The Immaculate (30 page)

The funeral car came to pick Jack up at eleven twenty-five the next morning. Because it would not have been able to turn round in the narrow lane, he had arranged to meet it at the top of Daisy Lane where it joined the main road.

He wished he hadn't. It was a miserable day, thin grey drizzle weeping from clouds the colour of oily rocks. A cold wind slithered around him, nipping and probing his exposed skin, numbing his ears, making his forehead ache. Jack had woken up in a foul mood, his shoulders and spine almost pulsing with pain. Why had his father not made full contact last night? He had done it before when Jack had not been ready, but now that he would have welcomed it the old man was choosing to be enigmatic.

Jack swore at the wind as it grabbed his tie and flailed it at his face. He tucked it back into his jacket and smoothed it down, flipping up his lapels to keep the wind from gnawing at his neck. It seemed strange to be about to attend the funeral of a man who, for him, had only just come alive. He stepped into the arch of trees at the top of Daisy Lane, and paused for a moment, thankful for the shelter.

Just a couple of days ago he had found this place sinister, but now it reminded him of a cathedral, its muted colours seeming to radiate peace, blocking out all but a murmur of the wind. Jack palmed moisture from his face and tried to rake his hair into some semblance of tidiness. He took his cigarettes and matches from the hip pocket of his jacket and lit up as he strolled through the trees, enjoying the sound of water dripping from leaf to leaf, the mulchy squelch of his footsteps. “I'm going home today,” he told the trees. “I'm going back to London to see Gail, and I'm going to ask her to marry me.” The idea still seemed strange and delightful to him. He laughed and shook his head, shredding a sinuous curve of grey-blue smoke.

When the two cars eased into view at the bottom of the hill, Jack was still smiling. He smoothed his hair with his hands again, dropped his cigarette into the dirt and adopted a suitably sombre expression. The first car, driven by Jeremy Coombs, contained his father's coffin, on which three modest-sized wreaths had been laid. The car behind, driven by a hamster-like man with a tightly trimmed ginger beard, contained his Aunt Georgina.

She was dressed in a dark grey suit and looked pensive. Jack wanted to wave to her but decided not to; the gesture might be construed as flippant. Both cars indicated and cruised to a halt beside him. Beads of water shimmered on their waxed bonnets. From his glancing, distorted reflections in the cars' spotless side windows, Jack could see that he looked bedraggled. He stepped forward to open the second car's door, but as he was reaching for the handle, the driver threw open his door, catapulted from his seat and came bustling towards him. “Allow me, sir.”

“Thanks.” Jack ducked into the car, which rocked a little as the door slammed behind him. There was enough space inside for him to lie down if he'd wanted. His aunt was sitting upright, back rigid, handbag perched on her lap like a pet. She gave a tight smile, her face pale. As he sat down she grasped his hand and squeezed it. “Are you okay?” he asked. She nodded, but her eyes told him otherwise.

The drive to the church was brief, but Jack's inability to think of anything comforting to say protracted the minutes. He had never been to a burial before. The thought of it discomfitted him—the dark and the airlessness, the worms and the weight of all that earth above you. The fact that you were dead, or supposed to be, didn't matter. Even the fact that he'd had evidence that the human soul could transcend death, that the body was simply a casing, a machine that eventually broke down, could not alter his opinion. He shuddered and tried to tell himself this was what came of reading Poe at too early an age.

The ancient church was fettered with ivy. Jack could see four men in black suits—the coffin bearers, presumably—leaning in the open arched doorway, chatting and smoking. Beyond them was the vicar, inclining his head toward one of only half a dozen mourners. The other five mourners were gazing into space.

As the two cars pulled into the churchyard, people began to straighten up, adjust clothing, guiltily discard cigarettes and adopt looks of expectation, or, in one or two cases, practised sympathy. Jack couldn't help thinking that the mourners were here not because they wished to pay their respects, but simply out of a sense of propriety. Or perhaps it was less than that—he toyed with the idea that they had been hired by Coombs or the vicar to swell the ranks a little, pay him and his aunt lip service. As the two cars cruised to a halt, Jack stifled an urge to produce a stately wave, like an arriving royal.

