Muriel Pulls It Off (17 page)

Muriel registered that she was to be tipped the wink as soon as the coffin had been shunted from the truck and, with misgiving, accepted the part she was required to play.

Phyllis passed on the way to an outhouse - carrying black bags stuffed with Jerome’s clothing as Marco called out to her, ‘Steady Phyllis. There might be some interesting things in those bags. Waistcoats and whatnot. Let’s have a dekko before you throw them out.’

Muriel stood mortified. It was bad enough to be jettisoning Jerome’s effects. Worse still the proceeds were to be sidetracked from fete funds to increase the lining of Cottle pockets. Never before had she so disliked her name.

Flavia came down to breakfast on the day of the funeral and, although her aspect was wan, she forced a smile and bid Muriel, ‘Good luck Chick.’ Marco showed her some attention as they gave the impression of a pair
who had recently ridden a storm. Breakfast was cleared at top speed, for those in charge of the kitchen wished to deck themselves in black. Outside caterers had been hired to produce luncheon for an indefinite number and flowers accompanied by cards inscribed by unknown (to Muriel) authors, were delivered at an alarming rate.

Muriel, as she changed into a grey frock that matched perfectly with Mr Cabbage’s mac, spoke aloud to Monopoly who lay on her bed.

‘I’ll be better, old boy, when this is over.’

Monopoly replied with an uncertain and unsatisfactory movement of a paw.

They gathered in the hallway; Phyllis, Kitty, Mavis and a sprinkling of Kitty’s sisters; soberly dressed and carrying black handbags, each looking as if it had been in store since winter.

With the crash of a closing door, Dulcie, in a pinstripe suit of thick cloth and a navy peaked cap, lunged to the centre of those who gathered, ‘He’ll be bloody mouldy by now in this heat.’

Near to the time for the great occasion, Muriel shooed them all, including Peter, from the house, explaining that they were to go ahead to take their places in pews.

She, Marco and Flavia remained; intent upon timing.

The three spoke together in agitated nervousness, Marco observing, ‘It all looks pretty smashing Ma,’ and Flavia echoing, ‘Yes. Well done Chick. I wonder if the rector’s son will be there - or has he left for Cap Ferrat?’

Marco put his arm round his wife’s waist and said, ‘Hope he doesn’t do anything funny in church, Flave. You’re not to look. Not in your condition.’

Muriel, cracking at her knuckles before placing a finger to her lips, implored, ‘No jokes kids. Not ’til later,’ and, in harmony they headed for the church.

Bells clanged as they made their way, entangling with other mourners who had left their cars in a field on the opposite side of the road to the house. Ladies tested the ground for firmness under their high-heeled shoes and darkly dressed gentlemen saw to the locking of their vehicles. The three chief mourners dawdled, allowing for strangers to pass them by in the hope of being unwatched when tipped the wink by Mr Cabbage. There were stragglers who stared at the coffin; flower-laden and resting behind the glass of a glistening hearse.

Mr Cabbage and his lads wore grey macs of identical cut and Muriel regretted not having donned black.

There was an indefinable flaw in the atmosphere that made Muriel afraid for she was not certain where it came from. The colour of a car? A half-recognition? Monopoly’s discreetly doubting response to her suggestion that the worst was nearly over?

She found Mr Cabbage’s sepulchral confidence reassuring. He wore the mask of one who had buried a million stiffs a minute, year in year out, including bank holidays.

‘Now Mrs Cottle. You wait here by the hearse while we get the coffin onto the truck Mrs Cottle.’ He advised her, then, to walk a few paces ahead of the truck and to halt beside it as they decamped the cadaver by the porch. All this took an age and further latecomers passed them in haste as they accompanied the truck, but paused to peer at Muriel.

Organ music, selected by Peter, wheezed out into the open and attendants, one of which was a fully and sombrely clad Alastair, handed out service sheets. Dawson stood, pleased and surpliced, in the porch as he fiddled with his hearing aid.

‘Pretty good turn out,’ he addressed Muriel. ‘Many unknown to me, though I daresay Delilah will be able to identify most of them for you. She’s a walking address book.’

The walking address book already sat upon a privileged pew.

