The Road Between Us (46 page)

‘Still can’t believe all the broadsheets ran obituaries,’ she says. ‘I had no idea he was considered that influential.’

‘Neither had I, to be honest. I imagine the
Guardian
and the
Telegraph
felt they had to run something after
The Times
gave him so much space.’

The hearse ahead of them draws up to the church. Cars outside churches, Hannah thinks. What harbingers of news: some carry babies, some carry corpses, some carry brides. She wonders if Edward will be reminded of his wedding day. A remembered smile. A mental picture of his bride walking down the aisle.

When their car pulls in behind the hearse, Edward steps out and goes around to open the door for Hannah. As she emerges, she notices how many cars are parked in the roads around the church. Among them is a black Mercedes-Benz.

‘Hey, isn’t that the car we went to France in?’

Edward looks over.

So attuned to his moods has Hannah become, she can sense his brow pricking.

‘That’s strange …’ he says.

Litter from an overturned bin is spiralling, giving shape to the breeze. Women mourners arriving late have to hold their hats on
with their hands. Men hug their coats around them as if about to open them suddenly. There are half a dozen press photographers checking their flash units and battery packs as they wait by the church’s porch.

Martin Cullen arrives. Hannah is about to go over and say hello when she sees he is with a woman walking a few paces behind him. When he stops to wait for her she stops too and rubs the expectant swell of her abdomen. Its compressed weight and rounded line is bellied like a fig. She is out of breath and, as she tries to catch it, she holds up a finger to say ‘one minute’. Martin looks over and, seeing Hannah, walks in her direction and greets her with a single kiss on the cheek.

Hannah looks across at the pregnant woman, an eyebrow rising.

‘My colleague Helen. She wrote the
Guardian
’s obituary of your grandfather and wanted to come along to pay her respects. As did I.’

The funeral director approaches. Behind him is Niall, along with two other men wearing black suits and coats: ‘Whenever you are ready, Mr Northcote. The trick is to form a bridge with your arm under the coffin and put your hand on the shoulder of the bearer next to you. I’ll be walking in front.’

Edward stands behind the hearse as the back is opened and the arrangement of lilies taken from the top of the coffin. The first two pallbearers pull the coffin out, moving along its length as Edward and the third bearer step in. Its lightness seems to take all four men by surprise, as if its contents are already dust.

Hannah follows the coffin. As they march slowly in step along the church path, she notices the flag bearers lining the route, three on each side. They appear to be army cadets and the flags they are struggling to keep upright in the wind seem to be regimental ones, faded and threadbare. When the pallbearers reach the porch, electronic flashes turn Edward bluey-white.

As soon as the cadets are inside, the door is closed behind them, blocking out the rustle of the wind in the leaves. The stillness seems to be exaggerated. Though it is mid-afternoon, darkness has
crept into the church already. Dozens of candles are guttering.

Only now does Hannah become aware of how many mourners there are. The church is full. There are a couple of old-timers in RAF ties whose faces are unnaturally smooth. Burn victims, perhaps. But many seem to be young, in their twenties. Few are wearing ties. Art students? Did her grandfather have some kind of cult following? There is one man who looks familiar. In his sixties or seventies but with his round glasses and a white side parting he has a boyish appearance. Where has she seen him before? Is it Alan Bennett? No, he is dressed too flamboyantly, a maroon jacket over a black shirt and tie – in fact he looks as if he has stopped off at this funeral on his way to a regatta. It isn’t David Hockney, is it? Surely he lives in California? She nods at the man and he acknowledges her with a firm little smile.

Once the coffin has been laid on the bench, Edward bows at the altar and then takes his place alongside Hannah in the warped and creaky front pew. As they stand for the first hymn, ‘I Vow To Thee, My Country’, she looks around and sees that the regimental flags are those of the Association of War Artists.

As they come to the penultimate petition of the Lord’s Prayer – lead us not into temptation – she feels her father’s hand squeeze hers and wonders if this is a coincidence. He is an Anglican atheist, after all. It is the source of his moral strength and courage.

