When Eva woke in Francis’s bed on the morning of his cremation, she tried to convince herself that, after today’s ceremony, the worst would be over. Yet she knew that her real grief would only start to seep out when the fuss died down and people drifted back to their own concerns. Every night since his death she had placed night-lights in front of a framed picture of him before going to sleep. Her mother once told her that candlelight was important if you wanted to contact the dead. Although she tried to keep her body busy with practical things during the day, her spirit was constantly with Francis and it felt as if he were always with her. But his presence never troubled her sleep. Francis must have wanted her to rest, because she had never slept so soundly as she had since temporarily moving into this basement to allow Hazel and Alex to use her attic flat.
She had not seen Jonathan since Francis’s death. He had slipped away to the country, but his secretary sent a message that Eva was free to use the basement for as long as she wished. However Eva knew that he wanted every trace of Francis gone from his life. She would leave here soon and never return, but for now she cherished this chance to sleep among Francis’s things. She felt a serenity in this basement, which she filled with the types of flowers Francis loved, so that she was surrounded by their scent as she busied herself arranging his possessions, parcelling up clothes to donate to charity and trying to second guess his wishes for any possessions unaccounted for in the list of instructions he left. Every night she ticked off items with the same pen he had used, arranging for his friends to collect the books and paintings he had wanted them to have. All that Eva wished to keep for herself was his bible, some photographs and papers and a pencil sketch someone had done of him.
There were so many tasks to do this past week that there was little time to mourn. Eva had not yet managed to cry, even when Hazel flew in from Kenya five days ago. She remained calm, knowing she needed to be calm and because Hazel deliberately had provided her with a purpose by bringing Eva the gift of her six-year-old granddaughter. While Hazel arranged to have Francis’s body released for cremation – deflecting police inquiries and ensuring no publicity – Eva was allotted the task of minding Alex. Eva hired a boat to row the child on the Serpentine and brought her to London Zoo. Alex’s needs were immediate and as Eva was responsible for her she was forced to focus solely on Alex.
Hazel, meanwhile, was determinedly tackling every loose end, meeting creditors, haranguing Jonathan’s cowed solicitor and refusing to be fobbed off by anyone. Eva had never felt so close to her daughter as during these past few days. Hazel was devastated by her brother’s loss, but determined to ease Eva through her pain by making her concentrate on practical matters, like writing a discreetly coded Irish Times death notice. This morning she had allotted Eva the task of selecting readings for today’s cremation and deciding what hymns Francis would have wanted.
Eva rose from bed now to sit at the table where Francis wrote his final instructions and tried to focus on this task. Unzipping the leather-bound Cambridge Bible she had given him on his twenty-first birthday, she reread her inscription on the flyleaf – the same inscription her own father once inscribed for her – ‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed.’ She didn’t know how often Francis prayed, but she saw how he had underlined a passage in Matthew, chapter twenty-five, verse thirty-five: ‘For I was hungered and ye gave me meat: I was a stranger and ye took me in.’ She understood why he loved these words, but was perturbed to see how, at a darker moment in his life, he had highlighted a passage from The Book of the Prophet Isaiah: ‘None calleth for justice, nor pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity and speak lies.’
These underlined verses brought her closer to Francis: revealing hidden aspects of him. But only when she turned over the bible did she unearth her most treasured discovery – a studio photograph of Francis glued inside the back cover. She had never seen it before and wondered if he had deliberately left it there for her to find. He was smiling in it and his face possessed a rare beauty, but a flaw in the exposure meant that the print was faded, almost as if he were mid-way between two places. She wanted to sit and contemplate the photograph but time was against her, so she made herself put it away and focus on selecting appropriate readings.
After she was finished she forced herself to eat something and get dressed for the crematorium. Francis’s spirit was definitely still watching over her in this basement. But his presence seemed weaker than before and she sensed how, while she was sleeping last night, he had started to slip away. When Eva was dressed she sat in silence on a chair, cold in herself despite her buttoned-up coat, wondering how she could find the strength to endure the ordeal of watching her son’s coffin enter the flames. But when Hazel arrived by taxi to bring her to Golders Green Crematorium, Eva felt that Francis’s presence had grown strong again, anxious to help steer her through the crowd that would be waiting at Golders Green and ensure she did not say the wrong things in public.