Headed by Dawson, the procession moved slowly through the body of the church. He raised his face to heaven and without stumbling and in a resounding voice, half sang the words, ‘We brought nothing into this world and it is certain that we can carry nothing out.’ Muriel knew that all eyes were upon her. Everybody in the church had heard of her good fortune in inheriting the something that failed to accompany Jerome. Head half-down and wrapped in morbid thought she, with Marco and Flavia, followed Dawson’s lead. On a reflex she allowed her eyes to swivel towards her vase, the flowers in which stood fanned and to which sprigs of feathery fern had been added.

When Mr Cabbage and his team had deposited Jerome upon a wooden frame that had been set up for the purpose, he signalled to Muriel that she and her two companions take their places in the front pew on the right-hand side of the aisle. This had been left empty for them and she saw, as she turned to obey orders, that a partified Delilah in mauve
stood immediately behind it and that beside her, in dumb fury, huffed Dulcie. No more faces could she distinguish for she faced the front, and Dawson announced the first hymn. ‘Fight the Good Fight.’ Muriel remembered Jerome as he walloped the ambulance men.

As the congregation sang the first verse Muriel entertained, for an unbelieving second, the instinct that her fears were being confirmed.

A male voice, a strong but wavery alto paying much attention to vowel sounds, overreached those of fellow singers and burst from a pew not far behind her. During the following verse she strained more earnestly to listen and the weak fears that had first aroused her belief made way for an indisputable truth - that the voice belonged to Hugh. She clasped at the wooden arm beside her and mustered force to remain upright as Delilah reached out from behind, laid a jewelled hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Are you overcome? There. It speaks well for you Muriel. Try and cling on until Dawson’s address. Then you’ll be able to sit and, though I say it, you’ll find it stimulating.’

By the time Delilah stopped talking they were all well into the third verse.

‘Cast care aside…’ How could she? Hugh’s vowels came across powerfully and with punch. Marco stirred and laid a hand upon one of his mother’s. They faced each other and he mouthed the one word ‘father’ with astonishment and amused interest. He passed the word to Flavia who turned right around and, visually bypassing Delilah and Dulcie, set her eyes upon the singing face of Hugh, then turned back to inform Marco that his mother’s suppositions were corroborated.

‘That’s all we need.
That, That, That’s
all we need,’ sang Muriel to music as the fourth verse commenced. The singing of that first hymn completed, the congregation sat and waited for Arthur, in morning coat, to take to the lectern for he was to perform the first reading. It was obvious that he had rehearsed this solo several times, and in front of a long looking glass.

He cleared his throat most traditionally, looked from the front to the back of the church and began.

‘Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the old easy way which we always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.’ He ended with the sinister words, ‘I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.’

Muriel continued to tremble as the second hymn, providing even greater scope for Hugh and his vocal feats, struck up. She attended to no
voice but his and the knowledge of his nearness brought her close to passing out as it dawned on her that he was certain to expect to be invited to spend the night at the manor. He was, in fairness, her husband and it was unlikely that he would even consider an invitation necessary. She thought about Monopoly and resolved to send the dog to the devil were he to resume his loyalty to Hugh.

And what on earth was Delilah going to make of this unheralded and unexplained arrival? Introductions all round. Hitherto, the companions of her new life, whatever their suspicions, had been tactful in their reticence concerning Hugh - and Hugh was likely to take it amiss when he discovered his brother to have become, practically, a piece of his wife’s precious furniture.

These disturbances flew about her as she allowed the darkness of the service to rush past, although, during Psalm 147, she shuddered as Hugh’s voice soared to the words (in reference to the Lord) ‘Neither delighted he in any man’s legs.’ She was glad that the Lord delighted not in Roger’s recently-plastered leg. Jerome’s were safely in the box liberated from rank trousers. Whether erudite or not, Dawson’s address was tedious. It related largely to the school and its predicted overspend. He did produce an anecdote or two about Jerome but threads were hard to follow. One of them concerned an incident at a school manager’s meeting upon which Dawson and the deceased mistook each other’s hearing aids for their own. It was a feeble example of wit and Muriel wondered why the aids had not been firmly plugged into the appropriate ears.

