Page 47 of The Tapes
‘I should be asking you that.’
‘But I’m asking you.’
I tell her I’m fine, though I’m not sure that’s true. There’s an ache that I don’t think I ever quite had this relationship with my mother. Was it me, or her? She was obviously the adult but I don’t think there was ever a time when I stopped to ask if she was OK.
When we separate, Faith pulls the hair from her face and says she’s going upstairs to iron her top. I listen to her head upstairs and it’s impossible not to wonder whether I should try to forget all this. Mum was an unquestionable fantasist and, though some of the things from her tapes definitely happened, there are others that didn’t. Chasing what could be a lie might have got one person killed and I need my daughter to be safe.
I’m thinking of her but I’m also thinking of Owen when the doorbell makes me jump. I call up to tell Faith that I’ll get it – and it’s a good job I did. Detective Sergeant Cox is on the doorstep, wearing the bleakest of looks. I picture Owen’s wallet,sitting in my dresser upstairs, and wonder if the officer somehow knows.
‘Have you got a minute?’ she asks.
‘It’s my dad’s funeral in about four hours.’
Cox blinks at me with surprise. ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I can come back.’
‘Is it important?’ I ask.
I see the conflict in the other woman. She shuffles from one foot to the other. ‘Maybe.’
‘Tell me.’
‘We got some results back from the gun late last night,’ she says.
‘About Mum’s fingerprints?’
‘Do you remember I told you we were checking to see if it had ever been fired? Truth is, I didn’t think anything would come of it. Except the gun has definitely been shot at least once.’
‘When?’
The officer rocks on her heels and looks from side to side as if to make sure there’s nobody else around. ‘Do you remember a few years ago, there was someone shot outside a cinema? There was confusion over what happened? This was the gun that was used.’
I open my mouth to reply but just about stop myself. Because I do remember that gunshot and the confusion. I remember it so clearly because, at the time somebody was being shotoutsidethe cinema, Faith and I were sitting together inside.
TWENTY-FIVE
Weddings are usually split, with different sides of the ceremony for guests of the bride and groom. I don’t think funerals are supposed to be like that but, somehow, Dad’s is.
My brother has monopolised one side of the hall, along with people who knew our dad when he was married the first time. The divide is unquestionably slightly older but there’s also something less subtle. The suits are better tailored, the dresses nicer. Other than the front row, there’s no set seating, yet that’s how people have placed themselves anyway. It’s not a huge crowd but there are around forty people across the two sides of the crematorium’s main room. Most are people I directly invited, though a handful likely saw the notice in the paper or on Facebook.
I tug at my dress, which is uncomfortable across the shoulders. I can’t remember buying it and am not sure why I picked it. Despite the funeral plans, I’d somehow forgotten myself when it came to the actual event.
‘Are you all right?’ Faith asks. She’s demure and beautiful; and it’s impossible not to sense a role reversal as she continually checks in on me. I tell her I am and she asks if it’s all right togo and talk to Shannon. It is, of course, so she drifts to the side where she instantly huddles with her friend.
I’m left near the back of the hall welcoming the latecomers, listening to the drab, flat background music that Dad would have hated. He was never one for these mawkish moments. It’s not that he’d hunt out happier alternatives, simply that he’d pretend such gloom wasn’t happening. The room is everything he wasn’t: inoffensively offensive with its bland beige.
A woman comes in who seems to know me. She says all the right things: sorry to hear what happened, hopes I’m all right, love to Faith… all that. I have no idea who she is as she trots across to Peter’s side of the room and says hello to someone there. Dad once told me he’d reached the age where he only ever got invited to two things: funerals or prostate exams. ‘Dunno which one I prefer,’ he added.
I think of that now until I realise someone’s at my side. I’ve not seen Nicola since the lunch with her mother. After that, she told her father she was worried about me, although I sort of expected it.
Her mum is at her side, wearing a slinky black dress as if she’s off to a Halloween ball. ‘Such a shame you had to rush away from lunch the other day,’ she says, making it sound an awful lot like it wasn’t a shame.
‘How was the wine?’ I ask, almost laughing as she reels slightly. She quickly slips into a smile. ‘Lovely, of course. We’ll have to do something again soon: the girls all together.’ It’s all fake, all surface. ‘While I’m here, I thought I should apologise for if I came across as rude the other day,’ she adds.
The classic non-apology apology. Sorry if you were offended and all that.
‘It’s no problem,’ I reply, even though itwas.
‘Lovely,’ she replies, before turning to Nicola and widening her eyes, making it very clear for whom the apology was given.‘I suppose I’ll take my seat,’ she adds – before trotting off to join her husband.
