In the cool silence of St Pancras Old Church, Flyte was putting the final touches to the flowers she’d arranged in vases either side of the altar while the Reverend Whitehouse – ‘call me Toby’ – disappeared into the vestry to get gowned up.
Flyte had only had one proper night’s sleep since the business in the lock-up and she was still feeling divorced from reality, but nothing would’ve stopped her going ahead with Poppy’s naming ceremony. She’d considered asking Cassie along but with only her and Matt attending, having her as the only guest would have stirred up emotions she didn’t want to deal with today.
Checking the time, she felt a spurt of irritation. Matt was late, but then Matt had always been late. When the Revd Toby returned she was glad to see he wasn’t wearing some trendy secular get-up but a dog collar and a proper long white robe with a green stole round his neck that hung down the front.
Then her phone buzzed. A text from Matt. No doubt with some lame excuse for his lateness.
Sorry Philly, I just can’t face it. You name her for both of us. Matt xxx
She read it again, this time shaking with suppressed fury, especially at that ‘xxx’ sign-off. He might as well have used a crying face emoji. ‘Could I possibly use your office?’ she asked the rev.
Matt wasn’t picking up – the snivelling coward – so she had to content herself with leaving a short but expressive voicemail. As Flyte hung up, she realised that the f-word was becoming a regular feature of her language these days. Once upon a time she’d have called it a failure of vocabulary, but maybe Camden Town was rubbing off on her.
When she returned to the nave, she found the rev talking to some tall slim woman in a hat with her back to Flyte.
Not some woman. Her mother.
‘Sylvia?! What the . . . ? You said you couldn’t come.’
‘Did I?’ Sylvia regarded her daughter as if she had a screw loose. ‘Oh, you mean the cruise? I nixed that in the end. The weather in the Cyclades can be so unreliable this time of year.’ She thrust a hand-tied bouquet at her daughter. ‘The taxi brought me via Harrods. I thought these would be appropriate.’
White roses interspersed with deep red poppies.
Without thinking, Flyte stepped forward and hugged her startled mother, something she hadn’t done in years – make that decades. ‘Thank you, Ma,’ she said in her ear, breathing in the once-familiar smell of Tweed perfume.
*
After the ceremony, they were sitting quietly in the first row of chairs facing the altar. ‘Such a shame they ripped out the pews,’ said Sylvia. ‘But I must say he did a good job, your little vicar. Are they all gay these days?’
Flyte wasn’t going to let her mother rile her. Revd Toby had evidently given a lot of thought to the service and his beautiful words had left her bathed in a feeling of peace which made all her other concerns seem small – for now. ‘It was lovely,’ she said. ‘I thought the bit where he said naming Poppy made her part of a community of souls was very moving—’
Hearing a sound, Flyte turned to find her indomitable mother trying not to cry. As she watched, astonished, the tears spilled over and coursed down her face.
‘I’m sorry . . .’ said Sylvia.
‘Shhh.’ Flyte took her mother’s hand, feeling all at sea. This surely couldn’t be just about Poppy. ‘Is everything OK? You’re not . . . unwell, are you?’ Picturing inoperable cancers – or worse.
Sylvia took a big breath of air, and producing a lace handkerchief from her sleeve, pressed it to her eyes for a moment. ‘I’m fine. It just . . . this brings it all back to me.’
‘Brings what back?’
‘Losing Petica.’ Suddenly looking every inch of her seventy-two years.
‘Petica . . . ?’
‘I don’t think I ever told you, darling. Petica came a year before you, but she arrived too early. Her lungs weren’t properly developed and they couldn’t save her. Perhaps these days . . .’ She waved her hand.
‘I had a sister? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Flyte felt a surge of fury.
‘Oh, there was no point in dragging it all up. Upsetting everyone.’
The rage quickly dissolved in a surge of empathy for her mother.
‘How long . . . did you have her?’
‘Four days. Four beautiful days.’ A smile lit Sylvia’s tear-smudged face.
‘Oh, Ma . . . How long was it after you lost Petica that I arrived?’
‘Less than a year.’
Oh, too soon, thought Flyte. Far too soon.
‘For months I slept – well dozed, really – in the armchair in your room, next to your cot. I would wake up constantly and put the back of my hand to your mouth to make sure you were still breathing.’ She put her hand out as if cot and baby were still standing there in front of her. ‘It drove your father mad, understandably, so I stopped – but I never stopped worrying about you, thinking that something terrible would happen.’
Drove Pops mad . . . ? ‘Why didn’t you have my cot in the bedroom with you both?’
A laugh. ‘Gerald would never have stood for that!’ Flyte’s surprise must have been obvious because Sylvia went on, ‘Your father couldn’t really see the point of babies. But he was marvellous with you, as soon as you could talk.’ She paused. ‘I sometimes felt a bit envious of how close you two were. Silly really.’
Sylvia gently removed her hand from her daughter’s and blew her nose delicately into her hanky before folding it away into her sleeve. The heart-to-heart was over.
Now she looked at her daughter with something more like her usual expression. ‘Your new hairstyle suits you. When you wore it up in a chignon you looked like a librarian.’
Flyte suppressed a smile. A compliment wrapped in an insult: normal service had been restored.