He hadn’t been sure she’d turn up. Their phone conversation, the day the O.B. died, had been one of tortured small talk, “So apart from that, how are you?” being his mother’s most memorable contribution. She was currently ‘wintering’ in Brighton, a term he’d only heard her use in Mediterranean contexts before, and he wondered if she were lowering her ceilings; whether the comfort the late Mr. Dunstable left her in had begun to leak at the seams. He hoped not. River hadn’t lived with his mother since he was seven, when she’d left him at her parents’ door, and his fading memories of the life they’d shared were scrappy and unfulfilled. Until lately, when he’d thought about those years, the context had been one of bad parenting, but now he thought about how unhappy she must have been, how desperate. He didn’t think she’d survive another taste of that. He was pretty certain he wouldn’t survive hearing about it.
So it was a relief when she arrived at St. Leonard’s in a taxi she’d evidently hired on the south coast: evidence of economy measures—travelling by train, or, God forbid, coach—would have indicated not merely penury but a character transplant. He’d seen enough of that with the O.B.
He’d been waiting at the roadside end of the gravel drive, next to the eight-foot hedge that shielded the chapel from view. Once she’d waved her car off she hugged him, and he felt for a moment that life could have been different. But only for a moment, and only until she spoke.
“How did you get to be so
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”
“I don’t suppose it’s entirely your fault.”
There were times he could admire his mother’s self-absorption: it was a rare example of her showing total commitment. “You decided to come, then.”
She looked around. She was holding a single lily wrapped in cellophane, and now the hugging was done she resumed a two-handed grip on it, as if it were an assault weapon. “Where is everyone?”
“The service doesn’t start for forty-five minutes.”
“You said eleven sharp!”
“And it’s quarter past now,” he explained. “Which is why I lied.”
Cruel as it was to deprive Isobel of her big entrance, he felt he had enough to cope with already.
“I suppose you think that was clever.”
He kind of did, but could see it wasn’t an argument he’d win in a hurry. “I wasn’t sure how long you’d be able to stay. And I thought you might want a chance to talk.”
“I think we both know where you get your deviousness from.” She stroked his cheek. “It’s a good job you inherited some of my charm along with it.”
That was another debate he wasn’t about to get involved in.
She tucked her arm through his. “Come on, then. Let’s look at the final resting place. Plot, I should say. Yes, in his case, definitely a plot.”
He’d give her that one, though he was pretty sure she’d worked it out on the journey. But he was glad, even so, that she was here, and they walked round the side of the chapel together.
“Wonder if he’ll jump in the grave.”
“This isn’t
“Does that happen in
They were in the back of a taxi, Lamb taking up seventy percent of the available space, and Catherine wishing the day over. She didn’t like funerals—who did?—and hadn’t known David Cartwright in any meaningful sense. Once or twice long ago she’d encountered him, or taken minutes at a meeting he’d attended; and much later, she’d had the brief keeping of him while River feared his life was at risk. He’d been lost to dementia by then, and if it were true that such conditions reveal the secret self, David Cartwright had been mostly cunning and fear, the two sides of his nature entwined and snapping at each other like fox cubs. She shook the memory away; pictured, instead, the bottle she’d buy on her way home, then squashed that thought too. Sitting next to Lamb, your secrets weren’t safe. He had a way of seeing inside your head, and holding what he found up to the light, for his amusement.
She just hoped he wasn’t going to talk about death the whole journey.
“So when you cop it,” he said, “how’d you want to go? Buried, cremated or eaten by cats?”
“I don’t keep cats,” she said.
“You don’t have to. Crafty bastards, cats. They’ll find a way in.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
Lamb cast her a malevolent look. “Why not? Heard any good jokes lately?”
“If life’s taught me anything, it’s that we won’t find the same things funny.”
It had also taught her that when she least wanted Lamb’s company, she’d end up in the back of a cab with him. Like those cats he thought crafty bastards, he responded to being shunned by singling you out for attention. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Here’s a good one. Guess how our new recruit pissed on his chips?”
