I read a novel once, of which I have only a hazy recollection, though I remember a rich but neurotic and dysfunctional family in which the teenage children had renamed the days of the week: they were, I think, Moanday, Tearsday, Wasteday, Thirstday, Frightday, Shatterday and Sinday. These come to mind as I recount to you the events of my odd week. I shall leave you on Shatterday; there will be very little chance, I fear, that Sinday will live up to its name.
So, Moanday. I decide to go into work although there is nothing I have to do and I could very easily take some compassionate leave on a variety of grounds. I’m too edgy to enjoy a day at home, though. I coped yesterday by wearing myself out with a huge clear-out once Annie and her posse had departed for Edinburgh in the terrifyingly ill-maintained Volvo. My efforts went well beyond just putting things to rights: I prowled the house with black bin bags, hurling into them anything broken, ugly or just in the wrong place; I discarded neglected toiletries in the bathroom and unused gadgets in the kitchen; I went through the fridge and freezer throwing out food I’m never going to eat; I rolled up rugs and bagged up cushions and hauled them up to the attic. They could have used me on television for one of those decluttering shows. In the midst of all this, David rang, but I didn’t answer because if it turned out that he wasn’t ringing to see if I was all right, only to bark some more orders at me and criticise my witness statement, I knew I might well have a tantrum and that would be energy wasted when it could be devoted to decluttering.
So, here I am at nine o’clock in my office, scanning my emails and surveying my in-tray. On the top of the in-tray is the application form for the directorship of the Unit for Specialist English Language and Enhanced Skills Support. I take a deep breath and I fill it in, conscientiously and neatly. Then I print it off, together with my enhanced CV and clip the two together. I address an envelope to HR and before I put the forms into it I read them through again. It is an excellent application, I think, and if there is any justice the job is mine. Why do I feel so miserable then? It is not just because I suspect that in this case there will be no justice, is it? It is actually that I don’t want the job. I don’t want it because the amalgamation is a stupid idea; I don’t want it because managing the remedial bit will distract me from the work I’m good at; I don’t want it because if, by any chance, the VC gets overruled and I am appointed, he will simply start looking for other ways to get rid of me and I am just too tired for the fight. And that’s the most alarming bit, really: Gina Gray – too tired for a fight.
On the other hand, the alternative is unthinkable: knuckle under? Accept demotion? Watch dreary sandal woman making a hash of my unit? I pick up the phone and I ring HR. Human Resources. Whoever thought that was an improvement on Personnel? Personnel makes it clear that you are dealing with people, individuals – persons. Human Resources works almost like an uncountable noun; it implies an undifferentiated heap of humanity, from which you scoop as much as you want, slicing and dicing as required. Does nobody but me think this sounds perilously like Brave New World?
When I get an answer from HR, I give my name and say I would like to discuss options regarding voluntary redundancy. I may be paranoid but I get the feeling that they are expecting to hear from me. ‘Why don’t you come over in half an hour?’ the bright young woman on the other end invites me. ‘Derek can take you through it.’
Derek is neither bright nor young; he is small and grey and possibly lives with an elderly mother. He is a process man. He prepares to take me at length through the procedures. He has used his half-hour’s notice to get up to speed and he knows about the USELESS proposal, though he blenches at my calling it that. ‘How long do you reckon it will take,’ I ask him, ‘for them to change that name? Would you like to take a bet on it?’ He declines my wager. Redundancy, he explains, has to be initiated by the university; employees cannot ask to be made redundant – they can only resign. He can find no record of my being offered voluntary redundancy; is that right?
‘Not in so many words,’ I say.
‘But in your case,’ he says, ‘I imagine it would not be a problem.’
‘Why?’ The question comes out sounding quite aggressive and he shrinks from me a bit.
’I-I meant only that with an amalgamation of this kind one of the benefits hoped for is some savings on staffing, so if anyone is willing to—’
‘Yes. Well, I might be willing. What sort of a deal would it be?’
‘That depends,’ he says. ‘It varies with individual cases and it’s usually a matter for negotiation. If I may say, you don’t put yourself in a strong position by letting it be known that you want redundancy. It gives you nothing to bargain with, you see.’
Stupid, stupid woman! Of course that’s right. What was I thinking?
‘So perhaps you could forget that we had this conversation?’ I ask, smiling winningly, ‘and tell the vice-chancellor that I am determined to hold onto my job at all costs?’
‘Oh, I don’t speak directly to the vice-chancellor,’ he says.
