Just a Family Affair (21 page)

‘What about,’ she ventured, ‘personalised metallic confetti?’ Patrick clicked his fingers and pointed at her. ‘Spot on.’ He scooped up his car keys. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’

Outside, he got back into his car and gave a huge sigh before putting the keys in the ignition. He’d genuinely thought on Sunday that he was taking control of his life. Now, it seemed that every female he had ever come into contact with was clamouring for his attention. He saw Mandy waving to him from the kitchen window, then draw down the blind. He longed to be back inside with her, laughing over the hideous gimmicks in her wedding magazines. But for the second time that day, he steeled himself for an awkward encounter with a former lover. He was, he decided, coming back as a monk.

F
riday morning dawned as grey and dreary as only England in late March can muster.

In the Horse and Groom, Mayday woke with a lump of grief in her throat. She’d arranged to have breakfast sent up to her room the night before, but when the knock came on the door, she couldn’t bring herself to answer it. She wouldn’t be able to speak. She certainly wouldn’t be able to eat. She lay there until room service went away, hoping that her staff would get the message that she wanted to be left alone, and that they wouldn’t pester her to make sure she was all right. They had been golden all week, all of them, running the hotel like clockwork, with none of the usual spats and quarrels and mini crises.

For several moments she debated not going to the funeral at all. Her grandmother wouldn’t know. For all that she pretended to dabble in the mystic arts - one of her party tricks was telling fortunes - Mayday was actually a confirmed atheist and didn’t believe in an afterlife. Death was death and that was it, so Elsie would be totally oblivious to her absence, and Mayday didn’t care what anyone else might think. She would have preferred to spend the day going for a long walk, alone with her memories. It was only the thought of Angela taking centre stage that forced her out of bed and into the shower.

At Keeper’s Cottage, Keith woke with a knot of worry in his stomach. Getting out his cheque book had brought about the desired speed, but now the day of judgement had arrived all too quickly. It seemed there was no perfect timescale where the threat of cancer was involved. On Monday he hadn’t been able to bear being at the mercy of the lumbering NHS with its endless waiting lists. Now he wasn’t sure if he could cope with the swift efficiency of going private. His biopsy was at midday, which meant by the end of next week he would know his fate. The prospect was so daunting that he hadn’t given any thought whatsoever to the fact that he was picking his ex-wife up from the airport afterwards.

Ginny came into the bedroom with a cup of tea. He felt a rush of fondness for her. As far as she knew, he was off to Warwickshire to meet his financial adviser, not to have a needle shoved up his rectum. When he knew that they had something to worry about, that’s when he would tell her. There was no need for Ginny to be on tenterhooks waiting for his test results. Besides, the very last person he wanted to find out that he might be ill was Mandy. It would only spoil the run-up to her big day. And Keith knew that the only way to keep a secret was not to burden anyone else with it. Not that he didn’t trust Ginny. But she might be tempted to tell Mandy, thinking she was doing the right thing. So he was going to save her from temptation.

He shot into the shower, then went over to his wardrobe. If he was pretending to go to his financial adviser, then he would have to wear a suit, though what he really wanted to wear was comfort clothing. Reassuring clothes that would tell him everything was going to be all right.

Oh God. What if it wasn’t? Keith had read all the leaflets. The cancer could be localized in the prostate. Or it could be starting to feel its way out, tentatively exploring the rest of his body. Or it could have hitched a lift in his lymph nodes, or be settling in his bones. Metastasizing. That was the technical term. Could he feel the ache of metastasis?

Of course, it could be nothing . . . a mere plumbing problem. Unattractive as that diagnosis was, he would jump for joy to be told he merely had an uncooperative pecker.

‘What should I do for supper tonight?’

Ginny was looking at him anxiously. He tried to focus on what she was saying, but somehow the evening meal paled into insignificance.

‘Anything. Sandra isn’t interested in food.’

She never had been. All through their marriage, it had been all she could do to get a meal on the table. Sandra had always made it quite clear that she had better things to do than keep house. It was only since living with Ginny that Keith had discovered that food could be a shared pleasure. Not just the eating, but the purchasing and the preparation. But today, he couldn’t summon up so much as a flicker of enthusiasm. Usually he would be making all sorts of suggestions, looking up what was in season, in his Nigel Slater Kitchen Diaries, then trotting off to his cellar to find a decent wine to match.

Ginny’s face clouded over at his lack of response.

‘I wanted to do something special.’

‘Honestly. Don’t bother. Sandra will be too busy talking about herself to notice what’s on her plate.’

He forced himself to go and give Ginny a kiss. Just a perfunctory peck. He didn’t want to get too close. If he felt her warmth, her softness, he might be tempted to confess all, so great was his longing for reassurance. He had to keep his distance.

He remembered to grab his briefcase for authenticity.

‘Good luck,’ said Ginny.

‘What?’ He looked at her in alarm. Had she guessed? Had he given something away?

She stepped back slightly, startled by his reaction. ‘Everyone needs good luck, don’t they? When they go to see their financial adviser?’

He managed a grimace. ‘I suppose so,’ he replied carefully, hating the lie. But it was so much better than the truth. He bolted to the safety of his car, where he could stop the charade. He started up the engine, then wondered exactly what he was going to do for the next three hours. Even if he took the most scenic route possible, the hospital was only just over an hour away.

 

In Puerto Banus, the sun was out, and Sandra Sherwyn sang happily to herself in her wet room, letting the scalding water trickle over every inch of her body as she examined her precision bikini wax for stray tufts. There were none. Her girls knew better than to leave so much as a millimetre of stubble. Her bush was as well-tended as Wimbledon Centre Court in June. The same went for the rest of her body, which was faultless for a woman of her age. Not that you could rely on other people for maintenance. You had to put the spadework in yourself, which was why she had in front of her an array of loofahs, body brushes, pumice stones and salt scrubs.

