by Dick Francis
Safely in the privacy of our bedroom, she explained the problem, not that I couldn’t have guessed.
“My bloody father,” she said explosively. “Why can’t he be more reasonable?”
It was a rhetorical question. I’d been asking myself the same thing since the day I’d first met him.
“What’s he done now, my darling?” I said in my most calming of voices.
“Oh, nothing,” she said in frustration.
Whatever he’d said was obviously about me, and she’d suddenly decided against telling me, probably to avoid hurting my feelings.
“Come and sit down, my love,” I said, sitting on the side of the bed and patting the space next to me. She came over and sat down. I put my arm around her shoulders. “Tell me,” I said.
“My father can be such a fool,” she said. She started to cry.
“Hey, come on,” I said, stroking her hair. “Whatever he said can’t be that bad.” She said nothing. So I went on. “He probably told you that it was me who was the cause of all your problems and you’d be much better off leaving me to come home to live with him and your mother.”
She sat up straight and looked at me. “How did you know?” she asked.
“Because it’s what he always says. Ignore him. He’s wrong.”
“I know he’s wrong,” she said. “I told him so. In fact, I told him that it was him who was the cause of my problems, not you.”
“I bet he didn’t like that,” I said with a laugh.
“No,” she said, also laughing, “he didn’t.” She wiped her eyes with a tissue from the bedside table. “He said that he’d cut me out of his will if I didn’t ‘see sense,’ as he put it.”
“I suppose seeing sense meant divorcing a bookmaker,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied, half laughing and half crying. “I told him he could stuff his will up his arse, for all I cared.”
“Good girl,” I said, giving her a hug.
“Then bloody Alice puts her twopenny’s worth in.” Sophie became angry. “Starts bloody agreeing with the old fool. I gave her what for, I can tell you.”
“I thought Alice liked me?” I said.
“I think she does,” Sophie said. “But she’s so frightened of the old tyrant, she won’t say anything against him.”
So much for Alice having steel-toe-capped boots to kick him with, I thought. More like fluffy pink slippers.
“So now you’re having a row with Alice as well?” I asked.
“It seems like it,” she said.
“I presume she’s still here?”
“Down in the kitchen,” she replied. “But she said she’s going home just as soon as you got back.”
“Do you want her to?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “No.” She paused. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Let’s go down, and Alice and I can have a glass of wine,” I said. “Everything always looks better after a glass of wine.”
“I’ll have a small one too,” Sophie said.
“Great.”
We went downstairs and found Alice in the kitchen, as expected. And she was fuming.
She opened her mouth as if to say something.
“Don’t,” I said quickly. “Don’t say anything you might later regret.”
She snapped her mouth shut.
“Good,” I said. “Now, let’s all have a drink.”
I went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine and poured three glasses. I then sat down at the kitchen table and, in turn, the two girls joined me.
“Good,” I said again. “Now, we all know your father is an idiot.” Alice again opened her mouth to say something, but I held up my hand to stop her. “But he’s not such an idiot that he can’t set us all against one another.”
“But . . .” she started.
“Look,” I said, interrupting. “You’ve probably both said some things today you shouldn’t have. You both feel hurt. But it can stop here, right now, if you want it to. So have some wine and think for a minute.”
I lifted my glass in the manner of a toast, holding it aloft. Sophie picked up hers and did likewise. Slowly, Alice did the same.
“Cheers,” I said. Alice and I drank sizable mouthfuls, while Sophie had a little sip. “Now,” I said, “that’s better. Are we friends again?”
Neither of the girls replied but both of them had another drink.
Finally, the tension was broken by Alice, who laughed.
“Have you ever thought about taking up diplomacy?” she said to me. “I reckon you could make peace in the Middle East.”
“No chance,” I said. “The Arabs don’t drink.”
The three of us sat at the table, giggling uncontrollably at my tasteless joke.
Peace, it seemed, had been reestablished for the moment in Station Road, even if not quite in the Gaza Strip. I was glad. I really didn’t want Alice going home before Monday.
20
At three o’clock on Friday afternoon I sat alone in the chapel of Slough Crematorium as my father’s bare coffin was carried past me by four men from the funeral home and placed on the curtain-skirted catafalque at the front.
A clergyman in a white surplice over a black cassock came in and stood behind the lectern.
“Are you the son?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Are we waiting for anyone else?”
“No,” I said.
“Do you wish to say anything at any point?” he asked me.
“No,” I said again.
“Right, then. We’ll get started.”
The door at the back of the chapel opened with a squeak. I turned around. Detective Sergeant Murray came in and sat down two pews behind me. I nodded to him, and he responded in the same manner. I turned back to the minister, who then began.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
The clergyman droned on, rushing through the funeral rite as laid down in the Book of Common Prayer.
