I Remember You (31 page)

‘I keep thinking about her,’ Ron said after a while. ‘You see, we had words, when we was out in Italy. She had something on me.’ He paused, as if he would say more. Mick said nothing. ‘Well,’ Ron went on, almost defiantly. ‘She was an evil old woman, I don’t care what anyone says. She was stirring up trouble, she was on that trip so we couldn’t have the hearing about the water meadows. She knew what we was
all saying about her. It’s like she didn’t care!’ He looked up at Mick, mystified. ‘I don’t think she cared if we hated her. It’s strange, isn’t it?’

‘It is strange,’ said Mick.

‘And she weren’t being nice to young Tess Tennant—to be honest, poor Tess didn’t know if she were coming or going with that one. She’d look at her, I’d see her, like she wanted to—’ He shivered. ‘I don’t know. Nasty woman.’

‘Ron,’ Mick said sternly, but Ron shook his head.

‘It’s just—we were there when she had the—the stroke, me and Andrea. And I feel responsible. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t wish harm on her, you know that.’

‘Course I do,’ said Mick. ‘It’s a strange situation, though, all the same.’

Ron looked up at him. ‘What, with young Adam Smith? Strange? I should say so. Who was the father? Does anyone know that?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘Me neither,’ Ron said incoherently. ‘Whoever he was, he was a brave man, that’s all I can say. Wonder if Adam knows?’

‘Think he’s had enough secrets to keep these last few years,’ Mick said.

‘Suppose so.’ Ron wasn’t convinced. ‘Still, what’s he doing, hiding that little fact all these years, eh?’

‘I don’t blame him,’ Mick said solidly. ‘I’d keep it to myself, too.’

‘Well, maybe,’ said Ron. ‘Only now it’s worked out pretty well for him, hasn’t it?’

‘Hey, there, Mick, you in there?’ A sluggish voice called in to him through the windows.

Mick put out his hand, to silence his companion. ‘Yep,’ Mick said loudly. ‘That you, Suggs?’

‘Yep,’ said Suggs. ‘I just wanted to check, mate. Do you want me on Friday or not? Thought I’d best make sure.’

‘Not,’ said Mick. ‘I thought you was coming in Saturday and Sunday, that all right?’

‘No problems,’ said Suggs. He peered in through the window, leaning on the old settle and squinting while his eyes adjusted. ‘Thought I’d best check, what with everything. Who’s that? That you, Ron?’

‘Yep,’ said Ron. ‘ ‘Ullo, Suggsy.’

‘I’ll come in, then,’ said Suggs and, with miraculous ease, he vaulted through the open window and onto the settle, jumping down on the floor. ‘You got any coffee going?’

‘Too hot for coffee,’ Ron said moodily.

Mick indicated with his head. ‘Back in the kitchen, mate. Help yourself.’

‘Thanks, Mick.’ Suggs disappeared into the kitchen, whistling loudly, and Ron turned back to Mick.

‘All I’m saying is,’ he said, ‘that Adam Smith’s gone from having no money, no job, nothing—’

‘Hang on a second,’ Mick said lightly. ‘He works here, that’s a job!’

‘You know what I mean,’ Ron said. ‘He’s gone from having nothing to…well, the man’s a millionaire now, inn’ee? Must be. All just because of a bit of luck with his parents.’

Mick stared at him. ‘I wouldn’t call it luck,’ he said, as Suggs came back in. ‘I’d call that proper bad luck, if you ask me.’

‘That’s better,’ Suggs said, flopping happily down at the bar next to Ron. He took a gulp of coffee. ‘I was up a bit late last night, drinking with Adam. Got a bit of a headache this morning, you know.’ He looked up. ‘What’s bad luck?’

‘That’s who we were just talking about,’ Mick said, and Ron had the grace to look slightly ashamed. ‘Adam, and his news.’

Suggs nodded, and wiped his mouth. ‘Well, like I said to him, if you’re going to get money who cares how it comes to you, long as it’s legal? I don’t think he feels the same way
though.’ He stared ruminatively into his mug. ‘Poor bugger, you know. He’s got a lot to deal with.’

‘Like what?’ said Ron, more curiously than anything else.

‘Like, tonnes of crap that’s been chucked on him. Getting that body back from Italy—well, that’s been a right horror story, you wouldn’t believe it.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor sod. And the meetings with the solicitors, and the land people—’

‘About the estate?’ Mick said.

‘All of that stuff. Then there’s the water meadows, the people who bought the land, they want to start building straight away, and he’s got to deal with them about it—’

‘What?’ Ron said. ‘So—so he’s really going ahead with it, then? He’s going to let them build? After all that?’

