And never the twain shall meet. Why did that hurt?
‘Meanwhile, you have a queue of six patients, Dr Reynard.’
‘Just make sure I’m clear for the funeral at two,’ he muttered, and she nodded.
‘Of course. As I said, we do look after our own.’
‘I’m not your own.’
‘While you’re going to Richard’s funeral, yes, you are.’
He’d thought the funeral would be tiny. It was anything but.
The church itself was tiny, an ancient grey stone building covered with a mass of briar roses that almost buried it. Miriam and Fergus drove up together, having stopped on the way to check on Ginny.
‘We’re fine,’ she’d told them. She’d been sitting on the back step dressed in a flowery chintzy dress that hadn’t looked in the least like a funeral, and she had been holding onto Madison, dressed in much the same way. ‘The undertaker’s picking us up.’
‘Let us take you,’ Fergus had urged, but she’d shaken her head.
‘Madison and I are family. We’ll do this by ourselves.’
She’d looked defiant and brave, and only the pallor of her face had given away the true way she was feeling.
And now…
‘She’ll have to face the whole community,’ Fergus said as they pulled up at the church. ‘Alone.’
‘She’s not alone,’ Miriam said. ‘The undertaker is Sam Leith and he went to school with Ginny’s dad. This is where she belongs. We’re her people.’ She gazed around the car park. ‘There’ll be some who are here simply out of curiosity.’ She grimaced as she saw Oscar in a wheelchair with a group of half a dozen residents of the nursing home. ‘Many of the oldies will be here because they knew Ginny and Richard’s grandparents and parents. Many will be sympathetic, though there’s always a few who think a funeral’s a good excuse for an outing and a free drink or six. And then there’s Oscar,’ she went on, before Fergus could interrupt and ask. ‘He’ll be here because he hates the family. Did you know Ginny’s mother refused to marry him? Wise woman. Anyway, it’s always rankled and he’ll be pleased another Viental’s dead. But he’s an exception. Most of this community will be here because they know Ginny wants to stay here-that she’s decided she belongs.’
‘But it’s so soon.’ He’d pulled into the last available parking space behind the church and now he was looking back along the road to where a stream of cars was still arriving. ‘And Madison… Should she be coming?’
‘Ginny talked to the child psychiatrist,’ Miriam said, as if this had been a major source of discussion. ‘She said it’d make it much easier for Madison later on if she has some shadowy memory of what’s happening. Ginny and Richard brought her together to her mother’s funeral. Judith and Richard will be buried side by side. It’ll give Madison some sort of link.’
‘But today…’
‘Is going to be hard for both of them,’ Miriam agreed.
‘If she’d let me be there…’
‘You know, maybe she would,’ Miriam said softly. ‘But if she let you…would you stay?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you know perfectly well what I mean,’ she retorted. ‘If Ginny lets herself lean on you now, she’s going to need you for always. That’s not what you want now, is it?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘At least…I don’t think so.’
By the time they walked into the church the place was packed. People were being directed to the hall next door where a video link had been set up, but as they made to turn away, the usher called them back.
‘There’s a pew for the medical staff who treated Richard,’ he said. ‘Second from the front on the left.’
So Fergus sat between Miriam and Tony and Bridget. The organ was playing gentle waiting music. The church was hushed.
Out the front was the coffin, burnished oak and beautiful, loaded with the same wild roses that covered the church.
The last funeral he’d been to, the coffin had been so much smaller…
There was a touch on his hand and he looked down and Miriam’s broad palm was covering his.
‘Hang in there, kid,’ she told him, and he looked at her in wonder. How much could be read on his face?
He’d come to Cradle Lake to hide. How could he hide here?
‘She shouldn’t be bringing Madison,’ he whispered, miserable that he hadn’t been able to talk about this with Ginny. But every attempt at contact over the last days had been met with a gentle, ‘Thank you, Fergus, we’re fine. We need to start as we mean to go on-Madison and me. Let us do this on our own.’
‘She’s bringing Madison,’ Miriam whispered. ‘I told you. The child psychiatrist talked her through it. They have a plan.’
A plan. The idea should have made him feel better.
It didn’t.
Then a stir at the back of the church made him turn. Sam, the undertaker, was there. And Ginny and Madison and…
Dogs.
Three dogs, all garlanded with flowers. Wearing garlands, woven ropes of flowers of every description.
Ginny and Madison were bedecked with flowers, too, the flowers of their dresses augmented with the gay garlands round their necks. Madison had a circlet of roses in her hair.
Woman and child, dogs and flowers… The church gasped as one.
In they came. Ginny had the whippet and the collie-Twiggy and Snapper-and Madison held the smaller Bounce as if this was a very serious responsibility. The two girls and three dogs made their way in dignified style down the aisle behind the grey-suited undertaker. There was a momentary pause as Snapper decided to cock a leg on a pew-he was clearly only at the beginning of dignified dog behaviour training. There was no consternation, however. Sam was carrying a vast armful of flowers, posies and wreaths of all description. Snapper paused. Ginny paused. Madison sucked her breath in with four-year-old indignation and said, ‘Bad dog, Snapper.’ But clearly this eventuality had been rehearsed. Ginny simply lifted a pile of flowers from Sam’s arms and laid the pile over Snapper’s spot. More flowers in a church that was redolent with flowers.
The congregation giggled.
That set the flavour of the entire ceremony.
Richard had had friends. For these last few weeks he’d wanted to be alone and he’d asked them not to come, but they were here in force now, celebrating his life as Ginny had obviously agreed that they should. There was music-fabulous music. There were people telling wonderful stories of the Richard they’d known and obviously loved. There was a boy, maybe only sixteen, accompanied by his parents, who’d met Richard in hospital some years before and who spoke of the way Richard had made him see that a life with cystic fibrosis could be a great life.
Short didn’t necessarily mean empty.
Short just meant stacking more in, living for every moment. Living for now.
And then Ginny and Madison rose, accompanied by their dogs.
‘It’s time to say goodbye to Richard,’ Ginny said softly. ‘Your friend. My brother. Madison’s daddy.’ She smiled gently at the little girl whose hand she was holding. ‘Madison, do you want to say what happens now?’
‘We bury the shell,’ Madison said, holding on for dear life to Bounce’s collar with one hand and Ginny with the other, but her clear little voice reached out through the sound system and filled the church. ‘My daddy and my mummy were in shells like snails.’ She looked up at Ginny for reassurance, but she kept gamely on. ‘We’ve all got shells,’ she said. ‘Like snails. My mummy said I’ve got a pretty one with nice hair, and Bounce has got a fuzzy one with stiff hair like a hearth brush. My Mummy said we have to enjoy every minute of being in our shells. She said we should stay in our shells till we get really, really old, and probably that’s what’ll happen to me and Ginny and Bounce and Snapper and Twiggy. But sometimes we get sick, like my mummy and daddy, and we come out of our shell early. Ginny says that’s OK. She thinks my mummy and daddy might have found a new shell together. That’s sad ’cos we don’t know where that new shell is, but we still have to bury the old shell and that’s what we do now.’
What child psychologist had worked their wonder here? Fergus wondered, dazed. What medical textbook did
