A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 18

‘And here we have oak with recessed brass handles. This one has a rather nice inlaid cross in the middle. Very popular with Catholics.’

‘My husband wasn’t a Catholic,’ says Romilly Smith. Though the Smiths must have been Catholic once, she thinks, remembering Bishop Augustine. Dan had been so intrigued by that whole business with the coffin. It was just the sort of thing that interested him. Anything to do with the past, and especially his own ancestors, had him absolutely in thrall. Romilly was born in South Africa, and though she went to boarding school in England she still thinks of herself as a wanderer, stateless. Classless too, despite the ghastly upper-class accent that she’s stuck with. Still, there’s no denying that it comes in rather useful at times. She hates hearing herself braying away at assistants in shops, but when she was arrested the police treated her quite differently as soon as she opened her mouth. She despises the English class system. But Dan – Dan was an English aristocrat through and through.

‘Any special songs? My Way is still popular, though a lot of younger bereaved prefer The Wind Beneath My Wings or even Angels.’

Randolph said that it was too early to call in the undertakers. They don’t even know when Dan’s body will be released. But Romilly had been seized by a desire to do something – organise the funeral, sort out paperwork, sell the house, put the horses out to grass – anything rather than this ghastly sitting around, with everyone looking at her in that ridiculous way and the children either weeping or arguing. Tamsin, when she arrived, was an ally. ‘It’s no good moping,’ she had snapped at Caroline. ‘We’ve got to get organised.’ ‘Why?’ Randolph had asked, with that vagueness which everyone except his immediate family seemed to find so endearing. ‘For fuck’s sake, Randolph,’ Tamsin had exploded. ‘There are things to do.’

So now Romilly and Tamsin are sitting interviewing the undertaker, a vaguely sinister man in a snowflake-patterned sweater. Randolph has roared off somewhere in the Porsche and Caroline is in the office talking to owners, who are probably interspersing condolences with demands that their horses be moved to another trainer. Romilly despises owners. None of them love their horses. They just want the kudos of swanking around the racecourse in stupid hats, going into the Owners and Trainers bar and talking about ‘my horse’. Half of them wouldn’t recognise ‘their’ horse if it bit them, which it probably would, given the chance.

At least Dan had genuinely loved the horses. That’s how they had met. Romilly was working at a horse refuge near Norwich. Two horses had been brought in, unwanted and scared but otherwise completely fit. The refuge couldn’t afford to keep them (they needed to save their money for sick animals) so Romilly had been given the job of ringing round local horse owners to ask if they could give them a temporary home. They had all refused. Horses are expensive and no one wanted the two unknown quantities who would guzzle their hay and probably frighten their own animals. Except Danforth Smith. He had arrived that very afternoon with a smart blue horsebox emblazoned with the words Slaughter Hill Racing Stables in gold. He had spoken gently to the frightened animals, loaded them with infinite patience, and by the time that he turned to Romilly with a courteous query about her availability for dinner that night, she was his for the asking. They were married six months later. Maybe it didn’t hurt that, as well as an obvious love for animals, Danforth had limitless money and was building a large modern house which clearly needed a woman’s touch. Romilly was getting tired of mud and dirt and encrusted denim; all the perks of working with horses. She wanted animals, but luxury too – a package that seemed to be offered by the tall, beaky-nosed man who knew how to talk to horses.

And now, after a lifetime of doing the conventional thing, Dan has finally surprised her. He has died, leaving her with three grown-up children, a house that is decorated to within an inch of its life, and a stable full of horses. Funny, Romilly had always thought that Dan would go on forever. Despite his diabetes he had seemed indestructible, part of an unchanging landscape. Whatever happened, Dan would always be there, getting up at five with the horses, going to bed by ten. Romilly feels unreasonably angry with him for letting her down like this. She needed him; she needed him there in the background, a soothing presence when she returned from her adventures, which are becoming more frequent of late. These days Romilly cares even less about the dayto-day business of looking after horses but even more about animal welfare in the abstract. Her activism lapsed when the children were growing up but in the last few years she has become involved again. Will the police find out about her criminal past? Will they find out about the group? She smiles, causing the undertaker to look shocked and Tamsin to lean over and ask if she’s all right. ‘I’m fine,’ she says. She hates solicitude. From humans anyway.

