This is Me

by Shari Low

  As she looked around her, Denise saw a few faces that she recognised. A couple of blokes from the football team. Christ, they were looking old. They obviously hadn’t taken care of themselves the way her Ray had done. Behind them, there were a few sub-contractors that had been brought in for the construction jobs. A couple of neighbours from their street. God knows how they’d found out, but news travelled fast around here. They’d probably only come for a nosy and a sausage roll from the buffet afterwards.

  With Ray’s parents long gone, she sat in the front row alone. In some ways, she was glad they weren’t there. They’d never had the kind of class that she and Ray had developed over the years. Even now, she still found it hard to believe that they’d come from such basic roots.

  She scanned the room again, searching for two faces. Nothing. They hadn’t come. Her own children hadn’t had the decency to show up and pay their respects to the man who had given them everything. Ray was right in every single thing he’d ever said about them. They were ungrateful, spoiled brats, who had no appreciation for anything.

  She could hear Ray’s voice telling her not to care. Again and again he had told her that all that really mattered was him and her, Ray and Denise against the world. Just the two of them. He was right. But now she sat alone, and he was in a coffin in front of her.

  The funeral director showed an elderly man to the stage, a humanist celebrant recommended by the undertaker. She’d decided against a religious ceremony, because neither of them gave a jot about church, but it still seemed right to have someone speak about him. Really, though, what did it matter? Ray was dead. Whether they cremated him without words, listening to a vicar rambling about God, or after some non-denominational stranger wittered about what a lovely man he was, he was still going to be dead.

  His words blurred into each other and the room became hazy, as she detached herself from what was going on around her. Despite her earlier gesture at the coffin, she did not accept that her love was lying in that box, only feet away. She did not watch as the coffin slid forward and a black velvet curtain closed behind it. She did not shed a tear, because he would have wanted her to be strong and because, if she let herself feel just one glimmer of the pain that she was holding inside, she would collapse on this floor and she wasn’t sure she would ever get up again.

  She chose to believe that there was a different reality and, in it, he was with her. He was in the room. He was watching her, loving her, caring for her even now. She had to believe that because the alternative was unbearable.

  As the man’s voice droned on, she rewound their lives together, choosing to live in the past, rather than the present. The night they met. Only a boy then, but he still had the most beautiful face she’d ever seen. The incredible feeling the first time they’d made love. Followed not long after by the mortification of the day Agnes had dragged her round to Jenny and Pete’s house to confess that she was pregnant. Their wedding. The day they had promised that they would love each other until death parted them. And they had. Although she could still hear her father-in-law Pete’s voice, in the alley beside the reception hall, saying they had to ‘make the best of a bad lot’. All these years and she’d never forgotten that.

  She pressed fast forward. The birth of their children – her irritation at the fact they weren’t there threatened to snap her out of that long gone place, but she forced herself to let it go. Their exquisite holidays, their romantic dinners, the nights he’d made love to her and the countless times that he would tell her how incredible she was and that she made him the happiest man alive. That was all that mattered here, not this old man’s words or this crowd of strangers, mourning something they never had.

  Only the silence and the expectant glance of the celebrant told her that the service was over.

  Slowly, eyes straight ahead, oblivious to the nods of the other mourners, she rose and walked back down the aisle and out of the huge dark oak double doors.

  She squinted for a moment in the daylight, turned her head, and…

  That’s when she saw her.

  She was about ten feet away, heading across the car park, walking quickly, obviously having darted out of the door right before her.

  Denise’s decision was instinctive. No, she wasn’t going to let this happen.

  Ignoring the shocked glances of those around her, she crossed the distance in seconds, put her hand on the fur on the woman’s shoulder, spun her around.

  It was her.

  The same tall frame, the same repulsive, heaving chest, the same long brunette wavy hair, still out of a bottle.

  Yvonne McTay had the audacity to show up here today. The whore.

