my tea to the phone and I ring the undertaker and the vicar, then I go to ring Alice but I change my mind, she’ll be here in a couple of hours after all, I can tell her then.
I put down the phone and I simply breathe.
I’ve hit my rock-bottom, I tell myself.
It’s just the funeral to get through now. For the first time I glimpse that we’re maybe going to be okay.
I just have to keep it together, keep up with my routines. Everything will be fine now, I convince myself. I’ll come out the other side.
I had no idea what was to come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That awkward moment when the vicar asks if you want a double-plot in front of your stepchildren.
I just wanted one of those places that do everything. A “do you want fries with that coffin” place. The Original Jameson Girls want a church and not just any old church - they want the one they were all christened in, hence the visit from their vicar.
I bought cakes in the village (more stares – am I not supposed to eat?) and Jess winks at me as, already flustered, I go out into the kitchen to get them. Luke is in there with us all, not just as the peacekeeper - as I said, they were close. Mum’s upstairs playing with Charlotte but Jess is cheering me on from the kitchen bench.
Thank God for Jess.
‘Stick to your guns,’ she tells me as I arrange a little platter. ‘You have the final say.’
My jaw is so rigid it aches when I speak. ‘You should hear them, they’re debating You Raise Me Up or The Wind Beneath My Wings…’
‘You can tell me all that later,’ Jess interrupts. ‘For now, all you say is -’ Jess waits, she’s been training me. Honestly, we’ve been sitting on the couch and she’s trained me as to my responses. ‘What do you say, Lucy, when they start to push you towards something you don’t want?’
‘I’ll take it on board.’
‘That’s right,’ Jess says. ‘Remember to give a little nod after you say it, so that it looks as if you’re really going to think about it.’ She gives me a quick hug. ‘Back to it, baby.’
It’s going okay, well I think it is.
They shake their heads when I suggest Robbie’s Angel.
‘Fine,’ I concede. ‘Charlotte wants Morning Has Broken to be sung as we do all the pictures and power point stuff.’
Reluctantly they agree.
We sort out the hymns and the readings. Luke is going to do the eulogy and just when I start to pat myself on the back, just when I think I’ve got a handle on this, comes the awkward moment, and my God it’s awkward (sorry God, didn’t mean to use you in vain there) when the vicar asks if I’ve thought about a double plot.
I just sit there.
I can feel all these eyes on me as they wait for me to answer.
I think I’m supposed to start crying. That I’m to lean onto the table and weep ‘yes,’ sob sob. ‘Yes,’ as I bang my fist on the table. ‘I want to lie with him forever.’
But I just sit there.
I don’t want to lie with him forever.
I want to kill him for what he did.
I sit there and I’m told about the cost of a double plot and no, I don’t want one.
I am so angry.
I am so furious and there’s no-one left to row with. There’s no chance to have it all out. I just feel all these faces looking at mine, all waiting for me to crumple, to produce mandatory tears, to dissolve, to collapse in heap, as a good widow should.
‘No,’ I shake my head. ‘Single plot.’
Wrong answer, Lucy.
I can feel that my grief isn’t the grief the room wants, that my answer isn’t the appropriate one.
Shame on you, Lucy.
Shame on him!
So, we have the church the Original Jameson Girls wanted, we have the vicar of their choice and the hymns that they have chosen, which is all fine by me. I am clueless as to religion; Mum didn’t discover her Higher Power till I’d left home. He’s in a single plot which is my (everyone suck your lips in) decision and we have Morning Has Broken, near the end.
I am very happy with my victories.
I really don’t envy Luke doing the eulogy. I have no idea how he’s going to address it all. I guess he’ll just gloss over a lot of things, or rather, I hope that