My dad was there. I called him when I got back to my flat that day. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d held it together through the drive home. I’d said hello to the lady who owned the florist’s shop and agreed with her that it was lovely to have a sunny day. She told me I looked a bit peaky and I smiled but couldn’t answer. I hurried upstairs and called my dad in Melbourne. It was three in the morning their time and I heard my mother’s outrage first, then my dad’s soft, familiar voice, asking if I was all right. Once I started to cry I couldn’t stop. The problem was that I had to stick to the story that Emma and I had agreed on. I couldn’t tell him about the fight I’d had with Tom, or about Harry, or how I knew Emma. I could never tell anyone the truth about what had happened.
He talked to me for hours that night until it was dark here and light there. He stayed on the phone until I slept and when I woke the next morning there was a message waiting for me, telling me he was already on a flight home. My mum stayed in Australia as planned; my dad told me she’d be back in a month, as though this was a promise, not a threat. Apparently she needed my sister’s support to cope with Tom’s death. Fiona told me that if she didn’t leave soon there’d be another funeral in the cards.
When he arrived home he invited me to stay with him at their house, but I wanted to be alone then and went back to my flat. I couldn’t trust myself not to tell him everything.
He was a godsend at the funeral reception, talking to people about Tom, just as though he’d liked him. He took me to one side once everyone had arrived at the reception and had been greeted and offered drinks.
“Just get through this,” he said, “then it’ll all be over.”
I knew what he meant: He wasn’t just talking about the funeral, but my marriage, too. I knew what he thought of Tom. Unlike my mum, who still thought Tom was marvelous, my dad seemed to go off him after the first couple of years. We always visited them; my mum didn’t come to my house. I think she felt it reduced her status as matriarch if she had to visit me, though if we had a party she always wanted to be there. She hated to miss out on anything.
At the start my dad seemed happy to spend time with Tom, but after a few years I noticed that he’d find an excuse to go out into the garden and do something out there. He’d come back in shortly before we left and say good-bye with a troubled look on his face. One day when I was there on my own, I’d tackled him about it.
“Don’t you like Tom?”
My dad’s eyes had shifted nervously. “Of course I do.”
“You don’t seem to like talking to him nowadays.”
“I do!”
I stared him down. “You leave the room as soon as you can. He’s always friendly to you. Why can’t you talk to him?”
“I do like him,” he said again. “It’s just . . .”
I waited, knowing he would hate that silence between us.
Eventually he said, “He seems a bit bossy. I don’t like that, love.” I know now that he was talking about his own marriage.
“He is not!” I’d said, hot with injustice. “He’s very clever, yes, but he doesn’t boss anyone around!”
“He likes things done his way,” my dad had said quietly.
Red with embarrassment and wishing I’d never mentioned it in the first place, I said, “Well, don’t we all?”
“You don’t have things your way, though, do you?” he said.
My mum had come into the room and heard what my dad had said. “Are you kidding?” she’d said. “She has everything she could ever want. Look at the house they’ve got!” My mother had been furious about my house from the beginning because her sister had left me some money in her will, which I’d used to help pay for it. She’d left sentimental items for my mum, who couldn’t care less about anything like that. My mother was an early advocate of eBay and had had those trinkets on sale before her sister was in her grave. “And her car. I’d say she has everything her own way.” She gave me a hard look and, remembering that now, I realized she’d been jealous of the life I was leading. A life I became desperate to escape. “I’d say she’s not as daft as she looks. She’s the one in control there!”
But I wasn’t. I never was. Even when he told me I was, I wasn’t.
* * *
• • •
All afternoon at the reception I had to keep up the pretense that Tom was a great guy. “We had our differences, but I’m so sorry to lose him,” I said again and again. I’d planned this well in advance, knowing I’d struggle with what to say. “Yes, it was a terrible shock” and “It’s such a tragedy when someone dies so young.” And then I’d move on with, “Will you excuse me? I should speak to his relations.” And off I’d go until someone else approached me.
Oliver came to the funeral. He’d been away for a couple of weeks and didn’t know Tom had died until another neighbor told him on his return. He’d called me immediately and offered to help with the funeral arrangements. He’d clearly moved past our conversation on the riverfront and told me about a woman he’d met on holiday whom he’d be meeting up with soon. It sounded as though they’d gotten along really well and he was hopeful something would come of it. He was polite at first but soon relaxed into being the friend I’d had for so long.
Sarah didn’t show up. When we had a quiet moment, Oliver told me that when he checked his work e-mails after his holiday, he found a message from her, telling him she’d walked out of Sheridan’s. She wanted to know whether there were any jobs going at his place. I asked him if they’d talked about Tom’s death, but he said he hadn’t had time to talk to her and that she hadn’t mentioned it in her message. It didn’t sound as though he’d be rushing to call her anytime soon, though that might have been wishful thinking on my part. I really didn’t want Sarah to cast a critical eye over what happened that day.
He rescued me a few times at the reception. “I can’t believe someone you’ve never met has just asked you to tell them exactly what happened, as though your life’s some sort of soap opera and they’ve missed an episode,” he whispered as we left someone who’d worked with Tom for only a few months but who seemed desperate to know the gruesome details of his death. “How come you’re not angry?”
“I just keep reminding myself I’ll never have to see them again.”
“Is your friend here?”
“Which one?”
“Emma. The woman who was there when he fell downstairs.” Oliver put his arm around my shoulders and I turned to him just for a moment, for comfort. “It must have been horrible.”