Throughout the service his aunt clung to his arm. Jack stared at the coffin in front of the altar and felt nothing but the unease he always felt when faced with reminders of mortality. The vicar's voice was a drone, his words occasionally blurred by their own echoes. When Jack looked around, the other mourners, none of whom he recognised, were gazing at the floor or into space, as if lost in their own thoughts.

Outside, as the coffin was lowered into the ground and the words of committal were said, Georgina cried a few silent tears, which Jack acknowledged by briefly squeezing her hand. When it was over and they were back in the car heading towards his aunt's house, he found himself thinking—as he had in the registrar's office—is that all it is then, all that a life amounts to? A wooden box, a bored vicar who doesn't know you from Adam, and a meagre cluster of mourners whose only thought is to get out of the cold and back to their own lives? It seemed so pointless, so inauspicious, and, thought Jack, so English. Dying in this country was almost an embarrassment, something to be frowned upon, to be despatched as quickly and quietly as possible. When I die, he thought, I want a pink Cadillac, and I want everyone to wear bright colours, and I want them to play
No More Heroes
by the Stranglers at the funeral service.

They were almost at his aunt's house when they nearly had an accident. Jack was so lost in his own thoughts that the first he was aware of it was when the driver shouted, “Bloody hell!” and yanked the steering wheel to the left. He looked up to see flashes of gleaming silver and black streak past the windows, then together with his aunt he jerked forward as the driver stamped on the brakes. He recovered and raised his head just in time to see the passing of the last motorbike in the formation. The guy riding it had wraparound plastic shades, long greasy hair that streamed out from beneath the rim of his helmet, and facial fungus reminiscent of Motörhead's Lemmy. Sitting behind the Lemmy lookalike was Tracey Bates, clad in her usual jeans and leather jacket. Jack swivelled to watch the bike's progress through the back window. He saw Tracey twist, her stunning blonde hair streaming out behind her. She unwrapped her right arm from around the Lemmy lookalike's midriff and very deliberately stuck two fingers up in the air.

Fuck you, too, Jack thought coldly. He wondered whether Tracey had known this was his father's funeral procession and decided that she must have done.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked his aunt. Like him, she had shot forward when the car had braked and had ended up sprawling in the space between front seat and back, a jumble of arms and legs.

“Yes,” she said weakly, “just a bit shaken.” He saw her wince and rub her arm as she clambered back onto her seat and he felt a bright juicy hatred for Tracey Bates and her friends fill his mouth.

“Whatever happened?” Georgina asked a moment later, blinking at him. “Did we hit something?”

The driver turned, displaying his teeth in a grimace of excruciating apology. “Sir, Madam,” he said, “I'm terribly sorry.”

“Don't worry,” said Jack, “it wasn't your fault. Half of those morons were on the wrong side of the road.”

The driver nodded gratefully and turned back.

“Jack, what happened?” Georgina said again.

“Kids on motorbikes,” Jack said. “They were riding two and three abreast, hogging the road.”

Georgina tutted. “Ought to ban those things. They're nothing but death traps. I was only reading in the paper yesterday about a lad from Emley, eighteen he was, went out of control on a motorbike, ended up going through a wire fence and having his head lopped off.”

Jack nodded, only half-listening. He was filled with a rage so acute that bottling it up made his temples feel tight, created a hard knotted ache in his stomach. That was twice now that Tracey Bates had nearly killed him. She was a bloody psycho, just like her father. Jack had decided not to tell the police about his previous run-ins with the Bates family because he hadn't wanted to be detained in Beckford longer than was necessary. However, if he had not been heading back to London within the next couple of hours, he would have been straight on the phone to report this latest incident.

He tried to stem his anger as he nibbled dry salmon sandwiches and sipped tea at his aunt's house. Four of the mourners came back, as did Jeremy Coombs and their driver, who, Jack discovered, was Coombs' brother-in-law. Jack didn't much like any of the people he talked to. Perhaps it was the situation, but they all seemed edgy, taciturn. When a decent interval had passed, he crossed to his aunt, who was alone on the sofa drinking the latest of numerous cups of tea.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Tired,” she replied without hesitation. “When are all these people going to go home?”

