‘Wait!’ Barbara suddenly moved forward, hand held out, touching the photographer on the shoulder to make him stop.
‘Yes, dear?’ The matron frowned. She was anxious to continue. Ruby Penny had taken up far too much time already in this hospital. She was looking forward to getting this particular patient moved out.
In Barbara’s palm lay a small brooch, five starry points, a drop of red at its heart. ‘Could she wear this, please? She had it as a child. It will remind her.’
The matron picked up the brooch. ‘I don’t see why not.’ She went over to the chair and pinned the brooch to Ruby’s gown. ‘There, lovely.’ The matron patted the brooch where it sat sharp against Ruby’s breastbone.
Across the room the baby wriggled in the nurse’s arms and let out a small cry. Ruby lifted her head for a moment, confused.
‘Smile, please.’
And the photographer pressed the shutter.
But it was Barbara who was smiling the next time the button was pressed down, holding the child up herself for all the world to see. For the baby was not beautiful. Its eyes were not startling. It was ordinary, just like its aunt.
That night, Barbara woke sometime after twelve and knew that it was done. Ruby always had left a hole in the world, one way or another, gone without saying goodbye. Taken from her bed in the nursing home to one much further away than that. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Wasn’t that what Mrs Penny always said?
Out beyond the curtained alcove a baby was crying, its small wail piercing the night. Barbara lay still, listening for a moment, and wondered if it knew too. After a few seconds she slid herself from the bed, standing in the middle of the cold room for a moment before going over to gaze down at the baby where it lay tucked into a drawer. The baby’s cheeks were all aflame. Brow creased. Its mouth a big dark O.
Barbara bent down to pick the baby up. She held her close, feeling the warmth from that little body seep through into her own, nothing between them but a thin layer of someone else’s genes. For a moment she stood there in the darkness, uncertain how she should begin. Then, as the baby cried on, she began to sway, bare feet on a thin rug, nightgown falling to just above her toes. ‘There, there,’ she said, burying her nose in the baby’s hot skin. ‘Don’t cry. I’m your mother now.’
PART FIVE
Six Orange Pips Sucked Dry
THE SCOTSMAN
5 February 2011
FUNERAL NOTICES
The Funeral of Clementine Amelia Walker, late of Edinburgh, formerly of London, will take place at 2.15 p.m. on Wednesday 5 February 2011 at the Small Chapel, Mortonhall. All welcome. Join us in saying farewell to our sister Clementine, once living, now gone. Flowers welcome too.
2011
As I went down to the river to pray
Studying about that good ol’ way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord, show us the way.
O sisters, let’s go down
Let’s go down, come on down,
O sisters, let’s go down
Down in the river to pray.
The indigent funeral rota swayed up the path towards the crematorium chapel like something out of New Orleans. A cluster of umbrellas hovered above their heads, but that was for the Scottish weather, not because of the sun. Rain had come to Edinburgh. The longed-for thaw at last.
‘Where’s the Reverend McKilty?’ Margaret whispered to her mother as they congregated in the holding bay waiting for the coffin to arrive.
‘Not his turn.’ Barbara wheezed, trailing two grey NHS sticks now as she clung on to her daughter’s arm. Barbara’s heart was not what it used to be. But just like her, it hadn’t given up yet.
‘Who’s he then?’ Margaret jerked her head in the direction of the big man going around shaking hands with everyone he could find. His skin shone rich and earthy in the grey Edinburgh light.
‘Oh, that’s the Pastor.’ Barbara gave a little wave of one of her sticks. ‘Evangelical wing.’
Pastor Macdonald had brought a choir to sing Mrs Walker out. Three women almost as large as him, each dressed in their Sunday best. Three men in neat suits, their shoes glittering like jewelled brogues in the early-February rain. When Margaret saw them arrive in their sharp white shirts and perfectly coordinated hats she was pleased that she had purchased a new pair of shoes to go with her new stolen coat. Her remittance for services rendered had not gone far, but it had gone as far as that.
