IT RAINED ON THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL. THE CITY DIDN’T stop. It didn’t stop for the dead, and it wouldn’t stop for anything. Isabelle was driven to the funeral home. She wore her best black suit. Alfie had taken her shopping the day before, then to the hairdresser, the nail salon, more shopping, then back to the apartment where the appraisers were gone. He made her take a shower. He made her wash her hair.
‘When is the last time you washed your hair?’ he said.
‘I dunno.’
‘Get it together, Isabelle, for fuck’s sake,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to, Alfie. I don’t want to get it together. I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t even know if I want to go back to London. The gallery’s shit, Alfie. It’s shit. I’ve never done a single useful thing with my life. All I did was get kicked out of places. At least Mother did stuff. She travelled. She had interesting friends.’ She felt so sorry for herself and it felt good.
‘Aunt Henrietta was awful, Isabelle,’ Alfie said. ‘They all are. Were. She tried to make you into something you weren’t, some replica of her that wouldn’t behave the way she wanted, so she lost interest and only dumped what guilt she could on you. Her friends were crooks and her business was dirty. Hey, I’m not pointing fingers. It’s in all of us. We were born to the House of Feebes. But you weren’t. You didn’t get a choice. She took you, she collected you like she collected everything else. You don’t owe her anything, and least of all you don’t owe her yourself.’
He looked quite emotional, standing there. She stared at him in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you felt this way,’ she said.
‘Isabelle,’ he said, ‘why do you think I always liked you? Every time you stood up for yourself, every time you got kicked out of school or ran away or… Do you remember that time they made us go to Feebes Manor? And you bought cigarettes, and we tried to smoke them in the maze, and we coughed our lungs out? That was the first time I tried smoking.’
‘You brought the cigarettes!’ Isabelle said.
‘If I did it was only because you gave me the courage to,’ Alfie said. ‘You helped me, Isabelle. By showing me how to stand up to them. We got drunk in the cellar, do you remember?’
‘That wasn’t your first time,’ Isabelle said.
‘Well, no,’ Alfie said. He laughed, but the laugh died down. ‘But then we, you know. We tried making out. And I realised I didn’t like girls that way. Look, I’m just saying. I’m always going to be a Feebes. There’s always going to be a door down in the cellar with a big lock on it and something awful hiding inside. But it doesn’t have to be like that for you. You can still be… free.’
‘Free,’ Isabelle said. The word sounded strange. She stared around her, at the walls of the apartment, closing in on her, holding her in their opulent embrace.
‘I’m not sure I know what that is,’ she said.
‘Maybe you don’t think so,’ Alfie said. ‘But to me you were always the most free person I ever knew. Get some rest. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.’
He kissed her on the forehead. Isabelle went to her room. She lay in bed for a long while, unable to sleep, not thinking of anything in particular.
*
Cousin Alfred and Cousin Beatrice were already at the funeral parlour. Pikorski came soon after. Dr Steinmeier hovered. The coffin sat in wait. It was a closed casket, mercifully. Henrietta did not approve of being showy. The men from the funeral home – ‘The funeral chaps,’ Alfred said, for which Beatrice shot him a dirty look and said, ‘Funeral service operatives’ – carried it outside and to the waiting hearse.
It rained. The hearse glided slowly through the street, Isabelle and the others following, and those invitees who chose to brave the procession. It was only a short walk to the church, on the Upper East Side, and Isabelle could smell the trees in the rain, mixing with the car exhaust fumes. The vicar came out of the church, nodded to them. The coffin was carried inside. Isabelle followed behind, the dutiful daughter playing her role one last time. As the coffin was placed on a dais near the front it was covered in flowers.
‘Showtime,’ Alfie said. He squeezed her hand.
The mourners began to filter in. Photographers outside – Isabelle had done her best to ignore them. Black cars came to a halt, discharging dignitaries. Men in black suits and ties, women in black dresses, and Lillian Oberman moving between them like a bird in a gilded cage, ushering and reassuring.
