The Bottle of Tears

by Nick Alexander

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘We saw the other one more. Veronica, is it?’

  ‘Victoria? My sister?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. She came a lot. Lovely girl.’

  ‘Right,’ Penny says. ‘Well, thanks so much for coming.’

  ‘And Veronica? Is she here?’ the man asks, looking around the room.

  ‘Not yet,’ Penny says. ‘But I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’ She has decided that it’s perhaps easier just to lie.

  ‘Where do we sit, Mum?’ Max asks. He’s tugging gently on Penny’s sleeve.

  ‘Front row,’ she says.

  ‘What, next to them?’

  ‘Yes,’ Penny tells him.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘I don’t know, dear,’ Penny says. But then the man in the end seat turns to look at her and she recognises him.

  ‘God, isn’t that Marge’s brother?’ she hears Mrs Michael say.

  ‘Cecil!’ Penny exclaims, straightening and moving to his side. ‘You made it!’

  As Max, Chloe and Sander take their seats, Penny crouches down next to Cecil. ‘There was me wondering who those cheeky people were in the front row,’ she tells him. ‘And it’s you!’

  ‘Sorry, are we . . . ? Would you like us to move?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Penny says. ‘You’re family. I just hadn’t seen your face. I wasn’t sure I’d even recognise you, to be honest, but you’ve hardly changed at all.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Cecil says. ‘This is my wife, Janine. Janine, Penny. Penny’s my niece.’

  Penny shakes Janine’s hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says.

  ‘Likewise,’ Janine says, though she doesn’t look pleased at all. In fact, the expression on her pinched face looks a lot like profound disapproval. But Penny can tell by the deep wrinkles around her mouth that Janine is a woman who has been pursing her lips for many years now, so she decides not to take it personally.

  ‘So, how’s my little Penny?’ Cecil asks. ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘Forty years, give or take. And I’m OK, considering the circumstances.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Cecil says. ‘It’s all very sad.’

  ‘That’s my husband, Sander,’ Penny says, pointing along the row. ‘And my children, Max and Chloe.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Cecil says, fiddling with his threadbare tie. Penny notices, now, the tatty nature of his collar, his worn brogues and his shiny trousers. Cecil, it would seem, lost a bit of his sheen at some point. ‘And your sister?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know, actually,’ Penny says. She glances around the room and sees Martin and Bertie lingering in the entranceway. ‘Ah, that’s her husband arriving now. Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me.’

  She returns to the entrance and embraces Martin and Bertie. Bertie, she can see, has been crying. ‘Thanks so much for coming,’ Penny tells them. ‘It means a lot.’

  ‘Mum’s outside, too,’ Bertie tells her. ‘She’s smoking a cigarette.’

  Penny pulls a face. ‘She’s here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she’s smoking?’

  Martin nods. ‘It’s a whole new thing,’ he says drily. ‘She’s only on ten a day at the moment, but she’s working at it. She’s progressing every day.’

  As Penny brushes the sleeve of Bertie’s blazer with one hand and steps outside, Martin murmurs, ‘Go easy on her, eh?’

  ‘Of course,’ Penny casts back over her shoulder. ‘Of course I will.’

  Outside, there is no sign of Victoria, so Penny walks across the courtyard and around to the graveyard at the side, where she finds Victoria seated on a bench, her back to her.

  ‘Hey, give us a ciggy,’ she says as she approaches the bench, and Victoria visibly jumps and turns back to face her.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ she says, speaking in puffs of smoke.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Do you have time?’ Victoria asks. ‘I was just about to stub this out.’

  ‘Let them wait,’ Penny says, smoothing her skirt and taking a seat next to her sister. ‘They can’t start without us, can they?’

  Victoria pulls a Marlboro packet from her handbag, opens the lid and offers it to Penny.

  ‘So, you came,’ Penny says as she pulls one from the packet.

  ‘I’m not speaking, though,’ Victoria says.

  ‘Nor am I. There’s an officiate. He’s going to do the Lord’s Prayer or something, and that’s about it. Max wanted to speak, but he changed his mind this morning. And I can’t . . .’ She sighs. ‘I just can’t face it.’

  ‘Right,’ Victoria says, reaching out to light Penny’s cigarette. ‘Anyway, when did you ever smoke cigarettes?’