‘I think Dad would have liked opera,’ Tamsin was saying. ‘Something tasteful.’

Tasteful has become Tamsin’s middle name. Her house in London is a monument to quiet good taste, her clothes are designer with just a hint of Boden, and even her dog is colour-coordinated (chocolate Lab). Romilly approves of all this (especially the Labrador) but she does wish that good taste wasn’t also the abiding principle of Tamsin’s personal life. It is years since Romilly has heard her elder daughter laugh or cry. Even Tamsin’s children seem remarkably free from emotion. Romilly wants to love her only grandchildren but Emily and Laurence seem pallid little creatures, always doing their homework or practising their violins. At their age Romilly was running a full-scale hedgehog rescue in the school grounds. She supposes that there aren’t many hedgehogs in Notting Hill. They simply aren’t tasteful enough.

Romilly agrees that Dan liked opera and they settle for E lucevan le stelle from Tosca for the cremation. The church organist can be relied upon to muddle through Sheep May Safely Graze for the church service.

‘When will we know if the police want a post-mortem?’ Tamsin asks, when the undertaker has bowed himself out.

‘I don’t know,’ says Romilly. ‘Detective Inspector Nelson was here this morning but the hospital don’t think Dan’s death was suspicious. Heart attack, they said. They’ve issued an interim death certificate.’

‘I know.’ Tamsin has already been to the hospital. She declined the invitation to view her father’s body – ‘I’d rather remember him alive’ – though Caroline has already paid a tearful visit. Now Tamsin is keen to get on with the business of burying her father – tastefully, of course.

‘Bit of a cheek, that policeman coming round,’ she says. ‘Can we make a complaint?’

‘For goodness sake, Tammy, he was only doing his job.’

‘And there was a bloody policewoman in Caroline’s house going through the CCTV footage. I told her she shouldn’t have let her in but Caro even made her a cup of bloody coffee. Typical.’

‘Caro’s very upset,’ says Romilly mildly.

‘Not so upset that she doesn’t want to go to some barmy Aboriginal thing tomorrow,’ says Tamsin, straightening her blameless little black skirt. ‘I told her it was disrespectful.’

‘Did you?’ says Romilly. ‘I thought it might make a nice change for her.’

Caroline puts down the phone, having told some faceless Russian oligarch that his horses will continue to be looked after. But who will train them? Len has a licence but he’s only a few years off retirement. She knows that she would be useless. She rides out, but only on the more docile horses. Even as a child she was a bit of a wimp, dawdling along on her pony while all the other children galloped away over the horizon. She was always grateful that their mother refused to let them hunt, smugly adorning her riding helmet with anti-hunt stickers. ‘It’s cruel,’ she would say, but really the thought of galloping hell-for-leather over the countryside scared her to death. She’d only learnt to ride to please her father, just as she’d joined Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to please her mother.

Caroline used to be close to her father. ‘A real Daddy’s girl,’ her mother used to say, in a tone comprising affection and derision in equal measure. Caroline always felt that she irritated her mother; she was too slow, too clumsy, not clever enough. Romilly used to play these word games, making up puns, poems, even songs, and Caroline remembers Randolph and Tamsin lounging around the kitchen table, coming up with outrageous rhymes, silly metaphors, clever little limericks. She could never think of anything fast enough and, besides, she didn’t like making fun of people. ‘Oh lighten up, Caro,’ her mum used to say. But the world seemed a dark place to Caroline even then.