Bankers and art collectors and the sort of people who sat on charity boards; minor royals from across the pond and old friends of Henrietta from Cairo and Hong Kong. Isabelle didn’t know any of them. They came in accompanied by camera flashes, removed dark sunglasses, shook hands and murmured meaningless words of condolences before taking their seats. The church was full. The vicar came to the front of the church. Isabelle sat with her cousins and Pikorski.
The vicar said, ‘Welcome. Today we celebrate the life of Henrietta Feebes, beloved mother, aunt and patron of the arts. Please turn to Psalm twenty-three.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’ he began.
Isabelle’s mind wandered through the long service. She stood up dutifully to sing ‘Amazing Grace’. Another Bible reading, another hymn. The coffin just sat there, Henrietta’s photo sitting atop it in a black frame, and Isabelle wondered where the picture was even taken and when. Henrietta smiled in the frame. She looked full of life. She looked absurd, sitting there on top of her coffin.
The vicar gave the eulogy. Isabelle wanted to escape. The church was stifling, the crowd of people in black was only broken by the gold of watches and jewellery, the sparkle of a diamond earring. It was her turn to go up in front of them. She blinked nervously at all their blank faces.
‘My mother,’ she said. ‘My mother was…’
She didn’t feel like crying. She hid her face in her shawl and Alfie mercifully came up and hugged her shoulders, and the crowd murmured sympathetically, and Isabelle resumed her seat with relief. Alfie took her place.
‘What can I say of my beloved aunt Henrietta?’ he said. He had a nice voice, good for public speaking. ‘She was always full of joy and full of life, right up to the last moment. I well remember, as children, we—’
He went on in that vein for a while. Isabelle’s mind wandered again. The years peeled back, she was a child again, feeling sleepy but not wanting to sleep. Papa said, ‘You can sleep in your bed tonight, sweetheart.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ Isabelle said. She was nestled in the big bed between her parents. ‘I want to sleep in this bed. My bed is too cold.’
Papa laughed, and Isabelle snuggled closer into Mama, laying her head on her chest. She yawned.
‘I don’t want to go to sleep,’ she said.
‘Night-night, sweetheart,’ Mama said. She wrapped her arms around Isabelle. Isabelle stretched between them, feeling warm, feeling safe. She put her arm around Papa and nestled into his back. He felt warm and comfortable. Her breathing eased.
She fell asleep, sandwiched there between them, feeling happy.
‘And this is your room,’ Henrietta said. She opened the door onto a dark box of space. A rectangle of light spilled from the window onto the single bed pushed against the wall. ‘I hope you’ll be happy here.’
Isabelle stared. She mumbled something inaudible.
‘What was that, dear?’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Goodnight now.’
Henrietta pushed her in gently. Isabelle sat on the bed.
Henrietta closed the door softly and Isabelle was left all alone.
‘And now for the Lord’s Prayer,’ the vicar said.
Alfie nudged Isabelle sharply.
‘What?’ she said.
‘Stand up,’ he whispered.
She stood.
‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’
The coffin was lifted by the funeral people. It was carried out of the church into the waiting hearse. Isabelle and her cousins followed with Pikorski. They stood outside under black umbrellas as the mourners filed out, shaking their hands, murmuring condolences.
Then into a limousine, and they followed the hearse to the cemetery, and there they buried Henrietta.
*
The rain fell. Cobwebs spun of gossamer threads between the leaves of a chestnut captured the drops and caught the light unexpectedly. Isabelle inhaled the scent of fresh earth and mulch. A smell of renewal. The ground was muddy. Black umbrellas bloomed. The coffin like a crushed, malevolent bug was lowered into the dirt. Isabelle took a handful of earth and threw it on the coffin.
Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Henrietta Feebes.
‘So sorry for your loss,’ the lawyer said. The lawyer was one of the few to come to the funeral, neither close family nor friend. She was a stooped, white-haired woman in a grey suit. ‘How are you taking it?’
