Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
She didn’t go to the funeral, after that.
Jamie she could just about cope with. But anonymous letters and attacks on their property were something else.
She remembered the accusatory look Sally had given her when she and Gordon swept into The Old Tennis Court after Paul’s death.
At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to Kate that anyone could think her and Matt’s small – and, given the solar farm, short-lived – victory in getting permission for a couple of outbuilding conversions could have been a factor in Paul killing himself.
But clearly a toxic narrative was forming, fuelled by pints of Bowman’s and Longdog, that suited the village’s ravenous appetite for gossip and feuds.
She left Rosemary a card and another bunch of flowers. Probably best if I don’t attend today, but I’ll be thinking of you and watching online.
All my love, K xx
A quick search for ‘Paul Finch funeral’ brought up the live stream inside the church. The rubric informed her that it was being filmed so Paul’s many friends from Botswana and the US could be part of it. Already, sixty people were logged in, and it was only 11.30.
It was strangely fascinating, being able to scrutinise the villagers as they arrived while remaining unseen herself.
There was Gordon, in a slightly unlikely grey double-breasted suit, muttering something to Guy Pelham as they passed in front of the camera.
Sally, wearing a black version of the kind of hat you might expect to see at a wedding, was with Liv and Elizabeth.
Jason from the pub looked as if he was struggling not to cry.
Kate recognised the couple who ran the village shop, the woman who delivered the papers, a bunch of people she’d met at the housewarming party.
A group of elderly men – Paul’s ex-colleagues, perhaps – arrived together and took up two rows.
People were dragging stacks of chairs out from the vestry and putting them at the back of the church, at the end of pews – anywhere they could pack them in.
But soon even that wasn’t enough, and those who arrived with less than ten minutes to spare had to stand.
Eventually, the family appeared. Jamie, dressed in a dark suit, was accompanied by a woman with immaculate short blonde hair, wearing an expensive-looking dark trouser suit.
That must be Courtney, his wife. Their children – Hamish and Flora, Kate remembered – were also smartly turned out, in a black suit and black dress respectively.
Hamish looked to be about thirteen, Flora around eleven.
Behind them was a slight, grey-haired woman, wearing a baggy brown dress.
That must be Tessa, Jamie’s younger sister, although she actually looked older than him – now Kate thought about it, Jamie had probably had a little bit of work done round his eyes.
Tessa had Biddy with her, on a lead. Beside her, Rosemary was smiling politely at people, thanking them for coming.
Donna, the vicar, came out of the vestry in her ceremonial robes.
The organ fell silent, and she spoke a few words of welcome.
Then the door of the church opened and the pallbearers came in, marching slowly in step, with the coffin on their shoulders.
It was only when it had been lowered on to trestles in front of the altar that Kate felt the awful reality of the situation – that Paul, who she’d last seen lying in a pool of his own blood on the wet-room floor, had since then been cut up, put back together, boxed up, and was now right there, in front of them.
She kept thinking of that naked foot with the surprisingly long toes, sticking out of his pyjama leg, and those dripping wet-room walls.
After the first hymn – ‘He Who Would Valiant Be’: Rosemary had succeeded in her mission to choose some thumping tunes – Tessa gave a reading from the Bible, her voice dry and firm.
Then Donna announced that Flora was going to play a piano piece she’d composed herself, entitled ‘For Grandpappy Paulie’.
It was staggeringly good, not least because Flora sang a wordless melody over it, her voice floating pure and true through the church’s Gothic arches.
Donna thanked her and introduced Hamish.
For a moment, Kate felt sorry for him, having to follow that stellar performance by his sister, but she needn’t have worried.
Hamish boldly announced that there was only one way to do justice to Grandpappy Paulie’s famous sense of fun.
‘Other families have dad jokes,’ he said.
‘The Finch crew have grandpappy jokes. Here’s a couple of his faves.
What do you call a magician’s dog? A Labracadabrador.
What did the pony say when it caught a cold?
Forgive me, I’m a little hoarse.’ It was a tough crowd – Kate could tell people were unsure, to begin with, whether it was all right to laugh out loud at a funeral – but Hamish had a stand-up’s precision of timing and by the third one-liner it was impossible to hold back.
He quite literally had them rolling in the aisles when, again with an orator’s timing, he flipped the mood.
‘What do you call a man who takes his own life?’ he asked, and for a moment the shocked silence was so palpable, Kate could feel it through the camera.
‘A giant,’ he answered himself. ‘A legend. A tragedy. But, most of all, one of the greatest men I have had the privilege of knowing.’
My God, Kate thought. These children are titans. She felt a stab of envy that Jamie and Courtney had somehow raised such self-assured, talented creatures.
There was a second hymn – another belter: ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’ – then it was Jamie’s turn. He walked confidently to the lectern and, even more confidently, made them all wait while he unfolded his notes. Then he glanced up at the packed aisles.
