understood the need to mourn with the dead in your eyeline. From what I saw, they’d done a good job on her. She looked less gaunt than I expected, and Marina had chosen one of her signature hats to cover her baldness, the deep watermelon shade giving a welcome splash of colour to the interior of the woven willow coffin. ‘It looks like we’re sending her off in a giant picnic basket,’ George said.
‘It’s what she wanted,’ Simon said. ‘She cared about the planet. Even if she wasn’t going to be here, Jimmy’s got to grow up in this world.’
George sighed. ‘I know, I know. It just looks . . . odd, that’s all. I’m accustomed to a more traditional look.’
On the day of the funeral, George arranged for a driver to collect Scarlett’s mother and sister from King’s Cross Station. To her final days Scarlett had been adamant that she didn’t want Chrissie and Jade at her bedside. She didn’t want them to so much as set foot in her house. The instructions were to provide them with first-class return tickets from Leeds and a hotel room if they needed to stay overnight. George had booked them into a decent hotel near King’s Cross. In an act that would have made Scarlett smile, he’d chosen one that had no bar or restaurant.
Marina, Jimmy and I were taken from the hacienda to the nearby funeral home by 1940s black Rolls Royce. I couldn’t help feeling that Leanne should have been with us, but she hadn’t turned up. The day after Scarlett’s death, Simon said he’d called to try and persuade her to put the rift behind her and pay her last respects with the rest of us. But Leanne had been adamant that Scarlett hadn’t wanted her there, so she would stay away. She wasn’t going to be two-faced about it. It seemed a sad end to what had been one of the few important relationships in Scarlett’s life.
There were two other vintage Rollers in the cortege, one carrying Simon and George, plus the two assistants from the agency who had worked most closely with Scarlett. The third was occupied by the team from Scarlett’s TV chat show – her co-host, the producer, her stylist and a couple of others I hadn’t met before. Chrissie and Jade were in a black BMW bringing up the tail.
The hearse itself was a horse-drawn carriage, all four bay horses with black plumes on their headbands. They were preceded by two professional mourners, their silk top hats beribboned and their black Crombie coats perfectly fitting their burly frames. You could hardly see the coffin for the floral tributes. MUMMY from Jimmy, of course. SCARLETT along one side from the TV channel and SMILE in the style of the logo from the perfume company. I hadn’t seen a cortege that over the top since a fellow ghost writer had persuaded me to come with him to a Kray family funeral.
There must have been thousands of fans lining the half-mile route from the funeral home to the crematorium. They wept, they cheered. They threw flowers and, bizarrely, confetti at the hearse. Once we had passed, they abandoned the pavements and fell into step behind the cortege. The police, there to prevent any public order offences, were hopelessly outnumbered. They looked completely bewildered, taken aback by this outpouring of public sorrow for a Northern underclass underdog who had somehow won people’s hearts.
The Prime Minister himself had jumped on the bandwagon. The local MP had got to his feet in the House of Commons and asked if the PM had plans to extend breast screening to younger women in the light of Scarlett’s tragic death. The PM had put his serious face on and said, ‘I was saddened to hear of the death of Scarlett Higgins, a brave young woman who demonstrated how it’s possible in today’s Britain to triumph over adversity and build a successful career. She brought delight to us all and she will be sorely missed. I will ask the Health Secretary to write to the Honourable Member in response to his question.’ I hoped he was watching the live coverage on the satellite news channels, so he could see what popularity looked like.
When we reached the crematorium the funeral director emerged with a large wicker basket. As the pall bearers slid the coffin out and on to their shoulders, he opened the basket and released a dozen white doves into the blue sky in a flurry of feathers. The crowd gasped at the sight. A moment of pure theatre. I was making mental notes every step of the way; this would be the final chapter of the final Scarlett book, after all.
Outside the crematorium, there were giant screens relaying the service so the punters could share the grief. Inside, we followed the coffin down the aisle. Jimmy’s hand gripped mine so tightly I knew I’d have tiny half-moon bruises across my palm from his fingernails. He was my responsibility now, and it weighed heavily on me. Again, I wished Leanne was here to share it with me. Marina was all very well, but she wasn’t family. And besides, she would be leaving soon to take up the job Scarlett had promised her in Romania. I couldn’t afford the cousin she’d offered Scarlett, nor did I have room in my small house for live-in help. I was going to have to get used to doing this by myself.
Inside, there were more flowers everywhere and the air was filled with the fragrance of Scarlett Smile. I was rapidly reaching the point where I never wanted to smell that bloody perfume again. The crematorium was crammed with faces from the pages of the red-tops and the slag mags. It was a paparazzo’s C-list
The service managed to deliver more dignity than I would have expected. Liam Burke, whose rich Irish brogue delivered the pronouncements of Big Fish to the
Jimmy clung to me throughout the service, his little body trembling with an overdose of emotion. In the end, I scooped him up into my lap and he threw his arms round my neck as if he would never let me go. I rubbed his back and made soothing noises. I didn’t know what else to do.
Once the service was over, George whisked us all back to the waiting cars. ‘I’m not doing a bloody receiving line,’ he said firmly. ‘If we do, we’ll have to include Jade and Chrissie and I am not having that.’
From a distance, they didn’t look too bad. I said as much to George. ‘I sent one of my girls up to Leeds to dress them and travel with them. So they’re relatively sober and relatively straight. I have no confidence that state will survive the wake, however. We need to keep the bloody media away from them in case it all gets grisly.’
‘What about Jimmy? Does he have to meet them?’
We’d reached the cars now. George looked around, uncharacteristically indecisive. ‘I’ll travel with you,’ he said, getting in alongside Marina and me. Jimmy was still attached to me like a baby monkey. ‘I’d like to keep him away from them if we can. My girlie said they’re making noises about claiming Jimmy.’ His mouth curled as if he’d encountered a bad smell. ‘They see him as a meal ticket, of course.’
‘I’ll take him home,’ Marina said. ‘I don’t need to be at the party.’ She shrugged one shoulder. ‘I don’t know anyone and it’s not necessary for me to remember Scarlett that way. Me and Jimmy, we’ll go back to the house and take off our funeral clothes and have ourselves some fun.’
‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ George said.
‘I went to Joshu’s memorial and I hated it,’ Marina said. ‘It’s no loss to me. And better for Jimmy to go home and not be paraded like a prize pig.’
That wasn’t quite how I would have put it, but I saw her point. And it was a relief, I had to admit. The last thing I wanted was a public tug of war over Scarlett’s son. As it turned out, we couldn’t have played it better. I was barely in the door of the hotel ballroom where the wake was being held when Chrissie and Jade Higgins swaggered up to me, drinks in hand. A space cleared around us as if by magic. One thing about slebs – they can sense handbags at dawn at fifty paces and they always like to give the antagonists plenty of room to make a show of themselves.
‘Where’s my grandson?’ Chrissie wasn’t about to bother with details like introductions. Up close, I could see the damage that distance had obscured. Her skin was rough, broken veins imperfectly covered by foundation. Too much mascara and shadow wasn’t enough of a distraction from the yellow tinge to the whites of her eyes or the pouchy bags beneath them. Her teeth were yellow and chipped, and the closer she got, the more her rank breath sickened me. Her arms and legs were skinny, but her torso was round and hard, like a little barrel. If you’d been looking for Scarlett’s mother, you wouldn’t have picked her out of a line-up.
‘You must be Mrs Higgins,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry we’re meeting in such sad circumstances.’