Suggs looked at him. ‘That’s what he says, Ron.’ He made a face. ‘But poor bugger, like I say. He’s got enough on his plate without me diving in and having words with him.’ Ron opened his mouth. Suggs said firmly, ‘Not right now, Ron. Still, now the body’s coming back, and the will’s being read and all, and the funeral’s happening, he can start to sort it all out.’

‘The funeral?’ said Mick, as Ron simulaneously cried, ‘What?’

‘That’s why I wanted to check if you needed an extra hand here on Friday,’ said Suggs. ‘I’m sorry, Mick, I thought he was going to call you. Funeral’s been fixed for Friday, three o’clock at the church.’

‘My goodness,’ said Mick. ‘So—right. So it’s finally happening.’

Suggs said, ‘You know what, Mick? I reckon you’ll have a full house in here afterwards.’

‘Yup,’ Mick said, nodding grimly. ‘Poor lad.’

‘It’ll be a busy day for you, Mick,’ Ron said with relish. ‘There’ll be a lot of people wanting a drink after that funeral’s over, I’m telling you.’

Mick looked around the deserted pub. ‘Reckon you’re right,’
he said. ‘Well, let’s be having it, then.’ He was adding barrels up in his mind; his eye scanned the shelves for gin and vodka; his lips moved as he tried to remember the last time they’d got more white wine in. He clapped his hands together. ‘We’ll make sure there’s enough beer for everyone. Let them come.’

‘Christian, dost thou see them, on the holy ground?

How the troops of Midian, prowl and prowl around?

Christian, up and smite them, counting gain but loss;

Smite them by the merit of the holy cross!’

‘Are they all going to be like that?’ Francesca whispered to Tess, after the first hymn was over. ‘I feel like I’m in a Victorian novel.’

Tess wiped her forehead as she sat down. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘In fact, it’s probably going to get worse.’

St Mary’s was airless; the lilies decorating the altar and the coffin were wilting, their perfume overpowering, sickly. The congregation, dressed in sombre colours, was weary, the atmosphere oppressive.

Francesca and Tess were at the back of the packed church. They had escorted Miss Store, their neighbour, to the funeral. Miss Store was in her eighties, nearly blind, and sported an impressive moustache and beard. She had been a maid at Langford Hall from when she was a young girl until the house was sold in 1960 and, as she said to Tess, when she came round to ask if she and Francesca would take her to the funeral, ‘I feel I should, my dear. After all, she was a difficult woman, but that father of hers was a monster. And I feel that
someone from the Hall should be there, to pay their respects.’

Tess and Francesca had said of course they’d take her. Apart from anything else, as Tess said to Miss Store, it gave them a cast-iron excuse to go to the funeral. They weren’t sure, either of them, whether it was appropriate for them to go—was it a small, private funeral? Adam had said not, but Adam didn’t say much else, either. They would set out early, to get a good seat, so Miss Store could see what was going on.

But, though the funeral was due to start at three, and the girls and Miss Store arrived just before half past two, they were astonished to find the church already packed, and by the time the service started, it was standing room only, with about thirty people crammed at the back, some standing on the steps of the font to get a better look. It seemed virtually everyone in Langford wanted to be able to say,
I was there
. Rumours, since the date of the funeral had been confirmed only a few days before, were running at fever pitch.

It was the bug-eyed fascination Tess found so—distasteful, almost. The fact that she could walk down the street with Francesca and—as had happened a couple of weeks ago—someone on the other side of the street could nudge their friend and hiss, ‘Hey—that’s her. Francesca something. That’s Adam Smith’s girlfriend. I wonder what she—’ and then trail off, their voices disappearing into nothing under the glare of the girls’ annoyed stares.

Looking around her as the first hymn ended, Tess was glad of their position in the church, now. At least here, right at the back, they were relatively free from prying eyes.

‘And now,’ the Reverend Joanna Forster said, the acoustics muffled by the sheer number of bodies sweltering in front of her, ‘Now we will have our first reading, from St Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. And this will be read by Clive Donaldson.’

The Mortmain solicitor, a thin, scholarly-looking man, strode up to the lectern and smoothed the great Bible, adorned with
the Mortmain coat of arms. He looked up and at the front pew, where Adam sat with Jean Forbes, Diana Sayers, and Carolyn Tey. He cleared his throat, and then began.

‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.’

‘For as in Adam all die?’ Francesca hissed loudly to Tess. ‘Is she having a laugh? What the hell does that mean?’

