Hard Word (31 page)

Laura

Grandma Vera did get to church after all – only it wasn't a church really but more a chapel at the crematorium but with crosses and flowers and things and an altar with Grandma Vera on it in a coffin – except she didn't know she got there. Or she might, depending if you believe in an afterlife, but I'm not sure I do. And the prayers and hymns and that – they were all done by Reverend Moysten who Mum wasn't going to have at all at first because he was mealy-mouthed and hardly knew Grandma Vera anyway, and that was only to stop during his sermon and look at her when she went up to the rail for communion at the wrong time, and Mum thought it wasn't Christian to make a spectacle of her that way and he should have just ignored her and got on with his platitudes. But Philip said, ‘Well, darling, it's not really a matter of whether you or I want Moysten or not, but whether Mother would have wanted him,' and she looked at him for a moment, and then went all soppy at the edges like the pavlova she forgot to put in the fridge after the barbecue, and said, ‘Oh, Philip,' and kissed him, and Katie and I were forced to throw up in the sink.

And the service was nice and all that, especially for me, because Philip was there, my Philip, and he didn't
have
to come but he said he wanted to be there with me and he'd only met Grandma Vera once but he liked her and he was sad she was dead but he wouldn't say he was really upset because that wouldn't be true and it was only because I was upset, and that was actually when I cried most, because it was such a romantic thing to say, and at the service he was in a black suit that was really his father's and was too short in the sleeves and his wrists were showing and they looked so thin and everything I wanted to kiss him there and then, but we'd promised each other we wouldn't, and wouldn't even touch for the whole day out of respect for Grandma Vera, but now I wished I hadn't, and I thought I'd just die looking at his hands and wrists while Reverend Moysten was inviting us to think about meeting Grandma Vera in the life to come.

And it was all a bit sad as well because there were only two rows of people and they're called mourners, and they were mostly cousins and things of Grandma Vera's who were all about a hundred and ten and we'd never met before and even Mum hardly knew them, plus some of Grandma Vera's neighbours when she used to live over the other side of the Harbour, and Mum asked them to come back to the house for morning tea after the service, which is what you do, and a few of them did and we had to put extra cushions on the chairs and things so they wouldn't break any bones when they reached for their cups of tea, but most of them had to rush off afterwards back to their nursing homes or hospitals or wherever they lived, and Philip – Mum's Philip, I mean – whispered to me that one or two looked as though they might as well have stayed out there at the chapel and saved the extra trips. But the one person who didn't come was Uncle Brian, even though Mum left message after message for him and was even going to fly to Ballina to fetch him because he'd regret it later, but Philip said, ‘No, if he doesn't want to hear, he doesn't want to hear,' and Mum said she supposed he was right and how wise he was – Philip? Wise? Joke! – and she was so glad to have him there with her, supporting her, and all that vomit. And she seemed to have forgotten all about his comment to Katie about the barbecue.

Actually Katie was the one who got most upset at the service because I think that was the first time she understood what was really happening. She'd cried before at home when Dr Lazenby came and certified Grandma Vera was dead and then when the people came to take Grandma Vera away and fix her up at the funeral parlour for the service, but I think she was only crying like I was because we thought we ought to for Mum's sake – or anyway I did, because I'd said goodbye to Grandma Vera a long time ago when she was still Grandma Vera – but maybe it was realer for Katie than me cos Philip said Katie had been asking why Grandma Vera hadn't gone in a nursing home already just before she died and so she was feeling guilty as if she'd wished Grandma's death on her. But I don't think that was true because at that stage she didn't really understand she was dead at all.

I think she thought when they wheeled Grandma Vera out on this trolley that she was just going to the home, because that was when she put some of her treasures on the trolley, even Teddy, and Mum said, ‘Darling, are you sure you want to do this?' and she looked really worried, but Katie said, ‘Yes, otherwise Grandma Vera will be lonely,' and Mum didn't know what to think and looked at the funeral people and they said it was fine, it happened a lot actually, and Mum gave in and said, ‘All right, darling, if that's what you really want,' and she was getting soppy for about the fiftieth time in six minutes and kissing Katie, and that's when Philip really put his foot in it because Katie rushed away from Mum and disappeared for a second and came back with Yogi, and Mum said ‘No –' and looked at Philip and said, ‘I don't think she understands,' and Katie was trying to get Yogi on the trolley and Yogi was spitting and trying to get as far away from Grandma Vera as he could and climbing over Katie's shoulder, and Philip – instead of being supportive and sensitive and making us all throw up again and explaining to Katie what was going on in words she could understand – said: ‘It's a cremation, Katie, not a barbecue.' And Mum didn't speak to him after that until Fowler-call-me-Ian, the undertaker, arrived in the afternoon.