‘It’s hard,’ Isabelle said.
‘Of course, of course. The terms of the will must have come as a shock.’
‘The terms of the will?’ Isabelle said.
‘The foundation,’ the lawyer said. ‘But it was what she wanted.’
‘The Henrietta Feebes Foundation,’ Isabelle said hollowly. Remembered Greeves, the man from the auction house, mentioning it as he was inventorying the contents of the apartment. She should have followed it up. But she had let it pass her by.
‘Yes,’ the lawyer said. ‘She was always very fond of cats.’
‘Cats?’ Isabelle said. They’d never even had a cat. She had wanted one, had dreamed of a kitten to snuggle with in bed, a fluffy thing that would be all hers, to play with and feed. Henrietta wouldn’t hear of it.
‘So many street cats in Cairo,’ the lawyer said.
‘Yes.’
‘But you still get a stipend for a couple more years,’ the lawyer said. ‘You have received the paperwork, of course?’
‘The paperwork?’
She thought of the unopened mail on the kitchen table back in the apartment.
‘Yes,’ the lawyer said. ‘And there is always a seat on the board for you, conditions permitting. But it’s like she said in the will, she wishes you independence. Children must not be encumbered by their parents, after all. Encumbered by wealth, like she said.’
‘Did she,’ Isabelle said. ‘Did she say that.’
She stole a glance at the grave. The fury rose in her, the afterwave of the shock. She tasted bile. She was never a Feebes, she realised. Had known all along, but had let herself believe that maybe she was, that maybe she did belong. The door in the cellar of the old baron’s house. That’s where a Feebes went. She had thought herself one of them. But she was like the kitten she was never allowed to have. A pet to keep around, until it wasn’t needed anymore.
‘Damn you, Mother,’ she whispered, and the loss and the hurt turned into a wild laugh that burst out of her, along with sudden tears, and the lawyer, taken aback, didn’t resist when Isabelle hugged her. The lawyer awkwardly patted Isabelle’s back.
‘But of course,’ she said. ‘You are hardly poor. And you can remain in the apartment for a couple more weeks before it goes on the market.’
‘Of course,’ Isabelle said, still laughing or crying, she wasn’t sure which. ‘One wouldn’t like to be poor.’
‘Of course not,’ the lawyer said. ‘I really must go, Isabelle. Again, I am—’
‘Sorry, yes,’ Isabelle said. ‘Well, goodbye.’ She let go of the lawyer, who hesitated, then nodded, once, and hurried away through the rain.
‘Isabelle, the car’s waiting,’ Alfie said, appearing. ‘We need to go on to the reception.’
‘Did you know, Alfie?’
‘Know what?’
‘About the will.’
He looked suddenly uncomfortable.
‘I thought you knew,’ he said. ‘I mean…’
Isabelle laughed again. It burst out of her like the cry of a bird high in the sky, forlorn and free.
‘Of course you did,’ she said.
‘Isabelle, we need to go—’
‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk.’
Cousin Beatrice, overhearing something, came to join them and stood there with that stupid look on her face, part scowl and part curious indifference.
‘It’s pouring down with rain!’ Alfie said.
‘It’s just water,’ Isabelle said.
‘Isabelle, come on—’
‘Goodbye, Alfie. I’ll see you later.’
She turned so they wouldn’t see her crying.
Beyond the small cemetery the world continued to turn, joggers jogged and dogs barked and cars crawled along the avenues. Rain rained and snails snailed and squirrels squirrelled squirrelly things; and the dead, resting in their gilded tombs that worms enfold, rested in the dirt that was all there was and is to be.
Isabelle, with a cry of defiance, left Feebeses both living and dead behind her and ran. Out of the gates and past the parked black cars and all along the pavement and across the road, dodging traffic; seeking shelter at last in the maze of roads and buildings that lay between death and water.