I didn’t really listen to the words.
Instead, I sat and stared at the simple wooden coffin and tried hard to remember what the man inside it looked like. I had seen him alive only briefly, for hardly more than an hour, yet his reappearance had dominated my life for the past two and a half weeks in a way it hadn’t done for the previous thirty-seven years.
It was difficult to describe my full feelings, but anger was uppermost amongst them. Anger that he had now gone forever and anger that he had been here at all.
Undeniably, he was my father. The DNA had proved that. But it didn’t feel like he had anything to do with me. But he, and his actions, had certainly been integral to the direction of my life, who I was and what I would become.
I wished I’d had longer to talk with him on the day he’d died, and the chance to talk to him again, even if it was to rant and rave at his conduct or to gather answers to so many unanswered questions: why did he kill my mother? why did he run away? why didn’t he take me with him? how could he have deserted me for so long? and, in particular, why did he come back?
I thought about his daughters, my sisters, so far away in Australia, who probably didn’t even know their father was dead. Should I say a prayer on their behalf ?
The minister was nearing the end.
“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother Peter, and we commit his body to the elements, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless him, and keep him, and give him eternal peace. Amen.”
As he was saying the last few words, the minister pushed a button on the lectern, and I watched intently as my father’s coffin slowly disappeared from sight behind long red curtains that closed silently around it.
The whole funeral had taken precisely nine minutes. The cremation would take a little longer. And the
n that would be that. My father’s earthly body would exist no more.
If only his influence could be so easily and quickly eliminated.
“Lovely service,” I said to the minister on my way out. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he said, shaking my hand.
Everyone always says it’s been a lovely service at a funeral, I thought, even if it hadn’t. It was neither the time nor the place to criticize, however bad things had been. In this case, the service had been functional. And that was enough.
“Thank you for coming,” I said to Detective Sergeant Murray as we stood together outside afterwards.
“Chief Inspector Llewellyn apologizes for not being here himself,” he said.
“I hadn’t expected him to come,” I said. I hadn’t, in fact, expected anyone to be here, and especially not the detective chief inspector, and not least because I hadn’t told a soul about the arrangements.
“The coroner’s office let us know,” he said. I nodded. “The police always try to go to murder victims’ funerals if we can.”
“Just in case the killer turns up?” I asked.
“It has been known,” he said, smiling.
“No chance today,” I said. “Not without being noticed anyway.”
“No,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Not much of a crowd to hide among at this one.”
“How are things on the detective front?” I said. “Any suspects yet?”
“Only you,” he said, but he said it with another smile. “My chief really doesn’t like you, does he?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “The feeling’s mutual.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
“Has my e-fit been of any use?” I asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it has,” he said. “It’s been shown to some of the other witnesses, and they now generally tend to agree with you. So yours has now taken on the mantle as being the most accurate.”
I was pretty sure that shifty-eyed Kipper wouldn’t have been best pleased by that.
“But I haven’t seen it reproduced in any of the newspapers,” I said. “Or on the television.”
“It’s been in the Bracknell and Ascot Times, and in the Windsor and Eton Express,” he said. “But no one has yet come forward to say they recognize him.”
“Perhaps it would have been better to have put it in the Melbourne papers,” I said. “Or at least in the Racing Post.”
“Now, that’s a thought,” he said. “Maybe I’ll go and recommend it to the chief inspector.”
And, with that, the detective sergeant made his apologies and departed.
That just left me and the funeral director, who had been hovering to one side.
“Was everything in order, Mr. Talbot?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I said. “It was fine.”
“Good,” he said. “And what would you like done with the ashes?”
“What are the choices?” I asked.
“You can have them, if you want,” he said. “They will be ready for collection tomorrow. Or we can collect them for you and hold them at our office, if you like. We’ll be coming here anyway. Funerals take place on Saturdays.”
“What’s the alternative?” I asked.
“They can be scattered here, in the Garden of Remembrance, if you would prefer,” he said. “That way, you wouldn’t need to provide for a container.”
“Container?” I asked.
“If you wanted to take the ashes away, you would have to provide or pay for a container. Perhaps a box or an urn.”
“Oh,” I said. “No. Just have them scattered here, then. I don’t want them.”
“Right,” he said. “That will be all, then. I’ll send you an itemized receipt in due course.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That will be fine.”
He nodded to me, it was almost a bow, and then he walked quickly across to his car and drove away. I wondered if funeral directors laughed more at home than other people to make up for the solemnness of their work or whether they are so conditioned to having a sad disposition that they have difficulty letting their hair down.
I was left standing alone in the crematorium parking lot with that strange feeling of having mislaid something but wasn’t quite sure what, like when you leave a shopping bag on the counter and get halfway home before realizing it.
