bloody well deserved to get it.)

  ‘I feel,' he said to the world, 'alone in the world. And as if my right arm, my drawing arm, has been cut off.'

  The Daily Mail waited to do their piece later, as they needed a charming picture of the entire family grouped around Florence's grave. Patrick could only keep his fingers crossed about Isambard.

  'Bridge Man, honoured by Japan, France, Italy and Norway, finally recognised: Patrick Parker's Muse dies. "My mother was my prop and my rock. She died happy that I had been honoured properly by my own country at last’" was the caption, with photograph, in The Times the next morning. It made page two. The funeral was set for 3 p.m.

  'Another blow for the newly honoured Sir Patrick Parker. His wife and two children are all victims of the flu epidemic and will not be able to attend the service with him. Sir Patrick will attend alone.'

  TWO

  AUDREY

  Excellent Opportunity for Single Woman

  There were three men in suits in the first-class carriage. The three men in suits all had distinguished greying hair and held a copy of a daily broadsheet and they had spread their arms wide to read them. They had earned the right to this space. They had earned the right to travel at offpeak times and in maximum comfort by dint of working their way upwards in the various companies they now steered. They were fulfilled men, men of substance, players.

  Were they to stop and speak to each other (a thing unheard of and most infra dig), they would find that their experiences of business life were very similar. A good school, a sound college, a little word from a member of the family here, a little directorship there, the slightest of nods from a chairman there, a part-time consultancy here, etc. etc. All understood. All on the nod. The men who steered but never got their hands dirty. The men for whom business meetings in those unprepossessing Midland or Northern towns away from their familiar City of London territory would be set for the hour just before lunch, rather than the hour just after breakfast. Power - these men had it, and they wore it very lightly - almost as if it was not there at all.

  Each one looked over the top of his newspaper as covertly as possible to consider the woman in the carriage. If she had power she, too, wore it discreetly. Not in the first flush, of course, but very well kept. Late forties perhaps or early fifties. Quite youthful to them, really, given that they were ten years older. Good legs, and wearing a skirt (thank God) - money, of course, as the discreet gold jewellery and the smart black suit quietly declared. Not too much make-up; that streaky blonde hair about which they knew because of their wives. A slight touch of brazenness in the stare that met theirs. Their eyes went back to the legs again, encased in very sheer black, crossed at the ankles, feet in plain but delicate high heels. Also black. Altogether a striking woman. One who looked as if she knew what was what. She terrified all three of them and they retreated behind their newspapers as soon as their eyes met hers.

  The woman smiled a little smile. She was used to such men. Had built her life around one of them. She knew them inside-out and sideways and she smiled again at the thought. Travelling on trains was quite a sexy business really. It was usually somewhere around this ratio of men to women - in first class anyway - three to one. All that trapped, anonymous testosterone. All that understated money and power. She smiled as she sipped her coffee and then wrinkled her nose at the taste of it. She must, she supposed, get used to British coffee again. Foul stuff - thin as dishwater. Some institutions still had not learned that the indigenous palate had changed and now demanded the standards of Starbucks and Coffee Republics and Caffe Neros. Or perhaps it was less a question of not learning, and more a question of choosing to ignore. No doubt the people who ran the restaurant car thought only of profit and never of pride and were probably on the fiddle. Always had been, always would be, in her opinion. One of her boyfriends in the old days had been a train steward. Used to give her catering-size Maxwell House to take home to Mother.

  She replaced her cup. Ah well. There were compensations ... At least the British abided by their rules. This was a mobile-telephone-free carriage and the steward (bless him) had already seen a pink-faced young man off earlier who had the temerity to get out his spreadsheets and start making calls while they were still in the station. None of these would do anything like that. They were Grandees and Grandees did not stoop to being available all the time. She knew all about Grandees. She had lived among them for long enough. They held no fear for her.

  She looked at each newspaper fro
nt in turn - two Daily Telegraphs and one Times. Very nice, very predictable. England - she was definitely back. She saw one of the men flick another quick look above his paperline again before retreating. I might be in my fifties, she thought, as she leaned back and recrossed her ankles, but I've looked after myself. From the look in their eyes, she decided cheerfully, the men in the carriage thought the same.

