The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (7 page)

“Just get through today. Just today,” he thinks.

He feels Ed’s hand on his shoulder and a whisper in his ear. “Time to go, Jim-boy.”

He nods, thankful for the darkness to be blown away, even for a few moments. Glad to have his best friend there, though anxious about what will happen once Ed and Jacks have gone. Jim and Patty have so few people in their lives. Their parents have gone. No brothers or sisters to lean on, no nieces and nephews to get caught up with. Jim and Patty are only children who had an only child. Why had that happened?

They could all have fitted in one car, but the funeral directors sent two. So Ed and Jacks travel in one long black car and Jim, Patty and Tom in the other. The trinity of the pained. Jim likes the speed the horses move at, slower than slow. He sees drivers fume all around, dying to honk and swerve round the cortège—but unable to cross that Rubicon of disrespect.

The three of them sit in their snail of a car, watching the horses draw the casket forward. All is silent, except for raspy breaths from Patty, a side effect of the sedatives. Jim sneaks a sidelong look at his wife. Her eyes are glassy, her mind trapped somewhere in an amber of Valium and God-knows-what. This fact makes his stomach lurch and anger fizz deep in his empty belly. She was meant to have been off the strongest drugs for today, the doctors had promised him that she would be awake. But this morning there had been “an episode.” That was what the nurse had called it. She’d shot Patty up with something “to calm her.” Zombify her, more like.

“She will hate me for this,” he thinks. He already hates himself. But he doesn’t have the strength to tell everyone to go home. He needs today to break the pressure of the storm that’s built over them. He needs to see others who loved her, Dani’s friends. So many of them have called, written and even knocked on the door. That has moved him so much. And, most important, Jim needs to remember the girl he raised and loved above all others, to remember her how she was. Not as the lifeless, defiled body he saw in the morgue.

When they arrive Reverend Chapman is waiting for them. He has the whitest teeth Jim ever remembers seeing. Jim dislikes him
intensely. Reverend Chapman never knew Dani, feels no real sympathy but there aren’t many places where you can bury someone and seat two hundred mourners.

“Hypocrite fuck,” Jim whispers to himself.

He knows Patty would never have let God anywhere near their Dani. But she’s out of it and he had to make the decision. Alone.

Jim gets out of the car. Tom holds Patty until Jim’s ready, then between the two of them, they manhandle her out. Jim shakes the vicar’s hand.

“This is my wife, Patricia.”

“I am so sorry for your loss.” He holds her arm for a second, squeezing—then he lets her go.

“This is Police Constable Thomas Bevans.” Jim pauses for a second. “He was Dani’s boyfriend.”

It’s a kind lie. Tom feels his gut clench and his eyes turn gritty. He takes the clergyman’s hand.

“I am so sorry.” The white teeth gleam.

They walk through the vestry. The walls are covered in photos, snapshots of Dani. Notes pinned to them, flowers and jewelry scattered all over.

“Your daughter was loved.”

Jim nods. Love. He thinks of his mother.

On an easel outside the chapel Jim sees his mother’s photograph, and underneath it reads: G
RACE
L
ANCING
, 1901–1976. Eight-year-old Dani stands in front of it frowning and asks “Who’s that lady?”

“That’s Gran,” Jim answers.

She looks at him crossly and shakes her head. “That isn’t Gran, we’re at the wrong funeral. That’s some other lady. She isn’t old enough to die.”

Jim looks closely at the photo. It had been taken before he was born—his mother as a young woman, between the wars. She’d been picking hops in the country with her sister. Even in black and white he could see how healthy and fit she looked. Happy.

“It is Gran, just a long time ago, when she was young.”

“Oh. Olden times.” Dani nods sagely. “How old is she there?”

“Nineteen or twenty, I think.”

“Oh yes. That’s much too young to be dead.”

Reverend Chapman leads them out of the vestry and into the church. He nods across to the organist who strikes up “Nearer My God to Thee.” Jim looks across at him angrily; he’d said no hymns, no church music. Chapman does not meet his gaze, instead he leads them into the center aisle and the four of them process toward the front pew.

