The Invisible Ones (42 page)

They said it wouldn’t have hurt.

I don’t know if they can really know that, or if they just say it because it makes it less horrible to think about. One thing no one could tell us is why he dragged himself into Ivo’s trailer to do it, rather than staying in his own. I wondered if he was so angry with Ivo for leaving that he wanted to burn the last traces of him away, or if he was destroying some sign of Ivo’s crimes— something I had obviously missed. We all searched through Great-uncle’s stuff for clues, or reasons, or anything, really. But there weren’t any. None.

So they were saying that he did it on purpose. That he wanted to kill himself. Gran wouldn’t have it. She told me I wasn’t to repeat what the police said to anyone.

“After all,” she said, “we don’t know that it wasn’t just a terrible, terrible accident. It’s wicked, them saying he meant it. They don’t know. They didn’t know him.”

I looked at Mum when she said this. I could tell that Mum couldn’t, any more than me, think of any accident that could happen like that. But we didn’t say anything.

I don’t know for certain that it’s true, but I remembered how odd he was that time in his trailer. Some of the things he said, now it seems like he was saying good-bye. I’d never seen him cry before. And while I think Ivo is a coward and despise him for running away and leaving us to clear up his mess, I can’t feel the same about Great-uncle. He didn’t have anyone depending on him. He was old. He was in a wheelchair. He had suffered in almost every way you can think of, and then, recently, had got a new illness to put up with. I cried. If I had gone back into his trailer that time, would that have made a difference? No one answered this question, because I didn’t say it out loud.

Word gets around. And with Gypsies, it gets around really fast. We had to get on and lay him out, because people started asking about coming
to pay their respects, and it wasn’t as simple as all that, because the police took away his remains and kept them. There was to be an inquest. And then there was a massive row about the trailer.

Great-uncle’s trailer, even though he didn’t die in it, was
mokady
now that he was dead. Auntie Lulu came down—this was two days after—and said that old Westmorlands like his were worth a lot of money and we should sell it, and keep the money for Christo, who needs everything he can get, and is Great-uncle’s only descendant now (not counting Ivo, that is, because he is gone). Gran got really angry and said that it would have to be burned, that it should have been burned years ago when Great-aunt Marta died. In fact, it should have been burned when their first two sons died. And since it was still around after that, it should have been burned when Christina died. According to Gran, his trailer should have been burned four times, and it is four times
mokady
because it’s still here. Basically, it’s so
mokady
that if we don’t burn it this time, we’re all going to die. I’ve seen Gran angry before, but I’ve never seen her quite as angry as this. Lulu was furious, too. She said that if Great-uncle (they call him “our brother” now, instead of saying his name) wanted to keep it on after Marta’s death, that was up to him, because he was hoping she would come back and see him, and Christo was going to need all sorts of equipment and special help, and that costs money. She said the trailer and the things in it were worth at least two thousand pounds. She said lots of people buy a cheap trailer for the laying out, and then get rid of that, and he didn’t die in his trailer, anyway. She looked at Mum when she said this, as if she thought she would back her up, but Mum was never going to stand against Gran in this. No one asked me what I thought, but I agreed with Gran. I think we’ve had enough bad luck, and money’s only money. Christo, who hasn’t done anything to deserve all that’s happened, deserves for it to stop. Mum said she was in favor of burning the trailer, and I was glad.

It’s been horrible and weird waking up every day and suddenly remembering that he isn’t here anymore, but his trailer still is, empty and kind of spooky. As soon as we could, we got someone to come and take
the burned remains of Ivo’s trailer away, thank God. It was terrible seeing that. Even now, there is a big black burned patch on the ground where it stood.

