Page 67 of A Summer Scandal

‘Oh,’ he said, frowning, as well he might. His mind was probably racing, trying to decide if she was a crackpot. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Would you guys have been here back then?’ she asked.

He pulled across one of their suitably sombre leaflets and tapped the front. ‘Proudly serving Swallow Beach and the surrounding area since 1906, madam.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Then you might be able to answer my question. My gran died here in the town in 1978, and I’d like to know what happened to her body.’

The guy frowned. ‘Is it not on record with your family, madam?’

‘There isn’t really anyone I can ask,’ Vi said.

It was almost the truth. She could ask Della, but she feared the reaction it might provoke. Her mum called at least twice a week for a chat, but Monica was the one subject that had quickly established itself as off limits.

‘1978, the year of the winter storm,’ the guy said. ‘And what was your grandmother’s name, please?’

‘Monica,’ Vi said softly. ‘Her name was Monica Spencer.’

He inclined his head in a benign way and asked her to take a seat, and after some minutes returned bearing a large, dusty ledger.

‘My apologies for the wait,’ he said. ‘The archives are in the cellar.’

Vi didn’t let herself imagine what lay in the cellar of a funeral directors. It was cool in the shop despite the summer warmth outside, welcome respite in some ways, slightly disturbing in others. She watched as the guy, Stuart according to his nametag, turned the large parchment pages slowly.

‘Do you know the date she died?’

Vi hadn’t read that far forward in the diary. ‘Not precisely, but I know it was towards the end of July, beginning of August.’

He nodded, running his finger methodically down the neatly inked words, and then finally he stopped.

‘Monica Spencer,’ he said, reading her name aloud with an air of finality. ‘Yes, here she is.’ He looked up. ‘What is it that you’d like to know?’

Vi picked at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans, suddenly full of nervous trepidation. ‘Do you have a record of what happened to her?’

He read the ledger in silence, and then slowly raised his eyes. ‘We do, madam.’

‘And?’ Vi held her breath.

‘I’m sorry to say that her cause of death is listed here as suicide by drowning, madam.’ He consulted the notes. Blood tests showed a significantly high level of alcohol.’

It came as no surprise, but even so it was starkly saddening to hear it officially.

‘I expected it to say that,’ she said, because Stuart looked almost as distressed as she felt. ‘Does it say what happened to her body?’

He looked down again, nodding slowly. ‘She was cremated.’

‘Here in Swallow Beach?’

Stuart frowned, reading the entry. ‘It’s highly unusual. We’d normally have the mechanics of the funeral recorded here,’ he said, indicating a box in the ledger. ‘The cars ordered, flowers, readings. But in this case it seems the body was cremated privately.’

‘What does that even mean?’ Vi asked, dread rising in her stomach.

Stuart looked as if he wasn’t really sure what to say. ‘In basic terms, it means there wasn’t a funeral as such, just a disposal of the body.’

Vi’s face must have fallen, because he coughed and looked contrite. ‘Forgive my speaking in such bald terms. It appears that your grandmother’s cremation was conducted without fanfare,’ he said, trying to frame the same information in a more palatable way.

Vi dashed a rogue tear from her cheek. ‘I see,’ she said, even though she didn’t. ‘And her ashes?’

Stuart looked relieved to move the conversation along, returning to the entry concerning Monica’s death. ‘Ah.’

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