Chapter Two
Two
Bag a seat. What a joke. I’ve never been at anything as depressing as this, my whole entire life.
OK, I know it’s a funeral. It’s not supposed to be a riot. But at least Bert’s funeral had lots of people and flowers and music and atmosphere. At least that other room felt like something.
This room has nothing. It’s bare and chilly, with just a closed coffin at the front and SADIE LANCASTER in crappy plastic letters on a notice board.
No flowers, no lovely smell, no singing, just some Muzak piped out of speakers.
And the place is practically empty. Just Mum, Dad, and me on one side; Uncle Bill, Aunt Trudy, and my cousin Diamanté on the other.
I surreptitiously run my gaze over the other side of the family.
Even though we’re related, they still seem like a celebrity magazine come to life.
Uncle Bill is sprawled on his plastic chair as though he owns the place, typing at his BlackBerry.
Aunt Trudy is flicking through Hello!, probably reading about all her friends.
She’s wearing a tight black dress, her blond hair is artfully swept around her face, and her cleavage is even more tanned and impressive than last time I saw her.
Aunt Trudy married Uncle Bill twenty years ago, and I swear she looks younger today than she does in her wedding pictures.
Diamanté’s platinum-blond hair sweeps down to her bum, and she’s wearing a minidress covered with a skull print.
Really tasteful for a funeral. She has her iPod plugged in and is texting on her mobile and keeps looking at her watch with a sulky scowl.
Diamanté is seventeen and has two cars and her own fashion label called Tutus and Pearls, which Uncle Bill set up for her.
(I looked at it online once. The dresses all cost four hundred pounds, and everyone who buys one gets their name on a special “Diamanté’s Best Friends” list, and half of them are celebs’ kids. It’s like Facebook, but with dresses.)
“Hey, Mum,” I say. “How come there aren’t any flowers?”
“Oh.” Mum immediately looks anxious. “I spoke to Trudy about flowers, and she said she would do it. Trudy?” she calls over. “What happened about the flowers?”
“Well!” Trudy closes Hello! and swivels around as though she’s quite up for a chat. “I know we discussed it. But do you know the price of all this?” She gestures around. “And we’re sitting here for, what, twenty minutes? You’ve got to be realistic, Pippa. Flowers would be a waste.”
“I suppose so,” Mum says hesitantly.
“I mean, I don’t begrudge the old lady a funeral.” Aunt Trudy leans toward us, lowering her voice. “But you have to ask yourself, ‘What did she ever do for us?’ I mean, I didn’t know her. Did you?”
“Well, it was difficult.” Mum looks pained. “She’d had the stroke, she was bewildered a lot of the time—”
“Exactly!” Trudy nods. “She didn’t understand anything. What was the point? It’s only because of Bill that we’re here.” Trudy glances at Uncle Bill fondly. “He’s too softhearted for his own good. I often say to people—”
“Crap!” Diamanté rips out her earphones and looks at her mother scornfully. “We’re only here for Dad’s show. He wasn’t planning to come ‘til the producer said a funeral would ‘massively up his sympathy quotient.’ I heard them talking.”
“Diamanté!” exclaims Aunt Trudy crossly.
“It’s true! He’s the biggest hypocrite on earth and so are you. And I’m supposed to be at Hannah’s house right now.” Diamanté’s cheeks puff out resentfully. “Her dad’s, like, having this big party for his new movie and I’m missing it. Just so Dad can look all ‘family’ and ‘caring.’ It’s so unfair.”
“Diamanté!” says Trudy tartly. “It’s your father who paid for you and Hannah to go to Barbados, remember? And that boob job you keep talking about—who’s paying for that, do you think?”
Diamanté draws in breath as though mortally offended. “That is so unfair. My boob job’s for charity.”
I can’t help leaning forward with interest. “How can a boob job be for charity?”
“I’m going to do a magazine interview about it afterward and give the proceeds to charity,” she says proudly. “Like, half the proceeds or something?”
I glance at Mum. She looks so speechless with shock, I almost burst into giggles.
“Hello?”
We all look up to see a woman in gray trousers and a clerical collar, heading up the aisle toward us.
“Many apologies,” she says, spreading her hands.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.
” She has cropped salt-and-pepper hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and a deep, almost masculine voice.
“My condolences on your loss.” She glances at the bare coffin.
“I don’t know if you were informed, but it’s normal to put up photographs of your loved one… .”
We all exchange blank, awkward looks. Then Aunt Trudy gives a sudden click of the tongue.
“I’ve got a photo. The nursing home sent it on.”
