‘You’re right. Early-morning swim?’
‘Sure.’
But both of us slept in till lunchtime and by two we were heading off. He didn’t speak of Corinne again.
5
It had the decency to rain at the funeral. There was a wind, too, and had been for several days, bringing leaves and twigs down, as though autumn had already arrived. Unlike the strip of AstroTurf draped across the newly dug hole, the grass in the graveyard was long. I got there early, having driven down, and wandered between the headstones, killing time. A line from Rob’s work came back to me: ‘the grassy mounds and lichened headstones of forgotten …’ What? Serfs, yeomen, peasants, something like that. An umbrella kept my head dry, but not my feet. Inside, as the vicar led us through the ceremony, I was conscious that my socks were wet, and, head bowed, noticed the drops stippling my polished shoes. Like tears, I thought, then thought again – Rob hated corny similes.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But I was drenched.
I’d read most of the press about Rob on my iPad, in Soller. There’d not been much apart from the obits, just a paragraph on the BBC website and a brief news story in the Telegraph: ‘Author of the Martello Sonnets dies at sixty’. I probably missed other pieces, but thanks to the delay Jill had talked about I didn’t miss the funeral, which took place not in Hadingfield but in Carforth, the village where Rob had grown up. He’d told Jill he wanted to be buried and, according to Louis de Vries, who I sat next to in the church, none of the places local to her offered burials. To begin with, the local authority in Sussex wasn’t helpful either. But Jill was insistent: not only was it Rob’s birthplace but his mother had spent her last years in a nursing home just up the road. It turned out that the Carforth vicar – triple-chinned, balding, sixtyish – was a fan of Rob’s poetry and as he said at the start of the service welcomed giving him ‘a place among the honoured dead of this parish’ (adding that he, too, had been ‘known to scribble the odd verse’).
Jill had warned me the service would be religious and it was. We even knelt for prayers, the dusty psalter making my nose itch. She was in the front pew, under a black veil, supported by a man whom I took to be her brother (the orang-utan, Rob had called him, though nothing in his appearance suggested it, and Rob – in the coffin on its stand in front of the altar – was in no position to explain). There was no sign of Rob’s sister, though there’d been ample time for her to come back from Australia; either Jill had failed to contact her or she was too ill to travel. As for the rest of us, about sixty in all, half were literary acquaintances of Rob, mostly poets, and half (I assumed) neighbours or friends of Jill. She held up well till the last part of the service – a recording of Rob reading one of his best-known poems, ‘Pond’, which described his childhood fascination with murky water and unknown depths. The hissing tannoy added to the effect. I kept my head down, for fear of blubbing. ‘For those of you who care to visit,’ the vicar said, to lighten the mood, ‘the pond in question is just fifty yards from here, next to the pub.’
Then the exit to the grave began – with the vicar, the six pall-bearers, Jill and her brother, and Alexis Speke (Rob’s editor) leading the way. The rain had eased. While the coffin rested beside the AstroTurf, Alexis – Lexy to those who knew her – read a poem from Rob’s first collection, Homeboy, a celebration of the nearby countryside (one of the obits had singled it out as ‘an eco-poem ahead of its time’). What would Rob have thought of the local emphasis? He used to tell me how bored he’d been growing up here and what a relief it was to come to London as a student; his later collections had strenuously rejected the provincialism of the first. Even Lexy seemed hesitant in her reading, though that might just have been nerves; she was younger by several decades than most of the mourners. Perhaps the poems had been chosen by the vicar, as a trade-off for the privilege of a burial.
It was he who had the last word, blessing the coffin while the pall-bearers raised it with ropes and dangled it over the grave. As they lowered it into the ground, the AstroTurf slipped down with it, and when both coffin and AstroTurf were out of sight and the ropes retrieved, two of the bearers shovelled earth on top. Jill’s brother tightened his grip on her shoulder. In films I’d seen, the relatives throw handfuls of earth on to the coffin lid, but Jill didn’t do this, nor (another movie cliché) did she have to be restrained from hurling herself down to join her spouse. I became fixated on the shovels: with all the rain, the earth had turned to mud and to unclag it from their shovels the two bearers had to bash them on the ground. They stepped aside once a few token spadefuls had plopped down. Evidently a gravedigger would be along later to finish the job.