‘That’s all right.’ I say. ‘I do. So, let’s put it another way. Given my current salary and assuming I am not made head of the new unit, how much is the university likely to pay me to go away?’
After a bit of havering, he names some minimum and maximum figures which sound to me pretty generous.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘It’s an option. Thank you for your help. I can take it from here.’
I get up to go but he stops me.
‘Just one thing,’ he says. ‘You would be required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.’
‘Non-disclosure of what?’ I ask, sitting down again.
‘Of the amount of the redundancy payment, and in some cases, the reasons for the redundancy, as well as an undertaking not to take any action against the university in the future.’
‘And you think mine would be such a case?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Because I might take the money and then sue the university for constructive dismissal or some such?’
‘That sort of thing, yes.’
‘A gagging order! I would be the subject of a gagging order. Doesn’t life get exciting round here?’ I say as I get up and leave.
I almost run back to my office, where I take my application, rip it through and stuff it in the bin. Then I sit down to write a letter.
Dear Vice-Chancellor,
Though tempted by the challenge of running the aptly named USELESS, I have decided that it is time for me to seek wider horizons in a place of learning less parochial, less temporising and less academically compromised than Marlbury University.
If required, I am prepared to work out my period of notice until the end of October but, given the proposed reorganisation of my unit, I assume that the university will prefer an earlier departure date.
I wish the university well. You yourself will, I am sure, go from strength to strength in moulding it in your own image. I shall watch with some interest the progress both of the university and of the new unit, should you decide to press ahead with the reorganisation in the light of my departure.
Yours sincerely,
Virginia Gray
I am not altogether satisfied with this but you can go on polishing this sort of thing forever, so I don’t. Without pausing to reread, I bundle the letter into an envelope, run down to the office and drop it into the internal mail. Then I take myself out for lunch.
I lunch in the bar of the Aphra Behn Theatre, a pleasant space with walls adorned by signed photographs of minor actors, mainly known for their roles in television soaps. I order a smoked salmon sandwich and a glass of Prosecco because I am determined to be upbeat about my new freedom, and then I feel acutely self-conscious as I work my way, without much pleasure, through this solitary celebration. I almost persuade myself that a second glass of Prosecco will do the trick but in the end I don’t linger. I return to my office and trawl for the website I need.
The site is a gov.uk one, labelled helpfully What to do after Someone Dies and it is, in fact, remarkably helpful. It tells me exactly what I need to do and I learn that I have already failed to do the crucial thing, which is to get hold of the death certificate. This, I assume, was issued by the hospital. You will need this for the undertaker and to arrange the funeral, I am informed. I ring Margaret.
‘Ah, Gina,’ she says. ‘I was going to ring you later – after work, you know. How are you doing?’
‘Oh fine,’ I say, as one does. ‘I realise, though, you can’t do anything about the undertaker until I get the death certificate, can you?’
‘Well, no. I have booked them provisionally for Friday but they can’t – you know – collect her until you show them the certificate.’
‘I was thinking of coming up on Wednesday to do everything – the register office and so on. Is that soon enough?’
‘Oh yes, I think so. But they do want to know what sort of coffin.’
What sort of coffin? ‘Well, the usual, I suppose,’ I say vaguely. ‘Can you just tell them whatever they think?’
There is a pause. ‘I think,’ she says, ‘that you ought to speak to them yourself, dear.’
So I do. I ring them and they address me with professional sympathy nicely calibrated for a woman who has lost an eighty-nine-year-old mother. They run me through the coffin choices and I opt for the ecological credentials of wicker, though this would hardly have been a concern of my mother’s. She belonged to a generation for whom the harnessing of the natural world to the human will was nothing but positive; I don’t think the idea that we were wearing the world out ever really impinged on her.
I return to the website and find that local councils offer a brilliant service called Tell Us Once. One phone call to the council and income tax, council tax, state pension and a whole lot of other things will be dealt with. I do think this is wonderful and if the Bullingdon boys’ public sector cuts mean that it disappears I may actually assassinate one of them.
I make a list of jobs and phone calls and put them into a logical order. Then I go home and drink half a bottle of red wine, left behind by my house guests, and eat several slices of toast and marmite. This is a bad combination and I feel sick. I try to watch television but can’t concentrate. I go to bed. At some point in the night, I go to the bathroom and throw up. In the morning I am light-headed and exhausted.
