The Magic of Christmas (12 page)

At the end of the gravelled path stood Tom’s white van, which had done duty today as his hearse, and I suddenly recalled how the six mismatched surfers and Mummers of Invention had earlier tried to shoulder the coffin before carrying it into the church.

A hysterical bubble of laughter attempted to force its way up my throat, though I managed to stop it escaping by clamping my lips together. But two painful tears squeezed out and ran down my cheeks, compounded of laughter and sorrow, inextricably mixed together with an over-heavy seasoning of the guilt that seems to be an inescapable accompaniment to death.

‘Ow-do, missis,’ Dave Naylor said. The proprietor of Deals on Wheels had driven Tom’s van to the funeral and was now leaning against it, rolling a cigarette between scrubbed but darkly cracked fingers.

Another Naylor, you note — and also, on less official days, likely to address me as ‘our Lizzy’. I really must do a bit of family research some time!

‘Bear up, lass. It’s all sorted now and a great send-off it were, too. Them Mummers singing “Amazing Grace”?’ He shook his head in slow wonderment. ‘By heck, we’ll never hear the likes of
that
again.’

‘Oh, I do hope not,’ I agreed fervently. ‘And thanks for driving the van, Dave. You are coming back to the cottage, aren’t you?’

‘Aye, but I’ll let the fancy cars go first. I’ll take the van back to the garage with me afterwards and drop your new car off in the morning.’

‘That’s fine — see you later,’ I said gratefully, and carried on to where Roly Pharamond awaited me in his long black Daimler on the main pathway, having sensibly eschewed the interment in favour of a sit-down and a swift nip of brandy. His sister, Mimi, seemed to have eschewed the funeral altogether.

Joe Gumball, husband of Roly’s cook and jack of all trades up at the Hall, got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for me. He was wearing the hat and jacket of a chauffeur over faded blue dungarees and wellington boots.

Jasper, who was silently following me, got in the front and I slid onto the leather back seat, where Roly patted my hand with his thin, dry one and said gently, ‘All done and dusted, my dear?’

‘All done and soon to
be
dust,’ I agreed numbly. ‘It seems so surreal — and the way everything keeps undulating slightly isn’t helping,’ I added. This underwater rippling feeling had been going on ever since I got the news of the accident, and nothing, not even the best elderberry wine, could entirely make it go away.

He shook his head sadly. ‘I never thought to outlive Tom — but there, anyone can have an accident. Well, better get the bun fight over with, I suppose. Mimi should be along later with Juno.’

Joe pulled out and headed for the cottage where, with the help of Annie and two ladies from the WI, the big, ramshackle greenhouse would have been turned by now into a venue for the funeral baked meats. Trestle tables and folding chairs had arrived this morning, borrowed from the village hall, along with tea and coffee urns.

We’d moved what plants there were towards the far end, but an aroma of tomatoes and moist earth scented the air. Still, I’d judged that better than holding it in Tom’s wooden workshop, with its stale smell of dope, and the spray paint he used to customise the surfboards, several of which were propped in various stages of completion around the walls.

‘You know, I
still
expect to open his workshop door and find him there,’ I said, following this train of thought. ‘Just like all the other times when he vanished for a few days and turned up as though he’d never been away.’

Jasper turned around and looked anxiously at me, and I summoned a smile from somewhere. Luckily he couldn’t hear us, because the sliding glass partition was shut and Joe was playing muted country-and-western music.

We drove over the hump-backed bridge crossing the stream, scattering the gaggle of five vicious geese, which had taken up residence there among all the innocently stupid ducks.

‘Must get something done about those creatures,’ Roly said absently. ‘The children are all too frightened to go to the playground, and I’m told you can’t feed the ducks without being attacked.’

‘That local animal rights group, ARG, might have something to say about that,’ I said. ‘But the geese
are
getting more and more aggressive, and they leave such a mess behind them, too. Someone is bound to skid on it eventually and then there will be hell to pay, though I don’t know who you can sue if no one owns them?’

‘Perhaps, since I own the green and the stream,
I
own them, too — or at any rate, the right to deal with them,’ Roly suggested. ‘I’ll ask my solicitor — Smithers will know. Or perhaps I’ll just get Caz Naylor to quietly round them up one night and move them somewhere else.’

‘How’s he doing with the squirrels?’

