Page 49 of The Tapes
I turn from Nicola and scan the room, wondering if Mum has somehow snuck in. Perhaps she’s one of those I don’t recognise. Not someone like Mary the estate agent, but a person who’s reinvented herself over the last thirteen years. Weight lost or gained, different hair.
Or maybe the Earring Killer is in the room. Mum claims to have known who it was, so perhaps they’re living in plain sight.
Everything feels possible and I find myself suspecting everyone.
Harriet is in the corner on my brother’s side of the room, head bowed underneath a large hat. She catches my eye, then turns away. I invited my father’s mistress, but no need for any of us to celebrate it. Allie Rowett is sitting on the opposite side, in the back row, a dark veil covering her face. She kept quiet when her husband assaulted me and the apology feels a little late now. Nicola’s parents are sitting directly in front of her but I can’t make eye contact with Kieron. I wonder whether he mentioned Mum’s cassette to any of his former colleagues, or if he truly believes it’s my attention-seeking voice on those tapes.
From nowhere, a man in a suit appears at our side. Nicola’s husband, Ethan, looks nervously between us. ‘How are youholding up?’ he asks, talking to me. It’s the same question on a loop.
‘As well as can be expected. Thank you for coming.’
‘It’s not a problem. Did Nic tell you I can’t hang around for the wake? I’m really sorry but I’ve got some appointments I couldn’t cancel.’
I tell him it’s fine and I appreciate the effort anyway. He smiles between us and then heads off to sit next to Nicola’s father.
Nicola watches him go. It feels as if she wants to complain about his job again, though it’s not that. ‘How can it be the same gun?’ she whispers. My friend is closer now and I can hear the uncertainty in her voice. Just like her father, she thinks I’m losing it.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘The police told me.’
‘Why’d they tell you? The gun was at mine.’
I realise she doesn’t know about Mum’s fingerprints. I haven’t told her and I suppose neither the police nor her father have. I could tell her.
I shouldn’t have started this conversation.
‘I suppose they put my name on the file,’ I say. ‘Or Faith’s. She called it in but she’s underage.’
I don’t know why I don’t tell her. It doesn’t feel right, somehow.
Nicola starts to say something then stops herself. ‘There are sometimes hikers in the trees,’ she says, although it doesn’t sound convincing. She quickly adds: ‘Isn’t it weird the police spoke to you, not me?’
I can’t answer that, not without saying Mum’s fingerprints were on the gun. The more I’ve said over the past few days, the more trouble I’ve caused.
Except it’s awkward. I’m still scanning the crowd, looking for my mother. She shot that gun two years ago, more than a decadeafter she disappeared. She knows who the Earring Killer is and has been hiding all this time.
‘Eve…’
Nicola touches my shoulder again and, when I turn to her, I feel the dribble from my nose. She finds a tissue and slips it to me as I dab the red. It’s been a long time since I had a nosebleed and Nicola’s attentive stare is filled with worry.
‘You should sit,’ she says.
I don’t argue and at least I’m out of the conversation I started. It’s becoming increasingly harder to maintain the veneer of being in control. I turn my back, trying to clean myself up, though when I look back to the front, I realise Nicola’s father has been watching. He already thinks I faked that tape, suspects I might be drinking again, now this.
Luckily, things are starting to move. The director emerges from a side room and gives a wave. I follow him to the front taking Faith with me, and then it’s real.
Peter reads a poem that our father would have hated, and then Faith has a Bible reading that was suggested by the funeral director. It doesn’t feel like Dad but then it was hard to come up with things he’d have actually liked for his send-off. There are two hymns he would’ve probably recognised, and then a final address from the director who says something about the dead living on in how we choose to remember them.
It isn’t a great funeral, certainly nothing memorable, although I know that’s all on me. Peter said he’d agree with whatever I wanted – and I more or less let the funeral director choose everything. Neither Peter nor I wanted to make these decisions, so perhaps we’re more alike than we admit.
I made my peace the first time I saw him with that waxy skin after the embalmer was done. Music plays and people stand as my father’s body passes behind the sheet at the back. Faith leans in to ask what happens next and I can’t answer. I think sheknows anyway. He’ll be burned and then we’ll get the ashes in a box.
That’s it.
One parent dead; the other who knows where.
The sheet closes and the gentle murmurs start as people head for the exit. I remain in my seat, clutching my daughter’s hand, sensing the wash of loneliness that I’m not sure will ever be fixed.
TWENTY-SIX
