Peggy was still off sick the following day. Andrew had texted her asking if she was feeling better, but there was no reply.
The cold he’d caught had evolved into something that sapped him of energy but left him too uncomfortable to sleep. Instead, he sat shivering or sweating under a duvet watching mindless action films, the moral of each story appearing to be if you drive a car fast enough a lady will take her top off.
He was halfway to work the following morning, feeling like he was trudging through thick mud, when he suddenly remembered it was the day of Alan Carter’s funeral. He forced himself to turn back and flag down a taxi.
The vicar—a squat man with piggy eyes—greeted him at the church’s entrance.
“Relative?”
“No, council,” Andrew said, glad that he wasn’t a relative given the brusqueness of how the vicar had spoken to him.
“Ah yes, of course,” the vicar said. “Well, there’s one lady inside. But it doesn’t look like anyone else is coming so we better crack on.” He raised a fist to his mouth to cover a burp, his cheeks bulging like a frog’s neck.
Beryl was sitting in the front row of the empty church. Andrew tucked his shirt in and flattened his hair down as he walked up the aisle. “Hello, dear,” Beryl said when he arrived at her side. “Gosh, are you okay? You look ever so peaky.” She put the back of her hand to his forehead.
“I’m fine,” Andrew said. “A bit tired, that’s all. How are you?”
“Not so bad, pet,” Beryl said. “Have to say, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a church.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m not exactly a believer in the beardy bloke upstairs. Neither was Alan, truth be told. I’m sure he’d have found all this palaver funny, really. Is Peggy coming, do you know?”
“I don’t think so, I’m afraid,” Andrew said, looking back toward the door just in case. “She’s really poorly, unfortunately. But she sends her love.”
“Oh well, not to worry,” Beryl said. “More for the rest of us.”
Andrew couldn’t think what Beryl meant until he looked down to see she was holding an open Tupperware box full of fairy cakes. After a moment’s hesitation, he took one.
The vicar appeared and stifled another belch, and Andrew feared the worst about the sermon, but thankfully the vicar’s delivery was heartfelt enough. The only blip in the service came when a man wearing a baseball cap and waterproof trousers—a gardener, Andrew presumed—shunted the church door open and whispered, “Oh bollocks,” just loudly enough for them to hear before slipping back out.
Beryl remained composed throughout. Perhaps because Andrew had more of a personal investment than usual, he listened intently to the vicar’s words and, to his intense embarrassment, found himself on the verge of tears. He felt a wave of shame hit him—he hadn’t ever met this man; it wasn’t his place to cry. And yet that guilt only made things worse and eventually he was unable to stop a single tear from spilling down onto each of his cheeks. Luckily, he managed to wipe them away before Beryl saw. He’d have to blame his cold if she said anything about his puffy eyes.
As the vicar asked them to join him in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the realization suddenly came to Andrew that he hadn’t been crying for Alan, or even for Beryl, but for the future version of himself, his death unmourned at a service in a drafty church with only the walls to receive the vicar’s perfunctory words.
They said polite if stiff good-byes to the vicar (“I don’t trust men with handshakes that firm—you have to think they’re overcompensating for something,” Beryl said) and were walking arm in arm along the churchyard path when Andrew asked Beryl whether she needed accompanying back to the station. “Don’t worry, love. I’m actually visiting a couple of old friends. ‘Old’ being the operative word; I think they’ve got about seven teeth between them these days, Sheila and Georgie.”
They’d reached the end of the path. The wind was rushing through the branches of the imposing yew tree that stood just inside the churchyard walls. They were only in mid-September, but the sublime August day in Northumberland seemed a long time ago.
“You got time for a cuppa before I go?” Beryl said.
Andrew scratched at the back of his head. “Sadly not.”
“Time waits for no man, eh? Hang on, though.” Beryl scrabbled in her handbag and found a pen and paper. “I’m around for another few days. Give me your number. I’ve got my special old-lady mobile phone the size of a brick with me, so maybe we could meet up later in the week or something.”
“That would be lovely,” Andrew said.
Another gust of wind came, stronger this time. Beryl readjusted her hat and took Andrew by the hand.
“You’re a good man, Andrew, coming here today. I know my Alan would’ve appreciated that. Take care now.”
She walked away, looking brittle against the wind, but after a few steps she stopped and came back.
“Here,” she said, digging the box of cakes out of her bag. “Share these with Peggy, won’t you?”