*
Tearsday. It is mid-morning before I haul myself into work and when I pick up my mail I find that HR have already sent a response to my letter of resignation. Fast work, I must say.
Dear Mrs Gray,
We have today received notice from the vice-chancellor’s office of your intention to leave your post as director of the English Language Unit.
We note your willingness to be flexible in the matter of notice, and in view of the imminent dissolution of the ELU in its present form, we propose that your resignation takes immediate effect from the date of your letter, that being the 30th July. You are offered two months’ salary in lieu of notice.
Please reply in writing immediately to indicate your acceptance of these terms.
So there it is. I’ve resigned, but they’ve somehow managed to sack me anyway. I’m done. No last this or that. I’m out. I half expect someone to appear with a couple of cardboard boxes to put my stuff into. I look round my office. There’s enough here for a pile of movers’ crates, never mind cardboard boxes. Better get started, then, before I find someone else is moving in.
I start with the filing cabinet: I select two box files with official stuff in – exam results and so on. Student Records have all this information, I’m sure, but I’m not comfortable about throwing it out, so I take the files down to the office and ask Gillian if she can give them house room. I don’t tell her I’m leaving. I haven’t found a satisfactory way of telling it yet. While I’m downstairs, I go into the cleaners’ cupboard and take a roll of black bin bags. It seems to be my week for bin bags. I pile files and papers into the bags, sweeping stuff off my desk to join them and tearing down the theatre posters that adorn the walls. I pull out the drawers of my desk and empty them into another bag. I survey the bags, which are now taking up most of the floor space. They are heavy and they will have to be dragged downstairs one at a time. I shall be asked what I am doing. I am hot and furious and close to tears again. I go over to open the window and conceive a brilliant idea. My office is on the first floor and the window is low, with a wide ledge that can be used as a seat. I push it up as far as it will go, take one of the bags, tie it tightly at the neck, haul it over to the window and push it out. It splits a bit as it hits the ground because it has sharp-edged box files in it but nothing falls out. I repeat the process until eight bags are deposited there. I did intend to drag them round to the bins at the back but I’m really too tired for that now. I have to think about the books. I have a small inner office which is lined, floor to ceiling, with books. These are not being binned – not even the out-of-date teaching books from the 1980s. I phone a removal firm and tell them I have several hundred books needing to be packed up and put in storage. They will come tomorrow. I take a last look round the room and walk over to the SCR.
There I find Malcolm, who is actually just the person for such an occasion. I tell him the whole story, minus the events of Saturday, since I think these may still be confidential. I tell him about the amalgamation, the resignation, the clear-out. ‘Could you tell the others?’ I ask. ‘They’ll know something’s up; the bin bags are a bit of a giveaway.’
He laughs, and I do too but I have to be careful. Anything can tip me over into hysteria these days. I take a deep breath. ‘I need to say goodbye to you all properly, of course,’ I say. ‘Lunch time Thursday at The Old Castle? I’ll have had time to work out how you’re going to manage the summer courses without me.’
‘Not your problem,’ he says. ‘HR made the problem. Let them sort it out. Bin the worries along with everything else.’
He is a surprising man and I realise that I have always underestimated him. He is actually quite envious of me, I think. A fantasy bolter himself, maybe?
In the afternoon I have a scheduled class with my wives, who won’t know that I am not actually their teacher any more. I go to say goodbye, taking some strawberries with me as a festive touch which cannot, I think, possibly be non-halal. I can see immediately that there is no chance of our being festive, however. Athene has gone, her husband’s money from the Greek government having been cut off; Juanita says she will have to leave early as she has packing to do for their return to Venezuela for the rest of the summer; Jamilleh is not there, of course, though Farah is, looking severe and unsmiling in her darkest jilbab, with her khimar, it seems to me, wound more tightly than usual round her strained face. Only Ning Wu looks as usual, but her usual is not life-and-soul-of-the-party.
Unwilling to tell them that I have been sacked, I say that someone else will be taking over the class as my mother has died and I have to go to London for a while. They make mildly sympathetic noises but don’t seem sorry to be losing me. I ask Farah how Jamilleh is and she replies warily that she is all right, as though she believes that answering any question is a dangerous thing to do. Jamilleh will not be coming back to English class, she says, though I suppose she may change her mind when she hears that I have gone. She blames me because I brought Paula Powell along and got her into a sequence of events that nearly killed her. No-one official will apologise to her, of course; she is just collateral damage. We make stilted conversation about children and summer plans; they are not interested in my plans, which is a relief since they are unknown to me at present. I offer strawberries. Farah takes one and nibbles at it suspiciously as though it might have been injected with cyanide; Juanita comments that strawberries are the only good fruit that England produces; Ning Wu eats silently. After twenty minutes, I give up, wish them well and send them away. To my surprise, Ning Wu remains.