  ‘How dare you…’ Denise hissed. They were about twenty feet away from everyone else now, out of earshot but within sight. Denise didn’t care if they had an audience. None of these people mattered to her.

  If she expected the other woman to back down, to apologise, to be afraid, she was very, very wrong.

  Yvonne McTay lifted her chin, then spoke with quiet firmness and unequivocal resolve. ‘I have every right to be here. I’m more than entitled to say goodbye to him.’

  Denise snorted. ‘You have no right,’ she spat, her face a twisted veil of disgust.

  Her husband’s mistress came right back at her. ‘Of course I do. Twenty-five years we loved each other. That gives me every right.’

  The pain was like the most ferocious slap across the face, followed by an excruciating body blow that made her fold at the waist. There was screaming in her ears, explosions in her head, no breath whatsoever getting to her lungs.

  She desperately wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. They could barely hold her up. She felt like she was falling… falling…

  ‘Mother.’

  The voice sliced right through the white noise screeching in her brain. She managed to lift her head, to focus her eyes, to register the person in front of her.

  Claire.

  Her daughter had come.

  Forty

  Claire – Two Hours Earlier

  Claire sat on the end of her bed, back straight so as not to put creases in the black dress she’d just peeled from the dry-cleaning bag. A loose strand escaped from the chignon at the nape of her neck and she pushed it back behind her ear with shaking hands, her fingertips gliding over the jaw that was set in defiance of her emotions. She wouldn’t crumble. She wouldn’t falter.

  Her father was gone.

  She exhaled, trying desperately to banish the knot that was twisting her gut.

  He was gone.

  For thirty-nine years, he’d been an undeniable force in her life, his actions and her reactions determining so much of who she was and what she’d become.

  A vision of her mother flashed before her. Losing the love of her life would have left her heartbroken, but Claire was sure to her core that Denise would hold it together, put on one last show for her man. She had never let him down, never faltered in her adoration for a man who was so much more than flawed.

  It went against the laws of nature, the ways of humanity, but all she felt for her parents was disgust.

  And that’s why she was going to walk into that crematorium with her head held high.

  Today she would say a last goodbye to the man who had treated her like she was nothing and she knew, without hesitation, that she would despise him until the end of time.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Sam asked her, clipping his cufflinks into the cuffs of his white shirt. He was coming with her, said he didn’t want her to do it alone. Almost a decade apart, and every heartbeat of her love for this man had come right back. And more.

  ‘I do. But I still can’t tell you why,’ she said, replaying the conversation they’d had so many times since Doug had told her about the text. It was like a feral, irrepressible need to see that it was over. That he was gone. The overriding negative emotion in her life for so long had been her hatred of her parents. Now she was going to say goodbye to half of that. Maybe all
of it. To draw a line and move on with nothing but love and decency in her life.

  A car horn sounded and Sam held his hand out. ‘They’re here.’

  Claire stood, inhaled, exhaled. She could do this.

  By the time she’d made it out of the house, Doug had climbed out of the car and was holding the door open for her. She hugged him, squeezing him tight.

  ‘You sure you want to come?’ she asked him for the umpteenth time.

  He nodded. ‘You go, I go. It’s how we roll,’ he said softly, hugging her again.

  It was true. They’d stuck together through everything. Through Denise’s indifference to them, Ray’s undisguised resentment and dislike for them, through marriages and divorces, and through a secret affair with a best friend that Claire was definitely going to discuss with them when this was all over.

  Right on cue, Jeanna leaned forward in the passenger seat so she could catch her eye. ‘Would you hurry up and get in? This is like a scene from the fricking Godfather out there with you two.’

  Despite the black clothes and the dread of what was ahead, Claire couldn’t help but laugh. When this day was over, she would still have these people with her. That thought was enough to get her through anything.

  They’d left with an hour to spare, because they’d planned to make a detour on the way. Ten minutes later, they turned off a winding road, through a huge set of black iron gates and wove their way through a sea of headstones, eventually stopping at a simple black granite stone with silver writing.

