‘It’s Saff,’ she says, but I’ve already turned away, taking Fleur’s drink and stumbling towards the sugar station, trying to calm my racing heart. Saffy is not an uncommon name in the UK. It’s not her, I know it can’t be her, but still my stomach lurches and my pulse beats in my ears like waves crashing against the sand. Calm down, I tell myself, stirring sugar into my coffee and lifting the wooden stick to my lips. Saffy used to squirt cream straight into her mouth, grinning, looking like a rabid dog, and the memory soothes me somehow.
Fleur joins me as I’m putting the lids back onto our drinks. ‘All set?’ she asks.
‘I’ll just use the loo. Meet you in the car?’
‘The loo. So English.’ She laughs, shaking her head, and I stick my tongue out at her as I push open the bathroom door.
I grip the sides of the basin, my fingers turning white as I stare at my reflection. My hair is short now, barely touching my shoulders, and my face is bare of make-up. I used to see Saffy in the mirror more often, and in the faces of the girls and women I passed in the streets, but it’s been a long time since it last happened, not since I moved to France and tried to put the past behind me. Not since I tried to forget all about my missing, presumed dead, sister.
7
The Celebrant
James takes a deep breath, cherishing the silence while it lasts. The order of service is laid out on the benches and he has tested the speakers, hastily turning down the volume when Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ came blaring out. I could probably create a playlist for the most commonly played songs at funerals, he thinks as he paces the room. ‘You Raise Me Up’ is a popular one, along with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and, strangely, ‘My Immortal’ by Evanescence.
Fiona has chosen three songs for today’s service. They will walk in to ‘Angels’, the two sons, Richard’s brother, Peter, and a colleague carrying the coffin. James feels his heart give a little lurch at the thought of Peter and tries to force his mind to carry on down the checklist. He cannot afford to be sidetracked today. He has written the words of welcome, a short introduction thanking everyone for being there. He glances up at the webcam mounted on the wall opposite him and frowns. It is a relatively new feature, this option to ‘live-stream’ the funeral to people who could not otherwise make it, and he is not entirely sure how he feels about it. But, he reminds himself, it doesn’t matter how he feels about it. This is his last funeral, and he won’t have to think about it again.
He moves on to the tribute which he has put together with words from various family members. He reads them back, shaking his head as he tries to correlate the Richard Asquith described here with the Richard Asquith he knew. Fiona has provided the facts: Richard’s business, his children and family life, and all of his achievements. Anecdotes from his university days and heart-warming stories from his childhood. On paper, Richard appears to be a successful, well-loved husband, father, brother, colleague, and friend. But James knows the real man behind this façade, the man who had done his level best to make James’s life hell since he discovered his secret.
He takes a deep breath, forcing his mind to return to the schedule. A couple of readings, and then they will spend a few moments in reflection while they listen to the dulcet tones of Celine Dion before the committal. And then it will be over, ‘Ashes to Ashes’ by David Bowie accompanying the final farewell to Richard Asquith, loved one, businessman, and absolute wanker.
‘I won’t be reading a eulogy,’ Fiona told him during their one and only meeting about the funeral. ‘I can’t abide public shows of emotion.’
‘Lexi wants to read something,’ Felix said, and James caught the look on Fiona’s face as she turned to her son.
‘Lexi?’ she repeated, as if he had spoken a foreign language. ‘But she–’
‘I’d like to, Fiona,’ Lexi said, her soft voice smoothing over the tension that had entered the room. ‘For Leo, if nothing else.’
Fiona’s face had softened at the mention of her grandson, and she nodded once.
‘What would you like to read, Lexi?’ James asked the young woman, who looked up and met his eyes. She was beautiful, he thought, a rare kind of beauty that seemed to shine from within.
‘A poem,’ she said after a moment, smiling sadly. ‘Richard was a fan of poetry. He told me he used to write, in his younger years.’
‘Yes,’ Fiona scoffed, ‘and they were bloody awful. Don’t read one of those.’
Lexi’s smile dimmed slightly before returning, her eyes sparkling. ‘Don’t worry. I know just the thing.’
James rubs his hands together now, his breath misting in the air in front of him as he crosses the room to turn up the thermostat. He keeps his jacket on as he reads through his notes again, mouthing the words in a last attempt to commit them to memory. He always has to refer to his notes at least once during a service, anxiety turning his mind blank as he stares out at the friends and family gathered before him. Over twenty years he’s been in this job, and the nerves still get to him.
Does he feel nervous today? His hands are steady now, despite the cold, and the familiar bubble of nerves is strangely absent. Perhaps it is because it’s his last funeral; perhaps it is because it’s for Richard. But regardless of his feelings for the dead man, he owes it to Fiona to give him a proper send-off. Despite how Richard treated her, despite the arguments and the humiliation he subjected her to, Fiona is a woman of class. She knows how to behave in every scenario, jumps without hesitation into all situations, always doing what is expected of her. James half-wishes she would turn up today in a luminous pink tracksuit with her hair spiked up and a fag hanging out of her mouth just to liven things up.
His mind turns to Eleanor, the other woman. Will she show her face today? Strangely, despite his connection to Fiona, he likes Eleanor, thinks her a kind and thoughtful woman. He remembers the way she bought drinks for everyone at Richard’s birthday last year, how clear was her desperate need to fit in, to be liked. She’d even made sure the lactose intolerant girlfriend of Richard’s colleague was catered for, carefully separating the food on the buffet into different categories: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free. She is nice, James thinks, and although the word is simplistic, it suits her. Eleanor is nice. So what on earth was she doing with Richard? How is it that Richard Asquith has managed to ensnare two – no, three, he corrects himself, remembering Fearne – lovely women? Fearne was one of those wild, carefree types, with long flowing hair and a sultry Scottish burr. He only met her briefly, at an uncomfortable birthday party for Skye, her and Richard’s remaining daughter, after they had separated. She had travelled down from Scotland to pick her daughter up, waiting in the driveway with her new husband. It was then that James realised how close in age Skye and Felix are – barely five years – and it dawned on him that Richard had been seeing Fiona on the sly before he split up with Fearne after their younger daughter went missing. An entire second family, kept hidden away from the first.
And now there is Eleanor. No children involved this time, he thinks, thanking the god he doesn’t believe in. Fiona’s heart would have been broken if she’d discovered their affair. In fact, James suspects she might have killed him if she had.