Chapter 19
Harry
My great-grandfather was eighty-seven when he died.
Sebastian Ellis had been diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago but refused any treatment because, in his words, “I can’t be arsed with this any more.”
“This” being life.
It’s been overcast and drizzly all morning, and the threat of heavy rain lurks in the gunpowder clouds in the distance. The vicar appears to be hurrying through the service in order to finish before the real danger is directly overhead.
It’s befitting, however—to say goodbye under the intimidation of thunder, and with the vicar’s rush job.
Grampa Seb was a miserable, grumbling old man with very few avenues of enjoyment.
He liked betting on horses, smoking cigars, reading shitrag tabloids, and complaining about the unrelenting tyrannical rise of wokeness on the four main TV channels.
I’m not sad he’s dead.
It’s baffling to me because my great-nanna, Dotty, was the most loving, accepting human on the planet, and the only one who could keep Gramps’s misery in check. I guess that when she died in 2019, he simply gave up trying to be a decent person and succumbed to the bitterness within.
The last time I saw him was four weeks ago at the hospice, though I had nothing to say. My fourteen-year-old brother, Casper, surprised us all by stepping out of the closet and declaring himself a “raging homo, and if I ever grow up to be like you, Gramps, I know I’ve failed at life.”
We left after that. I took Casper to Wagamama’s for lunch.
Today, only the older generation look even marginally tearful that Seb Ellis has crossed that rainbow bridge, and those tears might be performative.
Anyone younger than fifty is standing around either picking their nails, stress checking the sky and then their watches, or scrolling through their phones.
I’m only here to support my dad. I expect the same can be said of all my siblings, yet even Dad looks like he’s regretting dressing up in a suit for this old cunt.
None of us bothered to sing along to the church songs, and I’m usually rather fond of “Morning Has Broken.”
The cemetery is enormous. It’s one of the main ones between Bath and Wrigsham, and there are many, many sections. It’s like a farm, with fields and crops of marble or slate instead of wheat or cabbages.
I’m handed a single rose, and I watch as Gramps’s casket is lowered into the ground. We all throw our roses on top and pretend we give half a shit, and then everyone is speculating about what food will be served at his pot-luck wake.
Mum perks up and admits she’s brought cupcakes with rainbow hundreds and thousands, and vegetarian party sausages because one time Seb had gone on an hour-long bitch about her bringing veggie hotdogs to a barbeque.
My auntie Julie has prepared “rabbit food,” a.k.a.
salad, and my uncle Eugene has ordered “foreign muck,” a.k.a.
samosas and pierogies, from local eateries.
Dad rolls his eyes, but ultimately, he’s always going to side with his wife and kids.
The wake will be held in Wrigsham Town Hall, which is a fifteen-minute walk or a two-minute drive away. Most people begin heading back through the maze of headstones towards their cars. Nobody spares Gramps’s grave a second glance.
It’s not unusual to see a figure clad all in black in a cemetery, so I didn’t spot him at first. But there’s something about the gentle curve of his shoulders, the long limbs tucked cross-legged underneath him, and the black curls billowing silkily in the wind.
I do a double take and stop in my tracks.
Not realising I’d ground to a halt, Casper slams into my back.
Mum follows the line of my sight to Orlando, clad in his usual all black, crouched in front of a gleaming grey headstone.
He’s wearing over the ear headphones, and his head’s bowed over a book, a paperback.
There’s a thermal flask beside his knee.
I watch Mum’s heartbreak in real time. The emotions play over her features as she realises who he is and why he’s probably here. “Go to him,” she whispers.
“I . . . I’ll meet you guys there,” I say, and I hang back until the crowds have vanished before jogging over to him.
What little sunlight there is on this miserable afternoon throws my shadow over Lando’s lap. He looks up and baulks.
“Harry!” Lando pulls off his headphones. He blinks at me a few times. “Your granddad’s funeral? Shit, I forgot. I’m sorry. How did it go?”
“The important thing is it’s over now,” I say. I’d told Lando all about Grampa Seb, but I’d forgotten to mention the funeral was today.
I feel the pull of the shining headstone beside Lando, the command to look even though I’m certain I know what I’ll find.
And I’m right.
Here lies
Bonnie Marie Oakham-Goodwin
14.08.1975 - 28.02.2019
Loving mother and wife
You will be missed
Today would have been her birthday.
