Patrick Parker's Progress (28 page)

'Pope?'
said Patrick, horrified.

Happy the man, whose wish and care
...

A few paternal acres bound

Content to breathe his native air

In his own ground
...

'But why?' asked a puzzled Patrick. 'What's that got to do with my mother?' He could not see it at all. Father Bryan smiled knowingly.

The funeral can't be for some time,' said Patrick. 'They'll have to do a post mortem.'

'Ah yes,' said the priest. 'Because she died all alone.' And he gestured that Patrick might leave. The good man was feeling just a little ragged that afternoon as it appeared that some time ago an ill-disposed and very nasty piece of work had obviously thought it amusing to stuff biscuits into the Poor Box. This, being opened every two months or so (seldom was it worthwhile sooner), had not been discovered until a family - a considerable family - of mice were discovered having taken up residence. Mrs Moggs's scream would echo in his mind for many a year and if Father Bryan ever got his hands on the perpetrator
...

Patrick left.

The date of the funeral was fixed at last. The invitations had been sent. At least no one argued with that. In London Patrick felt quite mortified. He had wanted to pay a particularly warm and meaningful public tribute to her. Full of meaning and drama and catching the hearts of his public. He felt cheated.

He felt even more cheated when Father Bryan refused, absolutely refused point-blank, to let journalists into a funeral. If he was ever going to get a bishopric you could not afford to have things like that on your CV.

And then once the body - his mother - what to call it - was released, as if the cheated feeling could not get any worse, just before the funeral, when they were due to set off for Coventry Peggy went down with a temperature of one hundred and two. Influenza.

'But I can't organise the thing
’
he said, pacing the floor of her bedroom, running hands through his hair. 'I expect I will go down with it too, now.'

But though he tried and tried - he did not. Just for once, despite his mother's upbringing, saying the deed did not induce the illness. It was a fine time for him to find that out.

He was forced to set off for Coventry alone. Polly was dragged out of her nest on the other side of London to nurse her mother. Isambard could not be found. Not that he ever could. And if he was found he'd probably have nits and that rash of his again. Peggy used to wail that he never had nits
once
when he was at school
...

There was nobody else left to help. Dolly was dead. He thought -oddly enough - of Audrey. 'Pity I lost contact
’
he said. Peggy's temperature shot up. 'Anyway, she's probably fat and married somewhere with a couple of kids and a bus conductor for a husband.' Her temperature went down, but only a little.

So much to do, so little time, but at least Patrick had remembered to place the announcement in
The Times.
And
The Times
thought they would come up anyway, funeral or not, and take a few pictures of him. Perhaps at the grave or something. That kind of thing. Patrick certainly did not want them going anywhere near his old home.

When he arrived at the house it felt cold and strange and unpleasant and chills ran up and down his spine. Here he was, at the forefront of his world and he had no one to help him. No good asking any of his London or international friends or their wives - think what they would do when they saw his humble home. No - it was his wife or it was nobody. Pity about Aud - she'd have been good. He rang Peggy again. 'Are you absolutely sure you can't make it?' he said plaintively. 'It's not long on the train.' She just gave a gasp and the phone was passed to Polly. Who hung up.

The flowers pleased him when they arrived. Florence might have stolen his thunder in the order and content of the service, but the floral tribute was entirely his. Daisies, lilies, irises and masses of curly greenery, which he had ordered to be shaped as the bridge to heaven. 'A touch
’
he said, 'of which my mother would approve.'

The press arrived the day before to photograph the inside of the church, already arrayed with flowers, the pictures of which would accompany a short piece by Patrick on how much his mother had influenced his early years of dedication. Accordingly, on the preceding day, the press were also taken from the church grounds (pensive shot of Patrick leaning on the marble arm of a slightly bird-spattered angel) to the chapel of rest to see the coffin and the Bridge to Heaven. 'For My Dearest Mother. My Help and My Inspiration. Without You I Was Nothing.' A statement of which the press, if not Father Bryan, heartily approved. Close-up of Patrick and the floral tribute. Also distant shot. The great man brought low.

