Revenge of the Wedding Planner (11 page)

Normality, you see?

Normality is everything in this life.

‘But you got married when you were nineteen,’ Alexander said accusingly. ‘That’s younger than I am now. And you said you knew my dad was the one for you, the minute you set eyes on him in the Limelight Club. Well, Emma is the one for me. I’m old enough to know when I’m in love.’

I had to admit Alexander had a point.

‘Yes, but that was years ago,’ I told him gently, struggling to find some way of lessening what heartbreak might be to come. ‘It was different then. The cost of living was lower. We didn’t go to university, your dad and me. You’re both so young, pet, far too young to settle down. You have years of study ahead of you, years of growing up still to do.’

‘If Emma doesn’t want me, I can’t go on living and that’s all there is to it,’ he said simply and we both sat there, arms round each other, watching the fish and chips turn cold on the plates. No point in telling Alexander he
might have discussed the possibility of pregnancy with Emma before it was too late. I mean, Bill and I were no better but at least we knew for certain we loved each other. If Emma dropped Alexander and didn’t carry their baby to full term, well, the poor boy would be mentally scarred for life. I just knew that. Alexander is incredibly sensitive for a boy.

Easy for me, huh?

Oh, Julie, if only you knew.

8. The Wake

What with my dad’s funeral to sort out, and Alexander and Emma’s baby-news to come to terms with, Julie’s Galway escapade had to be moved to the back burner for a while. Gary called me several times that evening and in the end I simply told him Julie was having a holiday by herself and she didn’t want any company. He was very upset but I assured him Julie was simply working through a few issues from her past and the best thing he could do was leave her alone.

‘You know how she is,’ I reminded him. ‘She likes to handle things her own way.’

He had no choice but to agree with me though I knew he was going to start looking for her right away. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d hired a detective already. He’s very determined, is Gary Devine.

‘Where did you say she was again?’ he tried, at the end of our conversation. Which was rather cunning of him but he was desperate, I suppose. And it was right on the tip of my tongue to tell him the name of the spa but I remembered just in time.

‘I’m sorry, Gary. She didn’t say.’

Liar, liar.

I dialled Australia.

Oh, God!

It’s not easy telling your two beloved younger sisters
that the father you’ve all ignored for years has pegged out with his head on a supermarket loaf. I did my best to sweeten the pill. But still, they had to be told their father was alone when he left this life. Peaceful and quick, as it hopefully was, he was nonetheless alone in a shabby rented house, his last meal a humble can of chicken and mushroom soup. They were hysterical, needless to say. Their chirpy Australian accents disappeared in a heartbeat and their full-on Belfast snarls returned with a vengeance.

I had to cover the handset with my hand. It was nervous laughter, of course, but I felt bad about it. They said they’d be on the next flight and although I knew it would be hard for them, I was delighted. It was unsettling to think we hadn’t been together for ten years. And flights have got so much cheaper recently but there was always something coming up, important things to be done, too much on at work. And we never managed to arrange anything. But now, our father’s premature passing was uniting us in our own home town at last.

So Ann and Elizabeth were in the air somewhere as I identified Dad’s body and liaised with the funeral director. Bill was on the phone for hours, informing the long list of relatives and acquaintances. I was hoping they’d all make their excuses and leave us in peace to grieve. But no, they all wanted to come to the wake. I watched Bill’s face darken as he gave directions to Eglantine Avenue, over and over and over again. By the end, he was just saying, ‘Oh, you can’t miss it!’

The house had taken on an eerie, still quality as if it was preparing itself for an important occasion. Alexander
lay sobbing quietly in his room, still inconsolable over the temporary (or perhaps permanent) loss of Emma. But the other children were marvellous, tidying up at lightning speed. Which was a revelation for me, I can tell you, as it usually takes them several hours to put a pair of socks away. Bill was amazingly thoughtful. He did his best to get into the spirit of things even though I warned him it was going to get very weird. Well, Protestants are more formal about these things. I daresay it’s the influence of the British Royals. Stiff upper lip, no matter what. And why not? Making a scene never did any good, did it? Bill’s never been to a real belter of a wake, and I was worried for him and our precious children.