“Soon, I should think. How's your arm?”

“A bit sore.” She smiled sadly. “I'll live.”

Jack nodded and leaned back, waiting for the right moment to tell her the next thing, trying to formulate the words. At last he cleared his throat and said, “I'd better be thinking of getting back soon. I wanted to reach London before the rush hour.”

His aunt turned to look at him, and despite himself Jack felt guilty. “You're going home today?”

“You know I am,” Jack replied. “I told you.” He placed his hand over hers. “I have to get back. I've got things to do. You know I can't stay here forever.”

Georgina looked as if she were about to argue, then turned her head away. “Of course,” she said tightly.

Jack felt bad, as if he were abandoning her, though he knew there was no reason to feel this way. “I'll come back to visit you soon,” he said. “I'll bring Gail. It's been really lovely to see you again, Aunty. I have to admit, I didn't want to come back to Beckford, but now I'm glad that I did.”

For a moment he thought his aunt was not going to grace him with an answer, then her expression softened and she turned to look at him once more.

“It's been lovely to see you, too,” she said. “You might have turned into a bit of a city tyke, Jack Stone, but you haven't changed all that much. He would have been proud of you, you know, your father, whatever you may think of him.”

Jack felt a lump rising in his throat and smiled it away. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

There was silence between them for a moment, then Georgina leaned forward, grasped his hand and kissed him on the cheek. “Go on,” she said gently. “Off you go. Back to your smoke and pollution.”

Jack chuckled. “It's a good life, you know.”

She smiled. “I'm sure it is.”

He stood up, palming the creases from his suit, then turned, leaned forward and hugged her tightly. “See you soon,” he said. “I'll phone you when I get back.”

Did he detect a glint of tears in her eyes? If so, they were rapidly blinked away. “Good-bye, Jack,” she said.

He raised a hand and abruptly turned away. “Bye, everyone,” he called at the door, and slipped out before they had time to acknowledge him.

He shivered and huddled into himself as he began the walk back to his father's house. It was cold, but at least the rain had stopped. The sky was the colour of old newspapers; a garden shed gleamed like raw liver. A Collie shook itself dry on the opposite side of the street, creating a fine halo of spray around itself.

Jack felt happy. The funeral was over, social niceties out of the way, affairs sorted and farewells made. All he had to do now was get his stuff together, load up the car and go home. He hugged himself, hunching up his shoulders, partly for warmth, partly in anticipation of the glorious moment when he could take Gail in his arms. It was almost one-thirty; depending on the traffic he should be home by six. Where can we go tonight? he thought. Poons? No, somewhere posher. How about Maxi's? He became aware that he was grinning like a love-struck schoolboy, but he didn't care. Life was so good. He could almost taste the prawn crackers, the fried seaweed, the sweet and sour chicken. He shuddered in delight. When should he ask her to marry him? As soon as he got home, during the meal, or later in bed?

When he turned onto Daisy Lane, the sun was struggling to show itself. Jack grinned, feeling as though it were making the effort solely for him. He squelched between the trees and out the other side, bracing himself against the pouncing wind. The fields looked green and lush as jungle vegetation, the distant woods a single varnished sculpture. The dry-stone walls gleamed like ebony. The air smelt of fresh clean earth, of renewal. The path had turned muddy, spattering his shoes, but Jack couldn't care less. This was one of those rare times when he felt as though his life were spread gloriously before him, a box of delights, full of wonders, of joy, of opportunity.

Reality hit him like a brick when he saw his car.

At first he didn't notice. He was gazing absently at the house, intent on his own thoughts. The house's black spiky chimneys bobbed into view first, then the shiny slate roof, then the rest of the place, the aftermath of the drizzle clinging to it like a pall.

He was perhaps forty yards away when he registered that the tomato red block of his car did not look quite as it was supposed to. Frowning, he turned and focused upon it and saw that the bonnet was yawning open. And when he looked down Jack noticed for the first time the imprints in the mud, leading up to the car and away from it. They were doubtless the impressions of motorcycle tires. They overlapped and then veered away from each other like the fraying twines of a rope.