As we left by the wooden lychgate, I fell in beside Connor Buckhurst, who reviews poetry for our pages. Conversation with him was always awkward, not because he’s shy but because of his mouth, a blockish, oblong slit that opens and closes like a puppet’s, with a clumsy mechanical parting of the lips. At least walking alongside I didn’t have to face him.
‘What did you think of Lexy’s reading?’ I asked. Though personally not the least miffed that she’d been given the job (I hate speaking in public), I wondered if others might be, including Connor.
‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘for a non-poet. She got the stresses in the last line completely wrong: it’s “where the buds break from the prison of ice”, not “where the buds break from the prison of ice”. Of course, Lexy only inherited Rob. It was Charles who discovered him. She hasn’t the same investment.’
Like Rob, Charles Durrant had died young, in his sixties, taking early retirement from the publishing company after bowel cancer was diagnosed and succumbing to it within a year.
‘She published Rob’s last collection, didn’t she?’
‘Saw it through. Perfunctorily. He wasn’t one of hers. She’s only interested in poets her age. Still, that’s more than you can say for Jill. She’s not interested in poetry at all. That’s why she held the funeral down here: it’s an awkward place to get to and she hoped no poets would come.’
‘Come on, Connor. Rob asked to be buried. And there aren’t many places you can be buried these days.’
‘It’s an excuse. Jill always wanted him for herself. Ideally there’d have been no one at the funeral except her.’
‘Give her a break,’ I said. ‘She’s devastated.’
‘Of course. And he can’t have been easy to live with. Always so full of himself. I bet he was hoping Highgate Cemetery would have him: Karl Marx, George Eliot, Robert Pope …’
‘Is this why people come to funerals?’ I said. ‘To slag off the deceased?’
‘Lighten up, Matt. I admired him. If you’d sent me his last collection, I’d have given it a good review instead of that hatchet job you printed. No, the reason people come to funerals is to spot the mystery mourner. That woman ahead of us, for instance, in the blue coat.’
‘I overheard her talking earlier. She’s one of his neighbours.’
‘Pity. No scandal there, then. But what about the woman with the long hair who sat at the back of the church, then disappeared before the burial. Now she was intriguing.’
We’d reached the pub by then, the one overlooking the pond, where Jill had booked a side room and laid on sandwiches. Connor wandered off for a glass of wine; I’d driven down, because the train journey seemed complicated, and had to stick to orange juice. I chatted to several neighbours of Rob’s from Hadingfield, none of whom I knew any more than I knew why he’d moved there in the first place. They stood in a cluster, rehearsing tales of the time Rob did this or Rob did that – burnt the meat so black when barbecuing that Jill had to send out for a takeaway; talked to himself, ‘intoning verses’, while walking up and down the garden; failed to recognise people when he passed them in the street; turned up late for appointments, notably for his one appearance at the local Literary Society, when he claimed he’d ‘got lost’, though the venue was only a quarter-mile from his house. The Rob I knew was not the eccentric they knew: he’d never
been late when meeting me or meeting deadlines; he even knew how to barbecue. But if you were a poet living in the sticks, perhaps the caricature was inevitable. People saw what they wanted to see, in technicolour.
Half an hour crawled by. Though I’d watched her receiving handshakes and murmurs of sympathy, I hadn’t yet spoken to Jill. And if I’d not been near the door as she headed towards it, intent on leaving, I would have missed her altogether. No longer veiled, she was wearing a grey suit, with a purple silk neck scarf, and looked a decade older than when I’d last seen her – which, come to think of it, maybe she was. We hugged a moment, not closely, while I offered my sympathies.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I said, seeing how eager she was to be gone.
‘Thank you for coming.’
‘There’ll be the executor business to talk about.’
‘All in good time.’
‘I want to do my best by Rob. So that his work lives on. Hearing his voice today reading that poem …’
‘Yes,’ she said, and turned to her brother, who nodded at me, unsmiling, and led her away.
