Ray has been to the airport to collect a body. An American woman from AC who married an Englishman. She’s to be buried at Our Lady Star of the Sea.
The woman has been embalmed in London and she’s arrived snug in her coffin. It’s a half-view casket of polished dark wood with brass fittings. The family want a public viewing at the service. Ray opens the panel, the oiled hinge releasing with a heavy clunk, and leans over to check that all is as it should be. He scrutinises her face intently. ‘Nice work,’ he admits. ‘Very natural-looking.’ He turns to me. ‘Take a look, Catrin. A real professional job.’
The front door rings and he goes to answer it. I step up to the coffin. Ray’s right. Whoever the embalmer was, he or she was an artist. The woman looks as though she’s sleeping peacefully. What Ray didn’t tell me was how beautiful she is, this dead woman. She’s pale with neat features, long dark hair framing her face in glossy bangs, her small, shapely lips flushed ruby red. It looks as though she might open them to speak. I find myself leaning closer to listen for the sound of her breathing. She makes me think of fairy tales where a princess lies sleeping in a glass coffin, until the prince kisses her awake.
When Ray touches my shoulder, I jump.
‘I need you for this funeral,’ he says. ‘We’re supplying pallbearers. You’ll ride with me in the hearse, okay?’
‘Oh, but I have it in the book that I get this weekend off,’ I tell him. ‘I have a … a friend here. He’s … he’s leaving soon.’
‘Sorry, Cat.’ He closes the viewing panel. ‘Can’t do without you. It’s only a few hours on Saturday.’
My insides clench with frustration. ‘But it’s important, Ray,’ I plead. ‘He’s important.’
‘Didn’t I just know there was a man involved?’ Ray sucks his teeth and looks sorrowful. ‘Losing your head like a chicken.’ He winks. ‘Tell you what, child. You can leave straight after it’s over.’
‘Thank you.’ I incline my chin towards the coffin. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Elizabeth,’ he says. ‘Elizabeth Dunn. That was her married name. She was an O’Reilly originally.’
The O’Reillys are the nearest we get to aristocracy in this part of the world. They own the Atlantic and Liberty hotels.
Ray taps the coffin. ‘Got to get this one right.’
‘I have to work this weekend,’ I tell Sam. ‘It’s the funeral of a woman who belongs to an influential family here. I’m sorry.’
‘How long?’
‘Just part of Saturday. I’ll be free by the end of the afternoon.’
He holds me tightly, presses his mouth against my hair. ‘I’ll meet you when you’ve finished,’ he says. ‘I’m not singing at the club any more. They’ve found a new frontman.’
‘Come to the Our Lady of the Sea, at about four o’clock?’
Sam nods. ‘Was she very old, this woman?’
‘No. She was young. And lovely. She was married as well.’
‘Damn,’ Sam says softly, wrapping his arms tighter around my waist.
It’s raining on Saturday. One of those freak storms the Atlantic likes to toss around: squalls of bitter rain, winds that pounce like a tiger. Ray is determined that the weather won’t ruin the glory of the occasion. He stands outside the hearse, immaculate in his tailcoat, overseeing the removal of the coffin, impervious to the water running down his dark skin. All six of us pallbearers hover with black umbrellas, trying to keep the rain off the casket.
When the coffin is installed amongst banks of white roses at the front of the church, lid lifted, the mourners arrive through a scent of flowers powerful as bottles of smashed perfume. We stand quietly in our soaking clothes at the back, eyes lowered, waiting for the moment when we’ll spring into action and cart the coffin out to the hole already dug in the wet ground.
I raise my chin a little, curious to spot the husband of Elizabeth Dunn. I’d imagined a prince – a big man with a head of fiery hair like a crown, someone imposing and full of authority – but the man I watch walking slowly down the aisle is slim, gentle-looking, with curling brown hair cut short. His round glasses are speckled with rain. He holds the hand of a small girl. She drags behind, stamping her feet, clutching a teddy to her chest. Throughout the service, I hear the wails of that child, rising to a peak during every eulogy. It gives me goose bumps over the ones I already have from the cold.
The lawn is slick with rain. We take it even slower than usual, the weight of the casket keeping us steady. Four men take over at the graveside, arranging the ropes that lower her into the shallow grave lined with fake grass.
I step back, allowing the family to have the front-row spots. The child kicks her father’s shins. He leans down and gently holds her shoulders to try and stop her. She smacks her sodden teddy into his face, throws it against the coffin, dislodging a spray of roses. The other mourners frown and purse their lips. An elderly lady with a black veil jutting over her face tut-tuts. The father crouches down and tries to soothe his daughter, but she wriggles out of his grasp, yelling: ‘I want my Mummy!’
Before I know it, I’m squatting down, looking into dark, angry eyes. ‘Hi,’ I say to the child. ‘What’s your name?’
