When the vicar leaves we start to discuss the wake.
I want to have it back here or, if it’s awkward for them, maybe refreshments in the church hall but, of course, the Original Jameson Girls don’t like that idea.
Bonny’s got big plans, it would seem. I just don’t want to hear them; I cannot rationally discuss one more single thing.
‘I’ll take it on board,’ I tell her, for perhaps the twentieth time, as I show them to the door.
As I close it, like mice creeping out, they all come into the hall.
‘Charlotte’s asleep.’ Mum says, pretending she’s just come out of her room, pretending that she wasn’t sitting listening on the stairs.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Jess says holding up a bottle of wine.
‘God, yes.’
‘And me,’ Luke says and then he grimaces. ‘Sorry, Valerie.’
‘No, go ahead,’ Mum says. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’
‘Bonny doesn’t think a church hall is good enough,’ I explain. ‘She wants some fancy hotel. I just don’t think that I can face it.’
‘Whatever you do,’ Jess points out, ‘some people will still come back here afterwards, so why not just have it here in the first place?’
‘Wouldn't it be better to have it somewhere neutral?’ Luke repeats Bonny’s argument.
‘What?’ Jess snaps. ‘So they can all carry on as if Lucy doesn't exist!’
‘Jess!’ Luke stops her, after all, he's long been in the Jameson camp but Jess is having none of it.
‘It's true!’ Jess says. ‘They want a say in everything, yet I don’t see them putting their hands up to pay the bill. The readings, the prayers, the hymns, the flowers, have all been chosen by them and now Bonny’s kicking up about the reception venue!’ Jess looks at me. ‘Have it here. Have it in the home that he lived in with you and if it makes them uncomfortable, then good. They've made you feel uncomfortable plenty of times.’ There’s a long silence before she continues. ‘It might be better for Charlotte to be at home.’
Luke looks thoroughly pissed off but he says nothing.
‘She can play with her friends in the garden or, if it all gets too much, she can just hide in her room,’ Jess says. She does make a good point, because Luke gives a reluctant nod.
‘I can help,’ Mum says and I feel my jaw clamp down so hard that I can’t even open it to argue as she twitters on. ‘My friends will help, I’ll speak to them tomorrow.’
At her meeting.
God, that’s the last thing I need.
I’ve spent my life keeping my worlds apart and now they’ll all be coming together, in this very room. Everything that I’ve carefully separated will be curdling right here under this roof. The last thing I need is the bloody AA mob here with their piles of sandwiches and slices – honestly, they’re like machines at organising funerals. I can just imagine Bonny sneering as my mum passes round egg sandwiches and my friends will be sneering too.
My jaw unclamps.
I have to stay in control here.
‘I'll get it catered…’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘He can’t do that.’
I look to Luke and I look to Jess and I want one of them to agree with me, to tell me that I’m right, that, no, he can’t do that.
He can’t just leave me the house and our savings and his insurance to his children, because A) There aren’t any savings (though I don’t say that) and B) ‘They’re hardly children!’
The latter I voice.
‘You can contest it,’ Jess says. ‘Can’t she Luke?’
‘She could,’ Luke says slowly, looking at me as he speaks. ‘But I don’t know how well she’d go. It’s his living wishes, he changed them in January.’ I feel this twist in my gut and my fingers are pressed tight in my palms, as I further learn, how much this man can deceive, how little about him I know. ‘He’s asked that all his children be provided for. Lucy has the house and there is enough to cover the school fees. It’s not an awful lot that he’s leaving his children.’
‘They’re not children!’ I say it again, only a lot louder this time. ‘And it’s an awful lot when you times it by three.’
‘Four,’ Luke says, because part of it is being left in trust for Charlotte. ‘Look, let’s talk about it another time. Let’s just get through the funeral tomorrow.’
‘No!’ I’m furious. I want this sorted now. We hadn’t been going to talk about money till later but it wouldn’t wait. The undertakers wanted a massive deposit and,