Julie

I walk up the centre aisle behind the coffin, flanked by my mam and Helen. Harry is being carried by my dad and my brothers. The only family he had and, really, they’re only doing it for me.

All I can concentrate on right now is putting one foot in front of the other. Getting up to the top of the church and into my seat. This must be what PTSD feels like. Everything that’s happened over the last few weeks, over a lifetime with Harry, it’s all come to this. Is it really happening? Is he really gone?

I can’t believe the suddenness of it. The finality. Even with all those days he lay in that hospital bed.

The offertory table in the middle of the church catches my eye. We’ve left out Harry’s boxing gloves, an Ireland rugby shirt and his most-read novel, the well-thumbed copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The sight of his favourite things brings a lump to my throat and I hang my head.

I hate you, Harry, I say to myself. I hate you for ruining everything. What memories have you left me with?

It’s a large funeral, as I thought it would be. I know there are a few people here who’ve come because they are well-mannered, kind-hearted people. They’re here to say a respectful goodbye.

But the rest of them are here out of either nosiness or nastiness.

At the end of the Mass they form a line and come up, one by one, to shake the hand of Harry’s widow. His stepmother, despite the invite, hasn’t bothered to come. Just as well. I can imagine Harry sitting up in the coffin and telling her to fuck off out of the church, miserable, hypochondriac bitch. Then she’d tell everybody she had some mad illness, just to prove she was actually sicker than dead Harry.

I almost smile. There are so many things only we talked about, little jokes only he would understand. In the last few years we’d started to settle into a nice middle-aged relationship that I hadn’t even appreciated. We knew each other, our ways and thoughts. There was a relief to it, after all the drama.

Is that why I never pushed for the full truth about the women he’d slept with? Was it because we’d had to deal with so much pain I couldn’t bear any more? There must be some logical reason for me not getting to the bottom of what had happened with the Carter girl. I knew Harry always got what he wanted. Why was I so quick to assume his innocence – every time?

And there’s that little voice again.

You loved him.

That was my crime, for so long.

I take each proffered hand, making sure to make eye contact with the person in front of me, while my head spins with what ifs.

Harry lived for weeks after Carney’s assault. But he never came back. I can’t even remember the last words we exchanged. Was it something to do with the remote control? Had I asked him to make me tea?

No. I remember.

We were watching the crime drama and Harry said, ‘I think he did it,’ pointing at some character on the screen. I shushed him.

I shushed him.

I close my eyes, until Mam nudges me softly and practically lifts my hand to greet the next in line.

There’s nobody I wouldn’t expect among these fellow mourners.

Those who Harry really sold out in the bank, acolytes of Richard’s and other board members, haven’t come. Alice is right. I would have noticed, even unconsciously, if any of them had turned up.

Some of the people who lost badly in Harry’s investments are here. But I know these men and women. They’re decent. I can see it in their faces – the confusion over whether they made the right choice to come along and then their resolve when they see me, the woman left to deal with the fallout. There’s no bitterness there, not towards me, anyway.

Not one of them would have wished Harry in that box just a few feet away from us, even if they had cause to.

The line is reaching a conclusion.

That’s when I see her and my blood starts to boil.

Those bloody teeth.

Lily. The woman who came to our house that New Year’s night so many moons ago. The woman he no doubt screwed while I was entertaining our guests.

She’s like a gift from God. Seeing her, I’m no longer a mess of emotion, hating my husband one minute, wishing he was still alive because I miss him so much the next.

I feel only one thing in Lily’s presence. Fury at what Harry put me through.

She arrives in front of me. Lily hasn’t aged as well as me. She’s put on weight and her skinny frame can’t hold it. Her mouth and eyes are puckered at the sides. Her hair is scraped into a messy ponytail, her make-up barely there. She looks exhausted.

Why has she come?

I sit up, feeling more alert than I have in a long time.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she says. I take her hand like she’s just any other person in the queue but hold it tight. Too tight.

She tries to free herself, but my grip is firm and I pull her down towards me.

‘Why are you here?’ I whisper when she’s close enough for those around not to hear.

She turns her face to mine and I get a waft of Chanel No. 5. My favourite perfume.

‘I was in love with Harry,’ she says.

And I can see in her mean little eyes that it’s the truth.

I drop her hand like I’ve been scalded.

It had just been sex, that’s what Harry had said. He’d never mentioned love.

Even from beyond the grave, he can hurt me.

My mother, sensing something is up, leans across.

‘Hello, I’m Harry’s mother-in-law. Will you be coming on to the graveyard?’

Lily straightens.

‘No, I’m sorry. I have my son with me. He’s outside. I must get going.’

My gut twists. I suspect something so terrible I can barely breathe.

‘How old is he?’ I ask.

She looks at me, unwavering, and I see a little fire in her eyes.

I wait for it, bracing myself. Don’t say eleven! I scream in my head. Please, don’t say eleven.

‘He’s one,’ she says, and the fire dies. ‘My husband is with him. I’d better go. Sorry, again.’

She moves on, and I feel like a tyre that has just had a valve opened, the air hissing out of my lungs in relief.

The handshakes finish and the priest completes the blessing. The rest of the day is a blur.

Later I lie alone in bed, calm after Mam consented to me taking a Valium (I’ve never had a problem with prescription drugs; Mam just thinks, because I drank, I must have abused all substances). I think about Lily coming and then wonder how many other women there were in that church who’d slept with Harry.

Women were always his Achilles’ heel.

JP Carney must have known one of them.

It must be her, the one from that night, the one I’ve been avoiding thinking about.

The answer to what Carney did must lie there.