Chapter 11
A few days later, we go to Erin’s mum’s funeral in Julie’s car. She drives, with Patty in the passenger seat and Dot, me and Kirsty in the back.
It’s a short drive, and when Julie parks up outside the church we see groups of people looking solemn.
And there’s Erin, looking thin and cold in a black jumpsuit.
I assume the people she’s with are her dad and her sister, but none of them are touching or comforting one another.
It takes us a couple of minutes to get out of the car and straighten up, and then Erin sees us and gives us a little wave that makes her look like a lost little girl, left behind at the school gates. Motherless.
‘How’s she doing?’ Patty asks me.
‘I haven’t seen her much. I think she’s struggling, like anyone would.’
Julie shakes her head. ‘Is she planning to go to the wake, do you know?’
‘I think so. We had a chat about it. I said I thought she’d regret it if she didn’t,’ I say, and they all nod.
We’re all old enough to have been through loss, to know how it eats away at you if you don’t face the grief head on.
You can put it off, the way Erin seems to be doing, but you can’t ignore it forever.
There’s a sound from Julie, a sort of gasp, and I look at her.
‘I didn’t realise,’ she says, looking at the order of service someone’s handed to us. ‘I knew her. We were at school together.’
I suppose this isn’t particularly shocking, given that they were a similar age and lived in the same town, but I don’t think any of us were expecting it.
‘What was she like, all those years ago?’ I ask.
Julie looks around to see if anyone’s in earshot, leans in close and nods for us to do the same. ‘She was a little cow,’ she says. ‘Tripped my sister up in the dinner queue once and then played the victim. I’ve never forgotten.’
People start filing in, then, so we go quiet and step inside, finding seats on a pew near the back, where we’ll be out of the way. Erin’s at the front with her family, and that’s something. That’s where she should be. She knows where we are, if she needs us.
The service is just as you’d expect. Erin’s dad gives the eulogy, and a friend from church also speaks.
The way they talk about her, so fondly, about what a wonderful wife and mother and friend and Christian she was, makes me want to stand up and wave my hand in the air and say What about Erin?
It’s so strange, how the same person can be seen so differently by different people, depending on their relationship to them.
Perhaps Louise would have made a good mother if her child hadn’t happened to be gay.
Perhaps she was the kind of wife and friend some people want.
But what about being a Christian – that religion that is supposedly all about loving everyone and being kind?
I can’t see how her relationship with Erin fits with that.
At one point, Julie links her arm through mine and pulls me in close to her, and it’s only then that I realise I’m crying, tears rolling and rolling down my cheeks.
The trouble with funerals is that you bring your memories of other funerals with you, and by the time you’re my age, you’ve been to so many.
I think about saying goodbye to Arthur right here in this church.
I’d have said my grieving was done but perhaps it’s never as cut and dried as that.
When we’re leaving the church, Dot takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, and I wonder how many people at this service think it’s wrong that we’re together.
‘Should we go to the wake, to support her?’ Julie asks.
They all turn to me. ‘Let’s ask her,’ I say, indicating with my head. Erin is coming towards us, her eyes red and puffy.
‘Thanks for coming,’ she says. ‘It was such a help to know you were there.’
‘We can get off now, leave you with your family,’ I say. ‘Or we can join you for the wake. Whatever you want.’
Erin looks helpless, gives a little shrug. I remember how hard it was to make decisions when I lost Arthur. And there were so many to make. It never ended. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘We’ll go,’ I say, being decisive so she doesn’t have to. ‘We’ll be at home, waiting for you. Of course, if you’re going back to your dad’s tonight, that’s fine.’
Erin winces. ‘I suppose I’m going to have to get used to calling it my dad’s house, rather than my parents’,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay there for a couple more days, but I’ll come to yours later. I think I’ll need that.’
We traipse back to Julie’s car and when we get back to my house, we all go inside and I offer to put the kettle on.
‘I don’t know about you,’ Julie says, ‘but I think I need something a bit stronger than tea this afternoon. It always gets to you, doesn’t it, a funeral? Even if it’s not someone you were close to.’
The others nod agreement, Kirsty saying that she’d be craving a glass of something if she wasn’t pregnant. We don’t have anything alcoholic in the house, so Julie offers to go to the shops and comes back with a couple of bottles of red wine and a bottle of gin.
Julie tells us some more stories about Louise at school, and it really does sound like she was a nasty piece of work, but still, she’s gone and it doesn’t feel right to be bad-mouthing her like this.
Erin will turn up at some point, and she’ll need some support.
Whatever Louise was, she was still Erin’s mum.
I’m about to say something to this effect when, out of nowhere, Julie’s crying.
Big, gulping sobs. And Patty’s moved to sit beside her and is stroking slow circles on her back.
‘It’s just thinking about those days, about school,’ Julie says. ‘It makes me think about Samantha.’
The sister she lost. She’s so upbeat 90 per cent of the time that it’s easy to forget she’s carrying her own grief. Just like all of us.
I’m surprised when I hear a key in the lock and Erin appears. It’s only been an hour or so since we left her.
‘How was it, love?’ I ask as Erin sinks down onto the floor because all the seats are taken.