‘No hell in church, please,’ Tess said primly, as a tweedy gentleman in the row in front turned around and gave Francesca a quelling glance.

‘Seriously,’ her housemate said moodily. ‘This is not on. This is a joke. Who picked this stuff?’ She stared out, across the massed ranks of Langford inhabitants, down the aisle to where Adam sat. Tess followed her gaze, trying to extract some information from the back of Adam’s head as to his emotional state. ‘This place,’ Francesca said. ‘This place is fricking crazy.’

The truth was, neither of them knew very much about what was going on behind the scenes, and it showed. Since her return from Rome, Tess had seen Adam only a couple of times. She had texted him—
You will let me know if there’s anything I can do? I mean it. Genuine offer
.—and had heard nothing back. He had been away a lot, out of the country, in meetings. As the weeks of waiting for Leonora’s body to be released from the hospital in Rome passed, she thought how flimsy that offer sounded—there wasn’t anything she could do, was there? She wasn’t an Italian bureaucrat, or a diplomat at the British Embassy.

She had seen Adam in the pub one evening when she was meeting Liz for a drink, and had said, ‘Hey—if you want Peter to do anything out there, you know he’d be happy to go and talk to someone—’

‘Peter? Why?’

‘Well—’ Tess was flustered. Saying Peter’s name, back in Langford, was a luxury. She missed him, and Rome, with an aching pain. She wanted to bridge the gap that had now sprung up between them. ‘He’s there. That’s all. I knew he’d—’

Adam had held his hand up, politely but firmly. ‘Thanks, T. That’s really kind of you, but it’s fine. Thank you.’

‘So are you planning the funeral?’ she had asked boldly. ‘If you want me to help—’

‘It’s all written out,’ he’d said. ‘There are instructions. So I don’t have to do anything. No one does. We just have to wait for the body to get back here. Thanks, though.’ He had smiled briefly but kindly, and turned back to his conversation about the cricket with Suggs, who was behind the bar that night, leaving Tess with the distinct impression that a door had been gently but firmly shut in her face.

There are instructions
. She knew now, from Diana, that there were indeed instructions, typed out, kept in the Tey & Donaldson safe along with the will. The instructions for the exact funeral service Leonora Mortmain wanted, down to the layout of the order of service. And the will to be read after she had been committed to the ground, in the family vault by the church.

Reverend Forster stood up, and looked around. ‘The next reading is from Job, chapter nineteen, verse twenty-five:

‘For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.’

By this time, the congregation was growing restless. There were a lot of hell and brimstone Biblical warnings about death, and not nearly enough eulogies or dramatic revelations. When was Adam going to get up and give an impassioned plea for mercy on the soul of his long-lost, dead grandmother? When was he going to say, ‘Drinks for all, on me! And the water meadows plan—that’s gone away!’

Some people were saying that Adam was no better than his grandmother. There was something about the secrecy of it all that made people uneasy. No smoke without fire, they said. Tess had heard Ron saying to Andrea, a couple of days before in the post office, ‘There’s something fishy going on, you mark my words. Why hasn’t he said anything about it all, eh? I don’t trust him, you know. I think he’ll turn out to be no better than his grandmother.’

Tess wanted to hit him.
No better than his grandmother
. What about his mother, what about Philippa? No one mentioned her in all this, it was all about the legacy, the Mortmains, the secrecy…No one said, He lost his mum, he never knew his dad, give him a break! And no one knew what had happened, either.

The temperature was rising inside the old building, it seemed. It wasn’t even sunny outside; the sky was thick that day with dirty clouds that seemed to press down on the town and the surrounding hills. Tess looked anxiously at Miss Store, who was breathing in a rather wheezy way. ‘Are you all right?’ she said softly.

‘Yes, dear,’ Miss Store said perkily, looking up at her. ‘Oh, it’s a good send-off, isn’t it! What’s next?’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Tess, looking down at her order of service. She smothered a smile with her hand. ‘I don’t think I can take much more of this.’

‘And now,’ Reverend Forster said, ‘before our final reading, we will sing one more hymn, “The Sun is Sinking Fast”.’

The congregation sighed heavily, and stood up. Miss Store
was at the end of the pew, next to the aisle, and Tess was next to her. As Tess helped Miss Store to her feet, biting her lip, suddenly overwhelmed by the surreal absurdity of the situation, she looked up to find Adam turning round, staring at her. He gave the ghost of a smile, and turned back almost immediately, but she knew what he was thinking. She looked down at her order of service, trying not to smile, as the organ started playing the dirge-like tune.