Margaret looked down now in satisfaction at where her toes tapered to a smart point, ankles criss-crossed with two straps fastened by neat buttons on either side. The shoes weren’t practical (Barbara had already pointed that out). But there was something about them which Margaret felt had been fashioned just for her.
All around the crematorium holding bay a host of people Margaret had never met before crowded in. There were far too many of them for the space – a little square shelter with see-through walls where each funeral gathering waited for the one before to end. The day was damp. The people were damp. The air they all breathed was damp too. Yet nobody complained. It was Edinburgh, after all.
Instead, in every corner of the tiny, heaving space, people were smiling and chatting and shaking hands, nodding their heads in acknowledgement of an acquaintanceship or perhaps something more. Nobody seemed to be particularly mournful. Either the indigent brought out the best in them, or it was just that the deceased was unknown to anyone who had come to say goodbye. Only Barbara looked upset. But Margaret knew this was as likely to do with the rudeness of the taxi driver en route, as with some deeper wound to her mother’s soul.
One by one, smiling and nodding, the mourners came and shook Margaret by the hand where she stood at the edge of the throng. It was as though they knew that she was somehow responsible for it all.
‘Oh, it’s lovely to meet you at last.’
‘I’ve heard such a lot about you.’
‘Your mother’s so pleased that you’re back.’
Margaret took each hand when it was offered as though she was pleased to be acquainted with its owner too, despite the fact that she had never heard anything of them before. Something about the occasion must be rubbing off. She caught a glimpse of Pati laughing and talking somewhere in amongst the throng, and dipped a hand into her pocket to finger a little matryoshka doll nestled amongst the mulberry-coloured wool. She wasn’t the only stranger then.
Once the handshaking had ceased, Margaret leaned in towards Barbara and said, ‘Who are all these people?’
‘What’s that?’ Barbara’s heart might still be beating, but ever since she’d returned from hospital her hearing seemed to have gone awry.
‘Where are they from?’ Margaret enunciated a little louder this time, right up against her mother’s ear.
‘Oh, all around, all around.’ Barbara gesticulated with one of her sticks as though this answered Margaret’s question. ‘We asked for a representative from each group and they all came instead.’
Episcopal. Catholic. Evangelical. Friends. Here in the holding bay, crammed in damp and tight, was Edinburgh’s indigent funeral rota. Representatives of all the city’s faiths (and none), gathered together for a celebration of some unknown person’s life.
Outside on the tarmac, umbrellas held high, the choir began to tune up once again, a humming and a thrumming, a line of a melody thrown out to show the rest the way. Everyone in the holding bay suddenly hushed and turned towards the door. Margaret peered through the misted Perspex wall. The cortège must be approaching. Pastor Macdonald was already at the front, shoulders and head held high, eyes beaming across the crowd. ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he declared, his voice rolling around the plastic walls like a drum before the clash of a cymbal. ‘Your attention, if you don’t mind. Our sister Mrs Walker is on her way.’
Janie had called Margaret two days before the funeral and asked her to collect the deceased’s effects.
‘Why me?’ said Margaret.
‘Who else?’
Full Name. Date of Birth. Place of Birth. Religion. Everything was in order.
Except . . .
‘There was one thing,’ declared Janie, and Margaret held her breath. ‘Any reason why we should bury rather than burn?’
But there was no more time for Mrs Clementine Amelia Walker. Dead and cold in a fridge for weeks, dead and cold in an empty flat for weeks before that. Now dressed in emerald and ready for the off. Margaret had done her job, and done her job well. She had provided the paperwork and sorted the proof. They had Mrs Walker’s birth certificate, so now they could issue one for death. Janie had called up the indigent funeral directors in Leith and now she must sign Mrs Walker off to the fiery pit.
The effects didn’t amount to much. A photograph showing a woman wearing a star-shaped brooch. Some small scraps of paper. A receipt for jewellery long since lost. And a Brazil nut with the Ten Commandments scratched into its shell. Margaret looked at the things laid out in a plastic bag on Janie’s desk. ‘What about her clothes?’ she said.
