Peacock Emporium (40 page)

Suzanna had no choice but to let them.

Arturro had positioned himself behind the counter, and took charge of making the coffee, apparently trying to avoid direct conversation. On the couple of occasions that people had spoken to him she had watched him become progressively more uncomfortable, blinking hard and busying himself with the coffee machine. Suzanna, with glazed eyes and the peculiar sensation of operating from the inside of a bubble, cleaned up, answered queries, commiserated, collected the pastel-shaded cards and stuffed animals destined for Emma, and allowed people who were seemingly blind to the chaotic nature of their surroundings to fulfil an unstoppable need to talk, with choked voices, about the general niceness, blamelessness of Jessie, and in fierce, accusatory whispers about Jason. They talked in speculative tones about Alejandro: they had heard how he had tried for twenty minutes to save her, about how he had been found, covered in her blood, wedged half under the van himself as he tried uselessly to revive her. Those who had lived nearby talked of how he had been pulled away, fists flailing and shouting incoherently in Spanish, from the half-stunned Jason, as he realised his efforts had been in vain. They sat, and wept, and talked – in the way they once had to Jessie.

By the end of the day Suzanna was exhausted. She was slumped on a stool as Arturro moved around her, tidying chairs, nailing the last of the shelves into place. ‘You should close now,’ he said, slipping his hammer into his toolbox. ‘You’ve done enough. You know there will be more tomorrow.’

Through the open doorway the Cellophane-wrapped flowers glinted in the afternoon sunlight, some sweating under the plastic. She wondered whether she should get them out to allow them to breathe. It felt somehow like an intrusion.

‘You want me to come again?’

There was something in his voice . . . Suzanna’s mind cleared briefly and she turned to him, her face agonised. ‘Oh, God, Arturro, I’ve got something awful to tell you.’

He was wiping his hands on a dishcloth. What could be more awful? his expression said.

‘Jess – Jess and I,’ she corrected herself, ‘we were going to tell you . . . but . . .’ She wished she could be anywhere but there. ‘The chocolates, the ones that Liliane got so upset about. The ones you sacked the boys over. They were from us. Jessie and I sent them to Liliane so that she would think they were from you. We wanted to get you together, you see. Jess – she thought – she said you were meant for each other . . .’

It seemed almost ridiculous now, as if it had happened in another life, to other people, as if its frivolity were part of another existence. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘We meant well, honestly. I know it sort of backfired, but please don’t think badly of her. She just thought you would be happy together. She was going to tell you the truth but – but something happened and . . . well, now it’s down to me. I know it was stupid, and badly thought out, but I encouraged it all. If you want to blame anyone, blame me.’ She didn’t dare look at him, wondered even as she spoke whether she should have told him at all. Yet he had been so good, so generous. She could not have made it through the day without him. The least he deserved was the truth.

She waited, fearful, for the legendary explosion that Mrs Creek had described, but Arturro continued to pack the last of his tools into his toolbox, and closed the lid. Then he placed a hand on Suzanna’s shoulder. ‘I will tell Liliane,’ he said, swallowing. He patted her, then walked heavily towards the door and opened it. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Suzanna.’

She closed up at half past four, then walked home, lay on her bed fully clothed and slept until eight the next morning.

Alejandro hadn’t come. She was glad. There was only so much she could cope with in one day.

The funeral was to be at St Bede’s, the Catholic church on the west side of the square. Initially, Cath Carter had told Father Lenny that she wanted a private service, didn’t want everyone gawping and speculating on her daughter’s untimely end, not with the police investigation still ongoing and all. But Father Lenny, gently, over a period of days, had told her of the strength of feeling in the little town, of the numerous people who had asked him whether they could pay their respects. How it would help little Emma, in the circumstances, to see how much her mother was loved.

Suzanna sat in front of her dressing-table, pulling her dark hair back into a severe knot. Father Lenny had said the service would be a celebration of Jessie’s life, and that he did not want it to be a sombre occasion. Suzanna did not feel like celebrating, and this was reflected in her appearance. Her mother, who had said she would be coming with her father, as much for Suzanna as Jessie, had lent Suzanna a black hat. ‘I think it’s important that you do what you feel is right,’ she said, laying a hand against Suzanna’s cheek, ‘but formal is never inappropriate.’

