After Isabella Read online

  Esther held it together until she read these last words from the pages gripped in her hand. She could feel the hot tears gathering, and then they spilled over, blurring her glasses. She had somehow got into the pulpit in this church, but she wasn’t sure how to get out. She turned ineffectually from side to side. She felt the priest’s hand take her elbow firmly but gently and guide her down the three little steps, and she slumped back into the pew next to Stephen.

  The ridiculous shiny dark brown of the coffin intruded into her peripheral vision. How could Isabella, or what was left of Isabella, be lying silent and still in that box? She couldn’t look at it, hadn’t looked at it through her eulogy. It made no sense.

  She was thirty-nine years old and this was only the third funeral she had ever been to. It seemed like a strange and archaic ritual, but she wasn’t terribly sure how it should be done differently. What are we supposed to do with dead people, she wondered. We have to put them somewhere, dispose of the bodies in a way that is safe and hygienic, assure ourselves that they really, truly are gone, and find a way of moving on. This odd agglomeration of words, music, a box and flowers seemed to be the accepted method. In this case, however, it seemed to have nothing to do with Isabella, who had been an atheist, unmusical, and rather averse to flower arrangements, preferring to decorate her home with minimalist, dramatic displays of bamboo or still lifes of sticks and stones.

  The assembled people rose to sing a hymn, Psalm 23. It must have been Joan’s choice. Esther hadn’t sung it since primary school, and she had a vague memory, or thought she did, of last having sung it beside Isabella, who had a deep and rather gravelly voice and a tendency to sing everything in a low monotone. Esther had never known if Isabella was tone-deaf or was just taking the mick. The latter was likely. The priest began to intone prayers, and even though Esther had been to so few funerals, the words were familiar to her. From films or TV, she imagined.

  And then, suddenly, it was all over. The black-coated men entered in procession and efficiently shouldered the coffin. Sally stood to follow it, her arm around Joan’s plump shoulders. As they walked out, Sally glanced over and gave Esther a weak smile, nodding her thanks for the eulogy. The cremation was to be private. Esther was relieved about that – she certainly didn’t feel up to watching that sleek box slide through a curtain into the furnace. Right now, all she could think of was that she would give anything, anything at all, to drink a large glass of very cold wine very quickly indeed. And then maybe another.

  Luckily, everyone else was of the same mind. As soon as the funeral party arrived at the pub where the wake was to be held, Esther was handed a glass. Waiters circulated with trays, and she couldn’t help noticing that even though it was just two in the afternoon, people seemed determined to drink quite a lot, quite fast. The chatter was more animated than she might have expected. There was palpable relief that the solemn and grim part of the proceedings had been concluded. She was conscious that Stephen was watching her gulp down her wine. He made no comment but called the waiter over and asked for a lime and soda. Good. So he was planning to drive. That made things easier. She took the last sip and lifted another glass off a tray as the waiter passed near her.

  She looked around the room. She had been so nervous about the eulogy that she hadn’t really registered who else was in the church. She recognized very few people. There were a lot of elderly women, friends of Joan’s, she assumed. Then there were the well-dressed, well-groomed people – work colleagues of Isabella’s probably. There was no one else from their school days, although there was a rumpled man of about her age, who she thought might be an old university boyfriend of Isabella’s. He stood alone by the food table, sipping from his drink and steadily and absent-mindedly eating Scotch eggs and crumbed mushrooms. Whoever he had been in years gone by, he didn’t look like Isabella’s type now.

  With a glass and a half of wine inside her, Esther relaxed a little. She hadn’t embarrassed herself. She had given her dearest and oldest friend a decent send-off. She just had to say a few words to Joan and Sally and she could go. They had arrived a few minutes before from the crematorium and were surrounded by a group of well-meaning old biddies. She wasn’t going to get near them anytime soon. She sipped her glass more slowly. She really should eat something, but going to get food meant going near the food table and the slightly desperate-looking ex-boyfriend.

  ‘Could you possibly get me a plate of something to eat?’ she said to Stephen, who was standing staring gloomily into his lime and soda. He nodded and headed for the table.