After the service, Dawson announced that Mrs Cottle had invited the whole congregation to take lunch with her and, he added, ‘I think this is an appropriate moment to welcome the new owner of Bradstow Manor into our midst.’

There were no noticeable noises of assent but necks craned and Muriel thought of nothing but how this public recognition of her new role might be affecting Hugh; his own name and connection unmentioned as he rested his voice.

The mackintosh men entered and lifted the coffin from the wooden frame and hoisted it upon their shoulders. Walking with the procession, Muriel at last looked about her but did not turn to the spot from which Hugh’s voice had soared. Their meeting was inevitable and sure to take place within a short space of time. She turned to the opposite side of the
aisle and spotted Roger. His grey eyes stood out in startling contrast to the black suit he wore. Each failed, deliberately, to catch the other’s glance but Muriel, as she passed, took stock of a female at his side. The fleeting impression portrayed a small, plump and heavily decorated woman who wore a black hat with a veil which covered half her face.

Muriel was truly dumfounded. Roger had never clapped eyes on Jerome and had been as good as asked to leave his house. He had betrayed every person connected with the place, including the housekeeper, to the extent that even the omnivorous Marco had called him to account.

Dawson led the troupe through the church and out into the open where the sun shone and where many began to suffer from the heat in their funeral outfits. They followed him to a corner of the churchyard where sections of artificial lawn surrounded a deeply-dug hole and contrasted with the brown dryness of summer grass.

Standing by the orifice, eyes turned once more to heaven, Dawson crumbled between his fingers a handful of earth. He scattered grains over the coffin which had been speedily lowered and, speaking for the people, let loose a last farewell, ‘…earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body….’

Poor Jerome with his yellow-brown body and ripping farts.

Delilah was the first to squeeze Muriel by the hand and then to follow up the gesture with a kiss, anxious in her wish to introduce the chief mourner to everyone in sight. Here her reputation as a walking address book belied facts as she scoured around for many minutes before she could collar anybody of her acquaintance. During these minutes, Hugh made his approach.

Muriel’s first impression was one of stupefaction for he was nothing if not over dressed. This was a new departure. In their earlier life together he had made a study of casual clothing; to the extent that his sartorial deficiencies were, occasionally, and justifiably, mocked. He used to be accused of attempting to ‘make a statement.’

A very different statement, if statement it were, was now made.

Hugh reddened hotly in a thick morning coat; traditional stiff collar, black tie and pearl pin. Only Arthur and two other elderly men wore similar outfits. Others wore black suits or, particularly the younger members, grey or pale cotton.

‘You look smart,’ she ventured.

‘Hired it. This morning. Just flown in from Johannesburg and thought I might be needed.’

He looked at her most attentively and Muriel sensed that not only Delilah but others, Dulcie in particular, watched and listened.

‘I hope you will be able to come back for lunch.’

Hugh, at this, was greatly startled.

‘Lunch Muriel? I’m back. Back for good. We’ll discuss it later. I’ve come to give you support. Don’t tell me you don’t need it - or have things been plain sailing?’

‘Plain sailing? I wouldn’t say so. Later Hugh. When the guests have gone. Later. I’ll explain.’ She had no idea what she was going to explain as she turned her back on him.

There was nothing at that juncture that she was prepared to say and, most surely, she had no wish to introduce him as her husband to baffled funeral guests. General rejoicing might ensue. Delilah and Dawson, in Christian joy, would jump to clamp the pair together; happy family at Bradstow Manor; that and royalty. It could not be.

Peter and Marco greeted brother and father. Peter with reticence and Marco with great good humour. ‘Hello Dad. Here to share the spoils? Don’t blame you. Ma’s done pretty well for herself.’ He forgot where he was but paused as the head teacher showed him a look of ugly reproof.

Muriel, after turning her back on her husband, found herself eyeball to eyeball with Roger who made, unsuccessfully, to kiss her on the cheek as she held him at bay during a muddled moment with neither one knowing how to handle the next phase of the encounter. The podgy woman who wore cosmetics and who Muriel had noticed as she passed the pew, was definitely Roger’s date for the day. She appeared to know nobody and held her body close to Roger’s as one who wished herself to be considered protected.