lifted above her groin by a huge leather belt slung round her hips, a black beret on the side of her head, turquoise patterned tights and flat pumps. Ignoring her mother’s imperious wave summoning her to sit next to her in the family pew, Trixie sat down next to her father in the row behind and kissed him.
Up came the coffin, like a vast floral shopping basket.
‘Biodegradable,’ Martin explained to Blanche.
Bio-degrading, thought Etta. Sampson should have had oak.
‘Sampy in the basket,’ whispered Trixie to her father. They both shook with laughter.
The service kicked off with ‘Eternal Father’, because Sampson had been briefly in the Navy. Romy’s fine singing voice was drowned by Dame Hermione’s and taxed by a sadistic organist playing an octave too high.
‘“Man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them,”’ warned the vicar.
Despite Trixie’s defection, they were such a tight fit in the family pew that Etta and Blanche had to share a hassock embroidered with a white rabbit when they kneeled down, their knees rammed against each other. Etta wished Bartlett was sitting next to her; she hated leaving her all confused at home.
Dame Hermione sang ‘Where’er You Walk’.
The vicar, who’d enjoyed an excellent crate of claret from Sampson every Christmas, had wanted to pay tribute to his old friend but had been pushed aside by Martin, who, in a very white shirt, black tie and dark suit, cut a much handsomer figure than his sister. The mistresses gazed at him hungrily, as he told them how heart-warming and humbling it was that they’d all turned up ‘to burst our lovely church at the seams’.
‘I’m Martin Bancroft,’ he went on pompously. ‘Today is a thanksgiving service, a celebration of a brilliant man, a field marshal of industry. Dad suffered from a deadly degenerative heart disease called Howitt’s, terrifying in that it destroys organs, muscles and brain, wrapping itself around the sufferer like a boa constrictor, causing excruciating pain. I know Dad would have liked me to express his gratitude to all the nurses, carers and doctors who looked after him so selflessly.’ Martin smiled around.
‘What about Granny?’ said Trixie loudly.
‘This illness can linger on for twenty years,’ droned on Martin, ‘and although I would have given the world for another five minutes with Dad, God was merciful.’
The captains of industry were getting restless – all on their BlackBerries, typing with their thumbs, increasing their millions, checking emails and texts. They had deals to close, mistresses to pleasure, shares to buy, conference calls to take.
Shade Murchieson, whose horse was favourite in the 3.00 at Ludlow, said ‘Fuck’ very loudly when it only came fourth. Trixie got the giggles. She thought Shade was cool.
‘This is going on too long,’ complained Drummond, catching the mood.
‘If this is Grandpa’s funeral,’ grumbled Poppy, ‘where’s Grandpa?’
‘In that basket, stupid,’ said Drummond.
The audience rocked with laughter.
Time for the readings: Carrie was meant to kick off with Mr Valiant for Truth arriving in heaven and the trumpets sounding for him on the other side, followed by the Last Post.
But she suddenly lost it, couldn’t get any words out and burst into tears.
An anguished Etta was about to run and comfort her but was forcibly restrained by Martin, secretly thrilled that his sister had screwed up, as the organ tactfully launched into ‘Dear Lord And Father’. Etta looked up at a stained glass window of knights in armour fighting, and identified with a plump strawberry roan sidling away from the conflict.
‘Still small voice of calm,’ sang the congregation.
No voice could have been less still, small or calm than Sampson’s, thought Etta, and blew her nose on a piece of kitchen roll, so far removed from the lace handkerchief wafting Miss Dior with which Blanche mopped her eyes.
‘If Etta had died first,’ Blanche whispered to Dame Hermione, ‘Sampson would have married me.’
‘Or me,’ said Dame Hermione loftily.
‘Or me, Etta’s lost her looks,’ reflected the mistresses.
But to their husbands and the captains of industry, Etta was still appealing. She might have lost the enticing youthful plumpness of a Golden Delicious, but with the light falling on her soft curls, her bewildered blue eyes, her sweet profile and lovely skin, she was infinitely touching.
Brian Tenby, the family lawyer, however, thought differently. Not poppy, nor mandragora shall lull you to that sweet sleep which you had yesterday, he thought pityingly, when you hear the will tomorrow and realize Sampson’s left you nothing. Penelope’s suitors, of whom