Best of Friends (37 page)

Steve took off his reading glasses and laid them on top of his papers.

“I prepared something but I can’t read it out. I don’t know why I even wrote it down.” A faint smile touched his face. “It’s not as if I couldn’t talk about Sally for hours without any script to guide me. I’ve always talked about her, I am so proud of her.”

There wasn’t a person in the congregation who didn’t feel his or her heart lurch at his use of the present tense.

“That’s right,” he added. “I
am
proud of her because she will always be with me. She’s here in Jack and Daniel and she’s here in my heart.

“Sally touched so many lives and it’s a joy to me and the boys to see so many people here today. The hard part is that you’re all here because she’s dead. Sally loved parties and I just wish I was meeting all these old friends because we were having another party, laughing and drinking my awful punch.”

People around the church smiled at the memory of parties at the Richardsons’.

“We used to joke about it: how someone would end up drunk and she’d say she’d murder me if anyone was upset because of what happened at our party. That was Sally. She was the kindest person I’ve ever known, not fake kindness but the real thing. She wanted to help people and reach out to them in their pain. I’d never met anyone like her. When we fell in love, I felt so lucky to have found this precious, special person who loved me.”

It was a love letter, Erin realised, clutching onto Greg’s hand so tightly that her wedding band crushed her finger. A love letter to Sally because soon she’d be in the earth and he wouldn’t even have her cold body to say these beautiful words to.

All around them, people were searching in pockets and handbags for tissues. Somebody was crying nearby: little sobs they couldn’t disguise.

Steve’s eyes roamed round the church, then settled on his wife’s coffin, and he went on, “We knew what we had was special and Sally never wanted us to forget it. Count your blessings, she’d say, and it was never corny the way she said it. She meant it. She knew what tragedy was because she went through it when her mother died and she knew that life could be tough, so she wanted us to appreciate what we had. And we did—oh, we did.” He paused.

Abby found a crumpled, lipstick-stained tissue in the bottom of her handbag and ripped it apart to hand half to Jess, who was wiping tears away with her fingers.

“The hardest thing for Sally was leaving Jack and Daniel.” He smiled down at where his two small boys were sitting with their aunt and granny, distracted thanks to the bag of toys Steve had brought with him. “I wanted them here today because it’s a special goodbye to Mummy and when they’re older, they’ll be glad they were here. Sally left them a diary and taped messages because she wanted them to have happy memories, not just a trip to the graveyard once a year to put flowers on her grave. That’s not how you should remember people, she said.”

The sound of sobbing increased.

“And she is—” Steve corrected himself—“she
was
right. Sally touched so many people’s lives and that’s how she should be remembered: as a funny, beautiful, kind, loving, warm person and not as a mound in the earth. That’s the person I want our sons to remember.

“She was brave too, so brave. Even when she was scared, having had the worst diagnosis a person could have, she was worried about us and how we’d cope without her. That’s true courage.

“I miss her so much already and I know I’ll always miss her, but I want us to celebrate her life too. Thank you.”

Stunned by the depth of his eulogy, the congregation sat motionless for a moment. Then the clapping started. The noise was deafening. Steve went back to the front pew and picked up little Daniel from the ground and held him tight. Those closer to the family could hear Jack’s clear, loud voice: “Is Mummy’s special party over? Can we go now, Daddy?”

The final hymn was sung and everyone shuffled outside into the blinding sunlight. With Tom and Jess mutely following, Abby made her way over to where Erin, Greg and Lizzie were standing, facing the Richardson family. People milled around the bereaved, offering their condolences to Steve; ruffling the children’s hair; saying, “You don’t know me but I was a friend of Sally’s” to Steve’s mother, Delia, and his sister, Amy, who both looked shell-shocked. Sally had no close family left to mourn her. Her side of the family was made up of aunts, uncles and cousins.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Abby sighed, speaking for them all.

“I hate funerals,” Erin said tonelessly.

“Me too,” said Jess fiercely. “It wasn’t like the priest was talking about Sally at all. He didn’t make it sound like he knew her. And how can that be God’s plan, to take her away? That’s all wrong.”

“It is all wrong,” Lizzie said gently, touching Jess’s shoulder softly. Jess’s bluey-green eyes welled with tears.