‘I would like to thank you,’ she says, ‘for very good classes.’
I am ridiculously pleased by this. ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed them,’ I say.
‘I learn at lot,’ she says. ‘Very good vocabulary.’ Vocabulary is a difficult word for a Chinese speaker because of their difficulty in distinguishing l from r, but she manages pretty well. ‘I hope to take degree course next year,’ she says. ‘Next week I start full-time summer course for my IELTS exam. Do you think I can get IELTS 6.0?’
‘Do the eight-week course, Ning Wu,’ I say, ‘and I’m sure you can. You have good study skills and it’s a very intensive course.’
‘I hoped you would be my teacher,’ she says.
‘All the teachers will be good,’ I say. ‘I can guarantee that – I chose them.’
‘But we laugh in your class. You make us cheerful.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, giving her my biggest smile. ‘Cheerful – that’s my best thing.’
I give her an awkward sort of hug, wish her luck, press the remaining strawberries on her and go home.
Wasteday.
Hospital
Register office
Undertaker’s
Bank
Council offices
Vicar
Flat
These are the jobs for this morning and I may not do them in exactly this order but the first two have to come first. I wait for the rush hour to subside before I set off and when I get to New Cross I engage a taxi. This is, I have decided, the only way to manage this morning’s tour of the London boroughs of Southwark and Lewisham. They aren’t places where you can flag down a taxi any old time – they are, after all, south of the river. ‘I shall need you for possibly a couple of hours,’ I tell the driver. ‘I have seven different places to go to.’
He looks at me, weighing up my trustworthiness. Is he going to ask for a deposit?
‘Have to charge you waiting time,’ he says. He is evidently the grumpy kind, which suits me fine. I don’t want him to take an interest in me; silent contempt will be very restful.
And so we go, and all is remarkably smooth: this has an air of unreality for me but I’m engaging with people for whom it’s totally mundane. At the hospital they are chilly – deaths go on their debit side, after all; at the register office they are kindly and gentle, at the bank cool and brisk, at the council offices slow but competent, at the undertaker’s calm and reassuring. By then I’m in need of a cup of coffee and I get my driver to take me to the Turkish café near the church, where the proprietor welcomes me like an old friend. I offer the taxi driver a coffee but, to my relief, he prefers to sit in his cab and smoke. In the café I phone the vicar to tell him I have the documents he needs for the funeral and he says he will come and join me. He breezes in, charming and energetic as before, orders a double espresso, casts a look over my documents and makes a couple of notes, says he has had email exchanges with my lovely daughters and we’re getting there, and rushes off again. I get back in the cab and go to my mother’s flat, where I pick up the unopened correspondence from the kitchen drawer, assuming that this will give me access to her utility and pension providers, and anyone else who needs to be notified. I ring Margaret’s doorbell, because I feel I should, but am relieved to get no reply. I get back in the cab, return to the station and hand over to my driver a huge wodge of cash, drawn earlier for that purpose at my mother’s bank.
On the train home I get a text from David. Time to talk? He asks. Dinner tonight at La Capannina? I regard this message with misgiving. It had to come, of course, the coup de grâce. I think he hoped that he could treat me so badly that I would dump him, but since I haven’t done that he feels the need to draw a line. He doesn’t like untidiness, David. The choice of La Capannina is tactless, I think. It’s not our restaurant in a pathetic, sentimental way, but it is a place that we’ve gone to when we’ve been feeling harmonious. I text back. Do we really need a meeting? How about email? Doing it by text is also fashionable. My phone rings. ‘I’m on the train,’ I say.
‘Quiet carriage?’
I look around. ‘No.’
‘Fine. Why not dinner? I have things to tell you.’
Why not dinner? Because either he dumps me at the start and then we have to do still be friends for the rest of the evening, which will be excruciating and give me indigestion, or he waits to the end and I have to munch my way through three courses, waiting for the moment, also giving myself indigestion.
Into my silence, he asks, ‘Were you planning to do something else this evening?’
‘Yes,’ I say, clutching at the lifeline. ‘Much Ado. I got sacked from it but I ought to go and see it – see just what sort of a hash they’ve made of their costumes without me.’
