‘I’m so glad I found you, Marnie.’ And then tears began to pour down Lilian’s face as if a pump was behind them. Marnie wrapped her arms around the old lady, who held on to her with the force of one afraid of falling.
Cilla arrived with dessert and the smile she had been previously wearing dropped like a stone. Calmly, so as not to frighten Lilian, Marnie mouthed at her to get an ambulance and Cilla turned on her heel, the creaks on the floorboards telling of her haste.
‘Would you like to lie down, Lilian? Do you think that might help your headache?’ suggested Marnie, her voice low and gentle.
‘I wish I’d taken care of Wychwell more,’ said Lilian, sniffing hard. ‘There’s so much to do.’
‘I think Wychwell is perfect as it is,’ said Marnie, as Lilian increased her grip. ‘This damned headache,’ she said, knocking her temple hard with her knuckles. Marnie could feel tears soaking through her shirt.
‘Cilla’s gone to find something to help you get rid of it,’ said Marnie, holding her, trying not to let her worry show.
‘Marnie, don’t leave me.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. Shhh.’
‘Don’t let them take me there again.’ Lilian sounded frightened.
‘Where, darling?’
‘There.’
‘No one is taking you anywhere, I promise.’
Lilian’s crying was that of someone in the grip of true panic. This really was something Marnie hadn’t seen in her before. Then she started to mutter gibberish, none of it making sense, words but not words. And all the while Marnie tried to soothe her, talk away whatever was troubling her and when Lilian’s crying stopped, Marnie thought she’d managed to finally calm her. Her breath against Marnie’s neck began easing. Then there was no breath at all.
Marnie would always remember the last sigh of air against her skin, the moment when Lilian left them. Sense told her it was a mere exhalation; her heart told her it was Lilian’s spirit whispering away from her body. Marnie went into automatic pilot. She screamed for Herv, for Cilla. She put Lilian on the floor, tilted back her head, attempted to breathe her own life into her. Then everything became a speeded-up blur: Herv and Cilla and the paramedics pouring into the room. Herv’s arms peeling her gently away, holding her and Cilla as the medics went into action. But Lilian had gone, her eyes said she wouldn’t be brought back because she had moved on to somewhere else and the door had closed behind her. Marnie remembered the paramedics looking at each other, agreeing to stop, checking their watches, saying that the time was twelve forty-one. She remembered Lionel racing over the front lawn in the pouring rain just as Lilian was being placed in the ambulance. She remembered him taking off his glasses to wipe the tears streaming from his eyes.
Chapter 20
A post mortem revealed Lilian had died from a massive bleed on her brain. She couldn’t have been revived.
The village seemed to divide into two camps: those whose heads took the lead and were more concerned with what would happen to the manor now that the last of the Dearmans had gone, and those who were led by their hearts and blundered through the week, business as normal because they didn’t know what else to do. Cilla and Zoe turned up to work every morning as usual, as did Herv. They all wanted the manor to look perfect for Lilian’s wake, their last duty to her. Kay and Una were in gossip heaven in Plum Corner. David at the Wych Arms shut up the pub for two days as a sign of respect. As for Marnie, she locked herself away in Little Raspberries, dragging her sadness around with her like Jacob Marley’s chain. She fulfilled the Tea Lady’s orders, but her heart wasn’t in it. For her, it was like losing Mrs McMaid for a second time and not only the woman herself, but everything she was to her: an anchor, a confidante, a friend. Like Mrs McMaid, she had barely got to know Lilian Dearman but at the same time felt as if she had known her for ever. She cried a lot.
She needed to go to the supermarket in Skipperstone the following Tuesday and as she stepped out of her cottage, it was as if a cloud had descended upon the whole of Wychwell, as if something integral was gone. She didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone. Just as it was for Herv, Cilla, Emelie and Lionel and all people who loved Lilian, the period between her passing and the funeral was a bubble of time in which they existed alone, working out their grief.
On the day of the funeral, Marnie made her cheesecake order then went to bed as usual, but couldn’t sleep. She got up, showered then put on her best black suit for the funeral and though she knew she looked smart in it, the mirror threw back a disappointing reflection. She was tired and it showed; and though make-up could give her cheeks colour they didn’t possess, it couldn’t cover the puffiness under her eyes. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t attending a fashion show; but she wanted to appear at her best to say goodbye to someone she truly loved, a woman so close she almost felt part of her. They would bury a piece of Marnie too when they buried Lilian today. Once again she felt like a balloon torn from someone’s warm safe hands and sent adrift to be buffeted by cold uncertain winds.
The church bell was ringing a solemn single note, its peal sad and sombre, summoning the people of Wychwell and those beyond too – people of the Dales, old families who had tenuous connections to the Dearmans and the village. Outside the church, Marnie saw Herv looking strange but handsome in a black suit, black tie, his mane of hair tied behind him. He gave her a small wave just before Ruby stole his attention. She hugged him, put her arms around his waist and her head against his chest, claiming comfort for a level of sadness Marnie wondered if she really felt. What an opportunity to seek sympathy, she thought and immediately rebuked herself for being mean. Her mother was right, she was no sweet and sensitive Gabrielle – Miss bloody Perfect Perfection herself. She was her anti-Christ equivalent: Miss Imperfectly Imperfect. The family misfit with her black hair and green eyes – Little Miss Trouble who grew up to be Miss Gullible, Miss Stupid, Miss Alone.
Lilian had understood because she’d been the same. And now she was gone. Unwanted tears forced themselves out of Marnie’s eyes and she flicked them away with her fingertips, hoping that no one had seen them, unlike Ruby Sweetman who was dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief and all the fragility of a Jane Austen heroine. She’d probably have a fainting fit mid-ceremony from the vapours.
‘Are you all right, Marnie?’ a soft voice at her shoulder asked. She turned to find Derek Price the churchwarden there.
‘I’m okay,’ the words came out on a croak.
‘You should sit in the front row in the church,’ he said close to her ear. ‘You meant a lot to Lilian. More than most people here.’
Marnie could imagine what his wife Una would say if she was so presumptuous to sit in the front row. It might have mattered to some where they were positioned, but not to Marnie.
‘Or you can sit with Una and me if you’d prefer,’ he smiled.
‘Thank you, that’s very kind,’ she said.
‘Derek.’ Una’s shrill voice summoned him to return to her immediately. Derek gave Marnie’s shoulder a squeeze and he walked back to his wife, no doubt to be told off for consorting with the enemy. Although the only thing she’d really done to have that label bestowed upon her – as far as Marnie knew – was to have been spotted with her friend’s daughter’s love interest standing on her doorstep.