‘The terrible thing is, he would have loved this bit.’
He paused for that to sink in. ‘Imagine – almost two hundred of his closest family, friends, colleagues and neighbours, all gathered in one place, and he’s stuck in there and can’t greet you properly.
‘And by “properly”, I mean, of course, with a welcoming smile and a glass of Pol Roger.’ Jamie looked around. ‘I can see a few glum faces here today, but if there was ever a man who could have had this place rocking, it was Dad. “Guests!” he’d have said. “Party!”’
People chuckled at that. Anecdotes followed – in-jokes and punchlines that meant nothing to Kate, but which had the congregation in stitches. Occasionally, though, Jamie’s voice cracked and he had to pause, turning away for a moment to hide his grief, then resuming as if nothing had happened.
She was about to get up and put the kettle on when she heard him say, ‘Of course, there were difficulties at the end of his life. He felt – wrongly – that he’d let Mum down by having to move.
And it never occurred to either of them, when they sold their beloved Trade Cottage, that their new neighbours would turn out to be developers. ’
Kate froze. A couple of heads in the congregation, she saw, were nodding.
‘Developers,’ Jamie continued, ‘who would rip out period features without bothering to obtain the proper consent, apparently believing the old adage that it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission.’
He paused. ‘Not that they ever did. Seek forgiveness, that is.’
Kate stared at the screen, rage starting to boil. How could he possibly be doing this? Using a eulogy to his dead father to attack her and Matt – it was simply grotesque.
‘Even so, Mum and Dad tried hard to welcome them into the village. Many of you will remember the housewarming party they so generously arranged.’ Jamie paused again.
‘Although you may also remember how the village was chucked out at ten p.m. sharp, and had to decamp next door to The Old Tennis Court.’
A few people laughed out loud at that. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He was weaponising a party he hadn’t even been at!
‘A campaign of harassment,’ Jamie was saying.
‘Noise disturbances at all hours of day and night . . . The antidepressants he had to take, to try to deal with it all . . . The final straw, when the hedge between the two properties was razed almost to the ground, and he was forced to watch the pointless destruction of the garden he’d spent a lifetime creating—’
‘That wasn’t us, you prick!’ Kate shouted. ‘That was you!’
‘There had already been the revelation that they were intending to open multiple short-term lets on the site. In a last, desperate attempt to preserve the character of the house – and the village – he loved so much, he even made a generous offer to buy it back – an offer that was instantly thrown back in his face, and subsequently misrepresented.’ Jamie’s voice had changed now – it was clipped and curt, his anger unmistakeable.
As he looked round, making eye contact with his listeners for emphasis, he happened to glance straight at the camera.
Even though he couldn’t see her, Kate recoiled at the boiling fury in his eyes, so different from the wry twinkle they’d had when he was trying to charm her.
‘We had some anguished phone calls in those last, dark weeks,’ he said quietly.
‘I had already decided to give up my job at the IMF and return to the UK with my family, to do what I could to help. On top of everything else, there were the worries he’d confided about my mother’s health.
But, sadly, the burden and the sense of failure were just too much to bear; and, tragically, we were just too late—’
‘AAARGH!’ she shouted at the screen, enraged. ‘YOU ARE KIDDING ME!’
Jamie was listing Paul’s many achievements: the charities he’d chaired; the one he’d founded himself to supply schoolbooks to Botswana; the industry bodies he’d served on; the CBE he was too modest to mention to people; the parish council; the pub; the Pelham Preservation Committee .
. . There hadn’t been a single mention of his illness, she realised.
If it didn’t suit Jamie’s narrative, it was ignored.
‘Yet his greatest talent, and the one he was proudest of, was his skill as a host. If he were here, he’d be going round the pews with a bottle of Pol by now, topping you all up and telling me to hurry up and get to the toast.’
Jamie paused. ‘So, by special kind permission of Donna and the PCC, that’s what we’re going to do.’
Hamish and Flora pushed two trolleys laden with champagne flutes out of the vestry.
The glasses were already half-full; Courtney and Tessa followed with bottles, topping up any that needed it.
People were laughing and chattering as they passed the glasses down the pews; corks popped as more bottles were opened.
Jamie had to raise his voice to shout, ‘There’s a hymn that’s not on the printed order of service.
But I think most of you know the words.’
He started to sing. It was the drinking song, she realised, that Paul had sung on the night of the party. By the second line, everyone was joining in, just as they had around the firepit, all the way to the rousing final words:
‘Cos we’ve always got some champers,
Always got some champers,
We’ve always got some champers in the fridge!’
‘To a great man: Paul Finch!’ Jamie said, and there was a moment before the toast was echoed to the rafters, and another before the congregation, cheering and stamping their feet on the wooden floor, gave Paul’s son a massive round of applause.