But I knew in my heart there was nothing I could do to stop the momentum. So I went crazy with a duster and just let events unfold. Wakes are like that, anyway. They take on a life force of their own. (Pardon the pun.) Bill bought a huge bouquet of elegant white flowers for the hall and some pretty boxes of tissues to dot around the place. Then he did a rapid trolley-dash down the biscuit aisle in Marks & Spencer while I did an even quicker vacuum of the entire house. Bunging laundry into cupboards and hiding my most expensive handbags in one of the hatboxes on top of our wardrobe. Well, you never know. Gatecrashers aren’t bothered if it’s a funeral or a twenty-first-birthday party. Then the hearse was suddenly pulling up at our front door and that was a pantomime in itself.

My father’s house was in no fit state for a wake, you see. Traditionally, in an Irish wake, the deceased person is laid out in an open coffin on their own bed in their own
bedroom for two days and one night, and anyone who knew them (however briefly) comes to the house and pays their respects. And partakes of light refreshments (in truth, as much food and alcohol as they can stomach) and a forty-eight-hour session of singing and story-telling. They mean well, naturally, the mourners. And all the Catholics I ever knew thought it was a great honour if the house was stuffed to bursting point, with hopefully a good number having to queue outside on the driveway as well. The more, the merrier. It’s taken as a sign the family is popular in the community. But Dad’s place hadn’t been decorated since Mum left. He used to keep dogs and the furniture was scratched to bits. And he’s a heavy smoker.
Was
a heavy smoker. And he was never very handy with a bottle of Mr Sheen even before the political stuff took over his soul. So it had to be my house on Eglantine.

But it only hit me then, as the ornately carved walnut-coloured coffin was being brought into the hall, what was actually happening. And I immediately decided I wasn’t having my dead father displayed in any of the bedrooms. Oh, no, I’m sorry, darling! I might adore the aesthetics of castles, cloaks and candlesticks but I’m not so keen on hauling the recently departed up and down my stairwell. I could never, you know,
undress
in a room if I knew it’d been used for a wake. I’m sorry, call me a twit if you like but I just couldn’t. And, obviously, he couldn’t be left in any of the children’s rooms. That would have been cruel to them. And the boys’ den is full of shelves of video games, which wouldn’t have looked respectful and anyway the atmosphere is all wrong in there, it’s way too modern. And the guest room is right at the top of the
house and far too small for a wake. The bed is tucked in underneath the eaves and the mourners would have knocked themselves out on the sloping ceiling.

So we put him in the good room at the front of the house that we only use at Christmas and on special occasions. The undertakers were pleased they didn’t have so far to carry the coffin. The thing is, that room contained my collection of one hundred and forty-seven (outsized) Gothic candlesticks so it was all very ‘Dracula’s Castle’, but there wasn’t time to move stuff. I kept having this mental image of Christopher Lee appearing from behind the purple velvet curtains (complete with ruched swags and heavy gold fringing – the curtains, not Christopher Lee) and baring his fangs. And for the first time in my life I felt a bit silly being a post-Goth. But I mean, what am I supposed to do? Keep one room of my home in a constant state of readiness for an ‘open coffin and light refreshments’ evening? Magnolia drapes and two dozen hard chairs? Tea urn and a choir in the corner?

There were about twenty actual candles in the collection (thankfully ivory-coloured, not black) so I lit them all and hoped it would generally appear very ‘churchy’ and spiritual. The lid of the coffin was then removed and propped up against the wall. Whereupon I collapsed and Bill carried me through to the kitchen for a brandy. The callers began to arrive before I’d even got my coat off (I’d been running some last-minute errands just prior to the hearse arriving). And that started me crying again because it reminded me of Dad and the hunger-strikers, and how he would start ranting the minute he answered the door to me.

I spoke in hushed tones to a lot of people I’d never met before and they told me they were sorry for my trouble, and then headed for the stairs. So we had to get Bill to act as usher. He deflected them politely but firmly into the good room and after an initial look of consternation they shuffled innocently into the candlestick forest. Many of the mourners were absolutely speechless when they emerged from my front room. They opened their mouths and tried to form some words of comfort but usually nothing came out and we just gave them a glass of whiskey and said: ‘Thanks for coming. It was all very sudden.’

