October 2017
Robert Hoare, a distant cousin, sent me a text in the early hours of this morning:
Hi Ness, Aunt Clare just died, have a drink for her. I’m waiting for a nurse, hence no call.
I lay in bed for a while, absorbing the news. Against all the odds – ten slim panatella cigars each day and zero exercise – the stubborn Jenkins genes had kept Clare alive well past her expected departure date. Even so, her death took time to sink in. How could someone with such eccentric opinions and such a forceful character simply cease to exist?
I thought about who to contact and texted Robert for a little more detail, knowing that news like this is easier to receive when sweetened with the knowledge that someone died without a struggle. Robert had been Clare’s nephew by marriage, and his dedication and love for her went well beyond the call of duty. He’d driven to her house most days after work, to sit and chat and share a smoke, a gin and a glass of Robinsons orange squash, and he’d also overseen the rota of carers who came and went at an alarming rate – most of them not sharing Clare’s particular brand of humour.
He replied:
Me and Robert were there, it was very peaceful. We think she smiled. x
Now I had some good news to relate. Clare revelled in the company of men and adored her two Roberts, her neighbour and her nephew. To have had them both there as she floated off would have been blissful.
The boys had entered into the spirit of the occasion: knowing what Clare enjoyed in life, they had dipped her toothbrush into some gin and, while she gently sucked on the sodden bristles, had waved a lit cigar around her head. She smiled as she took a final breath and was no more.
I immediately texted Richard, Lindy and Milo, one of Lindy’s sons, who had lived with Clare and Uncle Gerard for a year while studying to be a helicopter pilot. Although he had told endless stories of the ageing couple sniping at each other and had finally chosen to sleep in the back of his van rather than go home to The Mill House and witness the eternal battle scenes, he’d retained a strong bond with his aunt.
When amiable Uncle Gerard died four years ago, it fell to me to help with his funeral and all that disposing of a human body entails. During the drive from Sussex to Norfolk, I thought about how someone who had just lost her partner of sixty years must be feeling. I imagined us spending the next few days gently reminiscing, while searching in books for the perfect songs, readings and poems for Gerard’s funeral service.
But not a bit of it. All sympathy was brushed aside and any words of praise for her dear departed were batted away, as if to say, ‘He’s gone now, so no use looking back.’ Before my arrival, she had asked her neighbour Mahari to call a nearby farmer. Clare wanted him to bring his JCB to their meadow, dig a deep hole and pop Gerard’s body in before covering him up.
Mahari was somewhat agitated as she waited for me to arrive. ‘Brace yourself, Vanessa,’ she warned. ‘Clare has taken Gerard’s death quite – how should I put this? – oddly.’
She was sitting down in the conservatory overlooking the mill pond, surrounded by well-thumbed copies of the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, her sleek whippets’ unclipped nails clicking on the tiled floor.
‘My darling Clare,’ I said, bending down to kiss her through the clouds of cigar smoke and brushing a dog away, ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Gerard.’
‘Don’t be,’ she replied.
I thought perhaps I should bring up the subject later. ‘How about a cuppa?’ I suggested.
‘Lovely, darling – I never say no to a cuppa.’
As a family, we had always revered Clare, with her forthright, no-nonsense approach to life. Her fine features were defined by a strong jawline and high cheekbones, that would in the latter part of her life become entrenched with deep crevasses, emphasised by years of nicotine deposits lining their depths. She was quick to condemn but equally quick to laugh, an infectious intake of breath that conveyed sheer joy.
After Gerard died, I took to visiting Clare three or four times a year. I would take the train from London and be met by cousin Robert, then endure an hour or two sitting with her in a fug of cigar smoke, batting off her dogs Poppy and Blue, who crawled on my lap, licking my face and taking opportunistic nibbles at my lunch. Clare’s life had shrunk over the years and she now did little more than walk from her bedroom to her conservatory. Her interests had been reduced to watching her bird table and scanning her right-wing newspapers. No longer did she wander around her once-well-tended garden, and nor did she watch TV, listen to the radio or call anyone. She steered clear of anything that might touch her emotions.
How did this highly educated, well-read, funny lady become so brittle? And how could her outlook differ so from Mum’s, her sister who was ten years her senior? She never forgot her early years of loneliness. She never forgot being sent away to boarding school, and she never forgot the years she spent hanging around at Thurlestone Golf Club, waiting for her parents to finish their round. And the sad truth is that adult life never allowed this clever, beautiful spirit to fly.
After leaving school, Clare joined the Foreign Office, where she met handsome, laconic, resourceful and kind – but also weak-willed and indulged – Gerard. They were just twenty-one when they married. Gerard had contracted tuberculosis during the war and, to everyone’s horror, Clare contracted the disease on their honeymoon.
His family, wealthy distant cousins of the Hoare banking dynasty, gave them the Mill House as a wedding present. An exquisite Georgian village house, it looked over a millpond, with views across the water and over the meadows beyond that which resembled a painting by John Constable. The house had been immaculately furnished with block-print wallpapers and silk curtains, but once Clare and Gerard had moved in, they could barely afford food let alone for refurbishment, and their once-dazzling interior gradually faded before their eyes. The kitchen utensils became buckled with use, the curtains threadbare and shredded, the carpets worn and the walls crusted with the continuous onslaught that the two committed smokers inflicted on the house.
Their lives together had started well enough. Gerard and Clare were celebrated on the Norfolk social circuit, but after years of partying, drink played an increasingly central role. Gerard found it difficult to hold down a decent job, and their pain was exacerbated by the realisation that, after contracting TB, it was unlikely that Clare would ever be able to get pregnant.