The number of mourners present at the crematorium surprised Eva. Many were strangers whose lives were linked to Francis in ways she could not fathom. She had feared being unable to get through the service, but she had Hazel at one shoulder and an indisputable sense of Francis at her other shoulder to guide her. His presence seemed strongest when she stood up beside Hazel to sing his favourite hymn:
‘Blest are the pure in heart,
For they shall see our God;
The secret of the Lord is theirs,
Their soul is Christ’s abode.’
It gave her the strength to shake hands with everyone, even with Jonathan who turned up – camouflaged by being accompanied by a female friend – to hand Eva an expensive bunch of hothouse roses tied up with pink lace: the sort of flowers Francis always hated. For a moment her virago side – which longed to appropriate blame – wanted to hurl the bouquet back at him. But Francis’ spirit seemed to say: Look at him, poor man: he is grieving also. Eva had ensured that the police report on Francis’s suicide contained no reference to Jonathan except as a landlord, but she still sensed his fear as she forced herself to smile and even thank him for the ugly flowers. Then, as if fate wished to reward her, she turned around to discover Valerie O’Mahony standing there.
‘I saw the death notice in The Irish Times,’ Valerie explained. ‘I just had time to drive into the Wicklow Mountains and gather these before catching a flight from Dublin. I think he would have liked them.’
It was a beautiful bunch of wild purple heather, tied with plain string: exactly what Francis would wish on his coffin. Eva ensured that this wild heather covered his breastplate when the coffin jerked along the conveyer belt to enter the flames. Jonathan and some others in his circle whom she blamed for Francis’s death left immediately after the service ended. For a few moments outside the crematorium it felt like being back at one of Francis’s barge parties: Peter and his wife Pauline urging her to visit them soon and so many people telling interesting stories about Francis that it felt like he was merely delayed and would join them at any moment.
A small knot of friends brought her back to the basement. All remarked on how marvellously brave she was. Afterwards, when Hazel took Alex away, Eva undressed and realised she had not cried once during the service. There had simply been no time. Even now as she lay exhausted in bed she did not cry but allowed sleep to claim her. Just before she slept the vengeful side of her nature resurfaced and she thought, ‘Why didn’t I throw those horrible expensive flowers back in Jonathan’s face?’ But it was as if Francis were beside her, because she heard his voice in her head, lacking any vindictiveness as he said, ‘Mummy, you couldn’t do that; it wouldn’t be right.’ Eva had not let him down today, but she sensed that his presence would continue to diminish as he began his voyage away from her.
Daylight already filled the basement when she woke the next morning. It was late by her standards, time to get washed and dressed. But Eva realised that she had nothing to get up for. Having spent weeks urging Francis to rise
from this bed, she now needed to coax herself. She was not due to meet Hazel until eight o’clock this evening so that Hazel could spend time alone with Alex. But Francis wouldn’t want her to succumb to despair. Painfully and gingerly, she needed to start living again, though the thought of joining Francis was a constant temptation. Two bottles of pills remained in his bathroom. It would be so easy to lie down where he had lain, close her eyes and wait for him to beckon from a tunnel of light. But her soul knew that her time was not yet come and Francis’s soul – or whatever part of his aura still lingered there – insisted that she must live on.
Today she needed to restart her life. Jonathan wanted her gone, but she could not bear to return to her attic flat after Hazel left. It had too many bad memories. A fresh start was needed. Fresh starts and new chapters were the only things she was good at. The first thing she needed to deal with among Francis’s last remaining possessions in this basement were the files he kept for the Irish Genealogical Research Society. Even amidst personal turmoil, he always maintained these impeccably, keeping them locked in their cupboard. Two society members were due to collect them at six p.m. Eva checked that this cupboard was locked, then walked up the steps into the autumn sunshine, happy to be among strangers who would treat her with indifference.