‘Well, I’d better come and see it too,’ he says. ‘It’s Beatrice and Benedick, isn’t it? The pair you like to compare us with.’
‘Except it has a happy ending,’ I say.
‘Really?’ he says.
*
So we go to see Much Ado. We arrange to meet for a drink beforehand and David arrives looking quite bouncy and pleased with himself. Is he already dating Paula, I wonder?
‘You’re looking smug,’ I say, accepting a gin and tonic.
‘Professional pride,’ he says. ‘We’ve got good evidence that Billy Brody robbed the petrol station and killed Karen and Lara. Doug Brody’s conviction will be quashed and the coroner can give a clear verdict on the murders, which is the best the family can hope for. But the big news you’ll read in the papers tomorrow. The drugs and people trafficking ring I was working on with the Met – we made ten arrests overnight, in London and here. It’s a major breakthrough and the Met have offered me a job.’
‘In London?’
He looks at me. It is a stupid question.
‘Well done,’ I manage. ‘Jolly good.’
So this is how he’s going to do it. In London for good – huge responsibility – married to the job – long-distance relationship not really viable, blah blah blah.
I drain my drink much too fast. ‘I, by contrast,’ I say, ‘have lost my job.’
‘You’re not serious! Why? How?’
I wave an airy hand as the gin surges dizzily through me. ‘Too boring to explain,’ I say. ‘University politics, crap vice-chancellor, unwise me.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well first I’m going to bury my mother.’
‘Of course. Sorry. When’s the funeral?’
‘Friday afternoon.’
‘Would you like me to come?’
‘I don’t … let’s see, shall we?’
‘OK.’
We are silent. He drinks; I watch him.
The play is all right but the dank chill of the evening seems to cast a gloom over cast and audience alike and it doesn’t really take off. They have found a teenager, it seems, to play Ursula – quite well, actually – but the costumes suffer from the absence of a watchful eye – a hem here, a bra strap there, and some outrageous footwear from a couple of the men, who have, presumably, lost the shoes they were issued with. David seems to enjoy it, though; nothing can dampen his good spirits. He suggests another drink afterwards but I propose tea and a pudding at the pizza place next to the abbey. More alcohol is likely to make me cry. If we’ve got to get this over with, a ballast of carbohydrate may help.
When we’re settled, he says, ‘I know you’ve got a lot to think about at the moment but have you thought at all about what you’re going to do job-wise?’
‘Not really. Why?’
‘Might you move away from Marlbury?’
‘What?’
‘I mean, without the job and with Annie launched and Ellie settled, you could move, couldn’t you? Somewhere with more opportunities professionally?’
‘Why are you being my career consultant?’
‘Well, you know the riff you do about us not knowing what to call each other – partner, boy/girlfriend, lover, other half, significant other all unsuitable? I was thinking that there is a solution to that.’
‘Just not see each other, you mean?’
‘I was more thinking of marrying each other.’
‘What?’ I choke on my mouthful of plum and almond tart and stare at him. ‘Do what?’
‘Get thee a wife, get thee a wife. They’re nearly the last lines of the play. We could move to London. There’d be loads of colleges for you to teach in. A new life.’
’Hold on,’ I say. ‘I must just—’ and I rush off to the ladies, where I stare at myself in the mirror for a long time and wash my hands before returning.
‘No,’ I say. ‘No.’
‘Look,’ he says, ‘if this is just punishing me because I’ve been preoccupied with work, don’t you think you ought to—’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Well, what then?’
‘I’m nearly fifty, David. You’re forty-two. Yes, it’s time for you to get married. It’s not too late but it will be soon. You shouldn’t be hanging around with a menopausal woman, you should have a family – have a son – have a life.’
‘I can have a life with you. And I’m fond of Freda and Nico and the girls. I don’t need more family.’
‘You do! Being fond isn’t good enough. You can’t opt for being an honorary grandfather at the age of forty-two. Marry Paula, why don’t you. She’d have you like a shot. And have your babies.’
‘I don’t want Paula, I’m not at all sure she wants me and I know she doesn’t want babies! You of all people shouldn’t assume—’
‘Well, find someone else then, but not me. I’m on the downward slope, David, and not even HRT can stop it. In ten years’ time you’ll still be a good-looking man and I’ll just be an old bat.’
There is a silence. ‘I did think,’ he says, ‘that you loved me.’
