I am emotionally numb. My heart is beating and I can feel the thrum of it in my chest. I am aware of my inhalation and exhalation. I’m aware that there is a hair clip digging into the right side of my head, pulling my hair too tight. I’m aware that my feet are freezing. That black court shoes were not the best choice for a day as cold as this. I can feel, physically, all that is going on around me.
But I am numb. I cannot feel right now. I cannot grieve. I cannot be angry. I cannot sympathise with my mother and Kathleen and their horror at the scene at my father’s graveside. I cannot deal with the people asking questions. I cannot cry. I cannot allow myself to feel at all because if I do, I fear I will become so very angry that I will never be able to put that anger back in its box and put it away.
It will become who I am.
I know Heidi isn’t acting rationally. I know that Heidi is damaged. But I never thought in a million years that she would make such a scene at a graveside. Her anger, her fear was so visceral, so raw that I was scared of what she might do. If it hadn’t been for Alex hauling her back into the car, I dread to think how far she may have gone.
The looks on the faces of our fellow mourners as she screeched and screamed like a banshee will stay with me forever. The horror. As if people didn’t have enough to talk about. To gossip about.
Although I imagine from now Heidi will become the focus of their gossip. They will be watching her. We will all be watching her.
DI Bradley had come to speak to me at the graveside after all the other mourners had left. I’d wanted some time with my father, you see, now that he was underground. Now that I knew I would never see his face again. I’d wanted to tell him I was sorry. Sorry that I wasn’t stronger. Sorry that I ever allowed myself to be caught up in his horrible life again. I wanted to tell him not to expect fresh flowers to be placed on his grave. I would not be standing there and weeping. He was gone and I was happy about that.
The other mourners had wandered off, tongues wagging, no doubt. My mother and Kathleen had taken shelter in the car, both of them borderline hysterical. I had been whispering my final thoughts to my father on the wind, when I heard footsteps approach. I looked up to see DI Bradley, his hands plunged deep in the pockets of his long black coat, his collar turned up to protect him from the elements, standing a short distance away.
‘I don’t mean to disturb you,’ he said. ‘I can wait until you’re done.’
I looked down at the hastily covered over grave in front of me. It had been covered with a wooden lid for now, which was decked in the wreaths people had sent to offer their sympathy. The mound of dirt, turning into claggy muck in the sleet and hail, would be pushed in on top of him later. The black marble headstone, bearing Natalie’s name, declaring her a beloved daughter, mother and partner in gold letters, would soon bear Joe’s name, too. In that space at the bottom. It was as if it had always been waiting for him.
I blinked and shook my head. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I have nothing more to say to him. Not today, anyway.’
‘This must be very hard for you all,’ DI Bradley said.
I knew that his words were not just those of a police officer interested in catching the bad guy. They were the words of someone who sees the human tragedy playing out in front of him for what it is. A shitshow of a mess that is destroying everyone.
‘It’s not easy,’ I told him with a shrug.
‘Heidi was very upset.’
‘She was,’ I said. ‘She didn’t want him buried here. I didn’t realise. Maybe I should’ve.’
I didn’t want him thinking poorly of me. Thinking that what Heidi had said was true and that I could legitimately be that cruel without so much as a second thought.
‘We’ve looked into her history. Her mental health history,’ he said. ‘She has had a rough time. But she has been stable for quite some time.’
‘She has, I think. As I’ve told you before, we never actually spent a lot of time in each other’s company. Very little, in fact. Especially in recent years.’
‘But she was responsible for the majority of care your father received, especially as his health deteriorated.’
I blushed. There was a judgement in his statement. How awful was I that I didn’t do my bit.
‘You know, my relationship with my father could best be described as complicated. We didn’t have the time to work on it.’ I looked back to the gravestone. I’m not sure having all the time in the world would have made an ounce of difference. ‘Things were complicated. Things are complicated. I have to live with that. But it doesn’t mean I did anything to hurt him.’
‘No, of course it doesn’t,’ DI Bradley said. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything. This isn’t an official visit. I’m just offering my sympathies.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘We will get to the bottom of this, you know,’ he said, shaking my hand and walking away.
I didn’t know whether to take it as a threat or a promise. Or both.
I let the conversation run through my head all the way to Mum’s house, wishing we could just go home to our own place. But it’s expected we’ll go to Mum’s, to join the other mourners for tea and sandwiches for the wake. She’ll be so cross if we don’t.
Stella just holds my hand. She doesn’t ask questions. And when we arrive, she doesn’t question me when I say I need some space. I climb the stairs and sit in my old bedroom – a room my mother long ago transformed into a ‘sewing room’. She has an upcycled Parker Knoll chair by the window and I sit here doing my best to hang on to the numbness that has come over me.
Heidi hasn’t shown her face. It’s a good thing. If she does, I don’t think anything in the world will be able to stop the rage from bursting out of me.