The Manner of the Mourning

by Robert Ward

  “Are you going to keep this up?” Charles asked Elizabeth. “Because apart from insulting my guests and ruining the evening, you’re making a total ass of yourself.”

  “What the hell does it matter? Let’s all get rat-arsed and insult each other,” she said. “What do you think, Daniel darling?”

  She leaned up against him and looked at him with her face right up close to his and smiled, fluttering her eyelashes.

  “I’m all for getting rat-arsed,” he said. “But I’d rather we forgot about the insults. I’d like to know what’s making you angry though, and why you deliberately say things you don’t mean?”

  “How do you know I don’t mean them?”

  “Well, do you?”

  Elizabeth kissed him long and hard on his lips, holding his head in her hands, and then, as she released him, looked close into his eyes.

  “You know that ancient Egyptians weren’t the same as sub-Saharan Africans, don’t you?” she said. “The same way that Zimbabwe wasn’t the work of a lost white tribe?”

  “The truth is always better than lies to support an argument, no matter how much you would like the lies to be true,” Daniel said.

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said. “And I am an ass. Don’t listen to anything I say and we’ll get along fine.”

  “I’ll listen,” he said. “But I might not take any notice.”

  “Charles, find some steel band music would you?” said Elizabeth, turning to him and laughing.

  “Liz,” Charles said.

  “Now don’t get all indignant. Daniel knows what I’m doing. Put some chamber music on if you’d prefer.”

  Elizabeth started to cry and turned to Cathy, sitting next to her.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me at all. Please forgive me. I’m sorry, everyone. I think I’m going bonkers.”

  Cathy put her hands on Elizabeth’s arm and gently stroked it.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with you either,” she said. “But Lucy’s right, you’re a bitch, and you’re full of hate.”

  “I’m full of crap too,” Elizabeth said, dabbing her eyes with a paper tissue and then blowing her nose into it.

  “We’re well aware of that, dear,” Lucy said.

  “Excuse me for a moment please, everyone,” Elizabeth said and left the room.

  “I really don’t know what to say,” Charles said, as he made sure everyone had a large drink. “She’s really not like this. I can only apologise for her. There must be something wrong.”

  “I think she’s what’s wrong,” Lucy said. “Drop her, Charles. She’s poison.”

  “I love her,” he said, quietly

  Dolly slipped out of the room and went upstairs, where she heard Elizabeth snivelling in the bedroom. She knocked at the half open door and entered, and then sat down next to her on the bed.

  “What’s really the matter?” she asked, putting her arm around Elizabeth and giving her a squeeze.

  “I don’t know, honestly I don’t.”

  “You only hurt yourself by being hateful, you know? And you didn’t mean any of what you said, or implied, did you. Especially not the racist rubbish. I know, because I’ve lived with a racist dickhead for twenty years. Yes, Johnny. He’d never come out and say it in public of course, he’s too much of a coward. He enjoyed your little performance because they’re the sort of things he’d like to say himself if he had the courage.

  But it just happened that Daniel and Cathy are black, isn’t that right? If they hadn’t been you’d just have found something else to attack. I mean, you had a bit of a go at Lucy as well, didn’t you, but you weren’t so sure of yourself there because I don’t think you really knew what you were talking about. Is that right? And you forgot to have a go at her for being a lesbian, or were you saving that for later?”

  “How much you know,” Elizabeth said, resting her head on Dolly’s shoulder. “I don’t know what it is I want, but I want it. I know I’m like a two year old having a tantrum. I don’t know why Charles puts up with me.”

  “Yes you do,” Dolly said. “He’s besotted with you, and you torment him somehow, with something. You are a cruel girl in some ways, aren’t you?”

  “Do you think the others can forgive me? Daniel and Cathy and Lucy?” she asked, not wanting to answer.

  “I think you overestimate your own importance. You don’t really think you’ve said anything that they haven’t heard before, do you? And then from people who really meant it, and people who really knew what they were talking about? You’ve said you’re sorry and now let that be an end to it, and don’t play the same game twice. But I wouldn’t expect them to become close friends if I were you. You’ve already done too much damage for that.”

  Dolly gave her another squeeze and kissed her on the forehead and Elizabeth looked at her and smiled and sat up straight on the bed.

  “I must look a sight,” she said. “I’d better restore the mask in the bathroom, and thanks, Dolly. I don’t know why you’ve bothered. There’s one thing I want to ask you though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you love Johnny?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “He’s a pig and an arrogant little shit. But I do love him. We’ve been married now for twenty years, and I suppose in some ways you just get used to someone. I’ve always overlooked his little sexual peccadilloes. You see, he likes young girls, and I mean, young, so I’m of little interest to him any more, not that I was very much when we were first married. I was past thirty then, you see, which for him was positively geriatric.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Not by Johnny. I have two children though, both grown up now of course. I was married before, you see. Luckily, they were both boys. They think the world of Johnny. He’s not all bad.”