  Fred McAlee

  1935–2011

  Beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather

  A piece of our hearts held close for ever

  Claire and Doug had designed the stone and had it installed after Fred passed away. She knew he’d love it, just as he’d love the bench that they’d had placed on the edge of the grass in front of it.

  Sam and Jeanna stayed in the car, while Claire and Doug climbed out and sat down, her hand reaching for his.

  ‘I come here and feel loss,’ Doug said. ‘Yet I’m going to our father’s funeral and I feel nothing.’

  He couldn’t have summed it up any better.

  ‘We’re going to close a book,’ she told him, before turning to stare at the stone. ‘I feel Grandad showed us what it was to care for someone, to love them, be there for them. We were lucky to have him.’

  She stood, crossed the grass, laid her fingers on the stone, spoke softly, tears running down her face.

  ‘See you later, Grandad. We’ll always be grateful for you.’

  Doug’s arm came around her as she took the first step back towards the car, before he stopped, turned… ‘And, Grandad, if there’s an afterlife, you might want to go and barricade the doors, because you’re not going to like who’s on the way.’

  Five minutes before the ceremony was about to start, they pulled into the car park. They only knew the details because Doug had called his mother that morning at Claire’s house when he’d stormed in with Jeanna and told Claire the news. They’d moved down to the kitchen, sat around the table, drank tea and discussed what to do.

  In the end, Doug had bitten the bullet and called her, with Claire, Jeanna and Sam listening beside him.

  ‘I got your text,’ he’d said.

  There was a pause. ‘Well, I suppose phoning back is the least you can do.’

  ‘Hang up,’ Jeanna had whispered, face flushing, and Claire could see her friend’s protective instinct flaring. There was definitely more than a casual thing going on between those two.

  Doug had ignored her, focused on the call and on Denise’s voice coming from the speaker.

  ‘I need a lawyer. Your wife. Can I speak to her?’

  Claire’s jaw had fallen. So she hadn’t even texted or phoned out of some misplaced parental duty. Nope, she contacted him because she needed something – legal advice from the woman Denise thought was still Doug’s wife.

  ‘It’s the least you can do,’ she’d told him haughtily.

  Claire had wanted to grab the phone, tell her mother exactly what she deserved, but she’d stopped herself, because even in the midst of this emotional maelstrom, she knew that Denise must be destroyed by this loss. Ray Harrow hadn’t just been her husband, he’d been her reason for living, the very purpose of her being, the focus of every single day of her life. Putting her own resentments and feelings to one side, on a purely humane level, she knew this woman on the other end of the phone must be in hell. Now wasn’t the time for castigation or reproach.

  ‘Fiona and I divorced many years ago,’ Doug had said simply.

  There was a pause. ‘Fine. The funeral is at 11 a.m. on Friday if you want to pay your respects.’

  Then she’d hung up. That was it. Conversation over.

  Now it was 10.55 a.m. and the four of them were in the car, watching people dressed all in black enter the building.

  ‘Are we going to do this?’ Jeanna asked. ‘Because, to be honest, I’d be happy to swerve it altogether and just go and have our own wake in the nearest bar.’

  ‘No, we’re doing it,’ Claire said, firmly. ‘But you don’t have to come with us, Jeanna. We can meet you later. There’s honestly no need to subject yourself to this.’

  Only when Jeanna didn’t immediately answer did Claire lean forward so that she could see her friend’s face. Jeanna’s eyes were fixed on the door of the crematorium, at the last of the mourners going through the thick wooden doors.

  ‘Oh bloody hell… I don’t believe it,’ she whistled. ‘Would you look at that?’

  Claire turned her gaze to see what Jeanna was looking at. She could see nothing out of the ordinary, just a man holding the door open for a woman in a long black fur coat and black high heels, her brunette hair falling in waves down her back.

  ‘That’s Yvonne McTay from our scheme.’