‘Very well. Constantly patrols the exclusion zone, of course, but that’s what you have to do, to keep the grey buggers out. Only way. Reds, that’s what we have at Pharamond Hall. Always have, always will. On the coat of arms, even.’

I thought this showed a touchingly Canute-like optimism, since the tide of grey squirrels seemed to have swept over most of Britain. But then, the reds
had
got Caz on their side.

‘I think the signs Caz has put up on the main pathways might have caused some talk,’ I suggested. ‘“Red or Dead!” is a bit ambiguous and that new one just inside the gate that says, “Warning! Keep to Path!! Trespassers May Be Unexpectedly Terminated!!!” is a bit over the top.’

‘Only to outsiders — and what are
they
doing wandering all over my estate, that’s what I want to know? Locals — yes. They know the score: keep to the public footpaths, don’t wear grey.’

‘Are you still being targeted by ARG?’ I asked. ‘I don’t seem to be bothered by them so much now, but I suspect that’s because Caz’s keeping an eye on the place.’

‘Well, family, aren’t you?’ Roly said vaguely. ‘And they’ve eased up on the estate a bit since I put that piece in the parish magazine saying Caz uses humane live traps to catch the grey squirrels. Ingenious things: the reds can get out again, but the grey’s too big.’

‘Mmm,’ I said, because of course the question not to ask is: what does Caz do with the grey squirrels after he’s caught them?

We passed between the impressively pineapple-finialed gateposts of Pharamond Hall, then turned sharp right onto the track that led down to Perseverance Cottage, which is just inside the estate boundary wall. I’d stuck a sign up earlier deflecting the mourners away from the Hall, but the ravening and curious horde would be hard on our heels, probably expecting an abundance of finger food and alcohol in a suitably sombre setting. Instead, they would find themselves in a huge glasshouse, eating home-made scones spread with jam and cream, strawberries and custard bread-and-butter pudding and other, even less usual, comestibles (I got a bit carried away yesterday), all washed down with tea or coffee.

I’d noted the police presence at the funeral (PC Perkins and Little Boy Blue), but somehow their car had managed to arrive at the cottage first. As I got out, so did they, and Perkins came over and said they’d come to offer their condolences. But there was an underlying implication that she thought I was a merrier widow than I let on, and she’d been expecting me to cast myself onto the coffin with a last-minute confession. But perhaps I was becoming paranoid.

‘Do stay for refreshments in the greenhouse,’ I said politely and, after a small, uncertain pause, she said they would follow us over. At least her colleague would have something to eat other than his fingernails.

‘How the wheel came off is destined to be one of life’s great mysteries,’ I mused aloud, as we walked across the cobbled yard. ‘
And
why he didn’t stop the car from going over the edge. Still, at least I know who Dark Heart is now, so that’s one puzzle solved.’

‘Dark Heart?’ Roly said. I’d quite forgotten he didn’t know about Tom’s affair.

‘Dark Heart’s how the woman Dad was having an affair with signed herself,’ Jasper explained helpfully. Roly was leaning on his arm as he picked his way over the smooth, slightly slippery stones. ‘It’s that novelist woman — Polly Darke. Would you believe it? She’s got to be even older than Mum, and a complete hag.’

‘Thank you, darling,’ I said. ‘I think she is fashionably haggard, rather than a hag, really. And I’m sorry, Roly, I didn’t mean to tell you about her. It just slipped out.’

‘Boy must have been mad!’ Unks exclaimed, patting my arm. ‘Wondered why she turned up to the funeral. Wearing a black see-through nightdress, too. Woman’s got more bones than a picked chicken carcass!’

‘Was she in church? I didn’t actually take in most of who was and who wasn’t.’

‘She was there, Mum, but I thought Uncle Nick was going to throw her out when she tried to sit in one of the front pews. And it was a black chiffon dress, Unks — but she’s, like, fifty years too old to wear it.’

I think that might have been a slight exaggeration, but I didn’t feel I was a winner in the sartorial stakes either. I didn’t have any black, so was wearing a floaty, dark, paisley-patterned Indian dress over a long pink crinkle-cotton skirt, both borrowed from Annie. I’d belted it severely in around my waist, but I still looked like Widow Twankey.

‘Woman’s got a nerve turning up at all, if she was carrying on with Tom! Well, well, it just goes to show you that the boy wasn’t himself the last few years.’ Roly shook his head.

