21

July 1990

Stella

She has no idea how she came to be here. The place is unfamiliar; the dim light filtering through the stained-glass windows makes it hard to identify her surroundings. There must be some mistake. Then she sees it. Achingly small, a pale-wood coffin resting on wooden trestles, a spray of white lilies lying along its length. Who chose lilies? she wonders. She’s always hated their acrid heaviness.

She smooths a finger lightly along the coffin’s polished lid. It’s cool to her touch. Too cool. The mournful notes of the Albinoni adagio, although serene on the air, are threatening to pull her down where she does not want to be. All just a dream, she tells herself firmly.

She can feel her blue cotton dress, damp with sweat, sticking to her skin. It isn’t even hot today, but there is no air in the chapel, no air at all. She’s not sure she can breathe for much longer. She must go, get out, get away from the stares she can feel boring into her back. What are they staring at? She is not – cannot – be here.

But his hand rests firm and strong around her own, keeping her in place, preventing her from leaving. And she knows that if she lets go, she will fall. But she resents him in that moment. Resents him for bringing her here, resents him for making her get out of bed this morning … resents him for being the person on whom she has to lean.

As the notes die away and she feels his large hand in her back, turning her gently towards the door, she looks around, searching, searching. But she cannot see his dear little face anywhere.

Jack

As they leave the chapel, he thinks he might just collapse there and then on the well-manicured lawn outside the crematorium. Just curl up into a ball by the border of pink, white and red flowers and stop thinking, stop feeling, stop … just stop. He has held on thus far, steeling himself to survive till they are on the other side of today. But he knows he can’t keep going.

Patsy has been amazing. She is the one who talked to the undertakers, chose the coffin, organized the cars, the flowers and picked out the box for the ashes. He, as far as he is able, has made himself responsible for Stella. But he cannot get through to her. She seems locked somewhere so far away from him that he has no access now the initial eruption of tears have been shed, the feelings silenced. He feels almost jealous of her ability to zone out. And a little hurt. He needs her right now. Needs her more than he has ever needed anyone in his life. She clings to him, but she is not there.

There is still disbelief. Utter bewilderment. His mind keeps refusing to process the sheer impossibility of never seeing his son again. It’s as if he’s caught in a lacuna, suspended above reality. Time can change things, surely? Go back, try again and get it right so that Jonny is still warm and breathing in his arms. The emptiness he feels is beyond tears.