  It was a mistake, because Stephen’s going left her alone, and the rumpled ex-boyfriend clearly took that as a sign. He brushed crumbs from his lapels and came over to her.

  ‘Thanks for your words,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Good to see you again.’

  Esther shook his hand and smiled.

  ‘I can’t quite believe she’s gone,’ he continued. ‘Someone like that…’

  ‘She was uncompromisingly alive, wasn’t she?’

  ‘You always had a way with words.’ He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help noticing he had a tiny smear of ketchup in the corner of his mouth. She had no idea what his name was, or even whether her assumption that he was Isabella’s ex was correct. She didn’t know how to take the conversation forward.

  ‘You don’t remember who I am, do you?’ he said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Geoff,’ he said, and in an instant she remembered. He had been a housemate of Isabella’s at university. He had been funny and kind, and had played the guitar. She knew Isabella had liked him, in a non-romantic way. Esther recalled vaguely that he had gone to America after he had graduated. He hadn’t crossed her mind in more than twenty years.

  ‘It’s funny to look at you,’ he said conversationally. ‘You look so like her, still. You always did. Like sisters. You must be really devastated.’ There seemed no possible answer to this, so Esther said nothing. He laughed suddenly. ‘You really were the two musketeers, weren’t you? I remember you coming up to uni for parties… There was one in particular, when we all went clubbing together. The two of you were dancing, hanging onto one another. You were wearing a black dress, and Isabella was wearing white… I often imagined what it would be like to—’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Esther. ‘Must go to the loo.’ She saw Stephen approaching with a plate full of food and she gestured to let him know where she was going.

  She locked herself in a cubicle, put the lid down and sat on it, her head on her knees. Geoff’s behaviour was so hilariously inappropriate, she hadn’t been sure whether to slap him or laugh. Neither would have been fitting at Isabella’s wake. It was a first, though. She had never before been retrospectively presented with someone’s fantasy of a threesome at the funeral of the prospective third party. At some point in the future, it would make a grand anecdote – and naturally, the one person who would most have enjoyed hearing it would never be able to.

  She should go back out to the gathering. She would, as soon as she could persuade herself to stand up. Someone else came into the bathroom, and so she sat still and silent. She wasn’t going out now and risking small talk by the basins. She listened to the person pee, flush and wash their hands, and she waited to hear the door open and close, but whoever it was remained in the room. Were they redoing their make-up? Praying? Crying?

  Then she heard a voice say hesitantly, ‘Are you all right? Hello?’ And someone tapped on the door of her cubicle.

  She swore inwardly. ‘Fine,’ she said, as cheerfully as she could manage. She stood up and flushed, and made some pretence of straightening her clothes before she emerged.

  Sally stood by the basins.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, and hugged Esther warmly.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Esther asked.

  Sally smiled. ‘Oh, fine. Glad it’s over. Hoping we don’t run out of Scotch eggs. You know.’

  ‘How’s your mum?’

  ‘Well, she’s as you’d
imagine. Bearing up most of the time. It comes in waves. The last few weeks, we had a lot of time to sit and talk quietly, so it’s not a terrible shock, you know, like a sudden death would be. Not like my dad.’

  Isabella and Sally’s father had died of a heart attack on the train on his way to work one day, when Isabella was at university and Sally was still at school. It had devastated Sally, who had been very close to him, and left Joan frail and wobbly for years. Isabella always said it felt unreal. She had learned of her father’s death in a crackly call on a street-corner payphone in Edinburgh, where she was living in digs. She hadn’t managed to get back to London until the morning of the funeral. Joan had discouraged the girls from viewing the body, so for Isabella, the bereavement was oddly theoretical. She had gone from having a father to having none, merely because she had been told that that was what had happened. Sally, left at home, had had to bear the brunt of it – the practicalities of settling the estate, her mother’s grief.

