‘I know,’ said Kate. ‘She’s a very hard act to follow. But thank you. It’s lovely to hear how much she meant to people.’
‘And what can I do for you?’
Kate tried not to grip the handles of her bag too tightly. Now she came to vocalise it, she was embarrassed.
‘I’ve just realised I left all my medication in the bathroom at the airport.’
‘What medication was it?’
Kate looked down. It was hard to explain without sounding desperate.
‘Well, my sleeping tablets. I can’t sleep without them. I’m worried about how I’m going to get through the next few days, especially with the jet lag and the time difference …’
She could see Dr Webster processing the information. She steeled herself for a grilling.
‘How long have you been prescribed sleeping tablets?’
‘Um … I don’t know.’ Kate tried to remember the first time she’d asked the swanky Upper East Side doctor for some help to get her to sleep. ‘Maybe … two years?’
‘Two years? Without a break?’
Dr Webster’s gaze bored into her. Kate knew she wouldn’t get away with a lie. She was the kind of woman there was no point in lying to.
‘I’ve got a stressful job. I work anti-social hours.’
‘What is it you do, again? I know from your mother it was something very high powered …’
Kate looked away. She couldn’t, just couldn’t, tell this intelligent, hardworking, conscientious woman that, when it came down to it, no matter what fancy title you gave it, she was a party planner.
‘I’m an … executive … events … executive. I have to be on call twenty-four seven.’
In case some princessy party thrower got arsey about her guest list or her goodie bags.
Dr Webster didn’t comment. She just smiled.
‘It’s a tough job,’ said Kate weakly, ‘but someone’s got to do it.’
‘When are you going back?’
‘Only about a week. I’m expected back at work as soon as possible.’
Compassionate leave wasn’t really in Carlos’s lexicon. She had an open ticket but she’d sworn not to leave him too long unattended.
Dr Webster consulted her computer.
‘I’m not keen on prescribing sleeping pills long term without a detailed history and some sort of sleep management plan, but under the circumstances … Your body clock is going to be all over the place anyway, and it’s a tough time. I don’t think throwing you into cold turkey is going to help matters.’ She started to type. ‘I’ll give you enough to tide you over until you get home. If you need more, come back and see me.’
‘Thank you.’ It was worrying, thought Kate, how relieved she was. Maybe that was a sign of dependence?
Who was she kidding? Of course she was dependent. She couldn’t remember her last night’s sleep without them. She took them as a matter of course.
Dr Webster looked at her, stern but concerned.
‘I really recommend you find some way of coming to terms with your sleep problems without resorting to medication. Lifestyle, diet, exercise – these can all be a cause but they can also help. Relaxation. Yoga—’
Kate’s phone chirruped in her bag. There must be a stronger signal here at the surgery, and all her messages were getting through at once. She resisted the urge to burrow in her bag and check them immediately.
‘Sorry,’ she apologised.
Dr Webster smiled.
‘Being a slave to your phone doesn’t help. I give myself a rule not to check mine after six p.m. I shut it in a drawer when I get home.’
Kate tried not to laugh at the suggestion. She might as well have said don’t breathe after six p.m. That was when the really important messages started to come through. From drunken clients or bolshy chefs or flaky performers.
‘Try to find a doctor who will help you with your dependence. Rather than enabling it.’
Easier said than done, thought Kate. She felt sorry that she wasn’t going to be here longer. She knew Dr Webster wouldn’t indulge her dependence for any longer than was necessary.
‘I’ll deal with it as soon as I get back.’
Doctor Webster handed over the prescription. ‘I hope the next few days go as well as can be expected.’
Kate almost snatched it out of her hand. She’d have just enough time to go and fill it at the chemist before getting home, changing and making it to the church.
Kate filled her prescription at the chemist halfway down the high street, the same one where she had bought her first lipstick, countless Alka-Seltzers after a heavy night at the Neptune, and the pregnancy test for Debbie when she’d had a scare. A chemist, she thought, held so many secrets, as her tablets were handed to her in a white paper bag.
She hated herself for the relief she felt.
Then she hurried home.
She’d hung her funeral outfit up the night before to get rid of the creases. A black Prada dress and courts. A pair of sheer black tights. A three-strand pearl necklace – fake, but expensive. She sighed as she looked at the clothes on the hanger. She would look ridiculous. Totally overdressed. It wasn’t as if she needed to impress anyone. This wasn’t Manhattan, where to be anything other than immaculate was a hanging offence. This outfit was totally inappropriate. She would look as if she thought she was better than everyone else. Her mum’s friends would be turning up in whatever they happened to be wearing that day. Pennfleet didn’t stand on ceremony.
Nothing else she’d brought with her seemed suitable.
And so she opened her wardrobe. It smelled of the lavender-stuffed hangers her mum had given her one Christmas. And the Dewberry Body Shop scent Kate used to wear. She breathed in her youth: so sweet. It was comforting.