She needed to discuss the fate of Glanmire House with Hazel. Hazel had bought it partly so as not to be bested by her father, but mainly as a retreat for Francis. With Francis gone, there was no practical reason for Hazel to hold onto the few remaining acres of her childhood home, but Eva hoped that Hazel might keep the wood as an Irish retreat for Alex. Hazel had once talked about one day enrolling Alex in the Park House Boarding School in Dublin and Alex might like the idea of owning a wood where she could camp with school friends in a ruined house. But since arriving in London, Hazel was being uncharacteristically vague about any future plans and Eva knew not to question her about her marriage, sensing that Hazel’s Kenyan paradise was gradually turning sour.
She bought a newspaper from the old soldier outside the Tube station and tried to lose herself in the headlines. In South Africa a bible-quoting parliamentary messenger had knifed Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the father of apartheid, to death: the government outlawing all interracial parties in response. In Rhodesia Ian Smith was denouncing as repugnant Harold Wilson’s proposal that he appoint two black cabinet members. America was aflame with race riots: the University of Mississippi’s first black student was wounded as he protested, carrying only a bible. It seemed clear that Eva’s campaigning for social change had achieved nothing. Mankind remained locked in permanent war with itself. Opening her handbag, Eva discovered a petition for a posthumous pardon for Tim Evans, an innocent man wrongly hung for the murder of his wife and daughter. She was about to throw it away when she saw that the last signature she had collected belonged to Francis, who had felt a sense of injustice at Evan’s fate. If she could even collect one more signature it might give some purpose to her day.
Eva decided to visit Peter’s wife, Pauline, and ask her to sign. At yesterday’s cremation she was relieved to learn that Peter had already found a new job. The twins, whom she adored, were home on their lunch break when Eva finally reached the house. They hugged her with a mixture of sympathy and delight. Pauline only managed to shoo them back to school after Eva promised to still be there when they returned home. After the twins left, the two women sat down to tea in the kitchen and Eva was glad that she had come. Pauline was a gentle Scorpio who understood her nature. They were so engrossed in talk that Eva didn’t hear Peter arrive home until the man appeared in the doorway.
‘Hello, Eva,’ he said.
She rose to greet him but as Peter held out his hand, Eva realised he was wearing an old tweed jacket which had once belonged to Francis. Her fingers brushed against the familiar tweed and this slightest touch of Francis’s jacket was enough to shatter the dam inside her. Eva began to cry and could not stop. The grief she had kept suppressed all week overwhelmed her and she needed to escape from the house. Distraught and embarrassed, she pushed past Peter to stumble down the hall and reach the front door. Eva began to run, terrified that Peter would follow her in Francis’s jacket, trying to offer comfort. But she knew that Pauline would have the sense to stop him. These emotions were utterly private and she needed a quiet place where she could cry like never before in her life.
Eva didn’t know how long she spent sobbing in the local park. Whenever people stopped she begged them to leave her alone. Eventually she felt strong enough to board a bus, which crawled through evening traffic towards Francis’s flat. She just wanted to sleep now and realised she had never even got Pauline to sign the petition. Eva descended the basement steps, opened the door and then stopped, afraid to enter for a moment because the doors to the cupboard where Francis stored his genealogical research files were wide open. She had double-checked that the cupboard was locked before leaving and was sure that nobody had been here in her absence. Cautiously she approached the cupboard, relieved to see that the files were untouched.
Eva sat down on a chair, unable to stop trembling. She heard footsteps descend the basement steps. It did not sound like Hazel’s confident tread. Eva gazed towards the open doorway, half terrified and half hopeful. It was probably just the men from the Genealogical Society, but what if it was Francis’s ghost? Maybe she would see him walk over to those files, like she had often done in the past, anxious to check some fact, oblivious to her presence or to his own death, doomed to constantly relive this moment, caught in an air pocket of time. The footsteps hesitantly slowed and a young woman whose face was vaguely familiar appeared in the doorway.
‘I’m disturbing you,’ she apologised shyly.