They walk slowly, like the horses, and Jim looks out at the sea of faces. Students from Dani’s university have come by coach from Durham, organized by the students’ union. They sit together in a group. Already tears stream down faces and pretty blonde girls lean against each other, clutching hands and promising to stay in touch their whole lives, no matter what. Jim smiles at them even though he recognizes only two or three. In another group, closer to the front he recognizes most of the sixth form from Dani’s school and in another pew is the entire running team. He’s so deeply proud that Dani had been so popular. He can see them, there in the pews, sharing anecdotes and memories, tears and even some laughter. Halfway down, Jim suddenly realizes he will never lead his daughter down the aisle to be married. He stops dead.

Chapman sees Jim freeze, the color drain from his face and his legs start to shake. He immediately steps back and kindly but
firmly takes his arm and leads the three of them down to the front. He deposits them there, in the place of honor, then walks to center stage. He lets his eyes move across the congregation as the final lines of the hymn fall away. Then he walks across and lightly touches the casket, directly above where the head lies. It’s a small ritual of his—a final blessing for those he is about to deliver from this earth. It’s subtle but the families always like it: a little bit of theater that gives them permission to go up and touch the casket later, to say goodbye to the girl they loved. He knows how important that is, to release the grief and to stop any thought of the body inside—of the tests, the prodding and indignities that come with violent death. With rape and murder.

He looks down the aisles and sees the row after row of pretty young women whose thoughts must be so conflicted this morning. Anger, fear, grief and some guilt. Some part of them all must think—it wasn’t me, thank God it wasn’t me. But it was their friend. Toward the back there are men in uniform. Policemen of all rank from low to high. Some are there to support their colleague who has lost his young love. Others are there to be seen, a public act of contrition for their failure to find those responsible. Chapman finds it distasteful—the motives of these men are tainted. They are there for the press not the family. Then behind the uniformed men are the press. Again, a few are there to support a colleague and the mother of the murdered girl, yet most of the others are beasts full of the scent of blood. A photogenic, middle-class “good” girl missing for three weeks and found raped and murdered. Tabloid gold. He hopes they will behave—in church, at least. He looks back to the school friends, and then slowly onto the family.

It will be an emotional service and Chapman’s prepared. Large boxes of tissues have been placed at the end of every aisle and there are four professional grief counselors on hand for free
advice after the funeral—he’s pulled out all the stops to make this one work. After all, the press are here and so is the archbishop. This is bigger than the jockey and the serial bigamist combined. Showtime.

Reverend Chapman waves to someone at the back, and the sound of Siouxsie and the Banshees sweeps out from the speakers above the pulpit.

In the front pew Jim bows his head and pulls Patty close to him. Beside them, Tom Bevans’s heart breaks.

At the back of the church, someone slips in and stands behind a stone pillar, unseen by other mourners. Tears slide down his face. He knows he should not be there but can’t help himself—the pull is too strong.

“I am so sorry, Dani. I never meant …” His words are swept up in the howl of the Banshees.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Jim makes hot chocolate, piping-hot milk with heaps of dark cocoa. He pours two mugs and sets one on the table in front of her. The curling steam circles her face and seems to shift the lines, smudging her cheeks, turning her features to air.

“I think I can smell it.” She turns her face up to him, a huge smile.

“That’s great.” Jim beams back, though he knows it can’t be true. Maybe she’s remembering the scent—drawing on happy childhood winters or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking. He sips his own, it’s bitter with too much chocolate. He watches her—lost in thought somewhere.

Finally she snaps back. “How’s yours?” she asks.

“Oh it’s good. Really good. Especially on a day like today.”

She nods.

“How about we go for a walk in the park?”

She seems not to hear him at first, then responds slowly. “I’d like that.”

“Great.”

They sit together in silence, until his mug is empty and hers is stone-cold.

“I’ll run up and get something warmer.” He tells her, and heads upstairs.