  ‘Only at times of great stress,’ Penny says. ‘And you?’

  ‘Only at times of great stress,’ Victoria retorts.

  Penny has barely taken her first dizzy-making puff when Max appears. ‘They’re starting,’ he says breathlessly. ‘Dad says you have to come quick.’

  Back inside the chapel, the officiant is already standing at the lectern so the sisters scamper to their seats, feeling, beneath his angry glare, like naughty schoolchildren late for class.

  ‘Well, thank you all for coming,’ he says to the essentially empty room the second they have sat down. ‘We are here today to pay our last respects to Marjorie Thompson, who most of you knew simply as Marge . . .’

  Victoria nudges Penny at this point and nods towards the end of the row. ‘That’s not . . . is it?’ she says. ‘It can’t be. Can it?’

  Penny nods. ‘Sander found him,’ she whispers. ‘Now, shh!’

  The service groans by with all the grace of an unwanted work dinner.

  It’s a pretty lacklustre affair, Penny admits to herself, and for the first five minutes she feels swamped not by grief but by guilt. She should have spent more time planning what this stranger would say about her mother; she should have forced Victoria to share a few stories he could tell; she should, perhaps, have asked Cecil about her mother’s childhood. She should have had the nerve, above all, to speak herself. Because this, what is happening now, the Lord’s Prayer, a dreadful poem and a litany of platitudes, has little to do with the life of spunky, feisty, single mother Marge. Marge who did everything for them. Marge who managed all that Penny manages and more.

  But Penny has been swamped, that’s the thing. She has had so many, many things to deal with and so little help from anyone else to do them. Surely no one could blame her, could they? Surely Marge, if she is watching, understands?

  So this is it, she thinks. A shabby, impersonal send-off in an almost empty chapel. I’m sorry, Mum, I let you down. Even the flowers look tired.

  Unexpectedly – for this was not agreed – the officiant starts to recite a poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. It’s a simple, pretty poem, but it somehow saves the day.

  Do not stand at my grave and weep / I am not there, I do not sleep

  It’s clearly not what the author intended, but weep is exactly what Penny now does. It feels as if the poem is reaching deep into her innards and yanking out fistfuls of pain – the pain of this all-consuming loss.

  I am a thousand winds that blow / I am the diamond glints on snow

  Salty tears stream down Penny’s face and she unashamedly lets them flow.

  To her right, swamped by her mother’s distress, Chloe can no longer blank out what has happened either. Because, no, Chloe didn’t agree with her gran about her emo make-up or anything much else. And no, theirs was not a touchy-feely relationship. And no, Marge’s gifts were rarely generous or thoughtful or even wanted. She was a tight-fisted, stern old gran, in fact. But, despite it all, Chloe suddenly realises, they loved each other. And now that she’s gone she does miss her. And she’ll miss her forever, now, because Gran is never coming back. Never. Forever. These are not concepts Chloe has ever thought much about before. Gone forever! She leans against her mother’s heaving shoulder and lets herself cry, too, for the suddenly understood ir
reversibility of death.

  I am the sunlight on ripened grain / I am the gentle Autumn rain

  Max and Sander join in, too, bravely attempting to blink back their own tears, while Bertie, sandwiched between his mother and Max, holds out a moment longer. It’s only when Max slides one arm around his cousin’s shoulders that Bertie begins to cry as well.

  When you awaken in the morning’s hush / I am the swift uplifting rush

  Only Victoria remains dry-eyed. In truth, she’s struggling to even follow the proceedings. She’s lost in a bubble of Valium and a sea of resurfacing memories, lost in the shame of what she said to her mother forty years ago, as well.

  For how is she going to be able to look Cecil in the eye after what she did? How can she possibly stand and chat to him in a pub after all the things she said?

  Of quiet birds in circled flight / I am the soft stars that shine at night

  Unless, of course, what she said was true. But how could she possibly know? How can she trust her memories when it was so long ago? Because it was so long ago. She had been seven years old . . . or perhaps eight. You see? She’s not even sure about that any more.

  So, no, she can’t trust her memories. She can’t differentiate any longer between what happened that day and what she’s told herself since.