‘If you are looking for Francis then I’m afraid …’
‘I know,’ the girl said. ‘I was at the crematorium but was too shy to approach you. There were so many people and … to be honest … I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I know your face, don’t I?’ Eva asked.
‘You have a good memory so. We only met once, six years ago on a ferry to the Isle of Wight. You were selling copies of Peace News. You couldn’t get back to London because you had some business in Ryde, but you urged me to attend a barge party your son was hosting that night.’
‘I remember now,’ Eva recalled with some difficulty. ‘Is your name Jade? You were with a boy. Rather possessive if I remember right.’
‘Far too possessive,’ Jade replied. ‘Joey had our whole future mapped out. I might have gone along with his plans if I hadn’t attended your son’s party that night. Meeting people there opened my eyes in so many ways. Francis always remembered to drop me a card after that, inviting me to his parties. He didn’t need to invite me: I mean we rarely spoke for more than a few minutes at any of them. But he knew I enjoyed meeting people and that was enough for him. I’d hoped to meet you at one of them but you were always away travelling.’
‘Please. Come in,’ Eva said, touched.
‘I won’t stay,’ Jade replied. ‘But I came because I don’t think you’ll laugh at what I have to say, like some people would.’
‘Why would I laugh at you?’ Eva asked.
‘I had a dream about Francis. It was after he died but before I heard about it. I never dreamt about him before, but it was ever so clear. He was working in a cornfield with his hair blowing in the breeze. He looked different from how I’d ever seen him, but he looked happy. I’m not just saying this for your sake. He looked happier than I’d ever seen him and I have a sense that he wanted you to claim back this right to be happy. This was the message I think he wanted me to give you. There was more in the dream, but you know how details slip away. I think he was trying to give me an address, but I can’t remember anything about it except that I think it was near Kensington Gardens or Bayswater Road. Do you know anybody he’d want you to visit near there?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I feel stupid coming here and not even able to fully remember the drea
m. But he was happy, except for his concern for you.’
‘Tell me again about the cornfield.’
Jade shrugged. ‘It was in the middle of nowhere. A small wood beyond it and a ruined house with an open space in front of it, overgrown with long grass and wild flowers. And at the end of the dream a young boy stood up who must have been lying in that grass. He was stripped to the waist and a dog jumped up beside him. That’s all I remember.’
‘Thank you for telling me this, Jade.’
‘It was just a dream,’ Jade replied, embarrassed. ‘But it was so vivid that I never had a dream like it before.’ She paused. ‘Jade isn’t actually my real name. It’s Janice, but I’ve always hated the name Janice.’
‘Then be Jade,’ Eva said. ‘Be whoever you want to be. Do one thing for me, Jade. Please, take something here belonging to Francis.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s almost nothing left, but I want everyone to have something to remember him by.’
Footsteps began to descend the steps. Eva and Jade waited in silence until two soberly dressed men entered. Southern Irish Protestants in exile. Instinctively she recognised the class she had left behind and instinctively they recognised her as a lapsed member.
‘Mrs Fitzgerald, we’re sorry for your troubles,’ one man said. ‘Is this a bad time to collect the files?’
Genealogy was an interest of Francis’s that Eva had never understood. An obsession with roots tangled in the past instead of branches soaring into the future. People needing to cling to family trees to define who they were.
‘Take everything in that unlocked cupboard,’ Eva replied. ‘Take the cupboard too if you want.’
The men seemed perturbed by her remark. ‘Just the files are fine,’ one replied awkwardly. ‘Your son did tremendous research. He’ll be missed but he will live on through his research.’
‘No, he won’t,’ Jade said, fiercely. ‘He’ll live on in people’s memories and in all the lives he touched.’ She pointed to a wide-brimmed summer hat hanging beside the door. ‘I’ll take this hat. I remember Francis wearing it at a party. I’m saving up for a journey next spring. To see the world at last or at least to see how far I can get. I’ll bring this hat. Whenever I wear it I’ll think of Francis and think of you.’
An Ark of Light Page 23
