‘We’re really doing this at her wake?’ I say, feeling a lot more rattly and intimidated than I let on.
‘I don’t want to be doing this at all. It’s your choice that we are.’
‘Finlay? It is you! My goodness!’ A sixty-something friend-or-relative joins us and I’m very glad of the interruption.
I walk away before I say anything more, which would definitely not be in my Sunday voice.
‘What were you having intense confidentials with the sinister brother about? I’m starting to get a crush, you know. He flounced into that Caffè Nero like Dracula returning to his crypt at two a.m., after drinking his fill of virgins.’
‘Ugh, you have always had the worst taste. Apart from Francis.’
‘True.’
Justin conceding this immediately shows he’s in a reduced state. Francis shone briefly for a matter of months, a year ago, as a rare Justin official boyfriend and general joy to have around. Until Justin declared that sorry, that much nice is just too much pressure! while Susie nodded her firm understanding and Ed and I boggled at each other. (‘You want a massive arsehole?’ ‘Poorly phrased, Edward!’)
Justin’s rosy-eyeballed with champagne and crying and is clearly finding it hard to be his usual ebullient self. Every so often he pats my arm absentmindedly: to wordlessly convey, once again: what on earth has happened, how has this happened?
We’re dreading life on the other side of this day.
When there’s a sense of that’s that, then and ‘normality’ resumes. We’ve agreed we’re not honouring the pub quiz tradition for the foreseeable, to show our respects. In truth we’re fighting shy of it because the empty chair, the comeback that never comes, the packet of Scampi Fries we don’t need to buy, is going to debilitate us that much more. When this strangeness is over, the Not Hereness will truly land.
‘Thing is …’ I glance over to check Fin’s safely on the other side of the melee, ‘he wants me to return a box of diaries from Susie’s house. Remember when me and Ed played clean-up squad? He says anything in Susie’s house belongs to the family.’
‘How did he know it was there?’
‘He asked if I’d taken anything and I blurted it, like an idiot. Now he says he can lawyer up and make me give it up if I won’t.’
‘He wants her diaries that much? Why, for God’s sake? Who wants to know who fingered their sister in the third year?’
I nearly spit my wine out at this.
‘… That’s all it’ll be!’ Justin says. ‘God bless our Sue but they won’t give Samuel Pepys any competition. She once said to me, why would I read a book when I could watch Steel Magnolias with a tub of Chubby Hubby again?’
‘I don’t know what’s in them. I’m not going to read them,’ I say, uneasy.
‘There I was thinking the nose bag was the controversial discovery. I’d give them back to him, E.’
‘Really?’ It seemed so morally obvious to me to resist.
‘Yeah. If it’s going to turn nasty. You don’t need that.’
‘But … she’d hate him having them.’
‘She’d hate a lot about this but it’s not in our power, huh.’
This surprises me. Justin is much more of a pragmatist than I am. He was also much more alike Susie than me, which makes me think even she might agree.
‘She was his sister, Eve. He’s entitled.’
‘Yeah well, you’re right there.’
I glance over at Finlay and the clenched set of his jaw, sequestered in his corner of the room. I bet he despises everyone here. I bet he wants to run from this place straight to the jet bridge to board his 747, shuddering with repulsion and pity. We’re the small town he escaped. Well, city.
‘They hated each other,’ I add.
‘Maybe. It’s not for us to play judge and jury though.’
‘But it was Ed who thought we should protect her reputation.’
As I say these words, I realise their full meaning, and their irony. If it was to conceal this information, however, he didn’t seem interested in Susie’s personal effects. I don’t know what to believe any more. I don’t know who he is, who my best friend was, or why the world’s become unrecognisable to me in a matter of days. I can’t surmount a sensation that I’ve been hugely, horribly negligent, to allow this whole timeline to happen.
‘I’m going to be frank in order to shock you, now. It doesn’t happen often, admittedly, but Edward Cooper is capable of error.’
Justin slides a look, seen only by me, in the direction of Hester, who’s rearranging strands of hair around her face while gazing into a hand mirror.
‘Heh. I’m going to get some air,’ I say, with a smile, picking up my glass and, as an afterthought, one of the many bottles too, because I need a proper escape from company.
The hotel has a terrace with canopied wooden tables. The paved space is lit by fairy lights and heat lamps, as the winter sky’s darkened. I know the doors are unlocked as I’ve seen smokers sidling through them, in furtive ones and twos, grasping lighters.
God, I wish I smoked right now. Susie demanded I give up that vice and then hers contributed to her getting killed.
I head out and adjust my body language to ‘do not speak to me please’ which is contained in the determined scowl, the tension in my shoulders and the lack of eye contact. It works, in part at least as I think people know not to hassle a solo mourner.
I find a table at the edge of the terrace and set my wine down. The bitter temperature is a sobriety aid and the view of the city rooftops at night time is quite lovely. Aided by a deep swig of white wine, I try to find some sort of inner calm.
I briefly imagine standing on the wall, like I’m a swimmer on a diving board, and plunging into the ink-dark tangle of bushes below. Rolling and bouncing down the hill towards the road, until I hit something hard enough to stop me. It feels more appealing than it should.
I glance back at the wake, staring resentfully at the throng beyond the steamed-up windows. What I hate is, yes, of course they’re sorry this happened, but their lives will resume, seamlessly, as soon as they leave.
Nothing for us will ever be the same. It’s like losing a leg and everyone coming to gather round the hospital bed, consoling you over the fact you only have one left, and walking out doing a hop, skip and a jump on their two again. I’m envious of these people.
‘Hey you. Taking a break?’ Ed says at my elbow, giving me a startle.
‘Oh? Yeah.’
I wish I’d planned for his approaching me, thought of something to say that could icily despatch him without revealing anything. One on one, Ed can’t be avoided, the way my injured feelings require. I can’t bear to pretend warmth towards him.
‘It’s gone alright, I think? We did her proud,’ he says. His black tie’s been removed and his dark grey suit looks good with his sandy colouring. May he shrivel and perish.
I shrug.
‘I hope so. Hard to judge. It’s not for people who knew her, this thing, is it?’ I gesture back at the hotel with my glass, and pause. ‘Actually, it’s worse than that,’ I say, vaguely picking a fight. ‘It’s for people who don’t really care.’