The light pressure of a hand on his arm broke into his thoughts. It was Naomi indicating that the burial service was over, and people were looking at him expectantly, as though for permission to move on to the next part of the proceedings. The final act before the curtain came down.
When he’d proposed that the mourners should gather for a drink at the pub in the harbour, Naomi had come up with a suggestion of her own. She’d said that she had nothing against the pub, but she felt Anchor House would be nicer. ‘I’d like to do this small thing for Rose,’ she’d said, ‘it would be my gift to her.’
Once it was known in the village that his mother’s funeral was to take place at St Saviour’s and the wake would be held at Anchor House,Jennifer Kingsbury and a couple of other stalwarts of the village WI had offered Naomi their assistance. Not long after breakfast that morning, trays of sandwiches, sausage rolls, mini quiches and cakes were dropped off, then Martha and Tom arrived with Willow and Rick shortly afterwards. It was good of them to come, despite never having met his mother. He took it as a good sign, another stepping-stone towards accepting him into their family.
Ellis was touched that people who hadn’t known him for all that long had rushed to help; it made him feel even more a part of the community, and more importantly, a part of Naomi’s circle of neighbourhood friends. He was, after all, taking Colin’s place at Anchor House and there had to be some in Tilsham who would never truly accept him. Such as those at the sailing club where Colin spent so much of his time, and with whom Ellis had no real contact.
When they were back at the house, Rick advocated that he and Tom serve drinks, and Martha and Willow should help their mother to act as waitresses and pass round trays of food.
‘Bit bloody sexist, Rick,’ Ellis heard Martha say as he shook hands with a complete stranger who claimed to have been one of Rose’s students. ‘Why can’t Tom and I serve drinks, or better still, Willow and I do it together?’
‘It makes no odds to me,’ Rick said with a shrug, ‘I was only trying to be helpful.’
The death-stare Martha threw him should have stopped Rick in his tracks, but he merely smiled at her. Which probably infuriated Martha all the more. There was clearly some friction going on between the pair of them;Ellis had noticed it earlier when they’d all arrived. It wasn’t anything he could specifically put his finger on, but there was definitely something. Naomi evidently thought so too because he’d noticed her frowning at something Martha said to Tom, as though they were having a joke at Rick’s expense. Or maybe she just thought it was inappropriate on the day of Rose’s funeral for someone to be making a joke.
Lucas had offered to help serve food as well, working alongside Willow, and the pair of them were weaving their way through the mourners standing around in small groups on the lawn. There was, it had to be said, nothing particularly mournful in the manner of the guests, not now they had a glass in their hands. But that was the way of these things, people always bucked up once the formality of the funeral service was behind them. It was, Ellis hoped, just as his mother would have wanted.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Naomi, appearing at his side and with a glass of wine for him.
‘Not so bad,’ he said, taking it from her. ‘Thanks for this,’ he added, indicating the garden and everyone gathered there.
‘There’s no need to thank me, I wanted to do it for you.’
‘Is it a painful reminder of Colin’s funeral?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Not really. His friends at the sailing club insisted they arrange the wake. I had very little to do with the organisation of it. They thought they were doing the right thing, but it actually made me feel surplus to requirements.’
He smiled. ‘In many ways I feel the same right now.’
She looked at him, concerned. ‘I’m sorry, would you have preferred to have done this at the pub, like you originally wanted?’
‘No! What I mean is I know only a handful of people here today, it’s as if I’m a guest myself.’
Leaning into him, Naomi kissed his cheek. ‘It’ll soon be over,’ she said quietly. ‘Another forty-five minutes or so and they’ll start to drift away, especially when the food runs out.’
She was right. Within the hour, and with just one slightly curled-up smoked salmon sandwich and a scattering of cake crumbs left, the last of the mourners had taken their leave.
Loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt, Ellis sank into a chair on the verandah. Lucas did the same, except he removed his tie and wound it around his left hand, just as he used to do as a boy when he came home from school.
‘I don’t know about the rest of you,’ said Naomi, ‘but I’m parched. Anyone else want a cup of tea?’
Everyone said yes and Ellis immediately made to stand up. ‘I’ll come and give you a hand.’
‘No, you won’t. You stay right where you are and relax. You look positively done in. Rick, would you like to help me, please?’
Rick hesitated, perhaps wondering why he had been singled out. Then: ‘Of course,’ he said.
When they’d gone, and wondering if by asking Rick for help, Naomi was trying to make him feel more a part of the family, Ellis said, ‘What is it about funerals that make them so exhausting?’
‘It’s the pretence,’ said Willow. ‘Pretending to feel something when actually you don’t.’
‘Wow,’ said Martha, ‘that’s a bit insensitive, isn’t it?’
Willow flushed. ‘Sorry,’ she said, looking at Lucas and Ellis. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound quite so bad. What I meant was, that it’s the effort you have to make to be polite to so many people you hardly know that is so wearing, when all you want to do is be alone and deal with your own feelings. I remember being like that at Dad’s funeral.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Lucas. ‘I felt the same way at my mother’s funeral. I can remember listening to some woman going on and on about how she and Mum were at school together and how they did this, that and the other together, and I just kept wishing she’d shut the hell up so I didn’t have to keep nodding my head as though I gave a damn. So yeah, when you say it’s the pretence that’s so tiring, you’re spot on, Willow.’
Ellis had never heard Lucas speak this way before about Diana’s funeral. But what struck him most, as Martha and Tom looked on, was the obvious connection between Lucas and Willow, the way they seemed so at ease with each other. It was as though they had known one another for years, and Ellis was strongly reminded of the close friendship he and Naomi had enjoyed when they’d been students at university. Reminded too of all the times they had missed their moment.