‘I do love you!’ I say this so loudly that heads turn from nearby tables. ‘That’s why I won’t stay with you,’ I hiss, ‘because in ten years’ time you won’t love me and I won’t be able to bear it.’
I pick up my bag and coat and I go round behind his chair. I drop a kiss on the top of his head and lay my cheek for a moment against the rough texture of his hair. ‘Get a life,’ I say. ‘Just get a proper life.’
*
Thirstday. Well, I cry a lot in the course of the night and am horrified in the morning at the state of my face. I try all sorts of repair tactics – even cucumber slices on my eyelids – in the hope of not looking completely pathetic when I meet my ex-colleagues at lunch time, but in the end I have to dig out some old light-reactive sunglasses which don’t look too ridiculous when worn inside but do disguise the ravages to some extent.
I get to The Old Castle early but find Malcolm already there, nursing a glass of coke with a lot of ice in it and looking miserable. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask.
He looks at me as though he can’t quite focus on me. ‘I’ve had a bit of a shock,’ he says. ‘I did night duty at the Sams last night and Estelle – our director – was there in a terrible state. I don’t think it’s confidential – she says the media are all over it. Her husband has been arrested on people and drug trafficking charges. There were a whole lot of them arrested apparently, early yesterday morning. Estelle’s distraught.’
‘And I suppose she had no idea what he was up to? Wives never do, do they? You acquire it when you sign the register, the blind eye, available to be turned as necessary.’
‘You’re very cynical,’ he says.
‘Me? No. Disappointed idealist, that’s me.’
‘Actually,’ he says, ‘I think she did suspect something. Karen Brody rang us because she had information she said she wanted us to pass to the police. She kept asking to speak to Estelle about it and Estelle got rattled. I think she was afraid that Karen’s information was about Bruce – her husband.’
*
The others arrive and I buy drinks. This is turning out to be an expensive week, but I have been on property websites and am amazed at the price I can expect to get for my mother’s flat. Everyone makes an effort to chat brightly and I fend off enquiries about my plans by declaring that I’m thinking of taking a gap year. ‘Thailand, India, Australia,’ I say. ‘You know the kind of thing.’ They do, and I see the same look of longing in their eyes as I saw in Malcolm’s. They were all once EFL teachers, after all, teaching abroad before they upgraded to UK universities and teaching academic English. They’ve known the delights of freedom, of moving on when they got bored, before prudence told them it was time to come home and take out a mortgage. Travelling abroad actually has no appeal to me whatever but it’s a fantasy that satisfies them.
We part with hugs and promises, in the usual way of these things, and I go home to find something to wear tomorrow.
*
In the evening I meet Annie and Ellie at Monks, Marlbury’s only cocktail bar. Annie is just off the train from Edinburgh and is edgy and sleep-deprived. They buy me an alarmingly green drink in a tall glass. I fear that it’s going to be sticky with crème de menthe but it turns out to have a lot of lime juice in it and to taste treacherously fruity and harmless. ‘I really mustn’t have a hangover tomorrow,’ I say.
‘Talking of which,’ Ellie says, and produces a piece of paper. ‘Order of service for tomorrow.’
I look at it. They have chosen the sort of theology-light hymns that the non-religious do choose: ‘Morning has broken’ and ‘Who would true valour see’, finishing with ‘Jerusalem’. Then there are a couple of readings – Prospero from The Tempest for Ellie and Swinburne’s Garden of Proserpina for Annie. I ask if this latter isn’t a bit ostentatiously non-Christian, but she says, ‘Pete says it’s fine.’ I am puzzled about Pete for a moment until I realise that she means Peter Michaels, vicar of St Olave’s. Of course he’s Pete.
He will, I’m told, do the eulogy. Dawn has been gathering testimonials from old friends and patients and he will weave these into something. We shall say the Lord’s Prayer and be sent away with a blessing. ‘It looks fine,’ I say. ‘It’s just all a bit odd, knowing Granny.’ They know now about Christopher; I told Ellie and she has told Annie. Ellie wept when I told her, but she is the mother of a baby boy and probably still a bit post-partum hormonal. Annie is not very interested except insofar as he necessitates this funeral.
‘Are we processing behind the coffin?’ she asks. Neither of them has ever been to a funeral, but they’ve seen them in films.
‘I told the undertakers not,’ I say. ‘It seems a bit black veils, if you know what I mean.’