She stops screaming, her mouth freezing into a silent O. She stares at me, pressing against her father’s legs. Her bottom lip trembles.
I take a deep breath. ‘See if you can guess my name,’ I say. ‘I’ll give you a clue if you like.’
She frowns and wipes a plump hand across her snotty nose. I pull out the clean hanky that Ray always makes us carry in our top pockets and offer it. She doesn’t seem to understand what it’s for, dangles it unused from her closed fist. She puts her head on one side. ‘Are you Rumpelstiltskin?’
‘What?’
‘Rumpelstiltskin.’ She repeats the long word carefully, stumbling over the syllables, her face serious.
‘Um. No. I’m not. My name is an animal.’
‘Dog.’
I smile. ‘No. But it’s an animal with a long tail and fur, and people keep them as pets.’
‘A rat.’
This child says the weirdest things. ‘Okay. Another clue. I chase rats, and dogs chase me.’
‘Cat!’ she shouts.
‘Very clever.’ I wink. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we go play a game just over there? Give your daddy some peace and quiet. We won’t go out of his sight.’
She retreats into silence, fixing me with a long, appraising stare under wet spiked eyelashes. The kid could be a poker player. Time stretches, and I’m wondering if I’ve lost the match when she blinks and gives a solemn nod. I put out my hand. She takes it without hesitation.
It’s stopped raining. We stand amongst the dripping gravestones. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask again.
‘Grace.’
‘That’s a pretty name. How old are you?’
‘Five and a half.’ She gets a length of pink wool from her pocket. It’s a tangled knot and she holds it towards me, and I understand that she wants me to unravel it. When I finish, she puts up her hands, stubby fingers splayed like starfish. ‘Can you play cat’s cradle?’ she asks.
I am terrible at the game. I fumble between the strands of pink, plucking the wrong strings, dropping the ones I’m supposed to keep taut. But my clumsiness makes her laugh. ‘No, silly!’ she shouts. ‘Not like that.’
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Did you hear about the actual cats who live inside the cradles?’
She gives me a glance both suspicious and curious.
I fumble around in my mind for words to weave a story. ‘Inside every woollen cradle is an invisible cat. Each one the same colour as the wool. And they long for you to see them, so every time you pull the strings, the cat dances up and down waving its paws like this …’ I make a paddling action. She laughs. ‘So, all these kitty-cats, Bob the blue one, Yasmin the yellow one … they’re waving like crazy. But there was this one particular cat … Pete. Guess what colour he was?’
‘Pete?’ She bites her lip, then yells, ‘Purple? Pink!’
‘Yup. Smart girl. Pete the pink cat.’ I glance towards the graveside, and see with relief that the crowd is dispersing. Grace’s father comes over and places a hand on his daughter’s dark, springy hair. ‘Thank you,’ he says in an English accent. ‘You’re the first person to gain her trust since …’ He pauses. ‘I even heard her laughing.’
‘We were having fun.’
‘Daddy.’ Grace pulls at his jacket. ‘Daddy, I want her to tell me the rest of the story.’
‘Not now. She has a job to do, darling.’ She tugs harder at his sleeve and he bends down, listening to her whispering in his ear. ‘No, Grace,’ he tells her. ‘She works here.’ He straightens. ‘This is a strange time for her – for both of us. And now, coming all the way over to Atlantic City, camping out in a hotel room, meeting relatives she hardly knows. We’re stuck here for some time, unfortunately … family duties, legal things. There are some complications. But really I need to get her home. Find some help. Try and get a new routine established.’
‘Home?’
‘London. Hampstead.’ He glances towards his wife’s grave. ‘She wanted to be buried here. They all are. The O’Reilly clan.’
I can see Ray gesticulating to me from the other side of the churchyard. I’m guessing that Sam will be here any minute. My heart quickens at the thought of him.
I squat down. ‘Goodbye, Grace.’
She drops her chin, angling away from me, rolling her body into the curve of her father, her thumb in her mouth. I feel something snap, the connection I shared with her breaking like a silk thread.
‘She’s tired.’ He must have seen the disappointment on my face. He holds out his hand. ‘Leo Dunn.’
‘Catrin Goforth.’ We shake. ‘Or Cat, as your daughter knows me.’
‘Cat,’ he repeats. His fingers are surprisingly firm. ‘We’re staying at the Atlantic, Cat. If you’re passing and you feel like calling in for a cup of tea. Room 242. I’m sure Grace would be happy to see you. She could do with a friend.’ He gives a small smile. ‘And maybe you could finish the story.’
I’m uncertain if this is that thing the English do when they say one thing and mean the opposite.
‘I can see she likes you,’ he adds, before he turns away.
I watch him swing his daughter up onto his hip. Her legs dangle below his knees. He staggers a little under her weight; she rests her head on his shoulder, tousled hair flopping over her face as her thumb goes back into her mouth.