“I remember being a child and my mother taking me to all the local funerals,” Abby said dully. She didn’t add that funerals were what passed for social life in a home where her mother was beaten down by poverty and sought solace in the old customs, such as holding a wake for the dead. Tom glanced at her but said nothing. It was unusual to hear Abby talk about her background.

The final wreaths were loaded into the hearse and Abby watched bleakly. She didn’t want to go to the cemetery, although Steve had asked the family to go. If there was anything worse than watching a coffin being lowered into a gaping wound in the earth, then Abby didn’t know what it was.

No, she contradicted her own thoughts. She did. It would be watching a burial and thinking that the dead person would have done anything to stay with her family, when she, Abby, had destroyed hers.

She felt as if she had been plunged into a nightmare where every old fear of her life was upon her: loss, poverty, fights, pain. Even worse was the fact that she’d been the architect of it all. But she had to cope—she had no option. And look at how bravely Sally had coped with tragedy. Abby drew strength from that.

By twelve, it was all over and a group of subdued people repaired to the bar of the Hotel Dunmore, where sandwiches and soup were being served for the mourners.

Jess followed everyone in silently and sat down beside Abby. She didn’t know why, but she needed the comfort of her mother now, even though Mum seemed lost in her own private misery. Jess wasn’t needed to look after Daniel and Jack; there were so many relations helping out that she knew they were safe. And she didn’t trust herself not to hug them too close and sob into their soft shoulders about the unfairness of it all. Dad was nowhere to be seen.

Erin and Lizzie sat down at the table beside Abby and Jess, Erin grateful for a seat after all that standing. Nobody spoke as they drank their coffee and nibbled at egg sandwiches.

Finally, Lizzie broke the silence. “Have you been having nice summer holidays?” she asked Jess brightly. “I’ve seen you cycling around on a really cool bike.”

A shy smile transformed Jess’s face. “It’s handy for going out to the animal refuge where I volunteer.”

“Oh,” said Lizzie, interested, “is that the place out by the Old Cork Road? I read in the local paper that it might have to close.”

“Not anymore,” Jess said proudly. “We’ve been fund-raising.”

She began to tell Lizzie about the animals and her favourite, Twiglet, half hoping her mother might be listening. But Abby was staring over to the other side of the hotel bar where Dad was standing. Why didn’t Mum ever listen, Jess wondered. From her position, she couldn’t see the look of abject misery on her mother’s face.

Erin saw it, though. Instinctively, she reached out and touched Abby’s hand. “Are you all right?”

Abby came back to earth. “Yes,” she lied. She’d got a shock when she’d seen Tom talking to Leo, an old colleague who’d known Sally and whom Abby had never got on with.

Of all the people for Tom to meet, why did he have to bump into this guy? Since Leo’s divorce, it was clear he thought marriage was an outdated institution. If he discovered what was going on in Abby and Tom’s marriage, his advice was more likely to be “leave her” than “try to work it out.”

“You sure?” added Erin.

Abby had been about to mutter something mundane about how nobody could be all right at a funeral, but there was something genuine in Erin’s eyes and Abby found that she didn’t want to lie anymore.

“No,” she admitted. “But how could anyone be all right today?”

“True.” Erin looked over to where Steve was stoically talking to some mourners, holding stiffly on to a cup of coffee that he wasn’t drinking. The cup was like a barrier, she realised. He wanted to keep people at a distance. “It’s such a shock. I know Sally was ill for a few months but I kept hoping that she could get better, you know, like when you read in the papers about someone who’s given a few months and lives for years.”

“That’s what Delia was praying for,” Abby said. “But Steve and Sally knew for a long time that there was no hope.”

She changed the subject. “How are you feeling? When is the baby due?”

“November.” Erin beamed, and Abby thought that she really was unusual-looking with those amber eyes and the long nose that saved her face from mere prettiness and made her striking. There was some dark mystery in her life, Abby knew. That night at Sally’s party, when she had found them in the garden, Erin had been revealing some tragedy to Lizzie.

Lizzie was a bit like Sally in some ways—a million miles quieter and sweetly shy because she had no self-confidence, but she possessed the same innate kindness that made people confide in her.

“And how are you?” Erin enquired gently.