I watch Lando, unsure of what I should say or do. I’ve never had to deal with grief of this magnitude before, and I can only imagine how he feels right now.
“What are you reading?” I ask instead.
He shows me the front of his book. Pride and Prejudice. “She loved Jane Austen,” he says, and then without warning he bursts into tears.
I’m beside him in an instant, wrapping my arms around him, collecting his tears on my white shirt.
“I’m sorry.” He sniffs and swipes the damp from his cheeks with the back of his hand.
“No, kindly fuck off. Don’t apologise for your emotions.” I squeeze him tighter, crying because my heart is aching for his. “One of the shittiest things in the world happened to you; you’re allowed to feel things.”
I hold him. And I let him cry, and cry, and cry.
Until it feels as though the tears come to a natural lull. I wait for the rain and the thunder and lightning to arrive, but it never does. Lando pushes away from me, and I give him space while he blows his nose.
“It’s been six years. It shouldn’t still hurt this much. I miss her so fucking much.” He looks up to the sky. Tears roll down his cheeks. “And not just her, but . . . what could have been. You know? I’m nineteen. I should still have a mother. I should still have her. Everyone else our age does.”
My hand is still on his back, stroking soft circles. I keep it moving because I want him to know that I’m still here for him . . . feel that I’m still here.
It’s easy to forget about touch if we’ve been static for too long.
“It’s not fair,” I say. I want to offer him advice, sage words of wisdom, but I’ve never been in his position before. I have no idea if it’ll hurt this badly forever, or if it gets easier with each passing year. Maybe it never gets easier.
“If you want to tell me about her, you can. If you don’t want to, that’s also fine,” I say.
“I’ll cry again.”
“You’re already crying. And so am I,” I say, which sets him off in a fresh wave of tears.
“Okay. Yes, I would like to talk about her. Thank you.” He wipes his eyes again.
I hand him a clean tissue in anticipation.
“She loved Jane Austin. Emma was her favourite, but I couldn’t find it this morning.
She loved history in general. We’d always go to different historical places on the weekends to explore.
Her favourite was Hampton Court Palace. One time .
. .” He laughs. “One time the actor playing Henry the eighth dragged Mum out of the crowd and pretended she was Jane Seymour and I was Edward the seventh. It was so funny. She was so good at acting like a Tudor queen. She loved the theatre . . .”
A sob cuts off Lando’s speech and he’s quiet for a moment. Even in distress, he’s achingly beautiful. Ethereal, like an elf or a fairy, or some mystical creature from a video game.
I swipe a bead of moisture from his damp cheek, and he watches my thumb move away.
“It was always just us. Me and her. My dad would usually be off in whatever country he was in securing his super fucking important business deals, but I loved that it was always just us, like we were two people against the rest of the world. You know?
“She was a proper hippie too. She’d make honey from dandelions and cordial from elderberries, and she’d always press flowers inside books. Like . . . I’m still finding random flowers between the pages of books.”
He flicks to the centre of Pride and Prejudice to show me the colourful imprint of a bushy purple flower and its green stem.
“Verbena,” he explains, and now for some reason we’re both laughing through our tears.
“Her favourite ice cream was pistachio, but she couldn’t eat it often. She had IBS too. In fact . . .” He pauses and wets his lips. “I think if she didn’t have IBS they wouldn’t have dismissed the symptoms of her cancer until it was too late.”
My hand is on his shoulder. I’m not rubbing it, I’m squeezing as though clinging onto him will keep him by my side. I hadn’t known until now how Lando’s mother had died.
He breathes a shaky exhale. “I want to tell you more.”
“Okay,” I say, even though my heart feels so splintered it might shatter into a thousand pieces any second. “Anything you want.”
“Her favourite colour was black. She used to say it was the classiest colour, and if you ever wanted to look expensive just wear all black, and preferably something with lace or silk.
Perfumes as well. I get my love of scent from her.
The top shelf in my cupboard holds all her perfumes, but she only ever wore just one. Shalimar by Guerlain.
“And tea. Oh my gosh, she loved tea. She had a tea for every occasion. Spiced chai for thinking deep thoughts, peppermint for tummy aches, jasmine for reading romance, Earl Grey for gossiping. Whenever I was in my room and she brought in a teapot of Earl Grey with a little dish of almond biscuits, I knew I’d be staying up past my bedtime.
One time, through our sleuthing, we figured out that our gardener was having a love affair with one of the guys who worked at The Little Thatch back in the early days.