  She, too, opened her newspaper, which was also The Times -though not for the first time that morning. A copy had been delivered to her Bloomsbury hotel room at seven-thirty a.m and she sat up in bed with her early morning tea to read it. By eight-thirty a.m she had breakfasted and was on the telephone first to her travel agent and then to an Old Folks' home (or 'Ferndown Retirement Community', as the voice answering the telephone said) and then to a manse. By nine-forty-five she was leaving the hotel in a black cab. At ten on the dot she was the first customer in a small boutique she knew behind Tavistock Square, and by ten-forty-five she had made her various purchases. She left the shop exquisitely dressed in black, tucked herself back into the cab and headed off for the station. Her ticket was waiting for her and she even had time to have a cup of coffee at Starbucks and to buy another Times for the journey. It was amazing what you could do if you were efficient, determined, and had enough money.

  By eleven-forty-two she was in her seat. Her hat - small, black and with a tiny veil - was safely stowed in the rack above her head, and she was comfortably settled when the train pulled out of the station -on time - for Coventry. It was then that she requested her second cup of coffee of the morning and looked about her at her travelling companions. If she had not had her mind on much more amusing matters, she might have had some fun with a little flirtation - but not today. Today she had enough to keep her occupied. She leaned back and refolded her newspaper with the photograph face-up and reread the short report 'Patrick Parker's Muse dies ... Sir Patrick will attend alone.'

  'Not necessarily,' she muttered, under her breath. 'Not necessarily, Patrick dear ...'

  Lilly was wheeled into the church in a chair that squeaked and squealed. A general tutting rose up towards the lovely beamed roof and the carved round bosses - surely the people who looked after the woman in the wheelchair could use an oil-can? But Lilly, who had made little commotion for most of her life, quite liked disturbing the Universe now.

  Patrick turned round and stared out from the front pew. What he saw approaching seemed a vision of hell. 'It's Baby Jane,' he thought, and he gripped the pewback to save himself from passing out. The chair screeched its advance and stopped a few pews back. He found himself looking at a twisted, smiling smudgery of a red mouth and bright scarlet splodges on the cheeks beneath the sunglasses. It looked as if someone had pressed red-hot pennies into the flesh. The figure lifted a small, bent hand with great difficulty and waved it at him very slightly before being settled at the end of a pew. He was just congratulating himself that at least the apparition wore sunglasses, when these were removed and he distinctly saw Lilly - for there was no mistaking who it was - wink. He shuddered and turned back towards the altar. He wondered how on earth she had found out about the funeral. Small town, he supposed. But with her there lolling and winking it made standing alone (he did not count his deceased Aunt Bertha's husband's brother's son, Roger) in the front pew all the more stressful. He ran his hands through his hair ...

  Suddenly, sliding past him in a black softness of fabric and a sweet smell of perfume, came a woman- She managed, seemingly without effort, to insinuate herself between Roger and himself. Perhaps it was Roger's wife? But Roger did not have a wife. He had never married, lived in Bromsgrove where he sold wet fish and wore plastic gloves to do it and - it was clear - never touched anything alive and warm if he could help it. It was all he could do to shake Patrick's hand at the door to the church, and say 'as your godfather, er, as your godfather . . .' Which was about all he ever had said to him over the years. Patrick looked at the woman's veiled profile as she stood facing the altar and then he had the added shock of feeling her warm hand take his and hold it and squeeze it. He peered harder, the profile turned towards him and beneath the little black hat, behind the enticing little bit of veil, the smile was warm and sympathetic and vaguely familiar. Also, he thought, attractive. Well, for an older woman. A very well-kept older woman ...

  'Poor you -' she said, in a soft, sweet voice. With just a trace of a south London accent. 'Alone at such a time.'

  Patrick did not know what to say. The hand holding his squeezed gently again.

  'My wife -' he muttered helplessly. 'My son and daughter -'

  'So I heard’ she said. 'Shame. But I'm here now.'

  "Thank you’ he said, confused. It was familiar yet unfamiliar, that voice, the phrasing.