I return the paper to Ellie. ‘And now I have some news,’ I say. I tell them about the job but not about David, because they are young enough to think that a wedding is lovely under any circumstances and will berate me for turning him down. ‘So, I’m free,’ I conclude. ‘I don’t need to get another job right away because I’ll have Granny’s money, so I shall go away somewhere. I fancy somewhere by the sea but a bit remote. The east coast somewhere, damp and blowy.’
‘How long for?’ Annie asks.
‘I don’t know. A few months, I suppose.’
‘What about the house? Who’s going to keep an eye on it?’
‘I’m thinking of letting it.’
‘It’s my home!’ Annie protests. ‘You can’t let other people live in my home!’
‘It’s not really home any more, Annie, is it? You’ve got your flat in Oxford that Pa bought for you at great expense. My house is just a convenient youth hostel these days. Wherever I go I’ll have a spare room and you’ll always be welcome. And I’ll have Freda to stay. I think she’ll love being by the sea.’ I turn to Ellie. ‘I’m sorry about not being available for babysitting,’ I say.
She picks up my empty glass. ‘We’ll cope. I’ve got a couple of year twelve girls who are dying to babysit for me, though they won’t do it for free, of course. And if you can manage three bedrooms, we’ll all come and stay,’ she says. ‘Refill?’
After that, when everyone has had another drink, we quite enjoy ourselves constructing the fantasy of my new life.
‘A dog, definitely,’ Ellie says.
‘Eccentric clothes,’ Annie proposes, ‘long and floaty – with turbans.’
‘I was thinking of letting my hair grow,’ I say. ‘Long and witchy.’
‘And you’ll keep chickens.’
‘And pick samphire from the cliffs.’
‘And talk to myself when I’m out with the dog.’
*
We part with arrangements for the next day. Ben is going to stay with the children and Ellie is going to drive us so that we can go to the flat afterwards and take away any mementoes people want. They leave me at my front door; it is early still and Annie is having supper at Ellie’s. I was invited but I pleaded things to do. I make myself some beans on toast and go to bed.
*
Frightday. The church is filling up behind us. Since we are not walking in behind the coffin, Peter Michaels suggested that we go in early and settle ourselves in our front pew. ‘Plenty of time to greet people afterwards,’ he said. So we can’t see people arriving without craning our necks in an unsuitable way but we can feel them. We can hear the buzz. It’s a bit like being in a dressing room backstage and hearing the audience arriving over the Tannoy. Annie gets a text message.
‘Mobiles off,’ I hiss, but she gets up and heads off down the aisle, returning a minute later with Jon. He looks tired and he should be sleeping because he’s on nights, I know, but I am very glad to see him. He will keep us all steady, I feel, and steadiness is needed because I sense a latent hysteria in the three of us. It’s the strangeness, I suppose. I am reminded of a recurrent dream I have in which I find myself on stage in a play I have never rehearsed, in a role for which I haven’t got round to learning the lines.
I allow myself one look round the church under cover of the business of greeting Jon and realise that it is packed. There must be a couple of hundred people here. And they all know what to do, even if we are bewildered. They sing ‘Morning has broken’ with extraordinary sweetness and laugh and weep at Peter Michaels’ tender account of Dr Jean Sidwell as her patients knew her. I am touched by these reminiscences but not moved to tears. It is when Ellie reads Prospero’s speech from The Tempest that the tears come.
We are such stuff
Not such a little life, I think. A girl fighting to go to medical school in the 1940s; treating bomb victims in the East End while still a student; losing her son and nearly being broken by the loss; putting herself together again and devoting herself to mending other people for another forty years; this packed church a testament to her energy and skill and determination. And I never appreciated her because I wanted more of her for me. The girls, either side of me, squeeze my hands. They don’t know what I’m weeping for but I am grateful for the comfort.
We finish with a rousing rendition of ‘Jerusalem’ and the blessing that exhorts the Lord to make his face to shine upon us, which I do think is rather lovely, and we step out into feeble sunshine to greet and thank and smile. We bury her next to her son and return to the church hall for tea. Much later, Ellie, Annie and I go to her flat and take home mementoes, more because we feel we should than because we really want them. She was always frugal, and more so as she got older. Annie takes a pair of eggshell china cups with a faint blue wash to them, which must have been a present and probably never used; Ellie takes a photograph of her at her graduation and a set of Russian dolls that we find in the bedroom – also a gift, I suppose; I take a little opal pendant, the only jewellery I ever saw her wear, apart from her wedding ring.