But Dad had understood. He hadn’t minded that she couldn’t write a haiku about Margaret Thatcher. He had been happy for her to trail around the yard after him, helping to groom the horses and polish tack. Even now, the smell of saddle soap brings back happy memories. When had it started to change? Probably when she came back from travelling, having seen the world through such different eyes. Dad had supported her when she had decided not to go to university. ‘I’m sure you could get in somewhere not very competitive,’ her mother had said kindly, looking at Caroline’s less than impressive A Level results. But she hadn’t wanted to go on studying. She knew she wasn’t really stupid; it was just that sometimes it seemed to take her a long time to absorb new ideas. That was the trouble at school. By the time that Caroline had got her head round a concept, the class had moved on to something else. Anyway, at eighteen she’d had enough of trying to understand things. Now she was just going to experience them.

And she had. She has visited King’s Canyon, the Lost City, the Garden of Eden. She has walked in the Valley of the Winds. She has seen the sun rise over Uluru and set over the Southern Ocean. She had penetrated the red heart of Australia and walked with the dead in the Dreaming. But back home everyone still seemed to treat her like the slightly stupid little sister. She had been full of ideas about how to revolutionise the yard. She’d created a website and organised an open day. Racing’s so elitist, she’d wanted to involve the general public, get them to understand just how much trainers loved their horses. But the open day had been a total disaster. Len had refused to let anyone get near the horses, saying that they were too dangerous, and her father had strutted round all day like the worst kind of arrogant aristocrat. Afterwards they all said that Caroline should stick with what she was best at – managing the yard and keeping in the background.

Caroline had loved her dad, and right now what she wants more than anything is to see his tall, rangy figure striding across the yard, demanding to know which horses are running at Newmarket. But she remembers how angry she’d been with him, how frustrated she had felt, how she’d longed to escape, to go back to her beloved red valleys, to do something worthwhile in life. Meeting Cathbad had saved her. He had reminded her that there were bigger causes, more important things than which horse was running in which race and whether Jumping Jack would go better in blinkers. And that’s why she can’t just run away now, though she’s sometimes tempted. She has bigger things to do…

‘Hi Caro.’ Randolph appears at the door. He looks pale and unshaven and she thinks she can smell whisky in his breath. She knows better than to ask where he’s been.

‘Hi Dolph.’

‘Where’s Tammy?’

‘In the house with Mum. They’re seeing the undertaker.’

Randolph collapses into the chair opposite her, pushing back his hair with a hand that shakes slightly. ‘Bit quick isn’t it?’ he says. ‘He only died last night. A few hours ago.’

‘Don’t.’ Caroline looks across the yard towards the house. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

‘Nor me. I keep thinking that he’s going to stroll in and tell me what an unsatisfactory son I am.’

‘He loved you.’ Even to herself, Caroline’s voice lacks conviction.

‘Yeah.’ Randolph slumps further into the chair.

‘What about me? The last thing I said to him was “I’ll never forgive you.”’

‘Really?’ Randolph’s blue eyes flash at her. ‘Why did you say that?’

‘Oh, nothing important.’ Caroline turns back to her files. ‘Just that we’ve all got things to feel guilty about. I know Mum thinks that she neglected him for her business and her animal rights mates.’

‘Rubbish. She always supported him.’ Randolph is always on their mother’s side.

‘Well, we’re all feeling rotten.’

‘Except Tamsin. Little Miss Fix It.’

‘I’m sure she’s very upset about Dad,’ says Caroline doubtfully.

‘Are you?’ says Randolph, stroking Lester who has just jumped onto his lap. ‘I’ll take your word for it. What did that policewoman want this morning?’

‘Just to look through the CCTV footage.’

‘Did she find anything?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You look nervous,’ Randolph teases. ‘What have you been getting up to in the woods?’

‘Bugger off, Dolph. What about you?’

‘What do you mean “what about me”?’

‘What have you been doing in the woods?’

They lock gazes, blue eyes meeting brown. Then Randolph gets up and strides out of the office.