  Behind them came the faint sound of squeaking wheels and a faint voice, but one which was quite distinct in that hushed gathering, saying, 'He should have married her. She'd have given Flo a run for her money. Not that silly bitch he ended up with . . .' Before someone said, 'Hush, hush...' just as the organ and choir began with 'Lead us, Heav'nly Father, Lead us ...'

  Patrick was literally and metaphorically lost for words. What with wondering if he had heard right, and the proximity of the woman who now took her hand from his and picked up a hymn book from the shelf in front of him. She removed one black glove and flipped through the book's pages with confident fingers, manicured and painted with dark, blood-coloured polish, the sight of which gave him a frisson, despite the solemnity of the occasion. When she had found the right page she handed it to him and nodded encouragement. He opened his mouth and sang. He sang, 'Who are you and do I know you ...?' To which she merely replied, 'O'er the world's tempestuous sea...'

  Father Bryan spoke warmly about the good qualities, the bounty, Florence bestowed on her family and community. The various readings were given with tremendous feeling by the various members of the congregation designated to do so. None of them had been on anything more than hassock-bumping acquaintance but they gave it all they'd got anyway. Patrick found the floor riveting.

  A short stocky man with a toothbrush moustache began with an extract from Pilgrim's Progress subtitled, as he boomingly announced, 'From this world to that which is to come.' The selected passage -made by his mother, his mother - Patrick found peculiarly disturbing: 'Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair... It is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair because all that there is is there sold, or that cometh thither is vanity, as is the saying of the wise ...' He could only think his mother was going through some terrible mental crisis about herself in her final months ... He was rather glad, after all, that the patronising priest had banned the press.

  Throughout the proceedings Patrick either stood in a daze, with the woman in black standing next to him, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm, or sat in a daze with the woman in black's hand tucked in his. If he stole a look at her face, the profile seemed a little familiar and he liked the way just the ends of her mouth curled in a hint of a smile. But who was she? If this intimacy was meant to comfort, it merely disturbed. So much so that when it came to his moment to stand up and speak he nearly missed the summons.

  'It's you now,' said the woman sitting next to him, breathing in his ear. 'You will be fine.' And up he went.

  It was only when he was a few sentences into his maternal eulogy that, facing the woman in black front-on so to speak, he realised who it was. There was just something very familiar in the way she tilted her chin as she looked up at him. Good God, it was Little Audrey. Little Audrey blonde. Transformed. The last time he had seen her, he remembered, she was naked and weeping on his bed. He was astonished - and very relieved. Well, she'd done all right for herself after all. He had said so at the time - he also remembered saying that she'd get over it - and she obviously had. Well, well - she was a very sophisticated-look
ing Little Audrey nowadays. Elegant and expensive. Also a lot younger-looking than he might have expected . . . Mind you, he managed to think, despite speaking aloud about something completely different, mind you, he wasn't too badly kept for his age either . . . He breathed in and continued 'My mother was always there for me, quick to praise ...'

  From somewhere in the congregation a voice muttered, 'Shame’ and he guessed it was the intruding Lilly. Her and Audrey - both uninvited. Odd, very odd.

  He wondered how these women managed it. Did they have second sight or something? Or perhaps that's what funerals did? Brought out the past? He searched the congregation to see if his ancient, pickled, Stetson-toting father-in-law had managed to forsake the Ram and get there, but no sign of him. Peggy's mother had gone to the Great Fashion Show in the Sky a couple of years ago. His Dearly Beloved Mother was up there in the front resting in her coffin. There was no one to take offence, or indeed remember that there might be any offence to take by the presence of Audrey. It was quite - interesting - exciting - that she had turned up, out of the blue. He had a sudden thought - his whole family was down in London with the flu - and - well - he was free ... It was a thought so cheering that he found himself giving quite a noticeable chuckle - just as he reached the more solemn part of his eulogy. The bit about his mother sacrificing so much to get him where he was today. Ha-ha was not really the right way to punctuate such a statement so he quickly interjected the bit about his mother saying that since his birth had apparently single-handedly brought about the razing of Coventry - it seemed the very least and most appropriate thing he could do to turn himself into a builder-upper ... The congregation tittered (though Lilly seemed to give a very faint boo) and he put his mind back to the task. Father Bryan's glittering eye was upon him. He must do well.