She pawed through the remaining clothes: baggy jumpers, bright cotton skirts, a denim jacket, a chunky Arran cardigan with a hood that she used to wear all winter. At the back was her favourite dress, the one she had worn to death since she’d bought it with the money her parents had given her for her eighteenth, on a shopping trip to Exeter. It was dark-green velvet, with tight sleeves and covered buttons all down the front and a fishtail skirt. She’d thought she was the bee’s knees in it.
The dress still fitted. Like a dream. She slipped on a pair of flat black suede pumps with it. With her hair down, and a pair of earrings she found in her dressing-table drawer, she looked more like the girl who had left Pennfleet all those years ago.
This was the girl her mother would want her to be. At least for today. Joy had been proud of everything Kate had achieved, of course she had, yet Kate felt a little like a stranger whenever her mum had come to New York. As if she was playing or pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
Which was the real Kate? This one, natural and unmade-up, or the pimped-up version who had swept into town. Both of them, maybe. You could be more than one person, couldn’t you?
Either way, the Kate in the mirror was the one she wanted to be today. The one who had come home to say goodbye.
There was a discreet knock on the front door. She shut her eyes. It would be the undertaker. She knew if she looked out of her window, the hearse would be pulled up outside Belle Vue, her mother’s wicker coffin inside. People would gather outside the shops and houses and bow their heads. Pennfleet still respected tradition. Was she ready? She felt tears well up. She prayed she wouldn’t break down as soon as she opened the front door.
‘Buck up, love,’ she imagined her mother saying. ‘Crying won’t bring me back.’
She pressed her fingertips underneath her eyes, as if to push the tears back in. She took in a deep breath. She shook out her hair and pushed back her shoulders, walked down the stairs and opened the front door with the bravest smile she could muster.
‘Miss Jackson,’ said Malcolm Toogood, the undertaker, holding out his hand, and she took it, and felt strong. Strong enough, at least.
In the end, the funeral was rather wonderful. Or ‘Joy-full’, as the vic
ar had joked. It truly was a celebration of her mother’s life, and Kate felt uplifted rather than sad as she came out into the churchyard afterwards, to shake hands with mourners and read the heartfelt messages on the bouquets of flowers.
‘Kate.’ The voice of the next person in line was familiar. She looked up into a pair of light-green eyes. ‘I’m so sorry. Your mother was a legend.’
Rupert Malahide. She was startled to see him. She hadn’t given him a thought for years. She took his proffered hand. What on earth was he doing at her mother’s funeral? Surely he lived in London? The Malahides only came down in the summer, to Southcliffe, the mad rambling tumbledown house they had further downriver.
‘I brought Granny. She wanted to pay her respects.’ Rupert was the sort of man who somehow managed to get away with saying ‘Granny’ without sounding ridiculous. ‘She thought the world of your mother.’
Rupert’s grandmother Irene was the most redoubtable of matriarchs – his father’s mother, who ruled a roost of her unruly grandchildren over the summer while their parents did goodness knows what. The Malahide brood had mixed in with the locals when it suited them, for sport and entertainment, but they were a law unto themselves. Rich and beautiful and wild. Rupert, especially, had considered the local girls to belong in his own personal toy box.
Including her. Kate shut out the memory for the time being. There were enough emotions swirling round inside her; she didn’t need another one. It was hard, though, for here he was, looking like a pillar of society in a dark-grey suit, the hair that had once been matted and bleached with salt now swept back. But still those fine features that could only come from the most patrician gene pool. And those devil’s eyes that could undo a button at fifty paces.
‘It’s very good of you to bring her,’ she said. She could see Irene, standing in the church doorway. She was wearing dark glasses and carrying a stick – Kate remembered Joy telling her Irene was losing her sight. ‘How is she?’
‘You can imagine. Absolutely refuses to believe there is anything wrong or that she needs to change her lifestyle one iota. She drives me nuts.’
His smile contradicted him with its fondness.
‘It must be awful for her,’ said Kate.
‘I promise you, it doesn’t stop her doing anything she wants.’
Kate watched Irene head down the steps. She could sense her determination. A woman who wasn’t going to let anything get her down. Rather like her own mother. They were poles apart on the social scale, but Irene and Joy were made from the same mould. Kate hoped she’d inherited her mother’s doughtiness.
‘Are you here for long?’ Rupert’s question broke her reverie.
‘I need to get back to New York as quickly as I can.’ Kate felt a surge of pride at being able to tell him this. She felt so much stronger and more colourful than the girl she had once been. ‘But obviously there’s a mountain of things to sort out. Probate. The house …’
‘Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’ She was taken aback by his solicitousness. ‘I’ve got an office at Southcliffe if you need any photocopying done, or a fax machine. Probate in this country is still out of the ark.’
‘That’s very kind.’
‘Honestly. Just give me a ring.’ He handed her a card, and she put it into her bag without looking at it. ‘And if you’re at a loose end, maybe we could have dinner?’
Now Kate really was startled.
‘I thought you were married?’ The words came out before she could stop herself. She didn’t think, she knew, because her mother had told her. Hadn’t she? She tried to remember the details.