Annie is staying in London, spending the weekend with Jon, so Ellie and I drive home alone. She rings Ben, who says the children are fine and in bed, so she suggests we go out for supper. She proposes the pizza restaurant next to the abbey, but I veto this for reasons I don’t explain, and we go for a curry instead. We drink some beer and get quite cheerful. I go straight to bed when I get home and, for the first time in weeks, it seems, I sleep well. Like the dead, in fact.
*
Shatterday. I wake to sunshine streaming through the curtains and a feeling of lightness that astonishes me. I get out of bed, push up the window, and lean out to savour the morning. The pathetic fallacy, I tell myself, but nothing can quell this astonishing feeling of buzzing aliveness that has taken hold of me. The albatross of failure – professional, personal, maternal and filial – that has sat on my shoulders for days appears to have flown off in the night, leaving in its place nothing but a light-headed irresponsibility. I am humming as I dress and make myself cinnamon toast and milky coffee. I eat and drink, pacing the kitchen, too light on my feet to sit down. I pack an overnight bag with a minimum of requirements – toothbrush, nightie, knickers, book, laptop.
I ring Ellie’s house and ask to speak to Freda.
‘Hello, Granny,’ she says.
‘Freda,’ I say, ‘I’m going away for a holiday.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Somewhere by the sea.’
‘How long?’
‘Quite a long time, actually.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, I’m very tired, so I need a rest.’
‘All right.’
‘I thought you might like to come and visit me for a bit, and play on the beach.’
There is a silence.
‘Are you good at building sandcastles?’ she asks.
‘Brilliant,’ I say.
*
At ten o’clock the estate agent arrives to discuss letting the house. Cosy and nice family feel are epithets she uses several times as she looks round, but I suspect this is code for scruffy and old-fashioned. When she has finished, she sits down on the saggy sofa and sighs. ‘To be absolutely honest with you,’ she says, ‘a house of this kind isn’t easy to let. If you’re planning to come back to it, I wouldn’t recommend letting it to students – student lets get very hard wear. And couples who are looking for a four-bedroom house are usually in a position to buy. We can do our best, set a reasonable rent, but I’m not very hopeful.’ She looks around. ‘You are planning this as a short-term let, aren’t you? I think that’s what you said on the phone.’
‘I’m really not sure,’ I say.
‘Only I could sell this for you just like that,’ she says, clicking her fingers.
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes. It’s a lovely family house in the catchment area for good schools. We have people queuing up for houses like this.’
‘Even houses in the condition this one’s in?’
‘Oh yes. People like the opportunity to refurbish – put their own stamp on a house.’
‘Well, sell it then,’ I say.
*
When she has gone, I write a note for Annie and leave it on the hall table.
You may find For Sale notice on house, I write. Expert advice says it makes sense on financial grounds. House is all yours for rest of summer, though. Have phone and laptop with me for emails. Lots of love. Ma
I take a look round the house, checking doors and windows, then pick up my bag and walk out. I am stopped in the porch by the sight of my bike. I pat its worn seat. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ I say. ‘I’ll be back for you.’ Then I slam the front door and head off down the road. If I didn’t know I would look ridiculous, I would run. I actually feel as though I could fly. I have a great bubble of elation in my chest. I feel untethered, like a hot air balloon that is being released from its guy ropes one by one and is straining to float away. I jump up and touch a tree bough that overhangs the pavement.
In the short term, I know where I’m going. I’m heading for the station, then London, where I shall see another estate agent, about selling my mother’s flat, and spend a few days doing theatre, galleries and some shopping, since what I’m wearing and a spare pair of knickers won’t take me far. When I’ve had my fill of metropolitan cultural delights I shall go to St Pancras and choose a train. I have a picture of where I want to end up; it’s just a question of finding it. I picture a small grey cottage on a cliff and myself inside it, sitting by a driftwood fire, a dog at my feet, reading a book and glancing occasionally at the foaming sea beyond my window. The picture is intense and I see it like a Vermeer interior: the yellow light from the fire and the pale square of a winter afternoon at the window; the rough texture of the dog’s coat and the graceful line of my bent head as I read. There will be false starts, no doubt, and a lot of nights spent in unlovely B&Bs, before I find something that can be moulded to match this Platonic ideal of a retreat from the world, but I am confident that I shall find it.
I stride on, gathering pace, swinging my bag. There is an odd roaring sound in my ears and I think I know what it is. If I were just to turn my head and look over my shoulder I could be certain. It is the sound of bridges burning behind me.