‘Did you say you’d bought me a black tie?’ Neil ducked with well-practised ease as he entered the low doorway. ‘I can’t seem to find it.’

‘My handbag,’ said Suzanna, putting in her earrings, gazing at her reflection. She didn’t usually wear earrings, wondered whether they would suggest inappropriate gaiety.

Neil stood in the middle of the room, as if in hope that the handbag might leap out at him.

‘On the landing.’ She heard rather than saw him leave the room, treading the squeaky floorboards to the top of the stairs.

‘Lovely day for it. I mean, not a lovely day as such,’ he corrected himself, ‘but there’s nothing worse than a funeral when it pelts down with rain. Wouldn’t have seemed right for Jessie, somehow.’

Suzanna closed her eyes. Every time she thought of heavy rain now, she associated it with the images she carried in her head, of skidding vans and screeching brakes, of the crashing and splintering of glass. Alejandro had said he heard no scream, but in Suzanna’s imagination, Jessie had stared at her approaching death and—

‘Got it. Oh, Christ, look – think it could do with a quick iron before I put it on.’

She forced away the image and opened her drawer to pull out her watch. She heard Neil humming to himself, muttering about the ironing-board, and then a brief silence.

‘What’s this?’

She hoped Jessie had known nothing. Alejandro had said he couldn’t see how she would have felt anything, that in his opinion she had been dead even as he had scrambled over the timber and glass to get to her.

Neil was at her shoulder. ‘What’s this?’ he said again. His face didn’t look like his own.

She turned on her stool, and gazed at the doctor’s appointment card he held out in front of him, which bore the words: ‘Family Planning Clinic’. She knew that her face looked resigned, guilty, but somehow she couldn’t form it into an expression that would prove any more satisfactory. ‘I was going to tell you.’

He said nothing, just kept holding it out.

‘I booked an appointment.’

The card was pink – suddenly an inappropriate colour.

‘To . . .’

‘To have a coil fitted. I’m really sorry.’

‘A coil?’

She nodded awkwardly.

‘A coil?’

‘Look, I haven’t even been yet. What with Jess and everything, I missed the appointment.’

‘But you’re going to go.’ His voice was dead.

‘Yes,’ she said, and glanced up. Her eyes swerved as they met his. ‘Yes, I am. Look, I’m not ready, Neil. I thought I was, but I’m not. There’s too much going on. And I need to resolve things first.’

‘You need to resolve things?’

‘Yes. With my dad. My mum – my real mum, I mean.’

‘You need to resolve things with your real mum.’

‘Yes.’

‘And how long do you think this will take?’

‘What?’

He was furious, she realised. He turned to face her with manic intent. ‘How. Long. Do. You. Think. This. Will. Take?’ His tone was sarcastic.

‘How should I know? As long as it takes.’

‘As long as it takes. God, I should have known.’ He paced the room, a television detective explaining the genesis of some long-standing crime.

‘What?’

‘The one thing I wanted. The one thing I thought we had agreed on. And, oh, look, suddenly, after getting everything she wants, Suzanna has changed her mind.’

‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

‘No? No? So what is this then, getting a bloody coil fitted? Because it sure isn’t up there with oysters and champagne on the getting-pregnant front.’

‘I haven’t changed my mind.’

‘Then what the hell is this about?’

‘Don’t shout at me. Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry, Neil. I just can’t do it right now. I can’t do it now.’

‘Of course you can’t—’

‘Don’t do this, all right?’

‘Do what? What the hell am I doing?’

‘Bullying me. I’m just about to bury my best friend, okay? I don’t know whether I’m coming or going—’

‘Your best friend? You hadn’t known her six months.’

‘There’s a time limit on friendship now?’

‘You weren’t even sure about her when she started. You thought she was taking advantage of you.’

Suzanna stood up and pushed past him to the door. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.’