  Bertie once told her that his friend Aaron had killed Smurf, the family cat. So Victoria had gone round there to have it out with Aaron’s family, to warn them about their psychopath of a son, only, when she got there, Smurf had been sitting proudly on the bonnet of the car cleaning his paws. Everyone knows that kids make stuff up. They can even convince themselves that their lies are true, given enough time.

  Bertie, poor Bertie, is crying now, sobbing freely into his hands, and Victoria thinks that she, too, should really be crying. She consciously reconfigures her features into a more convincing expression of grief. She doesn’t want to add ‘lack of emotion at her mother’s funeral’ to her already extensive repertoire of shame.

  If she had made it all up, then of course, Marge would have been right to treat her the way she did. Even without knowing the full extent of Victoria’s crimes, she would have been justifiably furious with her daughter just for having driven Cecil away. And if Marge was right and Victoria was wrong, then she should be feeling sadder today. She got off lightly, perhaps, after all.

  She twists in her seat to glance at Penny, who, through tears, notices this and looks up at her sister as the officiant reads the last verse of the poem.

  Do not stand at my grave and cry / I am not there, I did not die.

  Something tickles Victoria’s cheek and it’s only when she reaches to scratch it that she understands that she, too, is crying. Oh, Mum, she thinks, simply. Oh, Mum!

  She brushes away the tears with her index finger and then closes her eyes as she attempts to listen to the officiant’s words as he reads the final blessing, but again she drifts off into memories, not of Marge, whose life they are supposed to be celebrating, but of Ed, and of Cecil, and of a shameful little girl called Victoria she once knew. A little girl who did terrible, terrible things. A little girl who caused nothing but suffering and mayhem to everyone who knew her.

  ‘May Christ the Good Shepherd enfold you with love, fill you with peace, and lead you in hope . . .’ the officiant reads.

  It’s only when a crescendo of sobs from Penny’s direction drags her from her trance that Victoria opens her eyes and discovers that the coffin has miraculously vanished.

  Everyone is standing. The service, it seems, is over.

  Outside, Penny dabs at her eyes and thanks people for coming. Will and Ben are now present, too, beautifully dressed in dark, modern suits.

  ‘Hi, Will,’ Penny says, hugging her friend. ‘I was crying so much, I didn’t even see you.’

  ‘We arrived late,’ Will explains. ‘There was a . . . an incident, let’s say, on the Bakerloo line. So we snuck in halfway through. I’m ever so sorry, Pen.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Penny says, sniffing. ‘It was all a bit Heath Robinson anyway, to be honest.’

  ‘I thought it was nice,’ Ben says sweetly. ‘I liked your choice of poems, too.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Penny says, brushing his cheek with the back of her fingers. ‘You’re cute. A liar, but cute.’

  On the other side of the courtyard, Cecil is waving his car keys agitatedly at his wife, so, worrying that they are leaving, Penny crosses to join them. As she reaches them, Cecil says, a little sharply, it seems to Penny, ‘Just do it! I’ll be right there.’

  Janine opens her pursed little mouth to respond, but then, seeing Penny arriving, she simply closes it again and takes the keys from Cecil’s outstretched hand. She turns and leaves, clip-clopping across the courtyard in her heels.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ Penny asks.

  ‘Sure,’ Cecil says. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘Not really,’ Penny replies. ‘But you are coming, aren’t you? To the pub, I mean. I need to talk to you a bit about all the things that happened.’

  ‘What about what happened?’ Cecil asks. And there’s an incongruity between his sharp tone of voice and the gentle way Penny asked him to stay that puts Penny’s nerves on edge. He sounds as if he’s responding to a threat of interrogation rather than a softly delivered plea for intimacy.

  ‘Me, too,’ Victoria says, with meaning, and Penny turns to see that her sister has joined them.

  ‘I . . . well, I could . . .’ Cecil stammers.

  ‘You are coming, aren’t you?’ Victoria asks. ‘You’re not going to just vanish again, surely?’

  ‘It’s . . . it’s just that Janine’s with me,’ Cecil says. ‘So, you know . . .’

  ‘Doesn’t she want to come?’ Penny asks.

  ‘Oh no, it’s not that. I mean, she doesn’t, you know . . . know.’

