Page 50 of The Alpha Escort Agency
But he doesn’t, and she helps her mum into the car, her eyes wide with the shell-shock that has gripped her for the last ten days. A paralysis that has left her barely functioning and crippled with indecision. It had been Alice that had rung the undertakers, Alice that had arranged the funeral, Alice who’d waded through paper work, bank accounts, insurance policies, house deeds and the will.
All of that while struggling to hold them all together. Forcing her mum out of bed and into the shower, reminding her to eat. Encouraging Bea off to school where the teachers and her friends could provide her with the comfort her mum couldn’t.
The drive to the church is a blur, the windows misted with condensation, and raindrops running trails down the outsides. Vaguely, she registers the few people out on the street, hoods pulled over their heads, faces hidden behind umbrellas, stop and stand as they pass behind the hearse and on the road the other traffic halts. The faces she sees in random flashes are solemn, one elderly man knocking the cap off his head and holding it to his chest, his head bowed.
She can’t look anymore after that and stares instead at the back of the undertaker's head, examining the collar of his black wool coat, the shoulder splattered with raindrops. Then the car is curling up the hill to the church; somewhere they only ever went on Christmas Eve, somewhere she’d never imagined he’d want to be buried. The graveyard circles the tall church, encased by a wall, a gate marking the entrance. The few trees that rise between the gravestones are bare skeletons, their branches spindly fingers that crisscross above their heads as they follow the coffin along the gravel pathway, the wet stones crunching beneath their feet, and into the cavernous space of the church.
It’s cold and unwelcoming inside. Not somewhere her Dad belongs. There’s no colour apart from the flowers on the coffin, and the gold glinting on the large cross behind the altar. She shivers, screwing up her brow and forcing her body not to shake, the deep aroma of incense invading her nose, the smell of damp and dust too.
There are more faces she glimpses as they walk down the aisle, she knows they are familiar, yet her brain won’t identify them and she doesn't study their features — they’re too sad. Her mum’s grip on her hand tightens with every step closer to the front pew, and the coffin is slid into place before the altar. She slips onto her seat, noting the tears that stream down her sister’s plump cheeks.
The funeral passes in another blur and, before she realises it, they’re back out in the rain, watching as the men lower the coffin into the freshly dug grave, her heels sinking into the sopping grass. She can’t think about him in that box, freezing and all alone, a man who craved company, who loved noise and adventure. She tells herself he’s in another place. Perhaps she doesn’t believe in heaven or an afterlife, but as she crumbles the muddy earth on the lid of the coffin, she feels it strongly inside her that he can’t be here.
Then it’s over and she’s following the small form of her sister towards the car, weaving around the gravestones, the lettering worn away by the years of wind and weather. She’s halfway there when she notes her mum’s absence. Her hands are empty, hanging by her sides. She swings her head about, searching through the crowd of people heading out of the graveyard, not finding her, and then stopping.
She doesn't want to turn back and look out towards where they’ve just laid him, but her instinct tells her that’s where her mum is. So she twists cautiously.
The graveyard is empty now except for the heavy presence of the grey stones, and her Mum, a lone figure against the dull sky, head bowed, staring into the rectangular hole.
And in that moment, she makes her plan. A plan that will ensure she’ll never find herself deserted like that.
Chapter 14
His photographs are stacked on the floor, already removed from the walls and rolled into cupboard tubes. Hugo spots him from the other side of the gallery as he comes through the door and walks towards him. He wears wireless spectacles and his greying hair is wild about his head..
“Hi there, Rory,” he says, shaking his hand. “Great night last night. Definitely interested in some more of your photos.”
“Thank you.” Some of the other paintings have already been removed from the walls as well, and there are various crates and boxes piled around the wooden floor. The ones that remain are nothing like his photos; bright splashes of colour assaulting the canvases. “Can I ask you a question? And do you think you would mind giving me an honest answer?”
He promised Alice he would ask. If there is another way, a way he can be with her, he’s willing to take it.
He knows it’s more than the thought of him being with other women, though her jealousy, her protectiveness, is almost pleasing to him. There was something else unsaid under the surface, he could almost hear it struggling to break through. It’s the nature of the work. The associations attached to it. The reason he’s never told his nan and his grandad how he makes his money.
He needs to find a new way to earn a living, a decent living.
Hugo slides his glasses up onto the crown of his head and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Can I make any money from this?” He plunges his hands into his pockets and waits with bated breath.
The other man plucks at the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt and considers him. “You’re never going to make a fortune from it, if that’s what you mean. I know very few artists these days who are earning a full time living. Most of them are supplementing it with side gig — web design, interior design, that kind of thing.”
Rory nods solemnly. “That’s what I thought.”
“I wouldn’t let it put you off. Your photographs are very good and we had interest in your work last night. I said I’d be honest and I’d tell you if I thought you were wasting your time completely.” He scoops down and picks up a piece of scrap paper from the floor. “You could do a bit of commercial photography as well as your compositions. I know plenty of photographers making decent money that way — especially in the wedding business.”
“That’s what Alice said.” He picks up one of the cupboard tubes and twists it in his hands.
“Ahhh yes, Alice. She has good business sense, that one.” Hugo slips his glasses back down onto his nose. “Send me more of your stuff.”
“I will. I think I’m going to try and make a go of this.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
He shakes Hugo's hand again, places the tube into the box with the others, picks it up and steps outside, a sense of anticipation brewing, like he's stepping, not onto the pavement, but into a new stage of his life.
Halfway down the street, his phone begins to buzz in his pocket and he shifts the box to one arm to fish the mobile out.
It’s his grandad. Rory had bought them a mobile phone a couple of years ago for emergencies and for the internet, but he could count the number of times they’ve used it to get in contact on the fingers of one hand. He stops and accepts the call, his blood racing in his ears.