How perfect the Church of England funeral service is, Edward thinks. Not too mawkish. Not too detached. A form of words that has evolved over centuries to strike exactly the right tone, even if it does lie as lifeless on his tongue as the small print on an insurance document.

As his daughter edges past, pressing against him in negotiation of the narrow pew, he feels a frisson, the twitch on the line. His eyes follow her as she makes her way to the front of the church to do a reading. Shakespeare.
Cymbeline
, Act IV, Scene 2.

Her strides lengthen as she nears the lectern and, as she reads in a clear voice – ‘… Fear not slander, censure rash; / Thou hast
finish’d joy and moan; / All lovers young, all lovers must / Consign to thee, and come to dust …’ – Edward gazes up at her in wonder and feels weak. I love you more than life, he thinks. More than life.

Before she has finished the reading, her face, already pale, turns paler. Her eyes roll up in their sockets and then her knees give and she falls neatly and quietly to the floor of the chancel. Edward is the first to her side. He gathers her up and, by the time he has carried her the few yards to the north transept, she has come round. The organist hands her a glass of water. She puts her head to her knees for a moment, then sits stiffly upright, as though guarding a secret. Edward repeats the words in his head: I love you more than life.

Once she has reassured him that she is fine, he returns to his pew and the vicar indicates with a discreet nod that it is Edward’s turn to walk to the lectern. When he reaches it he coughs to clear his throat. ‘Thank you all for coming. I know my father would have appreciated it.’ He studies the faces for a moment and, when he sees in the front row a small, stooping old man who looks weighed down by the Légion d’Honneur he is wearing, he acknowledges him with a nod. ‘I thought I would mention some of the milestones in my father’s life,’ he begins, taking out some notes from his jacket. ‘After graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 1938, he joined the RAF. I’m not sure where he was stationed, but I think he was medically discharged before he saw any action. Certainly he never mentioned having taken part in the Battle of Britain. Like many of his generation he didn’t talk much about his war service; in fact I learned quite a lot from reading the obituaries.’ There are murmurs of laughter at this. ‘Apparently he took part in the evacuation of Dunkirk. I knew he had done some paintings of it and that they were reproduced in the
Picture Post
, but I’d always assumed he had painted them from news photographs. On the strength of those he was asked to become an official war artist and, some time in the early years of the war, he was commissioned to paint front-line RAF bases in the south of England. While doing that, he was caught up in a bombing raid. After attempting to rescue
a pilot from a burning Spitfire, he was left with disfiguring burns on his face. For these heroics, as I discovered from his obituaries, he was awarded the George Cross. He spent the next three years convalescing and became a member of the legendary Guinea Pig Club. Then, in 1944, he took part in …’ Edward holds up two fingers and punctuates the air with them as if pitching a title to a Hollywood producer, ‘ “The Forgotten D-Day”, the Allied invasion of southern France, again documenting the action. For this he was awarded a second medal, the Croix de Guerre. Again, he never dwelt on the details of this, not with me anyway. At some point he managed to get himself injured for a second time, losing a thumb.’

Edward looks across at Hannah, mouths ‘You OK?’ and when she gives a thumbs-up he continues: ‘After the war, my father was made a Royal Academician and had exhibitions at Tate Modern and the Imperial War Museum.’ Edward pauses. ‘This is what we know about him, anyway. But I suspect he has taken a lot of history with him. Not secrets exactly but …’ He searches for the right word. ‘He was quite a bohemian in his way. A restless spirit who never settled down. And he had a colourful circle of friends who included, at various times, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. And,’ he looks at another elderly man he has recognized in the congregation, ‘if I’m not mistaken, David Hockney.’ When the congregation turns to follow Edward’s gaze, the ageing artist raises his hand in acknowledgement.

‘I didn’t know him when he was younger, of course, but I got the impression that he became more at ease with himself when he joined the beat generation of poets, artists and musicians. He had digs in Paris for a while in the 1950s. He also, I believe, spent time in Amsterdam and New York. And Germany. I know that for a fact, because that’s where I was born!’