  ‘What doesn’t she know?’ Penny asks.

  ‘About any of that,’ Cecil says. ‘About why we fell out and stuff. And I . . . I mean, I’m sure you’d agree, there’s no point bringing all that up now, is there?’

  Penny frowns deeply and glances at her sister in case her expression might provide some clue as to what is going on here. But Victoria’s face, glassy and strange, explains nothing. ‘There’s no point in what?’ she asks, turning back to Cecil.

  ‘There’s no point telling her,’ Victoria offers. A realisation is sweeping over her, a truth, a feeling, communicating as if through the air, from Cecil’s sweating pores to some primeval sensory organ within her. A realisation that maybe, just maybe, she was right.

  ‘I can . . . can trust you, then?’ Cecil stammers. ‘If we come, I mean . . . not to . . .’

  ‘Not to tell your wife?’ Victoria says.

  ‘Yes. It’s just that, well, what happened. With Marge. That was punishment enough,’ Cecil says. ‘Don’t you think?’

  Penny opens her mouth to express the fact that she has no idea what Cecil and her sister are talking about, but Victoria raises a finger to silence her. She doesn’t want her sister’s big boots stamping their way through this one. ‘Was it?’ she asks gently. ‘Was it enough, do you think?’

  ‘I lost my sister. I never saw her again,’ Cecil says. ‘You know that. And you two. My lovely gals. I didn’t get to see you growing up or nothing.’

  ‘No,’ Victoria says. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And it’s not like anything . . .’ Cecil continues, apparently encouraged. ‘I mean, it’s not like anything ever . . . Well, it’s just . . . you need to know that it was just that one time. And it wasn’t only my fault. He was different to other people. He really was. We had, I don’t know, a special bond, I suppose you’d call it. I mean, it was wrong, of course. But he wanted it to happen, too. And it never happened again, I promise you that. You need to know that. You have to believe me. I mean, we have kids, we’ve got three of them. And they’d tell you. They think the world of me. They love their old dad. And he did, too, you see? That was why . . . You do understand, don�
��t you?’

  Penny feels lost. She feels almost surreally lost, in fact. She was already feeling overwrought with emotion from the funeral before this strange encounter happened. It’s as if she’s lacking the spare capacity to work out what’s happening here. She feels as if she has stepped into the cinema halfway through the film. But something definitely is happening here. The colour has completely drained from Victoria’s face, and Cecil’s has gone a deep shade of pink. Despite the gentle breeze, they are both sweating profusely. Yes, something is definitely happening here – something deep and dark and perhaps even dangerous.

  Victoria, on the other hand, feels unlost for the first time in forty years. It’s as if someone has turned a light on and she can suddenly see where she is. Because she was right, wasn’t she? She really did see what she thought she saw. She didn’t make it up, so she isn’t a liar, and she isn’t mad either. What she told her mother was the truth, then. She can tell from the fear in Cecil’s eyes that it was the truth. And in that case, her mother’s allegiances at the time were hopelessly, hatefully, tragically wrong. Unexpectedly, she feels wise and strong and vindicated. But above all, she feels incredibly, incredibly angry.

  ‘So, come for a drink? I mean, of course,’ Cecil is saying, still rambling in a bizarre fashion. ‘I just needed to be sure . . . I mean, you wouldn’t have asked me here to the funeral, would you, otherwise? Not if you didn’t want things to be . . . better. But as long as we’re all agreed that we’ve . . . well, we’ve moved on, haven’t we? It was ages ago, all that. Forgive and forget, and all that, eh? What do you think? Because I’d love another chance. To get to know you. My lovely gals. And your lovely families. Right?’

  He looks pleadingly at Victoria, who remains as still as a statue, then, more hopefully, at Penny. ‘Right?’ he says again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Penny starts, ‘but I have absolutely—’

  ‘OK,’ Victoria says sharply, cutting her short again.

  ‘OK? Oh, thank you,’ Cecil says, raising his hands as if in prayer. ‘I’ve been . . . well, quite nervous about this, really. That’s why, it’s been . . . you know . . . forty years. I mean . . . forty years! But you can see, now, can’t you? You can see that what happened, it was a very unusual thing. A one-off thing. And you do . . . you understand, don’t you?’