I can't define why, but it made me feel cold to have to do such a thing, as though I was some kind of stalker or deviant. As though I was stealing an image I had no right to take.
It was a beautiful photograph of April; it captured her essence, her beauty. Although people often said that we looked alike, my sister had been the one truly blessed with natural good looks.
In the photograph in front of me, April's glossy, amber-coloured hair is highlighted perfectly with softly glowing gold. The tops of her arms are straight and elegantly slender. Her clothing, too, whilst modest, leaves us to assume a toned physique lies beneath.
The colours of the background hinted of autumn reds and oranges, even though they have been muted now by the black and white monotone of the photocopier for the service booklets. I kept a copy of the picture on my phone though and plan to treasure it.
I remember seeing a professional photographer in her friends list on Facebook. Was he the one that had taken this picture?
As I lay the last booklet upon the seat in the back row, I stop and look down again at my sister's radiant face, trying to look for some sign of what she was going to do. A gentle smile plays upon her lips, almost as though she is sharing an in-joke with the photographer.
Again, I wonder who actually took the shot. I'm assuming it was a boyfriend of hers, but I didn't know a great deal about her private life in recent years.
I smile to myself, thinking of when we were children, of the times when I would sit cross-legged on the end of her bed as she would tell me every last detail of her various encounters with boys at school. I would sit enraptured; hanging on her every word.
Before I went to sleep last night I counted the number of occasions I had seen my sister in the last twelve years. It couldn't have been more than a handful.
My stomach twists again with guilt.
2
I draw my gaze up from the photograph just as the first attendees start to arrive. People file in gradually over the next twenty minutes. Most faces I recognise, albeit long forgotten; lined and paler than I remember, like faded copies of the younger versions. Nevertheless, they are the same villagers I knew as a child in Little Bishopsford.
Most village children, like April, Will and myself, grew up, left for Uni or work and never came back. Young, unfamiliar faces arrive too; they introduce themselves as April's colleagues from the office in which she worked. Others are casual acquaintances. I nod to each one as they arrive, planting a horribly forced smile on my face I utterly hate. The alternative, however, is to risk tears so I leave on this stiff and uncomfortable mask instead.
As the rows fill up to capacity, I find it odd that there aren't really any closer friends of April's and not a boyfriend or partner in sight. My mother was in charge of letting people know. The lack of April's smartphone meant Mum had struggled. She was unable to find anyone who knew April on a truly personal level to invite today.
Mum put an obituary in the local village press, but couldn't get anything for the bigger papers in the city.
It is a sign of the times that the ageing residents of Little Bishopsford were likely to still read the newspaper. Judging by the look of April's colleagues, my first impression is that they wouldn't consider reading anything that wasn't presented to them in digital format.
The rows of wooden seats are now bubbling with streams of neat, black Sunday-best as people shake hands and their heads as they remark at the tragedy of it all.
The only time I have ever seen this hall this busy was for a neighbour's daughter when she came back to the village to get married. April and I had been delighted to be the only children thought well-behaved enough to attend an otherwise adults-only event. We were even allowed the day off school.
I glance across to Eva sitting beside my mother near the front. She looks bored by the conversation with her grandmother and I can tell her hand is itching for her phone. She only met April fleetingly once or twice in her young life and the two never really had an occasion to really bond.
Many heads, particularly those with monochrome, grey and white hair turn in my direction every now and then. I pretend I don't notice. In fact, I would actually be tempted to take up a seat right at the back of the church to avoid curious eyes if there was any room. Instead, I walk up the aisle swiftly and take my place on the front row in between my father and husband.
Will, I notice seems to be getting a lot of stares too, although there seems to be something a little less friendly than curiosity behind the looks in his case.
Another stab of guilt attacks my insides.
The general murmuring of subdued conversations quietens rapidly as the Reverend takes up his place at the altar.
He tidies his papers in front of him unnecessarily, as though this is the first part of the act he must have honed and performed many times over the years. When he speaks too, I can picture how he must have said these words or very close variants to so many other church-loads of people.
'It is a very sombre event indeed when a life is lost, particularly one so young and so full of potential. Those that knew her appreciated that April was a beautiful soul. Full of warmth, compassion and love for her family and friends.' Reverend Walker gestures to where I sit beside my father and Will.
On the row behind me, my mother lets out a single sob and out of the corner of my eye, I see Paul, her new husband, hand her a tissue that seems overly white in the mass of black.
The scale of the falling out my parents had years ago was so great that they can't even bring themselves to sit on the same row for their own daughter's funeral. On many details, they used me as a go-between whilst making arrangements; they struggled to agree on anything.
The worst disagreement was over burial or cremation. That took weeks of constant bickering to resolve whilst waiting for the search operation to recover a body from the river.
One wasn't found, however. In the end, the recovery teams were recalled and Mum and Dad didn't resolve their disagreement.
In a way it was lucky April had been spotted by witnesses up on that bridge. Her office ID card was also found near the spot she had jumped; it must have slipped from her pocket as she had clambered over the railings. I wonder where we would all be now if she hadn't lost that card. What if she had simply gone missing? Vanished without a trace. We might never have known what had happened to her.
The thought causes me to physically shiver.
I look up ahead at the empty casket surrounded by sombre blooms and consider the fact that my sister never even got a say in all this; she never made any such plans. Of course she didn't; she was only forty-one years old.
The lump in my throat strains and feels fit to burst again. I take a deep breath and pick up the order of service booklet beside me; I stare at it with watering eyes and wish I had more of the Polo left than a vague minty aftertaste. Now I try my best to avoid seeing the picture of April and focus on the swirling, decorative text on the cover, but I still feel her eyes boring into me.
In Loving Memory of
April Louise Hampton
I stare at the elegant typeface Mum selected, trying to block everything else out. I can't break down now. I need to grieve in the safety of solitude. I've never been one to crave attention, always been happy to stay in the background. April was the one who loved to bathe in the heat of the spotlight.