Burial of Ghosts

Chapter Six

The wide front doors to the terrace were thrown open and tables had been set in the hall inside, long trestles covered in white cloths and piled with food. A central staircase led upstairs. It was a tantalizing invitation to explore, but one of the tables blocked the way. There were elaborate arrangements of white flowers in stands. I thought it was more like a wedding than a funeral, though how would I know? Without relatives you seldom get invited to either.

The lunch was one of those affairs where you have to balance a plate, a glass and a napkin in one hand and continue to make polite conversation at the same time as eating. Not my sort of event, even though the little waitresses were out in force again and it wouldn’t have been hard to get seriously pissed. Stuart Howdon seemed to have disappeared. I sat outside on a stone step, looking towards the church, listening to the conversation going on behind me, trying to discover more about Philip. It was what this was about, wasn’t it? An opportunity to share our memories. Except mine I would hug to myself.

‘Did you see that piece about Philip in the Sunday Times magazine?’ The voice was educated female, elderly. An aunt of Joanna’s, I decided. ‘A couple of months ago. He was ill by then, although it wasn’t mentioned. Perhaps nobody knew but the family. It was about a garden he’d done in Cornwall. There were pictures. It was very green.’ A pause. ‘I’m not sure I could have lived with it. I do like order in a garden. Some sense of restraint.’

‘Is that why Joanna never let him loose here?’ Another female speaker, a little younger, jolly.

‘This is Joanna’s house.’ The older woman’s voice was slightly disapproving. ‘And Philip always said he loved it as it is. Who needs a garden in a landscape like this? It would only detract.’

‘I rather thought they had landscape in Cornwall.’

The tone was mischievous, but the elderly lady ignored the interruption. ‘Besides, I suppose there was the question of money. He might have had to turn down a commission to devote time here, and I’m not sure they could afford to do that.’

‘I dare say there’ll be insurance,’ the jolly woman said.

‘I dare say there will.’

I turned round at that point to see who was speaking, but they’d already merged back into the crowd.

The rugby players spilled out onto the terrace behind me. From somewhere they’d obtained cans of Theakston’s. Perhaps they’d brought their own supply. I’d only been offered wine. They drank by tipping back their heads and pouring the liquid in a steady stream into their mouths. They seemed to have conquered the need to swallow. Already they looked slightly dishevelled. Ties were loosened, jackets had been discarded.

‘Where’s Joanna, then?’ The can was empty. The speaker crunched it with his fist, resisted the temptation to see how far he could kick it and stared at it morosely. ‘She must have finished in the churchyard by now.’

‘A nice gesture though, the tree. Loving.’ The speaker stopped short, embarrassed by his own sentimentality.

‘They were a loving couple, weren’t they?’ The rugby player holding the crushed beer can had drunk too much to worry about an excess of sentiment. ‘I mean, they had the best bloody marriage in the world. Jo’s a lovely woman. Philip was a lucky man…’

‘Until the cancer…’

‘Of course. Until then.’ He yanked back the ring pull on another can and began to drink.

Selfish, I know, but I didn’t want to hear any more about Philip’s idyllic marriage. I stood up and walked back to the house. I needed another drink too. I was trying to catch the eye of a waitress when Stuart Howdon appeared from a corridor at the back of the hall. The tables were almost empty now, littered with discarded napkins and stale ends of French bread. He seemed flustered. He noticed me standing there and came towards me, the mechanical walk even more awkward than before.

‘Miss Bartholomew, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. There was something rather urgent which needed my immediate attention. Could I ask you to be patient a little longer? I can be with you in about an hour.’

He was almost apologetic, but I’d had enough of this place. He must have sensed my hostility because he added, ‘It is important that I speak to you. Rather, it was very important to Philip.’ Then came the same insinuating grin.

So I had to agree, as graciously as I could manage. ‘An hour, then. I’ll go for a walk.’ It would be easier to remember Philip alone.

I slipped away from the crowd still gathered on the terrace. No one seemed to notice my going. In my white dress I felt invisible. I took the path towards the church, but instead of turning in through the gate followed a sandy track. It led to the spinney of Scots pine, the trees widely spaced, and on towards the coast. I could hear the sea. Not loud, because it was such a calm day, but there all the same. I couldn’t see it until I’d climbed one of the sand hills in the strip of dune which separated the trees from the beach. Then I stood, surrounded by spiky marram grass, looking down on a bay between two low headlands. The tide was out. There was a wreck of bladderwort, driftwood and frayed blue rope on the tide line, then an expanse of ridged wet sand, reflecting the blinding afternoon sun, then the shimmering water. The beach was empty but someone had been there before me. A line of footsteps led towards the sea. I took off my sandals and followed them until they disappeared into the squelchy, shifting sand at the water’s edge and my toes were covered by a wave.

