‘Elastica,’ I tell the driver.
‘Sorry, Dave, that’s not right, it’s not Sleeper. It’s Elastica. Elastica,’ says the presenter.
‘You’re brilliant at this!’ says my driver. ‘Can I pick you up every day? We could win a yacht.’
I can’t manage a yacht, but I tip him well when we reach the top of the hill, whereupon my stomach lurches as I see people milling outside the crematorium chapel.
I wonder who they are, what their connection to Susie is – like some dismal photographic negative image of a wedding. They’re from different areas of her life, and there will be plenty I don’t know on sight. The one tour guide I need isn’t here.
And plenty I do. I spy Justin.
I feel the grief bubbling up uncontrollably at the sight of him looking handsome and adult and slightly uncomfortable in a narrow-cut, dark suit. It’s as if we’re playing characters in a drama.
He sees me and comes straight over. We hug, Justin muttering into my hair: ‘You’re OK, gal. Hang onto me.’
At this moment, I can tell he and Ed have had various conversations about how I’m coping, and I should feel good about their support. I don’t. I feel good about Justin’s, assuming he wasn’t in on the ‘torrid’ (torrid, torrid) banging.
Right behind Justin are Ed and Hester.
‘Eve, my darling, how are you! I’ve not seen you,’ Hester says, throwing her arms around me.
She’s had a blow-dry that is ruffled by the slight breeze, golden-corn waves against the navy of her coat, and black leather gloves. She smells of roses.
‘Alright, you,’ Ed says, tenderly, and I submit to an embrace, blank-faced, thinking: don’t bother with your faux-adoring chummy bullshit. It’s been a long, long con, but it’s over.
Hester starts fussing with Ed’s tie under his overcoat and I think, a strange aspect of my new knowledge is that I may revile her, but she’s the one who’s been wronged here, more than me. Ed and Susie only broke unspoken promises to me. He fully cheated on her.
But what a hypocrite I am – I never minded the idea of Ed being unfaithful to Hester, but it had to be with me. It had to be about love, and it had to promise a future together. Was the other unfaithfulness about love?
‘Holy moly,’ Justin says, with a low whistle, indicating to look over our shoulders.
Approaching over the brow of the hill I see the Teacup Girls, in black body-con dresses, pill-box hats with birdcage veils and four-inch heels, two of them with crimson Louboutin soles, and fishnets. Despite the freezing weather, they’ve clearly opted to carry their coats to better show off their outfits.
‘They look like mistresses attending against the wishes of the family,’ Justin says.
‘Do you know what, Susie would’ve loved it,’ I say, with a tightness in my chest about what she did and didn’t love. Torrid. ‘Why not.’
I see Finlay in the distance, immaculately suited and booted, chatting to elderly attendees unknown. I can’t see his dad.
The hearse with the white coffin comes crawling up the path towards us and I breathe in, and breathe out, and Justin grips my arm tightly to let me know he knows how hard this is, but doesn’t try to speak to me, and I’m incredibly grateful for his getting it right.
The sombre-faced undertakers perform their rituals with the arrangement of the car and another terrible moment arrives, Justin loosening his grip on me and stepping forward to join the pallbearers. We agreed it would be Ed, Justin, Finlay, and one of her friend’s husbands.
Being a pallbearer, and concentrating on not messing it up as they shoulder the weight of the coffin, looks less difficult than watching them do it, which is a sight I will never forget. It leaves scorch marks on my soul.
To my chagrin, Hester is suddenly by my side, grasping my hand and dabbing at her eyes.
I don’t doubt Hester is upset, you’d need to be an alien life form not to be. I also know she’ll bounce back in no time, because Susie was a familiar feature of her life courtesy of Ed, but not anyone truly vital or valuable to her. They pissed each other off. Hester is performing a proprietorial sadness in public that won’t smudge her mascara. Now she can’t, in this moment, be Ed’s elegant fiancée, she has to be Susie’s best friend’s comfort. I don’t mind her not hurting as much, but leave me in peace to hurt more.
We follow the coffin inside to the classical music we chose, heads bowed, mourners who recognise each other murmuring hellos. The coffin, the celebrant explained to us prior, will sit in the chapel space in this room and the cremation takes place elsewhere on site afterwards. I’m glad, as the ‘pressing of a button, coffin sliding out of view to the oven’ section has always struck me as faintly bleakly comic.
We take an order of service from the box – oh, her face, her joyful, smiling, unwitting face – and I choose my seat carefully, knowing Ed and Justin will slide in alongside myself and Hester.
I pick the opposite side from Finlay and other distant family members, and a few rows back, so as not to overstate our importance.
I glance across at the Teacups, at others from Susie’s office. Something bothers me, and at first I can’t figure out what it is. As I watch them riffling through the service card, craning to see who’s here, and if anyone’s about to take to the lectern, it hits me – they’re excited.
Not in a malicious way, or that in they wished this upon Susie. But a premature, dramatic exit like hers – it’s plot. It’s a major narrative twist. It’s like a famous person dying and everyone’s smartphones lighting up with the newsbreak, people scrabbling to post it first online. You know of them but don’t really care about them, so are free to enjoy the thrill of the event.
I finally understand why my late gran used to scan the obituaries column in the local paper with such relish, despite her enhanced odds of ending up in it herself.
‘Welcome, everybody, to this service to remember the life of Susannah Hart, a person I know was very dear to many of you gathered here today.’
And yet not very dear to one.
I look at the back of Finlay Hart’s head, staring straight ahead, and wonder what he’s thinking.
A Celebration of the Life of Susannah Hart
I focus on these words until they’re no longer the English language. It feels like they’ve bored holes into me.
The celebrant’s recitation of the key dates and events in Susie’s life, reiterating her value to all of us, a poem, ‘Life Goes On’ by Joyce Grenfell, read by Susie’s Auntie Val.
‘Nor when I am gone / Speak in a Sunday voice.’
A piece of music, Billie Holiday, ‘The Very Thought of You’. We wrestled with this choice: Vivaldi and Val Doonican are so easy to slot in when a pensioner passes, crematorium-appropriate, but Susie’s love of the Pet Shop Boys wasn’t quite so useful. Much as we loved them too, it was hard to imagine everyone trying to remain impassive and pensive listening to ‘Paninaro’.
‘“Being Boring”?’ Justin said, but although there was consensus it was great and apt, we couldn’t imagine the poppiness of it working.
Thankfully, I remembered how much Susie loved Billie Holiday sound-tracking a late bar we found in Rome, her seeking an album out and playing it endlessly when we got home. It’s a catalyst, and as soon as it starts up, I’m back getting drunk on Aperol Spritzes with her, in a bar lit by a jukebox and tealights, making plans for a future she barely got to see. My face is a flash flood.