  “Thanks, Dolly,” Elizabeth said again and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  As she was leaving, Dolly turned back in the doorway and looked at Elizabeth for a moment.

  “I wish you’d tell me what’s hurting you,” she said.

  “I can’t,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t know myself.”

  A moment later, after Dolly had returned to the sitting room, Elizabeth tried to get into the bathroom but found it occupied, by Jodie, she was informed by Johnny, who was lurking suspiciously at the top of the stairs.

  “You go before me,” he said, patting the top of the banister. “And I’d just like to say that I thought you were quite right to say some of the things you did earlier.”

  “That’s because you’re a racist dickhead, Johnny,” she said. “And please, you use the bathroom first. I wouldn’t like to leave Jodie out here with you. You never know what might happen.”

  “I see the old bird has knackered me again,” he said, smiling and sweeping his hand over his thin grey hair. “I’m just trying to let her know what she’s missing.”

  Elizabeth moved close to him and linked her hands at the back of his head and kissed him. He slid his hands up from her waist and over her breasts, squeezing them. He moaned with satisfaction.

  “Now, will that do you? At least for the moment?” she asked.

  “Hmn, yes. At my age, one can hardly expect more. And that was quite lovely.”

  They heard the bolt-lock click from the bathroom door and Jodie came out, surprised it seemed to see them both standing there.

  “Sorry, did I take long?” she asked.

  “No, not at all. Though I think Johnny is bursting,” Elizabeth said.

  Back down in the sitting room the party was in full swing, with everyone being well oiled with alcohol, and clearly having had a much better time in Elizabeth’s absence.

  She sat down again next to Daniel, but this time on his left, next to the arm of the settee, and not between him and Cathy, who was leaning across and talking to Lucy. Jodie sat in the chair next to Lucy’s and sipped her drink, without speaking.

  Charles was talking t
o Johnny and Dolly on the other side of the room, and as Elizabeth wasn’t interested in any of the talk, she listened to the rain as it beat against the window pane and took a sip from her glass of bourbon.

  “Feeling better?” Daniel asked her, noticing her distraction.

  “Much, thank you,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s no need,” he said.

  Daniel was wearing a dark brown leather jacket and a white open necked shirt and she asked him why he hadn’t taken his jacket off, as she noticed he was sweating.

  “It’s my defence mechanism,” he said.

  “Defence from what?”

  “I just feel more comfortable wearing my jacket. We all have something to hide, don’t we?”

  “I’m sure that means something, but I’m too stupid to know what. Do you forgive me?”

  “I’ve already told you,” he said.

  Elizabeth noticed that Cathy had stopped talking for a moment and she took the opportunity to lean across Daniel and speak to her.

  “I hear you’re a poet, Cathy,” she said. “I have a friend who’s a writer. He writes plays. His name’s Richard.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Richard and Miranda were married on a beautiful day in April. It was unusually warm for so early in the year and the air was filled with a rich spring freshness that made one think of blossoms and lambs.

  It was a church wedding, which may have seemed a strange choice for them, as neither Richard nor Miranda had seen the inside of a church for some years, and on the few previous occasions they had been in one it was for weddings of relatives or friends, or christenings of removed cousins. Neither of them had yet been to a funeral.

  The vicar of St Mary’s had been accommodating though, having long ago abandoned the idea that those being married in church should be churchgoers. He was just happy to have more than half a dozen people inside, for whatever occasion.

  There were few guests. Immediate family, and friends, mostly actors and writers and other theatrical persons. Both of their mothers cried. Elizabeth remained true to her word and did not attend.

  Miranda looked beautiful in her white dress and headdress of daisies and Richard wore a hired morning suit. Her red and white flowers were thrown to a small group of girlfriends, none of whom seemed keen to catch them and thus be designated as the next to marry. To have called them bridesmaids would imply a slightly more formal and conventional occasion than it actually was.

  After photographs were taken outside the church, which was pretty and made of chalky flintstone and had a tall slim spire, everyone drove off to the Highwayman’s Inn for the reception. The food provided was as good as it could be in the mass-catering way, and the drink flowed freely. Miranda’s parents had insisted on paying for everything in the traditional way as she was their only daughter and in some ways this was as big a day for them as it was for her. Richard had booked a room for his parents at the Highwayman’s.

  In the late afternoon, when everyone was well oiled and the revels were in full swing, Richard and Miranda decided that it was time to slip away. They kissed their slightly tipsy and emotional parents goodbye, and anyone who happened to notice that they were leaving, and waved to everyone else. A chorus of goodbyes then swept them out, and a few people followed them into the car park to see them off. A moment later they were driving away in their “Just Married” emblazoned car.

  “Who put the Just Married banner on do you think?” Miranda asked.

  “I don’t know. Some romantic fool no doubt. At least they didn’t tie tin cans to the car.”

  “I think it was nice of them, whoever it was.”

  “Yes, it was really.”

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Happy,” said Richard. “But no different really. How about you?”

