Looking round helplessly for someone he knew, feeling dreadfully out of place, he saw Josh and, on the other side of the aisle, a wonderfully, gloriously familiar figure, her narrow coat in palest grey, with long straight brown hair, the sight of whom clutched at his heart and he stood, drinking her in for so long that a queue formed behind him, and one of the ushers came over and guided him very politely to a pew on the other side of the church, so that he could no longer see her. But it had been her, and the man beside her was most assuredly not The Man, for he was silver haired and far from thin. Comforted briefly, Julius settled to studying the order of service before wondering if The Man was sitting elsewhere. And then he read the order of service, delighted by the choice of music, the fact that Jillie was doing a reading, and especially the rather bold choice for the recessional.
Looking more furtively now at the people coming in, Julius saw a very beautiful woman he recognised from the pages of Vogue. She wore brilliant blue silk, and a wide-brimmed darker blue hat; huge dark glasses half obscured her lovely face, and she was holding the hand of a boy, aged about eight, with dark hair and huge brown eyes, followed closely by a heavily built man, with dark greying hair and the unmistakably, well-weathered looks of someone who spent his life outdoors. They were clearly important, inner circle, for they were being ushered right forward, near to where Jillie sat, and thus out of his sight. Following the usher also, another clearly important pair, she prettily dressed, but not fashionably so, with curly blonde hair and wide blue eyes, and he tall, extremely good-looking, with very dark auburn hair and wearing a dark suit, a little tight for his broad shoulders, but otherwise immaculate, apart from a small but distinct white stain on his left shoulder and down his back. Wendelien Bellinger, who was sitting behind him, caught the unmistakable whiff of baby sick.
Wendelien was sitting with the circle of friends that Ned had been part of from the very beginning – she and Ian, Ludo and Cecily, Michael Southcott and Betsey.
And once, when they were very young, Johnathan had been one of them as had Diana; but he belonged no more, removed from them both physically and emotionally. Wendelien had been fond of Johnathan, indeed they had had a very brief, summer-long fling when he was still a stockbroker and she had not yet met and fallen in love with Ian. She hadn’t seen him at all since Jamie, who looked a nice boy, had been born. It was odd, seeing him with Diana: a study in incompatibility, she so showy and glamorous, he so introverted and – well, dull.
The church was almost full now; a few anxious-faced latecomers crowding in at the back, no seats left. Goodness, Ned had had a lot of friends; although he had often seemed lonely, or at any rate solitary. She supposed the crowd was as much made up of people who admired him and felt they wanted to celebrate his life, as ordinary friends.
There was a diversion then. One of the funeral directors bustled in, went up to Persephone and whispered in her ear; she looked startled, turned to Jillie for a whispered conference, then turned back to the man and nodded and smiled and he bustled out again.
‘How strange,’ was all she said to Jillie, who nodded, puzzled too.
Almost still now, the congregation; everyone there. Scanning the latecomers, standing at the now-crowded back of the church, Wendelien suddenly saw a half-remembered face: who was it? She knew him, with his thick blonde hair, his rather heavy eyebrows: he saw her looking at him, and smiled – and she remembered, at once. They had been on the same table at a couple of charity dinners and she had found him rather charming. Leo Bennett. Why was he here? To bid farewell to Ned or to find Diana under cover of that? Had Diana seen him? Probably not; she did look genuinely and deeply upset, and Wendelien knew she was dreading her reading, afraid she would break down and not get through. Few people, Wendelien thought, would believe Diana capable of such frail emotion.
Diana was indeed seldom fearful, but now, holding Jamie’s hand, waiting trembling with anticipation, as Christian Greenfell’s splendid voice rang through the suddenly silent church: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life . . .’ and the congregation stood, and the coffin, slowly and with infinite care, was borne down the aisle.
She looked at the coffin, and thought of what it contained and tried and failed to believe it. Ned, beautiful, charming, brilliant Ned, who she had danced and laughed and talked with, who she had known for so long, who had loved her she truly believed in the end, although not as she would once have wished, but who had become one of her dearest, most best-beloved friends. How could this have happened, how could he have changed into something cold and still and silent, gone from her, from all of them? It wasn’t possible, it was a lie, a terrible, shocking, outrageous lie.
But – it seemed the truth; for the coffin had been set down, bearing its crown of white roses and trailing ivy. Only two of the coffin bearers were known to her – Ludo Manners and her brother, Michael Southcott. But then, two strangers, not William Curtis who she had expected, and who had come hurriedly, and taken his place with the family, but one a heavily built bruiser of a man, in an ill-fitting jacket, his face fierce with suppressed grief and pride: Jack Mills, father of the cheeky clever Susan, who had cystic fibrosis. And the fourth, a slight, dark young man, ashen pale, his eyes fixed straight ahead. And then – then she saw his grief-ravaged face, set determinedly, looking at no one, only the man before him, and she knew. It was Josh. Josh, as she had never seen him, white, stricken, his arm supporting the coffin trembling, but strong.
And at the same moment Jillie saw him, and in a huge, almost unbelievable moment of revelation, she understood it all, and stood there, staring, her eyes filled with tears of sympathy and love. How could they not have seen it, not understood; how hard for him it must have been, all of it, but especially her relationship with Ned, and how loving and how brave of him now to come, to have found the courage, to let them know, and to play his part in this farewell.
And now the first hymn, that well-worn, much-loved ‘Lord of All Hopefulness’, was announced and sung, and Diana, knowing she must, feeling she could not, was climbing the steps to the pulpit, to read.
She looked out over the congregation, her face quite calm now, and stood there, just for a moment, commanding their attention; and then half smiled and said, ‘Death is nothing,’ and her voice did tremble and she paused, clearly fighting for control. And then, more strongly, she read on: the lovely words of Henry Scott Holland, diminishing death, increasing hope:
‘Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you,
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we are still . . .’
Her voice was beautiful; low, musical, made more remarkable with just-suppressed grief.