The final shred of respect that Clare had for Gerard vanished when an adoption agency declared them unsuitable as parents, on the grounds of Gerard’s excessive drinking. Clare realised that she could no longer rely on Gerard and started Black Sheep Knitwear. She’d been building a flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep for years and now began employing ladies from the village of Ingworth to knit their beautiful brown wool into jumpers.
The family entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and Black Sheep grew into a successful business. Her biggest export market was the Japanese, who couldn’t buy enough of her cable-knit chunky sweaters. She talked to me about the thrill of flying to Japan to meet suppliers and retail outlets. However, on her second or third trip to Tokyo, Gerard, back at home, drank with such suicidal fervour that he was taken by ambulance to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. Clare took to locking the drinks cupboard whenever she left the house, but no lock could prevent Gerard from drinking himself into oblivion if Clare left him alone overnight.
It’s no wonder that Clare’s bitterness grew into a hardened ball that, while well disguised during our family visits, was perfectly apparent to local friends and acquaintances. Their relationship spiralled downwards, and sweet Gerard lost his confidence to such an extent that he soon refused to travel further from the house than to the off-licence in their local market town of Aylsham, just three miles away. Clare’s barely suppressed anger was a constant reminder of his weakness, and she expressed it in increasingly eccentric behaviour that would have been humorous to witness if it wasn’t so tragic.
‘We couldn’t get divorced in our time,’ Clare muttered on my arrival following Gerard’s death. ‘It just wasn’t the done thing.’
‘You had some happy times though, didn’t you?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Some times of laughter in the early days?’
‘I suppose so,’ she admitted reluctantly, ‘but he was never really my friend – not like Douglas.’
Time plays such tricks with our memories of past loves. Douglas Bader had been brash and rude, and he’d been a notorious bully to his juniors. I doubt Clare would have been any happier if she had ended up marrying him, but she could dream.
‘Well, I remember some very happy times with you two,’ I said firmly. ‘Do you remember his collection of wind-up toys? The pleasure he took at setting them off!’ Clare rolled her eyes.
‘What shall we do for his funeral, Clare? It’s probably time we started giving it some thought.’
She looked me straight in the eye. ‘Oh, we’re not having a funeral,’ she said.
I waited until Gerard’s youngest sister Rosie arrived before broaching the subject again. Rosie was eighteen years younger than Gerard and had adored her big brother. She was also fond of, and very patient with, her sister-in-law.
‘It would be lovely to do a little something for Gerard, Clare,’ Rosie said gently. ‘Nothing fancy – just a little ritual as the family gather to say goodbye.’
But Clare sat bolt upright, not budging on her refusal to hold a send-off for Gerard. We tried humour, we exerted moral pressure and we let her sleep on it, but she refused to budge. The following morning, Rosie and I put some concrete proposals to Clare.
‘We could ask someone to write and say some words about Gerard,’ we suggested optimistically.
‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Maybe a simple poem then?’ She shook her head.
‘How about just a little music?’
At this, Clare threw her hands in the air, covered her ears and shouted. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t like music!’
Years of suppressing her emotions were at risk of being released, but she had managed to keep the lid firmly screwed down and had no intention of exposing a hint of vulnerability. In the end, the family reached a compromise of sorts, reading one poem and singing one hymn. Clare was driven to the crematorium by Robert Hoare and sat upright throughout the service. She refused to stay for a drink in the pub afterwards.
When I last visited Clare a few months ago, I asked her what the happiest time of her life had been. She leant towards her packet of cigars, slotted one between her painfully contorted fingers, lit it and took a deep draw of the acrid smoke. As she slowly exhaled, she said, ‘Now, I think – I don’t think I’ve ever been happier.’
Mum rings me every hour, asking why her sister, nine years her junior, has died. She’s not sad exactly, but rather incredulous that a death could have happened. There’s always been a shortage of sentimentality in our family, and grief and disappointment are put into the same basket. I’m taken back to an eventful family holiday in Menorca, in August 1997 when the call came through that Granny Dock had died while we were partying on the terrace. Mum relayed the news to us all. Granny had reached ninety-nine, and the quality of her active life had been much reduced, due to a stroke that had overwhelmed her as she was about to board a cruise ship in Cairo two years previously. Her death was a blessing, but the news still momentarily took my breath away. My father caught my expression and rushed to my side, not with a consoling arm but with a stern admonishment.
‘Don’t even think about crying, Vanessa,’ he said. ‘Your grandmother lived well. To cry is just thinking about yourself.’
‘Please, Daddy, just give me ten minutes to let the news sink in, then I’ll be fine,’ I replied.
Half an hour later, my son Noah, then aged ten, rowed us back across the harbour to Vanessa’s Folly, our old houseboat where we were staying. When we were safely away from the house, he dropped the oars and we wept in each other’s arms.
How best to send Clare off? Who would come to wish her well on her onward travels? I knew what she wanted: no fuss, no religion, no music and no poetry. But we couldn’t resist.
I officiated at her funeral, which was attended by a surprising number of well-wishers. Gerard’s sister Clemency read a fitting poem celebrating man’s love of dogs. We sang ‘Jerusalem’, of course, and I gave the address, praising the eccentricity and stoicism of that remarkable generation. Mum had come up to Norfolk by train flanked by three of my children, Louis, Florence and Ivo. As always, she was the star, dressed in a cashmere suit topped with a fur stole, her hair coiffed, nails polished and skin glowing. I looked down at her from while I was reading the address, suddenly all too aware of the different lives that she and Clare had led. After pushing the button to send her sister towards the furnace, I caught Mum’s eye and we gave each other a simultaneous wink.