Anyway at the service, after we'd had prayers from Reverend Moysten and reflections and compassion and things, and we'd all sung the Twenty-Third Psalm, and Fowler-call-me-Ian pressed the button cos Mum wouldn't and thought that was what he was getting paid for, and the coffin started to go down into the furnace, that was the first point, I think, that Katie understood because she was next to me and she grabbed my hand and I looked at her face and her eyes were stark wide, and she was staring at the coffin and, as it started to disappear, and there was this roaring noise – which must have been the furnace starting up under the altar – and as Grandma Vera slowly went down, so too did Katie. She was kind of keeping her eyes level with the top of the coffin and at first she just pulled her jaw in and her neck down, and then that wasn't enough and she had to bend at the knees, and by the time only the top of the coffin was visible over the altar, all you could see of Katie was this pair of huge eyes over the top of the pew, and at that moment she must have understood because she screamed:

‘Teddy!'

- and this line of old people all jumped in the air and fell over one another and clutched at their hearts and things, and Mum had to take Katie up her end of the seat, and even Fowler-call-me-Ian frowned for a second and then he realized where he was – I bet he was a million miles away at the time, making a hundred for Australia or scoring a try on the bell in the Grand Final for St George – and put on this fake smile for Mum, who's in black, and looks beautiful, and is calm and composed, and doesn't smile back.

Fowler-call-me-Ian is actually in charge of the funeral even though Reverend Moysten is doing it, if that makes sense, because Mr Fowler's the undertaker even if he calls himself a Funeral Director and wears a suit and a moustache and shiny black shoes instead of gumboots.

When he first comes to the house to arrange the funeral, Katie can't take her eyes off him because his moustache seems to twitch and move all by itself sometimes, as if it's got a tiny electric current running through it. He introduces himself to Philip first, of course, and shakes his hand and says he's
Fowler call-me-Ian,
but Mum just says:

‘Mr Fowler, why don't we get down to business?'

And he goes to say something back then, but Mum's voice must have set off his moustache, so he has to put a hand up to switch off the current first.

‘Certainly, Mrs Trent,' he says.

And Mum says, ‘Trent-Harcourt actually.'

And Fowler-call-me-Ian looks at her and goes, ‘Oh.' And then he opens his briefcase and gets out a pen and a big pad and some forms and says:

‘Names, first, then. In this profession, it pays to be exact.'

And I'm feeling sorry for him already because I know what's going to happen.

‘So …' he starts, all importantly with his pen going in a big circle to get at his pad which is right next to it and he could have just moved his hand three inches. ‘Let's start with the deceased.'

‘Mother,' says Philip.

‘Mrs Trent, then,' he says as he writes. ‘Was it Vera, did I hear someone say?'

‘Harcourt,' Mum says. ‘Vera Harcourt, no middle name.'

And Fowler-call-me-Ian's looking at Philip and scratching out names at the same time, which is actually quite a hard thing to do. So, he must practise it a lot, I think to myself.

‘I call her
Mother
too,' Philip tells him.

‘I see,' Fowler-call-me-Ian says, and starts a new page.

‘So,' he says, ‘we have the deceased, Mrs Vera Harcourt … ?' And he waits this time before he writes anything. But nobody says anything, and so he writes then. ‘And you're Mr Trent?' he says to Philip. And Mrs Harcourt is your –'

‘Mother-in-law,' says Philip.

‘But you call her
Mother
?'

‘Yes.'

‘I see,' Fowler-call-me-Ian says. ‘We'll have to be especially careful how we phrase the newspaper notice then, won't we?'

And Mum and Philip just look at each other.

‘And you're –?' he says to Mum.

‘Mrs Trent-Harcourt – Miriam,' Mum says. And Mrs Harcourt is my mother.'