Patrick made a touching figure bowed down with grief, without the help of his wife or his children (who had all, as he told the press, succumbed to the flu epidemic. He said this quite unblinkingly because - well - son Isambard
might
have got it. Wherever the ungrateful little bastard was. Come to think of it, if he hadn't already got it, he bloody well deserved to get it.)

‘I
feel,' he said to the world, 'alone in the world. And as if my right arm, my drawing arm, has been cut off.'

The
Daily Mail
waited to do their piece later, as they needed a charming picture of the entire family grouped around
Florence
's grave. Patrick could only keep his fingers crossed about Isambard.

'Bridge Man, honoured by Japan, France, Italy and Norway, finally recognised: Patrick Parker's Muse dies. "My mother was my prop and my rock. She died happy that I had been honoured properly by my own country at last
’
" was the caption, with photograph, in
The Times
the next morning. It made page two. The funeral was set for 3 p.m.

'Another blow for the newly honoured Sir Patrick Parker. His wife and two children are all victims of the flu epidemic and will not be able to attend the service with him. Sir Patrick will attend alone.'

TWO

AUDREY

Excellent Opportunity for Single Woman

There were three men in suits in the first-class carriage. The three men in suits all had distinguished greying hair and held a copy of a daily broadsheet and they had spread their arms wide to read them. They had earned the right to this space. They had earned the right to travel at offpeak times and in maximum comfort by dint of working their way upwards in the various companies they now steered. They were fulfilled men, men of substance, players.

Were they to stop and speak to each other (a thing unheard of and most
infra dig),
they would find that their experiences of business life were very similar. A good school, a sound college, a little word from a member of the family here, a little directorship there, the slightest of nods from a chairman there, a part-time consultancy here, etc. etc. All understood. All on the nod. The men who steered but never got their hands dirty. The men for whom business meetings in those unprepossessing Midland or Northern towns away from their familiar City of London territory would be set for the hour just before lunch, rather than the hour just after breakfast. Power - these men had it, and they wore it very lightly - almost as if it was not there at all.

Each one looked over the top of his newspaper as covertly as possible to consider the woman in the carriage. If she had power she, too, wore it discreetly. Not in the first flush, of course, but very well kept. Late forties perhaps or early fifties. Quite youthful to them, really, given that they were ten years older. Good legs, and wearing a skirt (thank God) - money, of course, as the discreet gold jewellery and the smart black suit quietly declared. Not too much make-up; that streaky blonde hair about which they knew because of their wives. A slight touch of brazenness in the stare that met theirs. Their eyes went back to the legs again, encased in very sheer black, crossed at the ankles, feet in plain but delicate high heels. Also black. Altogether a striking woman. One who looked as if she knew what was what. She terrified all three of them and they retreated behind their newspapers as soon as their eyes met hers.

The woman smiled a little smile. She was used to such men. Had built her life around one of them. She knew them inside-out and sideways and she smiled again at the thought. Travelling on trains was quite a sexy business really. It was usually somewhere around this ratio of men to women - in first class anyway - three to one. All that trapped, anonymous testosterone. All that understated money and power. She smiled as she sipped her coffee and then wrinkled her nose at the taste of it. She must, she supposed, get used to British coffee again. Foul stuff - thin as dishwater. Some institutions still had not learned that the indigenous palate had changed and now demanded the standards of Starbucks and Coffee Republics and Caffe Neros. Or perhaps it was less a question of not learning, and more a question of choosing to ignore. No doubt the people who ran the restaurant car thought only of profit and never of pride and were probably on the fiddle. Always had been, always would be, in her opinion. One of her boyfriends in the old days had been a train steward. Used to give her catering-size Maxwell House to take home to Mother.

She replaced her cup. Ah well. There were compensations
...
At least the British abided by their rules. This was a mobile-telephone-free carriage and the steward (bless him) had already seen a pink-faced young man off earlier who had the temerity to get out his spreadsheets and start making calls while they were still in the station. None of these would do anything like that. They were Grandees and Grandees did not stoop to being available all the time. She knew all about Grandees. She had lived among them for long enough. They held no fear for her.

