Roses Are Red - Miranda Rijks Page 0,22
Bea who said they should come; that it might give them the closure they’ll need. She forgets that they were both there when the ambulance men took away their father’s body.
Last week, when Fiona and I were at the funeral parlour, the funeral director turned to me and asked what my budget was for the coffin. For a brief moment, I thought of putting Adam in the cheapest pine box. It would be sweet revenge. But then I thought again. He was my husband. I used to love him. He didn’t choose to die. He should have had decades left to live, so I pondered what he would have wanted. I chose the most expensive coffin in their catalogue. I think he would be pleased with the cherry-red coffin with gold handles and the sumptuous flower arrangements draped on and around it.
I don’t know how we get through the service, but we do. Perhaps it helps that the non-denominational celebrant didn’t know Adam, so the service is depersonalised. All three of us squeeze our eyes together as the curtain comes down and Adam’s coffin disappears.
When the service is over and everyone is milling out in the hallway, I notice DI Cornish and DC White standing in the corner, observing us all. I am quite sure they’re not here to pay their respects. Bea and Cassie marshal us through the crowd of well-wishers, and the limousine whisks us away to a local hotel.
‘You never know how many people are going to come to the wake,’ Fiona had said. ‘Best have too much food and drink rather than too little.’ The hotel concurred. But then they would. They’ll be in the money.
The hotel is large, and the building is squat and rather ugly, with a white rendered finish that looks odd in its rural settings in woodland at the foot of the Sussex Downs. I’m not sure how, but quite a few people have arrived before us and are already milling around in the sterile conference room. There are a lot of faces I don’t recognise, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve got the right funeral. But then I spot Ajay; Marianne is clinging onto her husband’s arm for dear life. I turn away from them. What cheek for them to attend Adam’s funeral.
Cassie hands me a glass of white wine, and I take several large gulps. I look outside through the large patio windows, towards the well-tended gardens. The kids are with their older cousins, sitting outside on a bench. Louis says something that makes them laugh. I’m relieved. Now I have to play the grieving hostess.
How come there are so many strangers here? How did Adam know all of these people? Are they all from the golf club, or are they people from other parts of his life that I knew nothing about? Adam had so little family. An only child, with both parents dead and no cousins that I am aware of. He never talked much about his childhood, although I know that he was sent off to boarding school, where he was desperately unhappy. It was very obvious that neither of his parents thought that I was good enough for their only son. But they misjudged us: their constant criticism of me and everything Adam did only served to make us closer. I wondered whether they thought they were displaying a weird form of tough love. It didn’t work. Adam didn’t cry at either of his parents’ funerals, just as I’m not crying at his.
‘Are you all right?’ Bea asks as she brings me over a small plate filled with sausage rolls and open sandwiches. I place it on the windowsill. I’m not hungry.
‘I don’t know half these people.’
She places a kiss on my cheek. Bea never kisses me. I finish my glass of wine and another appears immediately.
After shaking hands with queues of sombre mourners, I slip out of the room to go to the ladies’. I feel slightly tipsy, having drunk two glasses of wine and eaten nothing all day. When I come out of the cubicle to wash my hands, Marianne is standing with her back to the sinks. She is wearing a black silk dress and lots of heavy gold jewelry. Her Prada sunglasses cover most of her face.
I ignore her and step to the furthest sink.
‘Lydia, I’m so sorry,’ she says.
I turn the tap on full blast.
‘Please. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to cause such pain. I miss him so