When the police eventually released the body, it was nearly two weeks later. Mum and Gran went in and hung sheets on the walls of his trailer, ready for the coffin. I couldn’t help wondering what was actually in the coffin when it came from the undertaker’s. That’s an awful thing to think, but I couldn’t help it. You’re supposed to dress the dead in their best clothes, inside out—but who was going to do that? The closed coffin was put in his trailer, and the next day all sorts of people—loads from the site on the edge of town, as well as others—came by to pay their respects. Mum and Gran had to make tea all day. Granddad and I lit two fires in the clearing—one for men and one for women—and people came and sat around and chatted. I think Granddad enjoyed it; it’s the most sociable we’ve been since we moved here. Lulu was here most of the time. Once the fight over Great-uncle’s trailer was over, she helped out, fetching takeaways and making tea and things. I began to wonder what had kept her away for so long.

But in the middle of all this, something nice happened: a few days before the laying out, Stella came to see me. She got her mum to give her a lift. Somehow, everybody knows about the fire and that Great-uncle is dead, even people at school. I was so surprised to see her I didn’t know what to say at first. Gran thought we should send her away, that it wasn’t right for her to be here at such a time. And I was terribly aware that there was this great black patch of ground right there, where it had happened. Stella kept looking at it, even though Ivo’s trailer was gone by then. Luckily, Lulu was there, too, and she gave me ten pounds and told us to get out of there and go into town. So Stella’s mum drove us and dropped us at the shopping center, and we went to see
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
.

Afterward we sat in the café opposite the cinema, drinking Coke floats
and holding hands. I don’t know quite how the holding hands started, but it was during the film sometime, and once it had started, it didn’t stop. That sounds callous, only a week after Great-uncle died, I know. It wasn’t as though I completely forgot about him. Even during the funny bits in the film, I sometimes thought about him, and I could tell Stella was thinking about him, too, even though she’d met him only once and it was embarrassing. I think that’s why she held my hand.

I told her about Christo, and about having to move to a house and that I would have to go to a different school. Stella took her hand back and stared into her scummy glass.

“I’ll write to you—if you want,” I say.

She sighed. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

“Stella?”

“You know, when you . . . went to Katie’s?”

“Yeah.”

I had been dreading this question, really, ever since that moment when she saw me in the stable and looked so angry.

“Were you . . . you know, going out?”

“
Um
, no. We weren’t going out. I went to her house once—she took me back to her house for tea, when it was raining. She showed me her horse; that’s how I knew where to go. I just couldn’t think of anywhere else.”

Stella raised her eyebrows in a way that made it look like she didn’t really believe me.

“And . . . ?”

“And,
um
, we kissed. Once. And that’s it. You know what she’s like at school. She never even talked to me afterward.”

“So you fancy her.”

I wanted to say no, but I thought she would know that was a lie.

“I kind of liked her, yeah . . . but it was just that once. And we’ve never been friends. You know . . . I’ve always liked you more than anyone. I just thought there wasn’t any, you know . . . hope.”

“Oh.”

Stella looked out the window and sucked on her straw. Her glass was nearly empty, and it made a gurgling noise. I sucked on my straw, which made a louder gurgling noise. Then she started laughing, so it was okay for me to laugh, too.

Looking into her glass, she said, “There’s always hope.”

For the funeral I’m wearing a new black suit, white shirt, and black tie, which feels very odd. But then everyone is dressed up in black and looks smart—all my family, and dozens of other people I either barely know or don’t know at all, who have come to the church to pay their respects. They all shake hands with Gran and Aunt Lulu, who are the chief mourners. Great-uncle’s other sister, Sibby, hasn’t come over from Ireland because of her arthritis, but she and her husband sent a wreath in the shape of a chair, made out of red and white flowers. There are quite a few wreaths. There’s even a wheelchair wreath. I’m surprised. It never seemed like Great-uncle had that many friends, but these people must have liked him a bit. It’s not like one of those funerals you hear about, where they have to stop the traffic for hours because of all the hundreds of people following, but there are quite a few.

