“What is it about funerals that thrusts all your previous failings into sharp relief?” she asked, forcing levity into her voice.
“It could be the sudden facing of our own mortality. But it’s more likely the worry about what people will say about us in their eulogies.”
She snuffled a laugh into his jumper.
“I like to think whoever gives mine will let the congregation know that I was really good in the sack,” Joe went on.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to say that kind of thing in church.”
“You did read those condolence cards, right? Pure smut.”
“Yes. They very much embraced the sexual revolution.”
Now it was Joe’s turn to laugh.
She let herself linger just a little longer in his embrace and then pulled away. “Come on,” she said, bending to wiggle a giant bouquet of crimson gladiolus into place. “It’s going to start filling up in here soon. I need to be at the door for the meet and greet.”
“Will Simone and Star help you?”
She puffed out a sarcastic breath. “Like they’ve helped so far?”
“I see your point. I’ll stand with you, then. I know I never met your dad, but you shouldn’t have to shoulder it all on your own.”
As the only one of Augustus’s daughters who lived in Rowan Thorp, it made sense that the bulk of responsibility for dealing with their father’s death and all arrangements thereof had landed with her. Though she suspected that even if she’d lived in the Outer Hebrides, she would still be bearing the largest weight.
2
The note in Augustus’s pocket had included an addendum, which requested that everyone at his funeral wear brightly colored clothes for the occasion. His wishes were enthusiastically adhered to, mostly by the female mourners. Eccentric women of a certain age wore their hair in various rainbow hues and had eyebrows drawn on with unsteady hands; when a breeze blew through the chapel a sea of multicolored kimonos billowed up and flapped like rows of Tibetan prayer flags. Anita—who worked in the local council office and had helped Maggie with the spools of red tape that followed death—had been struck down with a migraine brought on by the clashing colors and psychedelic patterns. Doreen—dedicated member of the Cussing Crocheters of Rowan Thorp—said she’d not seen anything like it since taking LSD in the sixties.
The church where Augustus’s humanist funeral ceremony was held was standing room only. The crowd spilled out onto the lawns in front of the church, and speakers were hastily erected so that the people outside could hear. St. Swithun’s formed the head of a medieval triangle of buildings in the village, the Rowan Tree Inn and the Stag and Hound Tavern—the two village pubs—making up the other two points, with a largish patch of green in the middle of the triangle. This area was known locally—possibly blasphemously, but it had stuck all the same—as Holy Trinity Green because you could walk out of the church and straight into either pub for a pint. Many of the mourners that day took advantage of this auspicious proximity and raised their glasses to their fallen friend, getting merrily sozzled during the service, just as Augustus would have wanted.
“Shouldn’t we be sitting with your mum?” Evette whispered. The service had not yet begun, but people were taking their seats in readiness. Simone had guided them toward a pew away from all her relatives.
Simone shook her head. “I did ask, but she said there was no need. I think she’s enjoying the attention.”
“I’m not sure Rene likes sharing the spotlight with Star’s mum,” Evette noted.
Simone smiled sardonically. Rene and Star’s mother, Perdita, had a pew to themselves, a little distanced from the rest of the mourners, singled out in a kind of hierarchy as the chosen few who had birthed Augustus’s children. Other than both having procreated with Augustus, the two women had absolutely nothing in common. To try to make conversation would have been futile, so neither tried.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many eccentrics in one place. I’ve never been able to get my head around your mum and your dad together. Poor Rene sticks out like a sore thumb.”
“It’s not like they ever had a relationship,” said Simone. “I was the product of an ‘ill-conceived affair.’ One for which she was left to carry the burden.”
Evette winced. She of all people knew the long-term effects that Rene’s careless words had had on her daughter. Rene didn’t speak from a place of meanness so much as a brutal honesty; hers was a tongue sharp as a cracked lemon sherbet, and her only daughter had inherited it. Rene, by her own admission, was simply not the maternal type. So, while she took great pains to ensure that her daughter was well taken care of, emotionally she just didn’t have that motherly softness in her parenting toolbox. When Simone had read Great Expectations at school, she felt she had found a kindred spirit in Estella.
“Except for one whole month of every summer,” said Evette. “That’s more than most mums get off a year.”
“My mother lived for the summer. She took herself off for luxury vacations somewhere hot and fabulous.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t object to letting you stay with your sisters.”
“What, because she’s such a snob?”
“Well, yes. I mean, I’d have thought it would have rankled her to have you mixing with his other illegitimate children.”
“Not enough to keep her from her holidays.” She felt bad as soon as she’d said it.
Rene was by no means a bad or selfish mother, and Simone would be lying if she said she hadn’t got a kick out of having the most glamorous mum at the school gates.
The air in the church was thick with the scent of flowers, which almost masked the underlying smell of old varnish, damp stone, and mothballs.
“It was really quite modern, when you think about it. To have such an open approach to the blended family dynamic. Fair play to all the mums and your dad. And you got to spend quality time with your dad and sisters. I love it when you talk about your summers; it always reminds me of an Enid Blyton novel—without the xenophobia and sexism, obviously. Ice cream for breakfast, climbing trees, sleeping under the stars. It’s the childhood most of us wish we’d had.”
“Nothing’s free, though, is it?” said Simone. “There’s always a price to pay.”
Despite their more recent estrangements, she couldn’t deny that she had perfect memories with her sisters in Rowan Thorp. Their summers genuinely were halcyon days. It was a children’s paradise, mostly because their father was himself a glorified child. For Simone, those summers had been the complete antithesis of life with Rene.
A committed career woman with no time for husbands or children in her life, Rene had been an art dealer, sourcing rare pieces for her wealthy clients. What she found on one fateful expedition to the Loire Valley forty years ago was a fifty-six-year-old lute player with a twinkle in his green eyes that made her forget all about the Rococo canvas she had been commissioned to find. She left France carrying rather more with her than she’d expected.
Simone studied her mother. Time had done nothing to soften her straight-backed haughtiness. In contrast to the rest of the mourners, she wore a chic vintage Chanel skirt suit and an expression that dared anyone to approach her.