‘His character
had
changed …’ I began cautiously, and then broke off as the nose of Tom’s white van appeared, followed by a cortège of assorted vehicles. ‘Here they come! Dave must have got tired of waiting and decided to lead the way instead.’

‘Let’s have a drink before battle commences, shall we?’ Roly suggested.

‘It’s only tea or coffee, Unks, unless you want Jasper to fetch you a glass of elderberry wine? I’ve hidden a few bottles under the table in the corner, just in case. I didn’t want this to turn into some kind of drunken revel and go on for hours.’

‘Quite right, but I’ve got some brandy in my cane,’ he said. ‘Ah, Annie, my dear …!’

We established him in the greenhouse, on one of the chairs grouped before a veritable thicket of tomato plants and rampant bell peppers, and he unscrewed the top of his cane and poured a generous slug of brandy into his tea while I went and peeped out of the entrance.

As the cars arrived, people milled about in front of the cottage, so Jasper went out to usher them in the right direction and I retreated back to Unks. I expect I should have stood in the doorway and accepted their condolences as they came in, but I couldn’t face it.

The mourners massed in the entrance like worried sheep, nearly balked and broke away, then came slowly in a surge towards me. At the last minute most of them sheered off and spread out to range up and down the trestle tables, probably looking for alcohol.

I accepted a slug of brandy in my teacup from Roly and sat down.

‘That’s it: let them come to you and do the polite,’ Unks said. ‘The ones with manners, anyway. Half of this lot weren’t at the funeral — probably just after food and drink. Freeloaders!’

‘Weren’t they? The church did seem to be full, though, and I thought the new vicar made a brave job of it.’

‘Not bad. Bit much to expect him to do a complete stranger’s funeral two seconds after he arrives. Let’s hope he lasts longer than the last vicar. Ah, here’s Nigel.’

Roly’s portly retired stockbroker son was indeed forging towards us, though there was no sign of his wife. Still, I hadn’t expected even Nigel, who didn’t seem to care much for the North — or indeed Tom, for that matter, whom he considered a cuckoo in the nest — to make the effort to come today.

‘My son and heir,’ Roly said drily in my ear. ‘And unless Nick and that French woman get a move on, nearly the last in the line.’ He nudged me with a sharp elbow. ‘What do you think, Lizzy — is she past it?’

Leila, chic in a vintage Chanel suit, bold red lipstick and with her hair drawn sleekly back like a bleached Paloma Picasso lookalike, stood poised in the doorway looking capable of anything, though the curl of her lip said exactly what she thought of her current location. Just wait till she saw the catering!

Nick, wearing his best sardonic Mr Rochester expression, loomed behind her.

‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Unks,’ I said.

I found myself mentally writing the recipe for a funeral feast, as though it was something I could put into one of the
Chronicles
.

Recipe for a Fine Funeral Feast

Step 1: In a large greenhouse mix together approximately sixty assorted mourners, half of them uninvited, several wearing wildly inappropriate surfer garments, and some that you’re certain you’ve never met before in your entire life hovering furtively around the edges.

Step 2: Add two police officers steeped in dark suspicions, a mad historical novelist dressed like the porno version of a Poldark widow, and a depleted folk/rock group all wearing identical black ‘Gaia Rocks!’ T-shirts.

Step 3: Gently fold in your best friend, trying valiantly to suppress her natural expression of cheerfulness; a mourning, lightly intoxicated nonagenarian great-uncle by marriage; a tall, dark and glowering chef and his acidulated and tangy French wife (soon to be ex and who might, or might not, have been having a fling with your late husband), and the man from the garage who’d volunteered to drive Tom to the funeral in his own white van with the ‘Board Rigid’ logo up the side.

Step 4: Throw in a pompous stockbroker, the entire Mystery Play committee, including a nervous but well-meaning vicar and a furtive-looking youngish man in a strangely mossy green suit, who has forgotten to remove his Rambo-style headband.

Step 5: Sprinkle with borrowed WI tea and coffee urns and crockery, garnish with triangular sandwiches, halved scones spread with clotted cream and home-made blackcurrant jam, trays of cubed chocolate Spudge on cocktail sticks, wedges of bread-and-butter pudding and bowls of Cornish Mist.

Step 6: Stir well before it coagulates into clumps or — even worse — curdles.