  And here she was, bearing the brunt again. Esther squeezed her hand. Sally smiled and turned to the mirror to tidy her hair and put on some lipstick. She was a pretty woman, but she didn’t look anything like Isabella. Where Isabella had had straight dark hair, Sally had a halo of blonde curls. She had wide blue eyes and a sweet, curved, pink mouth. She had been an adorable toddler, but the cuteness of her features did not sit quite as well on the face of an adult woman. She was much shorter than Isabella had been, and tended towards the curvy, a similar shape to their mother.

  ‘My mum sends her love and condolences,’ said Esther. ‘She told me she sent flowers…’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Sally. ‘We got them. They’re beautiful, of course. I wouldn’t expect anything different. Your mum always had such amazing taste. I’ll write and thank her.’

  ‘Please don’t worry about it,’ Esther said quickly. ‘She lives on the Isle of Wight now, and she just wanted you to know she was thinking of you. She was very fond of Isabella.’

  ‘I know Isabella loved her too,’ said Sally. ‘They were both artistic…’ Her voice trailed off, as if the effort of sustaining conversation had suddenly become too much.

  ‘What are your plans now?’ Esther asked, then inwardly cursed herself. ‘Now that your sister’s dead,’ seemed to be the implied end of that question. ‘I mean… what are your plans for the future?’

  ‘Oh, there’s still a lot to do,’ said Sally, carefully combing her fluffy hair. ‘I’ll have to wind up the estate, sell Isabella’s house and so on. There’s a lot of medical equipment which needs to go back to the NHS. Then I hope to take a little holiday maybe. Bit of a break. After that it’s back to work. I’m very lucky they’ve kept my job open.’

  ‘Where are you working?’

  ‘Same place. I’m an office manager for an estate agent’s, not far from here. I’ve been there ten years. I kept meaning to move on, maybe study something new. Isabella was always on at me to do it. But it never seemed the right time.’

  ‘Well, maybe now’s the right time,’ said Esther, smiling at Sally’s reflection. ‘New horizons. Use some of Isabella’s bravery and go for it.’

  ‘You might be right.’ Sally smiled back. ‘Just need to get my courage up, eh?’

  ‘Let me come and say hi to your mum,’ said Esther. ‘Stephen needs to get back to work, so we really must be going soon.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sally, popping her lipstick and comb back into her bag. ‘Just understand, she’s, well, she’s not at her best right now.’

  ‘Of course she isn’t.’ Esther followed Sally out of the toilet. What an odd comment to make. Of course Joan wasn’t doing very well. She had just cremated her beloved elder daughter.

  Joan was sitting at a table, a plate of snacks in front of her and a cup of tea at her elbow, staring into the distance. Two of her friends sat at the table with her, but they weren’t speaking. Joan had been a young mother, just twenty-one when Isabella was born, so Esther calculated that she couldn’t be more than sixty now. She looked a decade older than that, her face grey and pouchy, an inch of frizzy grey showing at her roots. None of this was a surprise. Not after what she had just endured. Esther hadn’t allowed herself – couldn’t allow herself – to think about burying a child. No parent could. The horror was too extreme.

  Sally took her over and they sat down in two vacant chairs at the table. ‘Mum, Esther’s here,’ she said, touching Joan’s arm.

  ‘Hello there,’ said Joan, mustering a smile. ‘How nice to see you. You look well. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Esther. ‘I… I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Beautiful day,’ said Joan.

  ‘Yes. And the service was lovely. The music especially.’

  ‘I always preferred David Cassidy myself,’ said Joan. ‘Or Donny Osmond. Lovely teeth.’

  Esther laughed gently. It was good she could make jokes on a day like this. That she still had a little spirit. She caught Sally’s eye across the table and was surprised to see that Sally looked strained, embarrassed even. The two other women at the table were looking away, not joining in the conversation.

  ‘I’ve got one question though,’ said Joan.

  ‘Mum…’ said Sally warningly, but Joan would not be hushed.

  ‘Where’s Isabella? I’m sure she said she’d be here by now. She said she was going to take me to the theatre.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  eight years later

  The same church. The same brilliant blue sky. But not the same crowd. Not even a crowd at all, just a handful of mourners – some elderly, frail ladies, Esther and Sally.

