Five Winters(67)

The organ started up again, launching into the tune. I remembered the miserable-sounding hymn from my school days. How bored I’d been in the stuffy school hall singing the old-fashioned-sounding words. Now, each word felt like shrapnel to my heart.

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended; The darkness falls at Thy behest . . .

Jaimie was singing beside me in a deep, melodious voice I realised I had never heard before. Why not? We’d been together for a year. Why the hell hadn’t I ever heard him sing? And why was I even thinking about that now?

I couldn’t sing myself; the razor blades in my throat wouldn’t allow it. And I could mostly only hear Grace’s high-pitched voice coming from the pew in front of me. Sylvia pitched in every now and then. Faltered. Regrouped. Tried again. Stop, start; stop, start.

The hymn came to an end. The vicar spoke a few words. I heard none of them. I was remembering Richard’s arm around my shoulders as we watched TV one evening shortly after I’d gone to live with the family for good. A game show was on, and the four contestants were attempting to dance the flamenco, the women swishing their bright, frilly skirts and shuffling and stamping their feet, the men wearing fedoras and holding their hands aloft. All of them looking outrageously foolish.

I had no idea why that particular memory surfaced out of all the memories stored up in my brain, but it did. I could feel Richard’s body shaking with laughter next to mine, could see his head thrown back as he guffawed without restraint.

And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about Richard any longer; I was thinking about my own father, who had so loved to dance. I was thinking about him and Mum dancing the tango, their backs ramrod straight, their faces appropriately brooding. They’d competed in dance competitions together, my parents, taking it seriously, leaving me with Tilda if they’d had to travel away from home.

When the competition was more local, Tilda and I dressed in our best dresses and went to watch. My dad always looked so handsome in his dress suit, a number pinned to his back, his auburn hair gleaming beneath the spotlight, and my mother was glamorous in her jewel-coloured satin dresses. I loved being a part of the audience, even though when I was younger, I always cried when they were eliminated from the competition.

By the time they were killed in a car crash on their way back from a long weekend in the Lake District to celebrate their anniversary, I’d stopped that crying. Maybe someone, somewhere, knew I’d need my tears for the long years I’d be without them.

I was sobbing brokenly now. Jaimie’s arm was around me, holding me tight. Rosie looked at me over her shoulder, her own eyes rimmed in red. Then the vicar finished speaking, and Mark stood to go to the front to give his eulogy. I blew my nose, trying to pull myself together for him.

He waited for a moment, looking down at his piece of paper, gathering his courage. Then he cleared his throat and began.

“My father was very skilled with his hands. He could make furniture. He could mend clocks. Fix cars. Construct complicated spaceships out of Lego. You name it. He tried—unsuccessfully—to pass some of those practical skills on to me. Stood patiently as, time after time, I bungled the things he found effortless. Yet he never once gave me the impression he was anything but proud of me.

“As a heating engineer, Dad had the magic touch. Could coax old boilers back from the dead. Diagnose what was wrong just by listening to them. He took me with him sometimes, when I was growing up. I never did learn how to fix a boiler. But I did learn the importance of setting aside time for a cup of tea and a chat with some of his older customers.

“My dad wasn’t a fix-and-go sort of a man. If he had been, we might have had a new car. More expensive holidays. But we wouldn’t have had Dad. The world just lost a nugget of kindness. It will be a far colder, bleaker place as a result.”

Mark’s voice faltered to a stop. He folded up his piece of paper. Then he looked up at us, the tears spilling down his cheeks. “I shall miss him more than I can say.”

As he returned to his place, more tears leached from me, Mark’s misery piling up on top of mine. By the time the service was over, I was a dried husk of a person who couldn’t imagine speaking normally about ordinary things to anyone ever again. Yet as we followed the coffin down the aisle and turned towards the exit, I caught a glimpse of the hollow-eyed determination on Sylvia’s face. It was as if she were telling herself, I will get through this. I will get through this. And suddenly I wanted to find some strength so that Sylvia wouldn’t feel she had to shore me up as well as deal with her own grief.

As we emerged into the unforgiving January day, I took in some gulps of cold air. One. Two. Then another. And another. And when Jaimie asked me again, “Are you all right?” and I answered, “Yes,” it was less of a lie than it had been before. Richard wasn’t here to support Sylvia any longer, so we had to do it. It was as simple as that.

At the graveside, I disentangled myself from Jaimie to go and stand between Mark and Rosie. Sylvia was on the other side, next to the vicar. When he began to speak, she closed her eyes.

“Almighty God, as you once called our brother Richard into this life, so now you have called him into life everlasting.”

Next to me, Mark shook his head, as if to reject the vicar’s words.

“We therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Tears were sliding down Mark’s face now. I reached to clasp his hand.