The Mother-in-Law(56)
Lucy takes another step toward me.
A nurse appears in the doorway. “Is everything all right in here?”
“Lucy,” I say, holding up my hands, “just take a breath—”
But Lucy thrusts a palm out, flat like a stop sign. It connects with my own hands and I stagger backward. I feel a sharp pain in my ankle and I go down, hard.
“We need security in here,” I hear someone call.
Lucy disappears and people I don’t recognize appear right up close.
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
“I need a doctor in here!”
“Are you all right, Mum?”
“Don’t try to move her.”
They’re making a big fuss about nothing. I’m fine. I’m on the floor now, I believe. Color dances in front of my eyes. And then it’s just . . . black.
35: LUCY
THE PRESENT . . .
I wear Diana’s necklace to the funeral, the one she loaned me on my wedding day. She’d left it to me in her will. When I’d tipped it out of its envelope this morning, there had been a little note attached:
At least this time, you don’t have to give it back.
One thing to be said about Diana, she had an unexpected sense of humor. I’d planned to wear the necklace with my hot-pink wrap dress, but instead I’d gone for a simple black shift. There was something to be said for black at funerals, and I did add a pair of hot-pink wedges.
Outside the funeral home are dozens of people who know my name and who talk about how we had met down at Sorrento, or at Tom’s sixtieth birthday party or some other such event. I nod and smile and ask after their families but the small talk is achingly limited. All of the normal, day-to-day topics are off the table, being deemed too trivial for the occasion except oddly, the weather, which is freely discussed at funerals, and indeed one of the few safe topics of discussion. “The sun is shining down on Diana, today.” Or even, “The sky is crying.” (Interestingly though, the sun is not shining and the sky is not crying, it is merely a dull grey day. I wonder, idly, what this is supposed to say about my mother-in-law.)
Nettie is in quite a fragile state, expectedly. She has dressed up at least, in a cream shift dress and brown leather wedges, but she looks drawn and tired. She dissolves into fresh tears periodically and I wish I could console her. But she won’t even accept support from Patrick, who stands beside her uselessly, smiling politely at people who offer condolences.
The children mill about at my heels, bored and excited, pinching and pushing each other, but they quiet down when I hand them a fistful of gummy bears from the stash in my bag. Inside, the crowd is the typical upper-middle-class folk in their seventies, apart from the smattering of black faces, rare enough among these parts to assume they must be the refugee ladies that Diana worked with. I notice Eamon as we make our way to the seats at the front. There’s no physical sign of his fight with Ollie the other day that I can see, other than perhaps the expression of mild defiance on his face. I’d have wondered why he bothered coming at all if I didn’t know how into appearances he was. Jones and Ahmed are there too, which is a surprise. They wear their usual black suits, and as such should look like any other mourner, but there’s something about them that screams COP. Perhaps it’s that I can feel their presence, like ants crawling up my back.
The service is slow and dull, in large part because of the lack of hymns. Ollie gives a eulogy that is as heartfelt as it can possibly be, which is to say, fairly generic. Lots of I love yous, lots of stories about how Diana did lots of charitable work. As I listen, I can’t help but think of the eulogy Ollie gave at Tom’s funeral. There hadn’t been a dry eye in the house. Ollie himself had become so choked up that I ended up standing behind him for most of it, with my hand on his shoulder. But today, he doesn’t manage so much as a misty eye.
I try to imagine the eulogy that I would have given Diana, had I been given the role. I glance up at the photo of her, framed on her coffin. Her chin is raised, her eyes guarded, her lips curved into the barest smile. It is so Diana I can’t help but feel something. It’s hard to believe I won’t see that guarded smile again. It’s equally hard to believe that she might have exited this world on anything other than her own terms.
I become aware of a flutter in my body; a niggle at first but slowly it fills my chest like a scream. I put a hand gently to my lips but a sob escapes, excruciatingly loud. The children look at me curiously. Even Ollie pauses in his eulogy and frowns. I want to get it together, but it’s like a train. I double over, all at once consumed by it. The stark emotion. The utter, inexplicable loss.
Ollie and Patrick are pallbearers, along with two friends of Tom’s. The other two positions—apparently there is a requirement for six—are given to the funeral staff. I think briefly that perhaps those roles should have been offered to Nettie and myself, but no one asked me so I can only assume no one asked Nettie either. And so Diana is taken out and placed in the hearse, and we are forced to endure small talk for another forty-five minutes, as my children tear around the lawn like they’re at a garden party. Harriet has climbed a tree and is sitting on a branch with a child I saw in the venue, a grandchild of one of Diana’s friends, perhaps. The hems of their dresses are grubby with dirt.
People disappear in dribbles, most heading to the function room at the Half Moon Hotel, where we are putting out sandwiches and drinks this afternoon. But a few people who aren’t heading to the Half Moon hang around to give their condolences. Condolence after condolence, in the absence of alcohol, is quite frankly, exhausting. Ollie obviously thinks so, judging by his drawn expression, so I tell him to head out and leave me to farewell the final few mourners.