Chapter 78
In Her Own Way
They were at Edith’s funeral. There weren’t many people there.
Wilbur, at the pulpit, was giving a speech he had cobbled together on the train up from King’s Cross while Maggie had compiled a list of things she planned to help her father with while they were in Sheffield.
Maggie, Alfred, Charlie, Claudette. A few red-faced regulars from the pub.
Jim, the landlord, wearing a suit he’d had since the Queen’s coronation.
And, of course, Mr Parkin. He was sitting on a lonely front pew across the aisle from Wilbur, Maggie and Alfred.
Wilbur had walked past him on his way to the pulpit without even a glance in his direction.
He was now an old man with white hair and a stoop, today dressed in a smart new black suit.
He had his long umbrella that he used as a walking stick.
The Ghost and the Dreamer were standing at the back of the church watching their thirty-four-year-old self give a speech from the pulpit.
If anyone had seen them, they would have noted that they were not only wearing the same outfit, but that the clothes they were dressed in were not entirely appropriate attire for their mother’s funeral.
This hypothetical observer would also note how different their expressions were, despite their identical faces.
The Dreamer was in shock, but the Ghost was squinting as if regret was a shard of glass that dug deep.
‘She died of an aneurysm three years after we moved to London,’ said the Ghost.
The Dreamer looked forlorn. ‘Poor Mam.’
Then they stayed silent to listen to the Wilbur at the front of the church.
‘My mother had a challenging life …’ he said, staring at his scripted notes. He took a breath to compose himself. He hadn’t had a proper conversation with her since the ill-fated Sunday dinner.
‘She suffered more than most could bear, losing a husband, and a son,’ he managed, speaking out to the church.
‘She was tough. But when she was able to enjoy life, she enjoyed it well. She loved working in the pub. And even in the hard times she used to take me and my brother to the cinema. The Palace … It’s where she and my dad had always gone when they were courting. ’
He looked at Maggie on the front pew and smiled at her.
‘Musicals. That was her thing. South Pacific. White Christmas. The Sound of Music. An American in Paris. She had a thing for Gene Kelly. But she liked all sorts … “Singin’ in the Rain” was her unofficial anthem …’
‘This,’ commented the Ghost, as the Dreamer sobbed a little beside him, ‘is a terrible, terrible speech … Isn’t it bad?
I was so used to public speaking by this point.
I probably did more speaking in presentations and boardrooms and at crowded shops than I actually did normal conversations.
But it was one thing talking about net profit projections and another talking about anything real.
Anything emotional. Look at me. Look at us. ’
The Dreamer wiped his eyes and allowed himself a smile of agreement. ‘Yeah. We are pretty shit.’
The challenge for Wilbur had been: how do you sum up a person you loved but who was complicated?
How do you get through a tribute when you had been a real pain to her and had hardly seen her since that argument about Mr Parkin?
When you pretended to have food poisoning to not go to their wedding?
How? Especially when Cecil Parkin was right there on the front row?
And why wouldn’t he be? He was her widower after all.
How do you stand there and not wish you had been softer with her, even though she could be a nightmare?
The Ghost sighed. ‘How could I not see that underneath it all was a … a … sensitive woman who’d had more than most to deal with? I could. But I wasn’t ready to release all that pain into a church.’
The Dreamer was hardly listening. He was, after all, at his mother’s funeral for the first time and he was back to sobbing again.
‘It’s excruciating,’ continued the Ghost. ‘I just listed musicals she liked. A few of her favourite things. A Julie Andrews reference. I even misquoted Irving Berlin. Look – here. It’s coming …’
And it was. They watched on as Wilbur’s voice cracked.
‘Her favourite song was “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin. Another of his songs is, “The Song is Over, but the Music Lingers On”.’
The Ghost looked at Maggie. Even from behind, from just the tilt of her skull, he could read her completely.
And he saw it all, perhaps better than the Dreamer could.
All the complexity of it. All the love and sympathy for Wilbur, and also the sadness and frustrations that weren’t solely to do with that day in the church.
Frustrations of a marriage that was dying the way things left untended do.
She was standing beside Alfred. Alfred was holding her hand.
He struggled with her being away, but it was chiefly expressed via gratitude at her being back.
A row behind and there was Charlie, in a brown suit but still with his long hair, fiddling with his Order of Service sheet and nodding his head in silent encouragement as Wilbur started to stumble a little.
Beside him, Claudette was in a matching black skirt and jacket.
The Ghost could see a bit of her face. She too was staring up with a warm sad smile of sympathy.
They were good people. He missed them. He’d enjoyed working with Charlie during the seventies and eighties, and he and Maggie, at this point in their fraying relationship, still saw them most weekends.
Charlie and Claudette had come up from London on a separate train just for this. To be there for Wilbur.
Meanwhile, Wilbur was concluding his speech: ‘And I’m sure Mam’s song will ring in our ears for a long time yet.’
Before leaving the pulpit he caught the gaze of Mr Parkin and looked quickly away. No look of recognition. No anything at all. Then he walked back to his seat where Maggie was waiting for him.