Chapter 33
33
A week later, it was the final Friday in April and Mum’s funeral. I woke up feeling a heaviness on my chest. As I got ready, back to black, sadness wrapped itself around me and clung on tight, but those tears still refused to fall.
After several warm and sunny days, it was overcast and cool with rain expected by late afternoon. The grey sky mirrored the sombre mood as a small group of us gathered at Derwent Rise to travel in a funeral limousine with Dad. Mum’s wishes had been for a service at Willowdale Methodist Church, where she’d been a member of the congregation, and afterwards at North Lakes Crematorium near Penrith – the same place where Noah had been cremated.
The Reverend Avryl Palmer read out the eulogy she’d prepared following a discussion with Dad, Georgia and me earlier in the week. She’d included comments from Mum’s grandchildren and closest friends. Many of them made me smile and some drew laughter, which took me back to Noah’s funeral when I’d been furious with people for laughing when there was nothing remotely funny about my boy lying in a wooden box. Laughter was comforting and it felt good to commemorate the strong, vivacious woman Mum had been, celebrating her life instead of just mourning her death.
Georgia and I sat either side of Dad. She cried throughout the service and I willed myself to shed a couple of tears to show I cared, but to no avail. Dad’s eyes were watery but he held it together somehow.
Reverend Palmer announced that there’d be further prayers at the crematorium and all were welcome. As the organist played a mournful tune I didn’t recognise, we filed out. I kept my head down, not wanting to catch anyone’s eye, ashamed that I wasn’t in bits like my sister.
Back in the limo, onto the crem, another song, more prayers, more tears from Georgia and dry eyes from me and an open invitation from Reverend Palmer to join the family back at Lakeside Inn.
As we led the mourners outside, I did look up this time and my eyes met Flynn’s. He was in a row near the back wearing a charcoal-grey suit and black tie. His hair had been cut and his beard trimmed. He’d always been a very handsome man but it crossed my mind that he’d aged well and looked even better with streaks of grey in his hair and beard. He nodded at me, that small gesture conveying his sorrow. I nodded back to him in acceptance. I hadn’t wanted to call him but I was going to need to speak to him at the pub and thank him for coming. It was the right thing to do.
* * *
‘Who are you looking for?’ Dad asked back at Lakeside Inn a bit later.
‘Nobody. Just seeing who’s here.’
Dad evidently didn’t buy that. ‘Flynn’s not here. He came to see me yesterday and told me he’d be at the church and crem but not here.’
‘Did he say why?’
Dad looked at me meaningfully. As if I hadn’t already guessed that I was the reason.
‘I told him you were fine with it,’ he said, ‘but he said he didn’t want to encroach.’
I could fill in the missing words – If you’d called him like I asked… – and felt terrible. One of Mum and Dad’s friends was hovering nearby, clearly eager to speak to him, so I went in search of Mark. Flynn should be here. I felt guilty about enough things in my life without adding this to the list. Mark was near the bar talking to Regan and Clarke so I apologised to the boys and pulled him to one side.
‘Can you call Flynn but give me your phone?’
He looked puzzled but handed me his phone with Flynn’s number on the screen. I pressed the call button as I slipped out of the bar into the quieter foyer.
‘Hi, Mark,’ Flynn said.
‘It’s not Mark, it’s Mel.’
There was a pause – presumably a shocked one – before he spoke. ‘Mel? Everything okay? Sorry, stupid question under the circumstances. I’m so sorry about your mum.’
‘Thank you. Look, I know we haven’t spoken yet and, well…’ I sighed. ‘This isn’t about that. I thought you’d be at the wake and you’re not and I know it’s probably because we haven’t spoken but you mean a lot to my parents and I know Dad really wants you here, so if there’s any possibility at all that you can get here, it would be really appreciated.’
I hoped that my garbled speech had sounded more like a polite request than an order.
There was another pause. ‘I can, but only if you’re sure you’re all right with me being there.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Okay. Give me twenty minutes.’
I returned Mark’s phone, got myself a drink and took it outside to where there were several metal tables and chairs in the garden overlooking the lake.
‘Not escaping to The White Willow this time?’ Georgia asked, joining me at my table moments later.
‘Not this time, although it’s very tempting. Flynn’s on his way.’
‘Oh!’
I told her about the conversation with Dad and my subsequent call.
‘Will you be okay?’ she asked.
‘I’ll have to be. Dad needs this and it’s only fair that Flynn has a proper chance to say goodbye.’
‘You’ve got this,’ she said, squeezing my hand across the table.
‘Do you think I’m a bad person?’ I asked her.
‘For not wanting Flynn to be here? Of course not!’
‘No, not that. It’s Mum. I haven’t cried about her. I mean, I shed a few tears the night it happened but it wasn’t much and there’s been nothing since.’
‘I think I might have shed enough for the pair of us,’ she said. ‘Not crying doesn’t make you a bad person and it certainly doesn’t mean you don’t care. You already know that I cry at everything, but I work with someone who says she hasn’t cried since she was little. We all handle our emotions differently.’
I smiled and thanked her but it was an unhelpful platitude – the sort of thing I’d have said to Georgia if our roles had been reversed in the hope of providing some comfort. It didn’t bring me any because I knew I was an emotional person who used to cry all the time. Why not now?
‘How did it feel seeing Flynn at the crem?’ Georgia asked.
I thought for a moment. ‘Surprisingly comforting, but then I got here and I was relieved when Dad said he wasn’t coming. Not that that feeling lasted long. Guilt took over that it was my fault and I should have called him when Dad wanted me to. I feel like a walking contradiction.’
‘Everything’s bound to feel off-kilter just now. It does for me and I don’t have as much going on as you. You’ve done the right thing calling Flynn and it’s not like you need to talk for hours. He’ll understand that this isn’t the time or place.’
‘Yeah. Hopefully a hello will be enough.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘I still don’t want to know anything about him in the meantime.’
She made a zipping motion across her lips and we sat in companionable silence, sipping on our glasses of wine. I kept thinking about Flynn not being here. I knew why he’d dipped out despite Dad giving him the message that it was okay with me. It was because he’d put the ball in my court by giving me his contact details and saying it was up to me to get in touch when and if I was ready. I hadn’t been in touch which told him I wasn’t in that place and he’d respected my wishes and given me space. Typical Flynn, kind as ever.
Keira appeared and asked Georgia if she could look after Astrid while she changed Arlo’s nappy. I watched my sister in the role of doting grandparent and thought about how much Mum had loved being a grandparent and great-grandparent. I’d never get to do that. Mum had been Grandma and Georgia had chosen to be Nanna. What moniker would I have gone for if Noah had lived and had children? As that ball of emotion inside me grew with the question, I tried to shove it from my mind. I needed to remain strong because, any moment now, Flynn would arrive.