The noise levels rose with her departure. Most of the mourners were on to their second glass of wine. Had Jill been too consumed by grief to speak? Was she as abrupt with everyone? As I stood there brooding, Lexy came up.
‘Hi, Matt, I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘I got back from holiday last week.’
‘I didn’t realise you and Rob were friends, I mean. It’s mostly poets here.’
‘We met when I was in my early twenties,’ I said. ‘And stayed in touch. He did some reviewing for me.’
‘Really? I thought you trashed his last collection.’
‘Not me personally.’
‘On your pages.’
‘These things happen. Rob got over it.’
‘Sure. I wasn’t implying he’d not forgiven you.’
‘Tricky’ was how I’d sometimes heard Lexy described, a word Marie had banned as sexist (‘Have you ever heard a man being called tricky? With them it’s subtle, independent-minded, complex, challenging, highly intelligent’). I took the point, but even Marie might have found Lexy difficult. Slightly built, plain-looking, in her early thirties, she wasn’t someone you noticed in a crowd; even when she’d stood reading the poem by the grave, you could have missed her. But the Jane Eyre-ishness was deceptive. Conversation with her (at parties, at prize ceremonies or over the phone) always left me exhausted. She’d a gift for putting you in the wrong or adding to your insecurities.
‘Nice reading, by the way.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I thought there might be other people closer to Rob, but Jill insisted.’
‘He didn’t mix much with other writers.’
‘Least of all younger ones,’ she said. ‘The poets I know don’t seem to read him.’
‘Did Jill tell you he asked me to be his literary executor?’
‘No. First I’ve heard of it.’
‘Well, she’s other things on her mind.’
‘Oh, she did say something. About Louis doing it, was it? Excuse me a second – there’s Connor Buckhurst.’
Jill’s knowledge of the literary world was slight. She must have assumed that because Louis was Rob’s agent he would automatically become his executor. A simple mistake. Unless for some reason she had blocked my appointment. It didn’t seem likely. Still, I’d yet to be told officially or see written proof. Louis would know the answer. When we’d whispered to each other in the pews, we’d avoided any mention of Rob’s will. Now would be a better time.
I saw him nipping out for a smoke and followed. Handsome, fiftyish, an elegant dresser with a patrician air, he could be tough when doing deals, as Leonie (who sometimes bought features from him) often complained. But no one was more widely read. He’d done a PhD and been a junior lecturer, before escaping academe (as Rob had done) and joining a literary agency. There were no bad authors on his list. Some wrote for film and television, which was where he made his money. But Rob wasn’t the only one to have earned him next to nothing. However poor their royalties, he stuck with writers he admired. No wonder people looked up to Louis – literally as well as metaphorically, since he was six foot four.
The rain had stopped. I shook my head when he offered a cigarette. We stood overlooking the pond.
‘Snakepit in there,’ he said. ‘It always is when a writer dies. I knew him better than you did, na-na-na-na-na-na. With a bit of backstabbing thrown in: great man, great man, pity he didn’t fulfil his promise. Unlike themselves, they mean. Poets are the worst. When Robert Frost died, all Lowell and Berryman could think about was where it left them in the pecking order – which of us is Number One, Cal? Piranhas, all of them. Rob’s the only poet I ever took on.’
‘I’ve always wondered why you did. Most poets don’t even have agents.’
‘I read an article of his and thought, bright chap, worth signing up, he could do a book of essays one day or even a novel. Ten, fifteen years ago I could have got him a decent advance. But he wasn’t interested. Poems were all he cared about.’
‘Any plans for a Selected?’ I said. Only three weeks had passed since his death. But agents sometimes move quickly.
‘Depends on Lexy. And if there’s any new stuff.’
‘Did he ever talk to you about appointing a literary executor?’ I said.
‘Yes, he asked me if I would.’
‘Appoint someone?’
‘Do the job. “You’re my agent,” he said, “why not?”’
‘When was this?’
‘A few months ago.’
‘He asked me as well. Late last year.’
‘Did you turn him down, then?’ Louis laughed, making light of it.