He turns the page of his notes. ‘Whether he was an easy man to live with, I don’t know. I don’t think he was perfect. He probably drank too much. Experimented with drugs. And he could be self-absorbed, always putting his art first. But he did have a sense of responsibility. He raised me on his own.’

Edward glances up at the stained glass window. ‘What else can I tell you? When he spoke you could watch him thinking because he would leave long, searching gaps between sentences, and instead of raising his voice in an argument he would speak more quietly. He was an intrepid traveller, a witty guest, a man women fell in love with.’

Edward narrows his eyes. At the back of the church he has seen a tall, moustachioed man he recognizes. He is holding a wreath of leaves. Next to him is a slightly shorter man whose face is expressionless; his thick silver hair is cresting his grey-jacketed back. He has dark alert eyes and his gaze now and then shifts – from mourner to mourner – like an automatic course correction, and then it settles down. Nothing else moves.

‘My father didn’t believe in life after death,’ Edward continues, ‘but he did believe that we live on in the memories of our children, for a generation at least. And he did believe in art and beauty. Aesthetics was his religion. I wish I had been around for his final years. I saw him not long ago and all he would say was “answer”. I don’t know what the answer was, but I hope he has found it now.’

After the service, Edward helps carry the coffin out again. The wind is stronger, lashing with rain. It is bending the trees and the vicar is having to hold his cassock down. A woman clinging on to a black umbrella staggers as it snaps inside out, a broken-backed crow in her hands. The hearse is going back to the morgue, where the heart is to be removed. The rest of the body is to be buried in the coffin tomorrow.

Edward is searching for Walser but as he edges his way through the mourners he is stopped by a small, white-haired old man he hadn’t seen in the church. He has a hearing aid, a broken nose and a DSO on his barrel chest. He must be almost a hundred.

‘Your father was indeed at Dunkirk,’ the old man says in a surprisingly strong voice. ‘I know because he helped crew my little boat,
The Painted Lady
. The two of us went over and picked up a dozen or so soldiers as part of the evacuation. That’s when he did his sketches.’

‘You were friends?’

‘Yes, before the war. I thought it was outrageous what they did to him.’

‘His burns, you mean?’

‘No, the court martial.’

‘What? What court martial?’

‘That was no way to treat an officer. But that was how things were in those days.’

‘What court martial?’

The old man looks blank. ‘What?’

‘You said something about a court martial.’

‘I didn’t see him much after the war, though I gather he had a child.’

‘Me, I’m his child.’

‘What? He was a good man was old Charlie. A good man … Funf. That was what he called me. I thought it was a disgrace what they did to him after the war. I think it was that more than anything that killed her, you know.’

‘Killed who?’

‘Your mother.’

‘My mother died of cancer.’

‘Yes, but she never quite recovered after the shock of the trial.’

‘What trial? The court martial?’

‘No, the other one.’

The old man looks at him with confusion in his eyes. ‘Who are you?’

‘Edward. Charles was my father.’

‘Charles, that’s right. I remember now …’

With a shake of his head he walks away looking distracted, as if he is late for something but cannot remember what.

Edward watches him for a moment then looks around for Walser, but his car has gone.

II

Three weeks later

IT ISN’T THE SMELL THAT EDWARD NOTICES FIRST AS HE TURNS THE
front-door key and pushes against a weight of piled letters and magazines, it’s the silence. Frown lines appear on his forehead as he listens. There is no bleeping, which means the alarm isn’t set. Hannah must be at home. Her bike in the hall confirms it.

‘Han?’

The silence deepens and becomes more alert, as if the whole house is holding its breath to listen. He picks up the post and flicks through some bills, pizza leaflets and circulars before coming to a handwritten cream-coloured envelope. A card from Walser, three lines long. It extends his condolences for the death of his father, thanks him for his letter and the wine, trusts that his stay at the house in France wasn’t too marred by the storm.

That’s it? Edward thinks, looking on the back of the card to see if he has missed something. After the funeral he had written to Walser to thank him for inviting them to stay at the château and to commiserate about the storm damage. He had sent a case of burgundy as a gesture of his appreciation: expensive bottles recommended by Berry Bros & Rudd.