  Esther wouldn’t have been there, wouldn’t even have known that Joan had died, had she not got a letter from Sally. It was odd to get a handwritten, physical letter – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d received one. But that was what Sally had chosen; she clearly felt one shouldn’t announce the death of one’s mother in an email or on social media. Perhaps if it had been an email or a text, Esther might have made her excuses. But there was something about Sally’s careful, round handwriting on the old-fashioned notepaper (which was peach coloured, with an illustration of a bunny in a basket of flowers in the bottom right-hand corner). She felt she should go, if Sally had made the effort to write to her, so she took the afternoon off, found a simple black dress in her wardrobe (noting that it was considerably looser round the waist than it had been the last time she wore it), and went to Joan’s funeral.

  It wasn’t the same vicar who had done Isabella’s service. This one was young and had a posh, drawling accent that suggested Cambridge. He had clearly never met Joan, which was a little surprising, as Esther remembered her as a regular churchgoer. Even if she had been too ill to attend, surely he would have visited? It seemed not.

  Sally was sitting alone in the front pew. The vicar finished his remarks and said, ‘Joan’s daughter Sally will now say a few words.’

  Sally stood and went to the lectern. Esther was sitting towards the back of the church, quite far away, but even at that distance she was shocked at Sally’s appearance. Since she had last seen her, Sally had gained weight – a lot of weight. Possibly three or four stone. Her bright blonde curls had faded to an unkempt mess of mouse and grey. She looked like an overweight, middle-aged woman defeated by life. There was no trace of the attractive blonde of eight years before.

  Esther assumed Sally would give some kind of eulogy, but instead she read from Revelations, the reading that began ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth’. Her voice sounded softer and more hesitant than Esther remembered. When she finished reading, she paused for a moment and glanced at the small coffin, her expression unreadable, then stepped down.

  The service was concluded. This time there were no hymns, which was a mercy. There really weren’t enough people to sing them. The organist played a rather mangled and soulless version of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ and the mourners straggled out behind the coffin.

  There was no private cr
emation, no escape to the pub for Esther. Joan was to be buried, and they followed the hearse in convoy to a large, featureless, modern cemetery about a mile away. Most of the old ladies were obviously not up to the trip to the graveside, so it was an even smaller crowd of just five or six people and the vicar that watched Joan get lowered into her grave. Sally stepped forward when invited to scatter some earth on the coffin. She turned and gestured to Esther, inviting her to do the same. It seemed rude, almost sacrilegious, to do so – she hadn’t seen Joan for nearly a decade, had seen her only very infrequently in the years before that. But there genuinely was no one else, and it would have been even ruder, and hurtful to Sally, to refuse. She bent and gathered a clod of earth and dropped it on the polished lid. She found a tissue in her pocket to clean off her hand and stood awkwardly by as the old ladies did the same. The gravedigger was waiting impatiently nearby, leaning on his small earth-moving machine. Clearly they didn’t do this job with a shovel anymore. Esther didn’t think Sally would want to stand by and watch the man fill in the grave like a trench in some roadworks, so she looped her arm through hers and prepared to lead her away.

  ‘You will come back to the house, won’t you?’ Sally looked up at her, her blue eyes pale and watery. ‘There didn’t seem much point in organizing a wake, so I just did some sandwiches and cake at home.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Esther.

  She had not been to Joan’s house for nigh on twenty-five years. Once Isabella had graduated and moved into her own place, Esther had had no reason to visit her friend’s childhood home. From the outside, the house looked as one might have expected – shabbier and smaller, but much as she remembered it. But as soon as she came through the door, she was assailed by the oppressive sadness of the place. The furniture seemed to be the same as it had been when they were children – she remembered the brown velour sofa, the seascape prints and the glass coffee table. Sally had obviously made an effort to clean and tidy the place, but it had the deeply ingrained dullness of a home that had not been redecorated for decades. Despite an almost oppressive miasma of sweet air-freshener, the underlying scent of urine and unwashed old person was unmistakeable.