She rummages in her bag and produces a brown envelope, out of which she draws a battered-looking Polaroid.
As she passes it over, I take a look. It shows a tiny, wrinkled old lady hunched over in a chair, wearing a shapeless pale-mauve cardigan.
Her face is folded over in a million lines.
Her white hair is a translucent puff of candy floss.
Her eyes are opaque, as though she can’t even see the world.
So that was my great-aunt Sadie. And I never even met her.
The vicar looks at the print dubiously, then pins it onto a big notice board, where it looks totally sad and embarrassing all on its own.
“Would any of you like to speak about the deceased?”
Mutely, we all shake our heads.
“I understand. It can often be too painful for close family.” The vicar produces a notebook and pencil from her pocket.
“In which case I’ll be glad to speak on your behalf.
If you could perhaps just give me some details.
Incidents from her life. Tell me everything about Sadie that we should be celebrating. ”
There’s silence.
“We didn’t really know her,” Dad says apologetically. “She was very old.”
“One hundred and five,” Mum puts in. “She was one hundred and five.”
“Was she ever married?” the vicar prompts.
“Er…” Dad’s brow is wrinkled. “Was there a husband, Bill?”
“Dunno. Yeah, I think there was. Don’t know what he was called, though.” Uncle Bill hasn’t even looked from his BlackBerry. “Can we get on with this?”
“Of course.” The vicar’s sympathetic smile has frozen. “Well, perhaps just some small anecdote from the last time you visited her…some hobby…”
There’s another guilty silence.
“She’s wearing a cardigan in the picture,” ventures Mum at last. “Maybe she knitted it. Maybe she liked knitting.”
“Did you never visit her?” The vicar is clearly forcing herself to stay polite.
“Of course we did!” says Mum defensively. “We popped in to see her in…” She thinks. “In 1982, I think it was. Lara was a baby.”
“1982?” The vicar looks scandalized.
“She didn’t know us,” puts in Dad quickly. “She really wasn’t all there.”
“What about from earlier in her life?” The vicar’s voice sounds slightly outraged. “No achievements? Stories from her youth?”
“Jeez, you don’t give up, do you?” Diamanté rips her iPod speakers out of her ears. “Can’t you tell we’re only here because we have to be? She didn’t do anything special. She didn’t achieve anything. She was nobody! Just some million-year-old nobody.”
“Diamanté!” says Aunt Trudy in mild reproof. “That’s not very nice.”
“It’s true, though, isn’t it? I mean, look!” She gestures scornfully around the empty room. “If only six people came to my funeral, I’d shoot myself.”
“Young lady.” The vicar takes a few steps forward, her face flushing with anger. “No human on God’s earth is a nobody.”
“Yeah, whatever,” says Diamanté rudely, and I can see the vicar opening her mouth to make another retort.
“Diamanté.” Uncle Bill lifts a hand quickly.
“Enough. Obviously I myself regret not visiting Sadie, who I’m sure was a very special person, and I’m sure I speak for all of us.
” He’s so charming, I can see the vicar’s ruffled feathers being smoothed.
“But now what we’d like to do is send her off with dignity.
I expect you have a tight schedule, as do we. ” He taps his watch.
“Indeed,” says the vicar after a pause. “I’ll just prepare. In the meantime, please switch off your mobile phones.” With a last disapproving look around at us all, she heads out again, and Aunt Trudy immediately turns in her seat.
“What a nerve, giving us a guilt trip! We don’t have to be here, you know.”
The door opens and we all look up—but it’s not the vicar, it’s Tonya. I didn’t know she was coming. This day just got about a hundred percent worse.
“Have I missed it?” Her pneumatic drill of a voice fills the room as she strides down the aisle. “I just managed to scoot away from Toddler Gym before the twins had a meltdown. Honestly, this au pair is worse than the last one, and that’s saying something….”
She’s wearing black trousers and a black cardigan trimmed with leopard print, her thick highlighted hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Tonya used to be an office manager at Shell and boss people around all day.
Now she’s a full-time mum of twin boys, Lorcan and Declan, and bosses her poor au pairs around instead.
“How are the boys?” asks Mum, but Tonya doesn’t notice. She’s totally focused on Uncle Bill.
“Uncle Bill, I read your book! It was amazing! It changed my life. I’ve told everyone about it. And the photo is wonderful, although it doesn’t do you justice.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” Bill shoots her his standard yes-I-know-I’m-brilliant smile, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
“Isn’t it a fantastic book?” She appeals around to the rest of us. “Isn’t Uncle Bill a genius? To start with absolutely nothing! Just two coins and a big dream! It’s so inspiring for humanity!”