Perhaps it was a childhood that I’d mislaid, with loving parents, family holidays and happy Christmases. But was it my childhood that I’d lost or those of my nonexistent children? I stood next to my car and wept.
A few early arrivals for the next funeral spilled out of their cars and made their somber way over towards the chapel. None of them bothered me. Weeping in a crematorium parking lot was not only acceptable, it was expected.
Early on Saturday morning I went to see my grandmother. I told myself it had nothing to do with having been to my father’s funeral the day before, but, of course, it did. I desperately wanted to ask her some more questions.
Sophie had come to the front door to see me off, still in her dressing gown and slippers. As far as she was concerned, I’d spent the previous afternoon at Warwick races. I would tell her the truth, I thought, eventually.
“Give her my love,” she’d said as I’d left.
“I will,” I had replied, but both of us knew that my grandmother almost certainly wouldn’t remember who Sophie was. She might not even remember who I was either, but I was going early in the day to give her the best chance. My grandmother was at her most lucid when she was not tired, and, very occasionally, she would actually telephone me around seven in the morning and sound almost normal. But each day varied, and the good days were getting fewer, shorter and less frequent. It was an ever-steepening downhill run towards total full-blown dementia, with just occasional small plateaus of normality to break the journey. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t survive long enough to reach rock bottom.
“Hello, Nanna,” I said, going into her room.
She was sitting in her armchair, looking out of the window, and she turned towards me. I went over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“Hello, Ned,” she said. “How lovely.”
Today was clearly a good day. She looked very smart in a dark skirt, a white blouse with a line of small yellow-and-pink embroidered flowers down the center and a lavender-colored cardigan over it, open at the front. And she’d had her hair done since my last visit.
“You look beautiful,” I said, meaning it.
She smiled at me, full of understanding. How I wished it could last for ever.
I sat on the end of her bed next to her chair.
“How have you been?” I asked. “I like your hair.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Julie will be here soon.”
“Who is Julie?” I asked.
“Julie,” she repeated. “She’ll be here soon.”
I decided not to ask again.
“Sophie sends her love,” I said. A small, quizzical expression came into her eyes. “You remember Sophie. She’s my wife.”
“Oh yes,” she said, but I wasn’t sure she really knew.
There was a knock on the door, and one of the nursing home staff put her head into the room. “Everything OK?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?”
“Coffee would be lovely,” I said. I turned to my grandmother. “Nanna, would you like some coffee or tea?”
“I don’t drink tea,” she said.
“I’ll bring her some anyway,” said the staff member with a smile. “She always says she doesn’t drink tea, but she must have at least six or seven cups a day. Milk and sugar?”
“Yes, please,” I said. “One sugar.”
The head withdrew and the door closed.
“I like Julie,” my grandmother said again.
“Was that Julie?” I asked, but Nanna didn’t answer. She was looking again out of the window. I took her hand in mine and stroke
d it.
We sat silently for a while until the woman came back in with a tray and two cups.
“Are you Julie?” I asked her.
“No,” she said. “I’m Laura. But we do have a Julie here, and your grandmother calls all of us Julie. We don’t mind. I’ll answer to anything.” She laughed. “Here you are, Mrs. Talbot,” Laura said, putting the tray down on a table beside her armchair.
It was comforting for me to know that there were such caring people looking after my Nanna.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Just pull the alarm if you need anything,” Laura said, pointing at a red cord that hung down the wall alongside my grandmother’s bed. “She should be all right for a while, but call if she needs the loo or anything. She can sometimes get quite urgent.”
“Thank you,” I said again, “I will.”
I sat patiently drinking my coffee as my grandmother’s tea slowly cooled.
“Here, Nanna,” I said, giving her the cup. “Don’t forget your tea.”
“I don’t drink tea,” she said, but she still took the china cup in her thin, bony hands and drank from it. The tea was soon all gone, so I took the empty cup from her and put it back on the tray.
“Nanna,” I said. She went on looking out of the window. “Nanna,” I repeated a little louder while also pulling on her arm. She slowly turned to face me.
“Nanna, can you tell me about my parents? Can you tell me about Peter and Tricia?” It didn’t seem odd for me to call my parents by their names rather than Mummy and Daddy. I’d never had a mummy and daddy, only a nanna and grandpa.
She looked up at my face, but the sharpness of fifteen minutes previously had begun to fade. I feared I had missed my chance and that I was losing her. At the best of times, what I was asking would not have been easy for either of us. In her present state, it might be impossible.
“Nanna,” I said again with some urgency, “tell me about Peter and Tricia.”
“Peter and Tricia?” she said, some of the sharpness returning.
“Yes, Nanna. Peter, your son, and Tricia, his wife.”
“Such a dreadful thing,” she said, turning away from me and again looking out of the window.
