Page 85 of Birds of a Feather

‘Every event is fancy-dress with this lot,’ I replied.

‘Mum,’ I called out. ‘Can you come out here, please? There’s someone I want you to meet.’

Mum stuck her head out of her bedroom door. Mercifully, she was fully dressed.

‘Mum. This is Nick.’

‘Nick? Oh, Nick. As in, Nick.’

‘Yes,’ I replied, willing my reddening cheeks to calm.

‘A-ha. What a lovely surprise that you’re here, Nick. Welcome. Did you say hi to your dad on the way in?’

‘No – not yet,’ I replied.

‘THORN.’ Her tone was uncharacteristically shrill. ‘Can you come in here, please?’

Dad appeared at the front door looking flustered, as Jarrah re-emerged from her room. This had become a 360-degree onslaught.

‘Thorn, look! Nick’s here. You know, Gerry’s great-nephew. The Nick that Beth spent time with while she was in London.’

She smiled maniacally.

‘Terrific to meet you, mate,’ Dad said, extending his hand to shake Nick’s, seemingly less phased at his presence than Mum and Jarrah. I was grateful that Dad was behaving as normally as could be expected. ‘So you’re the reason Bethie returned from London with a smile as big as a Cheshire Cat?’

I willed the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

‘Sorry about earlier,’ Jarrah said, sidling into the cramped space in the hallway that was filled with far too many people. ‘I didn’t know we had company. It’s nice to meet you, Nick. Although now you’ve seen me in my bra, we can probably do away with the pleasantries.’

‘Jesus, what did I miss?’ Dad asked.

‘Okay, okay,’ I hissed, shooing everyone back. ‘Let’s give him a bit of space. Can we at least invite him into the house before we send him fleeing back out into the street?’

‘You’re right,’ said Mum, looping her arm through Nick’s and steering him towards the kitchen. ‘Now tell me, Nick, how long are you staying?’

‘Mum, go easy,’ I pleaded. ‘Besides, we have to get going soon.’

Chapter 38

Beth

We had opted to drive ourselves to the funeral, refusing Nora the funeral director’s offer to organise a limo. We were perfectly capable of driving ourselves, we thought. And turning up in an ostentatious fuel-guzzler seemed at odds with the environmentally friendly, modest but tasteful farewell we’d organised for Gran.

However, after Elijah discovered he had barely enough petrol to get him to the nearest service station, let alone the funeral, and six sets of keys to three different cars had disappeared from the face of the Earth, we all regretted our decision. When Nora said ‘the last thing you want to be worried about is whether you’ll get held up by road works or where to park the car’, she had obviously assumed my family were capable of first getting their cars out of the driveway.

We loaded as much of the music gear as we could into my car, which Dad and Elijah drove ahead to the cemetery so they could begin setting up. The rest of us followed in an Uber. Wedging Nick in between Mum and Jarrah in the back of a car was definitely a way to expedite the ‘getting to know the family’ segment of our relationship.

After a tense journey that was indeed delayed by road works, we pulled up to the chapel to find Nora anxiously pacing the threshold.

‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ she said breathlessly. ‘We only have an hour before the next funeral begins, and they need time to change over the flowers between services. We have to get moving.’

I scoffed at her lack of compassion.

‘They’re not my rules, of course,’ she offered quickly by way of defence. ‘They run a tight ship here.’

We entered the chapel to find a smattering of wellwishers seated already. Dad and Elijah were connecting amps and arranging microphones on the stage next to a giant portrait of Gran that was balanced on an easel. My breath caught in my throat as my eyes landed on her coffin. Of course, I knew it would be there; I had been part of the committee that chose it. But to actually see it, knowing her body was inside it, rattled my already tenuous state.

Seeing her hat perched on the coffin, next to the bunch of flowers that contained some cuttings from her garden, brought me to tears. I felt Nick’s hand depress the small of my back as a moist sob escaped my body.

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