The boy stood ahead of me, knee deep in water. His shoes were slung by their tied laces around his neck, socks stuffed inside each one. He had made an attempt to roll up his trousers but the bottoms were already wet. He seemed to be floating on the diamanté light. I caught my skirt of my dress in one hand and waded out to him.

‘Hi!’ I prefer boys to girls, find them easier to get on with. Little girls like to pose. They care what you think of them. Boys are more straightforward.

‘Fuck off.’

I turned round and started back to the beach. He hadn’t been expecting that. A shocked response at the language perhaps or an attempt at sympathy, but not an immediate response to his demand.

‘Wait. Who are you?’

‘Lizzie Bartholomew. Who are you?’

‘Dickon Samson.’

‘How old are you, Dickon?’

He paused and I thought he was going to tell me it was none of my business. ‘Nearly nine.’ Then he glared at me. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to your father’s funeral.’

I had let my dress go and the waves sucked the thin cotton of the skirt backwards and forwards round my legs, pushed the sand in piles beside my feet.

‘How did you know him?’

‘I didn’t very well. I met him once, on a bus in Morocco.’

‘Yeah? He said that was his best holiday ever. He made me promise to go there one day.’

‘I expect you will, then.’

A cormorant dived off a rock. Somewhere above me in the glare of the sun, gulls were calling.

‘How far were you meaning to go?’ I asked. ‘Coquet? The Farnes?’ Islands, invisible now in the heat haze.

‘I’m not stupid. I wasn’t going anywhere. It was hot.’

‘A good way to cool down,’ I agreed. He sensed the condescension and shut up, turning his back to me. ‘Did your dad like the sea?’

‘He taught me to swim.’

‘Here?’

He faced me again and nodded. Tears started to roll down his cheeks. ‘It was April. Fucking cold.’

‘I’m going out now,’ I said. He wouldn’t want me gawping at him. ‘I’ve got a meeting soon. I should try and dry off my dress.’

I turned and plodged out towards the shore. I could hear him following but I didn’t look round. I wrung out my dress, then sat on a flat boulder and spread it out to dry. His shadow appeared and I looked up. His hair had a hint of red and there were freckles on his nose.

‘I’ll be the only person in my class without a dad.’

I could have told him he was lucky, that I’d never even known my father, but I didn’t. He deserved his own time of self-pity.

‘Bummer,’ I said.

‘Fucking bummer.’ He sat beside me and put his head in his hands. I pretended not to notice and threw pieces of shingle at a target rock a little way off. I was a crap shot. He hit it first time.

‘Who’s your meeting with?’

‘Mr Howdon.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Work probably.’ It could have been true.

‘Oh yeah, you work with him, don’t you?’

I didn’t answer and he didn’t seem to find any contradiction between that story and my account of having met his father in Morocco.

‘What work did your father do?’ I wasn’t daft. I’d worked it out from the eavesdropped conversation, but I wanted to hear the details.

‘Don’t you know?’ He couldn’t believe my ignorance.

I shook my head.

‘He had his own programme on the television. Only BBC 2, but still…’

‘I don’t watch much telly.’

‘He designed gardens for rich people,’ Dickon said. ‘He didn’t do the digging or the weeding. Just the fun bits. That’s what he told me. He went all over the world. That’s why he wasn’t here much until he got ill.’ He chucked a piece of shingle with full force onto the rock. ‘I was pleased when he was ill. At first. He had more time for me. When he had to stay in bed we played Jenga.’

The tide was coming in quickly now, seeping under the twisted strands of footprints, flattening them from below. I looked at my watch.

‘I’d better go. Mr Howdon will be cross if I’m late.’

‘I hate Mr Howdon,’ Dickon said. Quietly. Not showing off and demanding attention like with the other comments.

‘Why?’

‘I think he’s horrible to my mum.’

I didn’t pry. It was none of my business. He’d tell me if he wanted. He didn’t.

‘Will you show me the quickest way back to the house?’

He didn’t answer but he dusted the sand from his feet and put on his socks and shoes. I followed him back up the track. When the house was in sight he gave me a wave and ran on, too fast for me to follow.