‘No. I said I’d be happy to.’
‘Strange – he never mentioned it.’
‘What the fuck was he up to?’
‘Search me,’ Louis said. ‘We’ll have to see what his solicitor says.’
‘Is he here?’
‘She. Nah, she’s on holiday. I’ll give her a bell next week.’
It wasn’t antipathy to Rob that stopped Marie coming to Sussex. If pushed, she’d have joined me. But we’d have had to bring Mabel and the prospect of a crying baby in church put us off. She’d written a letter to Jill instead. ‘When you’re feeling up to it, Matt and I would like to take you out to dinner,’ it ended, ‘or for a walk, to see a play, anything you fancy really. Matt’s full of regret that he didn’t see more of you both.’
The last part was only half true; it was Rob I wished I’d seen more of. And after the conversation with Louis, I’d no desire to see Jill at all. Not that I blamed her for Rob’s change of heart. And not that I’d any right to expect her to be friendly when her husband’s coffin had just been lowered in the earth. But she obviously knew what he’d decided; it explained her offhand manner with me. ‘All in good time,’ she’d said, unable to tell me herself. Fuck, it’s not as if I need the work, I thought, as I meandered through B-roads to join the M23 and, beyond, at a snail’s pace, headed north-east round the M25. It had rained again, and there’d been several minor collisions. It took me two hours to travel ten miles. The others at the wake – Louis, Lexy, the poets and neighbours – had come by train. I’d left in a rush long before them, straight after the chat with Louis. But they were probably back home long before me.
I found a parking place in the next street (there were none left in ours) and hung my sodden coat on the pegs inside the front door. The kids were upstairs, asleep. Upset by the conversation with Louis, I looked to Marie for support, but after a bad day with Mabel (‘a funeral would have been a doddle in comparison’) she was in no mood to give it. To cheer her up, and reward myself for my earlier abstinence, I poured us two large whiskies. We sat in the conservatory, or rather I did: she was growing six tomato plants in large pots, and as we talked she watered them.
‘Rob obviously decided Louis is more suitable,’ I said.
‘Nah. He lo
ved manipulating people. Here he is, still doing it, from the grave.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t sound enthusiastic enough. I should have made it clearer.’
‘What were you supposed to do, dance up and down on the table?’
‘He may have thought he was sparing me, what with the kids and the job and everything.’
‘He didn’t give a fuck about that. He wanted a poodle to fetch his sticks for him when he threw them. You’re well out of it. But he could at least have told you.’
‘I’m sure he would have. He wasn’t expecting to die.’
‘I don’t know why you’re sticking up for him,’ Marie said, putting down the watering can and joining me on the wicker two-seater. She smelled of compost and vine. ‘He betrayed you.’
‘It’s too strong a word.’
‘OK, he upset you. And I hate seeing you upset.’ She kissed me on the cheek. ‘How was the drive? I expected you earlier.’
‘Crap. Ten miles an hour round the M25.’
‘No points for speeding, then.’
‘Not on the motorway. But once I came off I put my foot down. I knew you’d approve.’
‘Just watch it,’ she said, picking up the watering can and pointing the spout at me – then snuggling up for the hug my allusion invited.
I should explain. Marie and I didn’t meet in the usual way, at work or through friends, or in a pub or club or on a dating site. We met on a speed awareness course in Brentwood. Breaking the law is what brought us together.
The course was a pilot scheme for the one that now operates throughout the country. I’d been stopped by a patrol car in Essex, doing eighty on a dual carriageway, on the way to see my parents; Marie was caught by a speed camera in Leyton, on the way to work, doing thirty-six in a built-up area. We were offered the course instead of being docked three points on our licences. Marie chose Brentwood because it was nearer than Ealing, the only London venue offering the course on a Friday afternoon. I chose Brentwood because it was en route to Southwold, where I’d been due to spend the weekend with an old schoolfriend till he cancelled the day before. Call it what you will – serendipity, destiny, criminality – that cancellation, and those three hours of being lectured to by a pair of ex-police officers, changed our lives, if not my driving habits.
The Executor Page 8
