‘Was Will a religious man?’ she asks, putting some soup down in front of me on a tray set with silver cutlery and a white napkin.
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘At least, we never went to church except for hatch, match, and dispatch type things, even as children. I don’t think he’d ever have gone to church of his own accord.’
She nods. ‘So no hymns or prayers then tomorrow, do you think?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so.’ I don’t think Will would have wanted any of that, but more than that, I want to get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. We don’t need hymns and prayers prolonging the agony.
‘Perhaps some other music then?’ she persists. ‘Did Will have any favourite bands? Or maybe we could include a reading? A poem or a book he might have liked?’
My head is fuzzy from lack of food and sleep, and these questions are beyond me. Plus, if I’m honest, I don’t care. Will isn’t going to know anything about it and my parents aren’t around any more, so I don’t understand who we’re actually doing this for. Don’t they say that funerals are for the living rather than the dead? And as it’s just me left, it seems like a lot of effort for no reason. But Millie is being very sweet about it all so I don’t feel I can say that without showing myself as the callous bastard I arguably am. Plus she really is very pretty and now that I’m starting to feel better and no one else is here, I wonder if I might be in with a chance.
‘Um … I’m not sure. It was all a very long time ago,’ I venture. And if Will had lived he probably would have liked very different things by now hangs unsaid in the air.
‘You must remember some bands he liked, surely?’ she presses.
‘He had pretty shit taste in music, as far as I remember. He liked some of that eighties electronic stuff.’
She nods. ‘I see. Maybe not so suitable for a funeral.’
Suddenly I think of something which might appease her. ‘Oh! I know. He liked REM. He was rather middle of the road like that.’
‘OK. Any particular song?’
For God’s sake. I appreciate her concern but can’t she leave it now? I’m not exactly on top form and I could do without this. I take a sip of my soup. It is scorching hot and delicious. ‘I don’t remember. I think he liked them all,’ I say, hoping she’ll leave it at that.
She smiles. ‘No problem. Perhaps we can stream some and see if any ring any bells?’
I look at her. She is gorgeous, but I am tired. ‘No, that’s OK. You choose. I don’t think he’d mind which one.’
She gets her iPad anyway and we listen through REM’s greatest hits. In the end we settle on ‘Everybody Hurts’ and a Charlotte Brontë poem which Millie finds in a list of readings suitable for people who died young. What a thing to compile. Honestly, you can find anything on the internet these days.
The only funeral poem I could think of was that ‘Stop the Clocks’ one from Four Weddings and a Funeral, but when I actually read the words, they didn’t seem right at all. Will wasn’t alive long enough to be anyone’s everything and it strikes me that I am probably one of only a few people who remember him much by now.
I might be mistaken, but at times while we are doing this, Millie looks a bit tearful. She’s so sweet. After we’ve chosen the song and reading, she takes my tray away and as good as tucks me in.
It’s been a long time since I felt so cared for.
61
January 2020, La Madière, France
‘Everybody Hurts’ – I remembered it was Mama and Dad’s song, the one Mama used to sing to me sometimes during the rare times when she was in a reasonably good place mentally. It took a while, but eventually I managed to steer Adam in the right direction, and that’s the song we chose for Dad’s funeral. I could tell he was tired and didn’t really care, so it wasn’t that hard. It’s what Dad would have wanted, I’m sure. Mama would be proud.
62
January 2020, La Madière, France
Adam
I wake with a start in the night, awash with nausea again. I stumble to the bathroom, barely making it in time.
Oh God. I thought this had finished? After what feels like hours of my body wringing itself out, I literally crawl back towards my bed. I can’t even stand.
At first I think I must be hallucinating, but it looks like someone is there in the darkness, in my room.
‘Millie?’ I rasp. No one else is still here in the chalet any more, are they? They’ve all gone home. I know Millie is kind and dutiful – she’s left me in no doubt about that over the last few days – but surely that doesn’t extend to waiting on me in the middle of the night.
‘Why are you here?’ I gasp. My throat feels like it’s been grated and my head is spinning. Millie lifts the covers back and I haul myself into bed.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she says. She snaps the bedside light on. Her face is hard and expressionless.
‘Now?’ I say, but it comes out as a whisper. ‘But it’s the middle of the night. And I’m not well at all. Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘No. You’ll most likely be dead by morning. Unconscious at least, I’d say.’
I assume this is intended as a joke but, given the state I’m in, it seems uncharacteristically unsympathetic and in extremely poor taste. I lift my head to speak, but she holds her hand up and closes her eyes.
‘Don’t!’ she snaps, opening her eyes again. ‘I’m sick to death of hearing your stupid voice. I poisoned you. That’s why you’re ill. Those mushrooms you had at breakfast the other day? Amanita phalloides. Otherwise known as death cap. It’s so unfortunate that dear Cameron’s artisanal mushroom supplier made such a stupid and fatal mistake. Don’t you think?’
‘Not funny,’ I rasp. ‘Help me, Millie, please.’ The room is spinning and lurching. I don’t understand why she’s still making these unfunny jokes about poison.
She has leaned in close to my ear now. ‘Do you still not get it? Don’t you know who I am?’
I’m confused. ‘You’re Millie?’ I venture.
She is still staring at me with a look of contempt. ‘I’m Will’s daughter,’ she states, simply.
What is she talking about? ‘Will? Will’s dead,’ I force out. ‘He doesn’t have a daughter.’
She straightens up and steps back away from the bed. ‘Yeah he does. Me. I’m his daughter. Do you remember my mama, Louisa, from the ski trip where you killed my dad? She got pregnant that week.’
‘Pregnant?’ I rasp.
‘Yeah. Pregnant. Then she dropped out of uni, ran up debts, never really recovered mentally – not from the pregnancy, not from the poverty, not from the shock of my dad dying. I had a shit childhood, mainly in foster care, because of you. And then Mama killed herself. All because you killed my dad.’
‘It was an accident,’ I whimper.
‘Not according to my mama,’ she says briskly. ‘She blamed you. And so do I.’
My body heaves again but nothing comes out – there’s nothing left. Suddenly I register that perhaps she means it about the poison. She’s actually poisoned me?