Some of them shake hands with me as well, and murmur things about what a shame it is, or that it’s a blessing and he’s at peace now. Several refer to the bad luck he’s had. None of them know that he killed himself. Some of the older people say that I look like him. One elderly woman grabs my hair in both her hands—I’m not kidding; I don’t even know who she is—and calls me the very spit. I complain to Mum after, and she says of course I am not the very spit; I just have the same coloring. She says it is just the sort of thing people say—and if I had more cousins, they would probably all get it, but I am the only one. Christo is not here, as he is still in hospital—and even if he wasn’t, we probably wouldn’t have brought him. It really brings it home to me: for a Gypsy funeral, there are not many young people or children. Normally, there are loads of kids
running around, masses of cousins and stuff. Not in our family. Now it’s me who is like the Last of the Mohicans. Me and Christo.

I am wondering—I suppose we all are—if Ivo will come, in disguise or otherwise, and I keep turning around in the procession, and staring hard at people I don’t know, just in case. But I don’t see him, or anyone who could be him, not remotely.

I wonder if he even knows his father is dead.

57.

Ray

In the end, it is the prospect of seeing Lulu that decides me. She did, after all, telephone to let me know the time and place of Tene’s funeral. When she told me the manner of his death, we were both silent. I couldn’t tell how upset she was. I wondered if she had seen him again before he died but didn’t want to ask.

I drive down to Andover and find the red-brick Catholic church in the middle of a postwar housing estate. I am wearing an old dark blue suit that I last wore for Eddie’s funeral. I found, when I put it on, that I have lost weight since then. This very slightly cheers me. I am glad, on the whole, that he isn’t here to see the cock-up I have made of things.

I wait in my car until almost everyone has gone into the church, and then creep in to stand at the back. I can see the family up at the front, Lulu among them. She doesn’t turn around. The back is a rather crowded place, and I find myself in a gaggle of men wearing rusty black, all of whom seem to prefer standing than taking one of the empty seats. More than one sneak out for a smoke and a chat during the short service. Several don’t bother to go inside at all.

Afterward, I wait on the fringes until the Jankos are done with the
followers. But as I am loitering, trying not to look conspicuous, JJ appears beside me, looking stiff in a black suit, his hair pulled back into a ponytail. It makes him look different—more grown-up.

“Hello, Mr. Lovell.”

“Hello, JJ.”

I shake his hand.

“Thanks for coming.”

He sounds like he means it.

“Thanks. You look very smart. I’m really sorry about your uncle.” “My . . . Oh, you mean Great-uncle. Thanks.”

He looks all right—more confident than before. Maybe he is taller, or perhaps it is just the suit and the hair; you can see the man he is becoming. He tells me that they are about to move into a house with Christo. That he is making good progress.

“You’re not going right away, are you?” he says. “Auntie Lulu will want to talk to you.”

The blood thuds in my ears when he says this.

She has spoken about me to them. What has she said? He leaves me standing in the churchyard as the crowd starts to drift off and break apart, climbing into cars and vans, heading off to a pub.

I stand, feeling self-conscious and worried that she is going to walk off without seeing me, or worse: after seeing me. But at last she breaks away from the knot by the church door and comes toward me. She doesn’t smile, but I smile at her; I can’t help myself.

“Let’s walk down here,” she says, and steers me to an avenue between rows of gravestones.

“How are you?”

“I’m all right. Thanks for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me. I’m so sorry about your brother. It’s a terrible tragedy.”

A trailer fire. It happens. I’ve heard of it now and again. And worse— my grandmother’s young cousin was playing beside the fire when her
dress caught alight, and she died of her burns. But the timing of Tene’s death—so soon after hearing the news about Ivo and Rose—is it really coincidence? Again, this is not something I can ask. Not here.

Lulu takes her cigarettes out of her bag—a black leather bag, in keeping with the occasion, but still almost as vast as her other one—and, after some rummaging, finds her lighter.

“He couldn’t have gone on much longer living like that. Maybe this is better, even if it was . . .”

She shrugs and sucks on the cigarette with relief.

Some people make smoking look good. Lulu is one of them. Today she wears black, chunky-heeled shoes. A black skirt suit with a vaguely forties air. Her lipstick looks fresh, and her hair seems different, maybe lighter, perhaps a new color, with strands of bronze lifting the black.

She looks unattainable, perfect, beautiful.

“I’ve always wondered, what do you keep in that bag?”