He gave a wry grin. ‘Were being the operative word.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s fine. We were both too young. And we’re still the best of friends.’ He grinned. ‘The Townhouse by the Sea has a great restaurant. Maybe not by New York standards, but if you’ve had enough of Cornish pasties …’
Kate hated herself for wanting to say yes on the spot. She felt so much more comfortable in his presence than she had done when she was young. She was a successful businesswoman now, socially confident and self-aware, not a naive, unsophisticated ingénue. Yet he still had the power to make her stomach swirl. He was standing inches from her, and she could feel his body heat, smell the sandalwood undertones of his cologne and she felt her blood warm. No one had done that to her for years. She’d had boyfriends, dates, flings, but none of them made her feel this primal—
Dear God, what was she thinking? This was her mother’s funeral, not a speed date. How inappropriate could you get? She wasn’t going to miss the chance, though.
‘I’d love that,’ she said impulsively. It was true. She was a match for him now, and she wanted the opportunity to spar with him. She wanted him to know exactly what he’d missed out on.
‘Great.’ If he was surprised by her response, he didn’t show it. ‘Shall we say Tuesday? Eight o’clock?’
‘Tuesday at eight,’ she said, and turned to greet his mother. ‘Oh, Mrs Malahide. I do appreciate you coming.’
Irene reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding her stick and squeezed Kate’s. ‘My dear, your grandmother was an example to us all.’
‘I know. I’ll never live up to her.’
‘Well, she was very proud of you. You should know that.’
‘Thank you.’ Again, Kate felt overwhelmed by the goodwill towards her mother. She felt proud. And sad. So many emotions … She faltered for a moment.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to find it was Rupert’s. He had a look of compassion on his face that surprised her. She could feel the heat of his fingers burn through her dress.
‘Excuse me … I must … There are so many people …’ She moved away from the Malahides. She could still feel his touch. For a moment, she wanted to laugh, pull Debbie to one side, have a whispered exchange just as they had done as teenagers. ‘Oh my God, he’s asked me for dinner …’ But now was neither the time nor the place. The churchyard was emptying, as people headed to the hall for tea. She should head there herself, make sure everything was in order.
As she left, she saw another hearse heading up the high street, a fleet of cars behind it. She wasn’t the only person in the world mourning, it seemed. She wasn’t sure whether that was a comfort or not.
6
The last time Vanessa had walked up the aisle to the front of St Mary’s was the day she had married Spencer. The little church had been as full then as it was today. A lot of the people were the same, too. There was just one notable difference. None of her family was here.
Her father wasn’t, of course, because she hadn’t seen him since she was four years old. Nor was her mother. She and Squirrel had agreed to differ on Spencer a long time ago.
‘I’ll come if you want me to, of course, darling,’ said Squirrel.
But Vanessa couldn’t face the extra tension. Even though Spencer was dead, it would still be there. Far better to have a stress-free send-off and spend some time with Squirrel afterwards.
So here she was, outnumbered by Spencer’s family. She slid her way into the front pew that had been reserved for her. Mary Mac was already there, the only other person she wanted with her. She was in a smart navy jacket and skirt with lipstick on. Vanessa didn’t think she’d ever seen Mary in anything but a sweatshirt and jeans, make-up free.
Mary took her hand. Her warm sausagey fingers were a reassurance. Vanessa smiled her thanks. She knew everyone was looking at her but trying to pretend they weren’t.
Karina, Daniella and Aiden were in the right-hand pew: Karina in a sleek black suit which she would have spent hours on Net A Porter choosing; Daniella pale and red-eyed in a too-tight, too-short dress and Aiden awkward in a suit, looking as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world. Vanessa thought he was probably wondering where his next spliff would come from. She’d caught him smoking more than a few times when he’d been to stay. Her silence hadn’t bought Aiden
’s respect or affection, though – he still treated her with utter indifference, although she had never blown the whistle on him. Daniella was equally hostile, as if it was somehow Vanessa’s fault that their mother had left their father, three years before she’d even appeared on the scene. They had bought into the gold-digging myth perpetuated by their mother.
Vanessa had been as kind as she possibly could to them – why wouldn’t she be? – but they still treated her with suspicion and disdain. In the end, she came to the conclusion that they were so spoiled they treated everyone like that. She never heard Spencer reprimand them for their manners or discuss their schoolwork or give them any guidance whatsoever. He just gave them whatever they asked for. At best this was guilt; at worst, indifference and laziness.
If they’d had children, she thought …
The vicar came to the front and looked out over the congregation with a benign smile. Vanessa looked down at her order of service, at the picture of Spencer at the helm of Poseidon. Mary squeezed her fingers again. A bubble started in her tummy and wormed its way up to her throat. She swallowed it down in panic. She couldn’t lose it. Not in church. Not here. Not now.
With a huge effort of will, she fought down the terrible, overwhelming schoolgirl desire to laugh.
7
Joy’s funeral tea was held in the church hall, a draughty old building round the back of the graveyard. Courtesy of the fundraising committee, it had recently been painted a rather jolly yellow inside, and so felt more welcoming than it had last time Kate had ventured in. Probably, she thought, for the Christmas bazaar her mother had run for years: endless trestle tables filled with festive crafts that nobody really wanted but bought anyway, because it was all in a good cause and that’s what you were supposed to do.
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