‘The sun is sinking fast, the daylight dies; let love awake, and pay her evening sacrifice.’

Tess glanced at Francesca a few times during the hymn, to see if she was all right. She was more aware, today, of Francesca’s outsider status than she had been. And she was slightly envious of it. Francesca seemed taller, more confident, more herself these past few weeks than she had before.

There was a curious constraint between them now; as if something had changed. A few days after Tess had come back from Italy, she had arrived home from the college to find Francesca in her usual position on the sofa. But she had been crying, Tess knew.

‘Is everything…OK?’ Tess had asked her, almost timidly, offering her a glass of wine.

‘Sure!’ Francesca had said brightly. ‘Yep. Everything’s
great.
’

Tess had been wanting to ask this since she’d come back; now seemed the perfect time. ‘How have things been with you and Adam?’

‘Good, good,’ said Francesca, faux-enthusiastically. She reached forward for the bowl of crisps. ‘Yeah, great. You know, we broke up and got back together and it was great. Until he went away and didn’t say why, and I find out it’s because he’s got a secret family I know nothing about. Yeah, totally brilliant.’

‘It’s been weird for him,’ Tess said loyally, but then she
thought of Adam’s hard, cruel face as he taunted her about Peter.
He’s not offering you a future. He’s offering you a distraction from the past, and that’s not the same thing.

Perhaps it was true. Was it? She just didn’t know, now she was back here. What had seemed so simple and straightforward in Rome was anything but. Her heart contracted, as it did whenever she remembered Peter. When would she see him again? He was so far away. ‘I’m sure he hasn’t been deliberately lying to you,’ she said. ‘No one knew.’

‘I know,’ said Francesca. ‘It’s just it makes me think about what I’m doing here.’

‘Really? How?’ said Tess.

Francesca drank some wine. ‘Well. You know, in my old job?’

Tess nodded encouragingly, though she wasn’t sure what the question was. ‘Mmm.’

‘Well, in my old life, really.’ Francesca blinked. ‘I was so busy, and I hated it, and it was so stressful, in a suit, barking orders, watching as millions of pounds went down the tubes—when they made me redundant, I wasn’t one of those people who lost her identity, I really thought,
Hurrah
. But you know what I miss most of all about it?’

‘No,’ said Tess, curious.

‘The order. Having a place in society,’ Francesca said. ‘I hated school, hated the structure. But I loved my job for the same reason. I liked knowing where I was in the ant colony. This is where I work, that’s the cafeteria I eat my lunch in, here’s the bar next door where I go and get twatted with all the other bankers because they’re the only people I have time to hang out with.’

She sounded desolate.

Tess nodded. ‘I guess…’ she said, uneasily. ‘But you can’t live like that for ever.’

‘No, and I couldn’t have done it for much longer. But my point is, I thought I hated it, that I needed to get totally away
from it, but actually I think we all need some structure.’ She blinked, and threw a section of her hair behind her shoulder. ‘A plan. I—I need to be doing something. We both do.’

Tess didn’t know whom she meant by ‘both’. Her and Francesca, or Adam and Francesca? She was about to ask, but Francesca’s phone had rung; she’d picked it up. ‘Yep. Yep. Sure. About twelve? Fine.’

She’d put the phone down and gone back to reading her magazine.

‘That Adam?’ Tess had asked curiously.

‘Yep,’ Francesca had said. ‘He’ll be round after his shift’s over.’

This was how it worked, now, and this was why she never saw Adam. His relationship with Francesca these days seemed to be only about sex. And it was weird. Really weird. It reminded her of that summer they’d had together, though she would never say so to anyone else.

In bed, gazing out at the night sky through the too-small curtains that never quite drew shut, Tess would hear him arrive, let himself in, and go upstairs to Francesca’s room. She could hear them, though she tried not to: she could hear the bed creaking loudly, Francesca crying out and occasionally Adam too, and she found it upsetting, she didn’t know why, not for what one might think were the obvious reasons but because there was something so desperate and undercover about it.

In the mornings, he was always gone—she was usually up around seven and Adam was never there. Once, coming up for three weeks since Leonora had died, when there was no news, Tess had heard him arrive late, after midnight. It was a particularly sultry, airless night and she had got up at three in the morning to get some water. Tiptoeing silently across the uneven floorboards to the bathroom, she saw Francesca’s bedroom door was wide open, with Francesca asleep, alone. He had been there for less than three hours. It wasn’t just
once or twice, either. It was at least four times a week, so that she got used to it, though she never saw him.