Well, they wanted death and I gave it to them with knobs on. Maybe we should have thrown a sheet over the biggest candlesticks (as Bill suggested) but I felt a dust sheet would have looked much worse than several rows of five-foot ornaments. And I daresay the massive stone gargoyle beside the fireplace was a bit intimidating for some but we couldn’t lift it without doing our backs in. It was hard enough getting ‘Goily’ into the house in the first place, after Bill spotted him under a pile of doorframes in a reclamation yard and bought him for me for our tenth wedding anniversary.

At least Dad was actually having a wake, I consoled myself as I made a small mountain of turkey and ham sandwiches in the dining room, the designated buffet area. A death in the family is no time to impose your vegetarian beliefs on the viewers. I mean, the mourners. Yes, at least he was having a wake. No thanks to you, Mum, you crafty old skiver with your official divorce papers and your busy guest house in Devon. Oh, yes, having a sensitive English
lover with a relative in the UDR comes in very handy, doesn’t it? Gets you out of all sorts of awkward family do’s. And Dad’s lot, they couldn’t fault me – they never offered to host it. Nosy parkers, they came to my house all right but they didn’t want him cluttering up
their
bedrooms.

Some cheerful women in flowery blouses I’d never seen before in my life (the women, not the blouses) took up position in my kitchen and proceeded to empty the cupboards of all cups, mugs and plates. They washed everything in the sink, ignoring the dishwasher completely, and then served tea and coffee to the masses for twelve hours straight before telling me they’d had a lovely time. Who washes dishes
before
they are used? I’ve still got no idea who they were but they left my kitchen spotless. They even cleaned the crumbs out of the plastic seal round the fridge door. I’d been meaning to do that properly for several years. There was a queue for the main bathroom so we had to direct total strangers through to the en suites. I forgot to hide my best bras, which were hanging out to dry on our shower door. (They have to be hand-washed, you see, good bras.) One of them went missing. The red balcony bra with the black ribbons threaded through it. Bill loved that bra on me. It was a real nipple-skimmer.

Why do we put ourselves through these things? In this age of hi-tech everything, is it fair that we still have to observe such a centuries-old tradition? Children shouldn’t have to see dead bodies, they really shouldn’t, I don’t care what anyone says. You can stuff your justifications in a sack, mister. Traditions? It used to be traditional to hang
petty thieves in the town square. We don’t do that any more.

Alicia-Rose was very upset when she saw my father’s face. He was still looking pissed off, even in death.

I think word got out in Dad’s neighbourhood that there was a great wake going on down in Eglantine Avenue because we had hundreds of callers. I had to send Alicia-Rose to the shop for more toilet tissue (or, as I call it, bog-roll) and liquid soap, twice. And somebody sat on the hall table (it was the only genuine antique we had) and broke it.

Eleven tins of luxury chocolate biscuits we got through. Seventeen loaves of best white bread and two dozen jam sponges. So many people, the doorbell never stopped ringing. In the end, we left the front door open. My dad’s priest showed up around midnight. (The funeral director had tracked him down for us.) And that was hard work because he kept asking me what chapel we went to, and various queries about parish minutiae. Had I attended the
blessing
of this and the
veneration
of that, and whether I was a member of the
Legion of Mary
. God help him. I couldn’t for the life of me remember what he was talking about. If you don’t use it, you lose it, I suppose. I resorted to stuffing my face with shortcake biscuits before pretending I’d remembered something vital, then dashing out of the room so I wouldn’t have to answer him.

But the wake was a great success and that was the main thing. At one point I fell asleep sitting in the laundry room, folding a tea towel (hiding from the priest again) and only woke up when a draught slammed the back door shut.

I felt cold and tearful all the next day and when Ann and Elizabeth finally turned up the following evening I nearly collapsed with emotion.

And shock.

They’d changed so much, I nearly didn’t recognize them. Yes, they’d sent photos over the years, but the pictures generally showed only their faces. In the flesh, it was a whole different story. When the pair of them had left Belfast, they looked just like me. Tall and awkward, pale as sheets, and very scruffy indeed. Cardigans and leather brogues, the legacy of a convent education.