‘Now we getting somewhere,' Fowler-call-me-Ian says. ‘I've got it now. And these two charming young ladies …' he says. And Katie and I do what we always do when someone smarms us like that, and we look around behind us to see who's just come in the door, and Mum smiles briefly, but her face says
Let's just get this over, shall we?
So I act my age, and say:

‘I'm Laura, and this is Katie.'

‘Charming,' he says. And writes
Laura Trent-Harcourt,
and I wait till he's finished, and then I say, ‘
Vassilopoulos,
actually.' And he goes: ‘Pardon?'

‘My name. It's Laura Vassilopoulos, actually.'

And he does this fake laugh and scratches out my name, and I can see how angry he is by how hard he holds his biro, and the way he scratches at the paper and makes a mess again. ‘I should have asked,' he said. ‘I just assumed you lived here.'

‘I do,' I say. ‘This is my Mum, and this is Philip, my Dad.'

Fowler-call-me-Ian looks at Mum then, and says:

‘I see.' When he doesn't. Then he says to me while he's still looking at Mum, And your name's
Vassilopoulos
?'

‘Yes.'

And this takes the first three and a half hours, and we've already had six cups of tea, and Katie keeps pouring more and more for Fowler-call-me-Ian, and standing right next to him, and it really puts him off because every time he lifts his cup her face is right beside his and she's peering into his cup because she wants to see how he drinks but still manages to keep his moustache dry, and in the end he gets so jittery, he doesn't. And has to go to the bathroom. And Mum says to Katie to sit and stop pouring him tea or we'll never get rid of him.

When he gets back, he says he's sorry but he's got to talk practicalities and he knows Mum and Philip will appreciate him being businesslike and up-front at such a time and it has to be done, and would we like to see pictures of plots, and we can have a plaque beam or a family estate or even vaults, anything's possible, it's just a question of preference and price, but he should let us know that the cemetery's offering a special for only this month on triple level plots – normally, he explains, a plot is only two levels, but sometimes they will dig deeper – and I'm thinking for a moment he
is
talking about
Hamlet
after all, because Miss Temple is always going on about Shakespeare's plots working on at least two different levels – but then I realize he means you can fit three people in the one grave. ‘That's,' he says to Mum, ‘if you'd like to be buried on top of Mum –'

‘Mother,' Mum says.

‘Just for this month,' he says, ‘the cemetery's offering a third off.'

‘The length?' Philip says.

And Mum turns to him, and I think he's put his foot in it again, but Fowler-call-me-Ian looks and sounds so shocked when he says:

‘No, no, Mr Trent. Off the price …'

- that Mum and Philip burst into laughter, and Mr Fowler looks from one to the other and shakes his head at Katie and me as though he thinks they've both finally cracked and have become hysterical over poor Grandma Vera when it's him all the time, and Mum and Philip start holding hands then, and Mum puts the back of Philip's hand up to her mouth and kisses it, and she's forgotten all about Yogi and the barbecue, and I don't mind seeing her doing that, but Fowler-call-me-Ian's lip is going now, and Katie can't take her eyes off it but her hand's reaching for the tea-pot anyway, but Mum sees her and gets to it first.

‘It's a good offer … Mr Fowler,' Mum says, removing the tea-pot from the table altogether.

‘You'd be in there together with Mother,' he says.

And Mum just shudders and says, ‘True, but, you see, it's all irrelevant. We're set on cremation – for her and for us.'

And it's Katie's and my turn to look at each other then because nobody's asked us so far about getting burned.

‘Now is there anything else?' Mum asks him. ‘Because I'm tired now,' she says, ‘and you must have such a lot to arrange. Perhaps we could do anything else we need to by phone?'

And he goes through his checklist then and says, ‘Let's see. Forms, Funeral Agreement – I'll have to get a signature for that, if you'll be so kind before I go – Reverend Moysten to officiate, music okay, flowers okay, order of service agreed … No, no, that's fine, that's fine,' he says. All we need now is the wording for the newspapers.' Which shouldn't take long, he thinks, but of course it takes about another hour deciding between
Dearly Beloved Mother of Miriam
and
Beloved Mother of Miriam
and just plain
Mother of Miriam
– and how the tone of the first two is usual, and he'd prefer one of them – and whether
Vassilopoulos
will just confuse people. Till Mum's ready to scream at him and do a Grandma Vera and order him out of the house and tell him she'll bury Grandma Vera herself.