  ‘What?’ Claire gasped, just as Doug reacted with a ‘Nooooooo.’

  ‘Who’s Yvonne McTay?’ Sam asked, puzzled.

  ‘I grew up in the Stonebrae scheme, and when we were about fourteen, the bold Ray Harrow was screwing the woman across the road. It kept the garden fence gossips buzzing for months. Her name was Yvonne McTay. And she just walked in there.’ Jeanna reached for the handle. ‘Oh, I’m coming in now.’

  Claire’s shock turned to a strange numbness. A bizarre disbelief about where she was and what she was doing there. It allowed her to be led out, to link arms with Sam, to walk towards the building containing the body of a man she’d avoided for most of her life.

  The celebrant had just started speaking as they slipped into the back row, on the opposite side of the aisle from her father’s mistress.

  She could see the back of her mother’s head, alone in the front pew. She thought for a moment about her paternal grandparents. She knew they’d passed away, but she hadn’t spoken to them since she was a teenager, not since Jenny had reprimanded her and Doug for moving in with Fred, spinning the same line as Denise about how her father was a wonderful man who deserved respect. Jenny had refused to hear different, so Claire had nothing more to say. They’d never met again.

  The coffin slid forward, the black curtain closed and Claire realised that she felt nothing. No sadness, no pain, nothing. Just closure. It was done.

  As the celebrant wound up the service, the mourners at the front rose and began to walk towards the doors. Her mother looked straight ahead, eyes never veering from the doors in front of her, seeing none of them. Claire couldn’t believe how little she’d changed. Yes, her expression was stony, her lips a thin line of suppressed emotion, but Denise Harrow was still a stunning woman who looked like she was in her early forties. Clearly that’s what money and self-indulgence bought these days.

  As was customary, everyone waited until the chief mourners passed before vacating their seats, except… she just caught a glimpse of the fur coated woman to her left slipping out of a side door.

  Her mother passed, but it was a few more moments before those s
itting in her row could follow. When they eventually made it into the daylight, Denise was nowhere to be seen.

  Claire put her hand above her eyes to block the sun as she scanned the car park. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘There!’ Doug said, pointing to the left, to where their mother was standing, face like fury, confronting one very glamorous, very composed mourner.

  ‘I’d buy tickets for this,’ Jeanna blurted, inappropriate as always.

  Claire rapidly ran through the options. Leave. This was nothing to do with her. She didn’t care. Her reason for being here was done. Chapter closed. Or go over there. Intervene. Because it was more than probably the right thing to do.

  ‘Damn it,’ she blurted, before taking off, walking swiftly towards the two women fronting up to each other in a crematorium car park.

  Her interruption was forceful and invited no argument. ‘Mother! What the hell is going on?’

  Denise immediately clamped her mouth shut, her face a mask of pure arrogance. The other woman didn’t say anything either, just stood there, chin jutting forward in defiance.

  Claire decided to tackle her first. ‘I’m Ray’s daughter,’ she said, not unkindly.

  ‘I know who you are,’ Yvonne answered in the same conciliatory tone.

  ‘OK,’ Claire said, exhaling, no idea where to go next. She decided on honesty. ‘I know who you are too, Ms McTay,’ she managed a weak smile, trying her best to de-escalate the situation and restore some kind of civility. ‘And I’m sure you and my mother must have a lot to talk about, but I’m thinking this probably isn’t the best time and place.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn,’ Denise blurted. ‘I want answers.’

  Yvonne immediately narrowed her eyes at her again.

  Claire could feel her old aversion to confrontation rising. Oh, crap, this wasn’t going well.

  ‘OK, OK. Look there’s a conservatory over there…’ she said, pointing to a glass structure that sat beside the garden of remembrance. There were chairs in it, somewhere family members could go to feel close to the loved ones whose ashes were scattered there. It wasn’t exactly meant to be the venue for two furious women to have a showdown, but it was the only port in this storm.