Page 10 of The Fall-Out

As we approached the doors, a long, shiny black vehicle pulled up outside the church.

‘Oh my God,’ Kate muttered. ‘I can’t watch this bit. Let’s go in and leave the boys to do their thing.’

‘Let’s,’ I agreed, reaching over to squeeze her hand. It was icy cold.

‘Are you worried about your reading?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘That’ll be fine. I’m scared of lots of things, but not that. It’s just… you know.’

‘Everything,’ said Abbie.

‘Yeah.’ Kate sighed. ‘That. It’s fucking grim, isn’t it?’

‘All of it,’ agreed Rowan.

‘Mostly not seeing him again, ever,’ said Abbie. ‘I mean, that’s been a done deal for a while, obviously. But this kind of makes it official.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

‘Then we can go and get drunk.’ Kate managed a smile.

And so, at least, we were all half-smiling when we entered the church and found seats near the front, a pew to ourselves, guarded by Ryan.

I hugged him briefly. ‘Don’t drop the coffin.’

‘We should’ve let Patch carry it on his own,’ he whispered, then turned and walked back down the aisle, towards the waiting hearse.

I could barely watch as the wooden box containing what was left of our friend was carried on the shoulders of my husband and the other men to its place by the altar. Each breath I took felt painful, as if my body was resisting being alive. When Patch, his duty performed, slid in next to me and took my hand, the relief was overwhelming.

I focussed my eyes on the brim of Andy’s mother’s black hat in front of me, but I could still see the coffin, topped with a wreath of violet orchids. And beyond that, the pale, grave face of the vicar – his funeral face, I supposed, perfected by years of practice.

He intoned a few words of welcome, something about brothers and sisters and the memory of a life well lived, then the organist began to play Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, and everyone stood up and sang as best they could.

Then Matt, looking taller and more stooped than ever, slipped out from the end of the pew and walked to the lectern, white-faced. Abbie had told us he’d wrestled for hours over his eulogy, and in the end it was briefer than it was meant to be, because he started to cry and couldn’t stop.

And then it was Kate’s turn. Looking almost regal, her chin held high and her eyes dry, she walked gracefully to the place where Matt had stood, cleared her throat and began to recite.

When I come to the end of the road

And the sun has set for me

Her voice was perfect – low and slow and carrying, each word seeming to come out exactly as the poet had intended it to sound. She carried on through the first stanza and second, unfaltering.

And then something weird happened. At first I thought it was to do with the acoustics in the church, but seconds before everything had been fine. Then I wondered if Kate had rigged up a recording of the poem and was reading along to it through an earpiece, which had malfunctioned somehow.

But the echo wasn’t coming from the front of the church. There was another voice, almost but not quite in time with Kate’s, saying the words.

For this is a journey we all must take

And each must go alone.

It's all part of the…

I couldn’t help it – I craned my neck and looked behind me. And there she was, silhouetted in the doorway against the winter sky. Although I hadn’t heard her voice for several years, it was instantly recognisable, carrying through the space as clearly as the clock that had chimed midday a few minutes before. Although the veil on her hat half-obscured her face, it couldn’t hide the way the light from the stained-glass windows reflected off her hair, creating green and purple highlights on the jet black. Even the sound of her heels, like twin drums on the stone floor, was familiar.

It was Zara.

FIVE

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