The moment for confidences had passed, Abby realised. Sally’s funeral was not the place to recount the disaster she’d made of her life, even though she longed to tell someone, to find a shoulder to cry on.

“Fine,” she said, smiling her professional smile. “Just fine.”

“None of us is fine really,” said Ruby, perching on a chair beside them. Her eyes were raw with crying.

“What will happen to the salon now?” enquired one of Sally’s neighbours, leaning down to pick up some of the barely touched sandwiches on their table. She took a bite from one and spoke with her mouth full: “Sally made it popular; it will hardly survive without her.”

Erin stared at the woman in astonishment. Had she no sense of timing and did she not realise how insensitive it was to say such a thing with Ruby present?

“I’m sure Steve will think of something,” she said with an edge to her voice.

Sally’s neighbour flushed. “I was only saying …” she said, and flounced off.

“Aren’t you supposed to add something about her being the weakest link, and goodbye?” murmured Lizzie.

“Sorry,” Erin apologised. “She just made me so mad and I saw red. What a tactless thing to say today.”

“Sally loved the salon,” Jess added quietly. “We were talking about dreams one day and she told me that when she was my age, she always knew she wanted her own beauty salon. It was her dream.”

Abby put an arm round her daughter in remorse. When had she last spoken to Jess about dreams?

“I remember when she opened it,” Lizzie said. “At the time, I didn’t exactly have the money for beauty treatments. Still don’t,” she laughed. “But I did my best to go to Sally’s. She didn’t just give you a facial, she made you feel good, welcomed, among friends. Even total strangers came out of the salon feeling as if they’d known her for years.”

“I felt that about her,” Erin agreed. “She didn’t have to make such an effort to be friends with me when Greg and I moved back here, but she did. She was the first person to make me feel that I was part of Dunmore.”

“That was Sally all over. She was so friendly,” said Abby wistfully, the loss of her old friend aching anew.

“And funny,” Lizzie added.

“And kind,” Ruby put in. “You’ve no idea how good she always was to me. When Dave dumped me, it was Sally who got me through it. The business won’t be the same without her. Who could replace Sally …?” Her voice broke.

“The business won’t go under—we won’t let it,” Erin announced decisively. “You’re brilliant at what you do, Ruby, don’t forget that. We’re going to help.”

“But how?” asked Abby.

“By supporting it, I suppose,” Lizzie said.

“By making sure the customers don’t go anywhere else,” Jess said sensibly.

“Staff is the big problem,” Ruby pointed out. “Nobody could replace Sally, and while she was sick we relied on temporary help. Now she’s gone, we have to face that and I can’t bear to talk it over with Steve.”

“I can answer phones and tidy up and do all the things a manager does,” Erin said. “Until Steve works out what he wants to do with it, anyhow,” she added.

She didn’t have any other plans right now, and she’d love to feel that, somehow, she could pay Sally back for her kindness.

“That would be wonderful,” said Ruby tearfully.

“No tears,” Erin said firmly, determined to buoy everyone up. “That’s not going to help Steve and the kids—or the salon, for that matter. We’re going to get through this as a team, right?”

The others nodded, doing their best to stave off tears too.

“OK,” muttered Lizzie. “No tears.” Erin was right: they had to make an effort. If Steve could stand up in front of everyone at Sally’s funeral and give that beautiful, loving eulogy with its message of hope, then they could all have hope for the future, couldn’t they?

twenty

I
n the week after the biggest funeral Dunmore had seen for a long while, Lizzie felt as if she had the flu. Her head was heavy and her eyes watered at the slightest provocation.

“I know, take two aspirin and see me in the morning,” she said drily to Dr. Morgan when she reported her symptoms.

“Actually, I was going to tell you to take some time off or go on holiday,” Clare Morgan replied. “I know Sally was a special friend of yours but you won’t do her or that poor husband of hers any good by getting sick yourself.”

“I’m too broke to go on holiday,” Lizzie said miserably, then felt even more miserable to be moaning about it. She might be broke but she was still alive. And she hadn’t lost the person she’d loved most in the whole world, like poor Steve. She’d seen Steve in the supermarket the day before, wandering round like he was sleepwalking, but when she caught up with him, he hadn’t wanted to talk.