‘They’ll be sent to charity. The council’s very big on recycling.’
Margaret nodded. A sheet of newsprint turned into a makeshift vest.
Janie pushed the plastic bag across to where Margaret sat. ‘Ultimus haeres confirmed there was no value in the estate.’
The last heir – receptacle of ownerless property (as though there could ever be such a thing). All that remained of Mrs Walker. Not even enough for a bouquet.
‘Bereavement services will cover the funeral costs.’ Janie nibbled at the tip of her biro. ‘There’s still a budget for that.’
A minister, a hearse, the cheapest of coffins and a few members from the indigent funeral rota to sing the deceased on their way. It wasn’t what Margaret called a good send-off.
Janie flicked her eyes towards her computer screen. ‘Of course, Mrs Walker’s funeral will be a bit more extensive than normal.’
‘What do you mean?’ Here was something Margaret had failed to discover.
‘There’s been a donation.’
‘A donation?’
‘Yes. Anonymous. Came through a solicitor’s firm in London. Nye & Sons. Ring any bells?’
A stuffed stoat. A thousand naked paintings (or thereabouts). A woman with bony knees. Margaret had promised Jessica Plymmet she would never tell exactly how it was she got her hands on the Walker file. She coughed and shuffled in her chair. ‘What does it mean? The donation . . .’
‘Oh, flowers, shiny hearse, better coffin and a stone perhaps, or some sort of memorial.’
‘Do the rest not get a stone? The indigent, I mean.’
‘No, we just write them down in a ledger at the crematorium. Well . . .’ Janie shifted in her seat. ‘A computer ledger now.’
Christ, thought Margaret when she set off home again, Brazil nut and photograph in her bag. All that effort to find someone, then they’re just cast back into the pit, nothing but a line on a computer screen. At The Court she complained to her mother. ‘All that work resurrecting her and that is where it ends.’
‘What, dear?’ Barbara was watching murder on the television.
‘Mrs Walker.’
But Barbara just turned up the volume with the remote. ‘Somebody paid,’ she said. ‘That’s all that matters. Let the woman rest.’
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan and what did I see?
Coming for to carry me home.
A band of angels coming after me.
Coming for to carry me home.
Outside the crematorium chapel the shiny hearse pulled up, Mrs Walker’s coffin resplendent inside as though it had suddenly sprouted flowers. Margaret couldn’t help noticing that the coffin was much grander than the one used for the indigent funeral she had attended only a few weeks before. But then that funeral had been ordinary, whereas this one was turning out to be exceptional in every way.
The communal throb of the choir rose up as the coffin was lifted from the hearse by five black-clad men and Micky, wearing a sombre but well-tailored suit. The anthem about Jordan and its river rolled on, accompanied now by the indigent rota’s finest and some who perhaps should have kept their mouths shut. Margaret bent her head towards her mother as the choir (and others) intoned in every sort of key. ‘Who chose the songs?’ she said. Calling them hymns didn’t seem quite appropriate.
Barbara looked away. ‘No idea,’ she said.
The choir sang on as the coffin was carried into the chapel while all the mourners waited respectfully outside. Once the deceased was in, Barbara made a sign for Margaret to help her forwards, into the chapel and then right to the front. Margaret gripped her mother’s arm, holding Barbara back.
‘What are we waiting for?’ Barbara urged her daughter on.
‘What do you think?’ Margaret hissed into her mother’s ear.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Any family, of course.’
Barbara clattered with her sticks then stabbed one towards the toe of Margaret’s pristine new shoes. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You found her, didn’t you? We’re her family now.’
They stood, they sat, they sang, they laughed and they wept. It was a good sending-off indeed. In a chapel full of colour and of praise, Mrs Clementine Walker had the goodbye she deserved. Somewhere between the eulogy (‘We didn’t know Mrs Walker, but we feel we know her now’) and the readings (‘Suffer little children to come unto me’), Margaret leaned across and whispered to her mother, ‘I read somewhere that death comes to a person twice. Once when it happens, and once when everyone who remembers them has gone too.’
