Of course, she knows, they are probably thinking the same about her. They’re thinking how much weight she’s put on. That her hair is a mess. That she was once such a pretty young thing, and now she’s a frumpy 40-something wearing a horrible black dress that she panic-bought from Evans and now hates. It’s a hot day, summer finally deciding to kick in, and she’s hot and too sweaty and her hair is the size of a privet bush.
They’re probably also thinking: haven’t seen her for ages. Her poor mother, abandoned in her dotage. Not that ‘dotage’ is a word that could ever really be used about Andrea, thank God.
Joe squeezes her hand, reassuring her, and she snaps herself out of her fast-approaching self-pity party. She gives him a smile, hopefully one that says ‘this is sad but I am fine’, and continues to look around.
No show-biz faces, which surprises her. She’d at least expected a few, or maybe her co-star from her Penny Peabody days.
Andrea herself, of course, is providing plenty of show biz – certainly more than this church has ever seen. Big easels are set up all around, each holding one of her beloved headshots from different eras, blown up so her perfect face is clear for all to see. Young and glamorous in the early Seventies, hair flowing wild and free. Overly made-up and super-coiffed from the Eighties, in a red silk blouse with shoulder pads. Dignified but still gorgeous, Penny Peabody era, right at the front.
Rose stares at that one, to distract herself from the coffin. Every time she allows her brain to even consider what is inside that shining mahogany box, she starts to dissolve in a fizz of agony. Her mother – everything about her mother – is surely too big to fit inside that thing? It defies the laws of physics.
It doesn’t feel real, none of it. Even now, over a week later, it doesn’t feel real. She feels like she’s playing a part in a film: the grieving daughter at the funeral. Playing it badly, as well.
Being back here – with these people, in this place – would be enough of an emotional overload at any time, but at her mother’s funeral it’s just too much. She just has to get through the next hour; hold on tight until this ordeal is over with, and she has to face the next. One horrific step at a time.
She continues to look around, and gets a small finger-wave from a bleach-blonde lady who is even bigger than she is. She smiles, and waves back, still not sure who it is until it hits her: Tasmin Hughes. It’s Tasmin Hughes, her friend from another lifetime, who got pregnant when she was 15 and could well be a grandma by now. Her first thought is that time hasn’t been kind to either of them, but then she tells herself off – Tasmin looks happy, at least.
As she scans the crowd, she knows she is only really looking for one person. The person who wasn’t there for the sad, traditional procession behind the coffin; the person who left that walk of pain to her and Joe and Lewis. She’s probably hiding in her car until she can sneak in, thinks Rose, or maybe she won’t come at all.
She is ashamed of the fact that even now – at the funeral – and even after watching that video, part of her is still desperately hoping that that is true. That Poppy won’t show up, and she’ll be saved the extra anguish of that on top of everything else. She doesn’t know if she can cope with anything else. Especially that.
As the vicar starts to move towards the pulpit, and the low-level buzz of chatter clears, she hears the sound of high heels tip-tapping on the stone floor of the aisle. She knows, without a shadow of a doubt, who it is. Who it has to be.
She hears the footsteps getting closer, and stares at her own hands. She is so tense, so tightly screwed up with grief and anxiety and panic, that she starts to tear the skin from the sides of her nails. It hurts, a sharp stab of pain as bright-red blood flows, and it is enough of a distraction to stop her from getting to her feet, and running out of this place screaming.
She senses, rather than sees, Joe look up. Feels him move slightly closer as he shuffles along to make room. She’s there, she knows she is. Poppy is sitting next to Joe, and her mum is in that box, and every person she knew in her childhood is staring at her like a gang of gargoyles that has come to life.
She gulps, and tries to breathe, and pulls more skin from her thumb. It’s never too late to start self-harming, she thinks, wiping the blood on her dress.
She refuses to look up, and stays deadly still, and completely quiet. As though if she stays still enough, she will become invisible.
The vicar taps his microphone, and the sound echoes around the walls of the church. As the congregation falls completely silent, she hears one sentence being whispered a few spaces along the pew: ‘You must be Joe. I’m Poppy. It’s so nice to meet you at last.’
Chapter 19
Lewis is, he suspects, ever so slightly tipsy. He has just walked into the corner of his desk, banged his hip, and then laughed about it like a teenaged girl. Sure signs of inebriation.
That, he supposes, is what happens when you start the day with a glass of port, and follow it up with too much champagne at an altogether very jolly funeral reception.
He fully intends to continue drinking for the rest of the day. He might end up stripping naked and running round the green, or climbing the church tower and screaming ‘I’m on top of the world, Ma!’ at the sheep in the surrounding fields.
He can risk waking up with a hangover – or possibly an arrest record, or a pet sheep – tomorrow morning, at least. Because, by tomorrow, his main part in all of this will be over. He’ll still have the legal stuff to do, of course – sorting out the estate, dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s on probate, finalising all the paperwork and the finances. But he can do that kind of thing in his sleep.
The tricky stuff, though? The family stuff? That, he hopes, will have been well and truly passed on to the two lost souls sitting in front of him, on the other side of his antique desk. They might still need him to answer questions – Poppy, for sure, will probably insist on it; she’s that type – but mainly, it’ll be over to them to do with as they will.
Then, he hopes, he can get on with the small matter of grieving for his lost and most beloved of friends. He might take a small holiday, or run away to join a commune in the foothills of the Himalayas, or simply lock himself away in his little house and continue to drink himself stupid.
The funeral went as well as these things can, as did the little celebration afterwards. Andrea had choreographed it all, down to the last detail. She’d been quite specific – no actors, no show biz, no old luvvies. Apart from her, of course, the star of the show. And no obituaries to be submitted until after the funeral, as she didn’t want Helen Mirren or one of the other dames turning up and stealing the limelight.
He thought she was joking on that one – she’d never mentioned acting with Helen Mirren before – but who knew? Andrea was always something of a mystery. He was secretly disappointed at her insistence – he’d have quite enjoyed meeting the still-famous and the once-famous, and matching their realities up to the incredibly naughty stories Andrea had often told.
But insist she had, and of course he had carried out her commands. In death, as in life, he was her devoted servant.
Now he felt off-kilter – that strange blend of euphoria and sadness that a good funeral can invoke; where the party goes swimmingly until you remember that the guest of honour isn’t even there.
Still, no matter how weird he feels, it is clearly nothing compared to what these two are going through. Rosehip and Popcorn – the legendary Lost Girls – finally here, in the flesh.
Between them, he thinks, they have the flesh of two normal human women. But Rose has too much of it, and Poppy doesn’t have enough. Rose is perched on the edge of her chair, pulling absently at the skin at the sides of her nail, even though it is already bloody and sore. The toes of her shoes are tapping on the parquet, and she is looking around her as if she expects men with flaming torches and pitchforks to rush out and drag her away at any second.