An hour later she was exfoliated, moisturized, coiffed, made up and dressed to kill. As a final touch she stepped into a cloud of Marc Jacobs. The droplets settled reverentially upon her shoulders and nestled in her cleavage.

‘Alejandro,’ she purred at the inert figure in her bed. ‘I’m ready for you to take me to the airport. And I don’t want any funny business at the check-in. No lingering goodbyes. I know six weeks seems like a long time, but it will fly by, I promise you.’

As Alejandro turned and threw back the sheets, then stretched, for a moment she was tempted to undo all her handiwork, just for the pleasure of feeling that hard cock one more time. He put one hand on it and grinned.

‘What do I do with this?’

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Strap it to your leg,’ she suggested sweetly. ‘Now come on.’

She clapped her hands and he slid out of bed obediently. She swallowed as she watched him pull on his jeans, pushing his erection down as he did up the zip. It seemed a bit of a waste, but there wasn’t all that much time to spare. He sauntered across the room to pick up his shirt, and she felt her nipples stiffen as she smelt the sweat on him, sweeter than the most precious cologne. She’d tasted it on her tongue the night before. She’d definitely miss him, she decided, although she’d popped a few things into her suitcase that might make up for his absence.

She wasn’t going to miss him for his mind, that was for sure.

‘Alejandro!’ she reprimanded, as he stood in front of the mirrored wardrobes admiring himself, running his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. Typical Spaniard. He had absolutely no sense of urgency. ‘My flight’s at twelve. Chop chop.’

 

At eleven o’clock sharp, Patrick arrived at the Horse and Groom in a dark grey suit, a black tie and a cashmere overcoat, its pockets equipped with everything needed to get through a funeral - a hip-flask, a hefty spliff and a large white handkerchief. His car was pulled up outside on the double yellow lines.

Mayday ran down the main staircase. She was wearing a black mini-dress with a demure white Peter Pan collar, teamed with high shiny black stiletto boots. Her mass of black hair was piled up on top of her head in an elegant beehive. She spotted him at once, and smiled gratefully as she wrapped herself in a floor-length astrakhan coat, pulling up the collar around her face.

He gave her a squeeze. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to enjoy his closeness for a moment.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, suddenly wanting to cry. ‘I couldn’t face it on my own. You know what my family are like, making a drama out of a crisis. I don’t trust myself not to slap Mum. She’s being completely hysterical. But she hadn’t been to see Gran for weeks. Only on Monday, when she told her she should go into a home.’

‘It’s OK,’ Patrick reassured her. He wanted to tell her she looked stunning, but it didn’t seem appropriate. They were going to a funeral, not a ball. ‘Have you got everything?’

Mayday nodded. He took her arm and led her out to the car. On the front seat was an enormous bunch of daffodils. He picked them up and handed them to her.

‘I went to your grandmother’s house this morning and picked them from the garden. I thought she’d like them.’

Mayday took the flowers with a trembling hand.

‘What a wonderful idea.’ She looked at Patrick, her eyes huge with unshed tears. ‘Thank you.’

Mayday sat in the front seat, paler than ever, her eyelashes standing out like spiders, her full mouth painted a dark crimson. She looked astonishing. Emma Peel on the Trans-Siberian Express. Anna Karenina meets Edie Sedgwick. She was one on her own, thought Patrick fondly, and he wished he could take away a bit of her pain. As long as he’d known her, Mayday had never asked anything of him. She was a giver, not a taker. She didn’t have an ounce of neediness in her. Which was why he was so desperate to do everything he could to support her today. She definitely wouldn’t have asked if she hadn’t needed him.

They drove through the outskirts of Eldenbury until they pulled up at the crematorium, a forbidding, uninspiring building on the edge of the municipal cemetery. Mayday stared at it.

‘I’ve never been to a funeral.’ She looked at him, stricken.

Patrick took the perfectly rolled joint out of his top pocket as reply. They sat for a few minutes, sharing the spliff in silence just as they had shared so many over the years, letting the marijuana soften the harsh edges of their surroundings. As the hearse pulled in through the crematorium gates Patrick stubbed it out discreetly.

Mayday’s eyes widened as the enormous black car drew closer with its cargo.

‘I don’t know if I can handle this,’ she said in panic.

‘Of course you can,’ Patrick reassured her. He picked up her hand, her tiny little white paw, and gave it a squeeze. She leant against him with a sigh.

‘What a horrible place to meet your end,’ she said sadly. ‘There’s just nothing about it that gives you any hope, is there?’

Patrick looked at the grey edifice outlined against the grey sky, and imagined the grey smoke that would emanate from the chimney before the morning was out.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It’s pretty grim.’

His own grandparents were in a pretty little corner of the churchyard in Honeycote, a far more preferable resting place. He’d never met them, for they had died some time before he was born. But he visited their grave nevertheless, when he wanted a moment of quiet contemplation, and sometimes imagined that they gave him advice and guidance from the other side. He often ran his fingers over the raised lead of the Liddiard name. It gave him a sense of pride and comfort.

There was little comfort to be had in the cemetery car park, as they watched the undertakers climb out of the hearse and begin the ritual that provided them with their living. Someone’s got to do it, thought Patrick. Just as he provided beer, so they provided ceremony. Gradually the car park began to fill, and people emerged from their cars, dressed in sombre clothing.

‘There’s a lot of people,’ said Mayday in a small voice.

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said Patrick, rather relieved. He couldn’t think of anything worse than a mere half dozen pitching up.