She looked at each newspaper front in turn - two
Daily Telegraphs
and one
Times.
Very nice, very predictable. England - she was definitely back. She saw one of the men flick another quick look above his paperline again before retreating. I might be in my fifties, she thought, as she leaned back and recrossed her ankles, but I've looked after myself. From the look in their eyes, she decided cheerfully, the men in the carriage thought the same.

She, too, opened her newspaper, which was also
The Times -
though not for the first time that morning. A copy had been delivered to her Bloomsbury hotel room at seven-thirty a.m and she sat up in bed with her early morning tea to read it. By eight-thirty a.m she had breakfasted and was on the telephone first to her travel agent and then to an Old Folks' home (or 'Ferndown Retirement Community', as the voice answering the telephone said) and then to a manse. By nine-forty-five she was leaving the hotel in a black cab. At ten on the dot she was the first customer in a small boutique she knew behind Tavistock Square, and by ten-forty-five she had made her various purchases. She left the shop exquisitely dressed in black, tucked herself back into the cab and headed off for the station. Her ticket was waiting for her and she even had time to have a cup of coffee at Starbucks and to buy another
Times
for the journey. It was amazing what you could do if you were efficient, determined, and had enough money.

By eleven-forty-two she was in her seat. Her hat - small, black and with a tiny veil - was safely stowed in the rack above her head, and she was comfortably settled when the train pulled out of the station -on time - for Coventry. It was then that she requested her second cup of coffee of the morning and looked about her at her travelling companions. If she had not had her mind on much more amusing matters, she might have had some fun with a little flirtation - but not today. Today she had enough to keep her occupied. She leaned back and refolded her newspaper with the photograph face-up and reread the short report 'Patrick Parker's Muse dies
...
Sir Patrick will attend alone.'

'Not necessarily,' she muttered, under her breath. 'Not necessarily, Patrick dear
...'

Lilly was wheeled into the church in a chair that squeaked and squealed. A general tutting rose up towards the lovely beamed roof and the carved round bosses - surely the people who looked after the woman in the wheelchair could use an oil-can? But Lilly, who had made little commotion for most of her life, quite liked disturbing the Universe now.

Patrick turned round and stared out from the front pew. What he saw approaching seemed a vision of hell. 'It's Baby Jane,' he thought, and he gripped the pewback to save himself from passing out. The chair screeched its advance and stopped a few pews back. He found himself looking at a twisted, smiling smudgery of a red mouth and bright scarlet splodges on the cheeks beneath the sunglasses. It looked as if someone had pressed red-hot pennies into the flesh. The figure lifted a small, bent hand with great difficulty and waved it at him very slightly before being settled at the end of a pew. He was just congratulating himself that at least the apparition wore sunglasses, when these were removed and he distinctly saw Lilly - for there was no mistaking who it was - wink. He shuddered and turned back towards the altar. He wondered how on earth she had found out about the funeral. Small town, he supposed. But with her there lolling and winking it made standing alone (he did not count his deceased Aunt Bertha's husband's brother's son, Roger) in the front pew all the more stressful. He ran his hands through his hair
...

Suddenly, sliding past him in a black softness of fabric and a sweet smell of perfume, came a woman- She managed, seemingly without effort, to insinuate herself between Roger and himself. Perhaps it was Roger's wife? But Roger did not have a wife. He had never married, lived in Bromsgrove where he sold wet fish and wore plastic gloves to do it and - it was clear - never touched anything alive and warm if he could help it. It was all he could do to shake Patrick's hand at the door to the church, and say 'as your godfather, er, as your godfather . . .' Which was about all he ever
had
said to him over the years. Patrick looked at the woman's veiled profile as she stood facing the altar and then he had the added shock of feeling her warm hand take his and hold it and squeeze it. He peered harder, the profile turned towards him and beneath the little black hat, behind the enticing little bit of veil, the smile was warm and sympathetic and vaguely familiar. Also, he thought, attractive. Well, for an older woman. A very well-kept older woman
...