‘No, Suzanna, I can’t believe that just when I thought we were finally back on track, you’ve found a way to sabotage everything again. You know what? I think there’s something else going on here. Something you’re not being straight with me about.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Ridiculous? So what am I meant to say, Suzanna? “Oh, you don’t want a baby after all. Don’t worry, darling. I’ll just put my own feelings on hold for a while . . . like I always do.” ‘

‘Don’t do this, Neil. Not right now.’ She reached past him for her coat, pulled it briskly round her, knowing that she would be too hot later.

He was standing in front of her, refused to move out of the way when she stepped forward. ‘So, when is the right time, Suzanna? When does this stop being about you, huh? When do my feelings finally get a look in?’

‘Please, Neil—’

‘I’m not a saint, Suzanna. I’ve tried to be patient with you, tried to be understanding, but I’m lost. Really. I just can’t see how we move on from here . . .’

She stared at the confusion in his face. She moved forward, placed her hand on his cheek, an unconscious echo of her mother’s gesture. ‘Look, we’ll talk about it after the funeral, okay? I promise—’

He shook off her hand and went to open the door as the taxi arrived, hooting to signify its arrival. ‘Whatever,’ he said. He didn’t look back.

It was, it was widely agreed, a dreadful funeral. Not that Father Lenny hadn’t made an effort with his eulogy – which was beautiful and apt and knowing and had enough humour to raise the odd brave smile among the mourners – or that the church didn’t look beautiful, what with the ladies of the supermarket having made such an effort to decorate it with flowers, so that the casual observer might have thought it was about to host a wedding. It was not that the sun didn’t shine out of an infinite blue sky, as if to offer hope that the place to which Jessie had gone was indubitably wonderful, clear, bright and filled with birdsong – all the things one might hope of a heaven.

It was just that, however you dressed it up, there was something so terrible, so wrong about burying her. About the fact, they all said afterwards, that someone like her should be gone when there were so many much less deserving of life. About the small pale figure who stood motionless in the front pew clutching her grandmother’s hand, and the empty place beside her on the pew, which meant that she was effectively orphaned even if only one parent had died.

Suzanna had been asked by Cath to come to the graveside. She had told her that she would be honoured, and taken her place alongside Jessie’s distant relatives and oldest schoolfriends, trying not to feel like an imposter, trying not to think of where Jessie had met her death.

He had not even attempted to come, apparently. Father Lenny had told her the previous day. He had been to see the lad in hospital. Even though it went against his every instinct, he said, his job was also to comfort the sinner. (And it wasn’t as if anyone else was going to visit him. It had been all he could do to stop Jessie’s neighbours on the estate forming a lynch mob.)

In fact, Father Lenny had been shaken by the lad’s appearance. His face stitched and swollen from his unsupported journey through the windscreen, his skin bruised and purple, his injuries had uncomfortably echoed Jessie’s in previous weeks. He had refused to say anything other than that he loved her and that the van wouldn’t stop. The doctor said he wasn’t sure his mental state meant he could take in what he had done.

‘Would have been better for everyone if he’d died too,’ Father Lenny had said, his voice uncharacteristically bitter.

The familiar liturgy of dust to dust, ashes to ashes had ended. Suzanna saw Emma with her grandmother’s hands on her shoulders, supporting and holding her close. She wondered who gained the most comfort from their seemingly unending physical contact. She thought of the first day she had reopened the shop, when the child and her grandmother had come and stood in the lane. They hadn’t done anything, had refused her invitation to come inside. They had just stood opposite, holding hands, their faces grey and wide-eyed as they absorbed its shattered exterior.

Emma will grow up without a mother, she thought. Like I did. And then, glancing at Vivi, who was standing by the car, felt the customary stab of guilt that she could think like that.

It was as they stepped away from the grave that she saw him. Standing a little way back, behind Father Lenny, moving away from Cath with whom he had evidently been exchanging a few quiet words. Cath was holding his tanned hands, nodding as she listened, her face dignified and curiously understanding in grief. He glanced up as Suzanna stared, and for a moment their eyes locked, exchanging in those brief seconds all the grief, guilt, shock . . . and secret joy of the previous week. She stepped forward, as if to go to him. Stopped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. ‘Your mum and dad have invited us back, Suze.’ It was Neil. She looked up at her husband, blinking, as if she was trying to register who he was. ‘I think it would be a good idea if we went.’