‘You know,’ Erin says. ‘Sad. Lots of people wanting to tell me how she never lost hope in me coming back to the family. “Coming back to God.” It’s such bullshit. She didn’t want me back. Not unless I could change who I was.’
We are quiet. There’s nothing to say.
‘What are we drinking?’ Erin asks, and Julie goes to the kitchen and brings her a gin and tonic, which she drinks too quickly.
‘Do you want to talk about her?’ I ask. ‘Happy things. Memories from when you were little, anything like that?’
Erin turns to me and I think for a second that she’s angry, that she thinks I don’t understand the depth of hurt she feels about the way her mother treated her in the final years of her life. But then something changes in her expression and I see that she’s grateful for the chance.
‘She would put anything aside if we wanted to play,’ she says. ‘Washing, cooking, whatever. She never said no to a game.’
That’s something, I think. That puts her in a different light again.
‘I was lucky,’ Erin says. ‘I’m realising that it’s possible to be unlucky in some ways but still so lucky in others.’
She’s right about that. Because here I am, reunited with the love of my life long after letting go of the idea of ever being with her, but we are near the end of our lives. Lucky, and unlucky.
The wine and gin are gone in no time and Patty and Julie have a walk to the shops to get some more.
I’ve stopped after a couple, because I’ve found that nothing good ever happens after more than that, and Dot’s slowed right down, and Kirsty’s on water, but it’s clear that Erin’s on a mission and the others are happy to join her on it.
It’s getting on for nine o’clock and I’m starting to feel tired when Julie drops her bombshell on Erin.
‘I didn’t say, did I? I knew your mum at school. Didn’t realise until we were there today and I saw a photo of her on the order of service. Course, I knew her by her maiden name. Bates, wasn’t it?’
Erin looks stunned. ‘You knew her. Really? Were you friends?’
Julie laughs. ‘Not really friends, no. She was in my sister’s year.’
‘Were they friends?’
I see the exact moment when Julie realises this really wasn’t a good idea. Because she’s drunk, everything’s in slow motion, even her expressions. ‘No, they weren’t friends either.’
Erin is still looking at Julie. She doesn’t look cross, exactly, just mildly annoyed.
And curious. She wants to know why Julie has brought this connection up, on the day of her mum’s funeral, if she doesn’t have anything nice to say.
And I do too, to be honest. Though I’m putting it down to drunken foolishness.
‘What was she like then?’ Erin asks.
‘Well, you know what teenage girls can be like,’ Julie says.
‘I mean, I am one, so I suppose I do.’
‘I didn’t know her well, love. I just knew of her. And people change, don’t they? No one is the same person at forty that they were at fourteen.’
Erin is quiet, contemplating. ‘Are you saying she was awful? Because if that’s what you’re saying, I mean, tell me something I don’t know. I had to move out of home because I’m a lesbian, remember?’
Julie looks forlorn. ‘Erin, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
It’s abundantly clear that the drinking session is over. I’m sharing an armchair with Erin and I put a protective arm around her.
‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ I say.
‘I know, it’s just—’ Erin starts to cry quietly.
‘It’s this day,’ I say. ‘It’s the hardest bit, the funeral. That’s what I found with Arthur. It’s feeling like you’re on display and everyone’s watching you. Now it’s over, you can grieve however you want to, in private.’
‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ Erin says, standing up and leaving the room.
After a few minutes of Julie bemoaning putting her foot in it and Patty and Kirsty assuring her that Erin will be okay, I slip away and go upstairs.
There’s no music coming from Erin’s room, no sound at all, but I know she can’t be asleep yet.
I knock gently. She doesn’t call out for me to come in but comes to the door, opens it.
She’s in stretchy pyjamas covered with stars and she’s taken her makeup off.
She looks younger than her eighteen years.
‘Don’t ask me to come back down and apologise,’ she says.
‘Why would I ask that? I just wanted to see if you’re okay.’
She’s wrongfooted, doesn’t know what to say.
‘Today was tough, but you did it. Remember that when you wake up tomorrow and you’re not sure whether you can.’
I’m turning to go when she says my name.
‘Thank you, for earlier. For asking about happy memories. And for coming to see me now.’
I nod and leave her to it. Downstairs, Julie and Kirsty and Patty are getting ready to leave. Dot is clearing away glasses. There are hugs and kisses on cheeks, and I want more than anything to be in bed, horizontal and snug with Dot beside me.
‘Long day?’ she asks.
I nod. And as if she knows just what I need, she says we should leave any more clearing up for the morning, and we go up the stairs. Me ahead, her behind. We’re quiet while we clean our teeth and get ready for bed, but then she speaks into the darkness.
‘I saw what you did earlier, Mabel Beaumont.’
‘What?’
‘When you asked Erin to tell us some good memories of her mum. That’s one of the things I love most about you – the way you see what people need.’
My heart lifts. I didn’t think that was anything special, but Dot does.
That’s the thing about living with yourself for eighty-six years.
Everything you think and do feels so ordinary.
But here is Dot, truly seeing me and telling me the things that make her love me. I make a mental note to do the same.