  “No different. But I’m a Mrs now, aren’t I. I never really thought this would happen to me.”

  “It makes you feel grown-up somehow, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does. Does this mean we’re going to have to become responsible?”

  “Good God, no,” he said.

  They were booked in for three nights at the Sandringham Hotel, by the sea. They had decided to take a longer holiday somewhere abroad later, in the summer. Probably Italy. They still hadn’t been away together anywhere despite their frequent discussions of the matter.

  Richard drove through the lovely spring countryside with the windows and the sunroof open and the radio on, which was playing some good driving music. For a long time they just listened and let themselves enjoy the immediate moment. There was early blossom on the trees and there were newborn lambs gambolling unsteadily in the fields.

  “You looked wonderfully pagan today, in your virginal white,” he said.

  “That was the idea, wasn’t it?”

  “I meant that you looked beautiful.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “I know you do.”

  Miranda turned up the volume slightly on the radio.

  “I like this one,” she said. “What time do you think we’ll get there?”

  “About another hour,” he said.

  “I see your friend didn’t turn up. Elizabeth.”

  “She said she wouldn’t, so I wasn’t expecting her to. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. There were more people than I expected. How many were there?”

  “About fifty, I think. But you must know, you did the invitations.”

  “I suppose there must have been,” she said. “People in the flesh seem more than on paper though.”

  “Your mum and dad seemed to get on well with mine.”

  “That’s because they’re all lovely mums and dads, I suppose. Did everyone get a piece of the cake? I forgot to make sure.”

  “Your mum made sure everybody did.”

  “Good old Mum.”

  Richard signed their names in the hotel register, Mr and Mrs Ingle, and they were shown to their room by a boy of about sixteen wearing one of those ridiculous uniforms that make people look like monkeys. Richard tipped him with a five pound note through generosity of the occasion or out of pity. He wasn’t sure which. He noticed the boy was smiling as he left the room.

  Miranda flopped back onto the bed and heard the springs squeak.

  “Isn’t it traditional for the bed to be sabotaged so that it collapses on such occasions?” she asked. “This one doesn’t seem to need any help.”

  “I think the squeaking is supposed to enhance the passion,” he said. “This is after all the bridal suite. Or at least one of them. I suppose any room they choose is so called if they know the couple they’re renting it to have just got spliced.”

  “Spliced. An inextricable joining together. A carpentry term I think. Or is it nautical, like splicing the mainbrace? Some people seem to think that when you get married you cease to be an individual and join together with another as some kind of hybrid creature.”

  “I don’t think that will ever apply to us,” he said.

  “It had better not.”

  The room was pleasant and well appointed and had a nice view across the promenade to the sea. It was still bright outside and there were people out walking in the warm early evening. The sea was calm and lapped gently onto the long pebble beach, reflecting the colour of the sky. Richard looked out as he opened one of the windows and breathed in the salty air.

  “Let’s have a drink,” Miranda said. “We hardly had anything earlier, for form’s sake, did we?”

  “Well, I was going to drive.”

  “Quite,” she said. “Oh look, they’ve stocked the bar and there’s a little note saying, compliments of the management and good luck in your life together. Isn’t that nice?”

  “We’ll be paying for it somehow,” he said.

  “Cynic.”

  She went over to the window and handed him a glass of whisky.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked. “You seem distrac
ted.”

  “Nothing at all. I’m just enjoying the moment,” he said.

  She put her arms around him and he felt her soft golden hair, pressing it gently against her head.

  “I think we’re supposed to undress now and I’m supposed to faint, seeing an adult male member for the first time. I think I’m only supposed to have seen my little brother’s in the bath when we were infants.”

  He laughed and held her closer.

  “Well you’ve seen mine often enough and you know it’s nothing to faint about,” he said.

  “It works though,” she said.

  “That was kind of you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she said.

  In the morning they called room service and had scrambled eggs with toast and coffee for breakfast. Neither of them felt like anything elaborate. They lay in bed until late in the morning with the windows open, letting the cool sea breeze blow over them, and listening to the distant sounds from the seafront.

  “What shall we do today then?” Richard asked.

  “Let’s not do anything,” she said. “We’re going to have to get used to that now. Now that we’re an old married couple. Not doing anything, I mean. We’re supposed to be comfortable with each other. The pressure is off. We don’t have to entertain each other for twenty four hours a day any more.”

  “And am I supposed to start knocking you about and having affairs?”

  “Of course. And I’m supposed to let myself go and become an alcoholic slattern.”

  “What a nightmare lies before us.”

  “Yep.”

  Miranda moved over slightly so that the back of her head rested on his shoulder and he put his left arm around her.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked after a moment, trying to focus his eyes on the top of her head.

  “I’m thinking of all your annoying little habits that over the years will drive me crazy. You know, little ways that are endearing at first but will become focus points for my hatred over time.”

  “I suppose there’s a list?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Come on then, let’s have it. I never leave the top off the toothpaste.”