Barbara pressed a crumpled tissue to her eyes, her face all damp and squashed. ‘What do you mean?’ she wheezed.
‘Well, if that’s true, maybe it means Mrs Walker has been reborn.’
‘What?’ Barbara stopped with her wet tissue as though someone had slapped her.
‘Well . . .’ Margaret sat back. ‘There was no one to remember her before. And now there is all of us.’
As the coffin was prepared for its final journey, down into the depths of the fiery pit (or at least the crematorium’s waiting room), Margaret turned the lucky coronation penny in her pocket and thought of all the other dead Walkers who had gone before. Dorothea and Alfred. Two little twins. Now their older sister Clementine, off to join them at last. She wondered then who might remember her when she was gone. Nothing but hair stuck to the sofa and a scattering of bones. A man last seen standing in a room surrounded by broken glass? Or an ashen-haired lady lifting a photograph of two silver-haired children from the pocket of her coat? There was Janie, of course, with her bubblegum sweaters. Or even Micky, murmuring endearments as she applied make-up to whatever remained of Margaret’s face.
Heads or tails. Perhaps it was all random chance after all.
Margaret looked out across the grey heads of the indigent funeral crowd to find Pastor Macdonald watching her. He was singing as though it was the coming of the end (which of course, for Mrs Walker, it was). His voice flew out, resonant and true, soaring over them all on its way beyond the chapel door. Margaret was amazed at the hugeness of his mouth, the shine on his teeth. Surely not someone who came from Scotland, with teeth that perfect and straight. Pastor Macdonald winked at Margaret then, and in that flustered moment heat ran all up and down her body. Perhaps he might remember Margaret too.
Almost at the end (but not quite) Pastor Macdonald invited them up one by one to say a last goodbye to the dead before they all got on with life.
‘What does he mean?’ Margaret bent to her mother who was already rummaging away inside the pocket of her turquoise suit.
‘You’ll see,’ said Barbara, who always had been prepared in a way that Margaret was not.
One by one the members of Edinburgh’s mourners to the indigent stood up and stepped away from their wooden ch
apel chairs. They queued in a very Edinburgh way, orderly and polite, shuffling forwards to the coffin one by one to touch its surface in a gesture of farewell. Some people left small gifts – a pebble or a leaf, a clutch of crocuses from Mrs Maclure as though she had gathered them only that morning from a local park. As Barbara arrived at the front, accompanied by Margaret and two grey NHS sticks, she reached out her fist and left a Brazil nut with the Ten Commandments etched into its shell on the surface of the coffin. The nut skittered on the polished wood as Margaret started and fumbled in her own coat pocket. Sheep stealer. Peddler of fake coins. Trouble. Wasn’t that what her mother had always been, right from the start?
But there was no time for Margaret to snatch back her mother’s offering, so that she could offer it up herself. For now it was Margaret’s turn to leave some sort of gift to the dead. The queue waited patiently as she put her hand into the pocket of her coat once more and wondered what she might present. Some scraps of paper covered in discombobulated girls’ names? Maybe the coronation penny that had turned out lucky after all? Or six orange pips, frail and skeletal, sucked to within an inch of their bones. But in the end it was the miniature matryoshka doll that Margaret placed on the end of Mrs Walker’s coffin. The baby of the family. A daughter to replace the one Mrs Walker never had in life.
Beside Margaret, Barbara’s chest gave a great heave as she stared at the little wooden child, before she shuffled back with alacrity to her place in the front row, rather like a crab scuttling into its hole. Margaret followed, her own eyes surprisingly swimmy for a woman she’d only ever met in death. Then the choir began to sing once more. A humming and a thrumming topped with a single spoken voice – Pastor Macdonald’s eulogy to a stranger none of them had ever known but who was part of their lives forever now. ‘We say farewell to our sister Clementine Amelia Walker. Lost to the earth, to the wind, to the sky. Lost to the seas, to life and all it brings, both the pleasures and the pain. Lost to those who knew her once. But no longer lost to us.’
The Other Mrs Walker Page 30
