have been a nice gesture if Mary, or somebody close to Mary, had asked him, Miles, to read a lesson, or say a few words to acknowledge the important part he had played in Barry's final moments.
Samantha was deliberately unsurprised that Gavin had been singled out.
'You and Barry were quite close, weren't you, Gav?'
Gavin nodded. He felt jittery and a little sick. He had had a very bad night's sleep, waking in the early hours from horrible dreams in which, first, he had dropped the coffin, so that Barry's body spilt out onto the church floor; and, secondly, he had overslept, missed the funeral, and arrived at St Michael and All Saints to find Mary alone in the graveyard, white-faced and furious, screaming at him that he had ruined the whole thing.
'I'm not sure where I ought to be,' he said, looking around. 'I've never done this before.'
'Nothing to it, mate,' said Miles. 'There's only one requirement, really. Don't drop anything, hehehe.'
Miles' girlish laugh contrasted oddly with his deep speaking voice. Neither Gavin nor Samantha smiled.
Colin Wall loomed out of the mass of bodies. Big and awkward-looking, with his high, knobbly forehead, he always made Samantha think of Frankenstein's monster.
'Gavin,' he said. 'There you are. I think we should probably stand out on the pavement, they'll be here in a few minutes.'
'Right-ho,' said Gavin, relieved to be ordered around.
'Colin,' said Miles, with a nod.
'Yes, hello,' said Colin, flustered, before turning away and forcing his way back through the mass of mourners.
Then came another small flurry of movement, and Samantha heard Howard's loud voice: 'Excuse me ... so sorry ... trying to join our family ...' The crowd parted to avoid his belly, and Howard was revealed, immense in a velvet-faced overcoat. Shirley and Maureen bobbed in his wake, Shirley neat and composed in navy blue, Maureen scrawny as a carrion bird, in a hat with a small black veil.
'Hello, hello,' said Howard, kissing Samantha firmly on both cheeks. 'And how's Sammy?'
Her answer was swallowed up in a widespread, awkward shuffling, as everybody began retreating backwards off the path: there was a certain discreet jockeying for position; nobody wanted to relinquish their claim to a place near the church entrance. With this cleaving in two of the crowd, familiar individuals were revealed like separate pips along the break. Samantha spotted the Jawandas: coffee-brown faces among all the whey; Vikram, absurdly handsome in his dark suit; Parminder dressed in a sari (why did she do it? Didn't she know she was playing right into the likes of Howard and Shirley's hands?) and beside her, dumpy little Tessa Wall in a grey coat, which was straining at the buttons.
Mary Fairbrother and the children were walking slowly up the path to the church. Mary was terribly pale, and appeared pounds thinner. Could she have lost so much weight in six days? She was holding one of the twins' hands, with her other arm around the shoulders of her younger son, and the eldest, Fergus, marching behind. She walked with her eyes fixed straight ahead, her soft mouth pursed tight. Other family members followed Mary and the children; the procession moved over the threshold and was swallowed up in the dingy interior of the church.
Everyone else moved towards the doors at once, which resulted in an undignified jam. The Mollisons found themselves shunted together with the Jawandas.
'After you, Mr Jawanda, sir, after you ...' boomed Howard, holding out an arm to let the surgeon walk in first. But Howard made sure to use his bulk to prevent anybody else taking precedence over him, and followed Vikram immediately through the entrance, leaving their families to follow on.
A royal-blue carpet ran the length of the aisle of St Michael and All Saints. Golden stars glimmered on the vaulted ceiling; brass plaques reflected the glow of the hanging lamps. The stained-glass windows were elaborate and gorgeously hued. Halfway down the nave, on the epistle side, St Michael himself stared down from the largest window, clad in silver armour. Sky-blue wings curved out of his shoulders; in one hand he held aloft a sword, in the other, a pair of golden scales. A sandalled foot rested on the back of a writhing bat-winged Satan, who was dark grey in colour and attempting to raise himself. The saint's expression was serene.
Howard stopped level with St Michael and indicated that his party should file into the pew on the left; Vikram turned right into the opposite one. While the remaining Mollisons,